Impressions of Milgram's obedient teachers: situational cues inform inferences about motives and traits

The research investigated impressions formed of a "teacher" who obeyed an experimenter by delivering painful electric shocks to an innocent person (S. Milgram, 1963, 1974). Three findings emerged across different methodologies and different levels of experimenter-induced coercion. First, contrary to conventional wisdom, perceivers both recognized and appreciated situational forces, such as the experimenter's orders that prompted the aggression. Second, perceivers' explanations of the teacher's behavior focused on the motive of obedience (i.e., wanting to appease the experimenter) rather than on hurtful (or evil) motivation. Despite this overall pattern, perceptions of hurtful versus helpful motivation varied as a function of information regarding the level of coercion applied by the experimenter. Finally, theoretically important relationships were revealed among perceptions of situations, motives, and traits. In particular, situational cues (such as aspects of the experimenter's behavior) signaled the nature of the teacher's motives, which in turn informed inferences of the teacher's traits. Overall, the findings pose problems for the lay dispositionism perspective but fit well with multiple inference models of dispositional inference.     

Effect of timing of information about mitigating circumstances on emotional responses to provocation and retaliatory behavior

To determine whether the reduction of retaliatory behavior by knowledge of mitigating circumstances is due to less motivation to retaliate or to an inhibition of motivated retaliation, subjects were provoked by a rude experimenter and informed of mitigating conditions (a) before provocation, (b) after provocation, or (c) not at all. Physiological data revealed that prior knowledge of mitigation prevented pronounced excitatory responses to prococation. In contrast, when mitigating conditions were not known, excitatory responses to provocation were intense. In addition, when mitigating information was supplied after provocation, excitatory responses decayed more rapidly than when no such information was supplied. Retaliatory behavior, as measured in complaints about the rude experimenter, was substantially lower in the condition in which mitigation preceded provocation than in the other two conditions. The retaliatory behavior of subjects who were informed of mitigation after being provoked did not differ significantly from that of subjects who were not informed of mitigation. The findings were interpreted as incompatible with the assumption that under mitigating conditions retaliation is motivated but inhibited and as generally supportive of the proposal that mitigation attenuates the response to provocation. In order to explain the failure of the reception of mitigating information after provocation to reduce retaliatory behavior in spite of the observed facilitation of excitatory decay, it was suggested that when subjects were experiencing high levels of anger, they formed a behavioral disposition to retaliate, which outlasted the state of elevated arousal.     

The role of goal-directed behavior in intention attribution in children

In this study, we addressed the question of the nature of the information needed by 13-month-old infants to understand another agent's intentions. In two experiments, an experimenter was either unable or unwilling to give a toy to an infant. Importantly, an implement (a gutter in which the toy could roll down toward the infant) was used to make the experimenter's behavior as similar as possible in the two conditions. When the experimenter remained still in both conditions, infants did not behave differently according to the experimenter's intentions, suggesting that they did not infer them. By contrast, in a second experiment, where the experimenter performed an action directed toward the gutter in both conditions, the infants looked away from the experimental setting more often and longer in the unwilling condition than in the unable condition. They also looked more toward the experimenter in the unable condition than in the unwilling condition. Therefore, we conclude that an agent's intentional attitude can already be inferred by a 13-month-old provided that this intention is concretely shown through a goal-directed action.     

Infants prefer to imitate a reliable person

Research has shown that preschoolers prefer to learn from individuals who are a reliable source of information. The current study examined whether the past reliability of a person's emotional signals influences infants’ willingness to imitate that person. An emotional referencing task was first administered to infants in order to demonstrate the experimenter's credibility or lack thereof. Next, infants in both conditions watched as the same experimenter turned on a touch light using her forehead. Infants were then given the opportunity to reproduce this novel action. As expected, infants in the unreliable condition developed the expectation that the person's emotional cues were misleading. Thus, these infants were subsequently more likely to use their hands than their foreheads when attempting to turn on the light. In contrast, infants in the reliable group were more likely to imitate the experimenter's action using their foreheads. These results suggest that the reliability of the model influences infants’ imitation.     

6~8岁儿童公平行为的内在动机：社会信号的作用

公平行为是个体对自己或别人不偏不倚的行为,存在本质公平与表现公平。本质公平,即个体本身渴望公平,能够依据某种公平原则做出公平行为;表现公平,即个体在行为上做出公平的表现而实质并非来自本身的意愿。研究1选取270名6~8岁儿童,采用资源分配任务考察儿童在有无社会信号作用下表现公平行为的发展特点,研究2选取300名6~8岁儿童,采用抛硬币任务来考察儿童是否会用公平程序来掩盖其不公平行为。结果表明：(1)有无社会信号条件对儿童公平行为存在显著影响,并存在显著的年龄差异。有社会信号条件下,儿童更多选择公平行为,无社会信号条件下,儿童更多选择对自己有利的不公平分配。(2)儿童选择通过抛硬币的方式来获取奖品的人数随着年龄增长显著上升,抛硬币的儿童报告自己得到好的奖品的概率显著多于得到不好奖品的概率。结论：社会信号作用下儿童更多会做出表现公平而非本质公平。     

Effects of personality and loss of anonymity on aggression: a reevaluation of deindividuation.

Zimbardo's deindividuation hypothesis was reexamined by individuating some subjects. Twelve four-person groups administered shock to a confederate in a 2 x 2 x 2 factorial design with two levels of social individuation (subjects' level of anonymity to group members), two levels of nonsocial individuation (subjects' opportunity to give identifying information to the experimenter on a word association test) and two levels of individual differences. It was found that subjects, who individuated themselves by giving information to the experimenter on the word association test showed more, not less, antisocial behavior. Furthermore, this increased antisocial behavior was exhibited only by externally oriented subjects: those with an external locus of control and a low mysticism score. Some of those more antisocial subjects were also more likely to report feeling like they stood out from the group. It was concluded that antisocial behavior in this paradigm may thus be a response to experimenter demand felt most strongly when subjects felt most identifiable.     

Developmental patterns of change in the influence of safe and risky peer choices on risky decision‐making

Adolescents take more risks when peers monitor their behavior. However, it is largely unknown how different types of peer influence affect adolescent decision‐making. In this study, we investigate how information about previous choices of peers differentially influences decision‐making in adolescence and young adulthood. Participants (N = 99, age range 12–22) completed an economic choice task in which choice options were systematically varied on levels of risk and ambiguity. On each trial, participants selected between a safer choice (low variability in outcome) and a riskier choice (high variability in outcome). Participants made choices in three conditions: a solo condition in which they made choices with no additional information, a social condition in which they saw choices of supposed peers, and a computer condition in which they saw choices of a computer. Results showed that participants’ choices conform to the choices made by the peers, but not a computer. Furthermore, when peers chose the safe option, late adolescents were especially likely to make a safe choice. Conversely, when the peer made a risky choice, late adolescents were least likely to follow choices made by the peer. We did not find evidence for differential influence of social information on decisions depending on their level of risk and ambiguity. These results show that information about previous decisions of peers are a powerful modifier for behavior and that the effect of peers on adolescents’ decisions is less ubiquitous and more specific than previously assumed.     

Should I invite them? Bystanders' inclusivity judgements towards outgroup victims and ingroup bullies in intergroup bullying

This study examined bystanders' judgements of bullying and their inclusivity towards refugee victims and ingroup bully peers. Participants included 587 Turkish adolescents (M_age = 13.14, SD = 1.60) who were presented with two stories: intergroup (Syrian refugee victim) and intragroup (Turkish victim) bullying. They indicated acceptability of bullying, retaliation, and how likely they would be to include victims and bullies in different social contexts. Empathy, prejudice, desired social distance, and peer norms towards Syrian refugees were examined as predictors. Adolescents in schools with a higher number of Syrian peers were more likely to expect they would include the Syrian victim than adolescents in schools with a lower number of Syrian peers. Further, adolescents with higher empathy were more likely to include the Syrian victim while adolescents with higher prejudice and desired social distance were less likely to include the Syrian victim. The results highlight the importance of attending to bystanders' future interactions with victims and bullies, as bystanders have the opportunity to challenge injustice by promoting inclusive school climates in diverse societies. Please refer to the Supplementary Material section to find this article's Community and Social Impact Statement .     

Infants interpret ambiguous requests for absent objects

The current studies investigated 2 skills involved in 14- to 20- month-olds' ability to interpret ambiguous requests for absent objects: tracking others' experiences (Study 1) and representing links between speakers and object features across present and absent reference episodes (Study 2). In the basic task, 2 experimenters played separately with a different ball. The balls were placed in opaque containers. One experimenter asked infants to retrieve her ball using an ambiguous request ("Where's the ball?"). In Study 1, infants used the experimenter's prior verbal and physical contact with the ball to interpret the request. A control condition demonstrated that infants were interpreting the request and not responding to the mere presence of the experimenter. Study 2 revealed that only infants who were given stable cues to the ball's spatial location appropriately interpreted the request: When spatial information was put in conflict with a color cue, infants did not select the correct ball. Links to infants' spatial memory skills and emerging pragmatic understanding are discussed.     

In the Eye of the Beholder: Eye-tracking Assessment of Social Information Processing in Aggressive Behavior

Acording to social information processing theories, aggressive children are hypersensitive to cues of hostility and threat in other people’s behavior. However, even though there is ample evidence that aggressive children over-interpret others’ behaviors as hostile, it is unclear whether this hostile attribution tendency does actually result from overattending to hostile and threatening cues. Since encoding is posited to consist of rapid automatic processes, it is hard to assess with the selfreport measures that have been used so far. Therefore, we used a novel approach to investigate visual encoding of social information. The eye movements of thirty 10–13 year old children with lower levels and thirty children with higher levels of aggressive behavior were monitored in real time with an eyetracker, as the children viewed ten different cartoon series of ambiguous provocation situations. In addition, participants answered questions concerning encoding and interpretation. Aggressive children did not attend more to hostile cues, nor attend less to non-hostile cues than non-aggressive children. Contrary, aggressive children looked longer at non-hostile cues, but nonetheless attributed more hostile intent than their non-aggressive peers. These findings contradict the traditional bottom-up processing hypotheses that aggressive behavior would be related with failure to attend to non-hostile cues. The findings seem best explained by topdown information processing, where aggressive children’s pre-existing hostile intent schemata (1) direct attention towards schema inconsistent non-hostile cues, (2) prevent further processing and recall of such schema-inconsistent information, and (3) lead to hostile intent attribution and aggressive responding, disregarding the schema-inconsistent non-hostile information.     

Effects of personality and loss of anonymity on aggression: A revaluation of deindividuation1

Zimbardo's deindividuation hypothesis was reexamined by individuating some subjects. Twelve four-person groups administered shock to a confederate in a 2 × 2 × 2 factorial design with two levels of social individuation (subjects' level of anonymity to group members), two levels of nonsocial individuation (subjects' opportunity to give identifying information to the experimenter on a word association test), and two levels of individual differences. It was found that subjects who individuated themselves by giving information to the experimenter on the word association test showed more, not less, antisocial behavior. Furthermore, this increased antisocial behavior was exhibited only by externally oriented subjects: those with an external locus of control and a low mysticism score. Some of those more antisocial subjects were also more likely to report feeling like they stood out from the group. It was concluded that antisocial behavior in this paradigm may thus be a response to experimenter demand felt most strongly when subjects felt most identifiable.     

大学生在社会困境中的公平决策:社会价值取向的影响

通过两项研究考查大学生在社会困境中的行为决策及公平感体验,检验社会价值取向的影响作用,有效被试分别为85名和84名。结果表明:(1)亲社会者比亲自我者更倾向做公平决策;信息对称比不对称条件更促进被试做公平决策;女生比男生更倾向做公平决策。(2)性别在社会价值取向与信息对称性对公平决策的影响中起调节作用,社会价值取向显著影响男生的公平决策,信息对称性显著影响女生的公平决策。(3)社会价值取向显著影响个体对不公平的容忍度,亲社会者更不容忍不公平行为。(4)对于利己的不公平行为,被试都倾向接受,亲社会者并不比亲自我者体验到更强的内疚情绪;对于不利己的不公平行为,被试都倾向拒绝,且产生较强的不公平感及气愤情绪。     

The effects of experimenter's instructions, feedback, and praise on teacher praise and student attending behavior

Systematic use of experimenter's instructions, feedback, and feedback plus social praise was used to increase teacher praise for student attending behavior of three elementary school teachers. Experimenter's verbal interactions with teachers, teacher's verbal praise for student behaviors, and pupil attending behavior were recorded during baseline conditions. As the three successive experimental conditions were introduced first with Teacher A, then with Teacher B, in a multiple baseline design, behaviors of the experimenter, the two teachers, and eight students were measured and recorded. In the cases of Teachers A and B, experimental condition one (Instructions) and experimental condition two (Feedback) produced inconclusive results. Experimental condition three (Feedback Plus Social Praise) produced more teacher praise for student attending behavior. The entire "Package" of Experimenter's Instructions, Feedback, and Feedback Plus Social Praise was introduced to Teacher C in a single experimental condition. As in the cases of Teachers A and B, behaviors measured were: (1) the experimenter's verbal interactions, (2) the teacher's praise of students, and (3) the student's attending behavior. Introduction of the "Package" also produced more teacher praise for student attending behavior.     

阶段转移事件对公平稳定性的影响

摘要：目前,组织公平的研究多集中于组织公平与组织结果变量之间关系,较少关注组织公平的稳定性。本文采取4（公平模式：公平控制/初始公平/不公平控制/初始不公平）×2（实验阶段：阶段1/阶段2）混合实验设计,探讨阶段转移事件对被试公平反应稳定性的影响。研究结果显示,公平对待导致积极的公平反应,不公平对待导致消极的公平反应;公平程序向不公平程序的转移导致对实验者信任和组织公民行为意向的评价显著降低;而不公平程序向公平程序的转移并没有导致对实验者信任和组织公民行为意向评价的显著增加,从而说明了公平反应的有限稳定性。     

You give me the chills: embodied reactions to inappropriate amounts of behavioral mimicry

In the research reported here, we investigated how suspicious nonverbal cues from other people can trigger feelings of physical coldness. There exist implicit standards for how much nonverbal behavioral mimicry is appropriate in various types of social interactions, and individuals may react negatively when interaction partners violate these standards. One such reaction may be feelings of physical coldness. Participants in three studies either were or were not mimicked by an experimenter in various social contexts. In Study 1, participants who interacted with an affiliative experimenter reported feeling colder if they were not mimicked than if they were, and participants who interacted with a task-oriented experimenter reported feeling colder if they were mimicked than if they were not. Studies 2 and 3 demonstrated that it was not the amount of mimicry per se that moderated felt coldness; rather, felt coldness was moderated by the inappropriateness of the mimicry given implicit standards set by individual differences (Study 2) and racial differences (Study 3). Implications for everyday subjective experience are discussed.     

Curiosity Is Contagious: A Social Influence Intervention to Induce Curiosity

Our actions and decisions are regularly influenced by the social environment around us. Can social cues be leveraged to induce curiosity and affect subsequent behavior? Across two experiments, we show that curiosity is contagious: The social environment can influence people's curiosity about the answers to scientific questions. Participants were presented with everyday questions about science from a popular on-line forum, and these were shown with a high or low number of up-votes as a social cue to popularity. Participants indicated their curiosity about the answers, and they were given an opportunity to reveal a subset of those answers. Participants reported greater curiosity about the answers to questions when the questions were presented with a high (vs. low) number of up-votes, and they were also more likely to choose to reveal the answers to questions with a high (vs. low) number of up-votes. These effects were partially mediated by surprise and by the inferred usefulness of knowledge, with a more dramatic effect of low up-votes in reducing curiosity than of high up-votes in boosting curiosity. Taken together, these results highlight the important role social information plays in shaping our curiosity.     

Now you see me,now you don't: evidence that chimpanzees understand the role of the eyes in attention

Chimpanzees appear to understand something about the attentional states of others; in the present experiment, we investigated whether they understand that the attentional state of a human is based on eye gaze. In all, 116 adult chimpanzees were offered food by an experimenter who engaged in one of the four experimental manipulations: eyes closed, eyes open, hand over eyes, and hand over mouth. The communicative behavior of the chimpanzees was observed. More visible behaviors were produced when the experimenter's eyes were visible than when the experimenter's eyes were not visible. More vocalizations were produced when the experimenter's eyes were closed than when they were open, but there were no differences in other attention getting behaviors. There was no effect of age or rearing history. The results suggest that chimpanzees use the presence of the eyes as a cue that their visual gestures will be effective.     

Self-esteem of victim and the intent of third-party aggression in the reduction of hostile aggression

High- and low-self-esteem male subjects were angered by a male confederate's critical reply to their autobiographical letter. A comparison with a nonangered group showed that this insulting reply led to aggression as measured by both administered shock and changes in self-rated hostility. Subjects who had been angered next heard one of three speeches by the experimenter: a speech in retaliation to the confederate's reply, a speech in retaliation to an unrelated incident, or a control, filler speech. Third-party retaliation related to the insulting reply reduced aggression, while third-party retaliation unrelated to the reply failed to reduce aggression in the overall analysis. Comparisons were also made within each level of self-esteem. There were no significant differences between the experimental treatments among the high-self-esteem subjects. Among low-self-esteem subjects, both related and unrelated retaliation significantly reduced subjects' aggression, but related retaliation was significantly more effective in reducing aggression than was unrelated retaliation. The results were interpreted as supporting equity and self-esteem explanations of hostile aggression.These studies were conducted as part of a doctoral dissertation in the Department of Psychology, University of Miami. The author wishes to express his gratitude to his chairman, Dr. Edward J. Murray; to Pedro Villa, who served as the second experimenter; and to Robert Anacreonte, Kenneth Koos, Joel Lerner, Carlos Pages, and Michael Sisbarro, who served as confederates.     

EVALUATING COMPETENCE OF WOMEN AND MEN

College students (78 females, 79 males) were placed in all-female, all-male, or mixed-gender groups. In the presence of a male or female experimenter, subjects evaluated an article written by a female or male job applicant. Subjects in mixed-gender groups generally evaluated the female applicant more favorably in the presence of the female experimenter than the male experimenter. Subjects in mixed-gender groups also rated the female applicant more favorably than the male applicant in the presence of the female experimenter. Male subjects generally were more influenced than were females by the experimenter's gender, tending to give higher ratings to the applicant of the same gender as the experimenter.