Bidirectional associations between descriptive and injunctive norms

Modern research on social norms makes an important distinction between descriptive norms (how people commonly behave) and injunctive norms (what one is morally obligated to do). Here we propose that this distinction is far from clear in the cognition of social norms. In a first study, using the implicit association test, the concepts of ‘‘common’’ and ‘‘moral’’ were found to be strongly associated. Some implications of this automatic common–moral association were investigated in a subsequent series of experiments: Our participants tended to make explicit inferences from descriptive norms to injunctive norms and vice versa; they tended to mix up descriptive and injunctive concepts in recall tasks; and frequency information influenced participants’ own moral judgments. We conclude by discussing how the common–moral association could play a role in the dynamics of social norms

Opinion dynamics with varying susceptibility to persuasion

A long line of work in social psychology has studied variations in people's susceptibility to persuasion -- the extent to which they are willing to modify their opinions on a topic. This body of literature suggests an interesting perspective on theoretical models of opinion formation by interacting parties in a network: in addition to considering interventions that directly modify people's intrinsic opinions, it is also natural to consider interventions that modify people's susceptibility to persuasion. In this work, we adopt a popular model for social opinion dynamics, and we formalize the opinion maximization and minimization problems where interventions happen at the level of susceptibility. We show that modeling interventions at the level of susceptibility lead to an interesting family of new questions in network opinion dynamics. We find that the questions are quite different depending on whether there is an overall budget constraining the number of agents we can target or not. We give a polynomial-time algorithm for finding the optimal target-set to optimize the sum of opinions when there are no budget constraints on the size of the target-set. We show that this problem is NP-hard when there is a budget, and that the objective function is neither submodular nor supermodular. Finally, we propose a heuristic for the budgeted opinion optimization and show its efficacy at finding target-sets that optimize the sum of opinions compared on real world networks, including a Twitter network with real opinion estimates

Relaxation under outflow dynamics with random sequential updating

In this paper we compare the relaxation in several versions of the Sznajd model (SM) with random sequential updating on the chain and square lattice. We start by reviewing briefly all proposed one dimensional versions of SM. Next, we compare the results obtained from Monte Carlo simulations with the mean field results obtained by Slanina and Lavicka . Finally, we investigate the relaxation on the square lattice and compare two generalizations of SM, one suggested by Stauffer and another by Galam. We show that there are no qualitative differences between these two approaches, although the relaxation within the Galam rule is faster than within the well known Stauffer rule.Comment: 9 figure

By their words ye shall know them: Language abstraction and the likeability of describers

According to the linguistic category model (LCM), behaviour can be described at concrete (e.g. ‘Kath hit Kim’) and abstract (e.g. ‘Kath is aggressive’) levels. Variations in these levels convey information about the person being described and the relationship between that person and the describer. In the current research, we examined the power of language abstraction to create impressions of describers themselves. Results show that describers are seen as less likeable when they use abstract (vs. concrete) language to describe the negative actions of others. Conversely, impressions of describers are more favourable when they opt for abstract descriptions of others' positive behaviours. This effect is partially mediated by the attribution of a communicative agenda to describers. By virtue of these attributional implications, language abstraction is an impression formation device that can impact on the reputation of describers

Commitments to help by children: Effects on subsequent prosocial self-attributions

Children of both sexes and at several ages were or were not induced to make a commitment to help hospitalized children by sorting papers

"Mi sa che..."

Approfondimento linguistico sul costrutto "mi sa che

Group norms and the attitude–behaviour relationship

This is the author's post-print version of an article whose final and definitive form has been published in Social and Personality Psychology Compass. © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. The definitve version is available at: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/118902501/homeDespite popular opinion to the contrary, early scientific evidence pointed to a lack of support for the view that people's actions are guided by their attitudes. One response to the lack of correspondence between attitudes and behaviour has been to consider the role of other factors. One factor that has received attention is norms – the unwritten and often unspoken rules for how we should behave. We present an overview of the social identity approach to attitude–behaviour relations, which argues that norms play a significant role in the attitude–behaviour relationship if and only if the norms come from salient and important reference groups. We will then discuss a program of research that supports this analysis and examines the motivations that underpin group-mediated attitude–behaviour consistency. Finally, we will discuss research that investigates the distinction between descriptive group norms (what group members do) and injunctive group norms (what group members approve of). We focus on how the interactions between these types of norms can inform behaviour change campaigns.The authors would like to acknowledge that some of the research reviewed in this paper was supported under the Australian Research Council's Discovery funding scheme (project number DP0877146)

Blatant benevolence and conspicuous consumption: When romantic motives elicit strategic costly signals

Conspicuous displays of consumption and benevolence might serve as “costly signals ” of desirable mate qualities. If so, they should vary strategically with manipulations of mating-related motives. The authors examined this possibility in 4 experiments. Inducing mating goals in men increased their willingness to spend on conspicuous luxuries but not on basic necessities. In women, mating goals boosted public—but not private—helping. Although mating motivation did not generally inspire helping in men, it did induce more helpfulness in contexts in which they could display heroism or dominance. Conversely, although mating motivation did not lead women to conspicuously consume, it did lead women to spend more publicly on helpful causes. Overall, romantic motives seem to produce highly strategic and sex-specific self-presentations best understood within a costly signaling framework. Key words: costly signaling, altruism, conspicuous consumption, mating goals, self-presentation We should often blush at our noblest deeds if the world were to see all their underlying motives.—Francois de La Rochefoucauld On Valentine’s Day 2003, America’s leading authority on phi-lanthropy announced that real estate mogul Donald Trump had pledged $1 million to charity (Foundation Center, 2003). A fe