Collaborators
Partial connectivity increases cultural accumulation within groups
Maxime Derex & Robert Boyd]
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 15 March 2016, Pages 2982–2987
Abstract:
Complex technologies used in most human societies are beyond the inventive capacities of individuals. Instead, they result from a cumulative process in which innovations are gradually added to existing cultural traits across many generations. Recent work suggests that a population’s ability to develop complex technologies is positively affected by its size and connectedness. Here, we present a simple computer-based experiment that compares the accumulation of innovations by fully and partially connected groups of the same size in a complex fitness landscape. We find that the propensity to learn from successful individuals drastically reduces cultural diversity within fully connected groups. In comparison, partially connected groups produce more diverse solutions, and this diversity allows them to develop complex solutions that are never produced in fully connected groups. These results suggest that explanations of ancestral patterns of cultural complexity may need to consider levels of population fragmentation and interaction patterns between partially isolated groups.
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Believing there is no free will corrupts intuitive cooperation
John Protzko, Brett Ouimette & Jonathan Schooler
Cognition, June 2016, Pages 6–9
Abstract:
Regardless of whether free will exists, believing that it does affects one’s behavior. When an individual’s belief in free will is challenged, one can become more likely to act in an uncooperative manner. The mechanism behind the relationship between one’s belief in free will and behavior is still debated. The current study uses an economic contribution game under varying time constraints to elucidate whether reducing belief in free will allows one to justify negative behavior or if the effects occur at a more intuitive level of processing. Here we show that although people are intuitively cooperative, challenging their belief in free will corrupts this behavior, leading to impulsive selfishness. If given time to think, however, people are able to override the initial inclination toward self-interest induced by discouraging a belief in free will.
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Unit Cohesion, Resilience, and Mental Health of Soldiers in Basic Combat Training
Jason Williams et al.
Military Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Military unit cohesion has been shown to correlate with physical and psychological outcomes. However, little is known about the development of cohesion in the early days of military service during Basic Combat Training (BCT) and how it relates to positive support and the negative stressors of training. The current study assessed the development of unit cohesion across the 10-week BCT period (N = 1,939), and the relation of cohesion to stress, resilience, mental health measures, and BCT outcomes (graduation, passing the Army Physical Fitness Test, and final Basic Rifle Marksmanship scores). The sample was primarily male (62%), under age 25 (88%), and unmarried (88%). All putative mediators showed significant change over time. Unit cohesion increased over time (slope 0.22; p < .001), and these increases were associated with decreases in psychological distress (p < .001), sleep problems (p < .001), and tolerance of BCT stressors (p < .001), as well as increases in resilience (p < .001), confidence managing stress reactions (p < .001), and positive states of mind (p < .001). Unit cohesion was indirectly associated with successful graduation and passing the Army Physical Fitness Test through cohesion-related improvement in psychological distress, resilience, and confidence managing reactions to stress. Sleep problems also mediated BCT graduation. Cohesion effects on the Basic Rifle Marksmanship scores were mediated by psychological distress and tolerance of BCT stressors only. These results suggest that unit cohesion may play a key role in the development of psychological health among new soldiers.
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Gavin Kilduff, Robb Willer & Cameron Anderson
Organization Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Research on status and group productivity has highlighted that status hierarchies tend to emerge quickly and encourage contributions to group efforts by rewarding contributors with enhanced status. This and other status research has tended to assume that status hierarchies are agreed-upon among group members. Here, we build on recent work on status conflict in investigating the prevalence and consequences of situations in which group members hold differing perceptions of the status ordering — that is, of who ranks where — which we call status disagreement. Across two studies of interacting groups, we examined several different types of status disagreement and found that disagreements in which two group members both viewed themselves as higher in status than the other, or upward disagreements, were uniquely harmful for groups. These types of disagreements led the involved members to reduce their contributions to the group, substantially decreasing group performance. However, other forms of dyadic status disagreements, as well as overall levels of status consensus, did not significantly affect group functioning. Furthermore, we found that individuals higher in personality dominance were those most likely to be involved in these harmful upward disagreements. These findings demonstrate the importance of more thoroughly considering status disagreement as a dimension that can vary in quantity and type across groups. In doing so, they contribute to understanding of status dynamics and group performance and suggest important implications for teams within organizations.
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Charismatic Leadership and the Evolution of Cooperation
Allen Grabo & Mark van Vugt
Evolution and Human Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
A fundamental challenge to understanding our evolved psychology is to explain how cooperative or prosocial behaviors are maintained despite the immediate temptation to free-ride. We propose that charismatic leadership and followership can be best understood as a product of this recurrent, fitness-relevant selection pressure for adaptations that effectively promoted and sustained prosocial behaviors within groups. We describe charismatic leadership and followership as a dynamic process in which leaders signal their ability to benefit the group by increasing the perceived likelihood that cooperation will succeed. A charismatic leader is one who is able to attract the attention of other group members and serve as a focal point for aligning and synchronizing prosocial orientations in followers, suppressing sensitivity to cooperative risks, and enhancing the salience of perceived cooperative rewards. We hypothesize that exposure to such individuals will activate heuristics causing participants to behave more prosocially. The results of three economic experiments (N=500) provide behavioral evidence for the “charismatic prosociality” hypothesis through the use of the Trust, Dictator, and Stag Hunt Games.
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Many Hands Make Overlooked Work: Over-Claiming of Responsibility Increases With Group Size
Juliana Schroeder, Eugene Caruso & Nicholas Epley
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, forthcoming
Abstract:
Logically, group members cannot be responsible for more than 100% of the group’s output, yet claims of responsibility routinely sum to more than 100%. This “over-claiming” occurs partly because of egocentrism: People focus on their own contributions, as focal members of the group, more than on others’ contributions. Therefore, we predicted that over-claiming would increase with group size because larger groups leave more contributions from others to overlook. In 2 field studies, participants claimed more responsibility as the number of academic authors per article and the number of MBA students per study group increased. As predicted by our theoretical account, this over-claiming bias was reduced when group members considered others’ contributions explicitly. Two experiments that directly manipulated group size replicated these results. Members of larger groups may be particularly well advised to consider other members’ contributions before considering their own.
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Status, Identity, and Ability in the Formation of Trust: Four Vignette Experiments
Blaine Robbins
University of California Working Paper, February 2016
Abstract:
The sources of trust — or actor A’s belief about actor B’s trustworthiness with respect to particular matter Y — are myriad, ranging from the biological to the political. Despite the great amount of research that has investigated decision making as a function of another’s ascribed and achieved characteristics, we still know little about whether and to what extent these characteristics impact A’s trust in B regarding matter Y. In this paper, I draw on classic sociological traditions — status characteristics theory and social identity theory — to formulate hypotheses that link ascribed and achieved characteristics to trust. Four vignette experiments administered to Amazon.com Mechanical Turk workers (N=1,388 and N=1,419) and to public university undergraduate students (N=995 and N=956) showed that diffuse status characteristics (age, race, and gender) and social identities (co-age, co-race, and co-gender) produced weak to null effects depending on the population, hypothetical scenario, and nominal social category under study, while specific status characteristics (actual competence) consistently produced modest effects. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.
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To Have Control Over or to Be Free From Others? The Desire for Power Reflects a Need for Autonomy
Joris Lammers et al.
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, April 2016, Pages 498-512
Abstract:
The current research explores why people desire power and how that desire can be satisfied. We propose that a position of power can be subjectively experienced as conferring influence over others or as offering autonomy from the influence of others. Conversely, a low-power position can be experienced as lacking influence or lacking autonomy. Nine studies show that subjectively experiencing one’s power as autonomy predicts the desire for power, whereas the experience of influence over others does not. Furthermore, gaining autonomy quenches the desire for power, but gaining influence does not. The studies demonstrated the primacy of autonomy across both experimental and correlational designs, across measured mediation and manipulated mediator approaches, and across three different continents (Europe, United States, India). Together, these studies offer evidence that people desire power not to be a master over others, but to be master of their own domain, to control their own fate.
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It Depends Who Is Watching You: 3-D Agent Cues Increase Fairness
Jan Krátký et al.
PLoS ONE, February 2016
Abstract:
Laboratory and field studies have demonstrated that exposure to cues of intentional agents in the form of eyes can increase prosocial behavior. However, previous research mostly used 2-dimensional depictions as experimental stimuli. Thus far no study has examined the influence of the spatial properties of agency cues on this prosocial effect. To investigate the role of dimensionality of agency cues on fairness, 345 participants engaged in a decision-making task in a naturalistic setting. The experimental treatment included a 3-dimensional pseudo-realistic model of a human head and a 2-dimensional picture of the same object. The control stimuli consisted of a real plant and its 2-D image. Our results partly support the findings of previous studies that cues of intentional agents increase prosocial behavior. However, this effect was only found for the 3-D cues, suggesting that dimensionality is a critical variable in triggering these effects in a real-world settings. Our research sheds light on a hitherto unexplored aspect of the effects of environmental cues and their morphological properties on decision-making.