Valuing thoughts, ignoring behavior: The introspection illusion as a source of the bias blind spot

People see themselves as less susceptible to bias than others. We show that a source of this bias blind spot involves the value that people place, and believe they should place, on introspective information (relative to behavioral information) when assessing bias in themselves versus others. Participants considered introspective information more than behavioral information for assessing bias in themselves, but not others. This divergence did not arise simply from differences in introspective access. The blind spot persisted when observers had access to the introspections of the actor whose bias they judged. And, participants claimed that they, but not their peers, should rely on introspections when making self-assessments of bias. Only after being educated about the importance of nonconscious processes in guiding judgment and action—and thereby about the fallibility of introspection—did participants cease denying their relative susceptibility to bias.     

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.     

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.     

Electronic performance appraisals: The effects of e-mail communication on peer ratings in actual and simulated environments

Across three empirical studies, this paper explores the effect of using e-mail as a communication medium (versus pen-and-paper) when conducting performance appraisals of peers. The notion put forth by Media Richness Theory that paper-form and e-mail media should be considered identical for conveying this information was theoretically challenged and differences were empirically supported. Using two different settings, results demonstrate that evaluators offered more negative appraisals of their peers when using e-mail than when using traditional paper-form methods. Reduced feelings of social obligation in the e-mail condition were found to mediate this relationship, indicating that social psychological processes can influence the effects of different media on peer ratings.     

同伴对青少年冒险行为的影响及其作用机制

青少年更倾向于从事冒险或鲁莽行为, 并且更容易受到同伴影响。从个人特质和社交互动等多个角度探讨的研究结果表明, 同伴对青少年冒险行为存在助长作用, 即当同伴在场时, 青少年的行为会更加冒险。同伴对青少年冒险行为的作用机制可以从心理、神经、遗传、社会文化等多个层面进行解释：在心理层面, 这种影响源于青少年寻求同伴认可和归属感的需要, 以及社会学习的作用; 在神经机制层面, 源于认知控制网络和刺激处理系统的相互作用; 在遗传层面, 源于特定基因的易感性等; 在社会文化层面, 同伴影响会因文化差异而带来程度与表现上的差异。未来研究应从发展、文化心理、构建复杂模型网络等视角深入探究同伴对青少年冒险行为的影响。     

Children’s Evaluation and Categorization of Transgender Children

Despite extant evidence of negative peer treatment of transgender adolescents and adults, little is known about how young children perceive transgender peers, particularly those who have socially transitioned or are living in line with their gender rather than sex at birth. Whereas children have been shown to be averse to gender nonconformity in peers, because many transgender children appear and behave in ways consistent with their expressed gender (but not their sex at birth), it is unclear how children evaluate these identities. In 2 studies, we investigated 5- to 10-year-old children’s (N_total = 113) preferences for transgender versus gender-“typical” peers who either shared their gender identity or did not. We also examined whether children categorized transgender peers by their sex or expressed gender, as it might inform their evaluations. Children preferred cisgender peers over transgender peers; however, they also liked peers of their own gender rather than the other gender (e.g., female participants preferred girls over boys), demonstrating that the oft-documented own-gender bias plays an important role even when children are reasoning about transgender peers. Children did not reliably categorize transgender peers by sex or gender; yet those who categorized transgender peers by their sex showed greater dislike of transgender peers. The current studies are the first to investigate cisgender children’s attitudes toward transgender children and suggest that perceptions of gender categorization and conformity play a role in children’s evaluations of transgender peers.     

Developmental consequences of behavioral inhibition: a model in rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta)

In children, behavioral inhibition is characterized by a disposition to withdraw in the presence of strangers and novel situations. Later in life, behavioral inhibition can result in an increased risk for anxiety and depression and a decrease in social behavior. We selected rhesus monkeys that, during infancy, showed evidence of behavioral inhibition in response to separation, and contrasted them with non‐inhibited peers. To understand the development of behavioral inhibition at juvenile age, we collected behavioral data in response to relocation; in response to a human intruder challenge; and in naturalistic outdoor field corrals. At 4 years of age (young adulthood), we again collected behavioral data in the outdoor field corrals to understand the adult social consequences of behavioral inhibition. We also included sex, dominance rank, and number of available kin in our analyses. Finally, to understand the consistency in behavior in behaviorally inhibited animals, we conducted exploratory analyses contrasting behaviorally inhibited animals that showed high vs. low durations of non‐social behaviors as adults. At juvenile age, behaviorally inhibited animals continued to show behavioral differences in the novel testing room and during the human intruder challenge, generally showing evidence of greater anxiety and emotionality compared to non‐inhibited controls. In their outdoor corrals, behaviorally inhibited juveniles spent more time alone and less time in proximity and grooming with mother and other adult females. In young adulthood, we found that behavioral inhibition was not related to time spent alone. We did find that duration of time alone in adulthood was related to time alone exhibited as juveniles; sex, dominance rank, or the number of kin were not influential in adult non‐social duration, either as main effects or as moderators. Finally, exploratory analyses revealed that behaviorally inhibited females that were more sociable (less time spent alone) as adults had spent more time grooming as juveniles, suggesting that high‐quality social interaction at a young age might mitigate the social consequences of behavioral inhibition. Overall, we believe that the many similarities with the human data that we found suggest that this monkey model of naturally occurring behavioral inhibition can be valuable for understanding social development.     

Self-other differences in children's perceptions about the causes of important events

Three studies examined differences between children's (ages 8-15) beliefs about the effectiveness of multiple internal and external causes for producing outcomes in their own lives versus in those of their peers. Differences specific to the school domain were found: Starting at age 11 or 12, children perceived internal causes as more important for others than for themselves; and only beliefs about the self related to perceived control. More strikingly, a sample of gifted children, who presumably receive social feedback that they are different from their peers, reported that (a) they exerted more control and possessed more ability than their peers and (b) other children knew less about the causes of school performance and had to rely more on effort and powerful others; only beliefs about the self correlated to cognitive performance. These results suggest that self-other differences are produced by both developmental change and environmental opportunities.     

You don't know me, but I know you: the illusion of asymmetric insight

People, it is hypothesized, show an asymmetry in assessing their own interpersonal and intrapersonal knowledge relative to that of their peers. Six studies suggested that people perceive their knowledge of their peers to surpass their peers' knowledge of them. Several of the studies explored sources of this perceived asymmetry, especially the conviction that while observable behaviors (e.g., interpersonal revelations or idiosyncratic word completions) are more revealing of others than self, private thoughts and feelings are more revealing of self than others. Study 2 also found that college roommates believe they know themselves better than their peers know themselves. Study 6 showed that group members display a similar bias-they believe their groups know and understand relevant out-groups better than vice versa. The relevance of such illusions of asymmetric insight for interpersonal interaction and our understanding of "naive realism" is discussed.     

Temperamental surgency and emotion regulation as predictors of childhood social competence

The primary aims of the current study were to longitudinally examine the direct relationship between children's temperamental surgency and social behaviors as well as the moderating role of children's emotion regulation. A total of 90 4.5-year-old children participated in a laboratory visit where children's temperamental surgency was rated by experimenters and children's emotion regulation abilities were assessed. The summer before entry into first grade, children's social behaviors with unfamiliar peers were observed in the laboratory and mothers completed a questionnaire about children's social behaviors. Supporting our hypotheses, results revealed that children high in temperamental surgency developed more negative peer behaviors, whereas children low in temperamental surgency were more likely to develop behavioral wariness with peers. Emotion regulatory behaviors were found to moderate the relation between temperamental surgency and aggression, where high-surgent children who showed high levels of social support seeking were less likely to be rated by their mothers as high in aggression. Furthermore, results revealed that low-surgent children who showed high levels of distraction/self-soothing were more likely to show behavioral wariness around unfamiliar peers, whereas high-surgent children who used more distraction/self-soothing behaviors were rated by their mothers as lower in social competence.     

亲社会行为中的从众效应

亲社会行为是社会关系的润滑剂, 从众心理会影响亲社会行为的出现。亲社会从众行为包括利他从众、公平偏好从众、信任从众、慷慨从众等。亲社会从众行为的心理机制包括模仿理论与动机改变理论。亲社会从众行为的神经机制包括奖赏加工与错误加工神经回路。社会价值取向、人际信任水平与人际敏感性对亲社会从众行为有一定的调节作用。未来的研究方向可以从亲社会从众效应的稳定性、个体差异、儿童及青少年的亲社会从众行为研究、临床研究以及跨文化角度入手。     

Embodied emotion concepts: How generating words about pride and disappointment influences posture

Embodiment theories predict that activating conceptual knowledge about emotions can be accompanied by re‐experiencing bodily states, since simulations of sensory, motor, and introspective experiences form the foundation of conceptual representations of emotion. In the present study, we examine whether the activation of the specific emotion concepts of pride and disappointment are embodied in the sense that they are accompanied by changes in posture. Participants generated words associated with pride and disappointment while posture height was measured. Results show that during the generation of disappointment words participants decreased their posture height more than when participants generated pride words. This finding suggests that the activation of conceptual knowledge about disappointment can lead to a spontaneous expression of the associated body posture. In contrast to posture changes along the vertical axis, movement along the horizontal axis was not influenced by concept activation. In addition to bodily simulation the data also indicated introspective simulation, since feelings of disappointment increased after generating disappointment words. The current study provides the first evidence for the claim that the activation of conceptual knowledge about emotion can instantiate spontaneous simulations at a behavioral level. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Social skills, social outcomes, and cognitive features of childhood social phobia.

Social skills, social outcomes, self-talk, outcome expectancies, and self-evaluation of performance during social-evaluative tasks were examined with 27 clinically diagnosed social phobic children ages 7-14 and a matched nonclinical group. Results showed that, compared with their nonanxious peers, social phobic children demonstrated lower expected performance and a higher level of negative self-talk on social-evaluative tasks. In addition, social phobic children showed social skills deficits as assessed by self- and parent report, an assertiveness questionnaire, and direct behavioral observation. Furthermore, compared with the control group, social phobic children were rated by themselves and others as significantly less socially competent with peers and were found to be less likely to receive positive outcomes from peers during behavioral observation. Implications for the assessment and treatment of childhood social phobia are discussed.     

Self-regulation of Gendered Behavior in Everyday Life

The present research tested whether gender self-concepts influence behavior through self-regulatory processes, with emotions and self-esteem signaling that people’s responses meet or fail to meet their gender standards. In the first study, cross-sectional survey data from 3,174 young adults living in the United States revealed that esteem increased with behavioral conformity to gender standards for personality. In the second study, an experience-sampling diary design provided a dynamic view of regulation to gender standards for personality and romance. One hundred seventy-seven American undergraduates reported their emotions and esteem immediately following everyday social interactions. As anticipated, students became more positive when they acted in ways that confirmed rather than disconfirmed personal gender standards.     

The role of symmetrical and asymmetrical social conflict in cognitive change

We asked whether dyads consisting of nonconservers of liquid would be more likely than solo controls to change to a conservation answer when each child gave symmetrically conflicting answers from different perspectives ("more" versus "less" from different viewpoints). We also asked whether nonconservers are more likely than conservers to abandon their answers in conserver + nonconserver dyads. In order to stimulate the perspectival conflicts in the nonconserver + nonconserver dyads, the partners experienced artificial displays in which the two possible answers were afforded by different views of the apparatus. We found no evidence that social conflict of the kind engineered in the nonconserver + nonconserver dyads stimulates cognitive change. Our evidence that nonconservers tend to adopt the conservation answer of their partners was less strong than that collected in previous studies, but this may have been due to the fact that, contrary to previous studies, the children's social dominance relations were affecting the outcome. We concluded that the ineffectiveness of symmetrical social conflict is consistent with Piaget's conception of nonconservers as children insensitive to the perspective-relative nature of their judgments.     

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.     

Students’ Oppositional Behaviors and Engagement in School: The Differential Role of the Student-Teacher Relationship

Students presenting oppositional behaviors often display lower behavioral and emotional engagement in class as compared to their peers. Moreover, children in general are known to be deeply affected by their relationships with teachers while in school. It is therefore possible that such relationships could also influence the engagement of students presenting higher levels of oppositional behavior. As a way of verifying this hypothesis, the present study investigated the contribution of students’ levels of oppositional behavior to their behavioral and emotional engagement in literacy. Furthermore, it examined whether these relationships were different for boys and girls, or changed as a function of two components of student-teacher relationships: closeness and conflict. Three hundred and eighty five third and fourth grade students and their teachers participated in the study. Two series of linear regressions were conducted. Findings indicate that students who presented higher levels of oppositional behavior showed lower behavioral engagement than their peers. Moreover, students who had close relationships with their teachers reported higher behavioral engagement. Although closeness in student-teacher relationships protected students from behavioral disengagement, students with higher oppositional behaviors were less protected than students who presented lower levels of oppositional difficulty. Having a warm relationship with a teacher was also more beneficial for the behavioral engagement of girls, whereas a high level of conflict between student and teacher was more harmful for the emotional engagement of boys. This was deemed to be true whether the boys or girls presented high levels of oppositional behavior or not. Overall, our findings highlight the importance of the student-teacher relationship in fostering all students’ engagement in school.     

Memory conformity for confidently recognized items: The power of social influence on memory reports

Memory conformity occurs when one person's memory report influences another's. Memory conformity is more likely to occur when the information comes from a credible source, and when internal evidence is weak. Here, we investigate whether there are situational variations in how heavily participants weigh internal cues to accuracy when confronted with conflicting information from a partner. The results show that even confidently held memories are subject to influence from external sources, and that social influence is exaggerated when the source is seen to be highly credible.     

Children's affective,behavioral, and cognitive responses to social comparison

Relative outcomes in social commerce with peers are potent determinants of cognitions and behavior in young children. Although there has been considerable attention given to the behavioral consequences of social comparisons following the receipt of rewards, there has been less concern with cognitive or affective consequences. Additionally, little is known about the accrued effects of multiple social comparison experiences that may be consistent or inconsistent with one another. In the present study, young children received a constant level of reward but the amount they saw a peer receive was varied. There were two sequences of reward distribution, and in a given sequence children received either the same number of rewards as the peer (=), more (+), or fewer (?). In a 3 × 3 factorial design all possible combinations occurred. A negative inequality in reward distribution, no matter where it fell in a sequence, made children sad and inclined children to distribute fewer rewards to peers. When a sequence contained an initial experience of positive inequality, children decreased subsequent levels of self-reward. Experiencing a comparison that revealed a negative inequality in reward distribution also disrupted children's accuracy in appraising the overall distribution of rewards: even when an initial negative inequality was completely offset by an equivalent experience of positive inequality, children inaccurately concluded that they had received fewer rewards than their peers.