Michael Kardas

The Humanizing Voice: Speech Reveals, and Text Conceals, a More Thoughtful Mind in the Midst of Disagreement:

A person’s speech communicates his or her thoughts and feelings. We predicted that beyond conveying the contents of a person’s mind, a person’s speech also conveys mental capacity, such that hearing a person explain his or her beliefs makes the person seem more mentally capable—and therefore seem to possess more uniquely human mental traits—than reading the same content. We expected this effect to emerge when people are perceived as relatively mindless, such as when they disagree with the evaluator’s own beliefs. Three experiments involving polarizing attitudinal issues and political opinions supported these hypotheses. A fourth experiment identified paralinguistic cues in the human voice that convey basic mental capacities. These results suggest that the medium through which people communicate may systematically influence the impressions they form of each other. The tendency to denigrate the minds of the opposition may be tempered by giving them, quite literally, a voice.

Easier Seen Than Done: Merely Watching Others Perform Can Foster an Illusion of Skill Acquisition:

Modern technologies such as YouTube afford unprecedented access to the skilled performances of other people. Six experiments (N = 2,225) reveal that repeatedly watching others can foster an illusion of skill acquisition. The more people merely watch others perform (without actually practicing themselves), the more they nonetheless believe they could perform the skill, too (Experiment 1). However, people’s actual abilities—from throwing darts and doing the moonwalk to playing an online game—do not improve after merely watching others, despite predictions to the contrary (Experiments 2–4). What do viewers see that makes them think they are learning? We found that extensive viewing allows people to track what steps to take (Experiment 5) but not how those steps feel when taking them. Accordingly, experiencing a “taste” of performing attenuates the illusion: Watching others juggle but then holding the pins oneself tempers perceived change in one’s own ability (Experiment 6). These findings highlight unforeseen problems for self-assessment when watching other people.

How to give away your cake and eat it too: Relinquishing control prompts reciprocal generosity.

Many resource allocations confer two rewards, but these rewards typically work in opposition to one another: Reputational rewards come to those who give and material rewards to those who receive. Eight studies reveal that abdicating a resource allocation decision—that is, giving away one’s right to choose to someone else—may allow these two rewards to work in tandem. We found that people frequently abdicated to others, and abdication often prompted others to reciprocate by giving away the better of two items. This occurred in part because people perceived abdication to be generous; in fact, individuals who abdicated seemed nearly as generous as individuals who gave away the better item to begin with. Paradoxically, abdicating confers both the reputational benefits of giving and (often) the material benefits of getting. This finding has implications for everyday resource sharing behavior and as well as for theories of fairness and reciprocity.