Opposites Do Not Attract: Social Status and Behavioral-Style Concordances and Discordances Among Children and the Peers Who Like or Dislike Them

Homophily, a term used to describe the tendency to associate with similar others, serves as a basis for attraction among children. The converse may also be true. Dissimilarity appears to contribute to dislike. In one of the only published studies to examine homophily and its converse, D. W. Nangle, C. A. Erdley, and J. A. Gold (1996) found that children were liked by peers who were similar to them in social status and behavioral style and disliked by peers who were dissimilar to them in social status and behavioral style. Examining gender influences, we were only able to partially replicate their findings in the present study. That is, evidence of homophily was found only for girls. In contrast, dissimilarity contributed to dislike for both genders, but was especially evident for boys. With respect to age, prosocial behavior appeared to have a more positive valence among younger girls. whereas aggressive behavior appeared to have a more negative valence among older boys. Attempts to reconcile these findings with those of the Nangle et al. (1996) investigation and the implications for understanding peer processes, gender influences, and behavior problems are discussed.     

The psychology of hate: Moral concerns differentiate hate from dislike

We investigated whether any differences in the psychological conceptualization of hate and dislike were simply a matter of degree of negativity (i.e., hate falls on the end of the continuum of dislike) or also morality (i.e., hate is imbued with distinct moral components that distinguish it from dislike). In three lab studies in Canada and the United States, participants reported disliked and hated attitude objects and rated each on dimensions including valence, attitude strength, morality, and emotional content. Quantitative and qualitative measures revealed that hated attitude objects were more negative than disliked attitude objects and associated with moral beliefs and emotions, even after adjusting for differences in negativity. In Study 4, we analysed the rhetoric on real hate sites and complaint forums and found that the language used on prominent hate websites contained more words related to morality, but not negativity, relative to complaint forums.     

Preference modulates smelling behaviour in olfactory decision tasks

When people are shown a pair of images and asked to identify which one is more attractive, their gaze shifts to the image they will eventually choose, prior to making the decision. Many researchers have examined the relationship between this gaze bias and decision processes, but not the relationships between other sensory modalities and decision processes. This study examined behaviour in relation to olfactory decision tasks. In accordance with the concept of gaze bias, the likelihood of participants smelling the item they eventually chose immediately before the decision was greater when they were instructed to identify an item that was more, versus less, favoured. The likelihood of smelling the item that was eventually chosen last was also greater than chance when participants were instructed to identify the more masculine item. These results suggest that a bias to sample a chosen item last is a common phenomenon regardless of sensory modality.