Company
Romance and Reproduction Are Socially Costly
Maxwell Burton-Chellew & Robin Dunbar
Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences, forthcoming
Abstract:
Close social relationships provide the primary source of many important, beneficial forms of social support. However, such relationships can deteriorate without regular contact and communication and therefore entail maintenance costs. Consequently, the number of close network members that an individual can afford to maintain is likely to be constrained by factors such as the time they have to devote to servicing such relationships. New romantic relationships, despite providing large evolutionary benefits in the form of increased reproduction, may be unusually costly in this respect because the individual’s attention is intensely focused on the partner, and, ultimately, their offspring. This change of focus may impact on other relationships, reducing the availability of help from kin and friends. We used an Internet sample of 540 respondents to test and show that the average size of support networks is reduced for individuals in a romantic relationship. We also found approximately 9% of our sample reported having an “extra” romantic partner they could call on for help, however these respondents did not have an even smaller network than those in just 1 relationship. The support network is also further reduced for those who have offspring, however these effects are contingent on age, primarily affecting those under the age of 36 years. Taking into account the acquisition of a new member to the network when entering a relationship, the cost of romance is the loss of nearly 2 members. On average, these social costs are spread equally among related and nonrelated members of the network.
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Narcissism and the Use of Personal Pronouns Revisited
Angela Carey et al.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Among both laypersons and researchers, extensive use of first-person singular pronouns (i.e., I-talk) is considered a face-valid linguistic marker of narcissism. However, the assumed relation between narcissism and I-talk has yet to be subjected to a strong empirical test. Accordingly, we conducted a large-scale (N = 4,811), multisite (5 labs), multimeasure (5 narcissism measures) and dual-language (English and German) investigation to quantify how strongly narcissism is related to using more first-person singular pronouns across different theoretically relevant communication contexts (identity-related, personal, impersonal, private, public, and stream-of-consciousness tasks). Overall (r = .02, 95% CI [−.02, .04]) and within the sampled contexts, narcissism was unrelated to use of first-person singular pronouns (total, subjective, objective, and possessive). This consistent near-zero effect has important implications for making inferences about narcissism from pronoun use and prompts questions about why I-talk tends to be strongly perceived as an indicator of narcissism in the absence of an underlying actual association between the 2 variables.
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Having a Thicker Skin: Social Power Buffers the Negative Effects of Social Rejection
Maya Kuehn, Serena Chen & Amie Gordon
Social Psychological and Personality Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Social power elicits an array of psychological tendencies that likely impact processes related to the fundamental need for belonging — including how people respond to social rejection. Across three studies, using multiple methods and instantiations of power and rejection, we hypothesized that power buffers people from the typically adverse emotional and self-esteem consequences of rejection. Supporting this, power buffered participants from increases in negative emotion and/or decreases in self-esteem in response to rejection from a romantic partner (Study 1), an anticipated interaction partner (Study 2), and a hypothetical coworker (Study 3). These findings document a direct link between power and emotional and self-esteem reactions to rejection.
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Jealousy Increased by Induced Relative Left Frontal Cortical Activity
Nicholas Kelley et al.
Emotion, forthcoming
Abstract:
Asymmetric frontal cortical activity may be one key to the process linking social exclusion to jealous feelings. The current research examined the causal role of asymmetric frontal brain activity in modulating jealousy in response to social exclusion. Transcranial direct-current stimulation (tDCS) over the frontal cortex to manipulate asymmetric frontal cortical activity was combined with a modified version of the Cyberball paradigm designed to induce jealousy. After receiving 15 min of tDCS, participants were excluded by a desired partner and reported how jealous they felt. Among individuals who were excluded, tDCS to increase relative left frontal cortical activity caused greater levels of self-reported jealousy compared to tDCS to increase relative right frontal cortical activity or sham stimulation. Limitations concerning the specificity of this effect and implications for the role of the asymmetric prefrontal cortical activity in motivated behaviors are discussed.
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John Milton Adams, Will Hart & Alex Burton
Personality and Individual Differences, August 2015, Pages 232–236
Abstract:
Do narcissists really like other narcissists? Although some research suggests that the answer is ‘yes,’ the current study demonstrates that the answer to this question is not so simple. In this study, participants (N = 370) completed a survey in which they responded on a measure of trait narcissism and then were randomly assigned to rate the likability of people who were described by either 13 narcissistic traits (abstract-trait description condition) or 13 behavioral manifestations of these traits (concrete-behavior description condition). Results showed that narcissists (vs. non-narcissists) rated narcissistic others significantly more positively in the abstract-trait description condition, whereas this effect was non-significant (and slightly reversed) in the concrete-behavior description condition. Interestingly, this interaction effect was not modified by the contextual salience of one’s own (non)narcissistic identity. In sum, the present research presents a case of ‘narcissistic hypocrisy’ – narcissists claim to be more forgiving of narcissistic traits but do not follow through with this claim when led to confront manifestations of these traits. This finding adds to a growing body of work examining narcissists’ attitudes toward narcissism.
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Erika Carlson & Nicole Lawless DesJardins
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, forthcoming
Abstract:
Narcissists crave respect and admiration. Do they attain the status and popularity they crave, or do they just think that they do? In two studies (Ns = 133 and 94), participants completed the Narcissistic Personality Inventory, described themselves on core personality traits (e.g., extraversion), and were described by an informant on those traits. Participants also provided self- and peer ratings of status and liking in small groups after an initial meeting and over the course of 4 months (Study 2). Relative to people lower, people higher in narcissism initially attained, but eventually lost status; yet, they were aware that they tended to lose status. Narcissists were not especially popular, although they tended to think they were more popular. These patterns differed among narcissism facets, providing further support for the idea that the mixed adaptiveness of narcissism may be due to the heterogeneity of the construct.
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Rebecca Ratner & Rebecca Hamilton
Journal of Consumer Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
The present research demonstrates that consumers often feel inhibited from engaging in hedonic activities alone, especially when these activities are observable by others. When considering whether to engage in a hedonic and public activity such as going to a movie alone, individuals anticipate negative inferences from others about their social connectedness, which reduce their interest in engaging in the activity. Notably, consumers seem to overestimate how much their enjoyment of these activities depends on whether they are accompanied by a companion. Cues that attenuate consumers’ anticipation of negative inferences by making an activity seem more utilitarian or by reducing the anticipated number of observers systematically increase interest in engaging in unaccompanied public activities.
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Marguerite O'Haire et al.
Developmental Psychobiology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) experience high rates of social stress and anxious arousal. Preliminary evidence suggests that companion animals can act as buffers against the adverse effects of social stress in adults. We measured continuous physiological arousal in children with ASD and typically developing (TD) children in a social context during four conditions: (a) a baseline of reading silently, (b) a scripted classroom activity involving reading aloud, (c) free play with peers and toys, and (d) free play with peers and animals (guinea pigs). Our results confirmed heightened arousal among children with ASD compared to TD children in all conditions, except when the animals were present. Children with ASD showed a 43% decrease in skin conductance responses during free play with peers in the presence of animals, compared to toys. Thus, animals may act as social buffers for children with ASD, conferring unique anxiolytic effects.
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Introversion and human-contaminant disgust sensitivity predict personal space
Justin Park
Personality and Individual Differences, August 2015, Pages 185–187
Abstract:
How far do people prefer to stand from others during interpersonal interactions? Individuals vary in what has been termed personal space, and this variation appears to be systematic. For instance, personal space tends to be larger among more introverted individuals. The present study investigated whether personality variables relevant to threat perceptions may predict personal space. One type of threat that may be neutralized via physical distancing is infectious disease. This study examined whether individual differences in pathogen-relevant disgust sensitivity (particularly with respect to other humans) may predict personal space. In a study employing a behavioral measure of personal space (N = 134), human-contaminant disgust sensitivity (but not nonhuman-contaminant disgust sensitivity) was found to predict personal space while controlling for trait anxiety and introversion. Introversion was found to exert an independent predictive effect.
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Social Anxiety and Narrowed Attentional Breadth Toward Faces
Lira Yoon et al.
Emotion, forthcoming
Abstract:
The amount of information that can be perceived and processed will be partly determined by attentional breadth (i.e., the scope of attention), which might be narrowed in social anxiety due to a negative attentional bias. The current study examined the effects of stimulus valence on socially anxious individuals’ attentional breadth. Seventy-three undergraduate students completed a computerized dual-task experiment during which they were simultaneously presented with a facial picture at the center of the screen and a black circle (i.e., a target) at the periphery. Participants’ task was to indicate the gender of the model in the picture and the location of the peripheral target. The peripheral target was presented either close to or far from the central picture. Higher levels of social anxiety were significantly associated with greater difficulties detecting the target presented far from the central facial pictures, suggesting that social anxiety is associated with narrowed attentional breadth around social cues. Narrowing of attentional breadth among socially anxious individuals might hamper their ability to process all available social cues, thereby perpetuating social anxiety.
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Delinquent Peer Influence on Offending Versatility: Can Peers Promote Specialized Delinquency?
Kyle Thomas
Criminology, forthcoming
Abstract:
The consistent and robust relationship between peers and frequency of offending is often cited as evidence that friends play an important role in adolescent behavioral tendencies. But Warr (2002) has argued that the empirical support for peer perspectives remains equivocal in part because research has not demonstrated that individuals and their peers display similarities in the qualitative form of their delinquent behavior (i.e., the tendency to specialize in delinquent acts). By using data from the Gang Resistance Education and Training (G.R.E.A.T.) evaluation (N = 1,390) and the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health (AddHealth) (N = 1,848), this study seeks to fill this void in the literature by examining whether having friends who display specialization in specific delinquent acts relative to other offense types predicts an individual's own tendency to display specializing in those same crime types. Consistent with peer influence perspectives, the results of multilevel latent-trait models (Osgood and Schreck, 2007) suggest that individuals who associate with friends who demonstrate specialization in violence, theft, and substance use are more likely to display greater levels of specialization in those offense types themselves.
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Gerine Lodder et al.
British Journal of Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Based on the belongingness regulation theory (Gardner et al., 2005, Pers. Soc. Psychol. Bull., 31, 1549), this study focuses on the relationship between loneliness and social monitoring. Specifically, we examined whether loneliness relates to performance on three emotion recognition tasks and whether lonely individuals show increased gazing towards their conversation partner's faces in a real-life conversation. Study 1 examined 170 college students (Mage = 19.26; SD = 1.21) who completed an emotion recognition task with dynamic stimuli (morph task) and a micro(-emotion) expression recognition task. Study 2 examined 130 college students (Mage = 19.33; SD = 2.00) who completed the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test and who had a conversation with an unfamiliar peer while their gaze direction was videotaped. In both studies, loneliness was measured using the UCLA Loneliness Scale version 3 (Russell, 1996, J. Pers. Assess., 66, 20). The results showed that loneliness was unrelated to emotion recognition on all emotion recognition tasks, but that it was related to increased gaze towards their conversation partner's faces. Implications for the belongingness regulation system of lonely individuals are discussed.