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Description
The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotion suggests that positive emotions should broaden thought and behavior repertoires in order to develop lasting resources. In the social domain, this means deploying a variety of affiliative strategies in order to build cooperative relationships. A functionalist perspective on positive emotion suggests that different positive

The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotion suggests that positive emotions should broaden thought and behavior repertoires in order to develop lasting resources. In the social domain, this means deploying a variety of affiliative strategies in order to build cooperative relationships. A functionalist perspective on positive emotion suggests that different positive emotions should have distinct effects on these affiliative mechanisms. This study elicited awe, amusement, pride or a neutral control in pairs of same sex strangers. They then completed an open-ended "getting to know you" conversation, which were recorded and coded for affiliative behaviors—smiling, laughter, mimicry, and asking questions. After, they rated their perception of the other as complex and how much they liked each other. Then they played the prisoner's dilemma game. Results indicate that there was a significant mediated effect such that being in the pride condition predicted greater smiling, and smiling predicted cooperation on the prisoner's dilemma. This was true both when an individual's own smiling was predicting their cooperative behavior and when their partner's smiling was predicting their cooperative behavior. However, these effects were only seen in female dyads, not male dyads. There was also a significant mediated effect such that pride led women to ask more questions, which led partners to like each other more. Additionally, awe led to greater mimicry in men, which in turn led to greater cooperation. In women, awe led to greater perception of the other as complex. Overall, these results indicate that there are broaden and build effects of positive emotions, but these are specific to both the emotion and the sex of the interaction members. This is also the first study to demonstrate both an actor and a partner effect of smiling on cooperation in a prisoner’s dilemma. An important area for further inquiry will be the interaction of emotion and sex in predicting social behavior. While sex differences in responding to threats have been characterized by the “tend and befriend” versus “fight or flight” action patterns, a similar approach may also need to be developed for sex differences in response to opportunities.
ContributorsDanvers, Alexander (Author) / Shiota, Michelle N. (Thesis advisor) / Neuberg, Steven L. (Committee member) / Kwan, Virginia S.Y. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
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Description
Studies of cooperation remain an important aspect in understanding the evolution of social cues and interactions. One example of cooperation is pleometrosis, an associative behavior of forming a colony with two unrelated, fertile queens. However, most ant species display haplometrosis, the founding of a colony by a single queen. In

Studies of cooperation remain an important aspect in understanding the evolution of social cues and interactions. One example of cooperation is pleometrosis, an associative behavior of forming a colony with two unrelated, fertile queens. However, most ant species display haplometrosis, the founding of a colony by a single queen. In these associations, the queen typically rejects cooperation. In populations of Pogonomyrmex californicus, both pleometrosis and haplometrosis exists. It is not clear how associative -metrosis became a practiced behavior since haplometrotic queens tend to fight. However, as fighting in pleometrotic queens became less frequent, this induces benefit, in terms of cost savings, in having associative behaviors. The hypothesis tested was nest excavation of pleometrotic queens show sociality, while haplometrotic queens show association independence. Isolated pleometrotic queens (P) showed low excavation rate at 2.72cm2/day, compared to the rate when the task was shared in (PP) nests, 4.57cm2/day. Nest area of the (P) queens were also affected during days 3 and 4 of the experiment, where there was presence of nest area decrease. Furthermore, the excavation session of (P) was the only one determined as significant between all other nests. Although the (P) queens have low values, they eventually reach a similar point as the other nests by day 6. However, the lack of haste in excavation leads to longer exposure to the elements, substituting the risk of losing cuticles in excavation for the risk of predation. For the haplometrotic queens, nests of (H) and (HH) displayed no significant difference in excavation values, leading to having social effect in their association.
ContributorsGabriel, Ian Paulo Villalobos (Author) / Fewell, Jennifer (Thesis director) / Pratt, Stephen (Committee member) / Bespalova, Ioulia (Committee member) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
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Description
Sport is a widespread phenomenon across human cultures and history. Unfortunately, positive emotions in sport have been long vaguely characterized as happy or pleasant, or ignored altogether. Recent emotion research has taken a differentiated approach, however, suggesting there are distinct positive emotions with diverse implications for behavior. The present study

Sport is a widespread phenomenon across human cultures and history. Unfortunately, positive emotions in sport have been long vaguely characterized as happy or pleasant, or ignored altogether. Recent emotion research has taken a differentiated approach, however, suggesting there are distinct positive emotions with diverse implications for behavior. The present study applied this evolutionarily informed approach in the context of sport to examine which positive emotions are associated with play. It was hypothesized that pride, amusement, and enthusiasm, but not contentment or awe, would increase in Ultimate Frisbee players during a practice scrimmage. Further, it was hypothesized that increases in pride and amusement during practice would be differentially associated with sport outcomes, including performance (scores, assists, and defenses), subjective social connectedness, attributions of success, and attitudes toward the importance of practice. It was found that all positive emotions decreased during practice. It was also found that increases in pride were associated with more scores and greater social connectedness, whereas increases in amusement were associated with more assists. The present study was one of the first to examine change in positive emotions during play and to relate them to specific performance outcomes. Future studies should expand to determine which came first: emotion or performance.
ContributorsKuna, Jacob Anthony (Author) / Shiota, Michelle (Thesis director) / Glenberg, Arthur (Committee member) / Danvers, Alexander (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor)
Created2014-05
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Description
I tested the hypothesis that in mature colonies of the seed harvester Pogonomyrmex californicus ant species, paired pleometrotic queens would produce workers more efficiently after a massive removal of their work force than haplometrotic queens, paired pleometrotic with haplometrotic queens, and single pleometrotic queens. I suggested that the paired pleometrotic

I tested the hypothesis that in mature colonies of the seed harvester Pogonomyrmex californicus ant species, paired pleometrotic queens would produce workers more efficiently after a massive removal of their work force than haplometrotic queens, paired pleometrotic with haplometrotic queens, and single pleometrotic queens. I suggested that the paired pleometrotic queens would have an advantage of cooperating together in reproducing more workers quicker than the other conditions to make up for the lost workers. This would demonstrate a benefit that pleometrosis has over haplometrosis for mature colonies, which would explain why pleometrosis continues for P.californicus after colony foundation. After removing all but twenty workers for every colony, I took pictures and counted the emerging brood for 52 days. Analyses showed that the paired pleometrotic queens and the haplometrotic queens both grew at an equally efficient rate and the paired pleometrotic and haplometrotic queens growing the least efficiently. However, the results were not significant and did not support the hypothesis that paired pleometrotic queens recover from worker loss more proficiently than other social systems.
ContributorsFernandez, Marisa Raquel (Author) / Fewell, Jennifer (Thesis director) / Gadau, Juergen (Committee member) / Haney, Brian (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor)
Created2014-05
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Description
The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of two positive discrete emotions, awe and nurturant love, on implicit prejudices. After completing an emotion induction task, participants completed Implicit Association Test blocks where they paired photos of Arab and White individuals with "good" and "bad" evaluations. We hypothesized

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of two positive discrete emotions, awe and nurturant love, on implicit prejudices. After completing an emotion induction task, participants completed Implicit Association Test blocks where they paired photos of Arab and White individuals with "good" and "bad" evaluations. We hypothesized that nurturant love would increase the strength of negative evaluations of Arab individuals and positive evaluations of White individuals, whereas awe would decrease the strength of these negative evaluations when compared to a neutral condition. However, we found that both awe and nurturant love increased negative implicit prejudices toward Arab individuals when compared to the neutral condition.
ContributorsCarrasco, Mia Annette (Author) / Shiota, Michelle (Thesis director) / O'Neil, Makenzie (Committee member) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
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Description
This project aims to better understand aggression in a cooperative social system, specifically within the ant species Pogonomyrmex Californicus. The queens of some populations of these ants form cooperative associations of unrelated queens during nest foundation, while others prefer to form solitary nests and may show aggression towards unwanted nest

This project aims to better understand aggression in a cooperative social system, specifically within the ant species Pogonomyrmex Californicus. The queens of some populations of these ants form cooperative associations of unrelated queens during nest foundation, while others prefer to form solitary nests and may show aggression towards unwanted nest mates. Because it is difficult to collect large amounts of data from a wild population and laboratory environments cannot capture the scale of nature, we created a computer simulation based on data collected in the lab and the field that emulates the life cycle of this species of ants. By manipulating behavioral and environmental conditions and observing the results we were able to better understand the advantages and disadvantages of showing aggression in this cooperative social system.
Created2016-05