Friendship ring
Nicholas Epley & Juliana Schroeder
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, forthcoming
Abstract:
Connecting with others increases happiness, but strangers in close proximity routinely ignore each other. Why? Two reasons seem likely: Either solitude is a more positive experience than interacting with strangers, or people misunderstand the consequences of distant social connections. To examine the experience of connecting to strangers, we instructed commuters on trains and buses to connect with a stranger near them, to remain disconnected, or to commute as normal (Experiments 1a and 2a). In both contexts, participants reported a more positive (and no less productive) experience when they connected than when they did not. Separate participants in each context, however, expected precisely the opposite outcome, predicting a more positive experience in solitude (Experiments 1b and 2b). This mistaken preference for solitude stems partly from underestimating others’ interest in connecting (Experiments 3a and 3b), which in turn keeps people from learning the actual consequences of social interaction (Experiments 4a and 4b). The pleasure of connection seems contagious: In a laboratory waiting room, participants who were talked to had equally positive experiences as those instructed to talk (Experiment 5). Human beings are social animals. Those who misunderstand the consequences of social interactions may not, in at least some contexts, be social enough for their own well-being.
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Friendship and natural selection
Nicholas Christakis & James Fowler
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, forthcoming
Abstract:
More than any other species, humans form social ties to individuals who are neither kin nor mates, and these ties tend to be with similar people. Here, we show that this similarity extends to genotypes. Across the whole genome, friends’ genotypes at the single nucleotide polymorphism level tend to be positively correlated (homophilic). In fact, the increase in similarity relative to strangers is at the level of fourth cousins. However, certain genotypes are also negatively correlated (heterophilic) in friends. And the degree of correlation in genotypes can be used to create a “friendship score” that predicts the existence of friendship ties in a hold-out sample. A focused gene-set analysis indicates that some of the overall correlation in genotypes can be explained by specific systems; for example, an olfactory gene set is homophilic and an immune system gene set is heterophilic, suggesting that these systems may play a role in the formation or maintenance of friendship ties. Friends may be a kind of “functional kin.” Finally, homophilic genotypes exhibit significantly higher measures of positive selection, suggesting that, on average, they may yield a synergistic fitness advantage that has been helping to drive recent human evolution.
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Denise Marigold et al.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, July 2014, Pages 56-80
Abstract:
It can be challenging for support providers to facilitate effective social support interactions even when they have the best intentions. In the current article, we examine some reasons for this difficulty, with a focus on support recipients’ self-esteem as a crucial variable. We predicted that recipients’ receptiveness to support would be influenced by both support strategy and recipient self-esteem and that receptiveness in turn would impact providers’ perceived caregiving efficacy and relationship quality. Study 1 (hypothetical scenarios), Study 2 (confederate interaction), and Study 3 (reports of recently received support) showed that individuals with low self-esteem (LSEs) are less receptive than are individuals with high self-esteem (HSEs) to support that positively reframes their experience but are equally receptive to support that validates their negative feelings. In Study 4, providers demonstrated some knowledge that positive reframing would be less helpful to LSEs than to HSEs but indicated equal intention to give such support. Study 5 showed that, in a real interaction, friends were indeed equally likely to offer positive reframing to both LSEs and HSEs but were less likely to offer validation to LSEs. LSEs were less accepting of such support, and in turn providers felt worse about the interaction, about themselves, and about their friendship more broadly. Study 6 confirmed that recipients’ receptivity to support directly influenced providers’ experience of a support interaction as well as their self- and relationship evaluations. The findings illustrate how well-meaning support attempts that do not match recipients’ particular preferences may be detrimental to both members of the dyad.
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The Power of Integration: Affiliation and Cohesion in a Diverse Elite Network
Benjamin Cornwell & Fedor Dokshin
Social Forces, forthcoming
Abstract:
A much-theorized but seldom-tested theory is that elites achieve cohesion via the social network they form through their affiliations with local clubs, religious institutions, civic groups, and other voluntary associations. But few scholars have considered how increasing diversity with respect to elites' gender, race, and social class may undermine such cohesion. We use primary data from interviews with 312 elites in a large Midwestern city to construct the network of affiliations local elites formed with one another. Results from bootstrapping analyses suggest that the most influential elites in the sample achieved a disproportionately high level of cohesion by virtue of the particular voluntary associations with which they affiliated. Not only were the most influential elites more connected to one another through multiple redundant associational pathways, but their affiliation networks were less segregated by gender, race, and social class than were the networks formed by less elite members of the sample. Instrumental variables regression analyses further show that the most influential elites were especially crucial to increasing cohesion and reducing segregation in the overall network. We discuss some of the mechanisms through which such integration enhances elites' cohesion and power.
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Social Rejection Increases Perspective Taking
Megan Knowles
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, November 2014, Pages 126–132
Abstract:
Given that threatened belonging needs heighten attention to social cues and enhance their decoding, social rejection should motivate a shift in perspective from an egocentric focus to an other focus. In three studies, this hypothesis was tested by manipulating rejection using a reliving task (Study 1), Cyberball (Study 2), and gaze aversion stimuli (Study 3); manipulating cognitive load using an 8-digit recall task (Study 2); and measuring perspective taking (Studies 1-3), social memory (Study 3), and desire to escape the self (Study 3). In every study, rejected participants displayed greater perspective taking than accepted participants. Even under load, rejected participants took others’ perspectives on a task requiring social coordination. The effect could not be attributed to a desire to avoid self-awareness. Perspective taking also predicted social memory suggesting that this rejection-induced shift in perspectives is adaptive. Findings are discussed in relation to the social monitoring and empathy literatures.
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Judith Knausenberger, Jens Hellmann & Gerald Echterhoff
European Journal of Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
In the Internet age, people who feel alone can use online social media to restore a sense of social connectedness. In the present experiment, participants were either excluded or included in Cyberball, a virtual ball-tossing game. Afterwards, a Facebook icon or a control icon (Flash Player) was shown on the margin of a computer screen during a filler task. In the control condition, excluded (vs. included) participants subsequently expressed greater interest in social contact. This response to exclusion was absent after the subtle exposure to the Facebook icon. The effect of icon presentation was moderated by relational Facebook use: The interest in further social contact after exclusion was particularly low in participants who reported employing Facebook to maintain relationships to a greater (vs. lower) extent. In sum, our findings suggest that Facebook can dispense with compensatory affiliation attempts after exclusion, especially in more socially minded Facebook users.
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Occupational niches and the Dark Triad traits
Peter Jonason et al.
Personality and Individual Differences, October 2014, Pages 119–123
Abstract:
Our research focused on the vocational interests correlated with the Dark Triad traits (i.e., narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism). By understanding how these traits facilitate the structuring of one’s environment, we hypothesized that psychopaths will be more interested in realistic and practical careers, narcissists will be more interested in artistic, enterprising, and social careers, and Machiavellians will be more interested in avoiding careers that involve caring for others. In two cross-sectional studies (N = 424; N = 274), we provide general support for these hypotheses. Overall, our study showed those high on the Dark Triad traits may structure their social environment through idealized career preferences. We also show that sex differences in career preferences might be a function, in part of, individual differences in the Dark Triad traits.
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Making Support Work: The Interplay between Social Support and Social Identity
Johanna Frisch et al.
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Previous research has found mixed results regarding the stress buffering effects of social support. In an attempt to explain these findings, we build on the social identity approach. Specifically, we hypothesize that social support is more likely to buffer stress reactions if a shared social identity between the provider and recipient of support is evoked. Using the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST), participants were confronted with either a supportive or an unsupportive committee. Beforehand, the salience of either a shared social identity between the participant and the committee or personal identity was manipulated. As predicted, a supportive TSST committee buffered the neuroendocrine stress reaction only if a shared social identity between participants and the committee was established. For self-reported strain, no such pattern was observed. This study provides the first experimental evidence for the idea that the effectiveness of social support depends on the match of underlying identities.
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Emotion attention and recognition of facial expressions among close friends and casual acquaintances
Fang Zhang & Maria Parmley
Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, forthcoming
Abstract:
The present study examined the link between emotion attention and accuracy of recognizing emotional facial expressions among close friend pairs and acquaintance pairs. Among acquaintance pairs, individuals high on emotion attention were more accurate than those low on emotion attention in reading the acquaintance’s negative expressions of sadness and anger but did not differ from the latter in reading the acquaintance’s happy expressions. Among close friend pairs, those high on emotion attention were also more accurate in reading the friend’s sad expressions and did not differ from the low emotion attention individuals in reading the friend’s happy expressions. However, they were actually less accurate in reading the friend’s angry expressions. This lower accuracy reflected a perceptual bias of systematically misperceiving the friend’s angry expressions as neutral or sad. This finding suggests a defensive mechanism in the perception of the friend’s angry expressions among individuals high on emotion attention. Overall, the findings highlight the importance of emotion attention in emotion recognition and the important role of the relationship context in this link.
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Transforming the mirror: Power fundamentally changes facial responding to emotional expressions
Evan Carr, Piotr Winkielman & Christopher Oveis
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, June 2014, Pages 997-1003
Abstract:
Major theories propose that spontaneous responding to others’ actions involves mirroring, or direct matching. Responding to facial expressions is assumed to follow this matching principle: People smile to smiles and frown to frowns. We demonstrate here that social power fundamentally changes spontaneous facial mimicry of emotional expressions, thereby challenging the direct-matching principle. Participants induced into a high-power (HP), low-power (LP), or neutral state watched dynamic happy and angry expressions from HP and LP targets while we measured facial electromyography (fEMG) over the zygomaticus major (“smiling muscle”) and corrugator supercilii (“frowning muscle”). For smiling, LP participants smiled to all targets, regardless of their expression. In contrast, HP participants exhibited standard smile mimicry toward LP targets but did not mimic the smiles of HP targets. Instead, HP participants smiled more when those HP targets expressed anger. For frowning, all participants showed a more intense mimicry pattern to HP targets. These results demonstrate that spontaneous facial responding — detected by sensitive, physiological measures of muscle activation — dynamically adapts to contextual cues of social hierarchy.
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Using sociometers to quantify social interaction patterns
Jukka-Pekka Onnela et al.
Scientific Reports, July 2014
Abstract:
Research on human social interactions has traditionally relied on self-reports. Despite their widespread use, self-reported accounts of behaviour are prone to biases and necessarily reduce the range of behaviours, and the number of subjects, that may be studied simultaneously. The development of ever smaller sensors makes it possible to study group-level human behaviour in naturalistic settings outside research laboratories. We used such sensors, sociometers, to examine gender, talkativeness and interaction style in two different contexts. Here, we find that in the collaborative context, women were much more likely to be physically proximate to other women and were also significantly more talkative than men, especially in small groups. In contrast, there were no gender-based differences in the non-collaborative setting. Our results highlight the importance of objective measurement in the study of human behaviour, here enabling us to discern context specific, gender-based differences in interaction style.
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Parental Social Responsiveness and Risk of Autism Spectrum Disorder in Offspring
Kristen Lyall et al.
JAMA Psychiatry, forthcoming
Objective: To examine the familiality of Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS) scores of individuals with and without ASD.
Design, Setting, and Participants: We performed a nested case-control study (pilot study: July 1, 2007, through June 30, 2009; full-scale study: September 15, 2008, through September 14, 2012) within a population-based longitudinal cohort. Participants were drawn from the Nurses’ Health Study II, a cohort of 116 430 female nurses recruited in 1989. Case participants were index children with reported ASD; control participants were frequency matched by year of birth of case participants among those not reporting ASD. Of 3161 eligible participants, 2144 nurses (67.8%) returned SRS forms for a child and at least 1 parent and were included in these analyses.
Results: A total of 1649 individuals were included in these analyses, including 256 ASD case participants, 1393 control participants, 1233 mothers, and 1614 fathers. Risk of ASD was increased by 85.0% among children whose parents had concordantly elevated SRS scores (odds ratio [OR], 1.85; 95% CI, 1.08-3.16) and by 52.0% when the score of either parent was elevated (OR, 1.52; 95% CI, 1.11-2.06). Elevated scores of the father significantly increased the risk of ASD in the child (OR, 1.94; 95% CI, 1.38-2.71), but no association was seen with elevated scores of the mother. Elevated parent scores significantly increased child scores in controls, corresponding to an increase in 23 points (P < .001).
Conclusions and Relevance: These findings support the role of additive genetic influences in concentrating inherited ASD susceptibility in successive generations and the potential role of preferential mating, and suggest that typical variation in parental social functioning can produce clinically significant differences in offspring social traits.
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Association Between the Oxytocin Receptor (OXTR) Gene and Children's Social Cognition at 18 Months
Mark Wade et al.
Genes, Brain and Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
At 18 months, children engage in a variety of social behaviors that reflect their nascent ability to understand the intentions of other people (e.g. joint attention, empathy, cooperation, and self-recognition). Although numerous contextual factors have been shown to predict social cognition in young children, the genetic underpinnings of social-cognitive traits has been understudied in this age group. Owing to the known effects of oxytocin on adult social cognition and psychopathology, the current study hypothesized that variability in the oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) would be associated with social cognition in children at 18 months. Participants consisted of 350 children (182 males; 168 females) who were part of an ongoing longitudinal study that aimed to assess environmental and genetic contributions to children's cognitive and socioemotional functioning. At 18 months, social cognition was measured using previously validated and developmentally-sensitive tasks assessing children's joint attention, empathy, cooperation, and self-recognition. Five potentially functional OXTR variants were genotyped: rs1042778, rs2254298, rs11131149, rs237897, and rs237899. A family-based association design was used to control for population admixture and stratification, and additional non-genomic covariates were controlled. Results showed that that variability in rs11131149 was significantly associated with social cognition (p = .009), with more copies of the major allele related to higher social cognition, and more copies of the minor (risk) allele associated with lower social cognition. A haplotype consisting of rs11131149–rs2254298 was also associated with social cognition (p = .020). Implications for normative and pathological development are discussed, and key areas for future research are proposed.
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Preliminary investigation of the influence of dopamine regulating genes on social working memory
Iroise Dumontheil et al.
Social Neuroscience, forthcoming
Abstract:
Working memory (WM) refers to mental processes that enable temporary retention and manipulation of information, including information about other people (“social working memory”). Previous studies have demonstrated that nonsocial WM is supported by dopamine neurotransmission. Here, we investigated in 131 healthy adults whether dopamine is similarly involved in social WM by testing whether social and nonsocial WM are influenced by genetic variants in three genes coding for molecules regulating the availability of dopamine in the brain: catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT), dopamine active transporter (DAT), and monoamine-oxidase A (MAOA). An advantage for the Met allele of COMT was observed in the two standard WM tasks and in the social WM task. However, the influence of COMT on social WM performance was not accounted for by its influence on either standard WM paradigms. There was no main effect of DAT1 or MAOA, but a significant COMT x DAT1 interaction on social WM performance. This study provides novel preliminary evidence of effects of genetic variants of the dopamine neurotransmitter system on social cognition. The results further suggest that the effects observed on standard WM do not explain the genetic effects on effortful social cognition.