Making a connection
Theory-of-Mind Training Causes Honest Young Children to Lie
Xiao Pan Ding et al.
Psychological Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Theory of mind (ToM) has long been recognized to play a major role in children's social functioning. However, no direct evidence confirms the causal linkage between the two. In the current study, we addressed this significant gap by examining whether ToM causes the emergence of lying, an important social skill. We showed that after participating in ToM training to learn about mental-state concepts, 3-year-olds who originally had been unable to lie began to deceive consistently. This training effect lasted for more than a month. In contrast, 3-year-olds who participated in control training to learn about physical concepts were significantly less inclined to lie than the ToM-trained children. These findings provide the first experimental evidence supporting the causal role of ToM in the development of social competence in early childhood.
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Dorien Enter et al.
Psychoneuroendocrinology, January 2016, Pages 26-33
Abstract:
Gaze avoidance is one of the most characteristic and persistent social features in people with Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD). It signals social submissiveness and hampers adequate social interactions. Patients with SAD typically show reduced testosterone levels, a hormone that facilitates socially dominant gaze behavior. Therefore we tested as a proof of principle whether single dose testosterone administration can reduce gaze avoidance in SAD. In a double-blind, within-subject design, 18 medication-free female participants with SAD and 19 female healthy control participants received a single dose of 0.5 mg testosterone and a matched placebo, at two separate days. On each day, their spontaneous gaze behavior was recorded using eye-tracking, while they looked at angry, happy, and neutral facial expressions. Testosterone enhanced the percentage of first fixations to the eye-region in participants with SAD compared to healthy controls. In addition, SAD patients' initial gaze avoidance in the placebo condition was associated with more severe social anxiety symptoms and this relation was no longer present after testosterone administration. These findings indicate that single dose testosterone administration can alleviate gaze avoidance in SAD. They support theories on the dominance enhancing effects of testosterone and extend those by showing that effects are particularly strong in individuals featured by socially submissive behavior. The finding that this core characteristic of SAD can be directly influenced by single dose testosterone administration calls for future inquiry into the clinical utility of testosterone in the treatment of SAD.
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Aging US males with multiple sources of emotional social support have low testosterone
Lee Gettler & Rahul Oka
Hormones and Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
Among species expressing bi-parental care, males' testosterone is often low when they cooperate with females to raise offspring. In humans, low testosterone men might have an advantage as nurturant partners and parents because they are less prone to anger and reactive aggression and are more empathetic. However, humans engage in cooperative, supportive relationships beyond the nuclear family, and these prosocial capacities were likely critical to our evolutionary success. Despite the diversity of human prosociality, no prior study has tested whether men's testosterone is also reduced when they participate in emotionally supportive relationships, beyond partnering and parenting. Here, we draw on testosterone and emotional social support data that were collected from older men (n = 371; mean: 61.2 years of age) enrolled in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, a US nationally-representative study. Men who reported receiving emotional support from two or more sources had had lower testosterone than men reporting zero support (all p < 0.01). Males with the most support (4 + sources) also had lower testosterone than those with one source of support (p < 0.01). Men who reported emotional support from diverse (kin + non-kin or multiple kin) sources had lower testosterone than those with no support (p < 0.05). Expanding on research on partnering and parenting, our findings are consistent with the notion that low testosterone is downstream of and/or facilitates an array of supportive social relationships. Our results contribute novel insights on the intersections between health, social support, and physiology.
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Kathleen Krol et al.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 29 September 2015, Pages E5434-E5442
Abstract:
Attending to emotional information conveyed by the eyes is an important social skill in humans. The current study examined this skill in early development by measuring attention to eyes while viewing emotional faces in 7-mo-old infants. In particular, we investigated individual differences in infant attention to eyes in the context of genetic variation (CD38 rs3796863 polymorphism) and experiential variation (exclusive breastfeeding duration) related to the oxytocin system. Our results revealed that, whereas infants at this age show a robust fear bias (increased attention to fearful eyes), their attention to angry and happy eyes varies as a function of exclusive breastfeeding experience and genetic variation in CD38. Specifically, extended exclusive breastfeeding duration selectively enhanced looking preference to happy eyes and decreased looking to angry eyes. Importantly, however, this interaction was impacted by CD38 variation, such that only the looking preferences of infants homozygous for the C allele of rs3796863 were affected by breastfeeding experience. This genotype has been associated with reduced release of oxytocin and higher rates of autism. In contrast, infants with the CA/AA genotype showed similar looking preferences regardless of breastfeeding exposure. Thus, differences in the sensitivity to emotional eyes may be linked to an interaction between the endogenous (CD38) and exogenous (breastfeeding) availability of oxytocin. These findings underline the importance of maternal care and the oxytocin system in contributing to the early development of responding to social eye cues.
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Older Adults Have Difficulty in Decoding Sarcasm
Louise Phillips et al.
Developmental Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Younger and older adults differ in performance on a range of social-cognitive skills, with older adults having difficulties in decoding nonverbal cues to emotion and intentions. Such skills are likely to be important when deciding whether someone is being sarcastic. In the current study we investigated in a life span sample whether there are age-related differences in the interpretation of sarcastic statements. Using both video and verbal materials, 116 participants aged between 18 and 86 completed judgments about whether statements should be interpreted literally or sarcastically. For the verbal stories task, older adults were poorer at understanding sarcastic intent compared with younger and middle-aged participants, but there was no age difference in interpreting control stories. For the video task, older adults showed poorer understanding of sarcastic exchanges compared with younger and middle-aged counterparts, but there was no age difference in understanding the meaning of sincere interactions. For the videos task, the age differences were mediated by the ability to perceive facial expressions of emotion. Age effects could not be explained in terms of variance in working memory. These results indicate that increased age is associated with specific difficulties in using nonverbal and contextual cues to understand sarcastic intent.
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Andrew Abeyta, Clay Routledge & Jacob Juhl
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Previous research has shown that nostalgia is a highly social emotion that provides a sense of social connectedness. In the present research, we tested a social motivational function of nostalgia. Specifically, across 7 studies we found converging evidence that nostalgia mobilizes social goals. In Study 1, nostalgia increased the importance people assigned to relationship goals and how optimistic they felt about achieving these goals. In Study 2, nostalgia increased intentions to pursue goals of connecting with friends. In Study 3, experimentally induced pessimism about achieving relationship goals instigated nostalgia. In Study 4, we found evidence that it is the interpersonal nature of nostalgia that is associated with striving to connect with others. Specifically, nostalgia about aspects of the past that were high in sociality was associated with intentions to interact with others, whereas nostalgia for aspects of the past that were low in sociality was not. In Study 5, nostalgic reflection increased friendship-approach goal striving relative to reflecting on ordinary social memories, but did not increase friendship-avoidant goal striving. Finally, in Studies 6 and 7, we found evidence that social-efficacy mediated the effect of nostalgia on striving to connect with others and striving to overcome interpersonal challenges. Together, these findings establish nostalgia as catalyst for social goal pursuit and growth.
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Group Interaction Sustains Positive Moods and Diminishes Negative Moods
Ernest Park & Verlin Hinsz
Group Dynamics, forthcoming
Abstract:
The social interactions of task groups were investigated for their influences on member moods. Initially, participants' received an induction of positive, negative, or neutral moods via listening to music that continued throughout the experimental session. Moods were measured after the induction. Students then made decisions on 4 choice dilemmas alone or as members of a 4-person group. Subsequently, positive and negative moods were again measured. Positive moods of participants who worked with other group members on the task were sustained, but diminished for those working alone. Negative moods of participants working in groups diminished over time, but were sustained for those working individually. These results were interpreted in the context of motivational systems theory of group involvement (Park & Hinsz, 2006). Additionally, although there was a tendency for member moods to homogenize over assessments, this did not reach significance. Results document the affective benefits that often accompany task group interaction suggesting that group interaction has features of positive mood induction. This report highlights the need to consider social influences on affect in task settings so that group dynamics, processes, and behaviors can be better understood.
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The Extravert Advantage: How and When Extraverts Build Rapport With Other People
Korrina Duffy & Tanya Chartrand
Psychological Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Extraverts are better than introverts at building rapport, but it remains unknown what they do behaviorally to better connect with other individuals. We hypothesized that extraverts mimic more than introverts as a way to build rapport; however, we predicted that this social skillfulness of extraverts emerges only when they are motivated to affiliate. In Study 1, we found that extraversion predicted increased mimicry when an affiliation goal was present, but not when an affiliation goal was absent. In Study 2, we found that mimicry mediates the relationship between extraversion and rapport, but only when an affiliation goal is present. Our findings are the first to identify a behavior that extraverts engage in that helps them build rapport. Furthermore, our studies show that this skillfulness of extraverts emerges only when they are motivated to affiliate, providing evidence in favor of the reward-sensitivity-as-core model of extraversion over the sociability-as-core model of extraversion.
http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/2015-47828-001