Across societies, humans punish norm violations. To date, research on the antecedents and consequences of punishment has largely relied upon agent-based modeling and laboratory experiments. Here, we ...report a longitudinal study documenting punishment responses to norm violations in daily life (k = 1507; N = 257) and test pre-registered hypotheses about the antecedents of direct punishment (i.e., confrontation) and indirect punishment (i.e., gossip and social exclusion). We find that people use confrontation versus gossip in a context-sensitive manner. Confrontation is more likely when punishers have been personally victimized, have more power, and value offenders more. Gossip is more likely when norm violations are severe and when punishers have less power, value offenders less, and experience disgust. Findings reveal a complex punishment psychology that weighs the benefits of adjusting others' behavior against the risks of retaliation.
The COVID-19 pandemic is a global health crisis, yet certain countries have had far more success in limiting COVID-19 cases and deaths. We suggest that collective threats require a tremendous amount ...of coordination, and that strict adherence to social norms is a key mechanism that enables groups to do so. Here we examine how the strength of social norms—or cultural tightness–looseness—was associated with countries' success in limiting cases and deaths by October, 2020. We expected that tight cultures, which have strict norms and punishments for deviance, would have fewer cases and deaths per million as compared with loose cultures, which have weaker norms and are more permissive.
We estimated the relationship between cultural tightness–looseness and COVID-19 case and mortality rates as of Oct 16, 2020, using ordinary least squares regression. We fit a series of stepwise models to capture whether cultural tightness–looseness explained variation in case and death rates controlling for under-reporting, demographics, geopolitical factors, other cultural dimensions, and climate.
The results indicated that, compared with nations with high levels of cultural tightness, nations with high levels of cultural looseness are estimated to have had 4·99 times the number of cases (7132 per million vs 1428 per million, respectively) and 8·71 times the number of deaths (183 per million vs 21 per million, respectively), taking into account a number of controls. A formal evolutionary game theoretic model suggested that tight groups cooperate much faster under threat and have higher survival rates than loose groups. The results suggest that tightening social norms might confer an evolutionary advantage in times of collective threat.
Nations that are tight and abide by strict norms have had more success than those that are looser as of the October, 2020. New interventions are needed to help countries tighten social norms as they continue to battle COVID-19 and other collective threats.
Office of Naval Research, US Navy.
Social interactions are characterized by distinct forms of interdependence, each of which has unique effects on how behavior unfolds within the interaction. Despite this, little is known about the ...psychological mechanisms that allow people to detect and respond to the nature of interdependence in any given interaction. We propose that interdependence theory provides clues regarding the structure of interdependence in the human ancestral past. In turn, evolutionary psychology offers a framework for understanding the types of information processing mechanisms that could have been shaped under these recurring conditions. We synthesize and extend these two perspectives to introduce a new theory: functional interdependence theory (FIT). FIT can generate testable hypotheses about the function and structure of the psychological mechanisms for inferring interdependence. This new perspective offers insight into how people initiate and maintain cooperative relationships, select social partners and allies, and identify opportunities to signal social motives.
Social class predicts numerous important life outcomes and social orientations. To date, literature has mainly examined how an individual's own class shapes interactions with others. But how ...prosocially do people treat others they perceive as coming from lower, middle, or higher social classes? Here, in addition to testing effects of self social class on prosocial behavior, we also investigate how target social class affects prosocial behavior, operationalized using a social mindfulness paradigm that focuses on leaving or limiting choice to others. We offer three lines of reasoning, predicting that lower class targets either elicit greater prosociality than higher class targets (fairness), that higher class targets elicit greater prosociality (status), or that people are most prosocial to targets from their own social class (similarity). Across four studies, we find that participants behave less prosocially (i.e., are less socially mindful) toward higher class targets relative to lower and/or middle class targets. Perceptions of similarity, warmth, and competence did not mediate lower prosociality for higher relative to lower class targets. Together, results are most consistent with a fairness perspective. Across all studies, we also found that self social class had little to no relationship with prosociality. In total, results suggest that social class is relevant for prosocial behavior, but that target social class matters more than self social class.
•We investigate how target social class affects prosocial behavior.•We offer three lines of reasoning: Fairness, status and similarity.•Higher class targets consistently elicit less prosociality.•This is most consistent with a fairness perspective.
We argue for asymmetries between positive and negative partiality. Specifically, we defend four claims: i) there are forms of negative partiality that do not have positive counterparts; ii) the ...directionality of personal relationships has distinct effects on positive and negative partiality; iii) the extent of the interactions within a relationship affects positive and negative partiality differently; and iv) positive and negative partiality have different scope restrictions. We argue that these asymmetries point to a more fundamental moral principle, which we call Morality's Harmonious Propensity. According to this principle, morality has a propensity toward preserving positive relationships and dissolving negative ones.
Japanese EFL learners’ difficulty with accurately decoding connected English speech motivated this mixed methods study. The aural decoding capacities of 63 first-year Japanese university students, ...with low to intermediate level English proficiency, were first measured with a battery of paused transcription tests (PTT). The transcriptions were clusters of three-words that each possessed attributes typical of co-articulated speech. In addition, after each test, a subgroup of 10 participants individually listened to the same PTT and recounted introspective self-observations of their perceived difficulties with the aural decoding tasks in their L1. These quantitative and qualitative data were used to identify four trends in decoding errors which were categorized as follows:
. This study investigates some of the difficulties associated with aural decoding, highlights the challenges of identifying the origins of decoding errors and suggests that more focus is needed on developing decoding skills as well as knowledge of formulaic language in L2 listening education.
Political Ideology, Trust, and Cooperation Balliet, Daniel; Tybur, Joshua M.; Wu, Junhui ...
The Journal of conflict resolution,
04/2018, Letnik:
62, Številka:
4
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Theories suggest that political ideology relates to cooperation, with conservatives being more likely to pursue selfish outcomes, and liberals more likely to pursue egalitarian outcomes. In study 1, ...we examine how political ideology and political party affiliation (Republican vs. Democrat) predict cooperation with a partner who self-identifies as Republican or Democrat in two samples before (n = 362) and after (n = 366) the 2012 US presidential election. Liberals show slightly more concern for their partners’ outcomes compared to conservatives (study 1), and in study 2 this relation is supported by a meta-analysis (r = .15). However, in study 1, political ideology did not relate to cooperation in general. Both Republicans and Democrats extend more cooperation to their in-group relative to the out-group, and this is explained by expectations of cooperation from in-group versus out-group members. We discuss the relation between political ideology and cooperation within and between groups.
Co-inheritance of α-thalassemia has a significant protective effect on the severity of complications of sickle cell disease (SCD), including stroke. However, little information exists on the ...association and interactions for the common African ancestral α-thalassemia mutation (-α3.7 deletion) and β-globin traits (HbS trait SCT and HbC trait) on important clinical phenotypes such as red blood cell parameters, anemia, and chronic kidney disease (CKD). In a community-based cohort of 2,916 African Americans from the Jackson Heart Study, we confirmed the expected associations between SCT, HbC trait, and the -α3.7 deletion with lower mean corpuscular volume/mean corpuscular hemoglobin and higher red blood cell count and red cell distribution width. In addition to the recently recognized association of SCT with lower estimated glomerular filtration rate and glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c), we observed a novel association of the -α3.7 deletion with higher HbA1c levels. Co-inheritance of each additional copy of the -α3.7 deletion significantly lowered the risk of anemia and chronic kidney disease among individuals with SCT (P-interaction = 0.031 and 0.019, respectively). Furthermore, co-inheritance of a novel α-globin regulatory variant was associated with normalization of red cell parameters in individuals with the -α3.7 deletion and significantly negated the protective effect of α-thalassemia on stroke in 1,139 patients with sickle cell anemia from the Cooperative Study of Sickle Cell Disease (CSSCD) (P-interaction = 0.0049). Functional assays determined that rs11865131, located in the major alpha-globin enhancer MCS-R2, was the most likely causal variant. These findings suggest that common α- and β-globin variants interact to influence hematologic and clinical phenotypes in African Americans, with potential implications for risk-stratification and counseling of individuals with SCD and SCT.
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