Motivated social categorization: fundamental motives enhance people's sensitivity to basic social categories

This article presents an evolutionary framework for identifying the characteristics people use to categorize members of their social world. Findings suggest that fundamental social motives lead people to implicitly categorize social targets based on whether those targets display goal-relevant phenotypic traits. A mate-search prime caused participants to categorize opposite-sex targets (but not same-sex targets) based on their level of physical attractiveness (Experiment 1). A mate-guarding prime interacted with relationship investment, causing participants to categorize same-sex targets (but not opposite-sex targets) based on their physical attractiveness (Experiment 2). A self-protection prime interacted with chronic beliefs about danger, increasing participants' tendency to categorize targets based on their racial group membership (Black or White; Experiment 3). This work demonstrates that people categorize others based on whether they display goal-relevant characteristics reflecting high levels of perceived desirability or threat. Social categorization is guided by fundamental evolved motives designed to enhance adaptive social outcomes.     

Social anxiety and interpersonal perception: a social relations model analysis

Cognitive models of social phobia posit that an individual's negative beliefs about the way he or she is perceived by others (metaperceptions) are a core feature of the disorder. The social relations model () was used to analyze interpersonal perception data collected following unstructured social interactions in 62 socially anxious (SA) and 62 not socially anxious (NSA) individuals. Using this model, the interpersonal perceptions were analyzed to evaluate whether pathological levels of social anxiety are associated with self-perceptions, metaperceptions, and perceptions from others. SA participants saw themselves negatively and believed others saw them negatively. Although seen as more nervous by others, SA participants were not seen as less likeable. A mediational model demonstrated that the negative metaperceptions of SA individuals were more a function of their own self-perceptions than the negative perceptions of others. These findings were not attributable to depressive symptoms. Implications for theory and treatment of social phobia are discussed.     

Self-concept, social anxiety, and interpersonal perception skills

The Interpersonal Perception Task videotape provided a criterion variable to test hypotheses about social information processing skills of socially anxious subjects. Results from 68 undergraduates show negative correlations between both shyness social anxiety and nonverbal decoding scores, and positive correlations between shyness and measures of test anxiety. Results are interpreted in light of cognitive conceptions of social anxiety and its role in decoding nonverbal communication.     

Neural correlates of social perception on response bias

Accurate person perception is crucial in social decision-making. One of the central elements in successful social perception is the ability to understand another’s response bias; this is because the same behavior can represent different inner states depending on whether other people are yea-sayers or naysayers. In the present study, we have tried to investigate how the internal biases of others are perceived. Using a multi-trial learning paradigm, perceivers made predictions about a target’s responses to various suggested activities and then received feedback for each prediction trial-by-trial. Our hypotheses were that (1) the internal decision criterion of the targets would be realized through repeated experiences, and (2) due to positive–negative asymmetry, yea-sayers would be recognized more gradually than naysayers through the probabilistic integration of repeated experiences. To find neural evidence that tracks probabilistic integration when forming person knowledge on response biases, we employed a model-based fMRI with a State-Space Model. We discovered that person knowledge about yea-sayers modulated several brain regions, including caudate nucleus, DLPFC, hippocampus, etc. Moreover, when person knowledge was updated with incorrect performance feedback, brain regions including the caudate nucleus, DLPFC, dmPFC, and TPJ were also involved. There were overlapping regions for both processes, caudate nucleus and DLPFC, suggesting that these regions take crucial roles in forming person knowledge with repeated feedback, while reflecting acquired information up to the current prediction.     

Translational research: how social psychology can improve psychotherapy

In an effort to generate innovative treatments, the National Institute of Mental Health has made translational research for alleviating mental illness a major funding priority. Although translational research is a powerful approach for moving basic science findings into novel treatments, it remains ambiguous and rarely implemented in psychology. The current article describes conceptual and methodological issues involved with translational research, including considerations about time frame, scope of hypothesis tested, dose of treatment, contraindication, and sampling. Translational concepts and methods are illustrated with areas of social psychology that are promising for translation into solutions for pressing questions in psychotherapy research.     

What we think we do (to each other): how personality can bias behavior schemas through the projection of if-then profiles

People's knowledge about others includes not only person schemas about the typical traits of others but also behavior schemas about the likely interpersonal consequences of different behaviors. In this article, it is argued that perceiver effects can be interactive at the level of behavior schemas. A person's own personality configuration of if-then responses in social interactions (Mischel & Shoda, 1995) may contribute to that person's beliefs about the meaning and impact of relational behaviors more generally. In consequence, people who experience strong (or weak) responses to behaviors that vary along a particular trait dimension, such as warmth-coldness, may expect others to experience similarly strong (or weak) responses to those same kinds of behaviors. In 3 studies, people who were high in trait communion expected others to respond more strongly to behaviors that varied in warmth-coldness than did people who were low in trait communion, and people who were low in trait agency expected others to respond more strongly to behaviors that varied in assertiveness-unassertiveness than did people who were high in trait agency. Studies 2 and 3 provided evidence that participants' behavior schemas were based on assumptions derived from their own if-then personality profiles.     

Selective attention to signs of success: social dominance and early stage interpersonal perception

Results from two experiments suggest that observers selectively attend to male, but not female, targets displaying signs of social dominance. Participants overestimated the frequency of dominant men in rapidly presented stimulus arrays (Study 1) and visually fixated on dominant men in an eyetracking experiment (Study 2). When viewing female targets, participants attended to signs of physical attractiveness rather than social dominance. Findings fit with evolutionary models of mating, which imply that dominance and physical attractiveness sometimes tend to be prioritized preferentially in judgments of men versus women, respectively. Findings suggest that sex differences in human mating are observed not only at the level of overt mating preferences and choices but also at early stages of interpersonal perception. This research demonstrates the utility of examining early-in-the-stream social cognition through the functionalist lens of adaptive thinking.     

Considering multiple criteria for social categorization can reduce intergroup bias

Two experiments tested the notion that considering multiple criteria for social categorization can reduce intergroup bias. In both experiments, participants were required to consider alternative ways in which people could be classified, other than an initially salient intergroup dichotomy. In Experiment 1, the authors found that generating alternative social classifications that were unrelated to an initial target dichotomy reduced intergroup bias compared to a control condition. In Experiment 2, this effect was replicated and the authors found that unrelated, but not related, categorizations were necessary to reduce bias. This article adds support to the view that increasing categorical complexity is a useful tool in bias reduction. These findings are discussed in the context of a developing model of multiple categorization effects.     

Emoticons in computer-mediated communication: social motives and social context.

This study investigated the role of emoticons in computer-mediated communication (CMC). The study consisted of an online questionnaire about the social motives for emoticon use and an experimental part in which participants (N = 1,251) had to respond to short Internet chats. In these chats, the interaction partner (friend vs. stranger) and the valence of the context (positive vs. negative) were manipulated. Results showed that emoticons are mostly used to express emotion, to strengthen a message, and to express humor. Furthermore, more emoticons were used in communication with friends than in communication with strangers, and more emoticons were used in a positive context than in a negative context. Participants seem to use emoticons in a way similar to facial behavior in face-to-face communication with respect to social context and interaction partner.     

Effects of head orientation on gaze perception: how positive congruency effects can be reversed

Several past studies have considered how perceived head orientation may be combined with perceived gaze direction in judging where someone else is attending. In three experiments we tested the impact of different sources of information by examining the role of head orientation in gaze-direction judgements when presenting: (a) the whole face; (b) the face with the nose masked; (c) just the eye region, removing all other head-orientation cues apart from some visible part of the nose; or (d) just the eyes, with all parts of the nose masked and no head orientation cues present other than those within the eyes themselves. We also varied time pressure on gaze direction judgements. The results showed that gaze judgements were not solely driven by the eye region. Gaze perception can also be affected by parts of the head and face, but in a manner that depends on the time constraints for gaze direction judgements. While “positive” congruency effects were found with time pressure (i.e., faster left/right judgements of seen gaze when the seen head deviated towards the same side as that gaze), the opposite applied without time pressure.     

Toward a synthesis of cognitive biases: how noisy information processing can bias human decision making

A single coherent framework is proposed to synthesize long-standing research on 8 seemingly unrelated cognitive decision-making biases. During the past 6 decades, hundreds of empirical studies have resulted in a variety of rules of thumb that specify how humans systematically deviate from what is normatively expected from their decisions. Several complementary generative mechanisms have been proposed to explain those cognitive biases. Here it is suggested that (at least) 8 of these empirically detected decision-making biases can be produced by simply assuming noisy deviations in the memory-based information processes that convert objective evidence (observations) into subjective estimates (decisions). An integrative framework is presented to show how similar noise-based mechanisms can lead to conservatism, the Bayesian likelihood bias, illusory correlations, biased self-other placement, subadditivity, exaggerated expectation, the confidence bias, and the hard-easy effect. Analytical tools from information theory are used to explore the nature and limitations that characterize such information processes for binary and multiary decision-making exercises. The ensuing synthesis offers formal mathematical definitions of the biases and their underlying generative mechanism, which permits a consolidated analysis of how they are related. This synthesis contributes to the larger goal of creating a coherent picture that explains the relations among the myriad of seemingly unrelated biases and their potential psychological generative mechanisms. Limitations and research questions are discussed.     

The relationship between interpersonal perception and post-traumatic stress disorder-related functional impairment: a social relations model analysis

This study used Kenny's social relations model to examine the relationship between Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder-related impairment and interpersonal perceptions. Participants were 124 students who had previously completed the Post-traumatic Stress Diagnostic Scale as part of a larger study. After engaging in brief dyadic conversations with 3 other students, participants recorded perceptions of personality traits for themselves, their interaction partners and how they believed their partners saw them (metaperceptions). Results indicated that those with more severe post-traumatic stress disorder-related impairment saw themselves negatively and believed their interaction partners also viewed them negatively. However, these individuals were not seen differently by others, except that they were rated as less dependable. Our findings suggest that post-traumatic stress disorder is associated with negative beliefs about the self that may influence self-esteem and interpersonal relationships.     

The influence of improper sets of information on judgment: how irrelevant information can bias judged probability

This article introduces 2 new sources of bias in probability judgment, discrimination failure and inhibition failure, which are conceptualized as arising from an interaction between error prone memory processes and a support theory like comparison process. Both sources of bias stem from the influence of irrelevant information on participants' probability judgments, but they postulate different mechanisms for how irrelevant information affects judgment. The authors used an adaptation of the proactive interference (PI) and release from PI paradigm to test the effect of irrelevant information on judgment. The results of 2 experiments support the discrimination failure account of the effect of PI on probability judgment. In addition, the authors show that 2 commonly used measures of judgment accuracy, absolute and relative accuracy, can be dissociated. The results have broad implications for theories of judgment.     

Reconceptualizing individual differences in self-enhancement bias: an interpersonal approach

Self-enhancement bias has been studied from 2 perspectives: L. Festinger's (1954) social comparison theory (self-enhancers perceive themselves more positively than they perceive others) and G. W. Allport's (1937) self-insight theory (self-enhancers perceive themselves more positively than they are perceived by others). These 2 perspectives are theoretically and empirically distinct, and the failure to recognize their differences has led to a protracted debate. A new interpersonal approach to self-enhancement decomposes self-perception into 3 components: perceiver effect, target effect, and unique self-perception. Both theoretical derivations and an illustrative study suggest that this resulting measure of self-enhancement is less confounded by unwanted components of interpersonal perception than previous social comparison and self-insight measures. Findings help reconcile conflicting views about whether self-enhancement is adaptive or maladaptive.     

Standing up for a change: reducing bias through interpersonal confrontation

Three experiments examined the effectiveness of interpersonal confrontations as a means for decreasing stereotypic responding. After making stereotypic inferences about Black individuals, participants were confronted and reactions were measured across various intrapersonal and interpersonal response domains. Confrontations varied in level of hostility (Experiment 1) and whether they were expressed by a Black or White person (Experiment 2). Results indicate that although confrontations (and particularly hostile ones) elicited negative emotions and evaluations toward the confronter, participants also experienced negative self-directed affect. Furthermore, regardless of who did the confronting or how much hostility was expressed, confronted participants subsequently were less likely to provide stereotypic responses (Experiments 1-2), and the effect of the confrontation generalized to reporting less prejudiced attitudes (Experiment 3).     

Experiments combining communication with punishment options demonstrate how individuals can overcome social dilemmas

Guala raises important questions about the misinterpretation of experimental studies that have found that subjects engage in costly punishment. Instead of positing that punishment is the solution for social dilemmas, earlier research posited that when individuals facing a social dilemma agreed on their own rules and used graduated sanctions, they were more likely to have robust solutions over time.