"Thanks, but no thanks": Gratitude expression paradoxically signals distance.

Many studies have found that feelings and expressions of gratitude bring profound benefits to people and relationships. We complicate this view of gratitude. We examine two variables known to impact people's expectations for relationships: culture (collectivist vs. individualist) and relational distance (close vs. distant), and we find evidence that expressing gratitude conveys that relationship expectations have been exceeded, such that people view it as less desirable to give and receive gratitude for actions that are expected duties of a relationship. In both observational data and real behavior in an experiment, we found that people in a collectivist culture (China) are less likely than those in an individualist culture (America) to express gratitude to close others (Studies 1 and 2). Using hypothetical vignettes, we confirmed this pattern and further found there was no cultural difference for distant others (Study 3). These differences in expressing gratitude reflect differences in underlying feelings of gratitude, as well as differences in expectations of how the target would react to being thanked (Study 4). This cultural difference can be explained by cultural differences in the extent of duties placed on close others (Studies 5 and 6): People in China expect more of their close others. Perhaps as a result, people in China show a weaker preference than Americans for direct expressions of gratitude toward close others, but no difference for distant others (Study 7). Overall, our findings suggest that expressing gratitude may not always be good for close relationships. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Reminders undermine impressions of genuine gratitude.

While reminders can help by encouraging prosocial behaviors, we propose that they can also hurt. Across 10 studies, most of which focus on reminders to express gratitude, we find that reminders interfere with impressions of genuine prosociality. Whether people are reminded subtly (Studies 1a and 6-8) or blatantly (Studies 2-5) to express gratitude, the reminder is perceived to put social pressure on the potential thanker, making reminded thankers seem less genuine and less likable than spontaneous thankers. This is true from the perspective of both a third-party observer (Studies 1a and 2-7) and the receiver of thanks (Study 4), regardless of whether the judgments are about hypothetical (Studies 1a, 2-3, and 6-7) or real behavior (Studies 4-5). We find that this phenomenon can have material consequences: Receivers of gratitude expressions allocated a larger proportion of bonus money to a spontaneous thanker compared to a reminded thanker (Study 5). We also find that to overcome the decrement in their perceived genuineness, reminded thankers must engage in costly signaling by thanking more elaborately (Study 7), and reminded thankers spontaneously do this (Study 8). Overall, while reminding people to engage in prosocial actions may encourage laudable behavior (Study 6), our findings suggest that doing so may also undermine the actor's perceived genuineness, leading to material consequences and raising the bar for what is required to signal sincerity. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Overcoming listener skepticism: Costly signaling in communication increases perceived honesty.

When conversing with skeptical listeners, honest speakers face the challenge of proving the credibility of their message. What can speakers do? We argue that incurring an observable cost-in terms of time, effort, emotion, reputation, etc.-to send a message can be a convincing signal of honesty to the listener. We highlight three qualities of signals that can make them seem costly for different reasons: difficult-to-fake, verifiable, and self-sacrificing. We propose that, while each quality impacts the listener's perceptions of veracity, assessing each quality requires a different set of evaluations by the listener. As a result, assessments of each quality are subject to distinct errors in listener perception. Moreover, perceiving a signaling cost to be deliberate (vs. accidental) further impacts perceived veracity, but does so differently depending on the type of cost. Our costly signal framework can help guide speakers in overcoming listener skepticism.

Thanking, apologizing, bragging, and blaming: Responsibility exchange theory and the currency of communication.

From the time we are children, we are taught to say "thank you" and "I'm sorry." These communications are central to many social interactions, and the failure to say them often leads to conflict in relationships. Research has documented that, alongside the impact they can have on relationships, apologies and thanks can also impact material outcomes as small as restaurant tips and as significant as settlements of medical malpractice lawsuits. But, it is trivial to utter the words; how can such "cheap talk" carry so much value? In this article, we propose a "responsibility exchange theory" that explains why these communications are not costless, and which draws connections between four forms of communication that have not previously been connected: thanking, apologizing, bragging, and blaming. All four of these communications relay information about credit or blame, and thus introduce image-based costs and benefits for both the communicator and the recipient of communication: Each of the four communications involves a tradeoff between appearing competent and appearing warm. By formalizing these social psychological insights with a utility-based approach to modeling communication, and by applying game theoretic analysis, we offer new insights about social communication. We test several of the model's novel predictions about strategic communication in two experiments: The first involves hypothetical choices in a scenario study, and the second involves real choices in a live interaction. We end with a discussion of the theory's place in the literature and consider extended predictions and applications as examples of future directions for research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

A software tool for interactive exploration of intrinsic functional connectivity opens new perspectives for brain surgery.

BACKGROUND: Functional connectivity analysis of resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging data (fcrs-fMRI) has been shown to be a robust non-invasive method for localization of functional networks (without using specific tasks) and to be promising for presurgical planning. However, in order to transfer the approach to everyday clinical practice, fcrs-fMRI needs to be further validated and made easily accessible to neurosurgeons. This paper addresses the latter by presenting a software tool designed for neurosurgeons for analyzing and visualizing fcrs-fMRI data. METHODS: A prototypical interactive visualization tool was developed to enable neurosurgeons to explore functional connectivity data and evaluate its usability. The implementation builds upon LIPSIA, an established software package for the assessment of functional neuroimaging data, and integrates the selection of a region-of-interest with the computation and visualization of functionally connected areas. The tool was used to explore data from a healthy participant and eight brain lesion patients. The usability of the software was evaluated with four neurosurgeons previously unacquainted with the methodology, who were asked to identify prominent, large-scale cortical networks. FINDINGS: With this novel tool, previously published findings, such as tumor displacement of the sensorimotor cortex and other disturbances of functional networks, were reproduced. The neurosurgeons were able to consistently obtain results similar to the results of an expert, with the exception of the language network. Immediate feedback helped to pinpoint functional networks quickly and intuitively, with even inexperienced users requiring less than 3 min per network. CONCLUSIONS: Although fcrs-fMRI is a nascent method still undergoing evaluation with respect to established standards, the interactive software is nonetheless a promising tool for non-invasive exploration of individual functional connectivity networks in neurosurgical practice, both for well-known networks and for those less typically addressed.