All for One
The Group-Member Mind Tradeoff: Attributing Mind to Groups versus Group Members
Adam Waytz & Liane Young
Psychological Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
People attribute minds to other individuals and rely on mental state inferences to explain and predict their behavior. Little is known, however, about whether people also attribute minds to groups and consider that collectives, companies, and corporations can think, intend, and plan. Even less is known about the consequences of these attributions for both groups and group members. We investigate the attribution of mind and responsibility to groups and group members and demonstrate a tradeoff: the more people attribute a mind to a group, the less people attribute minds to individual members of that group. Groups that are judged to have more group mind are also judged to be more cohesive and responsible for their collective actions. These findings have important implications for how people perceive the minds of groups and group members, and how attributions of mind influence attributions of responsibility to groups and group members.
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Carsten De Dreu
Hormones and Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
The author reviews evidence that hypothalamic release (or infusion) of the neuropeptide oxytocin modulates the regulation of cooperation and conflict among humans because of three reasons. First, oxytocin enables social categorization of others into in-group versus out-group. Second, oxytocin dampens amygdala activity and enables the development of trust. Third, and finally, oxytocin up-regulates neural circuitries (e.g., inferior frontal gyrus, ventromedial prefrontal cortex, caudate nucleus) involved in empathy and other-concern. Consistent with an evolutionary perspective on the functionality of cooperation, it is concluded that oxytocin-motivated cooperation is mostly parochial - it motivates (i) in-group favoritism, (ii) cooperation towards in-group but not out-group members, and (iii) defense-motivated non-cooperation towards threatening outsiders. Thus, in addition to its well-known role in reproduction and pair-bond formation, oxytocin's primary functions include in-group "tend-and-defend." This review concludes with avenues for new research on oxytocin's functions in within-group cooperation and between-group competition.
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When 2 is better than 1 + 1: Older spouses' individual and dyadic problem solving
Melanie Peter-Wight & Mike Martin
European Psychologist, Winter 2011, Pages 288-294
Abstract:
Little is known about older spousal dyads' collaborative problem solving. Although typically collaborating dyads perform worse than nominal dyads in other dyadic cognition tasks, we assumed that older couples might profit from collaboration in a highly demanding problem-solving task requiring the sequential and complementary use of spatial memory and reasoning abilities. In this paper, we examine whether older couples profit from the dyadic situation on a computer-based problem-solving task that can most likely be optimally solved when dyads manage to distribute responsibilities between the spatial memory demands and the reasoning demands of the task. In 50 married couples consisting of N = 100 older individuals (M = 67.3 years, SD = 4.9), we tested the hypothesis that compared to their own individual performance, compared to repeated individual performance of a control group (N = 41, M = 66.0 years, SD = 3.8), and compared to nominal pairs (same 100 participants as in the experimental group), older couples would show the best performance on the task. The comparison of individual versus dyadic problem-solving performance demonstrates that dyads consisting of old spouses outperform old individuals as well as nominal pairs on the problem-solving task. Our results suggest that older familiar dyads are expert collaborators whose collaborative expertise might be able to overcome individual deficits in problem-solving skills through dyadic cognition.
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When Diversity in Training Improves Dyadic Problem Solving
Matthew Canham, Jennifer Wiley & Richard Mayer
Applied Cognitive Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Students learned how to solve binomial probability problems from either a procedurally based lesson or a conceptually based lesson and then worked in distributed pairs by using a computer-based chat environment. Cognitively homogeneous dyads (i.e. both members received the same lesson) performed more accurately on standard problems, whereas cognitively diverse dyads (i.e. each member received a different lesson) performed more accurately on transfer problems. The cognitively homogeneous dyads perceived a greater sense of common ground with their partner, but spent a greater proportion of their time communicating about low-level details (e.g. message verification) whereas the cognitively diverse dyads spent a greater proportion of their time on high-level discussion (e.g. solution development). Results help to clarify that common training leads to more positive perceptions of collaboration, but only improves performance on problems that are highly similar to those experienced during training, whereas diverse training improves the ability of a dyad to perform well in new situations.
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Group Status Drives Majority and Minority Integration Preferences
Eric Hehman et al.
Psychological Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
This research examined preferences for national- and campus-level assimilative and pluralistic policies among Black and White students under different contexts, as majority- and minority-group members. We targeted attitudes at two universities, one where 85% of the student body is White, and another where 76% of students are Black. The results revealed that when a group constituted the majority, its members generally preferred assimilationist policies, and when a group constituted the minority, its members generally preferred pluralistic policies. The results support a functional perspective: Both majority and minority groups seek to protect and enhance their collective identities.
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Social categorization of social robots: Anthropomorphism as a function of robot group membership
Friederike Eyssel & Dieta Kuchenbrandt
British Journal of Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Previous work on social categorization has shown that people often use cues such as a person's gender, age, or ethnicity to categorize and form impressions of others. The present research investigated effects of social category membership on the evaluation of humanoid robots. More specifically, participants rated a humanoid robot that either belonged to their in-group or to a national out-group with regard to anthropomorphism (e.g., mind attribution, warmth), psychological closeness, contact intentions, and design. We predicted that participants would show an in-group bias towards the robot that ostensibly belonged to their in-group - as indicated by its name and location of production. In line with our hypotheses, participants not only rated the in-group robot more favourably - importantly, they also anthropomorphized it more strongly than the out-group robot. Our findings thus document that people even apply social categorization processes and subsequent differential social evaluations to robots.
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Jacqueline Deuling et al.
Journal of Research in Personality, December 2011, Pages 576-585
Abstract:
The ability of personality and cognitive ability to predict perceptions of group influence in small work groups are assessed both in initial and advanced stages of group formation. Extraversion is found important to initial perceptions of intra-group influence, which is partially mediated by peer-perceived social-emotional usefulness. After a few months, reputations are established and everyone has met; now work needs to get done efficiently and accurately and cognitive ability predicts increases in perceived group influence, which is partially mediated by perceived intelligence. After even more time, other Big Five personality traits become important to changes in perceived group influence, with positive associations with openness to experience, and negative associations with neuroticism and conscientiousness. The study findings and implications are discussed.
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Uninformed Individuals Promote Democratic Consensus in Animal Groups
Iain Couzin et al.
Science, 16 December 2011, Pages 1578-1580
Abstract:
Conflicting interests among group members are common when making collective decisions, yet failure to achieve consensus can be costly. Under these circumstances individuals may be susceptible to manipulation by a strongly opinionated, or extremist, minority. It has previously been argued, for humans and animals, that social groups containing individuals who are uninformed, or exhibit weak preferences, are particularly vulnerable to such manipulative agents. Here, we use theory and experiment to demonstrate that, for a wide range of conditions, a strongly opinionated minority can dictate group choice, but the presence of uninformed individuals spontaneously inhibits this process, returning control to the numerical majority. Our results emphasize the role of uninformed individuals in achieving democratic consensus amid internal group conflict and informational constraints.
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Out-Group Conflict, In-Group Unity? Exploring the Effect of Repression on Intramovement Cooperation
Theodore McLauchlin & Wendy Pearlman
Journal of Conflict Resolution, forthcoming
Abstract:
Does repression increase or decrease unity within ethnic or nationalist movements? Conventional wisdom lends itself to two contradictory predictions. On one hand, it is said that conflict with an out-group is the surest path to unity in an in-group. On the other hand, repression exaggerates the gap between radicals and moderates in a movement. Challenging both views, this article argues that repression amplifies trends in cooperation or conflict existent in a movement before the onset of repression. All movements have some institutional arrangement, meaning a set of procedures and relationships that structure decision making and behavior. These "rules of the game" distribute power within the movement, and thus favor some actors over others. Repression disrupts the equilibrium of these institutions, after which the members might engage in either more cooperation or more conflict, depending on the level of satisfaction with preexisting institutional arrangements. The authors illustrate these propositions through comparative analysis of four repression shocks from two nationalist movements: the Kurdish movement in Iraq and the Palestinian national movement.
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Damian Murray & Mark Schaller
European Journal of Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Threat has been linked to conformity, but little is known about the specific effects of different kinds of threat. We test the hypothesis that perceived threat of infectious disease exerts a unique influence on conformist attitudes and behavior. Correlational and experimental results support the hypothesis. Individual differences in Perceived Vulnerability to Disease predict conformist attitudes; these effects persist when controlling for individual differences in the Belief in a Dangerous World. Experimentally manipulated salience of disease threat produced stronger conformist attitudes and behavior, compared with control conditions (including a condition in which disease-irrelevant threats were salient). Additional results suggest that these effects may be especially pronounced in specific domains of normative behavior that are especially pertinent to pathogen transmission. These results have implications for understanding the antecedents of conformity, the psychology of threat, and the social consequences of infectious disease.
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In perfect harmony: Synchronizing the self to activated social categories
Kerry Kawakami et al.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
The self-concept is one of the main organizing constructs in the behavioral sciences because it influences how people interpret their environment, the choices they make, whether and how they initiate action, and the pursuit of specific goals. Because belonging to social groups and feeling interconnected is critical to human survival, the authors propose that people spontaneously change their working self-concept so that they are more similar to salient social categories. Specifically, 4 studies investigated whether activating a variety of social categories (i.e., jocks, hippies, the overweight, Blacks, and Asians) increased associations between the self and the target category. Whereas Studies 1 and 2 focused on associations between stereotypic traits and the self, Studies 3 and 4 examined self-perceptions and self-categorizations, respectively. The results provide consistent evidence that following social category priming, people synchronized the self to the activated category. Furthermore, the findings indicate that factors that influence category activation, such as social goals, and factors that induce a focus on the interconnectedness of the self, such as an interdependent vs. independent self-construal, can impact this process. The implications of changes to the working self-concept for intergroup relations are discussed.
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Demographic faultlines: A meta-analysis of the literature
Sherry Thatcher & Pankaj Patel
Journal of Applied Psychology, November 2011, Pages 1119-1139
Abstract:
We propose and test a theoretical model focusing on antecedents and consequences of demographic faultlines. We also posit contingencies that affect overall team dynamics in the context of demographic faultlines, such as the study setting and performance measurement. Using meta-analysis structural equation modeling with a final data set consisting of 311 data points (i.e., k [predictor-criterion relationships]), from 39 studies that were obtained from 36 papers with a total sample size of 24,388 individuals in 4,366 teams, we found that sex and racial diversity increased demographic faultline strength more than did diversity on the attributes of functional background, educational background, age, and tenure. Demographic faultline strength was found to increase task and relationship conflict as well as decrease team cohesion. Furthermore, although demographic faultline strength decreased both team satisfaction and team performance, there was a stronger decrease in team performance than in team satisfaction. The strength of these relationships increased when the study was conducted in the lab rather than in the field. We describe the theoretical and practical implications of these findings for advancing the study of faultlines.
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Yawn Contagion and Empathy in Homo sapiens
Ivan Norscia & Elisabetta Palagi
PLoS ONE, December 2011, e28472
Abstract:
The ability to share others' emotions, or empathy, is crucial for complex social interactions. Clinical, psychological, and neurobiological clues suggest a link between yawn contagion and empathy in humans (Homo sapiens). However, no behavioral evidence has been provided so far. We tested the effect of different variables (e.g., country of origin, sex, yawn characteristics) on yawn contagion by running mixed models applied to observational data collected over 1 year on adult (>16 years old) human subjects. Only social bonding predicted the occurrence, frequency, and latency of yawn contagion. As with other measures of empathy, the rate of contagion was greatest in response to kin, then friends, then acquaintances, and lastly strangers. Related individuals (r?0.25) showed the greatest contagion, in terms of both occurrence of yawning and frequency of yawns. Strangers and acquaintances showed a longer delay in the yawn response (latency) compared to friends and kin. This outcome suggests that the neuronal activation magnitude related to yawn contagion can differ as a function of subject familiarity. In conclusion, our results demonstrate that yawn contagion is primarily driven by the emotional closeness between individuals and not by other variables, such as gender and nationality.
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Anna Rabinovich & Thomas Morton
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, forthcoming
Abstract:
The authors investigated the impact of temporal focus on group members' responses to contextual ingroup devaluation. Four experimental studies demonstrated that following an induction of negative ingroup evaluation, participants primed with a past temporal focus reported behavioral intentions more consistent with this negative appraisal than participants primed with a future temporal focus. This effect was apparent only when a negative (but not a positive) evaluation was induced, and only among highly identified group members. Importantly, the interplay between temporal focus and group identification on relevant intentions was mediated by individual self-esteem, suggesting that focus on the future may be conducive to separating negative ingroup appraisals from individual self-evaluations. Taken together, the findings suggest that high identifiers' responses to ingroup evaluations may be predicated on their temporal focus: A focus on the past may lock such individuals within their group's history, whereas a vision of the future may open up opportunities for change.