Collective
Women's connectivity in extreme networks
Pedro Manrique et al.
Science Advances, 10 June 2016
Abstract:
A popular stereotype is that women will play more minor roles than men as environments become more dangerous and aggressive. Our analysis of new longitudinal data sets from offline and online operational networks [for example, ISIS (Islamic State)] shows that although men dominate numerically, women emerge with superior network connectivity that can benefit the underlying system's robustness and survival. Our observations suggest new female-centric approaches that could be used to affect such networks. They also raise questions about how individual contributions in high-pressure systems are evaluated.
---------------------
The Evolutionary Origins of Hierarchy
Henok Mengistu et al.
PLoS Computational Biology, June 2016
Abstract:
Hierarchical organization - the recursive composition of sub-modules - is ubiquitous in biological networks, including neural, metabolic, ecological, and genetic regulatory networks, and in human-made systems, such as large organizations and the Internet. To date, most research on hierarchy in networks has been limited to quantifying this property. However, an open, important question in evolutionary biology is why hierarchical organization evolves in the first place. It has recently been shown that modularity evolves because of the presence of a cost for network connections. Here we investigate whether such connection costs also tend to cause a hierarchical organization of such modules. In computational simulations, we find that networks without a connection cost do not evolve to be hierarchical, even when the task has a hierarchical structure. However, with a connection cost, networks evolve to be both modular and hierarchical, and these networks exhibit higher overall performance and evolvability (i.e. faster adaptation to new environments). Additional analyses confirm that hierarchy independently improves adaptability after controlling for modularity. Overall, our results suggest that the same force - the cost of connections - promotes the evolution of both hierarchy and modularity, and that these properties are important drivers of network performance and adaptability. In addition to shedding light on the emergence of hierarchy across the many domains in which it appears, these findings will also accelerate future research into evolving more complex, intelligent computational brains in the fields of artificial intelligence and robotics.
---------------------
Synchronized Behavior Increases Assessments of the Formidability and Cohesion of Coalitions
Daniel Fessler & Colin Holbrook
Evolution and Human Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
Synchronized behavior is a common feature of martial drills and military parades in many societies. Hagen and colleagues (Hagen & Bryant, 2003; Hagen & Hammerstein, 2009) hypothesized that the intentional enactment of synchronized behavior evolved as a means of signaling coalitional strength, as individuals who can synchronize are able to act in concert in agonistic contexts. Previous research has explored either the subjective consequences of synchrony for participants in synchronized behaviors or the effect of synchrony on observers' impressions of rapport among the synchronized actors. Critically, left untested is the central tenet that, by communicating that the individuals constitute a coordinated unit, synchronized behaviors signal elevated fighting capacity. We tested this prediction in two studies by asking large U.S. samples to judge the envisioned physical formidability - previously demonstrated to summarize assessments of diverse determinants of fighting capacity - of U.S. soldiers or terrorists on the basis of audio tracks of either synchronous or asynchronous footsteps. Consonant with the agonistic signaling hypothesis, participants judged the synchronized target individuals to be larger and more muscular than the unsynchronized individuals, an effect mediated by their assessment that the former collectively constitute a single unified entity. Although synchronized footsteps also enhanced listeners' perceptions of social bonding among the target individuals, this assessment did not mediate their judgments of elevated formidability, suggesting that synchrony primarily signals fighting capacity via revealed entitativity rather than inferred motivation.
---------------------
Eftychia Stamkou et al.
Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, forthcoming
Abstract:
Norm violations engender both negative reactions and perceptions of power from observers. We addressed this paradox by examining whether observers' tendency to grant power to norm followers versus norm violators is moderated by the observer's position in the hierarchy. Because norm violations threaten the status quo, we hypothesized that individuals higher in a hierarchy (high verticality) would be less likely to grant power to norm violators compared to individuals lower in the hierarchy (low verticality). In 14 studies (Ntotal = 1,704), we measured participants' trait verticality (sense of power, socioeconomic status, testosterone) and manipulated state verticality (power position, status, dominance). A meta-analysis revealed that higher ranked participants granted less power to norm violators than lower ranked individuals, presumably because the former support social stratification. Interestingly, these effects occurred for trait but not state verticality. Overall, negative reactions to deviants may be driven by hierarchy-maintenance motives by those in privileged positions.
---------------------
Dynamics of Communicator and Audience Power: The Persuasiveness of Competence versus Warmth
David Dubois, Derek Rucker & Adam Galinsky
Journal of Consumer Research, June 2016, Pages 68-85
Abstract:
The current research offers a new theoretical perspective on the relationship between power and persuasion. An agentic-communal model of power is presented that proposes power affects both the messages generated by communicators and the messages that persuade audiences. Compared to low-power states, high-power states produce a greater emphasis on information that conveys competence. As a consequence, high-power communicators generate messages with greater competence information, and high-power audiences are persuaded more by competence information. In contrast to high-power states, low-power states produce a greater emphasis on information that conveys warmth. As a result, low-power communicators generate messages with greater warmth information, and low-power audiences are persuaded more by warmth information. Because of these two outcomes, a power-matching effect occurs between communicator and audience power: high-power communicators are more effective in persuading high-power audience members, whereas low-power communicators are more effective in persuading low-power audience members. Four experiments find support for these effects in oral and written contexts with three distinct manipulations of power. Overall, these experiments demonstrate that the persuasiveness of messages can be affected by the alignment between the psychological sense of power of the communicator and the audience.
---------------------
Maciej Chudek, Andrew Baron & Susan Birch
Child Development, May/June 2016, Pages 782-794
Abstract:
Children are both shrewd about whom to copy - they selectively learn from certain adults - and overimitators - they copy adults' obviously superfluous actions. Is overimitation also selective? Does selectivity change with age? In two experiments, 161 two- to seven-year-old children saw videos of one adult receiving better payoffs or more bystander attention than another. Children then watched the adults perform unnecessary actions on novel transparent devices. Children preferred the adult who received greater payoffs or bystander attention when asked questions like "Who do you think is smarter?" but overimitated both adults' unnecessary actions equally. Although older children overimitated more, unselectivity was consistent across ages. This pattern hints at a plausible adaptive function of overimitation: acquiring rarely demonstrated behaviors by practising them immediately.
---------------------
Narcissistic Reactions to Subordinate Role Assignment: The Case of the Narcissistic Follower
Alex Benson, Christian Jordan & Amy Christie
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, July 2016, Pages 985-999
Abstract:
Narcissists aspire to be leaders and consequently may react negatively to being assigned a subordinate role, even though such roles may be integral to group functioning. In the first three studies, participants were assigned to a low status role (i.e., "employee"), high status role (i.e., "project manager"), or (in Studies 2 and 3) control condition. More narcissistic participants were less satisfied and discredited the role assignment more in the employee condition than in the project manager condition. Furthermore, more narcissistic participants displayed greater self-interest in the employee condition, relative to the project manager condition (Study 2), and less willingness to engage in behaviors to benefit the group in the employee condition, relative to the project manager and control conditions (Study 3). In Study 4, these findings were replicated in sports teams. Although there is nothing inherently negative about subordinate roles, narcissists perceive them negatively and react poorly to occupying them.
---------------------
Imagined contact encourages prosocial behavior towards outgroup members
Rose Meleady & Charles Seger
Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, forthcoming
Abstract:
Imagined contact is a relatively new technique designed to focus the accumulated knowledge of over 500 studies of intergroup contact into a simple and versatile prejudice-reduction intervention. While it is now clear that imagined contact can improve intergroup attitudes, its ability to change actual intergroup behavior is less well established. Some emerging findings provide cause for optimism with nonverbal, and unobtrusive measures of behavior. This paper extends this work by adopting methods from behavioral economics to examine more deliberative behavior. Participants believed they were playing a prisoner's dilemma with an outgroup member. They could choose whether to cooperate or compete with the other player. In three studies, we provide reliable evidence that imagined contact (vs. control) successfully encouraged more prosocial, cooperative choices. In the third study we show that this effect is mediated by increased trust towards the outgroup member. The findings demonstrate that imagined contact interventions can have a tangible impact on volitional intergroup behaviors.
---------------------
Oxytocin promotes intuitive rather than deliberated cooperation with the in-group
Femke Ten Velden, Katie Daughters & Carsten De Dreu
Hormones and Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
In intergroup settings, individuals prefer cooperating with their in-group, and sometimes derogate and punish out-groups. Here we replicate earlier work showing that such in-group bounded cooperation is conditioned by oxytocin and extend it by showing that oxytocin-motivated in-group cooperation is intuitive rather than deliberated. Healthy males (N = 65) and females (N = 129) self-administered intranasal placebo or 24 IU oxytocin in a double-blind placebo-controlled between-subjects design, were assigned to a three-person in-group (that faced a 3-person out-group), and given an endowment from which they could contribute to a within-group pool (benefitting the in-group), and/or to a between-group pool (benefitting the in-group and punishing the out-group). Prior to decision-making, participants performed a Stroop Interference task that was either cognitively taxing, or not. Cognitively taxed individuals kept less to themselves and contributed more to the within-group pool. Furthermore, participants receiving placebo contributed more to the within-group pool when they were cognitively taxed rather than not; those receiving oxytocin contributed to the within-group pool regardless of cognitive taxation. Neither taxation nor treatment influenced contributions to the between-group pool, and no significant sex differences were observed. It follows that in intergroup settings (i) oxytocin increases in-group bounded cooperation, (ii) oxytocin neither reduces nor increases out-group directed spite, and (iii) oxytocin-induced in-group cooperation is independent of cognitive taxation and, therefore, likely to be intuitive rather than consciously deliberated.