Social and non-social categorisation in investment decisions and learning.

Categorical processes allow us to make sense of the environment effortlessly by grouping stimuli sharing relevant features. Although these processes occur in both social and non-social contexts, motivational, affective, and epistemic factors specific to the social world may motivate individuation over categorisation of social compared with non-social stimuli. In one experiment, we tested this hypothesis by analysing the reliance on categorical versus individuating information when making investment decisions about social and non-social targets. In an adaptation of the iterative trust game, participants from three experimental groups had to predict the economic outcomes associated with either humans (i.e., social stimuli), artificial races (i.e., social-like stimuli), or artworks (i.e., non-social stimuli) to earn economic rewards. We observed that investment decisions with humans were initially biased by categorical information in the form of gender stereotypes, but later improved through an individuating learning approach. In contrast, decisions made with non-social stimuli were initially unbiased by categorical information, but the category-outcomes associations learned through repeated interactions were quickly used to categorise new targets. These results are discussed along with motivational and perceptual mechanisms involved in investment decisions and learning about social and non-social agents.

Social overshadowing: Revisiting cue-competition in social interactions.

In a large variety of contexts, it is essential to use the available information to extract patterns and behave accordingly. When it comes to social interactions for instance, the information gathered about interaction partners across multiple encounters (e.g., trustworthiness) is crucial in guiding one's own behavior (e.g., approach the trustworthy and avoid the untrustworthy), a process akin to trial-by-trial learning. Building on associative learning and social cognition literatures, the present research adopts a domain-general approach to learning and explores whether the principles underlying associative learning also govern learning in social contexts. In particular, we examined whether overshadowing, a well-established cue-competition phenomenon, impacts learning of the cooperative behaviors of unfamiliar interaction partners. Across three experiments using an adaptation of the iterated Trust Game, we consistently observed a 'social overshadowing' effect, that is, a better learning about the cooperative tendencies of partners presented alone compared to those presented in a pair. This robust effect was not modulated by gender stereotypes or beliefs about the internal communication dynamics within a pair of partners. Drawing on these results, we argue that examining domain-general learning processes in social contexts is a useful approach to understanding human social cognition.

Older and Younger Adults Perform Similarly in an Iterated Trust Game.

In social contexts, aging is typically associated with a greater reliance on heuristics, such as categorical information and stereotypes. The present research examines younger and older adults' use of individuating and age-based categorical information when gauging whether or not to trust unfamiliar targets. In an adaptation of the iterated Trust Game, participants had to predict the cooperative tendencies of their partners to earn economic rewards in first encounters - in a context in which they knew nothing about their partners, and across repeated interactions - in a context in which they could learn the individual cooperative tendency of each partner. In line with previous research, we expected all participants to rely on stereotypes in first encounters, and progressively learn to disregard stereotypes to focus on individuating behavioral cues across repeated interactions. Moreover, we expected older participants to rely more on social categories than younger participants. Our results indicate that overall, both the elderly and the young adopted an individuating approach to predict the cooperative behaviors of their partners across trials. However, older adults more consistently relied on gender (but not age) stereotypes to make cooperation decisions at zero acquaintance. The impact of context, motivation, and relevance of categorical information in impression formation is discussed.

Concurrent working memory load may increase or reduce cognitive interference depending on the attentional set.

Perceptual grouping leads to interference when target and distractors are integrated within the same percept. Cognitive control allows breaking this automatic tendency by focusing selectively on target information. Thus, interference can be modulated either by goal-directed mechanisms or by physical features of stimuli that help to segregate the target from distractors. In three experiments, participants had to respond to the left-right direction of a central arrow, flanked by two arrows on each side. Sometimes, instructions requested to also stay vigilant for detecting an infrequent vertical/horizontal displacement of the target, thus loading working memory. Although it has been usually shown that concurrent working memory load hinders target selection, the present research provides evidence that interference may either increase or decrease depending on whether dual tasking draws attention to the grouping (horizontal displacement) or to an orthogonal dimension (vertical displacement), revealing counterintuitive benefits of working memory load. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Category-Based Learning About Deviant Outgroup Members Hinders Performance in Trust Decision Making.

The present research examines whether individuation and categorization processes influence trust decisions about strangers at first and across repeated interactions. In a partial replication of the study reported by Cañadas et al. (2015), participants played an adaptation of the multi-round trust game paradigm and had to decide whether or not to cooperate with unknown partners. Gender (Study 1a) and ethnicity (Studies 1b, 2, and 3) served to create distinct social categories among the game partners, whose reciprocation rates were manipulated at group and individual levels. At the group level, two social groups (i.e., ingroup vs. outgroup) were associated with opposite reciprocation rates (i.e., high vs. low reciprocation rate). At the individual level, consistency was manipulated by altering the reciprocation rate of one out of four members of each social group. That is, there was one inconsistent individual in each group showing a pattern of reciprocation opposite to the group reciprocation rate. Our data, contrary to Cañadas et al.'s (2015) findings, suggested that ingroup partners were individuated given that participants made their decisions to cooperate with the trustees according to their individual reciprocation rate and independently of the group reciprocation rate. In contrast, decisions about outgroup partners (i.e., men in Study 1a and Blacks in Studies 1b, 2, and 3) were affected by category-based thinking. At the same time, in comparison with ingroup, greater cooperation was observed with ethnic outgroups but not with gender outgroups. The consistency of our results with the previous literature on social categorization and across the three experiments seems to indicate they are reliable, supporting the hypothesis that categorization and individuation processes guide trust decision-making, promoting individuation mainly for ingroup and categorization among outgroup members.