British journal of psychology最新文献

Letting someone else know that you value their presence, characteristics, effort or activities is central to building and maintaining human relationships. We investigated whether deliberate memory display is an effective means to convey such value. We examined these questions in the context of a simulated job interview (Experiments 1, 2 and 3, total N = 404) and a simulated ‘ice breaker’ exercise between new acquaintances (Experiment 4, total N = 156). Across experiments, results consistently indicated that memory display was not only an effective method of conveying value, but that memory display made other efforts to convey value more effective. Moreover, without external prompting, participants underutilized memory display despite its efficacy. These findings document the efficacy of memory display in the deliberate communication of value and suggest that deliberate memory display might be an underutilized strategic asset in the management of human relationships.

Social appraisals reflect the rapid integration of available perceptual information with broader contextual factors (e.g., intentions). While interpersonal distance affects both information availability and social context, how it changes trait impressions remains unknown. Over four experiments, we used a novel paradigm to address this question. In Experiment 1, we assessed participants' attributions of attractiveness, competence, dominance and trustworthiness of life size full body images of people when they appeared at near (1 m) and far (4 m) distances. Proximity amplified the relative magnitude of both positive and negative socio-evaluative impressions. However, this effect of proximity leading to more extreme positive or negative ratings was selectively weaker for aesthetic (attractiveness) judgements. In Experiment 2 (size) and Experiment 3 (spatial frequency), we held distance constant while manipulating visual cues relating to implied distance, revealing broadly similar results to Experiment 1. In Experiment 4, we used the interpersonal comfort distance paradigm to confirm that our life-sized projected images elicited similar comfort distance to interacting with a real person, helping to validate our general approach. These findings demonstrate the crucial role of interpersonal distance in impression judgements.

In the standard 'trolley problem', respondents must decide whether to save a condemned group of individuals by sacrificing a safe bystander. Although respondents often are willing to sacrifice the bystander in some circumstances (e.g., by pulling a lever), they are loath to sacrifice the bystander in others (e.g., by pushing the bystander off a footbridge). This difference in responding has been explained via a Dual Process theory of moral judgements (DPT). DPT, however, is a classic boxes-and-arrows model that only makes directional predictions. Meehl (1967, Philosophy of Science, 34, 103) cautioned against theories that only make directional predictions, explaining that they are notoriously difficult to falsify. Meehl (1967, Philosophy of Science, 34, 103) argued that researchers should follow the lead of Physics and develop computational models that make functional and point predictions. Here, we use a value-based, computational cognitive model of decision-making (Psychological Value Theory) to predict precisely both the speed and kind of response in trolley-like problems in three experiments. We show that this model accounts for the changes in choices across variations of the trolley problem with a response bias parameter.

From attentional prioritization to enhanced memory, self-cues trigger a variety of effects within human cognition. Recent work suggests that self-reference may also enhance working memory, possibly via attentional prioritization. However, there is no direct evidence that self-cues enhance working memory capacity, or that such boosts covary with individuals' attentional function. Here, we provide the first direct evidence of enhanced working memory capacity for self-referential cues, independent of attentional processing. We adapted a verbal working memory complex span to create a ‘Self’ condition (featuring the participant's own name), ‘Other’ condition (featuring a non-self-name), and Control condition (with no name), in 7–9-year-old children (Exp.1, N = 71) and adults (Exp.2, N = 52). In both experiments, the Self condition elicited significantly higher spans than the other conditions (Exp 1: p < .001, η_p² = .32; Exp 2: p < .001, η_p² = .25), but this increase in capacity was unrelated to measures of attentional processing or backward digit span. Moreover, equivalent boosts were observed in children and adults, despite adults' significantly higher underlying capacity. We propose a chunking interpretation based on enhanced binding of self-associated items, directly benefiting individual's working memory capacity regardless of their current attentional competence or ‘baseline’ capacity.

Being alone is a basic and prevalent human experience, yet little is known about its effects on social identity. When alone, social identity may weaken because individuals feel their groups are less valuable or less salient. Conversely, it may strengthen because craving for bonding increases in-group perceived value. We tested these ideas with five experiments (N = 1312). Study 1, using existing groups, and Study 2, using minimal groups, showed that aloneness (vs. being with others) reduced in-group identity through its effect on in-group esteem. In Study 3, this effect was equivalent to the effect observed following social exclusion. Study 4 showed that individuals alone were indifferent in allocating money between in-group and out-group members. Last, Study 5 indicated that these effects do not stem from reduced salience of in-group members when alone. In conclusion, an alone mindset affects social identity by decreasing in-group esteem, signalling broad social implications for this basic social condition.

How to raise donations effectively, especially in the E-era, has puzzled fundraisers and scientists across various disciplines. Our research focuses on donation-based crowdfunding projects and investigates how the emotional valence expressed verbally (in textual descriptions) and visually (in facial images) in project descriptions affects project performance. Study 1 uses field data (N = 3817), grabs project information and descriptions from a top donation-based crowdfunding platform, computes visual and verbal emotional valence using a deep-learning-based affective computing method and analyses how multimodal emotional valence influences donation outcomes. Study 2 conducts experiments in GPT-4 (Study 2a, N = 400) and humans (Study 2b, N = 240), manipulates the project's visual and verbal emotional valence through AI-generated stimuli and then assesses donation decisions (both GPT-4 and humans) and corresponding state empathy (humans). The results indicate a multimodal positivity superiority effect: both visual and verbal emotional valence promote initial whether-to-donate decisions, whereas only verbal emotional valence further promotes the how-much-to-donate decisions. Notably, such multimodal emotional effects can be explained through different mediating paths of empathic concern and empathic hopefulness. The current study theoretically facilitates our understanding of the emotional motivations underlying human prosociality and provides insights into crafting impactful advertisements for online donations.