3 research outputs found
Development of Social Exclusion Detection: Behavioral and Physiological Correlates
The present work aimed to directly test the theoretical claims about how we as human detect social exclusion using both physiological and behavioral methods across different life stages. Because feeling excluded from a group is a common human experience that starts in early childhood, this basic human need to belong or connect with others is argued to be universal and thought to have an evolutionary basis. In fact, it has been argued that the ability to detect being excluded may be present from birth and detecting exclusion occurs rapidly with little cognitive processing. Study 1 tested whether this rapid detection of exclusion is reflected in pupil dilation and how discerning this signal is of the social nature of exclusion. Study 2 tested how social exclusion detection emerges across the preschool years using both verbal and nonverbal measures.
Findings from Study 1 indicate that greater pupil dilation occurs when viewing exclusive individuals compared to inclusive individuals, regardless of whether participants were excluded by human players or non-human computerized players. Furthermore, pupil dilation occurred even when viewing third-party social exclusion, suggesting pupil dilation was sensitive to even exclusion that participants did not necessarily experience themselves. The magnitude of pupil dilation to exclusion was not correlated to self-reported distress levels or individual differences in rejection sensitivity. The present study is the first to show that social pain response — as indexed by pupil dilation — occurs even in non-social interactions and is not limited to first-hand experiences. This result supports the hypothesized “quick” and “crude” ostracism detection system: physiological arousal to exclusion appears to be independent of the social nature of exclusion. Thus, social pain from exclusion appears to reflect the high sensitivity to detect any instances of exclusion.
Findings from Study 2 indicate that that even 3-year-old children could detect social exclusion, but their ability to detect and respond to social exclusion improves with age. Strikingly, children were able to detect social exclusion occurred regardless of whether exclusion was verbally communicated (explicit) or nonverbally communicated (implicit). Furthermore, contrary to expectations from previous research on social cognitive reasoning in infancy, young children’s nonverbal responses (i.e., preferences and sharing behavior) did not necessarily reflect detection of exclusion at an earlier age than their verbal responses. Children’s preferences closely matched their verbal distinction of exclusive and inclusive agents and both preferences and verbal reasoning appeared to mature at a similar rate across development. Such finding suggests that children show remarkably early emerging ability to notice when one is left out.
Taken together, the present body of work clarified the physiological component behind ostracism detection and the developmental trajectory of social exclusion detection in early childhood. Findings from this work have important methodological implications for the field of developmental social cognition as well as practical and clinical implications of bullying and atypical social development
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“There is no other option; we have to feed our families…who else would do it?”: The Financial Lives of Women Engaging in Sex Work in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia
Introduction: This article provides an overview of the financial lives of women (n = 204) engaging in sex work in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.
Methods: This paper presents findings from a computer-based, interviewer-administered baseline assessment administered with women recruited for participation in a randomized controlled trial testing the feasibility of a combined HIV risk reduction and savings-led microfinance intervention for women engaging in sex work in Mongolia.
Findings: Findings demonstrate that most women are the primary financial providers for their households, using an array of earning strategies to provide for themselves and other dependents, with sex work often constituting the primary household income source. Financial instability in the lives of people engaging in sex work may increase their risk for HIV and STIs due to a compromised ability to negotiate safer sex with partners in times of economic crisis or need. High levels of financial responsibility for household welfare, when combined with low reported savings, the presence of debt, higher premiums offered for sex without a condom, and high levels of harmful alcohol use, may heighten women’s risk for HIV and other STIs.
Conclusion: Further research that documents the financial lives of people working in sex work is needed in order to understand the complex relationship between financial stability and engagement in sex work, and to inform the development and testing of structural HIV prevention interventions which target the economic determinants of risk. These findings highlight the importance of economic support programming for women engaged in sex work in Mongolia at a time of rapid economic change in Mongolia
Language Proficiency Affects Children\u27s Social Reasoning about Native- and Foreign-Accented Speakers
The present study investigated how children weigh a person’s linguistic proficiency relative to the type of accent the person speaks with. Furthermore, we investigated if children’s reasoning about linguistic proficiency changes across their own linguistic and socio-cognitive development. We also explored whether children’s social preference judgments differed depending on linguistic error types (e.g., grammaticality or semantics)