Welcome to the Nexus of Ethics, Psychology, Morality, Philosophy and Health Care

Welcome to the nexus of ethics, psychology, morality, technology, health care, and philosophy
Showing posts with label Intergroup Relations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Intergroup Relations. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 6, 2024

We're good people: Moral conviction as social identity

Ekstrom, P. D. (2022, April 27).

Abstract

Moral convictions—attitudes that people construe as matters of right and wrong—have unique effects on behavior, from activism to intolerance. Less is known, though, about the psychological underpinnings of moral convictions themselves. I propose that moral convictions are social identities. Consistent with the idea that moral convictions are identities, I find in two studies that attitude-level moral conviction predicts (1) attitudes’ self-reported identity centrality and (2) reaction time to attitude-related stimuli in a me/not me task. Consistent with the idea that moral convictions are social identities, I find evidence that participants used their moral convictions to perceive, categorize, and remember information about other individuals’ positions on political issues, and that they did so more strongly when their convictions were more identity-central. In short, the identities that participants’ moral convictions defined were also meaningful social categories, providing a basis to distinguish “us” from “them.” However, I also find that non-moral attitudes can serve as meaningful social categories. Although moral convictions were more identity-central than non-moral attitudes, moral and non-moral attitudes may both define social identities that are more or less salient in certain situations. Regardless, social identity may help explain intolerance for moral disagreement, and identity-based interventions may help reduce that intolerance.

Here is my summary:

Main Hypothesis:
  • Moral convictions (beliefs about right and wrong) are seen as fundamental and universally true, distinct from other attitudes.
  • The research proposes that they shape how people view themselves and others, acting as social identities.
Key Points:
  • Moral convictions define group belonging: People use them to categorize themselves and others as "good" or "bad," similar to how we might use group affiliations like race or religion.
  • They influence our relationships: We tend to be more accepting and trusting of those who share our moral convictions.
  • They can lead to conflict: When morals clash, it can create animosity and division between groups with different convictions.
Evidence:
  • The research cites studies showing how people judge others based on their moral stances, similar to how they judge based on group membership.
  • It also shows how moral convictions predict behavior like activism and intolerance towards opposing views.
Implications:
  • Understanding how moral convictions function as social identities can help explain conflict, prejudice, and social movements.
  • It may also offer insights into promoting understanding and cooperation between groups with differing moral beliefs.
Overall:

This research suggests that moral convictions are more than just strong opinions; they act as powerful social identities shaping how we see ourselves and interact with others. Understanding this dynamic can offer valuable insights into social behavior and potential avenues for promoting tolerance and cooperation.

Sunday, January 14, 2024

Google is Free: Moral Evaluations of Intergroup Curiosity

Mosley, A. J., & Solomon, L. H. (2023).
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 0(0).

Abstract

Two experiments investigated how evaluations of intergroup curiosity differed depending on whether people placed responsibility for their learning on themselves or on outgroup members. In Study 1, participants (n = 340; 51% White-American, 49% Black-American) evaluated White actors who were curious about Black culture and placed responsibility on outgroup members to teach versus on themselves to learn. Both Black and White participants rated the latter actors as more moral, and perceptions of effort mediated this effect. A follow-up preregistered study (n = 513; 75% White-American) asked whether perceptions of greater effort cause greater perceptions of moral goodness. Replicating Study 1, participants rated actors as more moral when they placed responsibility on themselves versus others. Participants also rated actors as more moral when they exerted high versus low effort. These results clarify when and why participants view curiosity as morally good and help to strengthen bridges between work on curiosity, moral cognition, and intergroup relations.


Here is my summary:

The researchers found that people evaluate intergroup curiosity more favorably when they perceive that the curious individual is placing responsibility on themselves to learn rather than on the outgroup to teach. The researchers also found that perceptions of effort mediate this effect, such that people view curious individuals who exert greater effort as more moral. These findings suggest that people view intergroup curiosity as more morally good when they perceive that the curious individual is taking responsibility for their own learning and is putting in the effort to understand the outgroup.

Sunday, July 9, 2023

Perceptions of Harm and Benefit Predict Judgments of Cultural Appropriation

Mosley, A. J., Heiphetz, L., et al. (2023).
Social Psychological and Personality Science, 
19485506231162401.

Abstract

What factors underlie judgments of cultural appropriation? In two studies, participants read 157 scenarios involving actors using cultural products or elements of racial/ethnic groups to which they did not belong. Participants evaluated scenarios on seven dimensions (perceived cultural appropriation, harm to the community from which the cultural object originated, racism, profit to actors, extent to which cultural objects represent a source of pride for source communities, benefits to actors, and celebration), while the type of cultural object and the out-group associated with the object being appropriated varied. Using both the scenario and the participant as the units of analysis, perceived cultural appropriation was most strongly associated with perceived greater harm to the source community. We discuss broader implications for integrating research on inequality and moral psychology. Findings also have translational implications for educators and activists interested in increasing awareness about cultural appropriation.

General Discussion

People disagree about what constitutes cultural appropriation (Garcia Navaro, 2021). Prior research has indicated that prototypical cases of cultural appropriation include dominant-group members (e.g., White people) using cultural products stemming from subordinated groups (e.g., Black people; Katzarska-Miller et al., 2020; Mosley & Biernat, 2020). Minority group members’ use of dominant-group cultural products (termed “cultural dominance” by Rogers, 2006) is less likely to receive that label. However, even in prototypical cases, considerable variability in perceptions exists across actions (Mosley & Biernat, 2020). Furthermore, some perceivers—especially highly racially identified White Americans—view Black actors’ use of White cultural products as equally or more appropriative than White actors’ use of Black cultural products (Mosley et al., 2022).

These studies build on extant work by examining how features of out-group cultural use might contribute to construals of appropriation. We created a large set of scenarios, extending beyond the case of White–Black relations to include a greater diversity of racial groups (Native American, Hispanic, and Asian cultures). In all three studies, scenario-level analyses indicated that actions perceived to cause harm to the source community were also likely to be seen as appropriative, and those actions perceived to bring benefits to actors were less likely to be seen as appropriative. The strong connection between perceived source community harm and judgments of cultural appropriation corroborates research on the importance of harm to morally relevant judgments (Gray et al., 2014; Rozin & Royzman, 2001). At the same time, scenarios perceived to benefit actors—at least among the particular set of scenarios used here—were those that elicited a lower appropriation essence. However, at the level of individual perceivers, actor benefit (along with actor profit and some other measures) positively predicted appropriation perceptions. Perceiving benefit to an actor may contribute to a sense that the action is problematic to the source community (i.e., appropriative). Our findings are akin to findings on smoking and life expectancy: At the aggregate level, countries with higher rates of cigarette consumption have longer population life expectancies, but at the individual level, the more one smokes, the lower their life expectancy (Krause & Saunders, 2010). Scenarios that bring more benefit to actors are judged less appropriative, but individuals who see actor benefit in scenarios view them as more appropriative.

In all studies, participants perceived actions as more appropriative when White actors engaged with cultural products from Black communities, rather than the reverse pattern. This provides further evidence that the prototypical perpetrator of cultural appropriation is a high-status group member (Mosley & Biernat, 2020), where high-status actors have greater power and resources to exploit, marginalize, and cause harm to low-status source communities (Rogers, 2006).

Perhaps surprisingly, perceived appropriation and perceived celebration were positively correlated. Appropriation and celebration might be conceptualized as alternative, opposing construals of the same event. But this positive correlation may attest to the ambiguity, subjectivity, and disagreement about perceiving cultural appropriation: The same action may be construed as appropriative and (not or) celebratory. However, these construals were nonetheless distinct: Appropriation was positively correlated with perceived racism and harm, but celebration was negatively correlated with these factors.

Thursday, June 22, 2023

The psychology of asymmetric zero-sum beliefs

Roberts, R., & Davidai, S. (2022).
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 
123(3), 559–575.

Abstract

Zero-sum beliefs reflect the perception that one party’s gains are necessarily offset by another party’s losses. Although zero-sum relationships are, from a strictly theoretical perspective, symmetrical, we find evidence for asymmetrical zero-sum beliefs: The belief that others gain at one’s own expense, but not vice versa. Across various contexts (international relations, interpersonal negotiations, political partisanship, organizational hierarchies) and research designs (within- and between-participant), we find that people are more prone to believe that others’ success comes at their own expense than they are to believe that their own success comes at others’ expense. Moreover, we find that people exhibit asymmetric zero-sum beliefs only when thinking about how their own party relates to other parties but not when thinking about how other parties relate to each other. Finally, we find that this effect is moderated by how threatened people feel by others’ success and that reassuring people about their party’s strengths eliminates asymmetric zero-sum beliefs. We discuss the theoretical contributions of our findings to research on interpersonal and intergroup zero-sum beliefs and their implications for understanding when and why people view life as zero-sum.

From the Discussion Section

Beyond documenting a novel asymmetry in beliefs about one’s own and others’ gains and losses, our findings make several important theoretical contributions to the literature on zero-sum beliefs. First, research on zero-sum beliefs has mostly focused on what specific groups believe about others’ gains within threatening intergroup contexts (e.g., White Americans’ attitudes about Black Americans’ gains, men’s attitudes about women’s gains) or on what negotiators believe about their counterparts’ gains within the context of a negotiation (which is typically rife with threat; e.g., Sinaceur et al., 2011; White et al., 2004). In doing so, research has examined zero-sum beliefs from only one perspective: how threatened parties view outgroup gains. Yet, as shown, those who feel most threatened are also most likely to exhibit zero-sum beliefs. By only examining the beliefs of those who feel threatened by others within the specific contexts in which they feel most threatened, the literature may have painted an incomplete picture of zero-sum beliefs that overlooks the possibility of asymmetrical beliefs. Our research expands this work by examining zero-sum beliefs in both threatening and nonthreatening contexts and by examining beliefs about one’s own and others’ gains, revealing that feeling.


I use the research on zero-sum thinking in couples counseling frequently, to help the couple to develop a more cooperative mindset. This means that they need to be willing to work together to find solutions that benefit both of them. When couples can learn to cooperate, they are more likely to resolve conflict in a healthy way.

Wednesday, January 4, 2023

How social identity tunes moral cognition

Van Bavel, J. J., Packer, D.,  et al.
PsyArXiv.com (2022, November 18). 
https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/9efsb

Abstract

In this chapter, we move beyond the treatment of intuition and reason as competing systems and outline how social contexts, and especially social identities, allow people to flexibly “tune” their cognitive reactions to moral contexts—a process we refer to as ‘moral tuning’. Collective identities—identities based on shared group memberships—significantly influence judgments and decisions of many kinds, including in the moral domain. We explain why social identities influence all aspects of moral cognition, including processes traditionally classified as intuition and reasoning. We then explain how social identities tune preferences and goals, expectations, and what outcomes care about. Finally, we propose directions for future research in moral psychology.

Social Identities Tune Preferences and Goals

Morally-relevant situations often involve conflicts between choices about which the interests of different parties are in tension. Moral transgressions typically involve an agent putting their own desires ahead of the interests, needs, or rights of others, thus causing them harm (e.g., Gray et al., 2012), whereas acts worthy of moral praise usually involve an agent sacrificing self-interest for the sake of someone else’s or the greater good. Value-computation frameworks of cooperation model how much people weigh the interests of different parties (e.g., their own versus others’) in terms of social preferences (see Van Bavel et al., 2022). Social preference parameters can, for example, capture individual differences in how much people prioritize their own outcomes over others’ (e.g., pro-selfs versus pro-socials as indexed by social value orientation; Balliet et al., 2009). These preferences, along with social norms, inform the computations that underlie decisions to engage in selfish or pro-social behavior (Hackel, Wills &Van Bavel, 2020).

We argue that social identity also influences social preferences, such that people tend to care more about outcomes incurred by in-group than out-group members (Tajfel & Turner, 1979;Van Bavel & Packer, 2021). For instance, highly identified group members appear to experience vicarious reward when they observe in-group (but not out-group) members experiencing positiveoutcomes, as indexed by activity in ventral striatum, a brain region implicated in hedonic reward (Hackel et al., 2017). Intergroup competition may exacerbate differences in concern for in-group versus out-group targets, causing people to feel empathy when in-group targets experience negative outcomes, but schadenfreude (pleasure in others’ pain) when out-group members experience these same events (Cikara et al., 2014). Shared social identities can also lead people to put collective interests ahead of their own individual interests in social dilemmas. For instance, making collective identities salient causes selfish individuals to contribute more to theirgroup than when these same people were reminded of their individual self (De Cremer & Van Vugt, 1999). This shift in behavior was not necessarily because they were less selfish, but rather because their sense of self had shifted from the individual to the collective level.

(cut)

Conclusion

For centuries, philosophers and scientists have debated the role of emotional intuition and reason in moral judgment. Thanks to theoretical and methodological developments over the past few decades, we believe it is time to move beyond these debates. We argue that social identity can tune the intuitions and reasoning processes that underlie moral cognition (Van Bavel et al., 2015). Extensive research has found that social identities have a significant influence on social and moral judgment and decision-making (Oakes et al., 1994; Van Bavel & Packer, 2021). This approach offers an important complement to other theories of moral psychology and suggests a powerful way to shift moral judgments and decisions—by changing identities and norms, rather than hearts and minds.

Wednesday, September 14, 2022

The psychology of asymmetric zero-sum beliefs

Roberts, R., & Davidai, S. (2022).
Journal of Personality and 
Social Psychology, 123(3), 559–575.
https://doi.org/10.1037/pspi0000378

Abstract

Zero-sum beliefs reflect the perception that one party’s gains are necessarily offset by another party’s losses. Although zero-sum relationships are, from a strictly theoretical perspective, symmetrical, we find evidence for asymmetrical zero-sum beliefs: The belief that others gain at one’s own expense, but not vice versa. Across various contexts (international relations, interpersonal negotiations, political partisanship, organizational hierarchies) and research designs (within- and between-participant), we find that people are more prone to believe that others’ success comes at their own expense than they are to believe that their own success comes at others’ expense. Moreover, we find that people exhibit asymmetric zero-sum beliefs only when thinking about how their own party relates to other parties but not when thinking about how other parties relate to each other. Finally, we find that this effect is moderated by how threatened people feel by others’ success and that reassuring people about their party’s strengths eliminates asymmetric zero-sum beliefs. We discuss the theoretical contributions of our findings to research on interpersonal and intergroup zero-sum beliefs and their implications for understanding when and why people view life as zero-sum.

General Discussion

Why do Americans believe that when China gains the U.S. loses but that when the U.S. gains, the whole world—including China— gains as well? Why do both Republicans and Democrats believe that the opposing party only benefits its own voters but that their own party’s success benefits all voters regardless of political affiliation?  And, why do negotiators so commonly believe that the other side is “out to get them” but that they themselves are merely trying to get the best possible deal that benefits all parties involved? In seven studies, we found robust and consistent evidence for asymmetric zero-sum beliefs.  Although situations involving two or more parties are either zero-sum or not, we found that people are ready to view them as both zero-sum and non-zero-sum, believing that other parties succeed at their expense, but that their own party does not succeed at others’ expense. Moreover, we found that people exhibit asymmetric zero-sum beliefs when considering how their party relates to other parties but not when considering how other parties relate to each other. Finally, both correlational and causal evidence found that feeling threatened led to asymmetric zero-sum beliefs. The more participants felt threatened by an opposing country, political party, or work colleague, the more they viewed the other party’s gains as coming at their expense. In contrast, feeling threatened did not affect beliefs regarding how much one’s
own gains come at others’ expense.

Saturday, March 26, 2022

Anticipation of future cooperation eliminates minimal ingroup bias in children and adults

Misch, A., Paulus, M., & Dunham, Y. (2021). 
Journal of Experimental Psychology: 
General, 150(10), 2036–2056.

Abstract

From early in development, humans show a strong preference for members of their own groups, even in so-called minimal (i.e., arbitrary and unfamiliar) groups, leading to tremendous negative consequences such as outgroup discrimination and derogation. A better understanding of the underlying processes driving humans’ group mindedness is an important first step toward fighting discrimination and inequality on a bigger level. Based on the assumption that minimal group allocation elicits the anticipation of future within-group cooperation, which in turn elicits ingroup preference, we investigate whether changing participants’ anticipation from within-group cooperation to between-group cooperation reduces their ingroup bias. In the present set of five studies (overall N = 465) we test this claim in two different populations (children and adults), in two different countries (United States and Germany), and in two kinds of groups (minimal and social group based on gender). Results confirm that changing participants’ anticipation of who they will cooperate with from ingroup to outgroup members significantly reduces their ingroup bias in minimal groups, though not for gender, a non-coalitional group. In summary, these experiments provide robust evidence for the hypothesis that children and adults encode minimal group membership as a marker for future collaboration. They show that experimentally manipulating this expectation can eliminate their minimal ingroup bias. This study sheds light on the underlying cognitive processes in intergroup behavior throughout development and opens up new avenues for research on reducing ingroup bias and discrimination.

From the General Discussion

The present set of studies advances the field in several important ways. First, it summarizes and tests a plausible theoretical framework for the formation of ingroup bias in the minimal group paradigm, thereby building on accounts that explain the origins of categorization based on allegiances and coalitions (e.g., Kurzban et al., 2001). Drawing on both evolutionary assumptions (Smith, 2003; West, Griffin, & Gardner, 2007; West, El Mouden, & Gardner, 2011) and social learning accounts (e.g., Bigler & Liben, 2006; 2007), our explanation focuses on interdependence and cooperation(Balliet et al., 2014; Pietraszewski, 2013; 2020; Yamagishi & Kiyonari, 2000).It extends these onto the formation of intergroup bias in attitudes: Results of our studies support the hypotheses that the allocation in a minimal group paradigm elicits the anticipation of cooperation, and that the anticipation of cooperation is one of the key factors in the formation of ingroup bias, as evident in the robust results across 4 experiments and several different measures. We therefore concur with the claim that the minimal group paradigm is not so minimal at all (Karp et al.,1993), as it (at least) elicits the expectation to collaborate.

Furthermore, our results show that the anticipation of cooperation alone is already sufficient to induce (and reduce) ingroup bias (Experiment 2). This extends previous research emphasizing the importance of the cooperative activity (e.g., Gaertner et al., 1990; Sherif et al., 1961),and highlights the role of the cognitive processes involved in cooperative behavior.  In our experiment, the cooperative activity in itself had no additional effect on the formation of ingroup bias. However, it is important to note the cooperation was operationalized here in a minimal way, and it is possible that a more direct operationalization and a more interactive experience of cooperation with the other children might have a stronger effect on children's attitudes, a subject for further research.

Sunday, January 9, 2022

Through the Looking Glass: A Lens-Based Account of Intersectional Stereotyping

Petsko, C.D., Rosette, A.S. &
Bodenhausen, C.V. (2022)
Preprint
Journal of Personality & Social Psychology

Abstract

A growing body of scholarship documents the intersectional nature of social stereotyping, with stereotype content being shaped by a target person’s multiple social identities. However, conflicting findings in this literature highlight the need for a broader theoretical integration. For example, although there are contexts in which perceivers stereotype gay Black men and heterosexual Black men in very different ways, so too are there contexts in which perceivers stereotype these men in very similar ways. We develop and test an explanation for contradictory findings of this sort. In particular, we argue that perceivers have a repertoire of lenses in their minds—identity-specific schemas for categorizing others—and that characteristics of the perceiver and the social context determine which one of these lenses will be used to organize social perception. Perceivers who are using the lens of race, for example, are expected to attend to targets’ racial identities so strongly that they barely attend, in these moments, to targets’ other identities (e.g., their sexual orientations). Across six experiments, we show (1) that perceivers tend to use just one lens at a time when thinking about others, (2) that the lenses perceivers use can be singular and simplistic (e.g., the lens of gender by itself) or intersectional and complex (e.g., a race-by-gender lens, specifically), and (3) that different lenses can prescribe categorically distinct sets of stereotypes that perceivers use as frameworks for thinking about others. This lens-based account can resolve apparent contradictions in the literature on intersectional stereotyping, and it can likewise be used to generate novel hypotheses.

Lens Socialization and Acquisition

We have argued that perceivers use lenses primarily for epistemic purposes. Without lenses, the social world is perceptually ambiguous. With lenses, the social world is made perceptually clear. But how do people acquire lenses in the first place? And why are some lenses more frequently employed within a given culture than others? Reasonable answers to these questions come from developmental intergroup theory (Bigler & Liben, 2006, 2007). According to this perspective, children are motivated to understand their social worlds, and as a result, they actively seek to determine which bases for classifying people are important. One way in which children learn which bases of classification—or in our parlance, which lenses—are important is through their socialization experiences (Bigler et al., 2001; Gelman & Heyman, 1999). For example, educators in the U.S. often use language that explicitly references students’ gender groups (e.g., as when teachers say “good morning, boys and girls”), which reinforces children’s belief that the lens of gender is relevant toward the end of understanding who’s who (Bem, 1983). Another way in which people acquire lenses is through interaction with norms, laws, and institutions that, even if not explicitly referencing group divisions, nevertheless suggest that certain group divisions matter more than others (Allport, 1954; Bigler & Liben, 2007). For example, most neighborhoods in the United States are heavily segregated according to race and social class (e.g., Lichter et al., 2015; 2017). Such de facto segregation sends the message to children (and adults) that race and social class—and perhaps even their intersection—are relevant lenses for the purposes of understanding and making predictions about other people (e.g., Bonam et al., 2017). These processes, a broad mixture of socialization experiences and inductive reasoning about which group distinctions matter, are thought to give rise to lens acquisition.

Friday, November 19, 2021

Biological Essentialism Correlates with (But Doesn’t Cause?) Intergroup Bias

Bailey, A., & Knobe, J. 
(2021, September 17).
https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/rx8jc

Abstract

People with biological essentialist beliefs about social groups also tend to endorse biased beliefs about individuals in those groups, including stereotypes, prejudices, and intensified emphasis on the group. These correlations could be due to biological essentialism causing bias, and some experimental studies support this causal direction. Given this prior work, we expected to find that biological essentialism would lead to increased bias compared to a control condition and set out to extend this prior work in a new direction (regarding “value-based” essentialism). But although the manipulation affected essentialist beliefs and essentialist beliefs were correlated with stereotyping (Studies 1, 2a, and 2b), prejudice (Studies 2a), and group emphasis (Study 3), there was no evidence that biological essentialism caused these outcomes. Given these findings, our initial research question became moot, and the present work focuses on reexamining the relationship between essentialism and bias. We discuss possible moderators, reverse causation, and third variables.


General Discussion

The present studies examined the relationship between biological essentialism and intergroup bias. As in prior work, we found that essentialist beliefs were correlated positively with stereotyping, including negative stereotyping, as well as group boundary intensification.  This positive relationship was found for essentialist thinking more generally (Studies 1, 2a, 2b, and 3) as well as specific beliefs in a biological essence (Studies 1, 2a, and 3). (New to this research, we also found similar positive correlations with beliefs in a value-based essence.) The internal meta-analysis for stereotyping confirmed a small but consistent positive relationship. Findings for prejudice were more mixed across studies consistent with more mixed findings in the prior literature even for correlational effects, but the internal meta-analysis indicated a small relationship between greater biological essentialism and less negative feelings toward the group(as in, e.g., Haslam & Levy, 2006, but see, Chen & Ratliff, 2018). 

Before conducting this research and based on the previous literature, we assumed that these correlational relationships would be due to essentialism causing intergroup bias. But although our experimental manipulations worked as designed to shift essentialist beliefs, there was no evidence that biological essentialism caused stereotyping, prejudice, or group boundary intensification.  The present studies thus suggest that a straightforward causal effect of essentialism on intergroup bias may be weaker or more complex than often described.

Wednesday, June 9, 2021

Towards a computational theory of social groups: A finite set of cognitive primitives for representing any and all social groups in the context of conflict

Pietraszewski, D. (2021). 
Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 1-62. 
doi:10.1017/S0140525X21000583

Abstract

We don't yet have adequate theories of what the human mind is representing when it represents a social group. Worse still, many people think we do. This mistaken belief is a consequence of the state of play: Until now, researchers have relied on their own intuitions to link up the concept social group on the one hand, and the results of particular studies or models on the other. While necessary, this reliance on intuition has been purchased at considerable cost. When looked at soberly, existing theories of social groups are either (i) literal, but not remotely adequate (such as models built atop economic games), or (ii) simply metaphorical (typically a subsumption or containment metaphor). Intuition is filling in the gaps of an explicit theory. This paper presents a computational theory of what, literally, a group representation is in the context of conflict: it is the assignment of agents to specific roles within a small number of triadic interaction types. This “mental definition” of a group paves the way for a computational theory of social groups—in that it provides a theory of what exactly the information-processing problem of representing and reasoning about a group is. For psychologists, this paper offers a different way to conceptualize and study groups, and suggests that a non-tautological definition of a social group is possible. For cognitive scientists, this paper provides a computational benchmark against which natural and artificial intelligences can be held.

Summary and Conclusion

Despite an enormous literature on groups and group dynamics, little attention has been paid to explicit computational theories of how the mind represents and reasons about groups. The goal of this paper has been, in a conceptual, non-technical manner, to propose a simple but non-trivial framework for starting to ask questions about the nature of the underlying representations that make the phenomenon of social groups possible—all described at the level of information processing. This computational theory, when combined with many more such theories—and followed by extensive task analyses and empirical investigations—will eventually contribute to a full accounting of the information-processing required to represent, reason about, and act in accordance with group representations.

Saturday, February 27, 2021

Following your group or your morals? The in-group promotes immoral behavior while the out-group buffers against it

Vives, M., Cikara, M., & FeldmanHall, O. 
(2021, February 5). 
https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/jky9h

Abstract

People learn by observing others, albeit not uniformly. Witnessing an immoral behavior causes observers to commit immoral actions, especially when the perpetrator is part of the in-group. Does conformist behavior hold when observing the out-group? We conducted three experiments (N=1,358) exploring how observing an (im)moral in-/out-group member changed decisions relating to justice: Punitive, selfish, or dishonest choices. Only immoral in-groups increased immoral actions, while the same immoral behavior from out-groups had no effect. In contrast, a compassionate or generous individual did not make people more moral, regardless of group membership. When there was a loophole to deny cheating, neither an immoral in-/out-group member changed dishonest behavior. Compared to observing an honest in-group member, people become more honest themselves after observing an honest out-group member, revealing that out-groups can enhance morality. Depending on the severity of the moral action, the in-group licenses immoral behavior while the out-group buffers against it.

General discussion

Choosing compassion over punishment, generosity over selfishness, and honesty over dishonesty is the byproduct of many factors, including virtue-signaling, norm compliance, and self-interest. There are times, however, when moral choices are shaped by the mere observation of what others do in the same situation (Gino & Galinsky, 2012; Nook et al., 2016). Here, we investigated how moral decisions are shaped by one’s in-or out-group—a factor known to shift willingness to conform (Gino et al., 2009). Conceptually replicating past research (Gino et al., 2009), results reveal that immoral behaviors were only transmitted by the in-group: while participants became more punitive or selfish after observing a punitive or selfish in-group, they did not increase their immoral behavior after observing an immoral out-group (Experiments 1 & 2). However, when the same manipulation was deployed in a context where the immoral acts could not be traced, neither the dishonest in- nor out-group member produced any behavioral shifts in our subjects (Experiment 3). These results suggest that immoral behaviors are not transmitted equally by all individuals. Rather, they are more likely to be transmitted within groups than between groups. In contrast, pro-social behaviors were rarely transmitted by either group. Participants did not become more compassionate or generous after observing a compassionate or generous in-or out-group member (Experiments 1 & 2). We only find modifications for prosocial behavior when participants observe another participant behaving in a costly honest manner, and this was modulated by group membership. Witnessing an honest out-group member attenuated the degree to which participants themselves cheated compared to participants who witnessed an honest in-group member (see Table 1 for a summary of results). Together, these findings suggest that the transmission of moral corruption is both determined by group membership and is sensitive to the degree of moral transgression. Namely, given the findings from Experiment 3, in-groups appear to license moral corruption, while virtuous out-groups can buffer against it.

(Italics added.)

Sunday, September 27, 2020

Blatant dehumanization in the mind's eye: Prevalent even among those who explicitly reject it?

Petsko, C. D., Lei, R., Kunst, J. R., & others
(2020, August 5).
https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/g7w4b

Abstract

Research suggests that some people, particularly those on the political right, have a tendency to blatantly dehumanize low-status groups. However, these findings have largely relied on self-report measures, which are notoriously subject to social desirability concerns. To better understand just how widely blatant forms of intergroup dehumanization might extend, the present paper leverages an unobtrusive, data-driven perceptual task to examine how U.S. respondents mentally represent ‘Americans’ vs. ‘Arabs’ (a low-status group in the U.S. that is often explicitly targeted with blatant dehumanization). Data from two reverse-correlation experiments (original N = 108; pre-registered replication N = 336) and seven rating studies (N = 2,301) suggest that U.S. respondents’ mental representations of Arabs are significantly more dehumanizing than their representations of Americans. Furthermore, analyses indicate that this phenomenon is not reducible to a general tendency for our sample to mentally represent Arabs more negatively than Americans. Finally, these findings reveal that blatantly dehumanizing representations of Arabs can be just as prevalent among individuals exhibiting low levels of explicit dehumanization (e.g., liberals) as among individuals exhibiting high levels of explicit dehumanization (e.g., conservatives)—a phenomenon into which exploratory analyses suggest liberals may have only limited awareness. Taken together, these results suggest that blatant dehumanization may be more widespread than previously recognized, and that it can persist even in the minds of those who explicitly reject it.

Wednesday, August 28, 2019

Profit Versus Prejudice: Harnessing Self-Interest to Reduce In-Group Bias

Stagnaro, M. N., Dunham, Y., & Rand, D. G. (2018).
Social Psychological and Personality Science, 9(1), 50–58.
https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550617699254

Abstract

We examine the possibility that self-interest, typically thought to undermine social welfare, might reduce in-group bias. We compared the dictator game (DG), where participants unilaterally divide money between themselves and a recipient, and the ultimatum game (UG), where the recipient can reject these offers. Unlike the DG, there is a self-interested motive for UG giving: If participants expect the rejection of unfair offers, they have a monetary incentive to be fair even to out-group members. Thus, we predicted substantial bias in the DG but little bias in the UG. We tested this hypothesis in two studies (N = 3,546) employing a 2 (in-group/out-group, based on abortion position) × 2 (DG/UG) design. We observed the predicted significant group by game interaction, such that the substantial in-group favoritism observed in the DG was almost entirely eliminated in the UG: Giving the recipient bargaining power reduced the premium offered to in-group members by 77.5%.

Discussion
Here we have provided evidence that self-interest has the potential to override in-group bias based on a salient and highly charged real-world grouping (abortion stance). In the DG, where participants had the power to offer whatever they liked, we saw clear evidence of behavior favoring in-group members. In the UG, where the recipient could reject the offer, acting on such biases had the potential to severely reduce earnings. Participants anticipated this, as shown by their expectations of partner behavior, and made fair offers to both in-group and out-group participants.

Traditionally, self-interest is considered a negative force in intergroup relations. For example, an individual might give free reign to a preference for interacting with similar others, and even be willing to pay a cost to satisfy those preferences, resulting in what has been called “taste-based” discrimination (Becker, 1957). Although we do not deny that such discrimination can (and often does) occur, we suggest that in the right context, the costs it can impose serve as a disincentive. In particular, when strategic concerns are heightened, as they are in multilateral interactions where the parties must come to an agreement and failing to do so is both salient and costly (such as the UG), self-interest has the opportunity to mitigate biased behavior. Here, we provide one example of such a situation: We find that participants successfully withheld bias in the UG, making equally fair offers to both in-group and out-group recipients.

Tuesday, December 6, 2016

Perceiving the World Through Group-Colored Glasses: A Perceptual Model of Intergroup Relations

Y. Jenny Xiao, Géraldine Coppin, and Jay J. Van Bavel
Psychological Inquiry Vol. 27 , Iss. 4, 2016

Abstract

Extensive research has investigated societal and behavioral consequences of social group affiliation and identification but has been relatively silent on the role of perception in intergroup relations. We propose the perceptual model of intergroup relations to conceptualize how intergroup relations are grounded in perception. We review the growing literature on how intergroup dynamics shape perception across different sensory modalities and argue that these perceptual processes mediate intergroup relations. The model provides a starting point for social psychologists to study perception as a function of social group dynamics and for perception researchers to consider social influences. We highlight several gaps in the literature and outline areas for future research. Uncovering the role of perception in intergroup relations offers novel insights into the construction of shared reality and may help devise new and unique interventions targeted at the perceptual level.

The article is here.

Saturday, December 12, 2015

The Whitewashing Effect: Using Racial Contact to Signal Trustworthiness and Competence

Stephen T. La Macchia, Winnifred R. Louis, Matthew J. Hornsey, M. Thai, & F. K. Barlow
Pers Soc Psychol Bull January 2016 42: 118-129
doi:10.1177/0146167215616801

Abstract

The present research examines whether people use racial contact to signal positive and negative social attributes. In two experiments, participants were instructed to fake good (trustworthy/competent) or fake bad (untrustworthy/incompetent) when reporting their amount of contact with a range of different racial groups. In Experiment 1 (N = 364), participants faking good reported significantly more contact with White Americans than with non-White Americans, whereas participants faking bad did not. In Experiment 2 (N = 1,056), this pattern was replicated and was found to be particularly pronounced among those with stronger pro-White bias. These findings suggest that individuals may use racial contact as a social signal, effectively “whitewashing” their apparent contact and friendships when trying to present positively.

The entire article is here.

Friday, October 31, 2014

The Neuroscience of Intergroup Relations: An Integrative Review

By Mina Cikara & Jay J. Van Bavel
Perspectives on Psychological Science
May 2014 vol. 9 no. 3 245-274

Abstract

We review emerging research on the psychological and biological factors that underlie social group formation, cooperation, and conflict in humans. Our aim is to integrate the intergroup neuroscience literature with classic theories of group processes and intergroup relations in an effort to move beyond merely describing the effects of specific social out-groups on the brain and behavior. Instead, we emphasize the underlying psychological processes that govern intergroup interactions more generally: forming and updating our representations of “us” and “them” via social identification and functional relations between groups. This approach highlights the dynamic nature of social identity and the context-dependent nature of intergroup relations. We argue that this theoretical integration can help reconcile seemingly discrepant findings in the literature, provide organizational principles for understanding the core elements of intergroup dynamics, and highlight several exciting directions for future research at the interface of intergroup relations and neuroscience.

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People experience pleasure when they have the ability to punish or watch the punishment of a disliked or competitive other. When a partner behaved unfairly (i.e., defected) in a game, the dorsal striatum—a region implicated in action selection on the basis of reward value—was relatively more active when people administered punishments that reduced defectors’ payoffs, as compared with punishments that did not (De Quervain et al., 2004). Moreover, subjects with stronger activations in the dorsal striatum were willing to incur greater costs in order to punish. Other work has found that seeing the pain of a cooperative confederate activated a network of brain regions associated with firsthand experience of pain; however, seeing the pain of a competitive confederate activated ventral striatum. Further, ventral striatum activation correlated with an expressed desire for revenge (Singer et al., 2006). Thus, in interpersonal contexts, competition (even among strangers, for low-stakes outcomes) fundamentally changes people’s social preferences and corresponding neural responses.

The entire article is here, behind a paywall.