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Seeing one thing and doing another: Contrast effects in automatic behavior
Abstract
Research on automatic behavior demonstrates the ability of stereotypes to elicit stereotype-consistent behavior. Social judgment research proposes that whereas traits and stereotypes elicit assimilation, priming of exemplars can elicit judgmental contrast by evoking social comparisons. This research extends these findings by showing that priming exemplars can elicit behavioral contrast by evoking a social comparison. In Study 1, priming professor or supermodel stereotypes led, respectively, to more and fewer correct answers on a knowledge test (behavioral assimilation), but priming exemplars of these categories led to the reverse pattern (behavioral contrast). In Study 2, participants walked away faster after being primed with an elderly exemplar. In Study 3, the proposition that contrast effects reflect comparisons of the self with the exemplar was supported. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
... Studies by Doyen, Klein, Pichon, &Cleeremans 2012 andHarris, Coburn, Rohrer, &Pashler, 2013 conducted large multi-experiments but failed to replicate the finding of any of the experiments replicated. The aim of this study was to address the question of social priming focusing specifically on the findings of Dijksterhuis and Van Knippenberg in 1998 and whether these could be replicated with MSc Psychology students. ...
... ☐Yes Funding body and mailing address: Psychologists involved in work on social priming to replicate their studies, as he felt their credibility had been undermined by a lack of replication, as well as by cases of fraud in this area. To educate students about the value of replication, and to get them thinking about social priming, as well as providing a vehicle to run a one-by-three ANOVA, we will replicate experiment 1 of Dijksterhuis & van Knippenberg, 1998, one of the studies cited in the Nature news article. The experiment will primarily have pedagogical functions. ...
... Dijksterhuis & van Knippenberg (1998) in which it had been reported that the first exercise (writing about professors) led to enhanced performance on the general knowledge quiz, in contrast to no priming or priming using secretary as a key word. ...
... Studies by Doyen, Klein, Pichon, &Cleeremans 2012 andHarris, Coburn, Rohrer, &Pashler, 2013 conducted large multi-experiments but failed to replicate the finding of any of the experiments replicated. The aim of this study was to address the question of social priming focusing specifically on the findings of Dijksterhuis and Van Knippenberg in 1998 and whether these could be replicated with MSc Psychology students. ...
... ☐Yes Funding body and mailing address: Psychologists involved in work on social priming to replicate their studies, as he felt their credibility had been undermined by a lack of replication, as well as by cases of fraud in this area. To educate students about the value of replication, and to get them thinking about social priming, as well as providing a vehicle to run a one-by-three ANOVA, we will replicate experiment 1 of Dijksterhuis & van Knippenberg, 1998, one of the studies cited in the Nature news article. The experiment will primarily have pedagogical functions. ...
... Dijksterhuis & van Knippenberg (1998) in which it had been reported that the first exercise (writing about professors) led to enhanced performance on the general knowledge quiz, in contrast to no priming or priming using secretary as a key word. ...
... In some cases, it is involved or even implied, but the focus was never on it. For instance, priming has been shown to affect the activation of cognitive processes 39 , hence interacting partners who are exposed to the same priming are more likely to rely on the same cognitive process. Recently, the connection between cognitive reflection and behavior in social media platforms was investigated 40 , identifying the existence of cognitive echo chambers in which users with similar cognitive reflection tend to cluster. ...
In pairwise interactions, where two individuals meet and play a social game with each other, assortativity in cognition means that pairs where both decision-makers use the same cognitive process are more likely to occur than what happens under random matching. In this paper, we show theoretically that assortativity in cognition may arise as a consequence of assortativity in other dimensions. Moreover, we analyze an applied model where we investigate the effects of assortativity in cognition on the emergence of cooperation and on the degree of prosociality of intuition and deliberation, which are the typical cognitive processes postulated by the dual process theory in psychology. In particular, with assortativity in cognition, deliberation is able to shape the intuitive heuristic toward cooperation, increasing the degree of prosociality of intuition, and ultimately promoting the overall cooperation. Our findings rely on agent-based simulations, but analytical results are also obtained in a special case. We conclude with examples involving different payoff matrices of the underlying social games, showing that assortativity in cognition can have non-trivial implications in terms of its societal desirability.
... For instance, humans were found to improve their performance in a discrimination task when they were faced with a slightly (as opposed to extremely) better participant (Seta 1982). Typically, humans tend to assimilate towards moderate standards and towards in-group members, whereas they contrast away from extreme standards and from out-group members (Brewer and Weber 1994;Dijksterhuis et al. 1998; Mussweiler and Bodenhausen 2002;Mussweiler et al. 2004). How humans see themselves, how they feel about themselves and how they perform thus strongly depends on how they compare to others. ...
Comparing oneself to others is a key process in humans that allows individuals to gauge their performances and abilities and thus develop and calibrate their self-image. Very little is known about its evolutionary foundations. A key feature of social comparison is the sensitivity to other individuals’ performance. Recent studies on primates produced equivocal results, leading us to distinguish a ‘strong’ variant of the social comparison hypothesis formulated for humans from a ‘weak’ variant found in non-human primates. Here, we focus on animals that are distantly related to primates but renowned for their socio-cognitive skills, birds from the family Corvidae. We were interested in whether crows’ task performances were influenced i) by the presence of a conspecific co-actor performing the same discrimination task and ii) by the simulated acoustic cues of a putative co-actor performing better or worse than themselves. Crows reached a learning criterion quicker when tested simultaneously as compared to when tested alone, indicating a facilitating effect of social context. The performance of a putative co-actor influenced their performance: crows were better at discriminating familiar images when their co-actor was better than they were. Standard extremity, i.e., how pronounced the difference was between the performance of the subject and that of the co-actor, and category membership (i.e., affiliation status and sex), of the putative co-actors had no effect on their performance. Our findings are in line with the ‘weak’ variant of social comparison and indicate that elements of human social comparison can be found outside of primates.
... For example, Nelson and Norton (2005) found that exposure to the category superheroes increases commitment to act morally, but exposure to Superman has the opposite effect (i.e., the typical exemplar vs. category effect in comparisons). This point fits with the comparison principle discussed in the introduction: categorical standards lead to similarity testing and therefore to assimilation effects, while comparisons with exemplars lead to dissimilarity testing and therefore contrast effects (Dijksterhuis et al., 1998;Mussweiler, 2003). As another example, if people witness someone who behaves dishonestly, they are more likely to behave dishonestly themselves, but only if they feel socially connected to him or her. ...
A key challenge for social psychology is to identify unifying principles that account for the complex dynamics of social behaviour. We propose psychological relativity and its core mechanism of comparison as one such unifying principle. To support our proposal, we review recent evidence investigating basic processes underlying and novel applications of social comparisons. Specifically, we clarify determinants of assimilation and contrast, evaluative consequences of comparing similarities vs. differences, attitudinal effects of spatial relativity, and how spatial arrangements determine perceived similarity, one of the antecedents of social comparisons. We then move to behavioural relativity effects on motivation and self-regulation, as well as imitation behaviour. Finally, we address relativity within the more applied areas of morality and political psychology. The reviewed research thereby illustrates how unifying principles of social cognition may be instrumental in answering old questions and discovering new phenomena and explanations.
... In some cases, it is involved or even implied, but the focus was never on it. For instance, priming has been shown to affect the activation of cognitive processes [19], hence interacting partners who are exposed to the same priming are more likely to rely on the same cognitive process. Also, assortativity in actions often implies assortativity in cognition as a byproduct [20]. ...
In pairwise interactions assortativity in cognition means that pairs where both decision-makers use the same cognitive process are more likely to occur than what happens under random matching. In this paper we study both the mechanisms determining assortativity in cognition and its effects. In particular, we analyze an applied model where assortativity in cognition helps explain the emergence of cooperation and the degree of prosociality of intuition and deliberation, which are the typical cognitive processes postulated by the dual process theory in psychology. Our findings rely on agent-based simulations, but analytical results are also obtained in a special case. We conclude with examples showing that assortativity in cognition can have different implications in terms of its societal desirability.
The recent exponential increase in information available online has not only increased access to information about celebrities, but also decreased the degree to which that information is unambiguously positive. In the current work, we examined how positive celebrities (i.e. celebrities who are primarily admired) versus more ambiguous celebrities (i.e. celebrities about whom people have mixed feelings) differentially affect feelings about the self. Across three studies, we found that high attachment anxiety was associated with assimilating positive celebrities to feel better about the self, whereas attachment avoidance was associated with contrasting ambivalent celebrities to feel better to feel better about the self. Implications for parasocial relationships, social comparison, and attachment are discussed.
In pairwise interactions assortativity in cognition means that pairs where both decision-makers use the same cognitive process are more likely to occur than what happens under random matching. In this paper, we study both the mechanisms determining assortativity in cognition and its effects. In particular, we analyze an applied model where assortativity in cognition helps explain the emergence of cooperation and the degree of prosociality of intuition and deliberation, which are the typical cognitive processes postulated by the dual process theory in psychology.Our findings rely on agent-based simulations, but analytical results are also obtained in a special case. We conclude with examples showing that assortativity in cognition can have different implications in terms of its societal desirability.
Important empirically informed proposals of virtue cultivation invoke techniques of goal pursuit. This paper argues that these techniques are effective in changing behavior due to the attention narrowing they bring about, and further show that such attention narrowing can threaten the appropriate exercise of phronetic-related capacities. When these phronetic-related capacities are threatened, two derivative problems arise: (1) One can end up acting in morally inappropriate ways, and (2) Even in cases where one performs the morally appropriate action, one nonetheless can fail to notice and appreciate features of moral value. In light of these concerns, such techniques of goal pursuit – at least, by themselves – serve the most good for those who are merely trying to avoid vice, rather than cultivate virtue. And so, I suggest that such accounts of virtue cultivation are incomplete. I then go on to argue that these undesirable effects of attention narrowing brought about by these goal pursuit techniques may be ameliorated by also engaging in certain indirect modifications of cognition, particularly those which broaden attention. The suggestion, then, is that attention narrowing techniques of goal pursuit, along with attention broadening modifications, might best facilitate virtue cultivation when employed together. While the particulars of how we might best go about this are currently unclear, this paper ends by looking at empirical research on Open Monitoring Meditation as providing a hopeful option that might be further investigated.
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