Cynthia L. Pickett

Getting a Cue: The Need to Belong and Enhanced Sensitivity to Social Cues

To successfully establish and maintain social relationships, individuals need to be sensitive to the thoughts and feelings of others. In the current studies, the authors predicted that individuals who are especially concerned with social connectedness—individuals high in the need to belong—would be particularly attentive to and accurate in decoding social cues. In Study 1, individual differences in the need to belong were found to be positively related to accuracy in identifying vocal tone and facial emotion. Study 2 examined attention to vocal tone and accuracy in a more complex social sensitivity task (an empathic accuracy task). Replicating the results of Study 1, need to belong scores predicted both attention to vocal tone and empathic accuracy. Study 3 provided evidence that the enhanced performance shown by those high in the need to belong is specific to social perception skills rather than to cognitive problem solving more generally.

Social Exclusion and Selective Memory: How the Need to belong Influences Memory for Social Events

The need to belong has been forwarded as a pervasive human motive, influencing a range of cognitive, emotional, and behavioral responses. The current research explored the influence of belongingness needs on the selective retention of social information. Just as physical hunger results in selective memory for food-relevant stimuli, it was hypothesized that social hunger, aroused when belongingness needs were unmet, would result in selective memory for socially relevant stimuli. In two studies, the authors used a simulated computer chat room to present brief acceptance or rejection experiences to participants. Participants then read a diary containing both social and individual events. In both, rejection experiences resulted in selective memory for the explicitly social events of the diary. The implications of these results for the existence and consequences of a basic need to belong are discussed.

On the Outside Looking In: Loneliness and Social Monitoring

The skill-deficit view of loneliness posits that unskilled social interactions block lonely individuals from social inclusion. The current studies examine loneliness in relation to social attention and perception processes thought to be important for socially skilled behavior. Two studies investigate the association between social monitoring (attention to social information and cues) and self-reported loneliness and number of close social ties. In Study 1, higher levels of loneliness are related to increased rather than decreased incidental social memory. In Study 2, individuals with fewer reported friends show heightened decoding of social cues in faces and voices. Results of these studies suggest that the attentional and perceptual building blocks of socially skilled behavior remain intact, and perhaps enhanced, in lonely individuals. Implications for recent models of belonging regulation and theories of loneliness are discussed.

Chapter 2 – Optimal Distinctiveness Theory: A Framework for Social Identity, Social Cognition, and Intergroup Relations

Abstract Optimal distinctiveness theory [Brewer, M. B. (1991). The social self: on being the same and different at the same time. Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin, 17(5), 475–482] proposes that individuals have two fundamental and competing human needs—the need for inclusion and the need for differentiation—that can be met by membership in moderately inclusive (optimally distinct) groups. In this chapter, the optimal distinctiveness model and its origins are summarized, and theoretical extensions and empirical tests of the model are discussed. In particular, the empirical review summarizes the models consequences for social identification, social cognition, and intergroup relations. The evidence strongly supports the notion that the needs for inclusion and differentiation influence self-categorization resulting in a curvilinear relation between group inclusiveness and group identification. The existing evidence also indicates that the two needs influence perceptions and judgments of the self and others and the nature of intragroup and intergroup relations. The chapter concludes by discussing the interplay of the needs for inclusion and differentiation across levels of the self and how the needs for inclusion and differentiation influence which level of self (individual or collective) is motivationally primary.

The Impact of Assimilation and Differentiation Needs on Perceived Group Importance and Judgments of Ingroup Size

At the heart of optimal distinctiveness theory is the idea that a group’s level of inclusiveness is a significant determinant of how well that group can meet members’ needs for assimilation and differentiation. In two studies, this principle was demonstrated by experimentally manipulating both needs and examining their effects on perceptions of ingroup size and on the perceived importance of ingroups that vary in level of inclusiveness. It was predicted that assimilation need would lead to a preference for inclusive ingroups and the tendency to overestimate ingroup size, whereas differentiation need would lead to a preference for exclusive ingroups and the tendency to underestimate ingroup size. Support for these predictions was found across both studies. The results support the hypothesis that the arousal of assimilation and differentiation needs interacts with ingroup inclusiveness to determine optimal social identities.

The Effects of Entitativity Beliefs on Implicit Comparisons between Group Members

The present research indicates that perceivers’ beliefs about a group’s level of entitativity can affect the extent to which group members are implicitly compared with one another. To find evidence for these implicit comparisons, a variation of the Ebbinghaus illusion was used. Experiment 1 demonstrated that an identical set of faces produced a greater illusion (indicating greater implicit comparison) when the faces were said to represent fraternity/sorority members than when the faces were said to represent men or women born in the month of May. Experiment 2 replicated these results and also demonstrated that participants’ prior beliefs about how entitative these groups are predicted the magnitude of the Ebbinghaus illusion produced. These findings indicate that entitativity beliefs can have implicit effects on judgment such that members of highly entitative groups are subject to greater intragroup comparison than are members of nonentitative groups.

Conceptual versus experimental creativity: Which works best on convergent and divergent thinking tasks?

David Galenson’s research on creativity has identified two unique creative methods: conceptual and experimental. These methods have different processes, goals, and purposes. To determine whether (a) college students use one method more than the other, and (b) if one method is superior to the other, the authors randomly assigned 115 college students to use the conceptual creative method, the experimental creative method, or their own creative method (i.e., how they would solve a creative problem without instruction) while completing two types of convergent and divergent thinking tasks. Participants using the experimental creative method performed better than the other groups on both types of convergent thinking tasks, with most participants using the experimental creative method unaware of this increase in performance.

Shall I compare thee? Perceived entitativity and ease of comparison

Abstract A robust finding in the psychological literature is that objects belonging to the same category invite comparison more readily than objects belonging to different categories. However, little attention has been given to whether the type of shared category matters for comparison processes. In this paper, we predicted that the ease with which comparisons are made would vary depending on perceivers’ beliefs about the nature of the category to which the comparison targets belong. Specifically, believing that the targets belong to a high-entitativity group was expected to result in faster comparison times than believing that the targets belong to a low-entitativity group. Study results supported this prediction, indicating that perceived group entitativity plays a significant role in intragroup comparison. These results suggest that it may be important to consider group entitativity as a contextual factor when exploring psychological processes that rely on comparison as a key mechanism.

Theory development with agent-based models

Many social phenomena do not result solely from intentional actions by isolated individuals, but rather emerge as the result of repeated interactions among multiple individuals over time. However, such phenomena are often poorly captured by traditional empirical techniques. Moreover, complex adaptive systems are insufficiently described by verbal models. In this paper, we discuss how organizational psychologists and group dynamics researchers may benefit from the adoption of formal modeling, particularly agent-based modeling, for developing and testing richer theories. Agent-based modeling is well suited to capture multilevel dynamic processes and offers superior precision to verbal models. As an example, we present a model of social identity dynamics used to test the predictions of Brewer’s (1991) optimal distinctiveness theory, and discuss how the model extends the theory and produces novel research questions. We close with a general discussion on theory development using agent-based models.