Reward, Affiliation, and Dominance Smiles are Associated with Distinct Mental Content

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jared Martin ◽  
Adrienne Wood ◽  
William Taylor Laimaka Cox ◽  
Scott Sievert ◽  
Robert Nowak ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mental Content ◽  
Social Function ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Social Signals ◽  
Facial Movements ◽  
The Social ◽  
One Step

The present work advances the science of the smile by investigating how perceivers mentally represent this heterogenous expression. Across both perception- and production-based tasks, we report evidence that perceivers mentally represent reward, affiliation, and dominance smiles as distinct categories associated with specific behaviors, social contexts, and facial movements. Study 1 demonstrates that perceivers expect to behave differently in response to each type of smile when embedded in a simulated economic game. Study 2 demonstrates that perceivers use distinct words to describe the social contexts in which they anticipate encountering each type of smile. Study 3 demonstrates that producers use distinct facial movements when prompted with social contexts related to the theorized social function of each smile. Taken together, the present findings support the conclusion that reward, affiliation, and dominance smiles are mentally represented as distinct categories, bringing us one step closer to understanding smiles as nuanced social signals.

scholarly journals Power posture effects on approach and avoidance decisions in response to social threat

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hannah Metzler ◽  
Emma Vilarem ◽  
Adrian Petschen ◽  
Julie Grèzes
Keyword(s):  
Social Power ◽  
Social Function ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Social Threat ◽  
Social Signals ◽  
Approach And Avoidance ◽  
Impact Action ◽  
Subject Design ◽  
The Social

Individuals’ opportunities for action in threatening social contexts largely depend on their social power. While powerful individuals can afford to confront aggressors and dangers, powerless individuals need others’ support and better avoid direct challenges. Here, we investigated if adopting expansive or constrictive postures, which function as social signals of power, impacts individuals’ approach and avoidance decisions in response to social threat signals using a within-subject design. Overall, participants more often chose to avoid rather than to approach angry individuals, but showed no clear approach or avoidance preference for fearful individuals. Crucially, constrictive posture considerably increased the tendency to avoid angry individuals, whereas expansive postures induced no substantial changes. This suggests that adopting power-related postures can impact action decisions in response to social threat signals. The present results emphasize the social function of power postures and are discussed in the context of the debate on the replicability of power posture effects.

The social function of rationalization: An identity perspective

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jay Joseph Van Bavel ◽  
Anni Sternisko ◽  
Elizabeth Ann Harris ◽  
Claire Robertson
Keyword(s):  
Social Identity ◽  
Social Inclusion ◽  
Social Function ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Additional Function ◽  
The Social

In this commentary, we offer an additional function of rationalization. Namely, in certain social contexts, the proximal and ultimate function of beliefs and desires is social inclusion. In such contexts, rationalization often facilitates distortion of rather than approximation to truth. Understanding social identity is not only timely and important, but critical to fully understand the function(s) of rationalization.

The social function of rationalization: An identity perspective

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jay J. Van Bavel ◽  
Anni Sternisko ◽  
Elizabeth Harris ◽  
Claire Robertson
Keyword(s):  
Social Identity ◽  
Social Inclusion ◽  
Social Function ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Additional Function ◽  
The Social

Abstract In this commentary, we offer an additional function of rationalization. Namely, in certain social contexts, the proximal and ultimate function of beliefs and desires is social inclusion. In such contexts, rationalization often facilitates distortion of rather than approximation to truth. Understanding the role of social identity is not only timely and important, but also critical to fully understand the function(s) of rationalization.

The Social Contexts of Racial Discrimination in Sentencing

1986 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 236-251 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martha A. Myers ◽  
Susette M. Talarico
Keyword(s):  
Racial Discrimination ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
The Social

Does context matter? Effects of robot appearance and reliability on social attention differs based on lifelikeness of gaze task

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdulaziz Abubshait ◽  
Patrick P. Weis ◽  
Eva Wiese
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processing ◽  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Physical Appearance ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Social Attention ◽  
Social Cues ◽  
Social Signals ◽  
Mind Perception ◽  
The Social ◽  
Behavioral Features

Social signals, such as changes in gaze direction, are essential cues to predict others’ mental states and behaviors (i.e., mentalizing). Studies show that humans can mentalize with non-human agents when they perceive a mind in them (i.e., mind perception). Robots that physically and/or behaviorally resemble humans likely trigger mind perception, which enhances the relevance of social cues and improves social-cognitive performance. The current ex-periments examine whether the effect of physical and behavioral influencers of mind perception on social-cognitive processing is modulated by the lifelikeness of a social interaction. Participants interacted with robots of varying degrees of physical (humanlike vs. robot-like) and behavioral (reliable vs. random) human-likeness while the lifelikeness of a social attention task was manipulated across five experiments. The first four experiments manipulated lifelikeness via the physical realism of the robot images (Study 1 and 2), the biological plausibility of the social signals (Study 3), and the plausibility of the social con-text (Study 4). They showed that humanlike behavior affected social attention whereas appearance affected mind perception ratings. However, when the lifelikeness of the interaction was increased by using videos of a human and a robot sending the social cues in a realistic environment (Study 5), social attention mechanisms were affected both by physical appearance and behavioral features, while mind perception ratings were mainly affected by physical appearance. This indicates that in order to understand the effect of physical and behavioral features on social cognition, paradigms should be used that adequately simulate the lifelikeness of social interactions.

Entanglements between Agency and Vulnerability in the Phenomenon of Birth. Reflections on Children’s Expressions about ‘Being Born’

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (2-2020) ◽  
pp. 135-146
Author(s):  
Catrin Heite ◽  
Veronika Magyar-Haas
Keyword(s):  
Social Studies ◽  
Social Construction ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Living Environment ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Family ◽  
Cultural Embeddedness

Analogously to the works in the field of new social studies of childhood, this contribution deals with the concept of childhood as a social construction, in which children are considered as social actors in their own living environment, engaged in interpretive reproduction of the social. In this perspective the concept of agency is strongly stressed, and the vulnerability of children is not sufficiently taken into account. But in combining vulnerability and agency lies the possibility to consider the perspective of the subjects in the context of their social, political and cultural embeddedness. In this paper we show that what children say, what is important to them in general and for their well-being, is shaped by the care experiences within the family and by their social contexts. The argumentation for the intertwining of vulnerability and agency is exemplified by the expressions of an interviewed girl about her birth and by reference to philosophical concepts about birth and natality.

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