Testing cognitive and interpersonal asymmetry vs. symmetry among voters in the 2020 Presidential primaries

During the 2020 U.S. Presidential primary season, we measured candidate support and cognitive and interpersonal variables associated with political ideology among 831 U.S. participants. Cognitive style variables included openness to experience, active open-minded thinking, dogmatism, and preference for one right answer. Interpersonal variables were compassion and empathy. We modeled candidate support across the political spectrum, ranging from the most conservative to the most liberal (Trump, Bloomberg, Biden, Warren, Sanders), testing competing pre-registered predictions informed by the symmetry and asymmetry perspectives on political ideology. Specifically, we tested whether mean levels on the variables of interest across candidate supporters conformed to patterns consistent with symmetry (i.e., a curvilinear pattern with supporters of relatively extreme candidates being similar to each other relative to supporters of moderate candidates) vs. asymmetry (e.g., linear differences across supporters of liberal vs. conservative candidates). Results broadly supported the asymmetry perspective: Supporters of liberal candidates were generally lower on cognitive rigidity and higher on interpersonal warmth than supporters of conservative candidates. Results and implications are discussed.

Warmth portrayals to recruit students into science majors

Negative perception of scientists is disquieting for the future of science and US economic and scientific competitiveness. Drawing on studies suggesting that warmth guides people’s judgments of social groups and professions, this study aims to communicate the interpersonal warmth of scientists using two non-verbal behaviors, namely, smiling and collaboration. Building on the visual communication literature, posters were used in a 2 x 2 x 3 within-subject, online experiment in the context of College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, as a test case for Science, Engineering, Technology and Mathematics (STEM) colleges. Analyses showed main and interaction effects of smile and collaboration on warmth judgments. Students who smile were perceived as warmer than those who don’t smile. Further, students who collaborate were perceived as warmer than an individual student who works alone. Finally, students who collaborate and smile were perceived as higher in interpersonal warmth than those who work alone without smiling. Implications for the use of visuals to communicate warmth and change scientists’ negative stereotypes are discussed.

The power of head tilts: gender and cultural differences of perceived human vs human-like robot smile in service

Purpose The purpose of this study is to understand the perceptual differences toward smiling behaviors with head inclinations displaying by the human-like robot staff and human staff in a service setting. Design/methodology/approach This study adopted a 2 (staff: robot/human personal personnel) × 3 (head tilt: left/right/straight) full factorial design, while cross-examining participants’ cultural dimensions 2 (power distance: high/lower) × 2 (gender: male/female) during the service encounter. Findings Overall, it was found that male and female customers with different cultural background would perceive robot and human personnel with varying degrees of head tilt very differently, namely, regarding interpersonal warmth but not customer satisfaction. Originality/value Nonverbal cues serve as important elements in the interaction. This paper provides new directions on the design of anthropomorphic robot and gives insight to people’s perceptual differences. All in all, the present study is useful in facilitating human–robot interactions.

No Evidence That Experiencing Physical Warmth Promotes Interpersonal Warmth

Williams and Bargh (2008) reported that holding a hot cup of coffee caused participants to judge a person’s personality as warmer and that holding a therapeutic heat pad caused participants to choose rewards for other people rather than for themselves. These experiments featured large effects ( r = .28 and .31), small sample sizes (41 and 53 participants), and barely statistically significant results. We attempted to replicate both experiments in field settings with more than triple the sample sizes (128 and 177) and double-blind procedures, but found near-zero effects ( r = −.03 and .02). In both cases, Bayesian analyses suggest there is substantially more evidence for the null hypothesis of no effect than for the original physical warmth priming hypothesis.

Approaches to Modeling Interpersonal Complementarity in Intensive Longitudinal Data

Interpersonal theory posits that successful social interactions are characterized by complementarity: a match in the interpersonal warmth and reciprocity in the interpersonal dominance expressed by interaction partners. Social encounters with high interpersonal complementarity are linked to better affect. Despite complementarity by definition being a two-dimensional construct, researchers often model warmth and dominance separately. Because interpersonal theory underscores the importance of both dimensions in understanding social interactions, it is important that methods of combining the two dimensions are developed for stronger tests of the theory. The present study presents two possible methods of modeling interpersonal complementarity across three separate datasets. Results are compared with the traditional approach of modeling warmth and dominance separately. Discrepancies and parallels between approaches are discussed, as well as the theoretical and statistical value of modeling warmth and dominance together.

No Evidence that Experiencing Physical Warmth Promotes Interpersonal Warmth: Two Failures to Replicate Williams and Bargh (2008)

Williams and Bargh (2008) reported that holding a hot cup of coffee caused participants to judge a person’s personality as warmer, and that holding a therapeutic heat pad caused participants to choose rewards for other people rather than for themselves. These experiments featured large effects (r = .28 and .31), small sample sizes (41 and 53 participants), and barely statistically significant results. We attempted to replicate both experiments in field settings with more than triple the sample sizes (128 and 177) and double-blind procedures, but found near-zero effects (r = –.03 and .02). In both cases, Bayesian analyses suggest there is substantially more evidence for the null hypothesis of no effect than for the original physical warmth priming hypothesis.

Are Religious Teens Nice Kids? Faith and Congeniality among American Adolescents

One body of extant research has documented the social contours and positive effects of teen religiosity, while another has explored the religious sources of social congeniality (“niceness”) among adult Americans. This study integrates these parallel bodies of scholarship by examining the religious bases of niceness among American teens. Using post-hoc interviewer ratings from wave 1 of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), we examine the degree to which religious teens are perceived more positively than their nonreligious peers. Associations linked to six dimensions of teen religiosity are considered. Select facets of teen religiosity are associated with more positive interviewer ratings, particularly for interpersonal warmth, thereby providing modest support for hypothesized patterns. Findings are interpreted in light of current theories of religious involvement, interpersonal dispositions, and social competencies.

Properties of the Continuous Assessment of Interpersonal Dynamics Across Sex, Level of Familiarity, and Interpersonal Conflict

The Continuous Assessment of Interpersonal Dynamics (CAID) is a method in which trained observers continuously code the dominance and warmth of individuals who interact with one another in dyads. This method has significant promise for assessing dynamic interpersonal processes. The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of individual sex, dyadic familiarity, and situational conflict on patterns of interpersonal warmth, dominance, and complementarity as assessed via CAID. We used six samples with 603 dyads, including two samples of unacquainted mixed-sex undergraduates interacting in a collaborative task, two samples of couples interacting in both collaborative and conflict tasks, and two samples of mothers and children interacting in both collaborative and conflict tasks. Complementarity effects were robust across all samples, and individuals tended to be relatively warm and dominant. Results from multilevel models indicated that women were slightly warmer than men, whereas there were no sex differences in dominance. Unfamiliar dyads and dyads interacting in more collaborative tasks were relatively warmer, more submissive, and more complementary on warmth but less complementary on dominance. These findings speak to the utility of the CAID method for assessing interpersonal dynamics and provide norms for researchers who use the method for different types of samples and applications.