Group similarity, public self-awareness, and opinion extremity: A social projection explanation of deindividuation effects.

Suggests that when a person reacts to an opinion, he/she will project an identical reaction onto similar others—in effect, self-generating a consensus that serves to polarize the opinion. Public self-awareness is assumed to individuate and to moderate opinions only when projection is disrupted. Two experiments, with 169 undergraduates, tested derivations from this theory. Exp I varied self-confidence induced by ability feedback (positive vs negative) and self-awareness induced by being or not being observed by camera. Results show that heightened self-awareness moderated opinions regardless of the S's initial level of self-confidence. Exp II varied group similarity (similar, dissimilar, or no information) and level of self-awareness (heightened vs low) using a 3?×?2 design in which opinion extremity was measured. Results confirm the prediction that opinions fluctuate systematically (polarize and moderate) with level of self-awareness only when the person is in a similar group. Low self-awareness tended to polarize opinions, whereas heightened self-awareness moderated them. The assumed direct relation between opinion intensity and behavioral extremity is discussed within the context of projection-predicted intensification effects of prosocial behavior. (42 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Being accepted for who we are: Evidence that social validation of the intrinsic self reduces general defensiveness.

Three studies examined the possibility that being liked intrinsically by others—for who one is—reduces self-esteem defense, whereas being liked for what one has achieved does not. All 3 studies contrasted the effects on self-esteem defense of liking based on intrinsic or achievement-related aspects of self. Study 1 showed that thoughts of being liked intrinsically reduced defensive bias toward downward social comparison. Study 2 demonstrated that being liked for intrinsic aspects of self reduced participants' tendency to defensively distance themselves from a negatively portrayed other. Study 3 revealed that being liked for intrinsic aspects of self encouraged a preference for upward over downward counterfactuals for a negative event. In all 3 studies, similar reductions in defensiveness were not found when liking was based on achievements. Discussion focuses on implications for understanding the functional value of different bases of self-worth. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Seeing I to I: A Pathway to Interpersonal Connectedness.

The authors introduce the construct of I-sharing--the belief that one shares an identical subjective experience with another person--and the role it plays in liking. In Studies 1-3, participants indicated their liking for an objectively similar and an objectively dissimilar person, one of whom I-shared with them and the other of whom did not. Participants preferred the objectively similar person but only when that person I-shared with them. Studies 4 and 5 highlight the role that feelings of existential isolation and the need for closeness play in people's attraction to I-sharers. In Study 4, people with high needs for interpersonal closeness responded to I-sharers and non-I-sharers with great intensity. In Study 5, priming participants with feelings of existential isolation increased their liking for I-sharers over objectively similar others. The results highlight the importance of shared subjective experience and have implications for interpersonal and intergroup processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Depression and interpersonal attraction: The role of perceived similarity.

We hypothesized that depressed individuals are generally viewed as dissimilar and that this perceived dissimilarity contributes to negative reactions to the depressed. In addition, we hypothesized that if perceived similarity affects liking of depressed individuals, than nondepressed subjects should prefer nondepressed targets, but depressed subjects should not share this preference. To test these hypotheses, depressed and nondepressed subjects received information about two targets, both either depressed or nondepressed, one attitudinally dissimilar and one attitudinally similar. They were then asked to fill out an attraction measure and an interest in meeting measure for each target. The results clearly supported the primary hypotheses, demonstrating that nondepressed subjects preferred nondepressed targets and perceived them as more similar than depressed targets, and that this preference for nondepressed targets is not shared by depressed subjects. Tests of supplementary hypotheses also confirmed that depressed subjects perceive their best friends as being more depressed and more dissimilar than do nondepressed subjects. The implications of these findings for the social world of the depressed were discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

An attributional approach to counselor attractiveness.

Two components of counselor attractiveness—perceived similarity and liking—were examined in a comparison of 2 theoretical approaches to attractiveness and influence in counseling. The referent power hypothesis links both similarity and liking to the counselor's ability to influence. An attributional approach specifies instances in which counselor dissimilarity may have more informational value than similarity and thus produce greater influence. 88 undergraduates viewed videotapes of 1 of 2 female counselors purportedly either similar or dissimilar to Ss and displaying either high or low liking in her nonverbal behavior. Effects of counselor agreement or disagreement with S's opinion were assessed on measures of S's subsequent opinion and confidence in that opinion. Results indicate that opinion change was a function of counselor disagreement, and confidence change was a function of counselor dissimilarity. The dissimilar counselor was as influential as the similar counselor but had a greater impact on Ss' confidence. Counselor nonverbal behavior produced differential perceptions but was unrelated to influence. Findings support the attributional approach over the reference power hypothesis. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Less is more: The lure of ambiguity, or why familiarity breeds contempt.

The present research shows that although people believe that learning more about others leads to greater liking, more information about others leads, on average, to less liking. Thus, ambiguity--lacking information about another--leads to liking, whereas familiarity--acquiring more information--can breed contempt. This "less is more" effect is due to the cascading nature of dissimilarity: Once evidence of dissimilarity is encountered, subsequent information is more likely to be interpreted as further evidence of dissimilarity, leading to decreased liking. The authors document the negative relationship between knowledge and liking in laboratory studies and with pre- and postdate data from online daters, while showing the mediating role of dissimilarity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Personality and uses of music as predictors of preferences for music consensually classified as happy, sad, complex, and social.

This study replicates the findings of a recent study (Chamorro-Premuzic, Gomà-i-Freixanet, Furnham, & Muro, 2009) on the relationship between the Big Five personality traits and everyday uses of music or people's motives for listening to music. In addition, it examined emotional intelligence as predictor of uses of music, and whether uses of music and personality traits predicted liking of music consensually classified as sad, happy, complex, or social. A total of 100 participants rated their preferences for 20 unfamiliar musical extracts that were played for a 30-s interval on a website and completed a measure of the Big Five personality traits. Openness predicted liking for complex music, and Extraversion predicted liking for happy music. Background use of music predicted preference for social and happy music, whereas emotional music use predicted preference for sad music. Finally, males tended to like sad music and use music for cognitive purposes more than females did. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Liking and Memory for Musical Stimuli as a Function of Exposure.

Three experiments examined changes in liking and memory for music as a function of number of previous exposures, the ecological validity of the music, and whether the exposure phase required focused or incidental listening. After incidental listening, liking ratings were higher for music heard more often in the exposure phase and this association was stronger as ecological validity increased. After focused listening, liking ratings followed an inverted U-shaped function of exposure for the most ecologically valid stimuli (initial increases followed by decreases), but this curvilinear function was attenuated or nonexistent for less valid stimuli. In general, recognition improved as a function of previous exposure for focused listeners, but the effect was attenuated or absent for incidental listeners. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perceiving groups accurately.

This study bridges a gap between traditional group perception research and person perception research by relating group members' perceptions of others to their perceptions of the group's functioning. Ratings of ability, responsibility for a group task, and liking of others were gathered from college students completing group assignments. Group members were able to accurately perceive other group members along task relevant ratings. A social relations model analysis further revealed that individuals' liking of specific others did not impact the accuracy of their judgments of others' abilities or of the group's functioning as a whole. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Evaluating self and others in electronic and face-to-face groups.

After completing a decision task electronically or face to face, 105 students rated their own and other group members' contribution to the task completion and their degree of liking for group members. Actual contributions were the number of task relevant remarks each person contributed. Results indicated that self-ratings of contribution were more inflated and less accurate in electronic communication than in face-to-face communication. Liking accounted for significant variance in ratings of others' contributions in face-to-face groups, whereas actual contribution accounted for significant variance in ratings of others in electronic groups. Results suggest that rating biases stemming from liking are evident in ratings of others in face-to-face groups but not in electronic. Implications for online performance evaluations are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Development of story liking: Character identification, suspense, and outcome resolution.

Proposes a developmental model of story liking for suspense stories. The model predicts that (a) reader identification increases with greater perceived similarity between character and reader; (b) increased identification leads to greater suspense; (c) liking of outcome is a joint function of character valence (good or bad character) and outcome valence (positive or negative outcome); and (d) overall liking of story increases with greater identification, greater suspense, and greater liking of outcome. The model was tested by having 44 2nd, 64 4th, and 64 6th graders rate suspense stories on 10 affective scales. Results show that similarity to character increased reader identification, and this, in turn, produced more suspense. A strong developmental trend in evaluations of story endings was found: Young Ss preferred positive outcomes regardless of the valence of the character, but older Ss liked positive endings for good characters and negative endings for bad characters. This finding is interpreted as evidence for acquisition of the "just world" belief. Overall story liking was predicted by path analysis of independent contributions of character identification, suspense, and liking of outcome. Results support the proposed model of story appreciation. (29 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Analogical transfer from a simulated physical system.

Previous research has consistently found that spontaneous analogical transfer is strongly tied to concrete and contextual similarities between the cases. However, that work has largely failed to acknowledge that the relevant factor in transfer is the similarity between individuals' mental representations of the situations rather than the overt similarities between the cases themselves. Across several studies, we found that participants were able to transfer strategies learned from a perceptually concrete simulation of a physical system to a task with very dissimilar content and appearance. This transfer was reflected in better performance on the transfer task when its underlying dynamics were consistent rather than inconsistent with the preceding training task. Our data indicate that transfer in these tasks relies on the perceptual and spatial nature of the training task but does not depend on direct interaction with the system, with participants performing equally well after simply observing the concrete simulation. We argue that participants generated a spatial, dynamic, and force-based mental model while interacting with the training simulation and tended to spontaneously interpret the transfer task according to this primed model. Unexpectedly, our data consistently show that transfer was independent of reported recognition of the analogy between tasks: Although such recognition was associated with better overall performance, it was not associated with better transfer (in terms of applying an appropriate strategy). Together, these findings suggest that analogical transfer between overtly dissimilar cases may be much more common—and much more relevant to our cognitive processing—than is generally assumed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Defensive attribution of responsibility: Evidence for an arousal-based motivational bias.

Conducted 2 experiments with female undergraduates to determine whether arousal plays a central role in the defensive attribution process. Defensive attribution theorists presume that observing another's unwarranted victimization arouses a negative affective state by threatening observers with the prospect that similarly capricious misfortune could occur to them. Observers are thought to defend cognitively against the threat by distorting their perceptual judgments of the victim's causal role in his or her own victimization. In Exp I, 48 Ss completed attitudinal questionnaires before reading a bogus account of a female student's sexual victimization. Ss indicated their opinions of the morality, intelligence, and responsibility of the victim. In Exp II, 56 Ss completed the same social perception task under conditions of private self-awareness and personal similarity/dissimilarity. Results of both experiments provide convergent evidence that arousal plays a central role in the defensive attribution process. For instance, a personally similar victim was assigned less responsibility for her victimization than was a dissimilar victim. The implications of a distinction between behavioral and characterological responsibility for the defensive attribution process are also examined and discussed. (44 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reactions to being helped in cooperating interracial groups: A context effect.

The respect and liking felt by a member of an interracial work group for a groupmate who provided unreciprocated help was investigated in a 3?×?2?×?2 factorially designed experiment with 84 White male US Air Force trainees. Each S participated with 2 other confederate groupmates (Black or White) in 2 management games involving a simulated railroad business. The 3-member team filled freight orders, kept records of maintenance and shipping expenses, earnings, fines, and the location of all cars. Each S was purposely overloaded with duties, and the confederate reacted with voluntary help, helping only after comments by the observing experimenter, or no help. Group task outcome was varied by arranging for half the team to experience failure and half to experience success. Ss, who were from small towns and rural areas of the southern US, developed significantly greater respect and liking for a groupmate who helped voluntarily than for one who did not help. Respect and liking for a groupmate who helped because instructed to do so by the experimenter was intermediate. There was a nonsignificant trend for Black helpers to be liked more than White helpers. Both Black and White helpers were liked as well when the group failed in its task as when it succeeded. Discussion focuses on the effect of a cooperative group context in reversing the usual decrement in liking for a similar peer who provides unreciprocated help on a task that involves the recipient's self-respect. (61 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of prior dishonesty on postdecision dissonance.

This was previously abstracted (see 37: 7780), but there was an error in the text. The abstract should read as follows: 145 children (aged 3-12) indicated liking for 3 toys and 3 crackers. After being exposed to a temptation to be dishonest and given a choice of 1 of the objects, they gave liking ratings of their chosen and unchosen alternatives. Postdecision dissonance reduction (increased liking for the chosen, and decreased liking for the unchosen alternative) was greatest when choice from among dissimilar objects (toy and cracker) followed dishonesty; it was least when honesty preceded choosing from among similar objects (2 toys or 2 crackers). Results were consistent with formulations by Hull, on drive summation, and Lewin, on tension spread: irrelevant tension combines with relevant tension to produce greater response to the latter. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effect of expecting to be liked on choice of associates.

This study investigated one of the factors which the authors felt influenced the strong tendency of people to choose to associate with others they perceive as similar to themselves, the fear of being disliked by dissimilar strangers. As predicted, it was found that if Ss felt it was important to talk with people who would like them, they more often chose to interact with similar than dissimilar people. A 2nd group of students, assured that all members of all groups would be told they were "not likable" and thus presumably concerned about making others like them, were also more anxious than control Ss to talk with similar people. If Ss were assured that all members of all groups would be told they were "likable" Ss were much more willing to associate with dissimilar groups of people than with similar ones. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A silent emergence of culture: The social tuning effect.

Scholars have long been concerned with understanding the psychological mechanisms by which cultural (i.e., shared) knowledge emerges. This article proposes a novel psychological mechanism that allows for the formation of cultural memories, even when intragroup communication is absent. Specifically, the research examines whether a stimulus is more psychologically and behaviorally prominent when it is assumed to be experienced by more similar versus less similar others. Findings across 3 studies suggest that stimuli such as time pressure (Study 1), words (Study 2), and paintings (Study 3) are more psychologically and behaviorally prominent when they are thought to be experienced by more (vs. less) similar others. Critically, the effect is absent when similar others are thought to be experiencing distinct stimuli from the participant (Study 3). Taken as a whole, these results are consistent with the hypothesis that stimuli which are assumed to be experienced by one's social group are more prominent in both cognition and behavior. Theoretical implications for the emergence of culture are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive consistency and performance in the autokinetic situation.

An experiment was conducted testing certain implications of a balance or cognitive consistency model of behavior. It was hypothesized that a person (P) would respond to another person's (O's) judgments of light movement in the autokinetic situation as a function of the attraction relationship between them and the initial similarity in their judgments. By using an assistant playing the role of another S, it was possible to manipulate experimentally P's liking or disliking of O, and the initial discrepancy between P's and O's judgments of light movement. As compared with a condition of cognitive balance, under the conditions of cognitive imbalance—where either P likes O and initially is dissimilar to O or P dislikes O and initially is similar to O—we find a greater tendency for P to change his own judgments of the light movement, and to feel anxious or nervous while making these judgments. In addition, we find the direction of P's judgmental change is such as to increase his similarity to O when he likes O and to decrease this similarity when he dislikes O. These findings are taken as supporting a cognitive consistency model of interpersonal behavior and as having broad implications for the area of social influence and conformity. (18 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The repulsion hypothesis: On the nondevelopment of relationships.

A universal contention in the psychological literature is that attitudinal similarity leads to attraction. I argue that attitudinal similarity does not lead to liking but that dissimilarity does indeed lead to repulsion. Primary attention is given to Byrne's experimental paradigm in which subjects are shown the attitude scale of a stranger that is similar or dissimilar to their own and who are then asked to indicate their attraction to the stranger. Consistently, Byrne and others have found a linear relation between similarity and attraction. Unfortunately, the Byrne paradigm has never included a control condition in which ratings are made in the absence of attitudinal information. Research that used the Byrne paradigm and other procedures that included an appropriate control group is reported, and support is found for a repulsion hypothesis. Byrne's reinforcement model of attraction is also shown not to be supported. Consideration is given to special conditions in which attitudinal similarity does lead to attraction, to the origins of the hypothesis that similarity leads to attraction, and to the theoretical basis for the repulsion effect. (49 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Measuring countertransference and attitude in therapeutic relationships.

Significant results were obtained establishing a relationship between the therapist's attitude of liking or disliking for his or her clients and countertransference. If strong feelings of liking are present, clients are viewed as having personalities closer to the therapist's personality than are the client's measured personalities. When strong feelings of disliking are operative, the therapist's distortion of the client's measured personality runs in the opposite direction and is viewed as more dissimilar from the therapist's personality than it is measured to be. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)