For questions about the empirical and theoretical study of how perception, feelings, behavior, and cognition are effected by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others. Questions are addressed both from the individual perspective (American school) and group perspective (European school).
38
votes
4answers
3k views
Why do humans have sex in private?
Human couples usually have sex in private, hidden not only from predators, but also - other humans. It is unlike behavior of most species, including our relatives: bonobos, chimpanzees and gorillas.
...
18
votes
1answer
963 views
What makes people easily subscribe to pseudoscientific theories?
There are many theories/disciplines that have been categorized as Pseudoscience in the Scientific community.
The list includes many things that are regularly even quoted in media like Graphology, ...
15
votes
3answers
682 views
Is the Myer Briggs Type indicator (MBTI) a reasonable scientific theory?
Background:
MBTI stands for Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. It's a theory that suggests that people can be divided into 16 types, based on the way they percieve and analyse information (whether they make ...
10
votes
4answers
385 views
Do people have a tendency to stick to one opinion after they formed it?
Scytale's assessment, from the science fiction novel "Dune Messiah" (1969)
When a creature has developed into one thing, he will choose death
rather than change into his opposite.
While ...
10
votes
3answers
1k views
What's the psychology behind Trolling/Flaming?
For those new to the internet, trolling is an activity were one person intentionally tries to upset other members of the same community, presumably for entertainment.
This has been informally ...
10
votes
2answers
208 views
What is the term for human beings' tendency to obey without thinking?
I'm wanting to read more about a certain human behavior, but I am not sure what the proper term for it is, so some of the things I am finding aren't what I am looking for. I'm interested in how Humans ...
10
votes
1answer
129 views
Why do humans like being touched?
I wonder why people like to be touched so much, why would it make sense from a evolutionary perspective.
I know people enjoy hugs and company of opposite sex but even people from the same sex hug and ...
9
votes
4answers
30 views
What are the key algorithms for learning optimal behavior of economic agents?
I'm playing around with social learning of near-optimal behavioral rules on a set of agents. The idea is roughly that given an income process (or technology process, depending on the question) an ...
9
votes
2answers
208 views
Intelligence and marriage satisfaction
A recent letter by a Princeton alumni stated:
Men regularly marry women who are younger, less intelligent, less
educated. It’s amazing how forgiving men can be about a woman’s lack
of ...
9
votes
2answers
129 views
Measuring the adoption of norms
I'm trying to make a survey and I'm having trouble to find a scale to measure the adoption of norms.
The people who fill in the survey have to think about a situation in which they were ashamed. For ...
9
votes
0answers
148 views
Evolutionary game theory in the cognitive sciences
Game theory models something very relevant to psychologists (in particular social psychologists): conflict and cooperation between decision-makers. Unfortunately, classical game theory demands that ...
9
votes
0answers
113 views
What is the effect of Social Proof on Conversion Rate?
I'm wondering to what extent Social Proof helps the Conversion Rate of websites and marketing.
Specifically I'm wondering what effect Social Proof would have on Conversion Rate for a sample task in ...
8
votes
2answers
135 views
Does self-rated performance predict objective performance over and above other-rated performance?
Context:
I was at a talk today where data was presented where a group of sports people ranked their own performance and everyone else in the group. This enabled self-rated performance to be ...
8
votes
3answers
98 views
Are older people more likely to be politically conservative and why?
J.Campbell suggest that the difference between age groups on being politically conservative is small. But F.Glamsers article concludes:
there was a significant positive correlation between age ...
8
votes
2answers
117 views
Do measures of Big 5 personality have a positive bias towards extraverted, conscientious, emotionally stable, ageeable and open individuals?
Background:
One free measures of the Big 5 is the IPIP.
I have noticed that IPIP items seem to have a positive bias towards items loading on the extraversion (EX), emotional stability (ES), ...
8
votes
1answer
217 views
Is positive self-talk beneficial for those with low self-esteem?
According to the paper Positive Self-Statements: Power for Some, Peril for Others by Wood (2009) positive self-talk is beneficial when the person has a reasonable level of self-esteem in the ...
8
votes
0answers
76 views
What is the bias/thought process that results in distrust of “formal” knowledge in favor of “folk” knowledge?
An interesting effect I've noticed is that certain groups of people seem to accept "folk knowledge" and value it over significantly better founded "formal" or scientific knowledge. In particular this ...
7
votes
2answers
121 views
What is the name of the effect whereby socialising in a group reinforces group beliefs?
Background:
There's this effect when you have some idea, i.e. that eating other people is (probably) cool, you join the group of like minded people, you talk about how tasty people are, everyone ...
7
votes
2answers
201 views
Study on commitment and follow-through
I'm faced with a UX problem of looking for ways to position a website to increase attendance at future "real world" events, and I'm remembering a study once conducted along these lines (details a bit ...
7
votes
1answer
215 views
Are there sex differences in inter-rater consistency of attractiveness ratings of opposite-sex faces?
Is there any research that assesses whether males or females judge faces of the opposite sex with a greater internal consistency? That is, is the standard deviation of attraction ratings for a ...
7
votes
2answers
153 views
What are the appraisals tendencies for fear and anger?
I understand the actions tendencies for fear and anger. For example: We might verbally insult someone when we are angry. We might feel like running away when we are afraid.
According to appraisal ...
7
votes
2answers
72 views
Differences in willingness to correct errors made between human and computer interactions
I have a design where I present participants with a series of decisions, and then ask them about some of these decisions later. Similar work has found that even when the particular decision was made ...
7
votes
1answer
275 views
Are there emotions that only some people can feel?
Presumably, there are emotions that almost any person can feel, such as happiness, sadness, guilt, and embarrassment.
But are there emotions that only a small fraction of the population can feel?
...
7
votes
1answer
79 views
What research gives insight into the terms “low status” and “high status”?
Folk explanations of human behaviour often refer to "high status" or "low status", and the phrase sometimes pops up in more formal contexts (e.g. this question).
However, one of the most cited ...
7
votes
1answer
57 views
What is the correlation between objective indexes and aggregated self-report measures of life satisfaction?
The Better Life Index and other indices seek to overcome the limitations of GDP in assessing social progress. They provide a composite score with which to rank nations on a range of indicators such as ...
7
votes
0answers
89 views
What research has been done on attachment types in other primates?
The most canonical experimental paradigm for studying human attachment styles is the Strange Situation leading to classifications such as Secure, Insecure-avoidant, and so on.
What are the equivalent ...
6
votes
3answers
440 views
Is there an open-source / free official Myers-Briggs assessment I can adopt?
Background
I've got an idea for a web site that uses one's Myers-Briggs type as part of the value.
I've seen various web sites offer "quick quizzes" to assess one's MBTI, but I'm not sure how ...
6
votes
2answers
85 views
What is the name of the phenomenon whereby someone steps-up and others follow?
Example: In class, when a teacher proposes some unreasonable assignment, students hesitate to express their objection until someone steps-up and then others find courage to talk.
I've tried searching ...
6
votes
1answer
114 views
Picture of eye promotes good behaviour
I remember a study about how a picture of an eye made people more well behaved. The experiment was in an unsupervised coffee room where there was a box where participants were expected to deposit ...
6
votes
1answer
58 views
Self-fulfilling stereotypes: Have researchers tried inventing new group stereotypes?
Studies on the stereotype threat have typically used stereotypes that that are common in contemporary culture, i.e. the canonical example being the study that showed African American SAT scores ...
6
votes
1answer
849 views
How is the Stanford Prison Experiment connected to Conformity?
I am still not very clear with what the Stanford Prison Experiment conducted by Zimbardo was trying to conclude about from the experiment.
From Wikipedia, it says the conclusion was to:
...
6
votes
1answer
69 views
Whether to ask satisfaction and importance questions for each item in a survey?
Job satisfaction and opinion surveys ask respondents to provide ratings on a set of items. One response scale might be a five point rating scale measuring satisfaction (e.g., 5-point strongly ...
6
votes
0answers
74 views
Is there a “foreplay” equivalent, priming activity for thinking or conversation?
I've noticed the following phenomenon and am trying to find out if it is indeed true and if there is a scientific term for it:
When I think about ideas, I notice that I can rarely jump straight into ...
6
votes
0answers
67 views
Is there evidence for a unique isolated internal representation of loved ones?
Some time ago, I've read that the most significant people in a person's life have their own internal representation/model of within the person's mind. For example:
An internal representation of a ...
6
votes
0answers
99 views
At what point does a complex become pathological?
I've a first question so I apologize if the format is completely awry.
I'm reading Meeting the Shadow: The Hidden Power of the Dark Side of Human Nature and I came across this passage by Edward C. ...
6
votes
0answers
87 views
How do cooperative vs. competitive activities impact the learning patterns of an individual?
To what extent does cooperative versus competitive learning influence personality development or even pathological behaviors?
If these activities need to be narrowed down to a specific category, I'm ...
6
votes
0answers
74 views
What psychological or sociological concepts form the basis of Principled Negotiation?
Although the various forwards mention that organizational behavior and social psychology are two of the fields that form the basis for the techniques taught at Harvard Law School's Negotiation and ...
5
votes
3answers
46 views
What is the field that studies community responses to incentives?
Having recently read Freakonomics I was particularly interested by the idea of the responses of a community to incentives - as an example, the tale of a school which tried to introduce a financial ...
5
votes
1answer
147 views
What are the effects of social rejection on the brain?
What are the effects of social rejection on the brain?
If the external circumstance can not change, how can the impact on the brain be reduced?
What is the average sensitivity to social rejection ...
5
votes
2answers
109 views
Can an individual having strong identity associations with groups be used to infer anything about them?
I've been reading a few articles and papers about individuals identifying with groups and their behaviors and attitudes, however I haven't yet found an answer to one of the questions that I was trying ...
5
votes
1answer
126 views
Can the Go/No-Go Association Task be faked?
Go/No-Go Association task:
The GNAT (pronounced like the bug) is a flexible technique designed to
measure implicit social cognition. Conceptually similar to other
implicit measures like the ...
5
votes
1answer
58 views
Accuracy of social judgements of observers watching business meetings
I'm very interested in how people size one another up in social situations and in particular what we key in on when we are making these judgements.
Let's make an imaginary experiment.
I make ...
4
votes
2answers
137 views
Ignoring minority while generalizing about a group, any theoretical reference?
In conversation, we might define a particular group by the characteristics that the majority of that group holds even if a minority in that group doesn’t possess those characteristics.
Some ...
4
votes
1answer
194 views
Why do people regret actions they didn't take when looking back on their lives?
Is it true that individuals often regret recent actions (i.e., last few months) but when they look back on their lives, they tend to regret things that they have not done (or lack of actions) ?
If ...
4
votes
1answer
106 views
What is the term for judging based on a simulation of the same parameters on oneself
Allow me to outline the observed process and three hypothetical examples below. For the sake of keeping the samples simple, I will ignore prior moral or religious convictions that a regular person ...
4
votes
1answer
83 views
Does empathy extend to animals?
I've read that humans are able to empathize with other humans, to feel as another person does, through mirror neurons. I'm guessing that they're able to empathize with primates too, as they share ...
4
votes
1answer
59 views
Are there any applications of choice modelling to romantic relationships?
Background: I was at a talk today where the presenter discussed a study that involved a administering a couple of questions asking participants which of two people they would prefer as a relationship ...
4
votes
2answers
160 views
Defining shyness towards strangers in confrontational situations
First of all, I would like to stress that I am not a cogsci person and I have almost no background in those areas of science.
The question is whether there exists a definition of a phenomenon I ...
4
votes
1answer
54 views
Is there a variance in acceptance of conspiracy theories by occupation?
For some time I have been very interested in the intelligent design (ID)/creationism vs. evolution debate. My parents are both medical professionals and consider themselves creationists. I have many ...
4
votes
1answer
161 views
Can one “understand” emotions, yet not “feel” them?
Prometheus Viral Clip #3 - David is a good clip of a fictional character in a science-fiction movie that helps frame my question; but I am interested in the general question, not the specifics of this ...
