Psychedelics as Tools for Belief Transmission. Set, Setting, Suggestibility, and Persuasion in the Ritual Use of Hallucinogens

The use of psychedelics in the collective rituals of numerous indigenous groups suggests that these substances are powerful catalysts of social affiliation, enculturation, and belief transmission. This feature has recently been highlighted as part of the renewed interest in psychedelics in Euro-American societies, and seen as a previously underestimated vector of their therapeutic properties. The property of psychedelics to increase feelings of collective belonging and transmission of specific cultural values or beliefs raise, however, complex ethical questions in the context of the globalization of these substances. In the past decades, this property has been perceived as problematic by anticult movements and public authorities of some European countries, claiming that these substances could be used for “mental manipulation.” Despite the fact that this notion has been widely criticized by the scientific community, alternative perspectives on how psychedelic experience supports enculturation and social affiliation have been yet little explored. Beyond the political issues that underlie it, the re-emergence of the concept of “psychedelic brainwashing” can then be read as the consequence of the fact that the dynamic through which psychedelic experience supports persuasion is still poorly understood. Beyond the unscientific and politically controversed notion of brainwashing, how to think the role of psychedelics in the dynamics of transmission of belief and its ethical stakes? Drawing on data collected in a shamanic center in the Peruvian Amazon, this article addresses this question through an ethnographic case-study. Proposing the state of hypersuggestibility induced by psychedelics as the main factor making the substances powerful tools for belief transmission, I show that it is also paradoxically in its capacity to produce doubt, ambivalence, and reflexivity that psychedelics support enculturation. I argue that, far from the brainwashing model, this dynamic is giving a central place to the agency of the recipient, showing that it is ultimately on the recipient’s efforts to test the object of belief through an experiential verification process that the dynamic of psychedelic enculturation relies on. Finally, I explore the permanence and the conditions of sustainability of the social affiliation emerging from these practices and outline the ethical stakes of these observations.

Social Affiliation Needs as a Motivator of Risky Online Behaviour

<p>In spite of the risks, people often share large quantities of personal information online. The objective of this research was to gain an understanding as to why people take such risks when engaging with others on social networking sites like Facebook. Initially the existence of online communities had to be established, and consideration given to the possibility that these online communities reflected groups found in the real world. The following hypotheses were then tested using an online survey with Likert Scale questions and freeform questions. This data was then triangulated by and supplemented with data received as a result of semi-structured interviews. Interview and survey questions were informed by a full literature review undertaken on the topic. H1: Humans mimic online behaviours including risky behaviours to gain acceptance in online communities. There was insufficient support for this hypothesis. This may be due to the fact that online and real world groups differ in terms of the way in which they communicate. The five senses are not fully engaged in online communication and there is an absence of body language and other non-verbal communication. This difference may determine that there is less need for social affiliation online than in the real world. H2: The need for personal safety online is secondary to the need for social affiliation. Again there was insufficient support for this hypothesis, and even those with online communities of trusted friends drawn from the real world were concerned for their personal safety and configured their privacy settings. However these people were comfortable sharing personal information online with trusted friends, demonstrating that they were under the illusion that their information was private. H3: Humans reflect the values of their friends on social networks to gain their approval. This hypothesis was well supported and indications were that people were more prepared to share personal information online with those who shared their values. They are also unlikely to share controversial information that violated their personal values. The results of this research were viewed through the lens of "The Online Disinhibition Effect" (Suler, 2004), and recommendations made to companies planning online business.</p>

Social Affiliation Needs as a Motivator of Risky Online Behaviour

<p>In spite of the risks, people often share large quantities of personal information online. The objective of this research was to gain an understanding as to why people take such risks when engaging with others on social networking sites like Facebook. Initially the existence of online communities had to be established, and consideration given to the possibility that these online communities reflected groups found in the real world. The following hypotheses were then tested using an online survey with Likert Scale questions and freeform questions. This data was then triangulated by and supplemented with data received as a result of semi-structured interviews. Interview and survey questions were informed by a full literature review undertaken on the topic. H1: Humans mimic online behaviours including risky behaviours to gain acceptance in online communities. There was insufficient support for this hypothesis. This may be due to the fact that online and real world groups differ in terms of the way in which they communicate. The five senses are not fully engaged in online communication and there is an absence of body language and other non-verbal communication. This difference may determine that there is less need for social affiliation online than in the real world. H2: The need for personal safety online is secondary to the need for social affiliation. Again there was insufficient support for this hypothesis, and even those with online communities of trusted friends drawn from the real world were concerned for their personal safety and configured their privacy settings. However these people were comfortable sharing personal information online with trusted friends, demonstrating that they were under the illusion that their information was private. H3: Humans reflect the values of their friends on social networks to gain their approval. This hypothesis was well supported and indications were that people were more prepared to share personal information online with those who shared their values. They are also unlikely to share controversial information that violated their personal values. The results of this research were viewed through the lens of "The Online Disinhibition Effect" (Suler, 2004), and recommendations made to companies planning online business.</p>

An Effortful Approach to Social Affiliation in Schizophrenia: Preliminary Evidence of Increased Theta and Alpha Connectivity during a Live Social Interaction

People with schizophrenia often experience a profound lack of motivation for social affiliation—a facet of negative symptoms that detrimentally impairs functioning. However, the mechanisms underlying social affiliative deficits remain poorly understood, particularly under realistic social contexts. Here, we investigated subjective reports and electroencephalography (EEG) functional connectivity in schizophrenia during a live social interaction. Individuals with schizophrenia (n = 16) and healthy controls (n = 29) completed a face-to-face interaction with a confederate while having EEG recorded. Participants were randomly assigned to either a Closeness condition designed to elicit feelings of closeness through self-disclosure or a Small-Talk condition with minimal disclosure. Compared to controls, patients reported lower positive emotional experiences and feelings of closeness across conditions, but they showed comparably greater subjective affiliative responses for the Closeness (vs. Small-Talk) condition. Additionally, patients in the Closeness (vs. Small-Talk) condition displayed a global increase in connectivity in theta and alpha frequency bands that was not observed for controls. Importantly, greater theta and alpha connectivity was associated with greater subjective affiliative responding, greater negative symptoms, and lower disorganized symptoms in patients. Collectively, findings indicate that patients, because of pronounced negative symptoms, utilized a less efficient, top-down mediated strategy to process social affiliation.

Ads in gaming apps: experiential value of gamers

PurposeEven though there is a noticeable market value in the mobile gaming apps industry, there has been limited research examining experiential value of gamers with respect to in-game ads in gaming apps. This study fills the void in the literature by examining factors associated with “experiential value of gamers through ads in gaming apps” as well as investigating its antecedents (cognitive and affective involvement) and consequences (positive word of mouth and intention to continue playing the mobile game).Design/methodology/approachA total of 600 valid responses from gamers was used to test the model fit, measurement and structural models, conditional probabilistic queries, and nonlinearity.FindingsThis study found that experiential value of gamers through ads in gaming apps is a second-order factor of four constructs: escapism, enjoyment, social affiliation and entertainment. Most of the structural paths between cognitive/affective involvement and dimensions of experiential value are supported. Surprisingly, only social affiliation and entertainment values predict positive word of mouth and intention to continue playing the mobile game, in a nonlinear way.Originality/valueThis study is the first to introduce “experiential value of gamers through ads in gaming apps”. The findings have important implications for companies to develop brand and communication strategies by leveraging specific advertisement formats and present their ads to the right audience in the right gaming apps and at the right time.

Intranasal oxytocin drives coordinated social approach

Coordinated responses to challenge are essential to survival for bonded monogamous animals and may depend on behavioral compatibility. Oxytocin (OT) context-dependently regulates social affiliation and vocal communication, but its role in pair members’ decision to jointly respond to challenge is unclear. To test for OT effects, California mouse females received an intranasal dose of OT (IN-OT) or saline after bonding with males either matched or mismatched in their approach response to an aggressive vocal challenge. Pair mates were re-tested jointly for approach response, time spent together, and vocalizations. Females and males converged in their approach after pairing, but mismatched pairs with females given a single dose of IN-OT displayed a greater convergence that resulted from behavioral changes by both pair members. Unpaired females given IN-OT did not change their approach, indicating a social partner was necessary for effects to emerge. Moreover, IN-OT increased time spent approaching together, suggesting behavioral coordination beyond a further increase in bonding. This OT-induced increase in joint approach was associated with a decrease in the proportion of sustained vocalizations, a type of vocalization that can be associated with intra-pair conflict. Our results expand OT’s effects on behavioral coordination and underscore the importance of emergent social context.

A Mutualism, Affiliation and Status Seeking (MASS) Framework of Fundamental Affective Dynamics and their Survival Benefits

Primates have developed a unique set of complex drives for successful group living, yet theorists rarely contemplate their taxonomy and how such drives relate to affective dynamics fundamental for group success. Affective dynamics and drive fulfillment exert mutual influence on one another, ultimately collectively promoting or undermining survival. We first identify six core benefits of group living common among both humans and other animals, and from this foundation we propose three broad social drives that have evolved to preserve or enhance group living benefits: (i) Mutualism comprises cooperation, reciprocity, trust, and fairness; (ii) Affiliation comprises assimilation and belonging, whereby one aims to fit into the group through adherence to group norms and ideologies; (iii) Status-Seeking is represented by a drive to build one’s value in the group and acquire differential access to mates and other resources. We identify affective dynamics that facilitate each social drive: (i) Reactive flexibility involves qualitative shifts in affect in response to shifting goals, which facilitates mutualism; (ii) Affective synchrony is the reproduction of another individual’s emotions in oneself and facilitates social affiliation; (iii) Regulatory flexibility facilitates status-seeking through a broad repertoire of regulatory approaches during strategic behavioral pursuits. Finally, we posit that fulfilling Mutualism, Affiliation, and Status-Seeking (MASS) drives enhances the benefits of social living and supports development of fundamental affective dynamics.

Visual recognition of social signals by a tecto-thalamic neural circuit

Social affiliation emerges from individual-level behavioral rules that are driven by conspecific signals1–5. Long-distance attraction and short-distance repulsion, for example, are rules that jointly set a preferred inter-animal distance in swarms6–8. However, little is known about their perceptual mechanisms and executive neuronal circuits3. Here we trace the neuronal response to self-like biological motion9,10 (BM), a visual trigger for affiliation in developing zebrafish2,11. Unbiased activity mapping and targeted volumetric two-photon calcium imaging revealed 19 activity hotspots distributed throughout the brain and clustered BM-tuned neurons in a multimodal, socially activated nucleus of the dorsal thalamus (DT). Individual DT neurons encode fish-like local acceleration but are insensitive to global or continuous motion. Electron microscopic reconstruction of DT neurons revealed synaptic input from the optic tectum (TeO/superior colliculus) and projections into nodes of the conserved social behavior network12,13. Chemogenetic ablation of the TeO selectively disrupted DT responses to BM and social attraction without affecting short-distance repulsion. Together, we discovered a tecto-thalamic pathway that drives a core network for social affiliation. Our findings provide an example of visual social processing, and dissociate neuronal control of attraction from repulsion during affiliation, thus revealing neural underpinnings of collective behavior.

How do personal values help to build generation Y’s entrepreneurial intentions? The role of gender differences

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to assess the extent to which personal values affect entrepreneurial intentions and the extent to which this relationship depends on gender among the millennial generation. Design/methodology/approach This relationship was examined using the list of values (LOV). Based on a sample of 600 respondents born between 1977 and 1994, a self-administered online questionnaire was conducted. Findings The partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) approach demonstrated that Generation Y members who give higher priority to self-direction, social affiliation and hedonic orientation values have greater entrepreneurial intentions. Across gender, the PLS-multigroup analysis (MGA) approach reveals that self-direction values enhance entrepreneurial intention for Generation Y females but not for males. Social affiliation values improve entrepreneurial intention for Generation Y males but not for females. Hedonic orientation values rise entrepreneurial intentions for both Generation Y males and females similarly. The findings give also a ranking of the nine LOV. Research limitations/implications Across-cultural comparisons are lacking in this research. This study only focuses on the value–intention relationship. Future research could study the value–attitude–behavior. Practical implications The results provide implications to all agents concerned by promoting new enterprises and feminine entrepreneurship regarding the implementation of personal values in fostering the venture creation process and stimulation of people to become business owners. Originality/value Little is known about the role of personal values in venture creation. The findings provide support for the role personal values play in building entrepreneurial intentions. The focus here was on Generation Y. The generation that faces problems of unemployment, job loss and poverty specifically in the time of crises of the COVID-19 pandemic. The value-based entrepreneurship approach is a proliferating field of research as the world seeks to rebuild economies.