A conditional approach to dispositional constructs: the local predictability of social behavior

A conditional approach to dispositions is developed in which dispositional constructs are viewed as clusters of if-then propositions. These propositions summarize contingencies between categories of conditions and categories of behavior rather than generalized response tendencies. A fundamental unit for investigating dispositions is therefore the conditional frequency of acts that are central to a given behavior category in circumscribed situations, not the overall frequency of behaviors. In an empirical application of the model, we examine how people's dispositional judgments are linked to extensive observations of targets' behavior in a range of natural social situations. We identify categories of these social situations in which targets' behavior may be best predicted from observers' dispositional judgements, focusing on the domains of aggression and withdrawal. One such category consists of subjectively demanding or stressful situations that tax people's performance competencies. As expected, children judged to be aggressive or withdrawn were variable across situations in dispositionally relevant behaviors, but they diverged into relatively predictable aggressive and withdrawn actions in situations that required the social, self-regulatory, and cognitive competencies they lacked. Implications of the conditional approach for personality assessment and person perception research are considered.     

Interpersonal Expectations as the Building Blocks of Social Cognition: An Interdependence Theory Perspective

In this paper I use interdependence theory as an analytic framework for depicting the logically interconnected network of expectations that determines social interaction. The framework focuses on expectations about a partner’s goals (B) relevant to particular interdependence situations (S), and suggests that expectations about these two elements define the social situation that activates a person’s own goals (A). Together, these elements determine interaction behavior (I). This SABI framework is complementary to Mischel and Shoda’s (1995) CAPS theory of personality in its logic. It depicts a person’s interpersonal dispositions as having profiles or signatures dependent on both the expected features of situations and the expected dispositions of partners. A taxonomic theory for classifying both situations and the functionally relevant goals of interaction partners is outlined. Research on attachment theory and trust is used to illustrate the model. Finally, I suggest that people’s expectations about partners’ prosocial motivations—their perceived responsiveness toward the self—play an imperial role in social cognition, and, further, that complex SABI models can be seen as detailing a set of security operations that serve as a program for social action. SABI models detail the set of mechanisms that constitute the basic survival kit of interpersonal relations.     

K-means may perform as well as mixture model clustering but may also be much worse: comment on Steinley and Brusco (2011)

Steinley and Brusco (2011) presented the results of a huge simulation study aimed at evaluating cluster recovery of mixture model clustering (MMC) both for the situation where the number of clusters is known and is unknown. They derived rather strong conclusions on the basis of this study, especially with regard to the good performance of K-means (KM) compared with MMC. I agree with the authors' conclusion that the performance of KM may be equal to MMC in certain situations, which are primarily the situations investigated by Steinley and Brusco. However, a weakness of the paper is the failure to investigate many important real-world situations where theory suggests that MMC should outperform KM. This article elaborates on the KM-MMC comparison in terms of cluster recovery and provides some additional simulation results that show that KM may be much worse than MMC. Moreover, I show that KM is equivalent to a restricted mixture model estimated by maximizing the classification likelihood and comment on Steinley and Brusco's recommendation regarding the use of mixture models for clustering.     

Effects of purpose on the organization and recall of information in person perception1

The first study investigated how the purpose for which information about a person is to be used affects the way a perceiver organizes the information. Subjects were asked to categorize and label episodes which described the behavior of a fictional person “Jill” in 64 different situations, and to summarize what each category meant to them. Half of the episodes were easily categorized according to the traits that Jill manifested, half according to features of the situations. One group (personality impression) expected later to describe Jill's personality, a second group (prediction) expected to make predictions about Jill's behavior, and a third group (recall) expected to be tested on their recall of the episodes. The results indicated that subjects in the behavior prediction group categorized the episodes primarily in terms of the personality characteristics Jill portrayed, just as the personality impression group did. In contrast, only the categories formed by the recall group paralleled the built-in structure of the episodes, i.e., they were as often based on features of the situation as on Jill's personality characteristics. A second study showed that the categorization strategies of the recall subjects actually did produce higher recall than those of the personality impression and behavior prediction subjects. The results were interpreted as suggesting that when making behavioral predictions, just as when forming impressions, the layman, like the traditional trait psychologist, prefers to organize information in terms of personality constructs rather than in a way that facilitates retrieval of everything that happened in specific situations. The cognitive costs as well as the gains produced by this strategy merit further scrutiny.     

Social anxiety moderates memory conformity in adolescents

When two people view the same event and later try to remember it together, what one person says affects what the other person reports. A model is presented which predicts that this memory conformity effect will be moderated, in different ways, by two components of social anxiety. People with higher fear of negative evaluation should be more influenced by their peers than others, but those with higher social anxiety related to avoiding social situations may be less influenced by their peers than others. Pairs of adolescent‐aged participants took part in a face recognition study. For each trial one person responded and then the next person responded. The effect of what the first person said on the second person's response was measured; the size of the effect was moderated by the social anxiety measures as predicted by the model. This is the first study showing the relationship between social anxiety and memory suggestibility. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Achievement,affiliation, and group incentives: A test of the overmotivation hypothesis

The theory of achievement motivation (Atkinson & Raynor, 1974) is seen as an important starting point for making theoretical predictions regarding the interaction of personality and situational determinants on group processes. However, progress in this direction has been slow, possibly because group situations may lead to overmotivation. Here, persons who might be expected to excel in such situations (e.g., success-oriented persons also high in affiliation motivation) may actually perform poorly as a function of being too positively motivated. The present study is an attempt to find a priori evidence for the overmotivation hypothesis in order to facilitate progress toward a motivational theory of group activity. Male and female subjects were run in either an individual or a cooperative performance situation. The achievement, affiliative, and extrinsic incentives in these situations were examined in conjunction with relevant personality dimensions. The results lend support to the overmotivation hypothesis. Implications for group activity are discussed.     

Narcissism and the self-evaluation maintenance model: effects of social comparison threats on relationship closeness

When threatened with an upward social comparison with a close other in a self-relevant domain, people may reduce either the self-relevance of the ability being compared or their perceived closeness to the other person (Tesser, 1988). Those high in the trait of narcissism may be more likely to push away others who outperform them. Participants and nominated close others completed online measures of narcissism, contingent self-worth, and relationship closeness. Subsequently, participants heard that their friend performed better (or equivalently) on a "competitive spirit" test. Participants higher in narcissism significantly reduced the closeness of their relationships after a threat but did not reduce the relevance of competitiveness to their self-worth.     

Effects of objective feedback and "single other" or "average other" social comparison feedback on performance judgments and helping behavior

In two studies, participants received positive or negative feedback about their performance on a verbal task and then provided hints to another person on a subsequent, different task. It was expected that participants would give more helpful hints after positive than after negative feedback but that this would be more apparent when the feedback was based on performance comparisons with the "average participant" than on comparisons with another person or an objective standard. This effect was expected to be mediated by judgments of one's performance on the first task. These predictions were supported. Participants seemed aware of the effect of feedback on their hint choices, and their hint choices did not alter their affect levels. Also, participants receiving comparative (single or aggregated target) feedback exhibited changes in self-ascribed importance of the performance domain. Implications for social comparison theory and self-evaluation maintenance theory are discussed.     

FUTURE ORIENTATION AND SOCIALIZATION*

The present paper deals with the question of what kind of relationship may exist between future orientation and socialization. First, the nature of future orientation and related person variables are discussed. It is shown that a functional theory of personality and social behavior is needed in order to specify the relations between these variables. On the basis of such a theory the next question on the development of future orientation may be dealt with more fruitfully. Besides cognitive maturation, social experiences determine which kind of future orientation develops and can be adapted in different social situations. Finally, the question is dealt with to what extent future orientation (not only of parents and teachers, but also of the person to be socialized) may influence the process and result of socialization. Some preliminary data indicate the usefulness of an interactionist theory for the study on the relation between socialization and future orientation.     

Social phobia in ultra-orthodox Jewish males: culture-bound syndrome or virtue?

Social difficulties of the performing variety are reported by ultra-orthodox male referrals to a psychiatrist in Jerusalem and confirmed by key communal informants. Three cases of social phobia are presented, and the content concerns performing, either speaking on religious matters publicly, a role associated with status and authority, or leading prayers and ceremonies, a role of sanctity and duty. The absence of women sufferers may be understood as a consequence of the value placed on modesty in women and there being no expectation of women to participate in study and public prayer, while the absence of complaints of interactional social phobia may be a consequence of the general discouragement of social intercourse not related to religious study. Aymat zibur, literally meaning fear of the community, is a term used by ultra-orthodox Jews to describe these fears of performance, although in its original meaning the term expresses the respect that the leader of prayers is expected to have for his awesome role. The cases described, however, were motivated by personal shame, similar to social phobia of the performance variety found in other cultures, rather than fear and respect. The values of ultra-orthodox religious life are presented that invest a person who avoids interactional social behaviors with the status of zaddik (a righteous person) while one who avoids the performance behaviors of speaking publicly on religious matters or leading prayers suffers from an idiom of distress in this particular society. Religious law and societal mores appear to be critical factors in deciding whether symptoms of social phobia are perceived and experienced as idioms of distress.     

The relationship of role-play assessment of children's social skills to multiple measures of social competence

The present investigation evaluated the relationship of role-play performance of children's social skills with multiple measures of social competence. Thirty-eight psychiatric inpatient children (ages 7–13 yrs) completed measures to assess role-play performance, knowledge of social skills, self-efficacy and self-reported social behavior in diverse situations. Overt social interaction was directly but unobtrusively assessed in the hospital as well. Multiple measures of social skills were also completed by hospital staff, parents and teachers. The results indicated that role-play performance correlated significantly with child knowledge and self-efficacy but not with overt social behavior or self-reported social behavior in diverse situations. Role-play performance generally did not correlate with measures completed by staff, parents and teachers. Yet measures completed by these informants did converge and also were useful in delineating diagnostic groups of children whose social behavior would be expected to be problematic. The implications of the results for the use of role-play tests to evaluate social skills and to discriminate clinical populations are discussed.     

POTENTIAL EFFECTS OF BANDING AS A FUNCTION OF TEST RELIABILITY

Cascio, Outtz, Zedeck, and Goldstein (1991) described the application of a number of test score banding procedures in personnel selection. Equations are developed illustrating the relationship between the width of test score bands and test reliability. When reliability is moderate to low, bands are likely to be larger than the standard deviation of the test, and are likely to include a large proportion of the applicant pool. The relationships between band widths and the differences between higher scoring and lower scoring groups are also examined. When the band is smaller than the differences between groups (which may happen when highly reliable tests are used), banding may not by itself prove effective as a means of reducing the adverse impact of tests, even when banding systems that maximize opportunities for members of the lower scoring group are used.     

Social tuning of the self: consequences for the self-evaluations of stereotype targets

These experiments examined how social interactions with individuals who ostensibly have stereotype-relevant views affect the self-evaluations of stereotype targets. Participants believed they were going to interact, or actually interacted, with a person who ostensibly had stereotype-consistent or stereotype-inconsistent views about their social group. Consistent with shared reality theory, participants' self-evaluations (Experiments 1, 2, and 3) and behavior (Experiment 2) corresponded with the ostensible views of the other person when affiliative motivation was high. This occurred even when it was likely to be detrimental to participants' nonaffiliative outcomes (Experiment 3). Experiment 4 showed that self-evaluative shift away from the ostensible views of another person was a function of social distance motives, also consistent with shared reality theory.     

The effect of implementation intentions on physical activity among obese older adults: A randomised control study

The objective of this study is to quantify situational impacts on coping compared to the impact of personal characteristics. A facet design was used to systematically vary three situational features (ambiguity, social context, and concern at stake) in twenty vignettes of stressful situations that were presented to a sample of 430 healthy persons to elicit coping responses. In addition, relevant personal characteristics (mental health, self-esteem, perceived social support, and dispositional coping styles) were assessed. A series of variance component analyses demonstrated that for eight types of coping behavior, variability within individuals across situations was larger than variability between individuals. Multilevel analyses, accounting for both the person level and the situation level in the data, were employed to identify the situational features and personal characteristics that were responsible for situation-related variance and person-related variance respectively. Results demonstrate that all three situational features proved significant contributors to differentiated situation-specific coping patterns. No single personal factor could be identified as relevant in shaping coping behaviors, although the combined impact of personal factors explained a considerable amount of variance at the personal level. It is concluded that the study of situational features is a promising way to understand in which way situations shape coping behavior, and may be helpful in guiding the development of coping scales tailored to specific situations.     

Epistemic Unities

I bring together social ontology and social epistemology by consideringsocial entities (``epistemic unities') that are constituted by the holdingof epistemic relations between their members. In particular, I focus onthe relation of taking someone as an expert. Among the types of structuresexamined are ones with a single expert and one or more non-experts whomay or may not know of each other's situation; and ones with more thanone expert, including cases in which the relation between the experts ishierarchical and cases in which it is symmetrical. These structures modela variety of social situations which can thus be given a unified treatment.Among the cases I discuss are persons, which I argue are multiple-expertunities of persons at times. Taking a person as a social unity like this offersa clear sense in which some groups can also be person-like.     

Integrating dispositions, signatures, and the interpersonal domain

A person's behavior across situations can be characterized in terms of a mean level (disposition), a dispersion within the person around that mean level, and a stable organization to the pattern of dispersion (signature). The authors' goals were to examine the structure and stability of behavior, both at the level of behavioral dispositions and at the level of behavioral signatures. Participants completed event-contingent records of their social interactions over a 20-day period. Participants recorded their own social behavior (dominant, agreeable, submissive, quarrelsome) in 4 situations defined by the perceived social behavior of their primary interaction partners (agreeable-dominant, agreeable-submissive, quarrelsome- submissive, quarrelsome-dominant). Findings suggest that (a) once the normative influences of situations on behavior are removed, the remaining behavioral variation reflects both consistent cross-situational differences between individuals (dispositions) and consistent situational differences within individuals (signatures); (b) both dispositions and signatures display a 2-dimensional structure in adherence to the interpersonal circle; and (c) both dispositions and signatures constitute stable aspects of personality functioning.     

The double meaning of a single act: influences of the perceiver and the perceived on cooperative behaviour

The present research examines how a single behaviour that is informative of both the morality and intelligence of a person influences impressions, degree of cooperative behaviour expected from that person, and degree of cooperative behaviour displayed toward that person in a mixed‐motive interdependence situation (i.e., a social dilemma). Furthermore, it is investigated how individual differences in social value orientation influence these processes. Participants were provided with behavioural information that could be construed in terms of both morality (high/low) and intelligence (high/low). Consistent with the morality‐importance hypothesis, participants assigned greater weight to morality than to intelligence aspects of the information. Congruent with the social value orientation hypothesis (i) only proselfs and not prosocials expected more cooperation from unintelligent than from intelligent others, and (ii) prosocials attended more strongly to morality aspects than proselfs in deciding on own cooperation. Finally, consistent with the relative benefit hypothesis, people overall expected more cooperation than they were willing to display, and this tendency was especially pronounced with others described by moral/unintelligent behaviour, and for people with a proself value orientation. The authors discuss a model describing influences of the perceiver and the perceived on cooperative behaviour. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A procedure for isolating social desirability variance in a three-way component analysis

Three-way component analysis aims to summarize all the information in a three-way data set related, for example, to the responses of individuals to a set of items in a set of situations. The data are decomposed into three component matrices (person, item and situation components) and a core matrix. Such data are generally obtained by means of a situation-response questionnaire administered to a sample of participants. This paper proposes a preprocessing procedure for controlling social desirability in these kinds of questionnaires. The essential idea is to isolate the variance due to social desirability response bias and remove it from the data set. The procedure is demonstrated through its empirical application in the personality domain. Its performance is also assessed by means of a simulation study which shows that the presence of social desirability bias in a data set had different consequences: (1) the variance effect due to persons increased, and the effect of the triple interaction persons × items × situations decreased; (2) the person component and core matrix were partially distorted. However, the social desirability bias in the data set was successfully controlled by our preprocessing method.     

Social Context in HCl: A New Framework for Mental Models,Cooperation, and Communication

This article considers current research in computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW), computer-mediated communication (CMC), and distributed artificial intelligence (DAl). These areas need an articulated model of social contexts to bridge the persisting gap between social and technological dimensions in computer system design and use. A conceptual model of context is presented to account for both cooperation-conflict and communication-negotiation processes. The model conceives of contexts as including not only physical objects and other people but also social norms which influence both individuals and organizations. It assumes that computer system use occurs in social scenarios in which the features cannot be reduced to any type of input or data in the world that designers and users can process along with other information coming from the current task. The model is built on three levels: from social contexts as normative order (Level 1), to specific and intrinsically complex situations (Level 2), to person-computer interactions for the performance of particular tasks (Level 3). The model has three main implications. First, Human-Computer Interaction (HCl) studies—especially scenario-based design—may profit from a fresh topdown approach to designers' and users' mental models taking into account normative social processes which have been neglected in previous research. Second, CSCW may realize how deeply discrepant perspectives affect multi-agent environments and why in real working life negotiation is intertwined with cooperation. Designers may use this insight to design systems allowing more place for negotiation among actors. Third, we should dismiss the view that CMC lacks adequate social cues and fosters impulsive behavior. Cognitive processes such as categorization, stereotype construction, and social identification can make electronic environments even more strongly sensible to social norms than face-to-face communication. Context, according to our model, is not restricted to the physical copresence of other people but consists mainly of processes providing situations with socially recognizable meaning.