Fun with Social Psych

Delay of Gratification in the Toronto Star

The Toronto Star randomly picked up on Delay of Gratification research that we discussed in our lecture on self-regulation! They provide a nice overview of both classic and modern neuroscience research on delay of gratification, the "Marshmallow Test" (which I described with the use of Oreos), and the long-term implications of the ability to delay.

Read the full story at The Star: http://www.thestar.com/atkinsonseries/atkinson2009/article/719586--how-a-simple-marshmallow-can-predict-your-future?bn=1

How Our Appearance Signals Our Personality to Others

A new study by Prof. Laura Naumann and colleagues explored how appearance - such as your body stance and clothes - is interpreted by other people when they are trying to size you up. Participants were asked to pose for a spontaneous picture, and other participants rated the pictures on a number of personality traits, including extraversion, loneliness, and religious orientation. Naturally, some traits were detected more accurately than others, but overall the observers were rather good at detecting personality by a picture alone! Check out the article at Canada.com: http://www.canada.com/news/national/Appearance%20tips%20strangers%20self%20esteem%20religion%20openness%20Study/2051951/story.html

Also, visit the photo gallery associated with this story at Canada.com to see example pictures complete with analysis of what cues signal which personality variables: http://www.canada.com/news/national/Gallery%20change%20book%20person%20cover/2052249/story.html

Advanced Social Behaviour of the Great Apes

The research of social primatologist Prof. Frans de Waal continues to amaze and influence the field. He studies concepts of power hierarchy, reciprocity, and egalitarianism among non-human primates. The lecture embedded below is action-packed with videos of our closest cousins doing amazing things. You saw a portion of this lecture in the first PSYB10 lecture. While watching it, think about how this behaviour is reflected in human society; it is guaranteed to blow your mind!

Watch the Video on Pop!Tech

Born to Be Good: Why Red-Tooth-And-Claw Perspectives on Evolution Miss the Mark

Modern research across psychology and biology are converging on a revolutionary idea: Evolution may not have been driven by wanton competitiveness, but rather by inclusive fitness. A recent study by British social psychologist Prof. Tim Phillips and colleagues found across three studies that men and women rate altruistic traits as the most attractive. The results of that study are summarized on TopNews: http://www.topnews.in/health/altruism-enhances-men-and-women-s-sex-appeal-24880

Moreover, two researchers at the University of California Berkeley are simultaneously emerging with lines of research that illustrate this concept well beyond survey research. Across a series of group behavioural studies, Prof. Robb Willer has found that individuals gain social power by sacrificing their individual outcomes for the good of the group. Among groups of participants, those who gave up their individual monetary gains were later elected by group members to become the leaders, as well as being more liked and perceived as more attractive by other members of the group. Check out Prof. Willer's website for links to his papers and more information on this line of research: http://willer.berkeley.edu/.

Also in the last year, Prof. Dacher Keltner has published a new book, Born to be Good. This book is a seminal review of animal biology, primatology, and psychology that concludes that altruistic traits increase as you advance along the evolutionary hierarchy. For example, the rigorous work by Prof. Frans de Waal has found that chimpanzees will share food with other chimpanzees who groomed them earlier in the day, even if the other chimpanzee did not assist in acquiring the food, but will fight off chimpanzees who did not groom them. Listen to Prof. Keltner describe this theory in detail in this podcast: http://personallifemedia.com/podcasts/232-dishymix/episodes/26578-dacher-keltner-born-good-jen-ratio-cro

Classics of Social Psych: The Asch Conformity Experiments

The conformity experiments of Prof. Solomon Asch are some of the oldest and most important experiments in social psychology. He documented a tendency for people to conform to a group consensus even when the group is obviously wrong. The video below shows footage from the original experiment as well as some of its variations. As is illustrated in the picture to your right and the linked video, you can actually see the tension of the participants when they have to choose whether to say the right answer or to give an incorrect answer that was given by other members of the group. At the time of the studies, many scientists were surprised by these findings, but the Asch Paradigm has been reused, replicated, and adapted to answer a host of social psychological phenomena since the paradigm was developed in the 1950s.

Watch the Asch Conformity Experiments on YouTube:

Classics of Social Psych: Vicarious Learning - Do We Emulate the Violence We See in the Media?

Prof. Albert Bandura fundamentally changed both social and cognitive psychology by discovering a third form of learning: vicarious learning (thus adding to the previously-known forms of learning, classical and operant conditioning). Vicarious learning is a form of social learning only observed in high-level social animals, whereby you learn by observing the rewards and punishments of others without directly experiencing the rewards and punishments yourself. Prof. Bandura applied his theories of vicarious learning to understand the effects of violent depictions on aggression in children. The results of the "Bobo Doll Experiment," as the studies became known, remain one of the most widely-cited social psychological findings. Watch the video linked below for footage from the original experiments (it's rather funny, in that schadenfreude-kind-of-way).

Albert Bandura Bobo Doll Experiment on YouTube:

The Stanford Prison Experiment

The Stanford Prison Experiment remains one of the most powerful (and controversial) studies in the history of social psychology. It had to be stopped 6 days into the 2-week study for ethical reasons. In the opinion of your professor, what we most hate about the Stanford Prison Study is the reflection it provides on ourselves. These were young men from the Palo Alto, CA, US area who were randomly assigned to be "prisoners" or "guards" in a mock-prison for 2 weeks. Everyone knew it was fake. All the same, the behaviour and events that unfolded within only a few days remain a bitter testament to the power that a social role has over each of us.

Visit the Stanford Prison Experiment website to watch the slide show (including video clips of the study) and read more about the experiment: http://www.prisonexp.org/psychology/2

You are guaranteed to never forget the words: "Prisoner 819 did a bad thing!"

Social Rejection Hurts, Literally

Mu-opioid receptor gene, OPRM1, has long been linked to the severity of physical pain. Profs. Naomi Eisenberger and Shelley Taylor found that variations of OPRM1 in the brain is linked to severity of experiencing pain from social rejection, as well. Across two studies, individuals with OPRM1 gene types that predict heightened experience of physical pain responded with greater activity in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC - a cortical area related to the experience of physical pain) when they were "rejected" by other "participants" while playing a group computer game in an fMRI.

Read the article in Science Daily: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/08/090817142859.htm

These findings further support a new hot topic in social psychology: the embodiment of emotion pain. Here at U of T, Prof. Geoff MacDonald is a world-renowned researcher on the experience of physical pain in response to social rejection. His groundbreaking work (forthcoming) has found that people who were randomly assigned to take an over-the-counter pain killer, acetaminophen (i.e., Tylenol), twice a day for 3 weeks reported less intense hurt feelings over the study time period compared to participants who were assigned to take a placebo (i.e., sugar pill) each day. In another study, Prof. MacDonald found that participants who were randomly assigned to take acetaminophen experienced less of a drop in social self-esteem after being socially excluded, compared to participants who were randomly assigned to take a placebo. Moreover, in another longitudinal study, participants who were assigned to take Tylenol had less emotional hangover on a day that followed an anxious social experiences than participants who were assigned to take placebos. This research was conducted very recently, so it is still in the process of being published. However, Prof. Roy Baumeister (whose name you will hear frequently in PSYB10) summarized this work in a recent brief commentary (Baumeister, 2008) available online at: http://www.csom.umn.edu/assets/128177.pdf.

Altogether, it appears that the systems involved in the experience of both physical and emotional pain are intertwined. The pain of a broken heart is indeed a painful experience.