Buddy system
Social Isolation in America: An Artifact
Anthony Paik & Kenneth Sanchagrin
American Sociological Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
This article examines whether existing estimates of network size and social isolation, drawn from egocentric name generators across several representative samples, suffer from systematic biases linked to interviewers. Using several analytic approaches, we find that estimates of network size found in the 2004 and 2010 General Social Surveys (GSS), as well as other representative samples, were affected by significant interviewer effects. Across these surveys, we find a negative correlation between interviewer effects and mean network size. In the 2004 GSS, levels of social connectivity are strongly linked to interviewer-level variation and reflect the fact that some interviewers obtained highly improbable levels of social isolation. In the 2010 GSS, we observe larger interviewer effects in two versions of the questionnaire in which training and fatigue effects among interviewers were more likely. Results support the argument that many estimates of social connectivity are biased by interviewer effects. Some interviewers' failure to elicit network data makes inferences, such as the argument that networks have become smaller, an artifact. Overall, this study highlights the importance of interviewer effects for network data collection and raises questions about other survey items with similar issues.
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Social isolation, loneliness, and all-cause mortality in older men and women
Andrew Steptoe et al.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 9 April 2013, Pages 5797-5801
Abstract:
Both social isolation and loneliness are associated with increased mortality, but it is uncertain whether their effects are independent or whether loneliness represents the emotional pathway through which social isolation impairs health. We therefore assessed the extent to which the association between social isolation and mortality is mediated by loneliness. We assessed social isolation in terms of contact with family and friends and participation in civic organizations in 6,500 men and women aged 52 and older who took part in the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing in 2004-2005. A standard questionnaire measure of loneliness was administered also. We monitored all-cause mortality up to March 2012 (mean follow-up 7.25 y) and analyzed results using Cox proportional hazards regression. We found that mortality was higher among more socially isolated and more lonely participants. However, after adjusting statistically for demographic factors and baseline health, social isolation remained significantly associated with mortality (hazard ratio 1.26, 95% confidence interval, 1.08-1.48 for the top quintile of isolation), but loneliness did not (hazard ratio 0.92, 95% confidence interval, 0.78-1.09). The association of social isolation with mortality was unchanged when loneliness was included in the model. Both social isolation and loneliness were associated with increased mortality. However, the effect of loneliness was not independent of demographic characteristics or health problems and did not contribute to the risk associated with social isolation. Although both isolation and loneliness impair quality of life and well-being, efforts to reduce isolation are likely to be more relevant to mortality.
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Andrew Przybylski & Netta Weinstein
Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, May 2013, Pages 237-246
Abstract:
Recent advancements in communication technology have enabled billions of people to connect over great distances using mobile phones, yet little is known about how the frequent presence of these devices in social settings influences face-to-face interactions. In two experiments, we evaluated the extent to which the mere presence of mobile communication devices shape relationship quality in dyadic settings. In both, we found evidence they can have negative effects on closeness, connection, and conversation quality. These results demonstrate that the presence of mobile phones can interfere with human relationships, an effect that is most clear when individuals are discussing personally meaningful topics.
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Intrinsic vs. Image-Related Utility in Social Media: Why Do People Contribute Content to Twitter?
Olivier Toubia & Andrew Stephen
Marketing Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
We empirically study the motivations of users to contribute content to social media in the context of the popular microblogging site Twitter. We focus on noncommercial users who do not benefit financially from their contributions. Previous literature suggests that there are two main types of utility that motivate these users to post content: intrinsic utility and image-related utility. We leverage the fact that these two types of utility give rise to different predictions as to whether users should increase their contributions when their number of followers increases. To address the issue that the number of followers is endogenous, we conducted a field experiment in which we exogenously added followers (or follow requests, in the case of protected accounts) to a set of users over a period of time and compared their posting activities to those of a control group. We estimated each treated user's utility function using a dynamic discrete choice model. Although our results are consistent with both types of utility being at play, our model suggests that image-related utility is larger for most users. We discuss the implications of our findings for the evolution of Twitter and the type of value firms may derive from such platforms in the future.
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Oxytocin Enhances Social Persuasion during Hypnosis
Richard Bryant & Lynette Hung
PLoS ONE, April 2013
Abstract:
It has long been argued that hypnosis cannot promote behaviors that people will not otherwise engage in. Oxytocin can enhance trust in others, and may promote the extent to which a hypnotized person complies with the suggestion of a hypnotist. This double-blind placebo study administered oxytocin or placebo to high hypnotizable participants (N = 28), who were then administered hypnotic suggestions for socially unorthodox behaviors, including swearing during the experiment, singing out loud, and dancing in response to a posthypnotic cue. Participants who received oxytocin were significantly more likely to swear and dance than those who received the placebo. This finding may be interpreted in terms of oxytocin increasing social compliance in response as a function of (a) increased trust in the hypnotist, (b) reduced social anxiety, or (c) enhanced sensitivity to cues to respond to experimental expectations. These results point to the potential role of oxytocin in social persuasion.
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Catherine Shea, Erin Davisson & Gráinne Fitzsimons
Psychological Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Two laboratory experiments and one dyadic study of ongoing relationships of romantic partners examined how temporary and chronic deficits in self-control affect individuals' evaluations of other people. We suggest that when individuals lack self-control resources, they value such resources in other people. Our results support this hypothesis: We found that individuals low (but not high) in self-control use information about other people's self-control abilities when judging them, evaluating other people with high self-control more positively than those with low self-control. In Study 1, participants whose self-control was depleted preferred people with higher self-control, whereas nondepleted participants did not show this preference. In Study 2, we conceptually replicated this effect while using a behavioral measure of trait self-control. In Study 3, individuals with low (but not high) self-control reported greater dependence on dating partners with high self-control than on those with low self-control. We theorize that individuals with low self-control may use interpersonal relationships to compensate for their lack of personal self-control resources.
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Claire Ashton-James & Ana Levordashka
Social Psychological and Personality Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Current research into the elicitors of nonconscious behavioral mimicry focuses almost exclusively on prosocial motives. Alternatively, the present research investigates whether the self-centered desire to be liked by others also induces mimicry. We investigate this issue by measuring the mimicry behavior of narcissists - a "dark personality" that is uniquely characterized by a desire to be liked by rather than by genuine liking for people. Narcissists are particularly motivated to form social alliances with high-status others. Hence, it was hypothesized that narcissistic participants would show more mimicry of higher status others (compared to lower status others). Support for this hypothesis was provided by a mixed within- and between-subjects field experiment in which the mimicry behavior of participants identified as being above or below average in subclinical narcissism was observed in a scripted interaction with a higher and lower status other.
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Catherine Clark et al.
Psychoneuroendocrinology, July 2013, Pages 1208-1212
Abstract:
Oxytocin (OT) has been linked to social behavior in rodents, non-human primates, and adult humans, but almost nothing is known about brain OT activity in human newborns or its impact on social development. To better understand the role of OT biology in human social functioning, a multi-disciplinary, longitudinal study was conducted. Cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) OT levels from 18 human neonates were evaluated and examined in relationship to social-seeking behavior at term, at 3 months, and at 6 months of age. Higher neonatal CSF OT levels were consistently associated with solicitation of parental soothing and interest in social engagement with others. This is the first study to link CSF OT levels to normative human social functioning. Research is now required to test whether early OT levels serve as a biomarker for subsequent social abnormalities.
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Keith Welker et al.
European Journal of Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Adopting a powerful posture leads individuals to feel more confident and dominant. Social exclusion can strongly impact individuals' mood and basic social needs. The current research combines these bodies of research, investigating the effects of dominant and submissive poses on responses to social exclusion and inclusion. In two experiments, participants held a slouching or upright pose and were either socially included or excluded using the Cyberball social exclusion manipulation. Social exclusion only affected participants' mood when individuals took a powerful posture: Excluded participants in powerful postures had more negative mood after exclusion than included power-posing participants, but effects of exclusion and inclusion did not differ among submissive-posing participants (Experiments 1 and 2). Similarly, it was also found that social exclusion affected basic needs only when participants' adopted powerful poses (Experiment 2).
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Christiane Schoel, Jennifer Eck & Rainer Greifeneder
Social Psychological and Personality Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Vertical position in space has been linked to perceptions of power, and high-power individuals have been shown to be less influenced by both the situational context and other people. Building on this literature, we hypothesized that a high spatial position as compared with a low one would reduce the threat from social exclusion and might help prevent aggressive acts of retaliation. To investigate this hypothesis, two arrangements of "Cyberball" - a classic manipulation of social exclusion - were compared: In the standard arrangement, participants are positioned below the excluding players; for the new arrangement, the standard arrangement was vertically flipped, so that participants were positioned above the excluding players, and thus "aloof" from the situation. Results show that only individuals positioned below (implying low power), but not individuals positioned above (implying high power), exhibited increased aggression when being ostracized. Threatened need for control and negative mood mediated the tendency toward aggressive behavior.
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The Language of Extraversion: Extraverted People Talk More Abstractly, Introverts Are More Concrete
Camiel Beukeboom, Martin Tanis & Ivar Vermeulen
Journal of Language and Social Psychology, June 2013, Pages 191-201
Abstract:
To understand the impact of personality, one needs to know how personality differences manifest themselves in language use. The present study investigates the link between extraversion and language abstraction. Participants' spontaneous verbal utterances in face-to-face interactions were analyzed for language abstraction by applying the linguistic category model, which distinguishes predicate types that convey information in concrete or interpretative manner. We also applied the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) program to relate several word categories to extraversion and language abstraction. Results show significant positive correlations between extraversion and both language abstraction and self-reported level of interpretation. Language abstraction was also linked to LIWC variables (e.g., articles, numbers) previously shown to be related to extraversion. The findings suggest that the verbal style of extraverts is characterized by a higher level of abstract interpretation, whereas introverts tend to stick to concrete facts.
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Exploring the role of intra-nasal oxytocin on the partner preference effect in humans
Jean Liu, Adam Guastella & Mark Dadds
Psychoneuroendocrinology, April 2013, Pages 587-591
Abstract:
Previous studies with prairie voles suggest that the hormone oxytocin is crucial for bond formation - indicated when a partner preference is formed towards the target vole. In this study, we conduct the first empirical test of whether oxytocin likewise promotes partner preferences in humans. Seventy-six undergraduate students received either oxytocin or placebo before being introduced to a male and female persona (via pre-recorded videoclips). One day later, participants were assessed for a partner preference towards the personae: across three situations, participants were asked to choose as company one of the personae they had been introduced to, or an opposite- or same-gendered person they had not been introduced to before; participants were additionally offered a choice to have no company. We found evidence suggesting oxytocin increases preference for persons introduced under the influence of oxytocin; however, this was not targeted at persons of the opposite-gender, and was found in only one aspect of social interaction (finding out more information about the person, but not in choice of company to work with or for a date). Taken together, our findings suggest that oxytocin might not promote human bond formation in ways analogous to prairie voles - that is, by inducing a partner preference effect.
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Friendship networks and social status
Brian Ball & M.E.J. Newman
Network Science, April 2013, Pages 16-30
Abstract:
In empirical studies of friendship networks, participants are typically asked, in interviews or questionnaires, to identify some or all of their close friends, resulting in a directed network in which friendships can, and often do, run in only one direction between a pair of individuals. Here we analyze a large collection of such networks representing friendships among students at US high and junior-high schools and show that the pattern of unreciprocated friendships is far from random. In every network, without exception, we find that there exists a ranking of participants, from low to high, such that almost all unreciprocated friendships consist of a lower ranked individual claiming friendship with a higher ranked one. We present a maximum-likelihood method for deducing such rankings from observed network data and conjecture that the rankings produced reflect a measure of social status. We note in particular that reciprocated and unreciprocated friendships obey different statistics, suggesting different formation processes, and that rankings are correlated with other characteristics of the participants that are traditionally associated with status, such as age and overall popularity as measured by total number of friends.
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Word usage mirrors community structure in the online social network Twitter
John Bryden, Sebastian Funk & Vincent Jansen
EPJ Data Science, February 2013
Background: Language has functions that transcend the transmission of information and varies with social context. To find out how language and social network structure interlink, we studied communication on Twitter, a broadly-used online messaging service.
Results: We show that the network emerging from user communication can be structured into a hierarchy of communities, and that the frequencies of words used within those communities closely replicate this pattern. Consequently, communities can be characterised by their most significantly used words. The words used by an individual user, in turn, can be used to predict the community of which that user is a member.
Conclusions: This indicates a relationship between human language and social networks, and suggests that the study of online communication offers vast potential for understanding the fabric of human society. Our approach can be used for enriching community detection with word analysis, which provides the ability to automate the classification of communities in social networks and identify emerging social groups.
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What happened to body-to-body sociability?
Leopoldina Fortunati, Sakari Taipale & Federico de Luca
Social Science Research, May 2013, Pages 893-905
Abstract:
This article aims to investigate how the body-to-body forms of sociability evolved from 1996 to 2009 simultaneously with the proliferation of ICTs in Europe and why this happened. The article also aims to find out how the socio-demographic profile of Europeans practising these forms developed in the same period of time. The analysis is based on two surveys carried out in Italy, France, the United Kingdom, Germany and Spain in 1996 (N = 6609) and 2009 (N = 7255). Results show that although the internal diffusion and frequency of the forms of communicative sociability changed, on the whole the amount of sociability has increased so slightly that it would be more appropriate to speak about real stability over the time. Secondly, results reveal that the possession of mobile phones and personal computers in 1996, and respectively the Internet in 2009, was especially associated with the increase in sociability. Lastly, the socio-demographic profile of the Europeans practising these forms of sociability changed between 1996 and 2009, although less than one might have expected.