Bringing us together
The Surprising Effectiveness of Hostile Mediators
Ting Zhang, Francesca Gino & Michael Norton
Management Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Contrary to the tendency of mediators to defuse negative emotions between adversaries by treating them kindly, we demonstrate the surprising effectiveness of hostile mediators in resolving conflict. Hostile mediators generate greater willingness to reach agreements between adversaries (Experiment 1). Consequently, negotiators interacting with hostile mediators are better able to reach agreements in incentive-compatible negotiations than those interacting with nice mediators (Experiment 2). By serving as common enemies, hostile mediators cause adversaries in conflict to feel more connected and become more willing to reach agreement (Experiments 3 and 4). Finally, we manipulate the target of mediators’ hostility to document the moderating role of common enemies: mediators who directed their hostility toward both negotiators (bilateral hostility) — becoming a common enemy — increased willingness to reach agreement; those who directed hostility at just one negotiator (unilateral hostility) did not serve as common enemies, eliminating the hostile mediator effect (Experiment 5). We discuss theoretical and practical implications, and we suggest future directions.
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A recipe for friendship: Similar food consumption promotes trust and cooperation
Kaitlin Woolley & Ayelet Fishbach
Journal of Consumer Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
This research examines the consequences of incidental food consumption for trust and cooperation. We find that strangers who are assigned to eat similar (vs. dissimilar) foods are more trusting of each other in a trust game (Study 1). Food consumption further influences conflict resolution, with strangers who are assigned to eat similar foods cooperating more in a labor negotiation, and therefore earning more money (Study 2). The role of incidental food similarity on increased trust extends to the product domain. Consumers are more trusting of information about non-food products (e.g., a software product) when the advertiser in the product testimonial eats similar food to them (Study 3). Lastly, we find evidence that food serves as a particularly strong cue of trust compared with other incidental similarity. People perceive that pairs eating similar foods, but not pairs wearing similar colored shirts, are more trusting of one another (Study 4). We discuss theoretical and practical implications of this work for improving interactions between strangers, and for marketing products.
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In Small We Trust: Lay Theories About Small and Large Groups
Stephen La Macchia et al.
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, forthcoming
Abstract:
Day-to-day interactions often involve individuals interacting with groups, but little is known about the criteria that people use to decide which groups to approach or trust and which to avoid or distrust. Seven studies provide evidence for a “small = trustworthy” heuristic, such that people perceive numerically smaller groups as more benevolent in their character and intentions. As a result of this, individuals in trust-sensitive contexts are more likely to approach and engage with groups that are relatively small than those that are relatively large. We provide evidence for this notion across a range of contexts, including analyses of social categories (Studies 1 and 2), ad hoc collections of individuals (Study 3), interacting panels (Studies 4-6), and generalized, abstract judgments (Study 7). Findings suggest the existence of a general lay theory of group size that may influence how individuals interact with groups.
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Kelly Schwind Wilson et al.
Journal of Applied Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
We build on the small but growing literature documenting personality influences on negotiation by examining how the joint disposition of both negotiators with respect to the interpersonal traits of agreeableness and extraversion influences important negotiation processes and outcomes. Building on similarity-attraction theory, we articulate and demonstrate how being similarly high or similarly low on agreeableness and extraversion leads dyad members to express more positive emotional displays during negotiation. Moreover, because of increased positive emotional displays, we show that dyads with such compositions also tend to reach agreements faster, perceive less relationship conflict, and have more positive impressions of their negotiation partner. Interestingly, these results hold regardless of whether negotiating dyads are similar in normatively positive (i.e., similarly agreeable and similarly extraverted) or normatively negative (i.e., similarly disagreeable and similarly introverted) ways. Overall, these findings demonstrate the importance of considering the dyad’s personality configuration when attempting to understand the affective experience as well as the downstream outcomes of a negotiation.
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Uncalculating cooperation is used to signal trustworthiness
Jillian Jordan et al.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, forthcoming
Abstract:
Humans frequently cooperate without carefully weighing the costs and benefits. As a result, people may wind up cooperating when it is not worthwhile to do so. Why risk making costly mistakes? Here, we present experimental evidence that reputation concerns provide an answer: people cooperate in an uncalculating way to signal their trustworthiness to observers. We present two economic game experiments in which uncalculating versus calculating decision-making is operationalized by either a subject’s choice of whether to reveal the precise costs of cooperating (Exp. 1) or the time a subject spends considering these costs (Exp. 2). In both experiments, we find that participants are more likely to engage in uncalculating cooperation when their decision-making process is observable to others. Furthermore, we confirm that people who engage in uncalculating cooperation are perceived as, and actually are, more trustworthy than people who cooperate in a calculating way. Taken together, these data provide the first empirical evidence, to our knowledge, that uncalculating cooperation is used to signal trustworthiness, and is not merely an efficient decision-making strategy that reduces cognitive costs. Our results thus help to explain a range of puzzling behaviors, such as extreme altruism, the use of ethical principles, and romantic love.
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Jeffrey Butler, Paola Giuliano & Luigi Guiso
Journal of the European Economic Association, forthcoming
Abstract:
We investigate the relationship between individual trust and individual economic performance. We find that individual income is hump-shaped in a measure of intensity of trust beliefs. Our interpretation is that highly trusting individuals tend to assume too much social risk and to be cheated more often, ultimately performing less well than those with a belief close to the mean trustworthiness of the population. However, individuals with overly pessimistic beliefs avoid being cheated, but give up profitable opportunities, therefore underperforming. The cost of either too much or too little trust is comparable to the income lost by forgoing college. Our findings hold in large-scale international survey data, as well as inside a country with high-quality institutions, and are also supported by experimental findings.
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Camp stability predicts patterns of hunter–gatherer cooperation
Daniel Smith et al.
Royal Society Open Science, July 2016
Abstract:
Humans regularly cooperate with non-kin, which has been theorized to require reciprocity between repeatedly interacting and trusting individuals. However, the role of repeated interactions has not previously been demonstrated in explaining real-world patterns of hunter–gatherer cooperation. Here we explore cooperation among the Agta, a population of Filipino hunter–gatherers, using data from both actual resource transfers and two experimental games across multiple camps. Patterns of cooperation vary greatly between camps and depend on socio-ecological context. Stable camps (with fewer changes in membership over time) were associated with greater reciprocal sharing, indicating that an increased likelihood of future interactions facilitates reciprocity. This is the first study reporting an association between reciprocal cooperation and hunter–gatherer band stability. Under conditions of low camp stability individuals still acquire resources from others, but do so via demand sharing (taking from others), rather than based on reciprocal considerations. Hunter–gatherer cooperation may either be characterized as reciprocity or demand sharing depending on socio-ecological conditions.
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Age Grouping and Social Complexity
Pierre Lienard
Current Anthropology, June 2016, Pages S105–S117
Abstract:
In order to be sustainable, larger-scale social systems require containing nepotistic tendencies, which are potentially disruptive in multiple domains of social activities. Many formal institutions of our modern democratic states seem to facilitate such offsetting. The ethnographic records provide many examples of large tribes not relying on either formal institutional frameworks or strict hierarchies to articulate the diverging requirements of kin-group allegiance and broader social affiliations. How does greater social complexity emerge in such decentralized societies? Among the different informal solutions presented in the literature, we find an interesting one: age-set systems, which involve the grouping of coevals in cross-kin associations. An essential aspect of such systems is their ability to enable the swift neutralizing of the basic pull of nepotism without intensive investments in a formal institutional apparatus, as is observed in more complex and modern social systems. When great benefits can be obtained through social exchange in large cooperative networks, an age-based organization helps counter familistic preferences by creating new incentive structures.
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Assessing Emotional Vocalizations From Cultural In-Group and Out-Group Depends on Oxytocin
Carsten De Dreu, Mariska Kret & Disa Sauter
Social Psychological and Personality Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Group-living animals, humans included, produce vocalizations like screams, growls, laughs, and victory calls. Accurately decoding such emotional vocalizations serves both individual and group functioning, suggesting that (i) vocalizations from in-group members may be privileged, in terms of speed and accuracy of processing, and (ii) such processing may depend on evolutionary ancient neural circuitries that sustain and enable cooperation with and protection of the in-group against outside threat. Here, we examined this possibility and focused on the neuropeptide oxytocin. Dutch participants self-administered oxytocin or placebo (double-blind, placebo-controlled study design) and responded to emotional vocalizations produced by cultural in-group members (Native Dutch) and cultural out-group members (Namibian Himba). In-group vocalizations were recognized faster and more accurately than out-group vocalizations, and oxytocin enhanced accurate decoding of specific vocalizations from one’s cultural out-group — triumph and anger. We discuss possible explanations and suggest avenues for new research.
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Effects of Socioeconomic Status and Fairness on Salivary Cortisol
Jäschke Johannes Paul Michael et al.
Evolutionary Psychology, June 2016
Abstract:
Research on cooperation has contributed to a better understanding of the foundations of human social behavior. Most studies, however, have not considered fundamental social parameters such as an individual’s position in a social hierarchy. As a first step, this study investigates the modulating effects of socioeconomic status (SES) on behavior and the physiological stress response. Study participants (n = 83) played a cooperative game with computerized coplayers of four categories: similar or higher SES in combination with either high or low fairness in behavior (i.e., willingness to cooperate). All participants showed a significant increase in saliva cortisol after the game compared to a control group. Only when paired with higher SES coplayers, however, did participants show a significant subsequent decrease in cortisol concentrations. Participants’ behavior in response to a coplayer’s decisions was only affected by the degree of fairness, but not the SES, of respective coplayers. Physiologically, playing this cooperation game was a big challenge for participants as measured by salivary cortisol. Yet, the high recovery rate when playing with cooperative, higher status individuals showed the stress-protective effects of positive social interactions in the framework of social hierarchies.