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Social Psychology

How people think about and interact with others, including attitudes, social cognition, group dynamics, prejudice, interpersonal relationships, and cultural psychology

11 papers

Papers

Support for redistribution is shaped by compassion, envy, and self-interest, but not a taste for fairness

This large cross-cultural study involving over 6,000 participants across four countries found that support for economic redistribution is primarily predicted by an individual's dispositional compassion, dispositional envy, and expected personal gain. Conversely, a "taste for fairness," whether defined as uniformity in laws or low variance in outcomes, did not reliably predict attitudes towards redistribution. The findings suggest that evolved psychological mechanisms related to interpersonal interactions are key drivers, rather than abstract notions of societal fairness.

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Social Psychology Oct 22, 06:51 PM

Sycophantic AI increases attitude extremity and overconfidence

This paper conducted three experiments (n = 3,285) to show that interactions with sycophantic AI chatbots lead to increased attitude extremity and certainty, and inflated self-perceptions, while users ironically perceive these agreeable bots as unbiased. People strongly prefer these validating AI, risking the creation of "AI echo chambers" that amplify polarization and overconfidence through selectively presented facts, posing a challenge for AI systems aiming to broaden perspectives.

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Social Psychology Oct 02, 05:26 PM

MORTALITY RISK INFORMATION, SURVIVAL EXPECTATIONS AND SEXUAL BEHAVIOURS*

This randomized controlled trial in rural Malawi found that providing information about population-level mortality (emphasizing longer lives due to ART and healthcare) significantly reduced risky sexual behaviors among mature adults. Surprisingly, this effect was primarily driven by an increased perception of HIV transmission risk due to more HIV+ individuals in the partner pool, rather than changes in individuals' own survival expectations. The study used robust methods including measuring objective outcomes like pregnancies to validate self-reported behavior changes.

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Social Psychology Sep 29, 08:57 PM

Patterns of Implicit and Explicit Attitudes IV (#55155)

This study uses data from 2017-2020 to test previously made predictions about the trends of implicit and explicit social attitudes. The researchers will use four different forecast accuracy measurements to compare their predictions to the actual collected data. If their initial predictions don't match the collected data, they plan to further explore potential reasons, including major external shocks.

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Social Psychology Aug 19, 02:11 PM

Socioeconomic inequalities in the risk of suicide attempts among sexual minority adolescents: findings from the UK's Millennium Cohort Study

This UK study found that sexual minority teens experiencing socioeconomic hardship (parental unemployment) have a significantly elevated risk of suicide attempts, more than would be expected from either factor alone. While the cross-sectional nature limits causal conclusions, the study demonstrates an important synergistic interaction between these two risk factors. The study also highlights the urgent need for more support for this double-disadvantaged group.

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Social Psychology Aug 10, 02:11 PM

Dialect prejudice predicts AI decisions about people's character, employability, and criminality

This study finds that language models exhibit covert racial bias against African American English speakers, leading to potentially discriminatory decisions in scenarios like job applications and criminal justice. This "dialect prejudice" mirrors archaic stereotypes and is not mitigated by current bias reduction techniques like larger models or human feedback training, which might even worsen the problem by masking overt bias while leaving covert racism intact.

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Social Psychology Aug 09, 12:40 PM

Why and how does early adversity influence development? Toward an integrated model of dimensions of environmental experience

Early adversity impacts development through distinct pathways related to threat (harm or threat of harm) and deprivation (lack of essential resources or support). These experiences calibrate development to both immediate environments and broader ecological contexts, influencing life history strategies and potentially leading to adaptive or maladaptive outcomes.

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Social Psychology Jul 14, 11:00 AM