Meet and greet
How was your day? Conveying care, but under the radar, for people lower in trust
Kassandra Cortes & Joanne Wood
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, July 2019, Pages 11-22
Abstract:
People who are lower in trust — those who lack confidence in their partner's positive regard for and responsiveness to them — have more difficulty in their relationships than do those higher in trust. Unfortunately, it is difficult to show caring, and hence build trust, for people lower in trust. Kind acts that should convey caring, such as complimenting or providing support, are often not received well by those lower in trust. In the current research, we propose a subtle, low-threat care signal that we hypothesized would be effective for people lower in trust: Asking a partner “how was your day?” Across five studies, we demonstrate that this seemingly insignificant question has a powerful effect on people lower in trust. We first showed that people lower (but not higher) in trust felt more satisfied in their relationships when they reported that their partners asked about their day, both in general (Study 1) and on that day (Study 2). Three studies provided experimental evidence. In Study 3, a manipulation of asking about a partner's day showed that doing so conveys care. In Study 4, lower trust people felt more cared for by their partners when induced to perceive that their partners ask more (vs. less) frequently. Finally, in a controlled lab setting (Study 5), people lower in trust felt more cared for when their partners asked about their experiences versus when their partners did not ask. These findings may offer a way to improve low trust people's relationships.
How Do Ideal Friend Preferences and Interaction Context Affect Friendship Formation? Evidence for a Domain-General Relationship Initiation Process
Sabrina Huang, Alison Ledgerwood & Paul Eastwick
Social Psychological and Personality Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
This research examined how people’s ideal friend preferences influence the friendship formation process. In an extension of prior research on romantic relationship initiation, we tested whether the match between participants’ ideals and a partner’s traits affected participants’ interest in forming a new friendship in three contexts: evaluating a potential friend’s profile, meeting in-person, and chatting online. Results revealed that participants were more interested in becoming friends with a partner whose traits matched (vs. mismatched) their ideal friend preferences when evaluating his or her profile. After a live interaction, however, the effect of the ideal-perceived trait match manipulation on participants’ friendship interest was substantially reduced in both in-person and online chatting contexts. People’s ideal friend preferences may influence their friendship interest more strongly in descriptive (i.e., indirect) than interactive (i.e., direct) contexts, a finding that mirrors prior results from the romantic domain and documents a role for domain-general relationship initiation processes.
Use of a non-human robot audience to induce stress reactivity in human participants
Julie Turner-Cobb et al.
Computers in Human Behavior, October 2019, Pages 76-85
Abstract:
This study examined whether a non-human robot audience can elicit a stress response in human participants. A 90-min experimental laboratory session based on the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) using a pre-recorded robot audience, was presented as a live on-screen simulation. Nineteen participants (female = 16) aged 21–57 years (M = 29.74) underwent a 10-min mock interview and mathematics task in front of the robot audience. Salivary cortisol was assessed at 10-min before and immediately prior to the start of the stress test, and +10-, +30- and +40-min after the start of the test. Heart rate was assessed 20 min before, at 5 min into and 40-min after the test. Perceived stress and trait coping responses were provided at entry and participants were interviewed post task about their subjective experience. Significant increases in salivary cortisol and heart rate were observed over time with no significant interactions by participant subjective report. Coping responses including active coping and planning showed significant relationships with cortisol and heart rate reactivity and recovery. Until now, a non-human robot audience has not been used in a social stress testing paradigm. This methodology offers an innovative application with potential for further in-depth evaluation of stress reactivity and adaptation.
Explaining the persistent influence of facial cues in social decision-making
Bastian Jaeger et al.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, forthcoming
Abstract:
Impressions of trustworthiness based on facial cues influence many consequential decisions, in spite of their (generally) poor accuracy. Here, we test whether reliance on facial cues can be better explained by (a) the belief that facial cues are more valid than other cues or by (b) the quick and primary processing of faces, which makes relying on facial cues relatively effortless. Six studies (N = 2,732 with 73,182 trust decisions) test the two accounts by comparing the effects of facial cues and economic payoffs on trust decisions. People believe that facial cues are less valid than economic payoffs (Study 1) but relying on facial cues takes less time than relying on economic payoffs (Study 2). Critically, introducing facial cues causes people to discount payoff information, but introducing payoff information does not reduce the effect of facial cues (Studies 3a–c). Finally, when making intuitive (vs. reflective) trust decisions, people rely less on payoff information, but they do not rely less on facial cues (Study 4). Together, these findings suggest that persistent reliance on facial trustworthiness is better explained by the intuitive accessibility of facial cues, rather than beliefs that facial cues are particularly valid.
Being grateful and biased: Felt gratitude as a cause of escalation bias in relational dilemmas
Dejun Tony Kong & Liuba Belkin
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, July 2019, Pages 88-101
Abstract:
Despite the documented socio-relational benefits of gratitude, this emotion can be a liability in certain social situations. We examine whether experiencing gratitude in a relational dilemma, wherein individual relational concern and personal concern are in conflict with one another, will lead to escalation bias. Across five experiments (N = 1401), we find that, in a relational dilemma, when feeling grateful (vs. neutral) toward a friend, individuals exhibited escalation bias because their high relational concern preceded and trumped their personal concern. This identified psychological mechanism was robust when we controlled for a range of dispositional, relational, motivational, emotional, and situational factors. The implications for the study of gratitude, escalation bias and relational dilemmas are discussed.