Socially anxious individuals lack unintentional mimicry

So far, evidence for unskilled social behavior in high socially anxious individuals (HAs) is equivocal. One reason may be that shortcomings are often not directly observable. An important shortcoming would be a lack of unintentional mimicry because it communicates sympathy and rapport with the interaction partner. Therefore, we tested whether HAs show less unintentional mimicry of others. Twenty-nine HAs and 43 low socially anxious individuals (LAs) - all female - watched a virtual man (avatar) who displayed a fixed set of head movements while giving an opinionated speech. Four raters scored whether the participants mimicked the avatar's movements within 4 s. The results indicate that HAs did indeed mimic significantly less than LAs. Lacking such pro-social behavior, HAs may indeed be evaluated as less sympathetic by others, confirming their fears of being disliked.     

Am I doing better than you? That depends on whether you ask me in English or Chinese: Self-enhancement effects of language as a cultural mindset prime

Westerners tend to judge themselves positively unless their failure relative to others is obvious, in which case they tend to distance themselves from outperforming others. Whether this tendency to self-enhance in social-comparison situations is universal or culture-bound is hotly debated. Rather than construe self-enhancement as either universal or culture-bound, we propose that its effects depend on the cultural mindset that is salient at the moment of self-reflection. A cultural mindset is a mental representation containing culture-congruent content, procedures, and goals. We focused on individual and collective mindsets, using language as an unobtrusive mindset prime and predicting that people would be more self-enhancing when an individual mindset was made salient by using English than when a collective mindset was made salient by using Chinese. Three studies supported this hypothesis. Chinese students self-enhanced (rating themselves as better than others and distancing themselves from outperforming others) more when primed with an individual mindset.     

Self-enhancement and theory-based correction processes

Two studies examined bias correction by manipulating a perceived chronic judgmental bias (i.e., overestimator/underestimator) using a modified dot estimation task. In Experiment 1, participants corrected for this perceived estimation bias by making adjustments away from the arbitrary feedback about their personal bias tendencies. In Experiment 2, the perceived desirability of the same estimation bias was manipulated. Results indicated that self-enhancement concerns impacted perceivers’ motivation to correct, at a cost to accuracy. These studies expand our current understanding of theory-based correction by including self-enhancement motives as causes of correction, demonstrating that such corrections can decrease rather than increase judgment accuracy, and illustrating the usefulness of a new perceived bias manipulation in theory testing.     

Transference occurs across group boundaries

Transference occurs when a perceiver's representation of a significant other is activated and applied to a new target person (Andersen & Chen, 2002). Extending past research, it was hypothesized that transference occurs even when a target person possesses a core feature—namely, group membership status—that is inapplicable to the relevant significant-other representation. Supporting this, transference led perceivers to make representation-consistent memory and evaluation judgments about a target—regardless of whether the target's political (experiment 1) or ethnic (experiment 2) group membership was the same or different from that of the relevant significant other. Moreover, in experiment 2, perceivers undergoing transference involving a positively evaluated significant other behaved more positively toward the target even when the target was from an ethnic out-group. The results represent initial evidence of transference processes occurring across group boundaries. Implications for transference and the reduction of out-group bias are discussed.     

Perceived support provided by teachers and classmates and students' self-reported academic initiative

The aim of this study was to examine how perceived support provided by teachers and classmates in the school class environment related to students' academic initiative. Data were from a stratified sample of 13-year-old students (n = 1591) from the Norwegian part of the World Health Organization's survey of Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC). Self-reported academic initiative varied across school classes with a difference (unexplained school class-level variance) of 12%. Perceived teacher support, defined as the provision of fairness and friendliness, varied substantially between classes. In two-level SEM analysis, a latent factor comprising pedagogical caring and autonomy support was substantially related to students' academic initiative at the class level. Perceived classmate support was significantly but moderately associated with academic initiative at the individual level.     

The social face of emotion recognition: Evaluations versus stereotypes

The goal of the present paper was to demonstrate the influence of general evaluations and stereotype associations on emotion recognition. Earlier research has shown that evaluative connotations between social category members and emotional expression predict whether recognition of positive or negative emotional expressions will be facilitated (e.g. Hugenberg, 2005). In the current paper we tested the hypothesis that stereotype associations influence emotion recognition processes, especially when the difference between valences of emotional expressions does not come into play. In line with this notion, when participants in the present two studies were asked to classify positive versus negative emotional expressions (i.e. happy versus anger, or happy versus sadness), valence congruency effects were found. Importantly, however, in a comparative context without differences in valence in which participants were asked to classify two distinct negative emotions (i.e. anger versus sadness) we found that recognition facilitation occurred for stereotypically associated discrete emotional expressions. With this, the current results indicate that a distinction between general evaluative and cognitive routes can be made in emotion recognition processes.     

Similarity predicts liking in 3-year-old children

Two studies examined the influence of similarity on 3-year-old children’s initial liking of their peers. Children were presented with pairs of childlike puppets who were either similar or dissimilar to them on a specified dimension and then were asked to choose one of the puppets to play with as a measure of liking. Children selected the puppet whose food preferences or physical appearance matched their own. Unpacking the physical appearance finding revealed that the stable similarity of hair color may influence liking more strongly than the transient similarity of shirt color. A second study showed that children also prefer to play with a peer who shares their toy preferences, yet importantly, show no bias toward a peer who is similar on an arbitrary dimension. The findings provide insight into the earliest development of peer relations in young children.     

Longer-term consequences of anger expression in negotiation: Retaliation or spillover?

Negotiators often concede to angry partners. But what happens when they meet again? According to the spillover hypothesis, negotiators demand less from previously angry partners because they perceive them as tough. According to the retaliation hypothesis, negotiators demand more from previously angry partners because of negative impressions and a desire to get even. Experiment 1 showed that participants demanded less in later negotiations when their partner in a previous negotiation had expressed anger (rather than no emotion) and the later negotiation was with the same (rather than a different) partner. Consistent with the spillover hypothesis, this effect was mediated by inferences regarding the partner’s toughness. Experiment 2 showed that apologies reduce the negative effects of anger on impressions and desire for future interaction. Behavioral reactions were moderated by social value orientation: extending the established might/morality effect, prosocial participants responded cooperatively to an apology, whereas proselfs responded competitively.     

Perception through a perspective-taking lens: Differential effects on judgment and behavior

In contrast to the view that social perception has symmetric effects on judgments and behavior, the current research explored whether perspective-taking leads stereotypes to differentially affect judgments and behavior. Across three studies, perspective-takers consistently used stereotypes more in their own behavior while simultaneously using them less in their judgments of others. After writing about an African-American, perspective-taking tendencies were positively correlated with aggressive behavior but negatively correlated with judging others as aggressive. Similarly, after writing about an elderly man, perspective-takers walked more slowly and became more conservative, but judged others as less dependent. These divergent effects of perspective-taking on judgment and behavior occurred regardless of whether perspective-taking was manipulated or measured, whether judgments were measured before or after behavior, the stereotype that was activated, and participants’ culture (American, Singaporean). These findings support theorizing that judgments and behavior can diverge when individuals’ social strategies are geared towards establishing and maintaining social bonds, as well as provide insight into how perspective-taking helps individuals manage diversity.     

The central tendency of a social group can affect ratings of its intragroup variability in the absence of social identity concerns

People report less variability within in-groups than within out-groups when they make their ratings on traits on which the in-group has a higher central tendency than the out-group. [Simon, 1992a] and [Simon, 1992b] proposed that this effect is motivated by the need to protect a positive social identity. The present research tested the necessity of the social identity motive by using participants who were not members of any of the target groups that they judged. In Study 1 (N = 60), psychology undergraduate students reported significantly less intragroup variability on positive traits among a group of fashion designers that won a fashion competition than among a group that lost. Study 2 (N = 75) found a reverse effect on negative traits and confirmed the mediating role of perceived central tendency. These results demonstrate that the social identity motive is not necessary to explain the effect of central tendency on ratings of intragroup variability, and that the effect is more general than previously reported.