Face-to-face opening phase in Japanese macaques’ social play enhances and sustains participants’ engagement in subsequent play interaction. Sakumi Iki, Toshikazu Hasegawa. Animal Cognition, November 12 2019. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10071-019-01325-7
Abstract: A face-to-face “opening phase” in human interaction serves as a platform for the interactants to initiate and manage their interaction collaboratively. This study investigated whether, as is the case in humans, a face-to-face opening phase in animal interaction serves to manage a subsequent interaction and establish interactants’ engagement. We compared the dyadic play fighting of Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata) initiated with and without a face-to-face opening phase. Our observations showed that play sessions with a face-to-face opening phase lasted longer than did sessions without one. Furthermore, our results indicate that facing toward playmates was a sign of interactants’ engagement. In sessions with a face-to-face opening phase, both players were likely to gain an advantage over their playmates, whereas in sessions without such an opening phase, only an individual who unidirectionally faced toward another individual who looked away when play began was likely to maintain an advantage over a long period. Our findings demonstrate that a face-to-face opening phase has a socio-cognitive function to establish and sustain interactants’ social engagement during subsequent interaction not only in humans but also in Japanese macaques.
Keywords: Face-to-face interaction Social cognition Communication Social play Play fighting Macaca fuscata
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Tuesday, November 12, 2019
Chimpanzees help others with what they want, children with what they need; uniquely human socio‐ecologies based on interdependent cooperation gave rise to uniquely human prosocial motivations to help others paternalistically
Chimpanzees help others with what they want; Children help them with what they need. Robert Hepach, Leïla Benziad, Michael Tomasello. Developmental Science, November 11 2019. https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.12922
Abstract: Humans, including young children, are strongly motivated to help others, even paying a cost to do so. Humans’ nearest primate relatives, great apes, are likewise motivated to help others, raising the question of whether the motivations of humans and apes are the same. Here we compared the underlying motivation to help of human children and chimpanzees. Both species understood the situation and helped a conspecific in a straightforward situation. However, when they knew that what the other was requesting would not actually help her, only the children gave her not what she wanted but what she needed. These results suggest that both chimpanzees and human children help others but the underlying motivation for why they help differs. In comparison to chimpanzees, young children help in a paternalistic manner. The evolutionary hypothesis is that uniquely human socio‐ecologies based on interdependent cooperation gave rise to uniquely human prosocial motivations to help others paternalistically.
General Discussion
Previous experimental work had investigated the rate of helping in human and non-human
primates but has not directly compared the manner of helping. In the current studies we used a
novel paradigm giving both children and chimpanzees a choice not of whether to help but rather
how to respond to others’ needs. Our results replicate previous work in showing that both children
and chimpanzees show concern for others and comply with others’ request for help when these
align with the requester’s actual need (Warneken et al., 2007; Yamamoto et al., 2012). However,
the crucial difference between the two groups was evident in the nature of their tendency to be
paternalistic. Only human children showed paternalism and intervened for the benefit of the
recipient and corrected her behaviour. Crucially, children did not automatically correct others’
request for help but took into account how much better they could evaluate the situation.
Children’s paternalism was strongest when they shared the same view of the situation as the
requesting adult. Overall, children complied with the adult’s request in the majority of conditions
unless the requested tool did not serve to fulfil the adult’s actual need in which case children were
more motivated to correct the request. Chimpanzees, on the other hand, did not show preference
for either object and performed at chance across conditions unless the conspecific requested the
functional tool when that tool was needed to retrieve a reward. Together these results suggest that
while both children and chimpanzees show concern for others, the underlying manner in which
each group provides this help is different when their understandings of the situation differ.
The current results replicate previous work on chimpanzees’ helping behaviour, both with
regards to their response to others’ requests for help as well as their lack in concern to
systematically improve others’ long-term well-being. Chimpanzees are sensitive to others’
immediate needs and requests for help (Yamamoto et al., 2009, 2012). These previous findings
replicated in the current study where chimpanzees helped more in the need compared to the noneed
control condition when the conspecific requested the functional tool. However, in the
paternalism condition chimpanzees did not correct requests for help that were dysfunctional. In
other words, chimpanzees were not paternalistic to interfere ‘for the good of the recipient’ (Grill,
2007). This lack in paternalism to improve the requester’s well-being by means of correcting the
request for help is comparable to previous findings that chimpanzees do not systematically
improve a conspecific’s well-being in the so-called prosocial choice task in chimpanzees (House
et al., 2014; Jensen et al., 2006). The results of the current study with human children also
replicate and crucially extend previous work.
By age three children concern themselves with others’ long-term well-being and correct
dysfunctional requests for help (Hepach et al., 2013; Martin et al., 2016; Martin & Olson, 2013).
In one study, the authors found that 3-year-old children complied with the adult’s request less
often when this resulted in a negative consequence and half the children corrected the adult by
providing the intact tool instead (Martin & Olson, 2013). Note that the child and the adult did not
share the same perspective which may have put additional constraints on children’s decision
resulting in correction rates between 52 and 69 % (see Martin & Olson, 2013, for details). In the
current study, we found different rates of correcting in children between the occluded and nonoccluded
contexts. This allows us to specify that the rate of correcting others is greatest if both
parties share the same perspective, as is the case in the current study’s non-occluded context.
Children at the age of three may thus hesitate to override an adult’s request for help if they cannot
be certain that their view of the situations matches that of the adult. Therefore, in the current
study’s occluded context children may have complied with the adult’s request because, from their
perspective, the adult may have had a privileged view of the tools that children did not have. This
context sensitivity resonates with previous findings from a study in which children’s and the
adult’s perspective matched and children’s complying behaviour and responses to unjustified
requests for help were as low as 25 % (Hepach et al., 2013). Thus, based on the current results we
can conclude that children are less likely to correct the adult when they do not have the same view
of the situation as the adult (e.g., Martin & Olson, 2013) but, in contrast, correct the adult more
often when both the child and the adult share the same perspective (see also Hepach et al., 2013).
The current studies are the first to assess and directly compare the phenomenon of
paternalism between young children and chimpanzees. At the same time, there are a number of
methodological considerations of the current studies that warrant discussion. One crucial premise
of a paternalism context is that the potential helper knows that only the functional tool can fulfill
the requester’s need even if the requester reaches for the dysfunctional tool. Given the speciesunique
testing constraints we chose different approaches for chimpanzees and children.
Chimpanzees’ underwent extensive training in which subjects were exposed to multiple days of
using the functional tool to successfully obtain juice. Helpers only proceeded to the test phase if
they correctly identified the functional tool on multiple successive sessions during the training
phase. In this way, we sought to ensure that helpers had ample experience of using the functional
tool and thus, in the helping and paternalism context of the test phase, knew that only the
functional tool would fulfill the requester’s need. In contrast, young children were only tested in a
single session and thus the time we could allocate to training them on the apparatus and the tools
was more limited in comparison to chimpanzees. Therefore, we included control questions during
the training phase to ensure that all children knew that only the functional tool worked to retrieve
the reward from the box. During the test phase, we reminded children of the adult’s goal of
wanting to retrieve the reward from the box and of the fact that one tool was needed to
successfully to do so. To this end the adult experimenter pointed to both tools from a distance
saying: “Yes, I need that one”. Crucially, the adult pointed ambiguously and did not provide any
clues as to which tool he required. Together, the extensive multi-session training and testing for
chimpanzees could have made the functional tool more salient for chimpanzees than for children
who received a total of four reminders during a single testing session that one tool (not which) was
needed for the adult to successfully retrieve the reward. This would have resulted chimpanzees
overall choosing the functional tool more often than children (which is not what we found).
Together, these methodological differences between children and chimpanzees prompt a
more critical reflection on whether the differences in observed paternalism where a mere
consequence of methodological differences between the paradigms in which each group was
tested. It is important to point that children - in the paternalism context when the adult reached for
the dysfunctional tool but needed the functional tool - were not paternalistic per se but took into
account what view of the situation they had in comparison to the adult. Children’s paternalism was
rather selective and occurred significantly more often in the non-occluded context, where both
tools were fully visible, compared to the non-occluded context, where occluders changed the
visual perspective of the child and adult on the two tools. If the study’s procedure prompted
children to be paternalistic to correct the adult then one would have expected similar levels of
paternalism between the occluded and non-occluded contexts. But this is not what we found.
Children corrected the adult in the paternalism context significantly more often on the nonoccluded
compared to the occluded context. This suggests that asking children during the training
phase to identify the correct tool did not automatically result in them providing this tool. One
avenue for future research is to manipulate the conditions that result in paternalism in children.
Children’s paternalistic helping may depend on how certain they are that the adult’s request will
not sufficiently fulfill his/her need. In addition, it is important to investigate age effects whether
older children are more motivated to be paternalistic, even in occluded context, than the 3-year-old
children in our study (see also Martin et al., 2016). Similarly, additional research is needed to
follow up on the question of whether there are circumstances under which chimpanzees will show
paternalism. This could include varying the social relationship between the requester and the
helper to include mother-child dyads or dyads of close allies and friends (see also Engelmann &
Herrmann, 2016).
In addition to a difference in how chimpanzees and young children help others it is
important to consider other factors that may explain the species difference observed in the current
studies. It is possible that chimpanzees have greater difficulties taking the perspective of the
requester than young children, which could explain their lack of paternalistic helping. On such an
account both children and chimpanzees are motivated to help others and even help
paternalistically but chimpanzees may not be able to think about the requester’s goals and
constrains in ways that are comparable to young children. While ultimately more research is
needed to fully address this point, there are two reasons to think that a mere lack in a cognitive
ability to take others’ visual perspective is not the best explanation of the current pattern of results
for chimpanzee subjects. First, the extensive training in the current study ensured that subjects
proceeded to the test phase only if they had completed a training phase with the occluders during
which they themselves had to walk to the non-occluded side to identify the functional tool (so they
clearly knew the positions from which their own view was or was not occluded). Second, previous
work with comparable experimental set-ups shows that chimpanzees are able, in addition, to
discern the positions from which others can and cannot see things (Hare, Call, Agnetta, &
Tomasello, 2000; Kaminski, Call, & Tomasello, 2008) and can represent others’ false beliefs
(Krupenye, Kano, Hirata, Call, & Tomasello, 2016), suggesting that subjects in the occluded
context of the current study knew whether the requesting conspecific could or could not see the
functional tool.
It is important to emphasize that the lack of paternalism in the current sample of
chimpanzees does not indicate a lack of concern for others. On the contrary, the results from the
helping condition in the current study replicate previous work with chimpanzees who help
conspecifics to fulfill their instrumental goals in instrumental responding to others needs and
helping more in need compared to control scenario (Melis et al., 2011b; Warneken et al., 2007;
Yamamoto et al., 2012). The results of the current study add to our understanding of the
underlying motivation of chimpanzee helping behavior. Chimpanzees, as opposed to young
children, help others by fulfilling the request. This suggests that for chimpanzees the cost of
denying a conspecific the tool that he/she requested does not outweigh the benefits of having
corrected the request to provide the tool that is functional to fulfilling the actual need. One
interesting avenue for future research is the questions under which chimpanzees are paternalistic
and do correct others. Previous work has shown that chimpanzee helping behavior to increase
toward conspecifics who have benefitted the induvial in the past (Schmelz, Grueneisen, Kabalak,
Jost, & Tomasello, 2017). In such scenarios of dependence chimpanzees may correct others’
dysfunctional requests for help because they themselves want to be helped by having their need
rather than their request being fulfilled.
In summary, the current results suggest that while human children and chimpanzees share
a sensitivity to others’ immediate requests for help, humans additionally take into account others’
long-term well-being. Only human children showed evidence for paternalism. Such paternalistic
interference with another’s goal-directed behavior bears a cost given that it temporarily upsets and
frustrates the recipient who did not get what he requested. In a highly interdependent species this
cost is trumped by the benefit of correcting others’ ill-fated requests for help, given that there is a
mutual understanding among collaborating partners to care about each other’s needs above and
beyond fulfilling each other’s immediate requests for help. Our hypothesis, therefore, is that the
strongly interdependent nature of human social life has led, via natural selection, to helpful
individuals who are not so much interested in fulfilling a conspecific’s every wish and desire, but
rather at keeping them in good shape as potential collaborative partners for the future.
Abstract: Humans, including young children, are strongly motivated to help others, even paying a cost to do so. Humans’ nearest primate relatives, great apes, are likewise motivated to help others, raising the question of whether the motivations of humans and apes are the same. Here we compared the underlying motivation to help of human children and chimpanzees. Both species understood the situation and helped a conspecific in a straightforward situation. However, when they knew that what the other was requesting would not actually help her, only the children gave her not what she wanted but what she needed. These results suggest that both chimpanzees and human children help others but the underlying motivation for why they help differs. In comparison to chimpanzees, young children help in a paternalistic manner. The evolutionary hypothesis is that uniquely human socio‐ecologies based on interdependent cooperation gave rise to uniquely human prosocial motivations to help others paternalistically.
General Discussion
Previous experimental work had investigated the rate of helping in human and non-human
primates but has not directly compared the manner of helping. In the current studies we used a
novel paradigm giving both children and chimpanzees a choice not of whether to help but rather
how to respond to others’ needs. Our results replicate previous work in showing that both children
and chimpanzees show concern for others and comply with others’ request for help when these
align with the requester’s actual need (Warneken et al., 2007; Yamamoto et al., 2012). However,
the crucial difference between the two groups was evident in the nature of their tendency to be
paternalistic. Only human children showed paternalism and intervened for the benefit of the
recipient and corrected her behaviour. Crucially, children did not automatically correct others’
request for help but took into account how much better they could evaluate the situation.
Children’s paternalism was strongest when they shared the same view of the situation as the
requesting adult. Overall, children complied with the adult’s request in the majority of conditions
unless the requested tool did not serve to fulfil the adult’s actual need in which case children were
more motivated to correct the request. Chimpanzees, on the other hand, did not show preference
for either object and performed at chance across conditions unless the conspecific requested the
functional tool when that tool was needed to retrieve a reward. Together these results suggest that
while both children and chimpanzees show concern for others, the underlying manner in which
each group provides this help is different when their understandings of the situation differ.
The current results replicate previous work on chimpanzees’ helping behaviour, both with
regards to their response to others’ requests for help as well as their lack in concern to
systematically improve others’ long-term well-being. Chimpanzees are sensitive to others’
immediate needs and requests for help (Yamamoto et al., 2009, 2012). These previous findings
replicated in the current study where chimpanzees helped more in the need compared to the noneed
control condition when the conspecific requested the functional tool. However, in the
paternalism condition chimpanzees did not correct requests for help that were dysfunctional. In
other words, chimpanzees were not paternalistic to interfere ‘for the good of the recipient’ (Grill,
2007). This lack in paternalism to improve the requester’s well-being by means of correcting the
request for help is comparable to previous findings that chimpanzees do not systematically
improve a conspecific’s well-being in the so-called prosocial choice task in chimpanzees (House
et al., 2014; Jensen et al., 2006). The results of the current study with human children also
replicate and crucially extend previous work.
By age three children concern themselves with others’ long-term well-being and correct
dysfunctional requests for help (Hepach et al., 2013; Martin et al., 2016; Martin & Olson, 2013).
In one study, the authors found that 3-year-old children complied with the adult’s request less
often when this resulted in a negative consequence and half the children corrected the adult by
providing the intact tool instead (Martin & Olson, 2013). Note that the child and the adult did not
share the same perspective which may have put additional constraints on children’s decision
resulting in correction rates between 52 and 69 % (see Martin & Olson, 2013, for details). In the
current study, we found different rates of correcting in children between the occluded and nonoccluded
contexts. This allows us to specify that the rate of correcting others is greatest if both
parties share the same perspective, as is the case in the current study’s non-occluded context.
Children at the age of three may thus hesitate to override an adult’s request for help if they cannot
be certain that their view of the situations matches that of the adult. Therefore, in the current
study’s occluded context children may have complied with the adult’s request because, from their
perspective, the adult may have had a privileged view of the tools that children did not have. This
context sensitivity resonates with previous findings from a study in which children’s and the
adult’s perspective matched and children’s complying behaviour and responses to unjustified
requests for help were as low as 25 % (Hepach et al., 2013). Thus, based on the current results we
can conclude that children are less likely to correct the adult when they do not have the same view
of the situation as the adult (e.g., Martin & Olson, 2013) but, in contrast, correct the adult more
often when both the child and the adult share the same perspective (see also Hepach et al., 2013).
The current studies are the first to assess and directly compare the phenomenon of
paternalism between young children and chimpanzees. At the same time, there are a number of
methodological considerations of the current studies that warrant discussion. One crucial premise
of a paternalism context is that the potential helper knows that only the functional tool can fulfill
the requester’s need even if the requester reaches for the dysfunctional tool. Given the speciesunique
testing constraints we chose different approaches for chimpanzees and children.
Chimpanzees’ underwent extensive training in which subjects were exposed to multiple days of
using the functional tool to successfully obtain juice. Helpers only proceeded to the test phase if
they correctly identified the functional tool on multiple successive sessions during the training
phase. In this way, we sought to ensure that helpers had ample experience of using the functional
tool and thus, in the helping and paternalism context of the test phase, knew that only the
functional tool would fulfill the requester’s need. In contrast, young children were only tested in a
single session and thus the time we could allocate to training them on the apparatus and the tools
was more limited in comparison to chimpanzees. Therefore, we included control questions during
the training phase to ensure that all children knew that only the functional tool worked to retrieve
the reward from the box. During the test phase, we reminded children of the adult’s goal of
wanting to retrieve the reward from the box and of the fact that one tool was needed to
successfully to do so. To this end the adult experimenter pointed to both tools from a distance
saying: “Yes, I need that one”. Crucially, the adult pointed ambiguously and did not provide any
clues as to which tool he required. Together, the extensive multi-session training and testing for
chimpanzees could have made the functional tool more salient for chimpanzees than for children
who received a total of four reminders during a single testing session that one tool (not which) was
needed for the adult to successfully retrieve the reward. This would have resulted chimpanzees
overall choosing the functional tool more often than children (which is not what we found).
Together, these methodological differences between children and chimpanzees prompt a
more critical reflection on whether the differences in observed paternalism where a mere
consequence of methodological differences between the paradigms in which each group was
tested. It is important to point that children - in the paternalism context when the adult reached for
the dysfunctional tool but needed the functional tool - were not paternalistic per se but took into
account what view of the situation they had in comparison to the adult. Children’s paternalism was
rather selective and occurred significantly more often in the non-occluded context, where both
tools were fully visible, compared to the non-occluded context, where occluders changed the
visual perspective of the child and adult on the two tools. If the study’s procedure prompted
children to be paternalistic to correct the adult then one would have expected similar levels of
paternalism between the occluded and non-occluded contexts. But this is not what we found.
Children corrected the adult in the paternalism context significantly more often on the nonoccluded
compared to the occluded context. This suggests that asking children during the training
phase to identify the correct tool did not automatically result in them providing this tool. One
avenue for future research is to manipulate the conditions that result in paternalism in children.
Children’s paternalistic helping may depend on how certain they are that the adult’s request will
not sufficiently fulfill his/her need. In addition, it is important to investigate age effects whether
older children are more motivated to be paternalistic, even in occluded context, than the 3-year-old
children in our study (see also Martin et al., 2016). Similarly, additional research is needed to
follow up on the question of whether there are circumstances under which chimpanzees will show
paternalism. This could include varying the social relationship between the requester and the
helper to include mother-child dyads or dyads of close allies and friends (see also Engelmann &
Herrmann, 2016).
In addition to a difference in how chimpanzees and young children help others it is
important to consider other factors that may explain the species difference observed in the current
studies. It is possible that chimpanzees have greater difficulties taking the perspective of the
requester than young children, which could explain their lack of paternalistic helping. On such an
account both children and chimpanzees are motivated to help others and even help
paternalistically but chimpanzees may not be able to think about the requester’s goals and
constrains in ways that are comparable to young children. While ultimately more research is
needed to fully address this point, there are two reasons to think that a mere lack in a cognitive
ability to take others’ visual perspective is not the best explanation of the current pattern of results
for chimpanzee subjects. First, the extensive training in the current study ensured that subjects
proceeded to the test phase only if they had completed a training phase with the occluders during
which they themselves had to walk to the non-occluded side to identify the functional tool (so they
clearly knew the positions from which their own view was or was not occluded). Second, previous
work with comparable experimental set-ups shows that chimpanzees are able, in addition, to
discern the positions from which others can and cannot see things (Hare, Call, Agnetta, &
Tomasello, 2000; Kaminski, Call, & Tomasello, 2008) and can represent others’ false beliefs
(Krupenye, Kano, Hirata, Call, & Tomasello, 2016), suggesting that subjects in the occluded
context of the current study knew whether the requesting conspecific could or could not see the
functional tool.
It is important to emphasize that the lack of paternalism in the current sample of
chimpanzees does not indicate a lack of concern for others. On the contrary, the results from the
helping condition in the current study replicate previous work with chimpanzees who help
conspecifics to fulfill their instrumental goals in instrumental responding to others needs and
helping more in need compared to control scenario (Melis et al., 2011b; Warneken et al., 2007;
Yamamoto et al., 2012). The results of the current study add to our understanding of the
underlying motivation of chimpanzee helping behavior. Chimpanzees, as opposed to young
children, help others by fulfilling the request. This suggests that for chimpanzees the cost of
denying a conspecific the tool that he/she requested does not outweigh the benefits of having
corrected the request to provide the tool that is functional to fulfilling the actual need. One
interesting avenue for future research is the questions under which chimpanzees are paternalistic
and do correct others. Previous work has shown that chimpanzee helping behavior to increase
toward conspecifics who have benefitted the induvial in the past (Schmelz, Grueneisen, Kabalak,
Jost, & Tomasello, 2017). In such scenarios of dependence chimpanzees may correct others’
dysfunctional requests for help because they themselves want to be helped by having their need
rather than their request being fulfilled.
In summary, the current results suggest that while human children and chimpanzees share
a sensitivity to others’ immediate requests for help, humans additionally take into account others’
long-term well-being. Only human children showed evidence for paternalism. Such paternalistic
interference with another’s goal-directed behavior bears a cost given that it temporarily upsets and
frustrates the recipient who did not get what he requested. In a highly interdependent species this
cost is trumped by the benefit of correcting others’ ill-fated requests for help, given that there is a
mutual understanding among collaborating partners to care about each other’s needs above and
beyond fulfilling each other’s immediate requests for help. Our hypothesis, therefore, is that the
strongly interdependent nature of human social life has led, via natural selection, to helpful
individuals who are not so much interested in fulfilling a conspecific’s every wish and desire, but
rather at keeping them in good shape as potential collaborative partners for the future.
Educating participants about the biasing effects of facial stereotypes reduces the explicit belief that personality is reflected in facial features, but does not reduce the influence of facial appearance on verdicts
Jaeger, Bastian, Alexander Todorov, Anthony M. Evans, and Ilja van Beest. 2019. “Can We Reduce Facial Biases? Persistent Effects of Facial Trustworthiness on Sentencing Decisions.” PsyArXiv. November 12. doi:10.31234/osf.io/a8w2d
Abstract: Trait impressions from faces influence many consequential decisions even in situations in which they have poor diagnostic value and in which decisions should not be based on a person’s appearance. Here, we test (a) whether people rely on facial appearance when making legal sentencing decisions and (b) whether two types of interventions—educating decision-makers and changing the accessibility of facial information—reduces the influence of facial stereotypes. We first introduce a novel legal decision-making paradigm with which we measure reliance on facial appearance. Results of a pretest (n = 320) show that defendants with an untrustworthy (vs. trustworthy) facial appearances are found guilty more often. We then test the effectiveness of different interventions in reducing the influence of facial stereotypes. Educating participants about the biasing effects of facial stereotypes reduces the explicit belief that personality is reflected in facial features, but does not reduce the influence of facial appearance on verdicts (Study 1, n = 979). In Study 2 (n = 975), we present information sequentially to disrupt the intuitive accessibility of trait impressions. Participants indicate an initial verdict based on case-relevant information and a final verdict based on all information (including facial photographs). The wide majority of initial sentences were not revised and therefore unbiased. However, most revised sentences were in line with facial stereotypes (e.g., a guilty verdict for an untrustworthy-looking defendant). On average, this actually increased facial bias in verdicts. Together, our findings highlight the persistent influence of facial appearance on legal sentencing decisions.
Abstract: Trait impressions from faces influence many consequential decisions even in situations in which they have poor diagnostic value and in which decisions should not be based on a person’s appearance. Here, we test (a) whether people rely on facial appearance when making legal sentencing decisions and (b) whether two types of interventions—educating decision-makers and changing the accessibility of facial information—reduces the influence of facial stereotypes. We first introduce a novel legal decision-making paradigm with which we measure reliance on facial appearance. Results of a pretest (n = 320) show that defendants with an untrustworthy (vs. trustworthy) facial appearances are found guilty more often. We then test the effectiveness of different interventions in reducing the influence of facial stereotypes. Educating participants about the biasing effects of facial stereotypes reduces the explicit belief that personality is reflected in facial features, but does not reduce the influence of facial appearance on verdicts (Study 1, n = 979). In Study 2 (n = 975), we present information sequentially to disrupt the intuitive accessibility of trait impressions. Participants indicate an initial verdict based on case-relevant information and a final verdict based on all information (including facial photographs). The wide majority of initial sentences were not revised and therefore unbiased. However, most revised sentences were in line with facial stereotypes (e.g., a guilty verdict for an untrustworthy-looking defendant). On average, this actually increased facial bias in verdicts. Together, our findings highlight the persistent influence of facial appearance on legal sentencing decisions.
Measuring the impact and success of human performance is common in various disciplines, including art, science, sports & social media; users commonly have “hot streaks” of impact, i.e., extended periods of high impact tweets
Garimella, K., & West, R. (2019). Hot Streaks on Social Media. Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media, 13(01), 170-180. Jul 2019. https://www.aaai.org/ojs/index.php/ICWSM/article/view/3219
Abstract: Measuring the impact and success of human performance is common in various disciplines, including art, science, and sports. Quantifying impact also plays a key role on social media, where impact is usually defined as the reach of a user’s content as captured by metrics such as the number of views, likes, retweets, or shares. In this paper, we study entire careers of Twitter users to understand properties of impact. We show that user impact tends to have certain characteristics: First, impact is clustered in time, such that the most impactful tweets of a user appear close to each other. Second, users commonly have “hot streaks” of impact, i.e., extended periods of high impact tweets. Third, impact tends to gradually build up before, and fall off after, a user’s most impactful tweet. We attempt to explain these characteristics using various properties measured on social media, including the user’s network, content, activity, and experience, and find that changes in impact are associated with significant changes in these properties. Our findings open interesting avenues for future research on virality and influence on social media.
Abstract: Measuring the impact and success of human performance is common in various disciplines, including art, science, and sports. Quantifying impact also plays a key role on social media, where impact is usually defined as the reach of a user’s content as captured by metrics such as the number of views, likes, retweets, or shares. In this paper, we study entire careers of Twitter users to understand properties of impact. We show that user impact tends to have certain characteristics: First, impact is clustered in time, such that the most impactful tweets of a user appear close to each other. Second, users commonly have “hot streaks” of impact, i.e., extended periods of high impact tweets. Third, impact tends to gradually build up before, and fall off after, a user’s most impactful tweet. We attempt to explain these characteristics using various properties measured on social media, including the user’s network, content, activity, and experience, and find that changes in impact are associated with significant changes in these properties. Our findings open interesting avenues for future research on virality and influence on social media.
Adoption: Both Italian & British listeners judged gay-sounding speakers as warmer and as having better parenting skills, yet Italian participants consistently preferred straight over gay-sounding applicants
The Social Costs of Sounding Gay: Voice-Based Impressions of Adoption Applicants. Fabio Fasoli, Anne Maass. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, November 11, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1177/0261927X19883907
Abstract: In three studies (total N = 239) we examined the unexplored question of whether voice conveying sexual orientation elicits stigma and discrimination in the context of adoption. Studies 1 and 2 were conducted in Italy where same-sex adoption is illegal and controversial. Study 3 was conducted in the United Kingdom where same-sex adoption is legal and generally more accepted. The three studies show that listeners draw strong inferences from voice when judging hypothetical adoption seekers. Both Italian and British listeners judged gay-sounding speakers as warmer and as having better parenting skills, yet Italian participants consistently preferred straight over gay-sounding applicants, whereas British participants showed an opposite tendency, presumably reflecting the different normative context in the two countries. We conclude that vocal cues may have culturally distinct effects on judgment and decision making and that people with gay-sounding voices may face discrimination in adoption procedures in countries with antigay norms.
Keywords: voice, sexual orientation, parenting, adoption, gaydar
Abstract: In three studies (total N = 239) we examined the unexplored question of whether voice conveying sexual orientation elicits stigma and discrimination in the context of adoption. Studies 1 and 2 were conducted in Italy where same-sex adoption is illegal and controversial. Study 3 was conducted in the United Kingdom where same-sex adoption is legal and generally more accepted. The three studies show that listeners draw strong inferences from voice when judging hypothetical adoption seekers. Both Italian and British listeners judged gay-sounding speakers as warmer and as having better parenting skills, yet Italian participants consistently preferred straight over gay-sounding applicants, whereas British participants showed an opposite tendency, presumably reflecting the different normative context in the two countries. We conclude that vocal cues may have culturally distinct effects on judgment and decision making and that people with gay-sounding voices may face discrimination in adoption procedures in countries with antigay norms.
Keywords: voice, sexual orientation, parenting, adoption, gaydar
Foundations of Arrogance: We contend that humankind can benefit from a better understanding of the cognitive limitations and motivational biases that, operating together, appear to contribute to arrogance
Foundations of Arrogance: A Broad Survey and Framework for Research. Nelson Cowan et al. Review of General Psychology, September 19, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1177/1089268019877138
Abstract: We consider the topic of arrogance from a cross-disciplinary viewpoint. To stimulate further research, we suggest three types of arrogance (individual, comparative, and antagonistic) and six components contributing to them, each logically related to the next. The components progress from imperfect knowledge and abilities to an unrealistic assessment of them, an unwarranted attitude of superiority over other people, and related derisive behavior. Although each component presumably is present to some degree when the next one operates, causality might flow between components in either direction. The classification of components of arrogance should reduce miscommunication among researchers, as the relevant concepts and mechanisms span cognitive, motivational, social, and clinical domains and literatures. Arrogance is an important concept warranting further study for both theoretical and practical reasons, in both psychopathology and normal social interaction. Everyone seems to have qualities of arrogance to some degree, and we consider the importance of arrogance on a spectrum. We contend that humankind can benefit from a better understanding of the cognitive limitations and motivational biases that, operating together, appear to contribute to arrogance. We bring together information and questions that might lead to an invigorating increase in the rate and quality of cross-disciplinary research on arrogance.
Keywords: arrogance, narcissism, hubris, overconfidence, overplacement, humility
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How Do the Components Relate to the Origins and Purposes of Arrogance?
Next, we examine arrogance with an eye toward the purposes it may serve for the individual and the group, which may help explain why varieties of arrogance seem so prevalent. In evolution, some traits that serve no apparent or useful function (referred to as byproducts) can be inextricably linked to other adaptations (Lewis, Shawaf, Conroy-Beam, Asao, & Buss, 2017). It is an open question whether extreme arrogance in some people is a byproduct of certain adaptive traits, which might include self-enhancing optimism and overconfidence, or whether extreme arrogance is, in itself, a useful adaptation that promotes survival and reproduction in some contexts. Possible benefits of different types of arrogance that we consider are the personal value of an illusion of control, the personal value of high self-esteem, and society.s need for leaders; for this last category, we consider associated costs also. Moreover, benefits and costs depend on the type of arrogance, with Component 2 sometimes being helpful to all, but later components rarely helpful, at least to society. (It is not known whether the later components of arrogance sometimes assist in personal gains, which seems possible, for example, in the case of intrasexual competition for mates; see Buss, 1988).
Personal Value of an Illusion of Control
The imperfect knowledge of the environment (Component 1) could emerge simply because perfect knowledge (e.g., with no perceptual illusions or false memories) would be computationally too costly for the brain. It is therefore not surprising that our brains are designed to operate often with place of complete information. That incomplete information does mean, however, that our control of the environment is not always what we believe it is (Component 2). An illusion of greater control of the environment would be one outcome that could be of use.
Individual and comparative arrogance might originate because the feeling of controlling the environment and being competent energizes the individual, protecting and furthering that individual more than a feeling of being out of control or incompetent. People therefore sometimes believe that good things will happen to them and bad things will only happen to those who deserve it (Lerner & Miller, 1978). Exemplifying the illusion of control, Langer (1975) conducted a series of studies showing that when elements usually associated with control were introduced into games of chance, participants responded as if they had some control over the outcome. They bet more on their own hand when competing against what appeared to be a less confident opponent, when given a choice as compared with no choice, when the choice they were given was familiar, and when their involvement in the game was personal rather than by proxy. All of these influences occurred even though none of them had any effect on the chances of winning. Weinstein (1982) found that students thought positive events were more likely to happen to them compared with peers, and negative events, less likely. These views proved to be modifiable by exposing participants to information about other individuals' risk-avoiding behaviors. Thus, as the authors suggested, such views could occur because of an initial dearth of perspective-taking, our Component 4 (Chambers, Windschitl, & Suls, 2003).
A sense of control, whether warranted or illusory, may be important for health. Lachman and Weaver (1998) found that more control was felt in people of higher social class, who also lived longer; but the sense of control had an important effect, and individuals from the lowest income group who had a high sense of control had commensurate health and well-being, like people in higher-income groups. Whether illusions of control per se foster health, however, may remain controversial (Randall & Block, 1994) and in need of further study. It is possible that some degree of the illusion of control is healthy, whereas too great an illusion places a person in a range in which the accompanying components of comparative and antagonistic arrogance exceed what is optimal.
Personal Value of High Self-Esteem
An individual might become arrogant in individual and comparative senses to produce positive self-esteem based on Components 2 through 5. To our knowledge, there has been little work on this topic per se but there has been some related work on narcissism, for which the conclusion is still unclear. One can imagine that self-esteem might be low but may be supported by thoughts and actions that at least attempt to counteract low self-esteem (e.g., in the use of social media; see Andreassen, Pallesen, & Griffiths, 2017). This kind of thinking has led to suggestions of a mask model, in which low self-esteem at an implicit, unconscious level is overridden (or masked) by a high level of selfesteem at an explicit level, together producing arrogant behavior. It is difficult to evaluate the mask model, however, because it is unfortunately difficult to measure self-esteem at an implicit level, so this field is still in the process of growth and change (e.g., Brummelman, Thomaes, & Sedikides, 2016), without unambiguous support for the mask model (Brown & Brunell, 2017). It is far from clear whether arrogance indicates that the individual hates himself or herself .deep down,. loves himself or herself, some combination of these, or neither; it is an important topic for future research.
Higgins (1987) took a different approach to self-esteem, showing that there are physiological effects and feelings resulting from discrepancies between a person.s self-concept and how the person ideally would like to be, and ought to be. Discrepancy with the former tended to produce depression, whereas discrepancy with the latter tended to lead to agitation and anxiety. In our tentative appraisal, the difference could be that how one would like to be is a personal concept that interacts with Component 2, whereas how one ought to be is a social comparison on which one hopes for superiority (Component 5).
One possibility for further study is that especially arrogant people of any variety may have a large discrepancy between how they would like to be and how they ought to be, perhaps tending to act as they like (reducing one discrepancy) and inventing rationalizations to stave off the feeling of agitation arising from how they ought to be. Alternatively, the arrogant people may do less comparison than most people of the actual, ideal, and ought-to self-concepts, or may not perceive much discrepancy (consistent with Components 2-4). However, NPD can be comorbid with depression (Dawood & Pincus, 2018), suggesting that a grandiose stance that includes arrogance might occur along with comparison of the actual and ideal. Note that what is called ideal in this case could be a selfish motive (e.g., becoming ultra-rich or acknowledged as superior to others). The relation between self-esteem and components of arrogance certainly requires further study.
Society's Need for Leaders
Types of arrogance may have evolved as a mechanism to fulfill society.s need for leaders, at least in some types of societies. It could be that finding a good leader is like walking a fine line; one wants a person with enough confidence (related to Component 2) to be highly motivated and (Components 3-6) that can demotivate everyone who is not included in the favored group. Authoritative leaders can help create ties between people, settle disagreements, and make decisions for the group (King, Johnson, & van Vugt, 2009). Research suggests that people tend to favor overconfident leaders over their lesser confident counterparts (Reuben, Rey-Biel, Sapienza, & Zingales, 2012). An overconfident individual may envision success in the future, and this may prompt the individual to expend more effort toward achievement (Lockhart, Goddu, & Keil, 2017).
Overconfidence may also help individuals reach leadership status (Reuben et al., 2012) and feel inspired to take on opportunities that are presented to them (Ehrlinger & Dunning, 2003). Reuben et al. examined how group members identified leaders while completing a task. They found that overconfidence was beneficial for those interested in becoming group leaders (who tended to be men). Research on characteristics of CEOs shows that they often possess a high level of overconfidence (Malmendier & Tate, 2008). The drawbacks of some varieties of arrogant leadership, however, are clear. Hiller and Hambrick (2005) reviewed the concept of core self-evaluations (CSEs), an amalgam of self-esteem, self-efficacy, locus of control, and emotional stability. They posited that excessive levels of the CSE traits may lead to arrogant behaviors and decisions from executives and other high-ranking businessmen and businesswomen. It is believed that these hyper-CSE executives typically have extreme performance records (e.g., great successes or terrible failures) due in part to their arrogant behaviors, such as risky initiatives and hasty, centralized decision making (Component 4, ignoring the perspectives of others). Resick, Whitman, Weingarden, and Hiller (2009) also examined the high end of CSE and found that such high levels of self-confidence are necessary to lead high-stakes endeavors. According to Resick et al. (2009), though, some of these leaders have these views due to high self-confidence, whereas others have a more fragile self-view that they attempt to mask with arrogance. They found that CEOs who displayed the positive traits associated with CSE were more comfortable sharing the success with others; CEOs who displayed the negative traits associated with hyper- CSE were less likely to provide special recognition for other members of the organization (with Component 5 sometimes at least implicitly leading into Component 6, denigrating others). Arrogance thus can result in positive group benefits, but some varieties of it can produce risk for the group or a cost for some people in the group. Johnson et al. (2010) provided some of the first empirical data confirming a negative relationship between workplace arrogance in self-rating and other ratings and job performance. Their first two studies involved developing the WARS. The scale was based on coworkers. judgment of the degree to which 26 generalizations fit the individual in question (e.g., "Believes that s/he knows better than everyone else in any given situation"; "Makes decisions that impact others without listening to their input"). Their third and fourth studies used the scale to explore the relationship between arrogance and task performance. There was a significant, negative relationship between arrogance and task performance and cognitive ability. Because the arrogance of these employees did not result in heightened ability at work or positive perception by others, it seems unlikely that arrogance was of instrumental use. Other studies also support the conclusion that arrogance has overall negative effects, rather than beneficial uses. Arrogant people often suffer socially as a result of being disliked by others (Hareli & Weiner, 2000) and are more likely to induce harm and loss for their businesses as a result of risk-taking behaviors, jeopardizing their health through overconfidence and unrealistic optimism (Dunning, Heath, & Suls, 2004). They perform poorly on exams while being overly confident (Hacker, Bol, Horgan, & Rakow, 2000). There are relevant studies also on harm caused by counterproductive workplace behavior (e.g., Sackett, Berry, Wiemann, & Laczo, 2006) and the "dark triad" of narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy (e.g., Paulhus & Williams, 2002), consistent with our Components 4 through 6.
Relevant evidence may also come from investigations of grandiose narcissism which, like our fourth through sixth components of arrogance, can include behaviors of self-inflation at the expense of others. Using multiple sources of evidence regarding the level of grandiose narcissism of all past presidents of the United States, Watts et al. (2012) found that those who had more of this quality were more effective politically, but at the cost of being more unethical, much more likely to provoke reactions such as impeachment, and less likely to win a second term. Their arrogance may also have a negative effect on the group. For example, Matthews, Reinerman-Jones, Burke, Teo, and Scribner (2018) stated on the basis of several studies that "Nationalism is socially harmful when associated with chauvinistic arrogance, bellicosity, and prejudice towards foreigners and other out-groups" (p. 91).
Abstract: We consider the topic of arrogance from a cross-disciplinary viewpoint. To stimulate further research, we suggest three types of arrogance (individual, comparative, and antagonistic) and six components contributing to them, each logically related to the next. The components progress from imperfect knowledge and abilities to an unrealistic assessment of them, an unwarranted attitude of superiority over other people, and related derisive behavior. Although each component presumably is present to some degree when the next one operates, causality might flow between components in either direction. The classification of components of arrogance should reduce miscommunication among researchers, as the relevant concepts and mechanisms span cognitive, motivational, social, and clinical domains and literatures. Arrogance is an important concept warranting further study for both theoretical and practical reasons, in both psychopathology and normal social interaction. Everyone seems to have qualities of arrogance to some degree, and we consider the importance of arrogance on a spectrum. We contend that humankind can benefit from a better understanding of the cognitive limitations and motivational biases that, operating together, appear to contribute to arrogance. We bring together information and questions that might lead to an invigorating increase in the rate and quality of cross-disciplinary research on arrogance.
Keywords: arrogance, narcissism, hubris, overconfidence, overplacement, humility
---
How Do the Components Relate to the Origins and Purposes of Arrogance?
Next, we examine arrogance with an eye toward the purposes it may serve for the individual and the group, which may help explain why varieties of arrogance seem so prevalent. In evolution, some traits that serve no apparent or useful function (referred to as byproducts) can be inextricably linked to other adaptations (Lewis, Shawaf, Conroy-Beam, Asao, & Buss, 2017). It is an open question whether extreme arrogance in some people is a byproduct of certain adaptive traits, which might include self-enhancing optimism and overconfidence, or whether extreme arrogance is, in itself, a useful adaptation that promotes survival and reproduction in some contexts. Possible benefits of different types of arrogance that we consider are the personal value of an illusion of control, the personal value of high self-esteem, and society.s need for leaders; for this last category, we consider associated costs also. Moreover, benefits and costs depend on the type of arrogance, with Component 2 sometimes being helpful to all, but later components rarely helpful, at least to society. (It is not known whether the later components of arrogance sometimes assist in personal gains, which seems possible, for example, in the case of intrasexual competition for mates; see Buss, 1988).
Personal Value of an Illusion of Control
The imperfect knowledge of the environment (Component 1) could emerge simply because perfect knowledge (e.g., with no perceptual illusions or false memories) would be computationally too costly for the brain. It is therefore not surprising that our brains are designed to operate often with place of complete information. That incomplete information does mean, however, that our control of the environment is not always what we believe it is (Component 2). An illusion of greater control of the environment would be one outcome that could be of use.
Individual and comparative arrogance might originate because the feeling of controlling the environment and being competent energizes the individual, protecting and furthering that individual more than a feeling of being out of control or incompetent. People therefore sometimes believe that good things will happen to them and bad things will only happen to those who deserve it (Lerner & Miller, 1978). Exemplifying the illusion of control, Langer (1975) conducted a series of studies showing that when elements usually associated with control were introduced into games of chance, participants responded as if they had some control over the outcome. They bet more on their own hand when competing against what appeared to be a less confident opponent, when given a choice as compared with no choice, when the choice they were given was familiar, and when their involvement in the game was personal rather than by proxy. All of these influences occurred even though none of them had any effect on the chances of winning. Weinstein (1982) found that students thought positive events were more likely to happen to them compared with peers, and negative events, less likely. These views proved to be modifiable by exposing participants to information about other individuals' risk-avoiding behaviors. Thus, as the authors suggested, such views could occur because of an initial dearth of perspective-taking, our Component 4 (Chambers, Windschitl, & Suls, 2003).
A sense of control, whether warranted or illusory, may be important for health. Lachman and Weaver (1998) found that more control was felt in people of higher social class, who also lived longer; but the sense of control had an important effect, and individuals from the lowest income group who had a high sense of control had commensurate health and well-being, like people in higher-income groups. Whether illusions of control per se foster health, however, may remain controversial (Randall & Block, 1994) and in need of further study. It is possible that some degree of the illusion of control is healthy, whereas too great an illusion places a person in a range in which the accompanying components of comparative and antagonistic arrogance exceed what is optimal.
Personal Value of High Self-Esteem
An individual might become arrogant in individual and comparative senses to produce positive self-esteem based on Components 2 through 5. To our knowledge, there has been little work on this topic per se but there has been some related work on narcissism, for which the conclusion is still unclear. One can imagine that self-esteem might be low but may be supported by thoughts and actions that at least attempt to counteract low self-esteem (e.g., in the use of social media; see Andreassen, Pallesen, & Griffiths, 2017). This kind of thinking has led to suggestions of a mask model, in which low self-esteem at an implicit, unconscious level is overridden (or masked) by a high level of selfesteem at an explicit level, together producing arrogant behavior. It is difficult to evaluate the mask model, however, because it is unfortunately difficult to measure self-esteem at an implicit level, so this field is still in the process of growth and change (e.g., Brummelman, Thomaes, & Sedikides, 2016), without unambiguous support for the mask model (Brown & Brunell, 2017). It is far from clear whether arrogance indicates that the individual hates himself or herself .deep down,. loves himself or herself, some combination of these, or neither; it is an important topic for future research.
Higgins (1987) took a different approach to self-esteem, showing that there are physiological effects and feelings resulting from discrepancies between a person.s self-concept and how the person ideally would like to be, and ought to be. Discrepancy with the former tended to produce depression, whereas discrepancy with the latter tended to lead to agitation and anxiety. In our tentative appraisal, the difference could be that how one would like to be is a personal concept that interacts with Component 2, whereas how one ought to be is a social comparison on which one hopes for superiority (Component 5).
One possibility for further study is that especially arrogant people of any variety may have a large discrepancy between how they would like to be and how they ought to be, perhaps tending to act as they like (reducing one discrepancy) and inventing rationalizations to stave off the feeling of agitation arising from how they ought to be. Alternatively, the arrogant people may do less comparison than most people of the actual, ideal, and ought-to self-concepts, or may not perceive much discrepancy (consistent with Components 2-4). However, NPD can be comorbid with depression (Dawood & Pincus, 2018), suggesting that a grandiose stance that includes arrogance might occur along with comparison of the actual and ideal. Note that what is called ideal in this case could be a selfish motive (e.g., becoming ultra-rich or acknowledged as superior to others). The relation between self-esteem and components of arrogance certainly requires further study.
Society's Need for Leaders
Types of arrogance may have evolved as a mechanism to fulfill society.s need for leaders, at least in some types of societies. It could be that finding a good leader is like walking a fine line; one wants a person with enough confidence (related to Component 2) to be highly motivated and (Components 3-6) that can demotivate everyone who is not included in the favored group. Authoritative leaders can help create ties between people, settle disagreements, and make decisions for the group (King, Johnson, & van Vugt, 2009). Research suggests that people tend to favor overconfident leaders over their lesser confident counterparts (Reuben, Rey-Biel, Sapienza, & Zingales, 2012). An overconfident individual may envision success in the future, and this may prompt the individual to expend more effort toward achievement (Lockhart, Goddu, & Keil, 2017).
Overconfidence may also help individuals reach leadership status (Reuben et al., 2012) and feel inspired to take on opportunities that are presented to them (Ehrlinger & Dunning, 2003). Reuben et al. examined how group members identified leaders while completing a task. They found that overconfidence was beneficial for those interested in becoming group leaders (who tended to be men). Research on characteristics of CEOs shows that they often possess a high level of overconfidence (Malmendier & Tate, 2008). The drawbacks of some varieties of arrogant leadership, however, are clear. Hiller and Hambrick (2005) reviewed the concept of core self-evaluations (CSEs), an amalgam of self-esteem, self-efficacy, locus of control, and emotional stability. They posited that excessive levels of the CSE traits may lead to arrogant behaviors and decisions from executives and other high-ranking businessmen and businesswomen. It is believed that these hyper-CSE executives typically have extreme performance records (e.g., great successes or terrible failures) due in part to their arrogant behaviors, such as risky initiatives and hasty, centralized decision making (Component 4, ignoring the perspectives of others). Resick, Whitman, Weingarden, and Hiller (2009) also examined the high end of CSE and found that such high levels of self-confidence are necessary to lead high-stakes endeavors. According to Resick et al. (2009), though, some of these leaders have these views due to high self-confidence, whereas others have a more fragile self-view that they attempt to mask with arrogance. They found that CEOs who displayed the positive traits associated with CSE were more comfortable sharing the success with others; CEOs who displayed the negative traits associated with hyper- CSE were less likely to provide special recognition for other members of the organization (with Component 5 sometimes at least implicitly leading into Component 6, denigrating others). Arrogance thus can result in positive group benefits, but some varieties of it can produce risk for the group or a cost for some people in the group. Johnson et al. (2010) provided some of the first empirical data confirming a negative relationship between workplace arrogance in self-rating and other ratings and job performance. Their first two studies involved developing the WARS. The scale was based on coworkers. judgment of the degree to which 26 generalizations fit the individual in question (e.g., "Believes that s/he knows better than everyone else in any given situation"; "Makes decisions that impact others without listening to their input"). Their third and fourth studies used the scale to explore the relationship between arrogance and task performance. There was a significant, negative relationship between arrogance and task performance and cognitive ability. Because the arrogance of these employees did not result in heightened ability at work or positive perception by others, it seems unlikely that arrogance was of instrumental use. Other studies also support the conclusion that arrogance has overall negative effects, rather than beneficial uses. Arrogant people often suffer socially as a result of being disliked by others (Hareli & Weiner, 2000) and are more likely to induce harm and loss for their businesses as a result of risk-taking behaviors, jeopardizing their health through overconfidence and unrealistic optimism (Dunning, Heath, & Suls, 2004). They perform poorly on exams while being overly confident (Hacker, Bol, Horgan, & Rakow, 2000). There are relevant studies also on harm caused by counterproductive workplace behavior (e.g., Sackett, Berry, Wiemann, & Laczo, 2006) and the "dark triad" of narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy (e.g., Paulhus & Williams, 2002), consistent with our Components 4 through 6.
Relevant evidence may also come from investigations of grandiose narcissism which, like our fourth through sixth components of arrogance, can include behaviors of self-inflation at the expense of others. Using multiple sources of evidence regarding the level of grandiose narcissism of all past presidents of the United States, Watts et al. (2012) found that those who had more of this quality were more effective politically, but at the cost of being more unethical, much more likely to provoke reactions such as impeachment, and less likely to win a second term. Their arrogance may also have a negative effect on the group. For example, Matthews, Reinerman-Jones, Burke, Teo, and Scribner (2018) stated on the basis of several studies that "Nationalism is socially harmful when associated with chauvinistic arrogance, bellicosity, and prejudice towards foreigners and other out-groups" (p. 91).