Matching Items (7)
Filtering by
- Creators: Arizona State University
Description
Reciprocity is considered one of the most potent weapons of social influence. Yet, little is known about when reciprocity appeals are more or less effective. A functional evolutionary approach suggests that reciprocity helps people survive in resource-scarce environments: When resources are limited, a person may not be able to obtain enough resources on their own, and reciprocal relationships can increase the odds of survival. If true, people concerned about resource scarcity may increasingly engage in reciprocal relationships and feel more compelled to reciprocate the favors done for them by others. In a series of experiments, I test this hypothesis and demonstrate that: (1) chronic concerns about resource scarcity (low socioeconomic status) predict increased reciprocity, (2) experimentally activating resource scarcity enhances the effectiveness of reciprocity appeals, (3) this effect is moderated by cues of persuasive intent, and (4) this relationship is mediated by increased gratitude.
ContributorsWhite, Andrew (Author) / Kenrick, Douglas T. (Thesis advisor) / Cialdini, Robert (Committee member) / Morales, Andrea (Committee member) / Neuberg, Steven (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
Numerous published studies and a meta-analysis suggest that priming religion causes an increase in prosocial behaviors. However, mediating mechanisms of this purported causal relationship have not yet been formally tested. In line with cultural evolutionary theories and their supporting evidence, I test the proposition that public self-awareness mediates the effect of priming religion on prosociality. However, other theories of religion suggest that persons may feel small when perceiving God, and these feelings have predicted prosociality in published research. In line with this, I also test whether a sense of small self and, relatedly, self-transcendent connection, are possible mediators of the religion priming effect on prosociality. In this study, I implicitly prime religion and test whether the above constructs mediate a potential effect on prosocial intentions. Although self-transcendent connection predicted prosocial intentions, the implicit prime affected neither the mediating variables nor prosocial intentions, nor were any significant indirect effects evident. Thus, no causal evidence of mediation was found. In addition, I examined whether God representations moderate the path from implicit religion priming to each proposed mediator. The results suggest that a benevolent God representation moderates the effect of religion priming on self-transcendent connection and that an ineffable God representation moderates the effect of religion priming on sense of small self. Lastly, I tested for mediation with a cross-sectional path model containing religiosity and belief in God as predictors. The results suggest that religiosity, controlling for belief in God, predicts prosociality through self-transcendent connection but belief in God, controlling for religiosity, does not predict prosociality. Implications for the religion priming literature and, more generally, the psychology of religion, are discussed.
ContributorsScott, Matthew J (Author) / Cohen, Adam B. (Thesis advisor) / Shiota, Michelle N. (Committee member) / Johnson, Kathryn A. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
Need-based transfers (NBTs) are a form of risk-pooling in which binary welfare exchanges
occur to preserve the viable participation of individuals in an economy, e.g. reciprocal gifting
of cattle among East African herders or food sharing among vampire bats. With the
broad goal of better understanding the mathematics of such binary welfare and risk pooling,
agent-based simulations are conducted to explore socially optimal transfer policies
and sharing network structures, kinetic exchange models that utilize tools from the kinetic
theory of gas dynamics are utilized to characterize the wealth distribution of an NBT economy,
and a variant of repeated prisoner’s dilemma is analyzed to determine whether and
why individuals would participate in such a system of reciprocal altruism.
From agent-based simulation and kinetic exchange models, it is found that regressive
NBT wealth redistribution acts as a cutting stock optimization heuristic that most efficiently
matches deficits to surpluses to improve short-term survival; however, progressive
redistribution leads to a wealth distribution that is more stable in volatile environments and
therefore is optimal for long-term survival. Homogeneous sharing networks with low variance
in degree are found to be ideal for maintaining community viability as the burden and
benefit of NBTs is equally shared. Also, phrasing NBTs as a survivor’s dilemma reveals
parameter regions where the repeated game becomes equivalent to a stag hunt or harmony
game, and thus where cooperation is evolutionarily stable.
occur to preserve the viable participation of individuals in an economy, e.g. reciprocal gifting
of cattle among East African herders or food sharing among vampire bats. With the
broad goal of better understanding the mathematics of such binary welfare and risk pooling,
agent-based simulations are conducted to explore socially optimal transfer policies
and sharing network structures, kinetic exchange models that utilize tools from the kinetic
theory of gas dynamics are utilized to characterize the wealth distribution of an NBT economy,
and a variant of repeated prisoner’s dilemma is analyzed to determine whether and
why individuals would participate in such a system of reciprocal altruism.
From agent-based simulation and kinetic exchange models, it is found that regressive
NBT wealth redistribution acts as a cutting stock optimization heuristic that most efficiently
matches deficits to surpluses to improve short-term survival; however, progressive
redistribution leads to a wealth distribution that is more stable in volatile environments and
therefore is optimal for long-term survival. Homogeneous sharing networks with low variance
in degree are found to be ideal for maintaining community viability as the burden and
benefit of NBTs is equally shared. Also, phrasing NBTs as a survivor’s dilemma reveals
parameter regions where the repeated game becomes equivalent to a stag hunt or harmony
game, and thus where cooperation is evolutionarily stable.
ContributorsKayser, Kirk (Author) / Armbruster, Dieter (Thesis advisor) / Lampert, Adam (Committee member) / Ringhofer, Christian (Committee member) / Motsch, Sebastien (Committee member) / Gardner, Carl (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
Social discounting underlies individual altruistic decision-making, and it is frequently measured as the amount of hypothetical money one is willing to forgo for another person as a function of social distance. In the classic social discounting task, individual participants are asked to imagine their friends along a continuum of social distance, that is then used to estimate participant’s social discounting rate. While an ever-growing proportion of social interactions takes place over social media, no research has yet characterized social discounting in that context. Moreover, no research has estimated social discounting rate using real persons’ social distance, instead of the hypothetical continuum described above. Using existing social media indicators of social distance, it is now possible to estimate social discounting rate based on real people, which may lead to more accurate social discounting measurements and may expand the discounting model to real-life situations. Specifically, using computer algorithms to estimate the social distance from social media data makes it possible to assess the utility of numeric social distance indicators and the most appropriate ways to represent them. The proposed study examined the extent to which a hyperbolic model for social discounting fits social distance information retrieved from Facebook pages; and assessed whether there were differences in discounting rate when real or hypothetical social distance is used; also to further investigate whether discounting rates based on real persons are in fact based on perceived social distance by the participant, or on the imaginary social distance scale (i.e., an experimental artifact.)
It was found that the social discounting model can be applied in the social media context, even when real Facebook friends’ profiles were used as substitutes of numeric social distance indicators. Additionally, people showed similar altruistic tendencies in both the numeric and profile social discounting tests on the Facebook environment. These findings were qualified, however, by a high rate of nonsystematic data for the profile group; a rate much higher than traditional numeric paradigm. This discrepancy suggested that the allocation rates between numeric and profile approaches need further investigation to determine the factors affecting individuals’ generosity as a function of social distance indicators.
It was found that the social discounting model can be applied in the social media context, even when real Facebook friends’ profiles were used as substitutes of numeric social distance indicators. Additionally, people showed similar altruistic tendencies in both the numeric and profile social discounting tests on the Facebook environment. These findings were qualified, however, by a high rate of nonsystematic data for the profile group; a rate much higher than traditional numeric paradigm. This discrepancy suggested that the allocation rates between numeric and profile approaches need further investigation to determine the factors affecting individuals’ generosity as a function of social distance indicators.
ContributorsJiang, Linle (Author) / Miller, Paul A. (Thesis advisor) / Robles-Sotelo, Elias (Committee member) / Silva, Yasin N. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
The study of wasp societies (family Vespidae) has played a central role in advancing our knowledge of why social life evolves and how it functions. This dissertation asks: How have scientists generated and evaluated new concepts and theories about social life and its evolution by investigating wasp societies? It addresses this question both from a narrative/historical and from a reflective/epistemological perspective. The historical narratives reconstruct the investigative pathways of the Italian entomologist Leo Pardi (1915-1990) and the British evolutionary biologist William D. Hamilton (1936-2000). The works of these two scientists represent respectively the beginning of our current understanding of immediate and evolutionary causes of social life. Chapter 1 shows how Pardi, in the 1940s, generated a conceptual framework to explain how wasp colonies function in terms of social and reproductive dominance. Chapter 2 shows how Hamilton, in the 1960s, attempted to evaluate his own theory of inclusive fitness by investigating social wasps. The epistemological reflections revolve around the idea of investigative framework for theory evaluation. Chapter 3 draws on the analysis of important studies on social wasps from the 1960s and 1970s and provides an account of theory evaluation in the form of an investigative framework. The framework shows how inferences from empirical data (bottom-up) and inferences from the theory (top-down) inform one another in the generation of hypotheses, predictions and statements about phenomena of social evolution. It provides an alternative to existing philosophical accounts of scientific inquiry and theory evaluation, which keep a strong, hierarchical distinction between inferences from the theory and inferences from the data. The historical narratives in this dissertation show that important scientists have advanced our knowledge of complex biological phenomena by constantly interweaving empirical, conceptual, and theoretical work. The epistemological reflections argue that we need holistic frameworks that account for how multiple scientific practices synergistically contribute to advance our knowledge of complex phenomena. Both narratives and reflections aim to inspire and inform future work in social evolution capitalizing on lessons learnt from the past.
ContributorsCaniglia, Guido (Author) / Laubichler, Manfred (Thesis advisor) / Maienschein, Jane (Thesis advisor) / Creath, Richard (Committee member) / Mitchell, Sandra (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
Why are human societies so psychologically diverse? The discipline of behavioral ecology is rich in both theory and data on how environments shape non-human animal behavior. However, behavioral ecological thinking has not received much attention in the study of human cultural psychological variation. I propose that ecological relatedness—how genetically related individuals are to others in their proximate environment—is one aspect of the environment that shapes human psychology. I present three studies here that examine the influence of ecological relatedness on multiple aspects of psychology. In the first study, I find that higher levels of ecological relatedness at the nation level is associated with a greater willingness to put oneself at risk for others, greater localized trust, and a stronger sense of belonging to one’s community. In the second and third studies, using experimental manipulations of perceived ecological relatedness, I examine the effects of ecological relatedness on helping behavior across situations, monetary sharing on a dictator game, interpersonal judgments, and alloparenting behaviors. I find that individuals led to perceive higher ecological relatedness became more sensitive to need in potential helping situations. The implications of ecological relatedness for thinking about psychological variation across groups are discussed.
ContributorsSng, Wei Sheng Oliver (Author) / Neuberg, Steven L. (Thesis advisor) / Kenrick, Douglas T. (Committee member) / Hill, Kim R. (Committee member) / Varnum, Michael E. W. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
Effective Altruism (EA), a moral philosophy concerned with accomplishing the greatest possible good in one’s lifetime, sees little utilitarian and/or humanitarian value in the arts. EA suggests that amidst so much global strife, the time, energy, and finances expended to create fleeting art would be put to better, more practical use in the fight against poverty. However, EA has yet to sufficiently account for sustainable art practice — an art form deeply rooted in utilitarianism and humanitarianism — and the possibility of its accompanying aesthetics as a constituent of utilitarian/humanitarian theories. The first chapter of this thesis illustrates an intersection of EA, sustainability, and aesthetics, detailing ways in which sustainable art and EA philosophy overlap, as well as problematizing EA’s dismissal of contemporary art practice. This chapter also points to sustainable art as one possible alternative art route for practicing artists with EA interests. Chapters two and three present case studies of Danish art collective SUPERFLEX and an American non-profit called the Land Art Generator Initiative (LAGI) and how their sustainable goals fit the utilitarian and humanitarian scope through which EA functions.
ContributorsNemelka, Kevin (Author) / Hoy, Meredith (Thesis advisor) / Mesch, Claudia (Committee member) / Sweeney, Gray (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017