Unto others
Children imitate antisocial in‐group members
Matti Wilks, James Kirby & Mark Nielsen
Developmental Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Children demonstrate a pervasive in‐group bias, preferring their in‐group across a range of contexts that encompass measures of liking, imitation, and, in some cases, resource allocation. A growing number of studies have begun to explore whether antisocial in‐group behavior reduces the robustness of this bias. However, these studies have focused on transgression evaluations, with only two studies focusing on social learning and none explicitly on imitation. This, therefore, limits the extent to which children's responses to interaction between in‐group bias and antisocial behavior can be fully understood. The current research expands on the prevailing literature, utilizing imitation as a behavioral measure to explore the reactions of children aged 4–5 and 7–8 years in response to antisocial in‐group behavior. Consistent with previous literature, antisocial in‐group behavior reduced in‐group liking ratings. Surprisingly, however, children's behavioral imitation preferences were guided solely by group membership, disregarding prosocial or antisocial behavior. These results indicate that children's explicitly reported social preferences and imitative preferences may be motivated by two independent drives.
The paradox of agency: Feeling powerful reduces brokerage opportunity recognition yet increases willingness to broker
Blaine Landis et al.
Journal of Applied Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Research suggests positions of brokerage in organizational networks provide many benefits, but studies tend to assume everyone is equally able to perceive and willing to act on brokerage opportunities. Here we challenge these assumptions in a direct investigation of whether people can perceive brokerage opportunities and are willing to broker. We propose that the psychological experience of power diminishes individuals’ ability to perceive opportunities to broker between people who are not directly connected in their networks, yet enhances their willingness to broker. In Study 1, we find that employees in a marketing and media agency who had a high sense of power were likely to see fewer brokerage opportunities in their advice networks. In Study 2, we provide causal evidence for this claim in an experiment where the psychological experience of power is manipulated. Those who felt powerful, relative to those who felt little power, tended to see fewer brokerage opportunities than actually existed, yet were more willing to broker, irrespective of whether there was a brokerage opportunity present. Collectively, these findings present a paradox of agency: Individuals who experience power are likely to underperceive the very brokerage opportunities for which their sense of agency is suited.
Motivation moderates the effects of social support visibility
Katherine Zee et al.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, May 2018, Pages 735-765
Abstract:
Social support can sometimes have negative consequences for recipients. One way of circumventing these negative effects is to provide support in an ‘invisible’ or indirect manner, such that recipients do not construe the behavior as a supportive act. However, little is known about how recipients’ motivational states influence when visible (direct) support or invisible support is more beneficial. Using the framework of Regulatory Mode Theory, we predicted that recipients motivated to engage in critical evaluation (i.e., those with a predominant assessment motivation) would find invisible support more beneficial than visible support, whereas recipients motivated to initiate action (i.e., those with a predominant locomotion motivation) would find visible support more beneficial than invisible support. Findings from one 2 × 2 experiment (Study 1), two laboratory experiments (Studies 2–3), one dyadic study involving support conversations between friends (Study 4), and a meta-analysis aggregating data from all four studies supported these hypotheses. As predicted, support outcomes were better for assessment predominant recipients following invisible support, but were better for locomotion predominant recipients following visible support. Results indicate that support attempts could be made more effective by considering both support visibility and recipient motivation.
Initial Expectations of Team Performance: Specious Speculation or Framing the Future?
Dustin Sleesman et al.
Small Group Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
This study demonstrates that the initial performance expectations of teams, formed even before members are very familiar with each other or the team’s task, are a key determinant of the team’s ultimate success. Specifically, we argue that such early formed beliefs determine the extent to which teams frame their task as a gain or loss context, which affects their orientation toward risk-taking. Our results suggest a self-fulfilling prophecy effect: Initial team performance expectations lead to the fulfillment of such expectations via risk-taking behavior. We also show that teams are less susceptible to this “risk-taking trap” to the extent that members have low avoidant or high dependent decision-making styles. We tested and found support for our predictions in a study of 540 individuals comprising 108 five-member teams working in a controlled environment. Our study contributes to theory on emergent states and decision biases in teams, and we offer a number of practical implications.
Winners are grinners: Expressing authentic positive emotion enhances status in performance contexts
Katharine Greenaway et al.
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Research has shown that people who express positive emotion following victory risk appearing unlikeable and inconsiderate. We investigated whether these relational costs might be offset by status benefits, and the processes underlying such benefits. Across eight experiments (N = 1456), we found that winners who expressed positive emotion were perceived as higher in social standing than winners who suppressed positive emotion. To understand the mechanisms underlying this effect, we manipulated factors to do with the situation in which emotion was expressed, the type of person expressing emotion, and the way emotion was expressed. We also conducted replications of these experiments. The only factor that consistently moderated the expressivity effect was perceived authenticity, such that expressive winners only gained status benefits when observers believed the emotion expression was authentic. The findings point to the power of context in shaping the nature of the social benefits reaped by expressing positive emotion.
Why Hate the Good Guy? Antisocial Punishment of High Cooperators Is Greater When People Compete to Be Chosen
Aleta Pleasant & Pat Barclay
Psychological Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
When choosing social partners, people prefer good cooperators (all else being equal). Given this preference, people wishing to be chosen can either increase their own cooperation to become more desirable or suppress others’ cooperation to make them less desirable. Previous research shows that very cooperative people sometimes get punished (“antisocial punishment”) or criticized (“do-gooder derogation”) in many cultures. Here, we used a public-goods game with punishment to test whether antisocial punishment is used as a means of competing to be chosen by suppressing others’ cooperation. As predicted, there was more antisocial punishment when participants were competing to be chosen for a subsequent cooperative task (a trust game) than without a subsequent task. This difference in antisocial punishment cannot be explained by differences in contributions, moralistic punishment, or confusion. This suggests that antisocial punishment is a social strategy that low cooperators use to avoid looking bad when high cooperators escalate cooperation.
The populist effect: Threat and the handover of freedom
Karim Bettache & Chi-yue Chiu
Personality and Individual Differences, 1 August 2018, Pages 102-106
Abstract:
People universally value autonomy, and this is the case particularly in individualist societies. Nevertheless, we hypothesize that even in the US, an individualist society, people are willing to relinquish personal control and choose to be an amorphous entity in a behaviorally homogeneous group when under physical threat because such groups increase the effectiveness in mobilizing collective effort. We found evidence for this hypothesis in two studies. In Study 1, individual differences in perceived physical threat (but not social threat) predicted the preference for joining a homogeneous group, through the mediating effect of lowered endorsement of personal agency. We replicated this result in Study 2, in which the cognitive salience of physical and social threat was experimentally manipulated. We discuss the implications of these results.
Oxytocin strengthens the link between provocation and aggression among low anxiety people
Michaela Pfundmair et al.
Psychoneuroendocrinology, July 2018, Pages 124-132
Abstract:
Oxytocin (OT) not only modulates positive social interactions but also affects negative ones. Several studies have established a link between OT and aggression. However, they also resulted in an inconsistent picture and showed methodological issues. The current studies aimed to address these lacks and test the hypothesis that OT increases provocation-induced aggression in people low in anxiety. Therefore, two studies with 56 males (Study 1) as well as 40 females and 24 males (Study 2) were conducted. After responding to a trait anxiety questionnaire, participants self-administered OT or a placebo. Thereafter, provocation was manipulated by rejecting vs. accepting (Study 1) or insulting vs. accepting (Study 2) the participants by real human counterparts. Aggressive behavior was quantified by measuring how much hot sauce (Study 1) or unpleasant blasts of white noise (Study 2) participants delivered to their opponents, using two classic aggression paradigms. Both studies provided evidence that OT promotes aggression in response to provocation in low anxiety people which was not the case with no provocation or in high anxiety people. These findings confirm the idea that OT can be involved in the creation of aggressive behavior when accounting for situational and dispositional features.