Friendly
Norman Li & Satoshi Kanazawa
British Journal of Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
We propose the savanna theory of happiness, which suggests that it is not only the current consequences of a given situation but also its ancestral consequences that affect individuals’ life satisfaction and explains why such influences of ancestral consequences might interact with intelligence. We choose two varied factors that characterize basic differences between ancestral and modern life – population density and frequency of socialization with friends – as empirical test cases. As predicted by the theory, population density is negatively, and frequency of socialization with friends is positively, associated with life satisfaction. More importantly, the main associations of life satisfaction with population density and socialization with friends significantly interact with intelligence, and, in the latter case, the main association is reversed among the extremely intelligent. More intelligent individuals experience lower life satisfaction with more frequent socialization with friends. This study highlights the utility of incorporating evolutionary perspectives in the study of subjective well-being.
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Intermediate Peer Contexts and Educational Outcomes: Do The Friends of Students’ Friends Matter?
William Carbonaro & Joseph Workman
Social Science Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
Sociologists of education have long been interested in the effects of peer relations on educational outcomes. Recent theory and research on adolescence suggest that peers on the boundaries of students’ friendship networks may play an important role in shaping behaviors and educational outcomes. In this study, we examine the importance of a key “intermediate peer context” for students’ outcomes: the friends of a student’s friends. Our findings indicate both friends’ and friends’ friends’ characteristics independently predict students’ college expectations and their risk of dropping out of high school (although only friends’ characteristics predict GPA). Our models suggest the magnitude of students’ friends-of-friends’ characteristics are at least as large their friends’ characteristics. Together, the association between the peer context and students outcomes is considerably larger when accounting for both the characteristics of students’ friends and the friends of their friends.
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Just you and I: The role of social exclusion in the formation of interpersonal relationships
Natalie Wyer & Kimberley Schenke
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, July 2016, Pages 20–25
Abstract:
Social exclusion, or ostracism, has been investigated primarily for its (typically negative) consequences for those subjected to it. Although the negative effects of exclusion on its recipients are undisputed, we suggest that it may have unrecognized benefits for those who perpetuate it. The present research investigated the possibility that social exclusion acts as a signal to others – either within or outside of an exclusive interaction – that a selected relationship is particularly cohesive. Participants interacted in triads in which one individual was or was not singled out for exclusion. Perpetrators of exclusion were perceived (by themselves and by the excluded person) as closer and more similar to each other, and were more likely to be subject to source memory confusions. These findings suggest that social exclusion has not only harmful consequences for its targets, but may have relational benefits for those who enact it.
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Generalizing disposability: Residential mobility and the willingness to dissolve social ties
Omri Gillath & Lucas Keefer
Personal Relationships, forthcoming
Abstract:
Four studies examined whether residential mobility (RM) leads people to view objects as disposable and, in turn, view social ties as disposable. Study 1 showed that tendencies to dispose of objects and social ties are related. Study 2 demonstrated that a history of RM increases the willingness to dispose of objects and, through that, dispose of social ties. Study 3 showed that increasing the sense of RM increases the willingness to dispose of objects and, through this, dispose of social ties. Study 4 showed that the relational aspect of RM is crucial in affecting relational disposability. Our findings extend research on RM and support Lewin's (1936) conceptualization of mobility being associated with ease of disposing social ties.
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Facebook and people's state self-esteem: The impact of the number of other users' Facebook friends
Tobias Greitemeyer
Computers in Human Behavior, June 2016, Pages 182–186
Abstract:
The present two experimental studies examined the extent to which upward and downward comparison processes on Facebook influence people's state self-esteem. Participants were exposed to mock-up Facebook profiles of female and male targets with many or few Facebook friends. Participant sex was also included in the experimental design. In Study 1, a 2 (number of Facebook friends) × 2 (profile owner sex) × 2 (participant sex) experimental design was employed. Unexpectedly, the manipulation had no significant impact on people's state self-esteem. In Study 2, it was examined whether there would be a curvilinear relationship between the number of other's Facebook friends and participant's self-esteem, in that exposure to others with many or few Facebook friends increases self-esteem compared to others with a moderate number of Facebook friends. Hence, Study 2 employed a 3 (number of Facebook friends) × 2 (profile owner sex) × 2 (participant sex) between-participants experimental design. However, there was neither a linear nor a curvilinear impact of the number of other's Facebook friends on participant's level of state self-esteem. Both studies also revealed that the effects were not more pronounced when participants were exposed to same-sex rather than other-sex Facebook profiles.
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Jinhyung Kim et al.
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, March 2016, Pages 311-322
Abstract:
Which friend do you want to spend time with — a happy friend who performs better than you or an unhappy friend who performs worse than you? The present research demonstrates that in such conflicting situations, when the desires for companionship and comparison are pitted against each other, one’s level of happiness plays an important role in one’s choice. Using hypothetical scenarios, we found that compared with unhappy people, happy people expected that spending time with a happy, superior friend would be more pleasant than spending time with an unhappy, inferior friend (Studies 1B through 2) and were more willing to socialize with a happy, superior friend than with an unhappy, inferior friend (Studies 1B through 2). Moreover, this pattern was not explained by self-esteem (Study 2) or the similarity-attraction hypothesis (Study 3). The present findings suggest that happy people place more value on companionship than on comparison.
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Elisabeth Blanke, Antje Rauers & Michaela Riediger
Emotion, forthcoming
Abstract:
Cognitive empathy (the ability to infer another person’s thoughts and feelings) and emotional empathy (the ability to emotionally resonate with another person’s feelings) have been associated with social adjustment. Traditionally, these skills are assessed with self-report measures. However, these may not adequately reflect people’s actual empathic abilities. There is only little and inconsistent empirical evidence on associations between performance-based empathy and positive social adjustment. In the study presented here, we gathered further evidence for such an association. Using a realistic interaction task in which unfamiliar women were paired into dyads and talked about positive and negative events in their lives, we assessed empathic accuracy (an indicator of cognitive empathy) and emotional congruence (an indicator of emotional empathy). Additionally, we obtained 2 indicators of social adjustment: participants’ self-rated satisfaction regarding the communication with their partner in the interaction task, and their self-rated satisfaction with social relationships in general. We furthermore explored the role of potential moderators, which may help to explain discrepant past findings. To test for contextual and interindividual differences, we distinguished between positive and negative emotional valence in the empathy task and investigated 2 adult age groups (102 younger women: 20–31 years; 106 older: 69–80 years). For almost all analyses, only empathic skills for positive (not for negative) affect were predictive of social adjustment, and the associations were comparable for younger and older women. These results underline the role of valence in associations between empathic skills and social adjustment across the life span.
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Cortisol and testosterone associations with social network dynamics
Olga Kornienko et al.
Hormones and Behavior, April 2016, Pages 92–102
Abstract:
This study integrates behavioral endocrinology and network science to explore links between hormones and social network dynamics. Specifically, we examine how cortisol (C) and testosterone (T) are associated with creation of new friendships and maintenance of existing friendships. A collegiate marching band was used as a model system of a mixed-sex social organization. Participants (n = 193; 53% female; M age = 19.4 years, 62.1% European-American) provided friendship nominations at time 1 and two months later at time 2. At time 1, participants donated saliva before and after rehearsal (later assayed for C and T). Stochastic actor-based models revealed that individuals with higher C levels were less likely to maintain their social relationships and more likely to create new friendships. In contrast, individuals with higher T levels were more likely to maintain friendships and less likely to create new relationships. Findings suggest that individual differences in C and T are associated with the initiation and maintenance of friendships and have several noteworthy theoretical implications.