Social influence matters: We follow pandemic guidelines most when our close circle does

Why do we adopt new rules, such as social distancing? Although human sciences research stresses the key role of social influence in behaviour change, most COVID-19 campaigns emphasize the disease’s medical threat. In a global data set (n = 6,674), we investigated how social influences predict people’s adherence to distancing rules during the pandemic. Bayesian regression analyses controlling for stringency of local measures showed that people distanced most when they thought their close social circle did. Such social influence mattered more than people thinking distancing was the right thing to do. People’s adherence also aligned with their fellow citizens, but only if they felt deeply bonded with their country. Self-vulnerability to the disease predicted distancing more for people with larger social circles. Collective efficacy and collectivism also significantly predicted distancing. To achieve behavioural change during crises, policymakers must emphasize shared values and harness the social influence of close friends and family

Putting ourselves in another’s skin: using the plasticity of self-perception to enhance empathy and decrease prejudice

The self is one the most important concepts in social cognition and plays a crucial role in determining questions such as which social groups we view ourselves as belonging to and how we relate to others. In the past decade, the self has also become an important topic within cognitive neuroscience with an explosion in the number of studies seeking to understand how different aspects of the self are represented within the brain. In this paper, we first outline the recent research on the neurocognitive basis of the self and highlight a key distinction between two forms of self-representation. The first is the “bodily” self, which is thought to be the basis of subjective experience and is grounded in the processing of sensorimotor signals. The second is the “conceptual” self, which develops through our interactions of other and is formed of a rich network of associative and semantic information. We then investigate how both the bodily and conceptual self are related to social cognition with an emphasis on how self-representations are involved in the processing and creation of prejudice. We then highlight new research demonstrating that the bodily and conceptual self are both malleable and that this malleability can be harnessed in order to achieve a reduction in social prejudice. In particular, we will outline strong evidence that modulating people’s perceptions of the bodily self can lead to changes in attitudes at the conceptual level. We will highlight a series of studies demonstrating that social attitudes towards various social out-groups (e.g. racial groups) can lead to a reduction in prejudice towards that group. Finally, we seek to place these findings in a broader social context by considering how innovations in virtual reality technology can allow experiences of taking on another’s identity are likely to become both more commonplace and more convincing in the future and the various opportunities and risks associated with using such technology to reduce prejudice

Towards a comprehensive socio-psychological perspective: a critique of social dominance theory

Psychology aims to understand human cognition and behavior, which necessitates making use of sociological-political theories. Social Dominance Theory (SDT) is one of the psychological theories that try to explain the individual-society relationship from a broad perspective. Yet, this theory has its shortcomings too. In an attempt to contribute to a well-grounded theory for psychological research, the paper at hand will discuss the shortcomings of SDT. The main discussion concerns following appropriate logic while making assumptions, and proper interpretation of historical and evolutionary data: it is suggested that no single theory, including SDT, is capable of embracing such a wide subject and SDT can be utilized only in some aspects of this subject

Early understanding of normativity and freedom to act in Turkish toddlers

Two studies investigated young 2- and 3-year-old Turkish children's developing understanding of normativity and freedom to act in games. As expected, children, especially 3-year-olds, protested more when there was a norm violation than when there was none. Surprisingly, however, no decrease in normative protest was observed even when the actor violated the norms due to a physical constraint, and not due to unwillingness. The increase in helping responses in this case lends support to the idea that at these ages, children could not yet incorporate an actor's freedom to act in line with his will as they respond to norm transgressions. The results of the two studies are discussed in the light of two general research issues: a) the importance of cross-cultural research, and b) the interaction of the cognitive system with the emotional-empathic system in development

Mimicry and social affiliation with virtual partner are decreased in autism

Copying other people’s mannerisms (i.e., mimicry) occurs spontaneously during social interactions, and is thought to contribute to sharing emotions, affiliation with partners and interaction quality. While previous research shows decreased mimicry of emotional facial expressions in autism spectrum disorders (ASD), we know relatively little about how non-emotional, non-facial behavioural mimicry manifests and, more importantly, what it means for autistic individuals’ social interactions. In a controlled, semi-naturalistic interaction setting, this study examined how often autistic and neurotypical (NT) children mimicked a virtual partner’s non-facial mannerisms as they engaged in an interactive story-telling activity. Subsequently, children reported how affiliated they felt towards their interaction partner using an established implicit measure of closeness and a set of questions. Results revealed reduced mimicry (p = .001, φ = 0.38) and less affiliation (p = .01, φ = 0.33) in ASD relative to NT children. Mimicry was associated with affiliation for NT (r(23) = 0.64, p = .0009), but not ASD, children (r(31) = 0.07, p = .72). These results suggest an autism-associated reduction in mimicry and that mimicry during social interactions may not substantially contribute to affiliation in autism

Social context facilitates visuomotor synchrony and bonding in children and adults

Interpersonal synchrony is a fundamental part of human social interaction, with known effects on facilitating social bonding. Moving in time with another person facilitates prosocial behaviour, however, it is unknown if the degree of synchronisation predicts the degree of social bonding. Similarly, while people readily fall in synchrony even without being instructed to do so, we do not know whether such spontaneous synchronisation elicits similar prosocial effects as instructed synchronisation. Across two studies, we investigated how context (social vs non-social stimulus) and instruction (instructed vs uninstructed) influenced synchronisation accuracy and bonding with the interaction partner in adults and children. The results revealed improved visuomotor synchrony within a social, compared to non-social, context in adults and children. Children, but not adults, synchronised more accurately when instructed to synchronise than when uninstructed. For both children and adults, synchronisation in a social context elicited stronger social bonding towards an interaction partner as compared to synchronisation in a non-social context. Finally, children’s, but not adults’, degree of synchrony with the partner was significantly associated with their feelings of social closeness. These findings illuminate the interaction of sensorimotor coupling and joint action in social contexts and how these mechanisms facilitate synchronisation ability and social bonding

Articles from and inspired by the 5th International Conference on Social Identity and Health

The 5th International Conference on Social Identity and Health (ICSIH 5) was hosted at Nottingham Trent University, UK on 23rd-24th June 2022. Taking place every two years, the aim of ICSIH is to showcase the latest research on the Social Identity Approach to Health (SIAH; Haslam et al., 2018) to an international audience. This new paradigm within Social Psychology, often referred to as the ‘Social Cure’, (e.g., Jetten et al., 2012), articulates the myriad ways in which group memberships – and their associated social identities – impact on health and well-being. Alongside growing academic interest and engagement, Social Cure insights are increasingly being adopted in clinical, health, sport, and organisational settings. ICSIH 5 built on the success of the previous ICSIH conferences held in Exeter, UK (2012), Ottawa, Canada (2014), Brisbane, Australia (2016), and Lausanne, Switzerland (2018). Over 120 delegates from across the EU, USA, UK, and Australia attended – the largest number of delegates in the conference’s history. As ICSIH organisers, we were inspired to curate this special issue to showcase the rich and varied range of research presented at the conference, as well as to provide a platform for the work of those who were unable to attend. To this end, we have collected 19 articles which reflect the increasing methodological pluralism in this area, as well as its expanding international reach. This special issue thus represents the diversity of the SIAH research community, as well as capturing areas of methodological and theoretical innovation