Showing papers in "Advances in Experimental Social Psychology in 2008"

Warmth and Competence As Universal Dimensions of Social Perception: The Stereotype Content Model and the BIAS Map

Abstract: The stereotype content model (SCM) defines two fundamental dimensions of social perception, warmth and competence, predicted respectively by perceived competition and status. Combinations of warmth and competence generate distinct emotions of admiration, contempt, envy, and pity. From these intergroup emotions and stereotypes, the behavior from intergroup affect and stereotypes (BIAS) map predicts distinct behaviors: active and passive, facilitative and harmful. After defining warmth/communion and competence/agency, the chapter integrates converging work documenting the centrality of these dimensions in interpersonal as well as intergroup perception. Structural origins of warmth and competence perceptions result from competitors judged as not warm, and allies judged as warm; high status confers competence and low status incompetence. Warmth and competence judgments support systematic patterns of cognitive, emotional, and behavioral reactions, including ambivalent prejudices. Past views of prejudice as a univalent antipathy have obscured the unique responses toward groups stereotyped as competent but not warm or warm but not competent. Finally, the chapter addresses unresolved issues and future research directions.

A Reciprocal Influence Model of Social Power: Emerging Principles and Lines of Inquiry

Abstract: In the present chapter, we advance a reciprocal influence model of social power. Our model is rooted in evolutionist analyses of primate hierarchies, and notions that the capacity for subordinates to form alliances imposes important demands upon those in power, and that power heuristically reduces the likelihood of conflicts within groups. Guided by these assumptions, we posit a set of propositions regarding the reciprocal nature of power, and review recent supporting data. With respect to the acquisition of social power, we show that power is afforded to those individuals and strategic behaviors related to advancing the interests of the group. With respect to constraints upon power, we detail how group‐based representations (a fellow group member's reputation), communication (gossip), and self‐assessments (an individual's modest sense of power) constrain the actions of those in power according to how they advance group interests. Finally, with respect to the notion that power acts as a social interaction heuristic, we examine how social power is readily and accurately perceived by group members and gives priority to the emotions, goals, and actions of high‐power individuals in shaping interdependent action. We conclude with a discussion of recent studies of the subjective sense of power and class‐based ideologies.

Psychological Aspects of Retributive Justice

Abstract: Retributive justice is a system by which offenders are punished in proportion to the moral magnitude of their intentionally committed harms. This chapter lays out the emerging psychological principles that underlie citizens' intuitions regarding punishment. We rely on experimental methods and conclude that intuitions of justice are broadly consistent with the principles of retributive justice, and therefore systematically deviate from principles of deterrence and other utilitarian‐based systems of punishing wrongs. We examine the recent contributions of social‐neuroscience to the topic and conclude that retributive punishment judgments normally stem from the more general intuitive‐based judgment system. Particular circumstances can trigger the reasoning‐based system, however, thus indicating that this is a dual process mechanism. Importantly, though, evidence suggests that both the intuitive and reasoning systems adhere to the principles of retribution. The empirical results of this research have clear policy implications. Converging evidence suggests that the formal U.S. justice system is becoming increasingly utilitarian in nature, but that citizen intuitions about justice continue to track retributive principles. The resulting divide leads people to lose respect for the law, which means that they do not rely on the law's guidance in ambiguous situations where the morally correct behavior is unclear. These are the dangers to society from having justice policies based jointly on the contradictory principles of retribution and utility, and we lay out an argument for enacting public policies more exclusively based on retributive principles of justice. The field of psychological research on retributive justice, as compared to other kinds of justice, is of more recent empirical investigation and is correspondingly less well researched. Recently, though, it has attracted enough psychological interest so that once can glimpse the beginnings of a conceptual account on how people think about this sort of justice. Some psychological principles begin to emerge. In this chapter, we will summarize some of this research, with the customary emphasis on research conducted in our own laboratories, and drawing in work of others where relevant.

Majority versus minority influence, message processing and attitude change: The Source-Context-Elaboration Model.

Abstract: This chapter examines the contexts in which people will process more deeply, and therefore be more influenced by, a position that is supported by either a numerical majority or minority. The chapter reviews the major theories of majority and minority influence with reference to which source condition is associated with most message processing (and where relevant, the contexts under which this occurs) and experimental research examining these predictions. The chapter then presents a new theoretical model (the source-context-elaboration model, SCEM) that aims to integrate the disparate research findings. The model specifies the processes underlying majority and minority influence, the contexts under which these processes occur and the consequences for attitudes changed by majority and minority influence. The chapter then describes a series of experiments that address each of the aspects of the theoretical model. Finally, a range of research-related issues are discussed and future issues for the research area as a whole are considered.

The Commitment‐Insurance System: Self‐Esteem and the Regulation of Connection in Close Relationships

Abstract: A levels of processing model of the commitment‐insurance system is described to explain how low and high self‐esteem people cope with the interdependence dilemma posed by ensuring that a partner's commitment is commensurate with their own Two levels to this system are detailed: (1) the procedural rules that govern perception and behavior without conscious awareness and regardless of self‐esteem and (2) the controlled or deliberated rules that govern perception and behavior differentially as a function of self‐esteem In the automatic rule system, feeling as valuable as the partner signals the partner's intrinsic motivation to be responsive, and thus the safety of seeking connection In contrast, feeling inferior activates an exchange script specifying that partners need to match in desirability to avoid being replaced Once activated, exchange concerns then motivate reparative behavioral efforts to secure the partner's dependence, thereby soliciting a supplementary, instrumental form of commitment‐insurance against rejection and nonresponsiveness to need In the controlled rule system, optimistic chronic expectations of acceptance allow high, but now low, self‐esteem people to override the application of these automatic contingencies Research supporting the model is reviewed and provides the basis for delineating a novel formulation of interdependence theory