Warm drink, warm thoughts?

Ever since Harry Harlow's studies on contact comfort, psychologists have known that touching warm cuddly things can generate warm cuddly feelings (I recommend the n.a.p Cuddle Blanket from Brookstone... totally worth it). Although he was primarily interested in mother-infant attachment, it looks like the ghost of Harlow has been resurrected in Science this month in a study of physical warmth and likability judgment:

Experiencing Physical Warmth Promotes Interpersonal Warmth

Lawrence E. Williams and John A. Bargh
"Warmth" is the most powerful personality trait in social judgment, and attachment theorists have stressed the importance of warm physical contact with caregivers during infancy for healthy relationships in adulthood. Intriguingly, recent research in humans points to the involvement of the insula in the processing of both physical temperature and interpersonal warmth (trust) information. Accordingly, we hypothesized that experiences of physical warmth (or coldness) would increase feelings of interpersonal warmth (or coldness), without the person's awareness of this influence. In study 1, participants who briefly held a cup of hot (versus iced) coffee judged a target person as having a "warmer" personality (generous, caring); in study 2, participants holding a hot (versus cold) therapeutic pad were more likely to choose a gift for a friend instead of for themselves.



This comes alongside another study published in Psychological Science (also this month) that showed the causal direction going the other way as well (i.e. feeling sad affects judgment of room temperature):


Cold and Lonely: Does Social Exclusion Literally Feel Cold?

Chen-Bo Zhong and Geoffrey J. Leonardelli
Metaphors such as icy stare depict social exclusion using cold-related concepts; they are not to be taken literally and certainly do not imply reduced temperature. Two experiments, however, revealed that social exclusion literally feels cold. Experiment 1 found that participants who recalled a social exclusion experience gave lower estimates of room temperature than did participants who recalled an inclusion experience. In Experiment 2, social exclusion was directly induced through an on-line virtual interaction, and participants who were excluded reported greater desire for warm food and drink than did participants who were included. These findings are consistent with the embodied view of cognition and support the notion that social perception involves physical and perceptual content. The psychological experience of coldness not only aids understanding of social interaction, but also is an integral part of the experience of social exclusion.

No wonder winter here is so miserable except when I have warm (and free) psych department coffee.

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References


Williams, L.E. & Bargh, J.A. (2008). Experiencing physical warmth promotes interpersonal warmth. Science, 322, 606-607

Zhong, C. & Leonardelli, G.J. (2008). Cold and lonely: Does social exclusion literally feel cold? Psychological Science, 19, 838-842.

Zimbardo vs. Rowling on Heroism

Everyone should watch this talk:

Philip Zimbardo, famous for his 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment, discusses factors that induce ordinary people to perform extraordinary acts of cruelty. For decades, social psychologists have known about the influence of situational factors in fostering human cruelty and indifference (the banality of evil). But as a new contribution, Zimbardo also discusses the banality of heroism as a counterpoint to blind obedience/indifference (i.e. how ordinary people can be trained to act heroically).

His hypotheses:

1. Classic childhood superheroes are ineffective models for real-life heroism because they have superpowers that are too far-removed from the ordinary person (i.e. it's difficult for ordinary individuals to relate to superheroes, so they classify heroic behavior as something they are not capable of performing).
2. By highlighting stories of ordinary people choosing to act heroically in extraordinary circumstances, we celebrate the ordinary hero and encourage all people to follow suit (see the story of Professor Liviu Librescu as an example).

But is it true that fantastical heroes don't inspire heroic action in everyday people? Absolutely not! Dumbledore's Army... er... Harry Potter Alliance to the rescue!! Here's a description from their site:

Did you ever wish that Harry Potter was real? Well it kind of is. After all, both our worlds face "dark and difficult times":

• Genocide, Poverty, AIDS, and Global Warming are ignored by our media and governments the way Voldemort's return is ignored by the Ministry and Daily Prophet.
• People are still discriminated against based on sexuality, race, class, gender, ethnicity, and religion just as the Wizarding World continues to discriminate against Centaurs, Giants, House Elves, Half-Bloods, Muggle borns, Squibs, and Muggles
• Our governments continue to respond to terror by torturing prisoners (often without trial) just as Sirius Black was tortured by dementors with no trial
• A Muggle Mindset pervades over our culture-a mindset that values being "perfectly normal, thank you very much" over being interesting, original, loving, and creative

Apparently, there's a chapter in Boston but looks like it's 100% Emerson students :(

Signal Detection FAIL

The prospect of ongoing war in the Middle East has our military turning to drones or robotic agents to seek out insurgent leaders. As an undergrad in cognitive science, I remember professors and students (myself included) excited about the large-scale investment our government had put in signal detection for warfare. Sounded like a terrific idea at the time - less American troops put in harm's way. But at what cost?

In a recent attempt to kill a Taliban leader, an unmanned aircraft had a false alarm and fired missiles at a religious school in Pakistan, killing at least eight school children (see full article). Would a human pilot have been better?

Does my brain look gay?

Earlier this year, an article (Savic & Lindstrom, 2008) came out in PNAS with some really compelling evidence that a) gay brains are different from straight brains, and b) those differences are not a result of learning. Why so much attention compared to past gay brain studies?

Past studies:
1. Cerebral (motor cortex & reward circuitry) responses to watching porn: gay men = straight women; straight men = gay women
2. Anterior hypothalamic activation when sniffing pheromones: gay men = straight women; straight men = gay women

Not very compelling since these were all perceptual tasks, and responses could have been due to either innateness or learning. So Savic and Lindstrom wanted to look at factors not directly associated with behavior: a) cerebral asymmetry and b) functional connectivity of left vs. right amygdalae.
The motivation for cerebral asymmetry came from other studies that showed:

• Anterior commisure: gay men/straight women > straight men
• Verbal tasks: gay men/straight women > straight men/gay women
• Visuospatial tasks: gay men/straight women < straight men/gay women
• Right-ear preference: gay men/straight women < straight men/gay women

The choice to compare left and right amygdalae was based on Larry Cahill’s work on sexual dimorphism in emotional memory.

What they found was that sexually dimorphic brain features differed within same-sex subjects depending on sexual orientation. Essentially, gay male brains (like straight female brains) did not show cerebral asymmetry while straight male brains (like gay female brains) had larger right hemispheric volume. The amygdala scans also showed that functional connectivity was more widespread from the left amygdala in gay men/straight women, and the right amygdala in straight men/gay women.

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More acceptance for gays?

These findings have gotten a lot of attention because of their implications that homosexuality is innate. Is this really something that will bring gays wider acceptance?

My advisor, Dr. H, has an interesting take on this:

Many gays and lesbians have embraced the position that homosexuality is not a choice because they feel that less discrimination and prejudice will be forthcoming for something that is genetic, biological, or otherwise not a choice. But this is a fallacy. Why shouldn’t people’s lifestyle choices be just as respected as “choices” made by their DNA? This reminds us of what is called the “naturalistic fallacy”: Just because something occurs in nature (e.g., has a genetic component) doesn’t mean we should tolerate the expression of those behaviors. For example, criminality and sociopathy have a genetic component, yet we don’t tolerate these behaviors. Religious beliefs are often choices, yet we tolerate (and protect by law) religious diversity.

For a long time I’ve been undecided about the innateness of homosexuality because twin studies haven't held up the genetics argument and because there are incidences of situational homosexuality (gay prison sex). But in any case, why can’t we strive for acceptance even if it is a choice? Do we really believe that by demonstrating a biological origin of homosexuality that less prejudice will be forthcoming? What makes us think that we would find anymore acceptance than sociopaths, as Dr. H suggests? (For one thing, sociopaths are not law-abiding citizens and for another, I would like to think they are fewer in number.)

Until I took a job teaching social psychology this year, I was convinced that it wouldn’t really matter to the straight population whether being gay was biologically determined or not; we would still remain a persecuted minority. But the social psychologist, Elliot Aronson, (2008) has something to say in regards to the effect of an unchangeable status:

The psychology of inevitability can and does set up pressures to reduce prejudiced attitudes.

That is, the sooner individuals realize that interaction with a disliked group is inevitable and stable, the sooner prejudiced attitudes will begin to change. If homophobic individuals with gay family members/co-workers/friends/etc. realize that they will inevitably have to interact with a gay person and that sexual orientation cannot change, then they are presented with a state of cognitive dissonance: the behavior (interacting with a gay person) does not match up with the attitude (dislike of homosexuals). Thus, they can continue feeling angry or they can change their attitudes about homosexuals.

So according to Aronson, a biological cause of homosexuality will lead to more acceptance for individuals close to a gay person. But what about acceptance from the general population? Unlike race, sexual orientation can be hidden and gay men and women can go on living their lives fully integrated without ever revealing their sexual identity. Will continued media exposure be effective? Unfortunately, inevitability wasn’t built into the remote.

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References

Aronson, E. (2008). The social animal (10th ed.). New York: Worth Publishers.

Savic, I. & Lindström, P. (2008). PET and MRI show differences in cerebral asymmetry and functional connectivity between homo- and heterosexual subjects. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105, 9403-9408.