Pursuing Goals with Others

This article explores motivation in a social context: how people pursue goals with others, with information on others, and for the self and others. As people incorporate close others into their extended selves (Aron et al., 1991 ), they begin to treat others' actions and outcomes as partially their own. This tendency, in turn, has implications for coordinating goal pursuits with others and for the preference for actions that maximize the total benefits for the self and others. To demonstrate these principles – coordination and joint‐benefits maximization – we first explore coordination in pursuing goals with others (i.e., working in teams), showing that people respond to others' actions and lack of action similarly to how they respond to their own actions and lack of action. We next explore coordination in pursuing goals with information on others, showing that people conform to others' preferences and attitudes yet choose actions that complement others' actions. Finally, we review research on pursuing goals for the self and others, showing that people wish to maximize the total benefits for the group.     

The Rhythm Is Gonna Get You: The Influence of Circadian Rhythm Synchrony on Self‐Control Outcomes

This article aims to bridge the circadian and self‐control literatures by suggesting that people's self‐control performance varies as a function of their circadian preferences (i.e., chronotype). We review evidence for this assertion across a wide range of self‐control domains, including cognitive processing, emotion regulation, interpersonal relationships, and social influence. Across these widely ranging behaviors, the results indicate that when people's circadian preference matches the time of day, a synchrony effect occurs, and self‐control performance is at its peak. Therefore, people are more likely to display self‐regulatory failures and give in to temptations when there is a mismatch between their circadian preferences and time of day. Overall, this article offers new insights into the relationship between circadian preferences and self‐control and suggests novel and exciting new directions for future research.     

From Mind Perception to Mental Connection: Synchrony as a Mechanism for Social Understanding

Connecting deeply with another mind is as enigmatic as it is fulfilling. Why people “click” with some people but not others is one of the great unsolved mysteries of science. However, researchers from psychology and neuroscience are converging on a likely physiological basis for connection – neural synchrony (entrainment). Here, we review research on the necessary precursors for interpersonal synchrony: the ability to detect a mind and resonate with its outputs. Further, We describe potential mechanisms for the development of synchrony between two minds. We then consider recent neuroimaging and behavioral evidence for the adaptive benefits of synchrony, including neural efficiency and the release of a reward signal that promotes future social interaction. In nature, neural synchrony yields behavioral synchrony. Humans use behavioral synchrony to promote neural synchrony, and thus, social bonding. This reverse‐engineering of social connection is an important innovation likely underlying this distinctively human capacity to create large‐scale social coordination and cohesion.     

Mediating Role of Memory of Another Person's Choicein Social Influence on Preference

We often tend to fit our subjective preference with those of others after merely being faced with what other people prefer. This is known as social conformity. However, it is still unclear how the impact of such a social influence on subjective preference is modulated by the personal characteristics of the other person (e.g., whether the person is trustworthy) and the explicit memory of those personal characteristics (e.g., remembering who evaluated the objects). To clarify explicit memory's underlying role regarding social influence, we asked participants to evaluate their preference for abstract paintings both before and after observing binary choices made by others whose behaviors could be labeled as trustworthy, neutral, or untrustworthy. The results showed the following: (a) even without explicit memory of who made a choice and which painting was chosen, the participants preferred chosen over unchosen paintings; and (b) such preference changes were modulated by the subjective trustworthiness of others only when they explicitly remembered who made a choice.     

Understanding the Role of Everyday Practices of Privilege in the Perpetuation of Inequalities

To explain the interrelated effects of material and psychosocial inequalities, we suggest a move beyond research focused on deprived communities to include their broader social situation. Bourdieu's theory of practice explains how social and material disadvantages are interconnected, and struggles for power are enacted in everyday practice. In this paper, we draw on data from a qualitative study of two neighbourhoods to provide examples of everyday practice as people work to perpetuate or overcome inequalities in one field: education of their children. These examples show that those with more resources are actively working to retain and improve their children's social advantage, which rests on the disadvantage of others. In conclusion, we suggest that many current interventions to improve material and social conditions within disadvantaged communities ignore the damaging effects of social inequalities between social groups. Work towards understanding the nature of power struggles in daily life and the everyday actions of the privileged will help us understand and address the damaging effects of inequalities. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Loneliness and social behaviours in a virtual social environment

Feeling lonely motivates people to reconnect with others, but it can also trigger a vicious cycle of cognitions and behaviours that reinforces their loneliness. In this study, we examined the behavioural consequences of loneliness in a virtual social environment. A total of 176 participants navigated a character (protagonist) through a two-dimensional browser game and rated the character's loneliness multiple times during the game. In the first part of the game, another character is introduced as the protagonist's spouse. At one point, the spouse leaves for an undetermined period of time but later returns. Immediately before this separation, higher ascribed loneliness of the protagonist was associated with more frequent interactions with the spouse. After the reunion, however, higher ascribed loneliness was associated with less frequent interactions with the spouse. Ascribed loneliness was not significantly related to the frequency of interactions with others nor to the frequency of solitary activities. These patterns held after controlling for ascribed positive affect. Participants' levels of loneliness were related to the level of ascribed loneliness only when the spouse was present but not when the spouse was absent. In sum, these findings suggest that the conditions that trigger the vicious cycle of loneliness are person- and situation-specific.     

A Systems Approach to Perception and Action

ABSTRACT

On the 50th anniversary of its publication, we look back on some of the intellectual contributions of Gibson's (1966) The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems. This work is often seen as contributing a new perspective to our understanding of the 5 senses. In this paper, we explore another intellectual contribution: Gibson's treatment of perception–action as an irreducible, functional system. We review select examples of systems thinking from the physical, animal, and human social domains. Our suggestion is that a systems-level approach to social interactions would have been a natural extension of Gibson's ideas.     

Longitudinal associations between people's cessation-related experiences and their satisfaction with cessation

We sought to determine whether different social, psychological, emotional, and physiological experiences associated with quitting smoking related to people's satisfaction with cessation systematically, and whether the strength of the relations changes at different points during the cessation process and for different people (e.g., optimists). Using data from smokers enrolled in a cessation program, we used mixed models to assess the average longitudinal relation between people's experiences and satisfaction measured at seven time points and whether the relations were moderated by key variables. Eight of nine experiences were related to people's satisfaction (ps < 0.05) and the models accounted for 39–44% of the within-person variance in satisfaction. Current smoking behavior was more strongly related to people's satisfaction during their early efforts to quit, whereas some experiences (e.g., feedback from others) had a stronger relation with satisfaction during people's later efforts to quit or maintain abstinence (ps < 0.05). Individual differences in optimism and prior cessation experience moderated some of the relations (ps < 0.05). The findings mark the first evidence of factors that might influence how people determine their satisfaction with smoking cessation. The implications for tailoring interventions and potentially increasing the likelihood that people maintain abstinence are discussed.     

A comparison of picture and GIF-based preference assessments for social interaction

Researchers have recently begun to evaluate video-based preference assessments; however, only two studies have evaluated the efficacy of this preference assessment modality in assessing preference for social interactions. Four individuals diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder who could not match pictures or graphic-interchange-format images (GIFs) of social interactions to in vivo interaction participated. We compared picture and GIF-based paired-stimulus preference assessments for social interaction and evaluated the preference assessment hierarchies by conducting a concurrent-operant reinforcer assessment including all social interactions. The GIF-based preference assessment produced similar hierarchies to the reinforcer assessment for all participants, whereas the picture-based preference assessments produced similar hierarchies to the reinforcer assessment for 2 of 4 subjects. Additionally, we conducted a modality preference assessment in which we evaluated participants' preference for viewing GIFs or pictures of social interactions, and found that 3 out of 4 subjects displayed a preference for GIFs.     

Expanding the Horizontal Call: A Typology of Social Influence on the Call to Ministry

This research examines the social actors and interactions that facilitate seminary students' sense of calling. Drawing from 36 in-depth interviews with first year Masters of Divinity students, we introduce six ideal typical social others who play a formative role in the early stages of a call to ministry: instigators, exemplars, interpreters, affirmers, challengers, and codiscerners. Together, these findings demonstrate that the call to ministry, while deeply personal, emerges through social interactions that facilitate and make plausible a person's sense of calling and that sustain it over time. Extending Richard Pitt's conceptualization of the “horizontal call,” this paper argues that social others help evoke and solidify—not merely legitimate—a personal sense of call. This research also highlights differences in the social structuring of call by gender. Despite considerable gains in the ordination of women, we find that many still face obstacles to experiencing and embracing a call to ministry.     

Remembering Friends as Not So Friendly in Competitive and Bargaining Social Interactions

From children's schoolyard play to executives' boardroom negotiations, competitive and bargaining interactions are common to everyday life. Sometimes, the interacting parties are socially close and sometimes not. In this research, we examine how friendship influences memory for actions in such interactions. Dyads consisting of either friends or strangers played a competitive card game (Study 1) or the ultimatum game (Studies 2 and 4) and then recalled the interaction. We find that participants remembered friends' play as more competitive (Study 1) and less generous (Studies 2 and 4) than strangers' play, even when friends' actual play was more generous than that of strangers (Studies 2 and 4). Friendship did not affect recall for one's own play. In a workplace setting, Study 3 reveals people expect more of work colleagues who are friends than of work colleagues who are acquaintances. Study 4 tests our complete model and shows that people expect more of friends than of strangers and that this difference in expectations explains the less favorable memory for friend's actions. Our findings are consistent with a negative disconfirmation account whereby people expect their friends to be less competitive and more generous, and when these expectations are violated, people remember friends' actions more negatively than they actually were. Much research shows positive effects of friendship norms on actual behavior. We demonstrate a negative effect on people's memory of friends' behavior in competitive and bargaining social interactions. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Interpersonal movement synchrony facilitates pro‐social behavior in children's peer‐play

The emergence of pro‐social behaviors and social interaction skills is a major focus of research on children's development. Here, we consider one important feature of human social interactions, interpersonal movement synchrony, and explore its effects on pro‐sociality among young children. Coordinated movements are a crucial part of mother–infant interactions, with important social effects extending well into childhood. Musical interactions are also known to facilitate bonding between infants and caretakers and pro‐sociality among peers. We specifically examine the pro‐social effects of interpersonal movement synchrony in a naturalistic peer‐play context among 4‐ to 6‐year‐old children. We assessed the amount of helping behavior between pairs of children following an activity that they performed synchronously or non‐synchronously. Children who engaged in synchronous play, as compared with non‐synchronous play, showed significantly more subsequent spontaneous helping behavior. Further, more mutual smiling and eye contact were observed in the synchronous condition and amounts of mutual smiling and eye contact during the movement task correlated with amount of helping behavior observed. Neither measure mediated the condition‐wise effects on helping, however. These results are discussed in terms of their contribution to existing literature and their broader implications for the development of pro‐sociality and coordinated movements in early childhood.     

Happy Like a Fish in Water? The Role of Personality–Situation Fit for Momentary Happiness in Social Interactions across the Adult Lifespan

Growing research on personality–relationship dynamics demonstrates that people's personality and their (enjoyment of) social relationships are closely intertwined. Using experience sampling data from 136 adults (aged 18–89 years) who reported on more than 50 000 social interactions, we zoom into everyday real‐world social interactions to examine how Big Five personality traits and social context characteristics shape people's happiness in social encounters across the adult lifespan. Results revealed that interactions that were social (vs. task‐oriented) and with close (vs. less close) others were associated with higher momentary happiness as were higher levels of the target person's extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness, and lower neuroticism. Of the 10 personality × situation interactions tested, only one reached significance (with p = .041): Individuals with higher levels of neuroticism benefitted more from interactions with friends than did individuals low in neuroticism. The role of social context characteristics for momentary happiness changed with age, but the role of personality or personality × social context did not, suggesting that personality effects on happiness in social context manifest in similar ways across the adult lifespan. We discuss implications for personality–situation research and the understanding of affective dynamics in everyday social interactions. © 2019 European Association of Personality Psychology     

Adolescent social anxiety undermines adolescent-parent interbrain synchrony during emotional processing: A hyperscanning study

Social anxiety severely impacts adolescents’ social interactions with others; however, the underlying neural mechanism has not been revealed. This study examined how adolescent's social anxiety level influences the interbrain synchrony within adolescent-parent dyads during emotional processing by using electroencephalograph (EEG) hyperscanning. A sample of 25 adolescent-parent dyads completed the picture processing task. Adolescents’ ages ranged from 10 to 14 years old. The results showed that (1) at parietal areas, greater gamma interbrain synchrony was observed in the high social anxiety adolescent-parent dyads (HSAs) than the low social anxiety adolescent-parent dyads (LSAs) in the positive conditions. However, greater gamma interbrain synchrony of the picture processing task was observed in the LSAs than the HSAs in the negative conditions. (2) Compared with the neutral condition, LSAs induced greater interbrain synchronization in the negative condition than in the neutral condition at central and parietal areas. However, HSAs induced greater interbrain synchronization in the positive condition than in the negative condition at parietal areas. (3) HSAs induced greater interbrain synchronization at parietal areas than in the central areas in positive conditions. The results provide neurological evidence that the way parent and adolescent process different emotions in the same emotional episode could be affected by the adolescent's anxiety level.     

Inferences about interdependence shape cooperation

During social interactions in daily life, people possess imperfect knowledge of their interdependence (i.e., how behaviors affect each person’s outcomes), and what people infer about their interdependence can shape their behaviors. We review theory and research that suggests people can infer their interdependence with others along several dimensions, including mutual dependence, power, and corresponding-versus-conflicting interests. We discuss how perceptions of interdependence affect how people cooperate and punish others’ defection in everyday life. We propose that people understand their interdependence with others through knowledge of the action space, cues during social interactions (e.g., partner behaviors), and priors based on experience. Finally, we describe how learning interdependence could occur through domain-specific and domain-general mechanisms.     

Implicit ambivalence of significant others: Significant others trigger positive and negative evaluations

Despite the rich literature on implicit partner evaluations, there has been scant attention to a defining feature of significant other mental representations—their affective complexity. Recent findings (Zayas & Shoda, 2015), however, provide an empirical demonstration that significant others automatically and simultaneously activate positive and negative evaluations—a phenomenon we refer to as implicit ambivalence. A primary aim of this paper is to extend extant theory by elaborating on the features of the dyadic context that may contribute to the formation of implicit ambivalence. Particularly, drawing from research from relationship science, social cognition, and social neuroscience, we focus on the ability of significant others to dynamically and simultaneously confer rewards and threats, the attunement of perceivers to potential social rewards and social threats, and aspects of sense‐making of another person's mind that may give rise to implicit ambivalence. From this new perspective, implicit ambivalence is not a pathological or rare state. Quite the opposite, implicit ambivalence may be a normative, typical process, that is triggered even by people who are highly positive in one's network. We identify future directions for social cognition and relationship science.     

Subjectivity uncertainty theory of objectification: Compensating for uncertainty about how to positively relate to others by downplaying their subjective attributes

Why do people sometimes view others as objects rather than complete persons? We propose that when people desire successful interactions with others, yet feel uncertain about their ability to navigate others' subjectivity, they downplay others' subjective attributes, focusing instead on their concrete attributes. This account suggests that objectification represents a response to uncertainty about one's ability to successfully interact with others distinct from: instrumentalizing others in response to power; dehumanizing others in response to threat; and simplifying others in response to general uncertainty. Supporting this account: When uncertainty about navigating women's subjectivity was salient, men showed increased sexual objectification to the extent that they desired successful interactions with women (Study 1) and were primed to view such interactions as self-esteem relevant (Study 2). In a workplace scenario, participants made uncertain about their managerial ability felt less confident about their ability to navigate employees' subjectivity and, consequently, role-objectified employees (Study 3).     

Can I leave my hat on? A cross-level study of multiple team membership role separation

This article conceptualizes role separation in multiple team membership (MTM) (i.e., the extent to which a multiteamer's role within a focal team is different from his/her role in another team) as a key predictor of individual and team outcomes. Existing literature on MTM focuses primarily on the total number of concurrent teams that an individual contributes to, and thus largely ignores the potential diversity that may characterize MTM. In Study 1, we develop and validate a measure of MTM role separation that reflects differences in (a) expected work results; (b) team collaboration; (c) leader expectations; and (d) client and/or customer characteristics. In Study 2, we use field data to examine the cross-level implications of MTM role separation. As expected, we find that MTM role separation is positively related to a multiteamer's role ambiguity within a focal team and, by extension, harms the performance of the entire focal team. This indirect relationship is not observed when a focal team's teamwork quality (TWQ) is high. We discuss how these findings advance our understanding of the multifaceted and multi-level nature of MTM and help multiteamers, team leaders, and organizations deal with MTM's challenges.     

Aggression and prosocial behaviors in social conflicts mediating the influence of cold social intelligence and affective empathy on children's social preference

This study proposes a model in which aggressive and prosocial behaviors exhibited in social conflicts mediate the influence of empathy and social intelligence to children's social preference by same‐sex peers. Data were obtained from kindergarten to the end of the first grade. The sample yielded 117 Spanish children (64 girls and 53 boys) with a mean age of 62.8 months (SD = 3.3) at the beginning of the study. For boys, affective empathy contributed to boys’ social preference through a decrease in physical aggression as responses to social conflict. For girls, affective empathy had an indirect effect on girls’ preference by increasing assistance to others in their conflicts. No mediating effect in the contribution of social intelligence on girls’ social preference was detected. Our results suggest that, only for girls, cold social intelligence can promote both indirect aggression (coercive strategic that do not leave social preference, at least at these ages) and behaviors that lead social preference (such as prosocial behaviors).     

Infant–mother and infant–father synchrony: The coregulation of positive arousal

To examine the coregulation of positive affect during mother–infant and father–infant interactions, 100 couples and their first‐born child were videotaped in face‐to‐face interactions. Parents' and infant's affective states were coded in one‐second frames, and synchrony was measured with time‐series analysis. The orientation, intensity, and temporal pattern of infant positive arousal were assessed. Synchrony between same‐gender parent–infant dyads was more optimal in terms of stronger lagged associations between parent and infant affect, more frequent mutual synchrony, and shorter lags to responsiveness. Infants' arousal during mother–infant interaction cycled between medium and low levels, and high positive affect appeared gradually and was embedded within a social episode. During father–child play, positive arousal was high, sudden, and organized in multiple peaks that appeared more frequently as play progressed. Mother–infant synchrony was linked to the partners' social orientation and was inversely related to maternal depression and infant negative emotionality. Father–child synchrony was related to the intensity of positive arousal and to father attachment security. Results contribute to research on the regulation of positive emotions and describe the unique modes of affective sharing that infants coconstruct with mother and father. ©2003 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health.