The word “character” has generally lost its currency in the literature on personality and social psychology over the last 20 years. And yet the assumption that sport builds character is still held, at least privately, by a great many people. This investigation was an attempt to reconsider the “character” construct, to isolate its social elements, and to establish its susceptibility in childhood to the influence of organized sport experience. Using prosocial behavior as one manifestation of evolved social character, the influence or organized sport was assessed in a field experiment with children from two elementary schools. Although the general assumption that “sport builds character” was not strongly supported or refuted in this investigation, some evidence, at least with males, showed that prosocial behavior may be inhibited by sport experience. Finally, implications were drawn for facilitating prosocial behavior in children's sports.
American social psychology textbooks often provide instructors' manuals that include Multiple Choice Quizzes (MCQ's) used by researchers examining the extent to which “lay people” could predict the outcomes of psychological research and theories. This study examined the extent to which students could choose a correct answer from social psychology instructors' manuals without having attended a related course. Three different manuals were used to look at tests of 57, 46, and 36 items, chosen to avoid technical jargon, real names, and experimental details, as well as to cover the broad range of social psychology. Subjects in Study 1 (n = 98 life sciences students) and Study 3 (n = 100 new students) got over 50% of the answers correct (53% and 52%, respectively), while in Study 2 (n = 139 student applicants) they got 48% correct. Scores were unrelated to gender and age, and there was no clear relationship between knowledge and particular areas of social psychology (i.e., social influone, prosocial behavior, attitude change). In the first study, prior knowledge of psychology did not relate to total score, while in the second sample, students who attended lectures did score higher than those who did not. In the third study, subjects who reported reading books, or who had how on social psychology courses, did score marginally higher. Implications of these findings are discussed.
Recent years have seen a growth of interest in contemplative approaches to cultivating compassionate responses to suffering. This chapter draws on contemporary research from cognitive, affective, and social psychology to provide an introduction to the field of compassion training. We consider what constitutes compassion training and offer a summary of current meditation-based approaches. We then provide an overview of the empirical evidence for a relationship between compassion training and changes in socioemotional processes, prosocial behavior, and physiological stress responses to the perception of others’ suffering. We further address challenges in interpreting data from these studies, considering potential training-related mechanisms of change and how compassion-relevant processes might develop over time. Lastly, we conclude by outlining key theoretical challenges for future research.
Abstract
A wealth of social psychology studies suggests that moving in synchrony with another person can positively
influence their likeability and prosocial behavior towards them. Recently, human-robot interaction (HRI) researchers have started
to develop real-time, adaptive synchronous movement algorithms for social robots. However, little is known how socially beneficial
synchronous movements with a robot actually are. We predicted that moving in synchrony with a robot would improve its likeability
and participants’ social motivation towards the robot, as measured by the number of questions asked during a free interaction
period. Using a between-subjects design, we implemented the synchrony manipulation via a drawing task. Contrary to predictions, we
found no evidence that participants who moved in synchrony with the robot rated it as more likeable or asked it more questions. By
including validated behavioral and neural measures, future studies can generate a better and more objective estimation of
synchrony’s effects on rapport with social robots.
Review: Abnormal Psychology in a Changing World (5th Edition), Biopsychology (5th Edition), Consciousness: An Introduction, Learning and Memory: An Integrative Approach, Motivation: Theories and Principles (5th Edition), Motivation: Theories and Principles (5th Edition), Psychodynamic Psychology: Classical Theory and Contemporary Research, the Psychology of Language: From Data to Theory (2nd Edition), Statistics without Maths for Psychology (2nd Edition), Statistics without Maths for Psychology (2nd Edition), Understanding Social Psychology: Experimental and Critical Approaches, Work and Organizational Psychology: An Introduction with Attitude
