The role of cognitive control differs across people: For cheaters, it helps them to sometimes be honest, while for those who are generally honest, it allows them to cheat on occasion to profit from small dishonesty

Cognitive control and dishonesty. Sebastian P.H. Speer, Ale Smidts, Maarten A.S. Boksem. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, July 13 2022. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2022.06.005

Highlights

The precise role of cognitive control in dishonesty has been debated for many years, but now important strides have been made to resolve this debate.

Recently developed paradigms that allow for investigating dishonesty on the level of the choice rather than on the level of the individual have substantially improved our understanding of the adaptive role of cognitive control in (dis)honesty.

These new paradigms revealed that the role of cognitive control differs across people: for cheaters, it helps them to sometimes be honest, while for those who are generally honest, it allows them to cheat on occasion. Thus, cognitive control is not required for (dis)honesty per se but is required to override one’s moral default to be either honest or to cheat.

Individual differences in moral default are driven by balancing motivation for reward and upholding a moral self-image.

Abstract: Dishonesty is ubiquitous and imposes substantial financial and social burdens on society. Intuitively, dishonesty results from a failure of willpower to control selfish behavior. However, recent research suggests that the role of cognitive control in dishonesty is more complex. We review evidence that cognitive control is not needed to be honest or dishonest per se, but that it depends on individual differences in what we call one’s ‘moral default’: for those who are prone to dishonesty, cognitive control indeed aids in being honest, but for those who are already generally honest, cognitive control may help them cheat to occasionally profit from small acts of dishonesty. Thus, the role of cognitive control in (dis)honesty is to override the moral default.

Keywords: dishonestycognitive controlcheatingindividual differencesneuroimaging

We exhibit a reticence bias, the incorrect belief that we are more likable if we speak less than half the time in conversation with a stranger, & halo ignorance, the belief that our speaking time should depend on goals (to be liked vs. to be found interesting)

Speak Up! Mistaken Beliefs About How Much to Talk in Conversations. Quinn Hirschi, Timothy D. Wilson, Daniel T. Gilbert. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, July 11, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672221104927

Abstract: We hypothesized that people would exhibit a reticence bias, the incorrect belief that they will be more likable if they speak less than half the time in a conversation with a stranger, as well as halo ignorance, the belief that their speaking time should depend on their goal (e.g., to be liked vs. to be found interesting), when in fact, perceivers form global impressions of each other. In Studies 1 and 2, participants forecasted they should speak less than half the time when trying to be liked, but significantly more when trying to be interesting. In Study 3, we tested the accuracy of these forecasts by randomly assigning participants to speak for 30%, 40%, 50%, 60%, or 70% of the time in a dyadic conversation. Contrary to people’s forecasts, they were more likable the more they spoke, and their partners formed global rather than differentiated impressions.

Keywords: conversation, meta-perception, social perception, interpersonal perception, affective forecasting

We are constantly comparing not only ourselves but also the persons in our social environment with others, and we make these comparisons in such a way that those close to us do well

Thai, Sabrina, and Penelope Lockwood. 2022. “Social-judgment Comparisons in Daily Life.” PsyArXiv. July 12. doi:10.31234/osf.io/83tze

Abstract: Comparison processes are critical to social judgments, yet little is known about how individuals compare people other than themselves in daily life (social-judgment comparisons). The present research employed a 7-day experience-sampling design (Nparticipants=93; Nsurveys=3960) with end-of-week and six-month follow-ups, to examine how individuals make social-judgment comparisons in daily life as well as the cumulative impact of these comparisons over time. Participants compared close (vs. distant) contacts more frequently and made more downward than upward comparisons. Furthermore, downward, relative to upward, comparisons predicted more positive perceptions of the contact, greater closeness to the contact, and greater relationship satisfaction. More frequent downward comparisons involving a particular contact also predicted greater closeness one week and six months later. When participants made upward comparisons, they were motivated to protect close, but not distant, contacts by downplaying domain importance, and engaging in this protective strategy predicted greater closeness to the contact one week later.

We document a robust underestimation of how much other people appreciate being reached out to

Liu, P. J., Rim, S., Min, L., & Min, K. E. (2022). The surprise of reaching out: Appreciated more than we think. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Jul 2022. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspi0000402

Abstract: People are fundamentally social beings and enjoy connecting with others. Sometimes, people reach out to others—whether simply to check-in on how others are doing with brief messages or to show that they are thinking of others by sending small gifts to them. Yet, despite the importance and enjoyment of social connection, do people accurately understand how much other people value being reached out to by someone in their social circle? Across a series of preregistered experiments, we document a robust underestimation of how much other people appreciate being reached out to. We find evidence compatible with an account wherein one reason this underestimation of appreciation occurs is because responders (vs. initiators) are more focused on their feelings of surprise at being reached out to. A focus on feelings of surprise in turn predicts greater appreciation. We further identify process-consistent moderators of the underestimation of reach-out appreciation, finding that it is magnified when the reach-out context is more surprising: when it occurs within a surprising (vs. unsurprising) context for the recipient and when it occurs between more socially distant (vs. socially close) others. Altogether, this research thus identifies when and why we underestimate how much other people appreciate us reaching out to them, implicating a heightened focus on feelings of surprise as one underlying explanation.

Author's perspective

Reach out to those you've lost touch with – they will appreciate it more than you think

What is it about?

We wondered why people lose touch with each other and fail to reconnect by reaching out. We thought that one reason might be that people underestimate how much others appreciate their reach-outs. We conducted a series of experiments testing our prediction that people would underestimate how much others appreciate being reached out to. In some of our experiments, we approached people on college campuses and asked them to write a note to a classmate with whom they hadn't been in contact in awhile. We then asked them how much they thought their classmate would appreciate being reached out to. We then delivered this note to the person they reached out to and asked them how much they appreciated being reached out to. We also conducted similar experiments with non-student samples and with reach-outs consisting of small gifts, instead of just notes. We kept finding that people underestimated how much their reach-outs were appreciated. We also found that one reason this underestimation of appreciation occurs is that people do not think enough about how positively surprised others feel upon being reached out to. The role of surprise is important. We found that the one situation in which people do not underestimate how much others appreciate being reached out is when the reach-out occurs in an unsurprising context. For example, if someone is expecting you to reach-out to them, then you are pretty well calibrated to how much they will actually appreciate you reaching out to them. Thus, it's really these unexpected reach-outs that people appreciate much more than we expect.

Why is it important?

Many people have lost touch with others in their lives, whether it be friends from high school or college or co-workers they used to see at the water cooler before they went remote. Despite wanting to reconnect, many people are hesitant about doing so. This research suggests that their hesitations may be misplaced, as others are likely to appreciate being reached out to more than people think. Given that there is so much research suggesting that maintaining our social connections with others is beneficial for mental and physical health, we hope that that these findings will encourage more people to reach-out to those with whom they have lost touch.