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The unexpected social consequences of diverting attention to our phones
Elyssa Barrick, Alixandra Barasch & Diana Tamir
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Phone use is everywhere. Previous work has shown that phone use during social experiences, or "phubbing", has detrimental effects on cognitive processing, well-being, and relationships. In this work, we first replicate this by showing the negative effects of phone use on relationships during both controlled and naturalistic social experiences. In Study 1, participants that were randomly assigned to complete a task with a confederate who used their phone part of the time reported lower feelings of social connection and engagement than participants paired with a partner who did not use their phone at all. In Study 2, dyads in a park completed a survey about their experience of the day. Participants reported that increased phone use resulted in lower feelings of social connection, enjoyment, and engagement in the experience. If the negative effects of phone use are so obvious, why do people continue to phub their friends? Studies 3 and 4 demonstrate that people accurately intuit the effects of others' phone use on experiences, but fail to recognize the effects of their own phone use. Study 4 explains this phubbing blindspot by demonstrating an actor-observer bias - people attribute their own phone use to positive motives and overestimate their ability to multitask compared to others. Together these findings suggest that while people are aware of the harmful effects of another person's phone use in social situations, they may fail to recognize the negative consequences of their own use because they mispredict the positive contributions of their phone use to the experience.
Are You for Real? Perceptions of Authenticity Are Systematically Biased and Not Accurate
Erica Bailey & Aharon Levy
Psychological Science, May 2022, Pages 798-815
Abstract:
Can people accurately perceive who is authentic? Laypeople believe they can tell who is authentic, and they report that authenticity is an important attribute in others (Studies 1a and 1b; N = 369). However, when we directly tested the accuracy of perceived authenticity, we found no significant correlation between self- and other-rated authenticity in two cohorts of adult students in randomly assigned teams (Studies 2 and 3; 4,040 self-other observations). In addition, we found that perceived authenticity was biased in two ways: (a) Other-rated authenticity showed a positivity bias compared with self-ratings, and (b) other-rated authenticity was biased by the rater's own authenticity. In Study 3, we also investigated authenticity meta-perceptions; although people expect their authenticity to be accurately perceived by others, their meta-perceptions did not correlate with other-rated authenticity. That is, beliefs about the visibility of one's authenticity are similarly not accurate. Overall, we found no evidence that people can accurately identify who is authentic.
Signal value of stress behaviour
Jamie Whitehouse et al.
Evolution and Human Behavior, July 2022, Pages 325-333
Abstract:
Physiological and psychological stress are accompanied by nonverbal behaviour across a wide range of species. The function of this 'stress behaviour' is not well understood but is often assumed to be read by others as a cue to stress. Displaying signs of weakness is, however, difficult to understand from an evolutionary perspective and therefore further investigation into why these behaviours exist is needed. Here, we test whether displacement behaviours (i.e., those known to be associated with stress) are reliable indicators of stress in humans. To do this, we presented raters (N = 133) with videos of individuals (N = 31) undergoing a stress-inducting task. Self-directed displacement behaviours and self-reported stress were both associated with stress ratings given by raters. Therefore, such behaviours can provide reliable information to others and can be considered communicative. Individuals producing more nonverbal stress behaviour were rated as more likeable by raters (perhaps presenting as more honest signallers), indicating a benefit and potential adaptive function of displaying stress. Raters also differed in their accuracy in detecting stress from nonverbal cues. Findings suggest that the accuracy with which individuals were able to detect stress was linked to the number of social connections they reported to have. However, this association was non-linear, with individuals who were most and least accurate reporting the least network connections. This could indicate that the ability to read behaviour is associated with an ability to form and maintain social networks.
You Must Have a Preference: The Impact of No Preference Communication on Joint Decision Making
Nicole You Jeung Kim et al.
Journal of Marketing Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
In many joint consumption decisions, such as choosing a restaurant or a movie to watch together, one party often communicates to the other that they do not have any particular preference among the options (e.g., "I have no preference" or "I'm fine with any option"). Despite their prevalence, little is known about how communications of no preference impact joint decision making and the consumption experience. Do consumers take the other party's indifference at face value? Does the decision become easier to make without one party's preference to incorporate? How will such communications ultimately impact consumption and social utility? In a series of six studies using both hypothetical and real joint consumption decisions, we find that recipients of no preference communication infer that the co-consumer (i.e., the person communicating having no preferences) actually does have preferences, but is not disclosing them. These perceptions of undisclosed preferences increase the decision makers' decision difficulty and cause them to like the co-consumer less. Further, we find that decision makers intuit that the co-consumer's (undisclosed) preferences are probably dissimilar to their own, which leads them to choose an option they like less, and ultimately decreases their enjoyment. Interestingly, these negative effects are not anticipated by the party who communicates having no preference.
Determined Yet Dehumanized: People Higher in Self-Control Are Seen as More Robotic
Samantha Lapka et al.
Social Psychological and Personality Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Desire is part of human nature, and being vulnerable to desire is part of what differentiates humans from machines. However, individuals with high self-control - who demonstrate impressive resistance to their desires - may appear to lack such human vulnerability. We propose that people perceived as high in self-control tend to be dehumanized as more robotic, relating to potentially negative social consequences. Across six studies (N = 2,007), people perceived those higher in self-control as more robotic. In addition, we found some evidence that this robotic-dehumanization was related to less interest in spending time with the high self-control person. This outcome was reliably linked to lower warmth perceptions that correlated with greater robotic-dehumanization. Together, our results offer new insights into the social dynamics of exhibiting high self-control.