Defensive Partisanship? Evidence that In-Party Scandals Increase Out-Party Hostility

Contemporary U.S. politics is characterized by polarization and interpartisan antipathy. This is accompanied by a media landscape saturated with coverage of political scandals. Applying a social identity perspective, we examined whether exposure to scandals that threaten partisan's moral group image (i.e., in-party scandals), may motivate defensive hostility against opposing partisans. Across three experiments we exposed U.S. partisans to scandals attributed to either in-party or out-party politicians. We then assessed partisan hostility using a variety of operationalizations, including anger at a real outgroup politician (Study 1), judgments about the alleged misdeeds of a fabricated outgroup politician (Study 2), and negative perceptions of opposing party members (Study 3). Strength of partisan identity was assessed as a predicted moderator (Study 3). As expected in- (vs. out-) party scandals, were perceived as group-image threats and elicited greater hostility towards opposing partisans, independent of partisans' ideological extremity or prior affective polarization.     

The Relation Between Social Identities and Outgroup Hostility Among German Immigrant-Origin Citizens

One of the major drivers of societal conflict are the intergroup relations which rely mainly on social identity and which are rarely analyzed for immigrant groups. This article changes this point of view by investigating the extent to which national, ethnic, and religious identities relate to outgroup hostilities towards the majority of the German population, towards other immigrant groups, and towards Syrian refugees among immigrant-origin citizens. We employ a theoretical framework based on the social identity approach and use new representative survey data from 2017 for Germans of Turkish descent (N = 480) and Russian Germans (N = 471). Based on multivariate linear regression analysis, we show that ethnic identity has the strongest positive relation with outgroup hostilities, with the exception of the Russian-Germans' evaluation of the German majority population. National identity among Germans of Turkish descent lessens their hostility towards other immigrants. Our results show the importance of analyzing immigrant groups with different migration trajectories separately before making generalized claims. Not only are the identity relations different between an ingroup identification and various outgroup targets, but they are also different between the immigrant groups for the same ingroup identification and outgroup target.     

Social preference in rats

Rats were given repeated choices between social and nonsocial outcomes, and between familiar and unfamiliar social outcomes. Lever presses on either of 2 levers in the middle chamber of a 3-chamber apparatus opened a door adjacent to the lever, permitting 45-s access to social interaction with the rat in the chosen side chamber. In Experiment 1, rats preferred (a) social over nonsocial options, choosing their cagemate rat over an empty chamber, and (b) an unfamiliar over a familiar rat, choosing a non-cagemate over their cagemate. These findings were replicated in Experiment 2 with 2 different non-cagemate rats. Rats preferred both non-cagemate rats to a similar degree when pitted against their cagemate, but were indifferent when the 2 non-cagemates were pitted against each other. Similar preference for social over nonsocial and non-cagemate over cagemate was seen in Experiment 3, with new non-cagemate rats introduced after every third session. Response rates (for both cagemate and non-cagemate rats) were elevated under conditions of nonsocial (isolated) housing compared to conditions of social (paired) housing, demonstrating a social deprivation effect. Together, the experiments contribute to an experimental analysis of social preference within a social reinforcement framework, drawing on methods with proven efficacy in the analysis of reinforcement more generally.     

Human social defeat and approach–avoidance: Escalating social-evaluative threat and threat of aggression increases social avoidance

Basic research on avoidance by Murray Sidman laid the foundation for advances in the classification, conceptualization and treatment of avoidance in psychological disorders. Contemporary avoidance research is explicitly translational and increasingly focused on how competing appetitive and aversive contingencies influence avoidance. In this laboratory investigation, we examined the effects of escalating social-evaluative threat and threat of social aggression on avoidance of social interactions. During social-defeat learning, 38 adults learned to associate 9 virtual peers with an increasing probability of receiving negative evaluations. Additionally, 1 virtual peer was associated with positive evaluations. Next, in an approach–avoidance task with social-evaluative threat, 1 peer associated with negative evaluations was presented alongside the peer associated with positive evaluations. Approaching peers produced a positive or a probabilistic negative evaluation, while avoiding peers prevented a negative evaluation (and forfeited a positive evaluation). In an approach–avoidance task with social aggression, virtual peers gave and took money away from participants. Escalating social-evaluative threat and aggression increased avoidance, ratings of feeling threatened and threat expectancy and decreased ratings of peer favorableness. These findings underscore the potential of coupling social defeat and approach–avoidance paradigms for translational research on the neurobehavioral mechanisms of social approach–avoidance decision-making and anxiety.     

Enhancing the care of children with chronic diseases through the narratives of patient,physician, nurse and carer

We tested the hypothesis that a narrative approach may enhance a bio‐psycho‐social model (BPS) in caring for chronically ill children. Forty‐eight narratives were collected from 12 children with six different medical conditions, their mothers, physicians, and nurses. By a textual analysis, narratives were classified on their predominant focus as disease (biological focus), illness (psychologic focus), or sickness (social focus). Sixty‐one percent of narrative’ text were classified as illness, 28% as disease and 11% as sickness. All narratives had a degree of illness focus. Narratives by patients and physicians on the one hand, and nurses’ and mothers’ on the other were disease focused. Narratives were also evaluated with respect to the type of medical condition: Illness was largely prevalent in all but Crohn’s disease and HIV infection, the latter having a predominance of sickness most probably related to stigma. Narrative exploration proved a valuable tool for understanding and addressing the needs of children with complex conditions. Narrative approaches allow identification of the major needs of different patients according to health conditions and story tellers. In the narratives, we found a greater illness and disease focus and surprisingly a low sickness focus, except with HIV stories. Narrative medicine provides a tool to strengthen the BPS model in health care.     

Close‐knit ties through thick and thin: Sharing social exclusion and acceptance enhances social bond

Three experiments investigated whether and why sharing experiences of social exclusion or social acceptance with others strengthens social bonds. Participants experienced either social exclusion or social acceptance alongside another co‐participant who either also experienced the same outcome, or experienced a different outcome, as them. Multilevel modeling results showed that participant dyads who shared the experience of social exclusion or social acceptance felt closer to each other than those who experienced different outcomes, and that perceived similarity mediated the effect of shared experiences on social bonds. Interestingly, participants felt closer to one another after having shared social acceptance, more so than when they have shared social exclusion. Implications of the present findings are interpreted in light of theories of social exclusion, shared experiences, and social bonding.     

What is agentic about the Spatial Agency Bias? How pragmatic relevance contributes to the spatial representations of actions

The mental imagination of (social) actions has been shown to follow a left‐to‐right trajectory, with the thematic agent associated with the left position (Spatial Agency Bias, Suitner & Maass in Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 53, 2016, p. 245–301). For example, individuals asked to choose a picture that visualizes the sentence “Tom kicks George” tend to choose an image where the agent, Tom, is positioned on the left‐hand side rather than on the right‐hand side. However, as an alternative to the thematic role of the agent, such findings may reflect a mental representation following pragmatic relevance. Specifically, a pragmatic perspective holds that word order and syntactic functions are strategic devices to communicate that the element is important for the sentence. Thus, positioning in the described picture‐matching task may actually reflect the agent's pragmatic relevance instead of agency per se. As a test, we vary whether sentences are written in the active versus the passive voice. Results from five studies indicate that the passive voice results in the tendency to place the agent on the right‐hand side rather than on the left‐hand side of a picture. Instead, the acted‐upon person is positioned on the left‐hand side of a picture. A sixth experiment reveals that for the passive voice, the agent is still seen as more agentic than the receiver, but is considered less relevant. The findings are congruent with the proposed pragmatic relevance account. Implications for the Spatial Agency Bias as well as for building mental representations in general are discussed.     

规范错觉对外出就餐中食物浪费的影响：心理机制与应对策略

规范错觉是指个体的规范感知与实际存在于群体中的社会规范之间存在差异, 规范错觉影响了社会生活的方方面面。对957份问卷调查的分析显示, 人们普遍高估了他人的食物浪费(行为错觉)以及对浪费的赞同程度(态度错觉), 而这两种错觉又加剧了人们自身的浪费行为。中介效应检验显示, 印象管理中的社交性维度部分中介了两种错觉与浪费行为间的关系。两个随机对照实验进一步检验了描述性(命令性)规范信息对行为(态度)错觉的影响, 结果发现, 描述性规范信息降低了行为错觉, 并通过社交性减少了浪费行为; 而命令性规范信息并不改变态度错觉本身, 但通过降低态度错觉对浪费的影响而减少了浪费行为。上述结果意味着两种规范信息尽管高度相似, 但其作用机制却可能不同, 同时这一发现也为政策制定者提出了两种干预途径。     

背外侧前额叶对主动遗忘负性社会反馈的作用：针对抑郁症的TMS研究

抑郁症患者的负性心境可能源于其抑制功能障碍。患者在主动遗忘负性材料时无法有效调用背外侧前额叶(the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, DLPFC)等负责抑制控制的额叶脑网络。同时, 患者对社会信息的加工比对非社会信息的加工存在更明显的认知神经障碍, 很难主动遗忘对自己不利的社会反馈信息。为了提高抑郁症患者对负性社会反馈的主动遗忘能力, 本研究采用经颅磁刺激技术(transcranial magnetic stimulation, TMS), 考察抑郁症患者在左侧(n = 32)或右侧DLPFC (n = 30)被激活后其记忆控制能力的改变。结果表明, 当患者的DLPFC被TMS激活时, 他们对社会拒绝的回忆正确率与健康对照组(n = 31)无差异, 且TMS激活右侧DLPFC还改善了患者对他人的社会态度。本研究是采用TMS提高抑郁症患者主动遗忘能力的首次尝试, 研究结果不但支持了DLPFC与记忆控制功能的因果关系, 还为临床治疗抑郁症、创伤后应激障碍、药物成瘾等患者的记忆控制缺陷提供了明确的神经靶点。