Originally posted on July 22, 2014. Social support can take many forms. A helpful tweet, the annual Facebook birthday barrage of well wishes, and long conversations with friends and family can put things in perspective and reduce our stress. But, according to recent research from Renison University, Wilfrid Laurier University, and the University of Waterloo, these acts of kindness backfire when interacting with people who have low self-esteem. People with low self-esteem have social support preferences that often put them on a collision course with their friends and family. They desire information that validates their negative self-feelings. When their friends offer positive feedback, people with low self-esteem don’t accept it. This aversion to positivity causes low self-esteem spillover: Their friends begin to feel bad about themselves, too. What is the moral of the story? Find someone who has a similar self-concept as you do. Birds of a feather should often flock together. Although it might be hard to imagine wanting information that validates our negative self-feelings, it is unwise to force people to enjoy something they dislike. Knowing yourself and what you like is the first step in building a successful relationship. The next step is finding someone who shares your preferences, no matter how sunny or gloomy they might be. ... View more

Originally posted on January 22, 2015. At the beginning of each year, millions of people reflect on the previous year and find things they could have done better. Exercised more, eaten healthier, watched less television, drank less alcohol. They vow—most knowing they won’t keep their promise—to make more of the new year, to become their best selves. Ah, the New Year’s resolution. I’ve made many myself. Many of my resolutions have been health related; when I look back at the previous year, I see where I could have been much healthier. I compare myself to friends who ran more miles, enjoy a slightly leaner physique, and seem to never worry about whether their clothes getting snug. (Last year, for example, a close friend ran over 5,200 miles. That dwarfs my measly 2,525 miles.) Looking at their accomplishments makes me feel sluggish. So I vow to change, and the start of a new year seems like the perfect time to do so. Unlike many resolution makers, I have had some success with New Year’s resolutions. Here’s why: I really wanted to change and was ready to do so. And that readiness to change is the key ingredient in committing to these self-improvement plans, according to Meg Baker, a wellness expert from the University of Alabama. Many Americans make resolutions but don’t put a plan in place to successfully carry them out, she says. To increase your likelihood of success, Baker offers three suggestions: Develop small, short-term, realistic goals that will fit into your schedule Consider the benefits and reasons for the change Share your plan with someone with whom you can be accountable She also suggests that you consider modifying the plan as your needs change. For example, if your new exercise routine has gotten stale, mix it up. During the winter months, I sometimes get stuck running on the treadmill. To keep things interesting, I might spend a day cycling or trying to do a single pull-up. When you’re struggling to stick to it, Baker suggests reflecting on the reasons you made the resolution. This year, I’m once again vowing to be healthier than I was last year. That means if I really want to see progress, I have to be willing to take the action to bring about change. To kick things off, I spent January 1st running the Hangover Classic 10 mile run in Louisville, KY and, a couple hours later, running the Resolution Run 5 mile run in Lexington, KY. So here’s to a healthy, happy 2015. What’s your resolution? ... View more

Originally posted on April 14, 2014. A recent New Yorker review (here) questions the famous claim that “38 witnesses” failed to respond to the Kitty Genovese murder and raises questions about the relationship between the media and the social sciences.  Psychologists have known that the New York Times’ original report of 38 witnesses is questionable.  In a 2007 American Psychologist article, Rachel Manning, Mark Levine, and Alan Collins reported on “The Kitty Genovese murder and the . . . parable of the 38 witnesses.” Social psychologist Bibb Latané has responded to the New Yorker article, noting that the precise number of witnesses concerns a small “t” truth, with the dynamics of bystander inhibition being the central point of his award-winning research with John Darley.  The dynamic that drove the bystander nonresponse was not “moral decay” but a simple principle:  the “probability of acting decreases with the addition of more people.” Latané’s letter in the April 7th New Yorker is available here, along with his more extensive submitted explanation. ... View more

Originally posted on May 19, 2014. Self-serving bias—the tendency to perceive oneself favorably—has become one of personality-social psychology’s most robust phenomena.  It’s our modern rendition of ancient wisdom about pride, which theologians have considered the basic sin (much as Freud considered repression the basic defense mechanism). Self-serving bias appears in people’s judging themselves as better-than-average—on just about any subjective, socially desirable dimension.  Compared with people in general, most people see themselves as more ethical, friendly, intelligent, professionally competent, attractive, unprejudiced, and healthier—and even as more unbiased in their self-assessments! As part of my reporting on the world of psychology, I enjoy, as an affiliate British Psychological Society affiliate member, two of its journals, and also its Research Digest.  (The digest, authored by Christian Jarrett, is available as a free bimonthly e-mail here.) The Digest put a smirk on my face with its synopsis of a new British Journal of Social Psychology report by Constantine Sedikides, Rosie Meek, Mark Alicke, and Sarah Taylor.  The Sedikides team found that English prisoners incarcerated for violence and robbery saw themselves, compared with “an average member of the community,” as (I am not making this up) more moral, kind, and compassionate. Shelly Taylor’s humbling surmise, in her 1989 book, Positive Illusions, still rings true: “The [self-]portraits that we actually believe, when we are given freedom to voice them, are dramatically more positive than reality can sustain.” ... View more

Originally posted on July 8, 2014. In a new Politico essay (here) I offer four social psychological principles that shed light on enmities both violent (Sunni v. Shia) and playful (sports rivalries). ... View more

Originally posted on August 12, 2014. One of social psychology’s intriguing and oft-replicated findings is variously known as the “own-race bias,” the “other-race effect,” and the “cross-race effect”—all of which describe the human tendency to recall faces of one’s own race more accurately than faces of other races. “They”—the members of some other group—seem to look more alike than those in our own group.  With greater exposure to other-race faces, as when residing among those of a different race, people improve at recognizing individual faces.  Still, the phenomenon is robust enough that social psychologists have wondered what underlies it.  In the July Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, a research team led by Kerry Kawakami at York University offers a possible contributing factor:  When viewing faces during several experiments, White participants attended more to the eyes of White people, and to the nose and mouth of Black people.  Eye gaze, they reason, is “individuating”—it helps us discern facial differences.  Thus the ingroup eye-gaze difference may help explain the own-race bias. ... View more

Originally posted on December 9, 2014. Economic inequality is a fact of life.  Moreover, most folks presume some inequality is inescapable and even desirable, assuming that achievement deserves financial reward and that the possibility of making more money motivates effort. But how much inequality is good?  Psychologists have found that places with great inequality tend to be less happy places, and that when inequality grows so does perceived unfairness, which helps offset the psychological benefits of increased affluence.  When others around us have much more than we do, feelings of “relative deprivation” may abound. And as Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson document, countries with greater inequality also experience greater health and social problems, and higher rates of mental illness. So, how great is today’s economic inequality? Researchers Michael Norton and Dan Ariely invited 5,522 Americans to estimate the percent of wealth possessed by the richest 20 percent in their country. The average person’s guess—58 percent—“dramatically underestimated” the actual wealth inequality. (The wealthiest 20 percent possessed 84 percent of the wealth.) And how much inequality would be ideal?  The average American favored the richest 20 percent taking home between 30 and 40 percent of the income—and, in their survey, the Republican versus Democrat difference was surprisingly modest. Now, working with Sorapop Kiatpongsan in Bangkok, Norton offers new data from 55,238 people in 40 countries, which again shows that people vastly underestimate inequality, and that people’s ideal pay gaps between big company CEOs and unskilled workers is much smaller than actually exists.  In the U.S., for example, the actual pay ratio of S&P 500 CEOs to their unskilled workers (354:1) far exceeds the estimated ratio (30:1) and the ideal ratio (7:1). Their bottom line:  “People all over the world and from all walks of life would prefer smaller pay gaps between the rich and poor.” ... View more

Originally posted on December 23, 2014. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, drawing from its own continuing household interviews, offers new data​ on who in the U.S. is most likely to suffer depression, and how often.   Some noteworthy findings: Overall rate of depression: Some 3 percent of people age 12 and over were experiencing “severe depressive symptoms.” More people—7.6 percent—were experiencing “moderate or severe” symptoms, with people age 40 to 59 at greatest risk. Many more—78 percent—“had no depressive symptoms.” Gender and depression. Women experience nearly double (1.7 times) men’s rate of depression. Poverty and depression. People living below the poverty line are 2½ times more likely to be experiencing depression. (Does poverty increase depression? Does depression increases poverty? Or—mindful of both the stress of poverty and the CDC-documented impact of depression on work and home life—is it both?) Depression and treatment.  Only 35 percent of people with severe symptoms reported contact with a mental health professional in the prior year. ... View more

Originally posted on January 6, 2015. University of Warwick economist Andrew Oswald—someone who creatively bridges economics and psychological science, as in his studies of money and happiness—offers some fascinating recent findings on his website:​ A huge UK social experiment​ “offered incentives to disadvantaged people to remain and advance in work and to become self-sufficient.” Five years later the experimental group indeed had higher earnings than the control group, but lower levels of well-being (less happiness and more worries). Ouch. Income (up to a point) correlates with happiness. But is that because richer people tend to be happier, or happier people tend to be richer? By following adolescent and young adult lives through time, with controls for other factors, the data​ reveal that happiness does influence future income. After winning a lottery, do people political attitudes shift right?  Indeed yes​.  “Our findings are consistent with the view that voting is driven partly by human self-interest.  Money apparently makes people more right-wing.” This finding syncs with earlier findings​ that inequalities breed their own justification.  Upper-class people are more likely than those in poverty to see people’s fortunes as earned, thanks to their skill and effort—and not as the result of having connections, money, and good luck.  Such findings also fit U.S. political surveys showing that high income individuals​ are more likely to vote Republican...despite—here’s a curious wrinkle to ponder—high income states​ being less likely to vote Republican.  We might call this “the wealth and politics paradox”—poor states and rich individuals vote conservative. Care to speculate why this difference? ... View more

Originally posted on January 13, 2015. Last night’s national championship college football game, today’s New York Times article on America’s greatest small college rivalry (involving my own Hope College), and the upcoming Super Bowl all bring an interesting psychological question to mind:  Why do we care who wins? What psychological dynamics energize rabid fans? In a 2008 Los Angeles Times essay I offered answers to my own questions, which first crossed my mind just before tipoff at that rivalry game described in today’s Times. The pertinent dynamics include the evolutionary psychology of groups, ingroup bias, social identity, group polarization, and the unifying power of a shared threat. In a 2014 Politico essay I extended these principles in reflections on political and religious animosities between groups that, to outsiders, seem pretty similar (think Sunni and Shia, or Northern Ireland’s Catholic and Protestant).  The same social dynamics that fuel fun sports rivalries can, writ large, produce deep-rooted hostilities and social violence. ... View more

Originally posted on February 9, 2015. Northeastern University history professor Benjamin Schmidt is making waves, after harvesting 14 million student reviews from “Rate My Professor.”  He offers a simple interactive tool that can allow you—perhaps as an in-class demonstration—to compare words that students use to describe male and female professors. You can give it a try, here.  I entered some intelligence-related words (“smart,” “brilliant,” “genius”) and some emotion-related words (“sweet,” “nasty”).  Even as one who writes about gender stereotypes, I was stunned by the gender effect. ... View more

Originally posted on August 27, 2015. It seems unfair . . . that mere skin-deep beauty should predict, as it has in so many studies, people’s dating frequency, popularity, job interview impressions, and income, not to mention their perceived health, happiness, social skill, and life success. “Personal beauty is a greater recommendation than any letter of introduction,” said Aristotle. Evolutionary psychologists see biological wisdom in our positive response to bodily shapes and facial clues to others’ health and fertility. Still, how unjust, this penalty for plainness—and especially so in today’s world where first impressions sway choices in settings from speed dating to Tinder swipes. Despite some universal aspects of physical attractiveness (such as facial symmetry), those of us with no better than average looks can find some solace in the varying beauty ideals across time and place. Today’s overweight was, in another era, Ruebens’ pleasingly plump “Venus in a Mirror.” And we can find more comfort in a soon-to-be-published study by Lucy Hunt, Paul Eastwick, and Eli Finkel. Compared to romances that form without prior friendship, couples who become romantically involved long after first meeting exhibit less “assortative mating” based on similar attractiveness. For those who are friends before becoming lovers, looks matter less. With slow-cooked love, other factors such as common interests matter more. This fits with earlier findings (here and here and here).  First, attractiveness is less a predictor of well-being and social connections in rural settings (where people often know those they see) than in urban settings (where more interactions are with strangers, and looks matter more). Second, not only do people’s looks affect our feelings, our feelings affect how we perceive their looks. Those we like we find attractive. The more we love someone, the more physically attractive we find them. These comforting findings help us answer Prime Charming’s question to Cinderella (in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s musical): “Do I love you because you’re beautiful, or are you beautiful because I love you?” And they remind us of Shakespeare’s wisdom: “Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind.” Beauty, thank goodness, truly is in the eye of the beholder.   TOMACCO/ Getty Images ... View more

Originally posted on September 16, 2015. Social psychology’s progressivism has been no secret. Our values inform our interests in topics such as prejudice, sexism, violence, altruism, and inequality. Still, I was a bit stunned, while attending the January, 2011, Society of Personality and Social Psychology convention, when our colleague Jonathan Haidt—as part of his plea for more ideological diversity—asked for a show of hands. How many of us considered ourselves “liberals”? A sea of hands arose—80 to 90 percent of the thousand or so attendees, Haidt estimated (here). And how many considered themselves “centrists” or “moderates”? About 20 hands rose. “Libertarians?” A dozen. “Conservatives?” Across that ballroom, three hands were visible. As one of the respondents, I remember thinking: If the media are here, we’re going to read about this. And, indeed: see here and here. And now comes another survey that makes the same point. For an upcoming chapter for a volume on politics in psychology, social psychologist Bill von Hippel surveyed fellow members of the invitation-only Society of Experimental Social Psychology. Among his findings (reported in an e-mail to participants): “When asked your preference in the last presidential election, Obama beat Romney 305 to 4.” To our credit, we social psychologists check our presumptions against data. We have safeguards against bias. And we aim to let the chips fall where they may (which includes research that documents the social toxicity of pornography and the benefits of covenant relationships that satisfy the human need to belong). Still, by a huge margin, social psychologists are liberal (much as certain other professions, such as medicine, the military, and law enforcement tend to be populated by conservatives). Why social psychology’s liberalism? Does our discipline’s focus on the power of social situations make liberalize us? Are psychology departments less open to admitting and hiring conservatives? Or do liberals self-select into academia, including the behavioral sciences? Such are among the answers proposed. ... View more

Originally posted on September 29, 2015. My last blog essay reported surveys that show social psychologists are mostly political liberals. But I also noted that “To our credit, we social psychologists check our presumptions against data. We have safeguards against bias. And we aim to let the chips fall where they may.” Fresh examples of such evidence-based reasoning come from two recent analyses. The first Analysis has been welcomed by some conservatives (who doubt that sexism is rife in academic hiring).  The second has been welcomed by liberals (who see economic inequality as psychologically and socially toxic). (1) Using both actuarial and experimental studies, Cornell psychologists Stephen Ceci and Wendy Williams looked for possible sexism in academic hiring, but found that “in tenure-track hiring, faculty prefer female job candidates over identically qualified male [candidates].” Their Chronicle of Higher Education defense of their work reminded me of a long-ago experience. Hoping to demonstrate sexism in action, I attempted a class replication of Philip Goldberg’s famous finding that people give higher ratings to an article attributed to a male (John McKay) than to a female (Joan McKay). Finding no such difference, my student, Janet Swim (now a Penn State social psychologist) and I searched for other attempts to replicate the finding. Our published meta-analysis, with Eugene Borgida and Geoffrey Maruyama, confirmed Ceci/ Williams’ negligible finding. Neither Ceci/ Williams today, nor us yesterday, question other manifestations of cultural sexism. Rather, in both cases, “Our guiding principle,” to use Ceci/ Williams’ words, “has been to follow the data wherever it takes us.” (2) Following the data also has led social psychologists to see the costs of extreme inequality. As I noted in an earlier TalkPsych essay, “psychologists have found that places with great inequality tend to be less happy places...with greater health and social problems, and higher rates of mental illness.” In soon-to-be-published research, Shigehiro Oishi and Selin Kesebir observe that inequality also explains why economic growth often does not improve human happiness. My most oft-reprinted figure, below, shows that Americans today are no happier than they were in 1957 despite having triple the average income. But average income is not real income for most Americans. If the top 1 percent experience massive income increases, that could raise the average but not the actual income for most.   Indeed, real (inflation-adjusted) median U.S. wages have in fact been flat for some years now. With the rising economic tide lifting the yachts but not the rowboats, might we be paying a psychological price for today’s greater inequality? By comparing economic growth in 34 countries, Oishi and Kesebir show that economic growth does improve human morale when it is widely distributed, but not when “accompanied by growing income inequality...Uneven growth is unhappy growth.” Ergo, it’s neither conservative nor liberal to follow the data, and—as text authors and essayists—to give the data a voice. ... View more

Originally posted on November 4, 2015. Writing in the August, 2015, Scottish Banner, University of Dundee historian Murray Watson puzzled over having “failed to find a satisfactory answer” for why Scots’ Scottish identity is so much stronger than their English identity. It’s a phenomenon I, too, have noticed, not only in the current dominance of the Scottish Nationalist Party, but also in more mundane ways. When recording their nationality in B&B guest books, I’ve observed people from England responding “British,” while people from Scotland often respond “Scottish” (though the two groups are equally British). Paul Mansfield Photography/Moment Open/Getty Images And Watson notes another example: England’s 53 million people outnumber Scotland’s 5+ million by 10 to 1. Yet the U.S. and Canada have, between them, only 9 English clubs (Royal Societies of St. George) and 111 Scottish clubs (St. Andrews Societies). What gives? Social psychologists have an answer. As the late William McGuire and his Yale University colleagues demonstrated, people’s “spontaneous self-concepts” focus on how they differ from the majority around them. When invited to “tell us about yourself,” children mostly mention their distinctive attributes: Foreign-born children mention their birthplace. Redheads mention their hair color. Minority children mention their race. This insight—that we are conscious of how we differ from others—explains why gay people are more conscious of their sexual identity than are straight people (except when straight folks are among gays), and why any numerical minority group tends to be conscious of its distinctiveness from the larger, surrounding culture. When occasionally living in Scotland, where my American accent marks me as a foreigner, I am conscious of my national identity and sensitive to how others may react. Being a numerical British minority, Scots are conscious of their identity and of their rivalries with the English. Thus, rabid fans of Scottish football (soccer) may rejoice in either a Scotland victory or an English defeat. “Phew! They Lost!,” headlined one Scottish tabloid after England’s 1996 Euro Cup defeat—by Germany, no less. Likewise, report a New Zealand-Australian research team, the 4 million New Zealanders are more conscious of their New Zealand identity vis-à-vis the 23 million Australians than vice-versa, and they are more likely to root for Australia’s sports opponents. “Self-conciousness,” noted C. S. Lewis in The Problem of Pain, exists only in “contrast with an ‘other,’ a something which is not the self.” So, why do the Scots have a stronger social identity than the English? They have their more numerous and powerful neighbors, the English, to thank for that. ... View more