14,287 research outputs found

    Defectors cannot be detected during"small talk" with strangers.

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    To account for the widespread human tendency to cooperate in one-shot social dilemmas, some theorists have proposed that cooperators can be reliably detected based on ethological displays that are difficult to fake. Experimental findings have supported the view that cooperators can be distinguished from defectors based on "thin slices" of behavior, but the relevant cues have remained elusive, and the role of the judge's perspective remains unclear. In this study, we followed triadic conversations among unacquainted same-sex college students with unannounced dyadic one-shot prisoner's dilemmas, and asked participants to guess the PD decisions made toward them and among the other two participants. Two other sets of participants guessed the PD decisions after viewing videotape of the conversations, either with foreknowledge (informed), or without foreknowledge (naïve), of the post-conversation PD. Only naïve video viewers approached better-than-chance prediction accuracy, and they were significantly accurate at predicting the PD decisions of only opposite-sexed conversation participants. Four ethological displays recently proposed to cue defection in one-shot social dilemmas (arms crossed, lean back, hand touch, and face touch) failed to predict either actual defection or guesses of defection by any category of observer. Our results cast doubt on the role of "greenbeard" signals in the evolution of human prosociality, although they suggest that eavesdropping may be more informative about others' cooperative propensities than direct interaction

    Facial identity and emotional expression as predictors during economic decisions

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    Two sources of information most relevant to guide social decision making are the cooperative tendencies associated with different people and their facial emotional displays. This electrophysiological experiment aimed to study how the use of personal identity and emotional expressions as cues impacts different stages of face processing and their potential isolated or interactive processing. Participants played a modified trust game with 8 different alleged partners, and in separate blocks either the identity or the emotions carried information regarding potential trial outcomes (win or loss). Behaviorally, participants were faster to make decisions based on identity compared to emotional expressions. Also, ignored (nonpredictive) emotions interfered with decisions based on identity in trials where these sources of information conflicted. Electrophysiological results showed that expectations based on emotions modulated processing earlier in time than those based on identity. Whereas emotion modulated the central N1 and VPP potentials, identity judgments heightened the amplitude of the N2 and P3b. In addition, the conflict that ignored emotions generated was reflected on the N170 and P3b potentials. Overall, our results indicate that using identity or emotional cues to predict cooperation tendencies recruits dissociable neural circuits from an early point in time, and that both sources of information generate early and late interactive patterns

    Psychopathy, autism, and basic moral emotions: Evidence for sentimentalist constructivism

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    Philosophers and psychologists often claim that moral agency is connected with the ability to feel, understand, and deploy moral emotions. In this chapter, I investigate the nature of these emotions and their connection with moral agency. First, I examine the degree to which these emotional capacities are innate and/or ‘basic’ in a philosophically important sense. I examine three senses in which an emotion might be basic: developmental, compositional, and phylogenetic. After considering the evidence for basic emotion, I conclude that emotions are not basic in a philosophically important sense. Emotions, I argue, are best understood as socially constructed concepts. I then investigate whether these emotions are necessary for moral agency. In order to do this I examine the philosophical and psychological literature on psychopathy and autism (two conditions defined in terms of empathic and emotional deficits). Persons with psychopathy appear incapable of distinguishing moral from non-moral norms. Additionally, while persons with autism often struggle to develop their empathic capacities, they are capable of understanding and deploying moral emotions like guilt and shame. I conclude that, in line with the conceptual act theories of emotion, that only contagion-based empathy is necessary for the acquisition of moral concepts

    Predictive Mind Reading from First and Second Impressions: Better-than-chance Prediction of Cooperative Behavior

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    People’s appearance and behaviors in strategic interactions provide a variety of informative clues that can help people accurately predict beliefs, intentions, and future behaviors. Mind reading mechanisms may have been selected for that allow for better-than-chance prediction of others’ strategic social propensities based on the sparse information available when forming first and second impressions. We hypothesize that first impressions are based on prior beliefs and available information gleaned from another’s description and appearance. For example, where another’s gender is identified, prior gender stereotypes could influence expectations and correct guesses about them. We also hypothesize that mind reading mechanisms use second impressions to predict behavior: using new knowledge of past behaviors to predict future behavior. For example, knowledge of the last round behaviors in a repeated strategic interaction should improve the accuracy of guesses about the next round behavior. We conducted a two-part study to test our predictive mind reading hypotheses and to evaluate evidence of accurate cheater and cooperator detection. First, across multiple rounds of play between matched partners, we recorded thin slice videos of university students just prior to their choices in a repeated Prisoner’s Dilemma. Subsequently, a worldwide sample of raters recruited online evaluated either thin-slice videos, photo stills from the videos, no images with gender labeled, or no images with gender blinded for each target. Raters guessed players’ Prisoner’s Dilemma choices in the first round, and, again, in the second round after viewing first round behavior histories. Indicative of mindreading: in all treatments where targets are seen, or their gender is labeled, or their behavioral history is provided, raters guess unacquainted players’ behavior with above-chance accuracy. Overall, cooperators are more accurately detected than cheaters. In both rounds, both cooperator and cheater detection are significantly more accurate when players’ photo or video are seen, where their gender is revealed by image or label, and under conditions with behavioral history. These results provide supporting evidence for predictive mind reading abilities that people use to efficiently detect cooperators and cheaters with better-than-chance accuracy under sparse information conditions. This ability to apply and hone predictive mindreading may help explain why cooperation is commonly observed among strangers in everyday social dilemmas

    Essays on Interpersonal Trust and Trustworthiness Detection

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    The first part of this dissertation focuses on potential foreign language effects on trust. Research shows that the use of a foreign language may alter people’s choices. Thus, interpersonal trust could also be susceptible to such effects. However, although the use of foreign language influenced choices in moral dilemmas, we did not find foreign language effects on trust or trustworthiness decisions. These findings are in line with the idea that interpersonal trust is principled. The second part of this dissertation focuses on trust accuracy. Judgments about people’s trustworthiness are made frequently and have important real-life consequences. However, the accuracy of these judgments is debated. I therefore systematically reviewed the current evidence for accurate trustworthiness detection. The overall evidence for accuracy was mixed; while the evidence for accurate trustworthiness detection from neutral photographs was limited, trustworthiness detection appeared to be more accurate when the rater and target interacted, when the target presentation resembled face-to-face contact, and when the target presentations contained cues or signals about the target’s trustworthiness. The third part of this dissertation empirically investigated trustworthiness detection accuracy. Results indicated that trustors’ specific trustworthiness detection was inaccurate when the participants had only limited time to get acquainted (Study 1) but was accurate when the participants were acquainted (Studies 2–4). Moreover, this accuracy was mediated by the simple heuristic “do I have a good relationship with this person?” (Studies 3–4). Importantly, while trustors accurately detected whether a trustee would be trustworthy toward them, they failed to detect whether a trustee would be trustworthy in general (Studies 3–4). Thus, rather than asking whether people know who is generally trustworthy, the more relevant question to ask is whether people know whom they can personally trust

    Background Nonverbal Disagreement during Televised Political Debates: A Strategic Maneuvering Approach

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    Since the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon presidential debates, interest in the impact of televised debates on political campaigns has grown steadily among scholars of argumentation and rhetorical communication. In addition to communicating policy positions of a candidate, televised debates provide the voting public one of the few opportunities to build or solidify impressions of candidates based on a (at least semi-) spontaneous social performance in which candidates meet face-to-face to discuss their differences. The strategies candidates use to communicate their policies and their desired image during a debate can influence the direction of public opinion toward them. We claim in this essay that arguments candidates make nonverbally in televised debates are significant in creating and sustaining their image as presidential candidates
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