Overgeneralizing Belonging: Limited Exposure to Baby-Faced Targets Increases the Feeling of Social Belonging

We tested the hypothesis that exposure to babyish faces can serve a social surrogacy function, such that even limited exposure to babyish faces can fulfill social belongingness needs. We manipulated the sex and facial maturity of a target face seen in an imagined social interaction, on a between-participants basis. Regardless of target sex, individuals indicated greater satisfaction of social belongingness needs following an imagined interaction with a babyish face, compared to a mature adult face. These results indicate that brief exposure to babyish (relative to mature) faces, even without an extensive interaction, can lead to the satisfaction of social belongingness needs.     

The Social Nature of Perception and Action

ABSTRACT— Humans engage in a wide range of social activities. Previous research has focused on the role of higher cognitive functions, such as mentalizing (the ability to infer others' mental states) and language processing, in social exchange. This article reviews recent studies on action perception and joint action suggesting that basic perception–action links are crucial for many social interactions. Mapping perceived actions to one's own action repertoire enables direct understanding of others' actions and supports action identification. Joint action relies on shared action representations and involves modeling of others' performance in relation to one's own. Taking the social nature of perception and action seriously not only contributes to the understanding of dedicated social processes but has the potential to create a new perspective on the individual mind and brain.     

The flip side of the other‐race coin: They all look different to me

Poorer recognition of other‐race faces than own‐races faces has been attributed to a problem of discrimination (i.e., telling faces apart). The conclusion that ‘they all look the same to me' is based on studies measuring the perception/memory of highly controlled stimuli, typically involving only one or two images of each identity. We hypothesized that such studies underestimate the challenge involved in recognizing other‐race faces because in the real world, an individual's appearance varies in a number of ways (e.g., lighting, expression, hairstyle), reducing the utility of relying on pictorial cues to identity. In two experiments, Caucasian and East Asian participants completed a perceptual sorting task in which they were asked to sort 40 photographs of two unfamiliar identities into piles such that each pile contained all photographs of a single identity. Participants perceived more identities when sorting other‐race faces than own‐race faces, both when sorting celebrity (Experiment 1) and non‐celebrity (Experiment 2) faces, suggesting that in the real world, ‘they all look different to me'. We discuss these results in the light of models in which each identity is represented as a region in a multidimensional face space; we argue that this region is smaller for other‐race than own‐race faces.     

Facial first impressions and partner preference models: Comparable or distinct underlying structures?

Given the frequency of relationships nowadays initiated online, where impressions from face photographs may influence relationship initiation, it is important to understand how facial first impressions might be used in such contexts. We therefore examined the applicability of a leading model of verbally expressed partner preferences to impressions derived from real face images and investigated how the factor structure of first impressions based on potential partner preference-related traits might relate to a more general model of facial first impressions. Participants rated 1,000 everyday face photographs on 12 traits selected to represent (Fletcher, et al. 1999, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76, 72) verbal model of partner preferences. Facial trait judgements showed an underlying structure that largely paralleled the tripartite structure of Fletcher et al.'s verbal preference model, regardless of either face gender or participant gender. Furthermore, there was close correspondence between the verbal partner preference model and a more general tripartite model of facial first impressions derived from a different literature (Sutherland et al., 2013, Cognition, 127, 105), suggesting an underlying correspondence between verbal conceptual models of romantic preferences and more general models of facial first impressions.     

Conceptions of aggression and withdrawal in early childhood

Two studies investigate young children's beliefs about aggression and withdrawal in others with reference to the possibility of stability and change. Study 1 (N=41) provides evidence that preschool children (1) view aggression in more essentialist ways (i.e. they believe it to be more stable and less changeable) than withdrawal and (2) believe that friends hold a greater potential to create change in aggression and withdrawal than do other potential sources of influence, such as parents and teachers. Study 2 (N=25) replicates the findings of Study 1 and also demonstrates that by preschool age, children hold systematic ideas about the effectiveness of strategies that friends can use to change the behaviour of their peers. These ideas include the belief that prosocial strategies, such as showing peers how to make friends, are more effective than requests to stop engaging in undesirable behaviour. Study 2 also demonstrates that preschool‐aged participants engaged in essentialist reasoning to a greater extent than did a comparison group of 20 7–8 year olds. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Preschoolers Use Trait-Relevant Information to Evaluate the Appropriateness of an Aggressive Response

The tendency for 3- to 5-year-old children to use trait-relevant information about other people when evaluating aggressive responses to ambiguous behavior was examined across two studies (N = 81). Children were more likely to endorse the use of aggression against a "mean" versus a "nice" story character. Additionally, they were more likely to endorse the use of aggression against a story character who feels happy rather than sad when bad things happen to other kids. These findings suggest that, as early as preschool, trait-relevant information about other people can serve as a tool with which children evaluate the appropriateness of aggression in response to ambiguous behavior. Moreover, these findings provide evidence that even before the onset of formal schooling, trait and mental state information can influence social judgments.     

Character Disposition and Behavior Type: Influences of Valence on Preschool Children's Social Judgments

The authors studied the influences of valence information on preschool children's (n = 47) moral (good or bad), liking (liked or disliked by a friend), and consequence-of-behavior (reward or punishment) judgments. The authors presented 8 scenarios describing the behavior valence, positive valence (help, share), negative valence (verbal insult, physical aggression), and disposition valence (nice or mean) of characters in social interaction with a friend. Overall, character disposition and behavior valence significantly influenced children's judgments. Moral, liking, and consequence-of-behavior judgments varied significantly by character disposition for both positive behavior scenarios. In contrast, there were fewer significant findings as a function of character disposition for negative behavior scenarios, suggesting that the negative behavior cue somewhat diminished the effect of character disposition on children's judgments. The authors discuss preschool students’ coordination of information about valence of behavior and character disposition and the students’ reluctance to judge that misbehavior warrants punitive consequence.     

Facial first impressions from another angle: How social judgements are influenced by changeable and invariant facial properties

First impressions made to photographs of faces can depend as much on momentary characteristics of the photographed image (within‐person variability) as on consistent properties of the face of the person depicted (between‐person variability). Here, we examine two important sources of within‐person variability: emotional expression and viewpoint. We find more within‐person variability than between‐person variability for social impressions of key traits of trustworthiness, dominance, and attractiveness, which index the main dimensions in theoretical models of facial impressions. The most important source of this variability is the emotional expression of the face, but the viewpoint of the photograph also affects impressions and modulates the effects of expression. For example, faces look most trustworthy with a happy expression when they are facing the perceiver, compared to when they are facing elsewhere, whereas the opposite is true for anger and disgust. Our findings highlight the integration of these different sources of variability in social impression formation.     

The implicit cognition of reciprocal exchange: automatic retrieval of positive and negative experiences with partners in a prisoner's dilemma game

Models of reciprocity imply that cheater detection is an important prerequisite for successful social exchange. Considering the fundamental role of memory in reciprocal exchange, these theories lead to the prediction that memory for cheaters should be preferentially enhanced. Here, we examine whether information of a partner's previous behaviour in an interaction is automatically retrieved when encountering the face of a partner who previously cheated or cooperated. In two studies, participants played a sequential prisoner's dilemma game with cheaters and cooperative partners. Alternating with the game blocks, participants were asked to classify the smiling or angry facial expressions of cooperators and cheaters. Both experiments revealed congruence effects, reflecting faster identification of the smiles of cooperators (Experiments 1 and 2) and faster identification of the angry facial expressions of cheaters (Experiment 2). Our study provides evidence for the automatic retrieval of the partner's behaviour in the game, regardless of whether partners cheated or cooperated, and thus provides further evidence against the cheater detection hypothesis.     

Judging trustworthiness from faces: Emotion cues modulate trustworthiness judgments in young children

By adulthood, people judge trustworthiness from appearances rapidly and reliably. However, we know little about these judgments in children. This novel study investigates the developmental trajectory of explicit trust judgments from faces, and the contribution made by emotion cues across age groups. Five‐, 7‐, 10‐year‐olds, and adults rated the trustworthiness of trustworthy and untrustworthy faces with neutral expressions. The same participants also rated faces displaying overt happy and angry expressions, allowing us to investigate whether emotion cues modulate trustworthiness judgments similarly in children and adults. Results revealed that the ability to evaluate the trustworthiness of faces emerges in childhood, but may not be adult like until 10 years of age. Moreover, we show that emotion cues modulate trust judgments in young children, as well as adults. Anger cues diminished the appearance of trustworthiness for participants from 5 years of age and happy cues increased it, although this effect did not consistently emerge until later in childhood, that is, 10 years of age. These associations also extended to more subtle emotion cues present in neutral faces. Our results indicate that young children are sensitive to facial trustworthiness, and suggest that similar expression cues modulate these judgments in children and adults.     

Differential effects of makeup on perceived age

Makeup accentuates three youth‐related visual features – skin homogeneity, facial contrast, and facial feature size. By manipulating these visual features, makeup should make faces appear younger. We tested this hypothesis in an experiment in which participants estimated the age of carefully controlled photographs of faces with and without makeup. We found that 40‐ and especially 50‐year‐old women did appear significantly younger when wearing makeup. Contrary to our hypothesis, 30‐year‐old women looked no different in age with or without makeup, while 20‐year‐old women looked older with makeup. Two further studies replicated these results, finding that makeup made middle‐aged women look younger, but made young women look older. Seeking to better understand why makeup makes young women look older, we ran a final study and found evidence that people associate makeup use with adulthood. By activating associations with adulthood, makeup may provide an upward bias on age estimations of women who are not clearly adult. We propose that makeup affects social perceptions through bottom‐up routes, by modifying visual cues such as facial contrast, facial feature size, and skin homogeneity, and also through top‐down routes, by activating social representations and norms associated with makeup use.     

反馈相关负波与社会关系认知

反馈相关负波(feedback-related negativity, FRN)是人类进行结果评价时诱发的一个重要的脑电负成分, 出现在反馈刺激后200~300ms间。作为社会认知研究的可视化指标和工具, 它在社会关系认知中有着十分重要的作用。研究从社会关系与反映并表征社会关系的社会规范两方面阐述了反馈相关负波在社会关系认知中的作用。前者着重阐述了反馈相关负波在作为独立个体所扮演的社会角色和人际关系中的作用, 后者主要介绍了反馈相关负波在分配公平和责任规范中的作用。未来研究需进一步联合其他脑电成分(如P300), 采用更严密的实验设计和研究范式来探讨不同人际亲密度个体在责任分摊过程中的认知神经过程及其在独立担责情况下责任绝对额度对其结果评价和社会关系认知的影响。     

大学生社交焦虑成因的研究

探讨大学生社交焦虑的形成原因 ,为临床治疗提供理论基础。方法 :采用社交焦虑量表(IAS) ,个人评价问卷 (PEI) ,自编社交技能和他信问卷对 194名大学生被试进行测试。用SPSS7.0作回归、相关等统计分析。结果 :以自我评价、他信、社交技能为自变量 ,社交焦虑为因变量进行逐步回归分析 ,进入方程的变量为自我评价和社交技能。贡献量分别为 0 .32 7和 0 .0 4 0。以自我评价的 5个子维度 (学业、外貌、爱情、社会交往、与人们谈话 )、社交技能为自变量 ,社交焦虑为因变量进行逐步回归 ,进入回归方程的变量为“与人们交谈”因子、“社会交往”因子和社交技能 ,贡献量分别为 0 .2 96 ,0 .0 71和 0 .0 30。结论 :自我评价和社交技能是造成社交焦虑的重要原因 ,自我评价中的“与人们交谈”和“社会交往”方面是成因中的重要一环     

Social cognition models and health behaviour: A structured review

Abstract

A number of social cognition models have been developed to account for socio-demographic variations in health behaviour. This paper distinguishes between: (a) motivational, (b) behavioural enaction, and (c) multi-stage models of health behaviour. The models are evaluated in terms of advancement of existing knowledge and - where appropriate - predictive utility. Common themes that appear within- and between- these categories are discussed, with consideration of ways in which theory may be advanced by future research. Each approach has associated strengths and weaknesses, suggesting that a “consensus” approach to the study of health behaviour may prove fruitful. Identification of the key constructs across different model types would allow coherent integration and promote further understanding of the psycho-social determinants of health behaviour.     

关系模式框架下的具身社会关系

具身认知受到越来越多关注, 社会心理学家认为社会关系与个体水平的认知一样都包含了具身方面, 这一问题最直接的解释框架是关系模式理论(Smith, 2008)。Fiske认为人类有4种基本关系类型：公共共享(CS)、等级排序(AR)、平等匹配(EM)和市场定价(MP), 前三种都是具身的, 与不同的具身线索存在联系, 也得到了实证支持。当前具身社会关系研究存在不足, 例如解释范围有限、缺乏整合和深入研究等。未来可以从婴幼儿的发展性研究等入手。     

Social categorization and individuation in the own‐age bias

Young adults recognize other young adult faces more accurately than older adult faces, an effect termed the own‐age bias (OAB). The categorization‐individuation model (CIM) proposes that recognition memory biases like the OAB occur as unfamiliar faces are initially quickly categorized. In‐group faces are seen as socially relevant which motivates the processing of individuating facial features. Outgroup faces are processed more superficially with attention to category‐specific information which hinders subsequent recognition. To examine the roles of categorization and individuation in the context of the OAB, participants completed a face recognition task and a speeded age categorization task including young and older adult faces. In the recognition task, half of the participants were given instructions aimed to encourage individuation of other‐age faces. An OAB emerged that was not influenced by individuation instructions, but the magnitude of the OAB was correlated with performance in the categorization task. The larger the categorization advantage for older adult over young adult faces, the larger the OAB. These results support the premise that social categorization processes can affect the subsequent recognition of own‐ and other‐age faces, but do not provide evidence for the effectiveness of individuation instructions in reducing the OAB.     

Development of category formation for faces differing by age in 9‐ to 12‐month‐olds: An effect of experience with infant faces

We examined category formation for faces differing in age in 9‐ and 12‐month‐olds, and the influence of exposure to infant faces on such ability. Infants were familiarized with adult or infant faces, and then tested with a novel exemplar from the familiarized category paired with a novel exemplar from a novel category (Experiment 1). Both age groups formed discrete categories of adult and infant faces, but exposure to infant faces in everyday life did not modulate performance. The same task was conducted with child versus infant faces (Experiment 2). Whereas 9‐month‐olds preferred infant faces after familiarization with child faces, but not child faces after familiarization with infant faces, 12‐month‐olds formed discrete categories of child and infant faces. Moreover, more exposure to infant faces correlated with higher novel category preference scores when infants were familiarized with infant faces in 12‐month‐olds, but not 9‐month‐olds. The 9‐month‐old asymmetry did not reflect spontaneous preference for infant over child faces (Experiment 3). These findings indicate that 9‐ and 12‐month‐olds can form age‐based categories of faces. The ability of 12‐month‐olds to form separate child and infant categories suggests that they have a more exclusive representation of face age, one that may be influenced by prior experience with infant faces.     

Trait impressions from faces depend on the goals of the perceiver

Trait impressions from faces formed in the real world likely depend on the circumstances in which a face is seen, in particular, on the goal of the perceiver in that circumstance. This goal dependency is typically not incorporated into laboratory studies, an omission that has limited our understanding of trait impressions from faces.