Hot answers tagged social-psychology
23
There are two great TED talks that together help shed some light on your question:
David Deutsch (2005) "A new way to explain explanation", and
Richard Dawkins (2009) "Why the universe seems so strange"
At a fundamental level, science is about explanation (and sometimes using that explanation to make predictions). Thus, to most people, science is useless ...
16
Introduction
It is interesting and quite under-researched topic in psychology. What has been studied and definied extensively are different abnormal sexual behaviours, and exhibitionism is one of them. In the DSM-IV exhibitionism is defined as sexual arousal by revealing one's body or performing sexual acts in public and it's a form of paraphilia. ...
14
Yes. But why should it be so? One can approach the question from a number of directions. For instance, Cass Sunstein talks about how information cascades can create the path-dependent effects you describe: person A says something, which steers person B toward the same opinion, with the result that group decision-making heavily overvalues inputs of early ...
10
I don't know of a study that tries to answer your specific question but you might want to have a look at illusory superiority, "a cognitive bias that causes people to overestimate their positive qualities and abilities and to underestimate their negative qualities, relative to others" (wikipedia).
I can especially recommend the paper by Dunning and Kruger ...
10
From what I remember, the MBTI has been compared in some studies to the Big Five (or OCEAN) model of personality. If you've not heard of it, the Big Five is the primary theory of personality that is accepted by researchers who do this sort of thing. Here are some papers comparing the two approaches:
Recent comparison and another.
The main point is that a ...
9
There is a very large literature on this, and it features many subtle points, but I will try to summarize some general themes.
In general, subjects are very consistent at ranking pictures of others for attractiveness (thus, eliminating the popular notion of "beauty is in the eye of the beholder"). For instance Cunnigham et al. (1995) found a correlation of ...
9
There are a few references to the scientific literature on trolling in the wikipedia article
Some psychologists have suggested that flaming would be caused by
deindividuation or decreased self-evaluation: the anonymity of online
postings would lead to disinhibition amongst individuals (Kiesler et al, 1984). Others
have suggested that although ...
9
Since you mentioned that you want an evolutionary explanation, there is one available. In biology the effect of providing benefit towards potential non-kin based on an arbitrary marker is known as the green-beard or armpit effect. In a social human setting, if the marker is arbitrary social construct it is usually known as ethnocentrism. This sort of ...
8
Adding to what shanusmagnus said: What you refer to is indeed an established psychological phenomenon called Confirmation Bias. The bias consists of
the seeking or interpreting of evidence in ways that are partial to
existing beliefs, expectations, or a hypothesis in hand (Nickerson,
1998).
Confirmation Bias apparently is among the most studied ...
7
The study you are looking for is
Leventhal, H., Singer, R., & Jones, S. (1965). Effects of fear and
specificity of recommendation upon attitudes and behavior. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 2(1), pp. 20-29. doi:
10.1037/h0022089
The study is mostly how you remember (though it was tetanus instead of the flu). Critically, the ...
7
This is a fascinating question. According to Donald Symons (1979) "The evolution of human sexuality", it is a species specific adaptation that seems to be universal across cultures. Symons argued that having sex in private underlines the exclusivity of the relationship between monogamous couples. This theory does assume that sexual exclusivity is a universal ...
7
The classic reference for exactly what you are describing is Gilovich & Medvec, 1995 (LINK), the primary thesis of which is that "Actions, or errors of commission, generate more regret in the short term; but inactions, or errors of omission, produce more regret in the long run" (from the abstract). The authors explain that there are many factors that ...
6
That sort of non-confrontational attitude has been researched as an aspect of interpersonal conflict-resolution style/mode/behaviour. The bulk of the research seems to have been conducted in the field of organisational psychology (which is not my field) since it's particularly relevant to how business is conducted.
From what I've been able to glean from ...
6
Here is an article explaining trolling based on Sperber and Mercier's "argumentative theory" of human reasoning. The latter is a fascinating paper in its own right.
References
Mercier, H. and Sperber, D. (2011). Why do humans reason? arguments for
an argumentative theory. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 34(02):57-74. FREE PDF
6
In naïve realism, the subject acknowledges others' points of view while affirming the superiority of his/her own. Ross and Ward (1996) review the literature. I tried to write a summary of their fine paper, but I couldn't do it justice. I provide a link to it below.
In selfishness or unenlightened self-interest, the subject may consider multiple points of ...
6
The easiest way to work forward from a well-cited article is to do a forward Google Search. My answer is almost completely based on such a search and concentrates on three brain regions: amygdala, insula cortex, and the anterior cingulate cortex; note that all three regions are linked to emotion.
Keep in mind: when you take any two groups of people that ...
6
You may want to read up about "homophily". It is often summarised with the phrase "birds of a feather flock together". "Heterophily" relates to when people are attracted to those that are different to them.
There was a review article by McPhereson et al (2001) which you might like to read. To quote the abstract:
Similarity breeds connection. This ...
6
Just a very brief note: in some cultures, sex does not appear to have been confined to private space. One article on the subject reads:
In fact, it seems that much of Athenian love life took place in public places: many vases show how people are looking when two people are having intercourse. There is not a single written statement that people objected ...
6
It seems like you are talking about a number of social processes related to internalising group norms. With regards to the influence that groups can have on beliefs, check out:
internalisation
Conformity and informational influence
Norms and internalising norms.
Groups internalize norms by accepting them as reasonable and proper
standards for ...
6
There is also the related phenomenon of 'Group Polarisation' (see Myers and Lamm, 1976; Isenberg, 1986), where groups are found to make more extreme decisions and hold more extreme opinions than its constituent members. Not sure if that's specifically related to what you're looking for but I think it's important to keep in mind.
References
Isenberg, D.J. ...
6
A study that used the field setting you describe is done by Bateson et al. (2006).
As for the mechanism, they write:
we believe that images of eyes motivate cooperative behaviour because they induce a perception in participants of being watched. Although participants were not actually observed in either of our experimental conditions, the human ...
5
There is strong evidence that there is indeed a interindividual differential distribution of emotional processes or capabilities.
For instance, Bartels and Pizzarro (2011) could show that some antipersonality traits connected to the lack of compassion and empathy towards others are varying among people. Those who endorsed a more pragmatic and "straight" ...
5
Speed dating seems to provide an ideal setting for the type of study you seek. There are several relevant papers (see References below and Google search human mate preferences speed dating).
There is no consensus among researchers, but here's a sampling of some of the supposed findings:
Buston & Emlen claim that people choose mates from their league, ...
5
Obedience
The most famous paper dealing with this issue is Milgram's paper, called Behavioral study of obedience[1]. From the abstract:
This article describes a procedure for the study of destructive obedience in the laboratory. It consists of ordering a naive subject to administer increasingly more severe punishment to a victim in the context of a ...
5
Diener et al's (1999) review in Psychological Bulletin provides an excellent entry point into the well-being literature. It reviews the literature with regards to the many causes and correlates of well-being.
Individual Differences
First, individual differences explain a lot of variance in well-being. This is often seen in terms of personality traits such ...
5
The IPIP may provide what you are looking for.
This IPIP Website is intended to provide rapid access to measures of
individual differences, all in the public domain, to be developed
conjointly among scientists worldwide.
In general, the scientific literature tends to focus more on a dimensional approach based on the Big 5 model of personality than ...
5
I was alerted to your post here and would like to respond to a non-technical side of the question. I'm an Intellectual Property Assistant for CPP, Inc., publisher of the MBTI® assessment tool. I help protect the instrument's trademarks and copyrights, and ensure ethical use of the instrument.
The names MBTI®, Myers-Briggs®, and Myers-Briggs Type ...
5
I think the exceptions are implied. If someone says, "All Russians like vodka" then we understand that there are no exceptions to the rule. People get frustrated when you're overly specific about the percent of Russians who like vodka. Instead it's safer to just say Russians like vodka. And bears.
Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion talks about why we ...
5
But what about a human empathizing with less humanoid animals?
Empathic responding towards humans is generalized to other species. The greater the similarity of the species towards humans, the larger is the empathic response. The findings support the notion that there is a relationship between human empathy directed towards other humans and human ...
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