Psychometric Evaluation of a Controlled Social Affiliation Paradigm: Findings From Anxiety,Depressive Disorder,and Healthy Samples

Social impairments are common across many psychiatric conditions. Standardized dyadic assessments intended to elicit social affiliation between unacquainted partners are used to elucidate mechanisms that disrupt relationship formation and inform possible treatment targets; however, the psychometric properties of such paradigms remain poorly understood. This study evaluated the psychometric properties of a controlled social affiliation paradigm intended to induce connectedness between a target participant and trained confederate. Individuals with an anxiety or depressive disorder diagnosis (clinical group; n = 132) and those without (control group; n = 35) interacted face-to-face with a trained confederate; partners took turns answering a series of increasingly intimate questions about themselves. Social connectedness, affect, and affiliative behavior measures were collected during the interaction. Participant symptom and social functioning measures were collected to examine validity. The paradigm elicited escalating social connectedness throughout the task for both participants and confederates. Parallel forms (i.e., different question sets) elicited similar affiliation outcomes. Self-reported (but not behavioral) affiliation differed across some demographic variables (e.g., participant gender, Hispanic ethnicity). Within-task affiliation measures were associated with one another and with global social connectedness and social anxiety symptom measures, but not with somatic anxiety measures. Clinical participants reported lower social affiliation and positive affect reactivity and higher negative affect reactivity than healthy participants. These findings provide initial psychometric support for a standardized and controlled dyadic affiliation paradigm that could be used to reliably probe social disconnection mechanisms across psychopathology.     

Not Simply in the Eye of the Beholder: Authenticity as a Product of Candidate Preference and Unfettered Speech

Authenticity has emerged over recent decades as a prominent theme in both the press and in political research—and peaked in the 2016 presidential contest that pitted Donald Trump against Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz. In this context, we attempted to answer the question: How do voters judge a presidential candidate's authenticity? Here we use motivated reasoning and correspondent inference theory as theoretical frameworks to examine how partisan preference combines with perceptions of unfettered speech and strategic impression management to influence voter judgments of a candidate's authenticity. An online survey of 525 respondents demonstrated that individuals' partisan preferences influenced both judgments of a candidate's authenticity and their perceptions of behaviors signifying authenticity (use of unfettered speech versus strategic impression management). These behavioral signals partially mediated the relation between candidate preferences and authenticity judgments. Moreover, voters, given their partisan preferences, differentially weighted candidates' use of unfettered speech and strategic impression management tactics in their judgments of authenticity. Finally, unfiltered/politically incorrect speech was found to have both positive and negative effects on authenticity judgments. Findings further elucidate the nature of authenticity as perceived in others and identify intermediary variables and boundary conditions that influence those perceptions.     

Willingness to transmit and the spread of pseudoscientific beliefs

Pseudoscientific beliefs are widespread and can be damaging. If several studies have examined the factors leading people to accept pseudoscientific beliefs, no attention has been paid to the factors contributing to people's willingness to transmit these beliefs. To test whether the willingness to transmit pseudoscientific beliefs contributes to their spread, independent of their believability, we asked participants to rate statements corresponding either to pseudoscientific beliefs (Myths), or to their (correct) negations (Non‐Myths). Statements were rated on believability, on how willing participants would be to transmit them, and on how knowledgeable they would make someone who produces them. Results revealed that participants who believed in Myths were more willing to transmit them than the participants who believed in Non‐Myths were willing to transmit Non‐Myths. A potential factor driving the increased willingness to transmit both Myths and Non‐Myths might be participants' belief that holding the beliefs makes one seem more knowledgeable.     

群体身份变换性对老年人印象更新的影响：共同内群体认同的中介作用

群体印象更新对于促进群际和谐具有重要的现实意义。本研究采用最简群体再分类范式, 通过4个实验考察了群体身份变换性对老年人外显与内隐印象更新的影响以及共同内群体认同的中介作用。结果发现, 群体身份变换性不仅改变了对最简外群体的印象评价, 而且也提升了年轻人对自然外群体老年人的外显印象评价, 但内隐印象评价的改变不明显; 共同内群体认同在群体身份变换性影响老年人的外显印象更新中起完全中介作用。这些发现不仅从群体身份变换性的视角进一步丰富和拓展了印象更新领域, 而且为群际互动中的偏见消除提供了最简群体再分类新方法。     

Color and women attractiveness: when red clothed women are perceived to have more intense sexual intent

Research has shown that with some nonhuman primates, red is associated with greater sexual attractiveness of females, and recent studies found that a woman with red clothes increases attraction behavior in men. However, the mechanism that explains such behavior was not studied. In this experiment, we hypothesized that men overestimated women's sexual intent when wearing red clothing. Participants evaluated attractiveness and the sexual intent of a woman presented in a photograph wearing a red, a blue, a green or a white tee-shirt. It was found that men evaluated higher sexual intent in the red clothing condition. It was also found that perception of the woman's sexual intent was not moderated by attractiveness rating.     

The Role of Background Behavior in Televised Debates: Does Displaying Nonverbal Agreement and/or Disagreement Benefit Either Debater?

ABSTRACT

This study examined the effects of background nonverbal behavior displayed with the purpose of undermining one's opponent in televised debates. Students watched one of four versions of a televised debate. In each, while the speaking debater appeared on the main screen, subscreens displayed her nonspeaking opponent's background nonverbal behavior. In one version, the non-speaking debater remained “stone faced” during her opponent's speech, while in the other three she nonverbally displayed occasional disagreement, nearly constant disagreement, or both agreement and disagreement. After viewing the debates, students rated the debaters' credibility, appropriateness, objectivity, and debate skills, in addition to judging who won the debate. Analysis indicated that background nonverbal behavior influenced audience perceptions of debaters' credibility, appropriateness, objectivity, debate skill, and the extent to which the debate was won. These results suggest that adding nonverbal agreement to expressions of nonverbal disagreement do not reduce the negative impacts of communicating disagreement nonverbally during an opponent's speech and may in fact further decrease the audiences' perception of a debater's credibility and overall performance.     

Similarity and Social Interaction: When Similarity Fosters Implicit Behavior Toward a Stranger

ABSTRACT

People interact more readily with someone whom they think they have something in common with. At a pedestrian crossing, confederates asked participants for the time and, in one condition, said she/he had the same watch as the participant. The amount of time that participants lingered near a confederate was used as the dependent variable. Participants in the similarity condition spent significantly more time near the confederate than when no similarity was manipulated. The results showed that similarity fosters implicit behavior, adding to the growing body of data on the positive effects of similarity and its role in social interaction.     

Personality assessment and behavioral prediction at first impression

Research has demonstrated high levels of consensus and self-other agreement for extraversion and conscientiousness. However, the mechanisms whereby these assessments contribute to accuracy in behavioral predictions remain unclear. In this study, two judges rated targets on Big Five personality factors, and predicted their compliance to offer help in response to a fabricated emergency. Whereas one judge interacted directly with the target, the other judge only observed the interaction. There was consensus and self-other agreement on conscientiousness for both judges. Critically, self-reported conscientiousness fully mediated the effect of judged conscientiousness on compliance to offer help, regardless of the nature of the judge-target interaction. These results demonstrate a mechanism whereby judged personality can predict a specific behavioral outcome in initially unacquainted persons.