Wednesday, April 4, 2018

Participants more readily verify the grammaticality of a statement when it corresponds to their opinion. These findings may help explain why opinions are sometimes change resistant

That’s My Truth: Evidence for Involuntary Opinion Confirmation. Michael Gilead, Moran Sela, Anat Maril. Social Psychological and Personality Science. http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1948550618762300

Abstract: Past research has investigated deliberate mental acts that allow people to remain entrenched in their convictions. The purpose of the current investigation was to examine whether opinion-confirmation processes can occur involuntarily. We conducted experiments wherein participants made speeded judgments of the grammatical accuracy of statements pertaining to various matters of opinion, and subsequently rated their agreement with those statements. The results show that participants more readily verify the grammaticality of a statement when it corresponds to their opinion. These findings may help explain why opinions are sometimes change resistant, in showing that acceptance (rejection) of confirmatory (contradictory) opinions can occur involuntarily. We discuss possible applications of the paradigm described herein.

Keywords: social cognition, motivated cognition, language, attitudes, automatic processes

h/t: https://twitter.com/DegenRolf

The Impact of Health and Health Behavior on the Formation of Intimate Relationships

The Impact of Health and Health Behavior on the Formation of Intimate Relationships. Ingmar Rapp, Jonathan Gruhler. English abstract of Der Einfluss der Gesundheit und des Gesundheitsverhaltens auf die Entstehung von Partnerschaften. In KZfSS Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11577-018-0513-2

Abstract: This paper examines the influence of physical and mental health and health behavior on the formation of intimate relationships. Data were obtained from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) for the years 2002–2014 and contain information about 6071 individuals and 4194 newly formed partnerships. For men, better mental health increasingly accelerates partnership formation in middle and later adulthood. For women, better physical and mental health reduce the transition rate into partnership at a young age and increase the transition rate into partnership at an older age. Physical inactivity and overweight reduce the likelihood of partnership formation for both women and men, whereas smoking is positively associated with partnership formation for women. The findings help to better understand how health and health behavior affect the formation of intimate relationships. Moreover, the results contribute to explaining health disparities between individuals with or without a partner.

Theories of human altruism: Future theoretical models would greatly benefit from being inclusive rather than exclusive in allowing for the possibility of co-existing egoistic and altruistic motivational drives

Theories of human altruism: a systematic review. Svetlana Feigin, Glynn Owens and Felicity Goodyear-Smith. Annals of Neuroscience and Psychology, 2014. http://www.vipoa.org/neuropsychol/1/1

Abstract: The goal of this systematic review was to summarise the social psychological literature on theories of altruism in humans from 1960 to 2014. Material was sourced through online databases, book sections, grey literature and hand searches. All social psychological literature on altruism in humans from 1960 to June 2014 was eligible for inclusion in the review. Items were critically reviewed according to key characteristics and findings. Non-English items and original research papers were excluded. Of 1881 potentially eligible items, 308 were selected for critical appraisal; of these, 97 were included in the review as 'Theory' articles, being separated into pseudo-altruism (selfishly-motivated) and true (selfless) altruism. Within these categories lie a range of models. The influences behind altruism are complex and do not arise from a single source but rather a multitude of sources both within and outside the individual. Future theoretical models would greatly benefit from being inclusive rather than exclusive in allowing for the possibility of co-existing motivational drives (egoistic and altruistic).

Keywords: Altruism, altruistic behaviour, empathy, helping behaviour, pro-social behaviour

h/t: Raphael R