Social psychology - Page 18 of 29

Group Polarization In Psychology: Definition & Example

Group polarization is the finding in psychology that group decisions tend towards the extreme rather than averaging out the preferences of participants.

The definition of group polarization in psychology is that there is a trend to extreme decision-making in groups.

For example, say you put 10 people in a room and asked them to design a car.

Would they design something average or something wacky?

Would they be more likely to come up with a standard looking Ford or ‘The Homer’, designed by Homer Simpson in this classic episode of The Simpsons?

To help you decide, it’s handy to know that ‘The Homer’ has a number of forward-thinking design features including three horns, all of which play “La Cucaracha”, optional restraints and muzzles for the children and an engine noise that will make people think “the world is coming to an end”.

And the cost? A mere $82,000.

We tend to think that group decisions average out the preferences of participants so they would come up with something closer to a standard Ford.

But the psychological research doesn’t support this conclusion.

Definition of group polarization

In fact group discussions tend to polarize groups so that, rather than people’s views always being averaged, their initial preferences can become exaggerated and their final position is often more extreme than it was initially.

In an early set of studies on group polarization all about risk, decision-making was shown to shift either towards the cautious or the risky depending on the type of problem (Stoner, 1968).

Since then hundreds of studies from around the world have shown the phenomenon of group polarization in action.

For example, after a group discussion, people already supportive of a war become more supportive, people with an initial tendency towards racism become more racist and a group with a slight preference for one job candidate will come out with a much stronger preference.

Naturally this shift towards the extreme seen in group polarization has all sorts of implications for government, religion, commerce and the justice system.

A real-world example

In fact one of the neatest pieces of real-world group polarization research examines the US legal system.

Main and Walker (1973) analysed the decisions of Federal district court judges sitting either alone or in groups of three to see if group discussions were a factor.

In the 1,500 cases where judges sat alone they took an extreme course of action only 30 percent of the time.

However when sitting in a group of 3 this figure more than doubled to 65 percent.

It seems even trained, professional decision-makers are subject to the forces of group polarization.

Explaining group polarization

Psychologists have three main theories for why group polarization occurs — persuasion, comparison and differentiation — but all of them have much the same cause.

In any group trying to make a decision there is likely to be an initial preference in one particular direction.

Those who don’t initially agree with that decision are likely to change their mind to agree with the majority.

The processes involved, though, are different:

Persuasion: people change their mind as a result of the rational arguments presented by others.
Comparison: people change their mind to conform with group norms as in the Asch conformity experiment, especially when those norms are socially desirable.
Differentiation: a variation on comparison where people change their mind to fit in with their view of the sort of decisions their group should make.

As you can see these are all slightly different mechanisms involved in group polarization, each which probably operates independently, for producing much the same effect: decisions are pushed further towards the extreme.

Avoid group polarization

It’s worth pointing out that not all groups do polarize in this way and, indeed, a few of the studies have not observed the polarizing effect of groups on decision-making.

Well-established groups probably suffer less from group polarization, as do groups discussing problems that are well-known to them.

That said, though, where groups are relatively newly formed and tasks are novel, group polarization can emerge as an important factor in decision-making.

Psychologists have been less keen to offer ‘solutions’ to group polarization than they have other phenomena in group decision-making such as groupthink or the failure of groups to share information.

However, because groupthink has similar causes to group polarization, much the same approach can be used.

This is all about nurturing dissent in a group by encouraging the discussion of multiple perspectives and critical viewpoints.

Indeed research conducted by Fishkin and Luskin (1999) has shown that diverse groups do not polarize.

How Eye Contact Signals Attraction, Love & Lies

Eye contact is so important: psychologist have found that it can signal love, hate, intelligence, creepiness, persuasion, sarcasm and sometimes lies.

The stories of Bill Clinton’s charisma are legend.

Much of that charisma was communicated through eye contact.

Those who have met him say that when he looks at you, it’s a very intimate experience.

His eye contact is said to be deep and personal, almost mesmerising; it’s as though there are only two people in the room: him and you.

And he doesn’t just seduce women, he seduces everyone.

Clearly the eyes have enormous power, such that they can have an almost magical effect on other people.

Of course you can’t just go around staring deeply into everyone’s eyes; like smiling, it sends all sorts of signals depending on content and context.

You’ve got to know how to use it…

1. The normal amount of eye contact

The amount of direct eye contact that’s normal depends on the situation.

For example, people usually make more direct eye contact when talking one-to-one than in groups.

In groups people tend to look directly at another person for about 3-5 seconds, but when it’s one-to-one this increases to 7-10 seconds before they glance away.

There’s also the percentage of time spent looking at someone, compared with looking away from them.

Using self-tracking technologies, it seems the normal amount is anything between 30 percent to 60 percent.

It will generally be more when you are listening and less when you are talking.

If you’re looking less than that, perhaps you’re not showing enough interest, if it’s more maybe you’re showing too much!

2. Deep eye contact for love

When someone stares at you, without the context it can be difficult to know if they love you or want to kill you.

Prolonged eye contact displays an intense feeling, but on its own you can’t tell which one.

That’s one of the great mysteries of body language: so much depends on context.

Often, though, the context will be obvious.

Couples making deep eye contact with each other over a candlelit dinner are (usually) not about to kill each other.

Indeed research shows that couples who are in love tend to make deep eye contact for longer than those who aren’t.

3. Too much eye contact

In the wrong context, though, a hopeful lover’s long eye contact can turn into creepy staring.

In one study, while participants were given an unrelated test, the researcher stared intently into their eyes.

People found it so off-putting that their test performance plummeted.

Whether eye contact is creepy or even aggressive also depends on culture.

East Asians, for example, typically expect less eye contact.

One recent study found that:

“…individuals from an East Asian culture perceive another’s face as being angrier, unapproachable, and unpleasant when making eye contact as compared to individuals from a Western European culture.” (Akechi et al., 2013)

The Japanese, for example, see the avoidance of eye contact as a sign of respect, whereas Westerners might interpret it as shifty or untrustworthy.

Westerners do not have the monopoly on high levels of eye contact, though: in some Arab countries people often look much more intently into each other’s eyes than many Westerners would.

4. Eye contact for confidence, leadership and aggression

Although there are cultural differences, people make all kinds of judgements about others based on their eye contact.

Westerners usually see those who make more eye contact as confident (as long as it’s not the creepy variety).

They also tend to associate greater eye contact with stronger leadership abilities, greater aggression and strength (Brooks et al., 1985).

On top of that, they’re seen as less anxious and more intelligent.

Indeed, it’s those with higher self-esteem and more power who are more likely to hold eye contact, rather than break it (Vandromme et al., 2009).

5. Using eye contact to persuade

Perhaps partly because of all the positive characteristics we associate with people who keep our eye contact, we find them more persuasive.

A whole raft of research shows the persuasive power of looking into someone’s eyes when making a request for compliance.

Just one example is Guegeun and Jacob (2010) who found people were more likely to agree to a marketing survey if looked in the eye.

However, too much eye contact can make other people more resistant to persuasion (Chen et al., 2013).

People in the study were even less persuaded by eye contact when they held particularly strong opposing views.

The results of this study fly in the face of the common advice to make strong eye contact with another person when you want to persuade them.

People in the study were even less persuaded by eye contact when they held particularly strong opposing views.

The study’s lead author, Frances Chen, said:

“There is a lot of cultural lore about the power of eye contact as an influence tool.
But our findings show that direct eye contact makes skeptical listeners less likely to change their minds, not more, as previously believed.”

6. Eye contact and lying

The old folk wisdom goes that you can tell when someone is lying because they avoid eye contact.

Psychological research has found this is not true, or at least it’s not a reliable sign for everyone.

Not only is the folk wisdom wrong, it’s positively misleading as sometimes people look at you more when they are lying.

According to this study, it’s because they want to monitor your face to see if you believe the tales they are telling (Jundi et al., 2013):

“Liars took some money from a purse, and were asked to pretend that instead of taking the money, they had been to a nearby restaurant together for lunch. Pairs of liars […] displayed more eye contact with the interviewer than pairs of truth tellers.”

7. Looking away signals sarcasm

While the connections between eye contact and lying are fraught with difficulties, one study has found a clear link with sarcasm.

When making sarcastic statements, participants were more likely to look away from their conversational partner than if the statements were sincere (Williams et al., 2009).

It’s another clue that looking directly at someone signals sincerity.

8. Appear smarter

Maintaining eye contact while talking is one of the easiest ways to appear smarter, research finds (Murphy, 2007).

The handy tip comes from a study in which people were recorded while trying to act smart discussing an assigned topic.

Maintaining eye contact while speaking was rated as giving the smartest appearance.

Indeed, intelligence tests revealed that people who maintained eye contact were actually smarter.

The study’s authors concluded:

“Looking while speaking was a key behavior: It significantly correlated with IQ, was successfully manipulated by impression-managing targets, and contributed to higher perceived intelligence ratings.”

9. Eye contact vs verbal signals

The power of nonverbal signals like eye contact in general is demonstrated by one study which pitted verbal against nonverbal signals.

This found that when they contradict each other, we are five times more likely to believe the nonverbal signal (Argyle et al., 1971):

“When verbal and non-verbal signals were inconsistent, the performance was rated as insincere, unstable and confusing.”

Not only do our eyes sometimes send stronger signals than what we say, they can also be as informative as the whole of the rest of our face put together.

Baron-Cohen et al., (1997) had individuals trying to read emotions from photographs, sometimes seeing the whole face and sometimes just the eyes:

“For complex mental states, seeing the eye alone produced significantly better performance than seeing the mouth alone, and was as informative as the rest of the face.”

(All that said, though, beware the oft-repeated myth that 93% of communication is nonverbal.)

10. Eyeball action

There’s little doubt that being able to maintain the right level of eye contact in the right situation is crucial to making the best impression on others.

In my experience most people could do with upping their eye contact a little.

As we’ve seen, too much is creepy, but looking into other people’s eyes has so many benefits that a little more eyeball action is no bad thing.

→ Find out more about what dilated pupils means.

Rich vs Poor Faces: How Facial Features Reveal Social Class

Rich vs poor faces and by extension social class can be read from facial features, almost unconsciously, research finds.

Just by looking at your face features, people can reliably tell whether you are rich vs poor, a study finds.

And on that basis, they also make other judgements: for example, that rich people are more likely to be hired for a job.

Dr Thora Bjornsdottir, who led the study, said:

“It indicates that something as subtle as the signals in your face about your social class can actually then perpetuate it.
Those first impressions can become a sort of self-fulfilling prophesy.
It’s going to influence your interactions, and the opportunities you have.”

The reason is probably that a look of happiness or satisfaction (or unhappiness and dissatisfaction) becomes etched on your face in the teens or early adulthood.

Find the rich vs poor faces

Here are some of the examples from the study, see if you can guess who is rich and who is poor.

Are the rich-looking faces on the left, marked ‘A’, or on the right, marked ‘B’?

The answer is that the four rich-looking faces are on the left, marked ‘A’.

If you look closely, you will see that the difference is even more pronounced along the bottom row: the ‘B’ faces look much more unhappy than the ‘A’ faces.

Dr Nicholas Rule, study co-author, said:

“Over time, your face comes to permanently reflect and reveal your experiences.
Even when we think we’re not expressing something, relics of those emotions are still there.”

Rich vs poor faces study

The results come from a study in which students were shown photos and asked to judge whether they were rich vs poor.

Interestingly, though, people could only judge someone’s social class if they posed with a neutral face.

The effect vanished if people smiled.

Dr Rule said:

“What we’re seeing is students who are just 18-22 years old have already accumulated enough life experience that it has visibly changed and shaped their face to the point you can tell what their socio-economic standing or social class is.
There are neurons in the brain that specialize in facial recognition.
The face is the first thing you notice when you look at somebody.
We see faces in clouds, we see faces in toast.
We are sort of hardwired to look for face-like stimuli.
And this is something people pick up very quickly.
And they are consistent, which is what makes it statistically significant.”

An unconscious judgement

Dr Bjornsdottir concluded:

“People are not really aware of what cues they are using when they make these judgments.
If you ask them why, they don’t know.
They are not aware of how they are doing this.
People talk about the cycle of poverty, and this is potentially one contributor to that.”

[For British people equating money with class used to be, well, very working class. Now Brits, like Americans, assume little difference.]

The study was published in the journal Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (Bjornsdottir & Rule, 2017).

The Most Attractive Eye Colour For Males And Females

People sometimes say that the most attractive eye colour is blue, but what happens when it is scientifically tested?

Blue is the most attractive or beautiful eye colour, but only for some people, research finds.

Blue-eyed males are particularly attracted to blue-eyed females, the researchers found.

However, women showed no preference for blue or brown-eyed men and brown-eyed men showed no preference either.

Most beautiful eye colour study

The conclusion comes from a study in which 443 people looked at pictures of models whose eyes were digitally adjusted.

All the people in the study were Caucasians from Norway.

Here’s an example:

The study might help to explain a stereotype about blue-eyed people.

Blue eyes are often said to be more attractive, but when this is tested, the preference is hard to detect.

Another later study has found that people mention blue eyes being more attractive, but when it is tested, they are not especially attracted to blue eyes.

Why blue might be prettiest

The researchers give an evolutionary explanation for the preference for blue eyes in blue-eyed men:

“We propose that such a preference is an adaptation reflecting the selective pressure to increase the men’s ability to detect extra-pair paternity and decrease paternal uncertainty; that is, both as a phenotypically based assurance of paternity (i.e., when the father’s and offspring’s phenotypes match) as well as a defense against cuckoldry (i.e., when the phenotypes do not match).”

In other words, if you have blue eyes and so does your wife, then a brown-eyed baby spells bad news for your paternity.

The studies were published in the journals Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology and Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (Laeng et al., 2007; Gründl et al., 2012).

A Wide Face Is More Attractive For A Male

A wide or broad face is more attractive for a male in certain circumstances as it signals dominance.

For short-term relationships, women are more attracted to a wide face, research finds.

Men with a wide face are seen as more dominant and aggressive.

Dr Katherine Valentine, the study’s first author, said:

“Our study shows that within three minutes of meeting in real life, women find more dominant, wider-faced men attractive for short-term relationships, and want to go on another date with them.”

A wide face signals dominance

For the study, the researchers measured men’s facial width to height ratio, their fWHR.

Dr Valentine explained:

“High male fWHR has previously been associated with surviving in hand-to-hand combat, aggressiveness, self-perceived power, and CEO’s financial success.
Our study shows it’s also a reasonably good indicator of perceived dominance — not only that, it piques women’s interest in a face-to-face speed-dating setting.”

The study involved live speed dating in which heterosexual single people met for just 3 minutes.

Men with the widest or broadest faces (more accurately, the highest fWHR) were rated as more dominant.

They were more likely to be chosen for a short-term relationship.

Women were also more likely to choose them for a second date as well.

Dr Valentine said:

“The fact that women wanted to see these men again suggests that our findings are robust — women aren’t just saying they are interested, they’re actually willing to be contacted by these men.
Previous studies have found that women prefer more dominant men for short-term relationships, but almost all of these studies were based in the lab and did not involve an interaction that could actually lead to mating and dating.”

The researchers took into account the age and attractiveness of the men — in other words it wasn’t just that men with wider faces (or of a certain age) were more attractive.

The study was published in the journal Psychological Science (Valentine et al., 2014).

The Most Attractive Lip Size And Shape

The most attractive lip size and shape might surprise you. A 50 percent boost is the best, but pay attention to the ratio of upper to lower lip.

Many women are paying for cosmetic ‘enhancements’ to their lips that are making them less attractive, if new research is anything to go by.

The overfilled upper lip may not actually be the most attractive look, a study published in the journal JAMA Facial Plastic Surgery finds.

Scientists at the University of California showed a series of pictures of women’s faces to 150 judges.

Most attractive lip shape and size

Both the overall size of the lips and the ratio of top lip to bottom lip was digitally manipulated to see what was most attractive.

First they wanted to look at the general size of the lips, to see how much bigger was actually attractive (see below).

It turned out that increasing lip size by around 50 percent was the most attractive.

(Of course, this 50 percent figure will depend on how big your lips are to begin with.)

This one is marked ‘C’ in the image above.

Are heavy lower lips attractive?

Next they looked at the ratio of top lip to bottom lip (see below).

Bear in mind that many celebrities choose something that looks like the image on the right, marked ‘D’, with a heavy upper lip.

It turned out that the picture on the far-left marked ‘A’ was actually seen as most attractive.

Unsurprisingly to anyone with functioning eye balls, ‘D’, with a heavy upper lip, was the least attractive look.

In fact, it was the heavier lower lip that was rated most attractive.

Anyone thinking of augmenting their lips would do well to heed the advice of this study’s authors:

“We advocate preservation of the natural ratio or achieving a 1:2 ratio in lip augmentation procedures while avoiding the overfilled upper lip look frequently seen among celebrities.”

We shall have to wait with baited breath for the complementary study on the perfect ratio for a man’s lips…

The study was published in the journal JAMA Facial Plastic Surgery (Popenko et al., 2017).

Does Wearing Red Make You More Attractive?

Why wearing the colour red has a primitive effect on attraction, making both men and women more attractive.

Wearing the colour red makes both men and women more attractive to the opposite sex, studies find.

When men wear it, red sends signals of status and dominance to others.

When women wear it, the extra pull on men may have deeper, biological roots.

The study’s authors write:

“Our research demonstrates a parallel in the way that human and nonhuman male primates respond to red.
In doing so, our findings confirm what many women have long suspected and claimed – that men act like animals in the sexual realm.
As much as men might like to think that they respond to women in a thoughtful, sophisticated manner, it appears that at least to some degree, their preferences and predilections are, in a word, primitive.”

Red does make you more attractive

In one study, men were shown pictures of women in a shirt digitally coloured either blue or red.

The men were simply asked: “How pretty do you think this person is?”

Time after time, the same woman wearing red was rated as more attractive and sexually desirable than when she wore other colours, such as blue and grey.

Why red is the most attractive colour

A later study has found that men wearing red are also more attractive to women.

Professor Andrew Elliot, one of the study’s authors, said:

“We found that women view men in red as higher in status, more likely to make money and more likely to climb the social ladder.
And it’s this high-status judgment that leads to the attraction.”

Men wearing red were rated as more attractive, powerful and sexually desirable.

Professor Elliot continued:

“When women see red it triggers something deep and probably biologically engrained.
We say in our culture that men act like animals in the sexual realm.
It looks like women may be acting like animals as well in the same sort of way.”

Fascinatingly, neither sex was aware of the effect that the colour red was having on them.

The studies were published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General (Elliot & Niesta et al., 2008; Elliot et al., 2010).

Why Are People So Mean To Nice People

Psychologists reveal why nice people sometimes get punished with meanness for their good behaviour.

People who are generous and cooperative can get punished by others for being ‘too good’, research finds.

Humans in all cultures can be suspicious of those who appear nicer or better than the rest.

Also, the top co-operators and nicest people make others look bad, so bringing them down a peg or two by being mean can be attractive to them.

That is why some of the nicest people can attract social punishment, meanness and even hatred.

The effect is even more pronounced in a competitive environment, like the workplace, the researchers found, where being shown up could have financial consequences.

Professor Pat Barclay, study co-author, said:

“Most of the time we like the cooperators, the good guys.
We like it when the bad guys get their comeuppance, and when non-cooperators are punished.
But some of the time, cooperators are the ones that get punished.
People will hate on the really good guys.
This pattern has been found in every culture in which it has been looked at.”

Why people are mean

Even relatively egalitarian hunter-gatherer societies demonstrate this phenomenon: the top hunters are socially targeted to stop them dominating the group.

Professor Barclay said:

“In a lot of these societies, they defend their equal status by bringing down somebody who could potentially lord things over everybody else.
You can imagine within an organization today the attitude, ‘Hey, you’re working too hard and making the rest of us look bad.’
In some organizations people are known for policing how hard others work, to make sure no one is raising the bar from what is expected.”

The results come from a study in which people played a cooperation game.

The top co-operators got ‘punished’ the most to avoid making the others look bad, the scientists found.

Professor Barclay thinks that being mean to co-operators may hinder people in protecting the environment or changing the status quo:

“It is a way of bringing those people back down, and stopping them from looking better than oneself in their attempts to protect the environment or address social inequality.”

The study was published in the journal Psychological Science (Pleasant & Barclay, 2018).

The Most Attractive Personality Traits, According To Research

These personality traits are more attractive in both a man and a woman.

Playfulness is one of the more attractive personality traits, psychologists have found.

Playful people are particularly keen for their partners to be playful.

The playful prefer someone who is funny, laidback and creative.

The five most attractive personality traits, though, are:

kindness and understanding,
intelligence,
sense of humour,
being fun loving,
and having an exciting personality.

For a longer list of attractive personality traits, with links to the research studies, see below.

Signs of a playfulness person

Playful people enjoy teasing, wordplay, improvising and taking challenges in a light-hearted way.

They enjoy unusual things and are good at creating situations people can enjoy.

Playfulness seems to send a slightly different type of positive signal to men and women.

To women playfulness sends the signal that a man is not aggressive.

To a man it send the signal that a woman has vitality.

Dr René Proyer, the study’s first author, said:

“Therefore, this personality trait also seems important for the choice of partner — at least more so than the partner having a degree, good genes or being religious.”

The conclusions come from a survey of 327 young adults.

They were asked which traits they found desirable in a long-term partner.

Both men and women mostly agreed on the order of the traits.

However, women were more interested in a sense of humour and men in an exciting personality.

Dr Proyer said:

“Although we should be cautious while interpreting the data, this could be an indication that playful people are actually perceived as more attractive partners or that playfulness increasingly develops in the relationship.”

The study’s author write that playfulness may increase well-being:

“…individuals perceive playfulness as being beneficial to well-functioning romantic relationships by increasing the well-being of the partners, by maintaining the relationships’ excitement, and by conveying the each individual’s affection for his or her partner, and—more generally speaking—by more deeply cultivating the relationship.”

Attractive personality traits

Other personality traits often rated the most attractive to a wide variety of people include:

Intelligence and friendliness.
Kindness: when choosing a long-term partner, traits such as financial prospects and physical attractiveness are certainly important. However, it is kindness that people value above all else.
Being extraverted and having stable emotions: extraverts are generally outgoing, self-confident and cheerful and can also be impulsive, sensation-seekers. Emotional stability is linked to being better at dealing with stress and minor frustrations.
Being compassionate: being compassionate is particularly attractive to people who are highly empathetic or have a left-wing ideology.
Optimism: optimists mix well in long-term relationships with everyone.
Generosity: all kinds of generous acts are effective, from giving up time for charitable causes to just giving affection to others.
Non-conformity: both men and women prefer someone who ‘did their own thing’ rather than someone who ‘went along’ with everyone else.

Indeed, positive personality traits like those above can make a person appear more physically attractive.

Similarly, those displaying negative personality traits — like rudeness and unfairness — look physically less attractive to observers.

Narcissists and psychopaths

While the personality traits above are often attractive to most people, some personality traits are only attractive to certain people or in some situations.

For example:

Women are sometimes attracted to men with dark personality traits.
‘Bad boys’ tend to be laid-back and extraverted, both of which are attractive traits — however, when narcissism and psychopathy reveal themselves, this is less attractive.
Although men say they prefer a smarter women, when a real living, breathing smarter women is close by, men shy away, preferring women of lower intelligence.
Being nice makes women more attractive to men, but can have the opposite effect for men on women.

The study was published in the American Journal of Play (Proyer & Wagner, 2015).