Kindness in short supply: Evidence for inadequate prosocial input.

In everyday life, people often have opportunities to improve others' lives, whether offering well-intentioned advice or complimenting someone on a job well done. These are opportunities to provide "prosocial input" (information intended to benefit others), including feedback, advice, compliments, and expressions of gratitude. Despite widespread evidence that giving prosocial input can improve the well-being of both givers and recipients, people sometimes hesitate to offer their input. The current paper documents when and why people fail to give prosocial input, noting that potential givers overestimate the costs of doing so (e.g., making recipients uncomfortable) and underestimate the benefits (e.g., being helpful) for at least four psychological reasons. Unfortunately, the reluctance to give prosocial input results in a short supply of kindness.

Interventions to reduce partisan animosity.

Rising partisan animosity is associated with a reduction in support for democracy and an increase in support for political violence. Here we provide a multi-level review of interventions designed to reduce partisan animosity, which we define as negative thoughts, feelings and behaviours towards a political outgroup. We introduce the TRI framework to capture three levels of intervention-thoughts (correcting misconceptions and highlighting commonalities), relationships (building dialogue skills and fostering positive contact) and institutions (changing public discourse and transforming political structures)-and connect these levels by highlighting the importance of motivation and mobilization. Our review encompasses both interventions conducted as part of academic research projects and real-world interventions led by practitioners in non-profit organizations. We also explore the challenges of durability and scalability, examine self-fulfilling polarization and interventions that backfire, and discuss future directions for reducing partisan animosity.

Computational ethics.

Technological advances are enabling roles for machines that present novel ethical challenges. The study of 'AI ethics' has emerged to confront these challenges, and connects perspectives from philosophy, computer science, law, and economics. Less represented in these interdisciplinary efforts is the perspective of cognitive science. We propose a framework - computational ethics - that specifies how the ethical challenges of AI can be partially addressed by incorporating the study of human moral decision-making. The driver of this framework is a computational version of reflective equilibrium (RE), an approach that seeks coherence between considered judgments and governing principles. The framework has two goals: (i) to inform the engineering of ethical AI systems, and (ii) to characterize human moral judgment and decision-making in computational terms. Working jointly towards these two goals will create the opportunity to integrate diverse research questions, bring together multiple academic communities, uncover new interdisciplinary research topics, and shed light on centuries-old philosophical questions.

"Just letting you know " Underestimating others' desire for constructive feedback.

People sometimes avoid giving feedback to others even when it would help fix others' problems. For example, only 2.6% of individuals in a pilot field study provided feedback to a survey administrator who had food or lipstick on their face. Five experiments (N = 1,984) identify a possible reason for the lack of feedback: People underestimate how much others want to receive constructive feedback. Initial experiments demonstrated this underestimation of others' desire for feedback in hypothetical scenarios (Experiment 1), recalled feedback experiences (Experiment 2), and real-time feedback among friends (Experiment 3). We further examine how people ascertain others' desire for feedback, testing how much they consider the potential consequences of feedback for themselves (e.g., discomfort giving feedback or harm to their relationship with the receiver) or the receiver (e.g., discomfort receiving feedback or value from feedback). While we found evidence that people consider both types of consequences, people particularly underestimated how much receivers value their feedback, a mechanism not extensively tested in prior research. Specifically, in Experiment 4, two interventions-making feedback-givers consider receivers' perspectives (enhancing consideration of receivers' consequences) or imagine someone else providing feedback (reducing consideration of givers' consequences)-both improved givers' recognition of others' desire for feedback compared to no intervention, but the perspective-taking intervention was most effective. Finally, Experiment 5 demonstrates the underestimation during a financially incentivized public-speaking contest and shows that giving less constructive feedback resulted in less improvement in feedback-receivers' performances. Overall, people consistently underestimate others' desire for feedback, with potentially negative consequences for feedback-receivers' outcomes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Undersociality: miscalibrated social cognition can inhibit social connection.

A person's well-being depends heavily on forming and maintaining positive relationships, but people can be reluctant to connect in ways that would create or strengthen relationships. Emerging research suggests that miscalibrated social cognition may create psychological barriers to connecting with others more often. Specifically, people may underestimate how positively others will respond to their own sociality across a variety of social actions, including engaging in conversation, expressing appreciation, and performing acts of kindness. We suggest that these miscalibrated expectations are created and maintained by at least three mechanisms: differential construal, uncertain responsiveness, and asymmetric learning. Underestimating the positive consequences of social engagement could make people less social than would be optimal for both their own and others' well-being.

When alterations are violations: Moral outrage and punishment in response to (even minor) alterations to rituals.

From Catholics performing the sign of the cross since the 4th century to Americans reciting the Pledge of Allegiance since the 1890s, group rituals (i.e., predefined sequences of symbolic actions) have strikingly consistent features over time. Seven studies (N = 4,213) document the sacrosanct nature of rituals: Because group rituals symbolize sacred group values, even minor alterations to them provoke moral outrage and punishment. In Pilot Studies A and B, fraternity members who failed to complete initiation activities that were more ritualistic elicited relatively greater moral outrage and hazing from their fraternity brothers. Study 1 uses secular holiday rituals to explore the dimensions of ritual alteration-both physical and psychological-that elicit moral outrage. Study 2 suggests that altering a ritual elicits outrage even beyond the extent to which the ritual alteration is seen as violating descriptive and injunctive norms. In Study 3, group members who viewed male circumcision as more ritualistic (i.e., Jewish vs. Muslim participants) expressed greater moral outrage in response to a proposal to alter circumcision to make it safer. Study 4 uses the Pledge of Allegiance ritual to explore how the intentions of the person altering the ritual influence observers' moral outrage and punishment. Finally, in Study 5, even minor alterations elicited comparable levels of moral outrage to major alterations of the Jewish Passover ritual. Across both religious and secular rituals, the more ingroup members believed that rituals symbolize sacred group values, the more they protected their rituals-by punishing those who violated them. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Hello, stranger? Pleasant conversations are preceded by concerns about starting one.

Connecting with others makes people happier, but strangers in close proximity often ignore each other. Prior research (Epley & Schroeder, 2014) suggested this social disconnection stems from people misunderstanding how pleasant it would be to talk with strangers. Extending these prior results, in a field experiment with London-area train commuters, those assigned to talk with a stranger reported having a significantly more positive experience, and learning significantly more, than those assigned to a solitude or control condition. Commuters also expected a more positive experience if they talked to a stranger than in the solitude or control conditions. A second experiment explored why commuters nevertheless avoid conversation even when it is generally pleasant. Commuters predicted that trying to have a conversation would be less pleasant than actually having one because they anticipated that others would be uninterested in talking. These experiments clarify the precise aspects of social interaction that may be misunderstood. People may avoid pleasant conversations with strangers because of miscalibrated concerns about starting them. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Keep talking: (Mis)understanding the hedonic trajectory of conversation.

People regularly interact with new acquaintances, yet little research has examined the hedonic dynamics of these conversations or the extent to which people are aware of them. Five preregistered laboratory experiments (N = 1,093 participants, including 966 spoken conversations) address these gaps. We find that people misunderstand the hedonic trajectory of conversation: After enjoying the initial minutes of conversation with a new acquaintance, participants expected their enjoyment to decline as their conversations continued, but experienced stable or increasing enjoyment in reality. This miscalibration arose at least partly because participants underestimated how much they would have to discuss. Thus, instructing participants to mentally simulate the conversation in detail drew their attention to the conversation material they could discuss and helped to calibrate their enjoyment predictions. When left uncorrected, misunderstanding the hedonic trajectory of conversation can undermine well-being. In one study, participants preferred to spend less time in conversation and more time alone than was optimal for their enjoyment-a finding that emerged even among participants who reported wanting to enjoy themselves. Throughout our experiments we assessed various conversational contexts (including whether participants had one long conversation with a single partner or several short conversations with different partners), and features of conversation (including participants' perceived and actual interest in talking to each other, fatigue, and the intimacy of conversation), thus shining novel light on conversational dynamics more broadly. People hold incorrect assumptions about how social interaction changes over time and, consequently, may avoid longer-lasting conversations that would forge closer connections. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Ending Conversation is a Fraught Endeavor.

Have you ever been in a conversation that lasted too long or ended too soon? According to recent findings from Mastroianni et al., conversations rarely end when people want them to end. I propose a framework for studying conversation and outline new questions that follow from Mastroianni and colleagues' generative studies.

When "enemies" become close: Relationship formation among Palestinians and Jewish Israelis at a youth camp.

Having close relationships with outgroup members is an especially powerful form of intergroup contact that can reduce prejudice. Rather than examine the consequences of forming close outgroup relationships, which has previously been studied as part of intergroup contact theory, we examine how outgroup relationships-relative to ingroup relationships-form in the first place. We collected 7 years of data from Jewish Israeli and Palestinian teenagers attending a 3-week summer camp at Seeds of Peace, one of the largest conflict transformation programs in the world. We tested how being assigned to share an activity group (e.g., bunk, table, dialogue group) influenced relationship formation among outgroup pairs (Jewish Israeli-Palestinian) compared with ingroup pairs (Israeli-Israeli, Palestinian-Palestinian). Existing research offers competing theories for whether propinquity is more impactful for the formation of ingroup or outgroup relationships; here, we found propinquity was significantly more impactful for outgroup relationships. Whereas 2 ingroup participants were 4.46 times more likely to become close if they were in the same versus different bunk, for example, 2 outgroup participants were 11.72 times more likely to become close. We propose that sharing an activity group is especially powerful for more dissimilar dyads because people are less likely to spontaneously engage with outgroup members in ways that promote relationships. Thus, structured, meaningful engagement can counteract homophily. Furthermore, in this setting, propinquity proved to be an even better predictor of outgroup (vs. ingroup) relationship formation than that pair's initial outgroup attitudes. We discuss theoretical and practical implications for intergroup processes and relationship formation. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

A sacred commitment: How rituals promote group survival.

Religious groups have survived for thousands of years despite drastic changes in society. One reason for their successful survival is the proliferation of group rituals (i.e. meaningful sequences of actions characterized by rigidity, formality, and repetition). We propose that rituals enhance religious group survival not only by signaling external commitment but also by fostering internal commitment toward the group in three ways: (1) enhancing belief in the group's values ('committed cognition'), (2) increasing the desire to maintain membership in the group ('committed affect'), and (3) increasing contributions to the welfare of the group ('committed behavior'). We conclude with a call for new empirical research on how participating in rituals can enhance internal commitment toward one's group (116/120).

Human "resources"? Objectification at work.

People behave differently when at work than not at work; for example, they are less interested in making close friends and use more transactional language (networking vs. socializing). These examples hint at a broader phenomenon: that people engage in more objectification-treating people akin to objects-in work contexts than non work contexts. We propose that objectification is more prevalent at work because people engage in more calculative and strategic thinking (i.e., making decisions by computing the costs and benefits). Seven studies (N = 2,712) test this. In Study 1, participants objectified the same individuals more when they were pictured at work (e.g., in an office) than not at work (e.g., in a coffee shop). In Study 2, there was more objectification when the same event was framed as more (vs. less) work-related. Studies 3a and 3b (experience-sampling studies with 2,300 data points) show that working adults objectify others more during work than non work interactions and demonstrate which situational characteristics enhance objectification. Study 4 manipulates the proposed mechanism: Participants nudged to think less calculatively and strategically showed a reduced tendency to objectify others in work contexts. Considering consequences, job applicants in Study 5 who read company mission statements containing more calculative language expected more objectification and were less interested in applying. Moreover, employees who perceived more objectification in their workplace reported more negative work experiences (e.g., feeling lower belonging, experiencing more incivility; Study 6). Together, these studies provide insight into how objectification arises, where it occurs, and its consequences. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Demeaning: Dehumanizing others by minimizing the importance of their psychological needs.

We document a tendency to demean others' needs: believing that psychological needs-those requiring mental capacity, and hence more uniquely human (e.g., need for meaning and autonomy)-are relatively less important to others compared with physical needs-those shared with other biological agents, and hence more animalistic (e.g., need for food and sleep). Because valuing psychological needs requires a sophisticated humanlike mind, agents presumed to have relatively weaker mental capacities should also be presumed to value psychological needs less compared with biological needs. Supporting this, our studies found that people demeaned the needs of nonhuman animals (e.g., chimpanzees) and historically dehumanized groups (e.g., drug addicts) more than the needs of close friends or oneself (Studies 1 and 3). Because mental capacities are more readily recognized through introspection than by external observation, people also demean peers' needs more than their own, inferring that one's own behavior is guided more strongly by psychological needs than identical behavior in others (Study 4). Two additional experiments suggest that demeaning could be a systematic error (Studies 5 and 6), as charity donors and students underestimated the importance of homeless people's psychological (vs. physical) needs compared with self-reports and choices from homeless people. Underestimating the importance of others' psychological needs could impair the ability to help others. These experiments indicate that demeaning is a unique facet of dehumanization reflecting a reliable, consequential, and potentially mistaken understanding of others' minds. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Power and decision making: new directions for research in the age of artificial intelligence.

Throughout history, the experience of power has occurred within the context of human-human interactions. Such power can influence decision making through at least two primary mechanisms: (1) increased goal-orientation, and (2) increased activation of social role expectations. Importantly, new advances in artificial intelligence (AI) are creating the potential to experience power in human-AI interactions. To the extent that some forms of AI can be made to seem like low-power humans (e.g. autonomous digital assistants), people may feel powerful when interacting with such entities. However, it is unclear whether feeling power over AI will lead to the same psychological consequences as feeling power over humans. In this article, we review findings on power and decision making and then consider how they may be meaningfully extended by considering interactions with artificially intelligent digital assistants. We conclude with a call for new theorizing and research on power in the age of artificial intelligence.

Two social lives: How differences between online and offline interaction influence social outcomes.

For hundreds of thousands of years, humans only communicated in person, but in just the past fifty years they have started also communicating online. Today, people communicate more online than offline. What does this shift mean for human social life? We identify four structural differences between online (versus offline) interaction: (1) fewer nonverbal cues, (2) greater anonymity, (3) more opportunity to form new social ties and bolster weak ties, and (4) wider dissemination of information. Each of these differences underlies systematic psychological and behavioral consequences. Online and offline lives often intersect; we thus further review how online engagement can (1) disrupt or (2) enhance offline interaction. This work provides a useful framework for studying the influence of technology on social life (119/120).

Tell it like it is: When politically incorrect language promotes authenticity.

When a person's language appears to be political-such as being politically correct or incorrect-it can influence fundamental impressions of him or her. Political correctness is "using language or behavior to seem sensitive to others' feelings, especially those others who seem socially disadvantaged." One pilot study, 6 experiments, and 3 supplemental experiments (N = 4,956) demonstrate that being politically incorrect makes communicators appear more authentic-specifically, less susceptible to external influence-albeit also less warm. These effects, however, are moderated by perceivers' political ideology and how sympathetic perceivers feel toward the target group being labeled politically correctly. In Experiments 1, 2, and 3 using politically incorrect language (e.g., calling undocumented immigrants illegals) made a communicator appear particularly authentic among conservative perceivers but particularly cold among liberal perceivers. However, in Experiment 4 these effects reversed when conservatives felt sympathetic toward the group that was being labeled politically correctly or incorrectly (e.g., calling poor Whites white trash). Experiment 5 tests why political incorrectness can boost authenticity, demonstrating that it makes communicators seem less strategic. Finally, Experiment 6 examines the use of political language in a meaningful field context: perceived persuasion in real political debates. Debaters instructed to be politically correct (vs. politically incorrect) were judged by their uninstructed conversation partners to be easier to persuade during the conversation, although they actually reported being similarly persuaded. Together, these findings demonstrate when and how using politically incorrect language can enhance a person's authenticity. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

The preference for distributed helping.

Whether deciding how to distribute donations to online requesters or divide tutoring time among students, helpers must often determine how to allocate aid across multiple individuals in need. This paper investigates the psychology underlying helpers' allocation strategies and tests preferences between two types of allocations: distribution (allocating help to multiple requesters) and concentration (allocating help to a single requester). Six main experiments and three follow-up experiments (n = 3,016) show a general preference for distributing help, because distribution feels procedurally fairer than concentration. We provide evidence for this preference in Experiment 1, test its psychological mechanisms (Experiments 2-3), and examine consequences for the amount of help provided (Experiments 4, 5a, and 5b). Experiment 3 demonstrates a boundary condition to the preference for distribution, showing that if one requester seems needier than others it can feel fairer to concentrate help to him or her. Next, testing real donation decisions in Experiments 4-5b, helpers distributed their donations across multiple requesters, which led them to donate more in aggregate when there were more requesters. Finally, the preference for distribution only resulted in more donations to a larger number of requesters when the donation decision was "unpacked," that is, when donors made allocations for each requester separately (Experiments 5a and 5b). Understanding helpers' allocation strategies provides insight into how people help others, how much they help, and why they help. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Handshaking promotes deal-making by signaling cooperative intent.

We examine how a simple handshake-a gesture that often occurs at the outset of social interactions-can influence deal-making. Because handshakes are social rituals, they are imbued with meaning beyond their physical features. We propose that during mixed-motive interactions, a handshake is viewed as a signal of cooperative intent, increasing people's cooperative behavior and affecting deal-making outcomes. In Studies 1a and 1b, pairs who chose to shake hands at the onset of integrative negotiations obtained better joint outcomes. Study 2 demonstrates the causal impact of handshaking using experimental methodology. Study 3 suggests a driver of the cooperative consequence of handshaking: negotiators expected partners who shook hands to behave more cooperatively than partners who avoided shaking hands or partners whose nonverbal behavior was unknown; these expectations of cooperative intent increased negotiators' own cooperation. Study 4 uses an economic game to demonstrate that handshaking increased cooperation even when handshakes were uninstructed (vs. instructed). Further demonstrating the primacy of signaling cooperative intent, handshaking actually reduced cooperation when the action signaled ill intent (e.g., when the hand-shaker was sick; Study 5). Finally, in Study 6, executives assigned to shake hands before a more antagonistic, distributive negotiation were less likely to lie about self-benefiting information, increasing cooperation even to their own detriment. Together, these studies provide evidence that handshakes, ritualistic behaviors imbued with meaning beyond mere physical contact, signal cooperative intent and promote deal-making. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Enacting rituals to improve self-control.

Rituals are predefined sequences of actions characterized by rigidity and repetition. We propose that enacting ritualized actions can enhance subjective feelings of self-discipline, such that rituals can be harnessed to improve behavioral self-control. We test this hypothesis in 6 experiments. A field experiment showed that engaging in a pre-eating ritual over a 5-day period helped participants reduce calorie intake (Experiment 1). Pairing a ritual with healthy eating behavior increased the likelihood of choosing healthy food in a subsequent decision (Experiment 2), and enacting a ritual before a food choice (i.e., without being integrated into the consumption process) promoted the choice of healthy food over unhealthy food (Experiments 3a and 3b). The positive effect of rituals on self-control held even when a set of ritualized gestures were not explicitly labeled as a ritual, and in other domains of behavioral self-control (i.e., prosocial decision-making; Experiments 4 and 5). Furthermore, Experiments 3a, 3b, 4, and 5 provided evidence for the psychological process underlying the effectiveness of rituals: heightened feelings of self-discipline. Finally, Experiment 5 showed that the absence of a self-control conflict eliminated the effect of rituals on behavior, demonstrating that rituals affect behavioral self-control specifically because they alter responses to self-control conflicts. We conclude by briefly describing the results of a number of additional experiments examining rituals in other self-control domains. Our body of evidence suggests that rituals can have beneficial consequences for self-control. (PsycINFO Database Record

The Psychology of Rituals: An Integrative Review and Process-Based Framework.

Traditionally, ritual has been studied from broad sociocultural perspectives, with little consideration of the psychological processes at play. Recently, however, psychologists have begun turning their attention to the study of ritual, uncovering the causal mechanisms driving this universal aspect of human behavior. With growing interest in the psychology of ritual, this article provides an organizing framework to understand recent empirical work from social psychology, cognitive science, anthropology, behavioral economics, and neuroscience. Our framework focuses on three primary regulatory functions of rituals: regulation of (a) emotions, (b) performance goal states, and (c) social connection. We examine the possible mechanisms underlying each function by considering the bottom-up processes that emerge from the physical features of rituals and top-down processes that emerge from the psychological meaning of rituals. Our framework, by appreciating the value of psychological theory, generates novel predictions and enriches our understanding of ritual and human behavior more broadly.