Spring 2016 Talk Series
Feb 12 - David Sobel (Professor, Brown University)
Title: Coding Choices Affect Interpretations of Theory of Mind Measures (or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Unexpected Contents Task)
Abstract: The unexpected contents task is a ubiquitous measure of false belief. Not only has this measure been used to study children’s developing knowledge of belief, it has impacted the study of atypical development, education, and analyses of many facets of cognitive development. Based on a review of articles using this task, I will show that there is no consensus regarding how to score this measure. Further, examining both a metaanalysis of performance on this measure and performance on a large sample of preschoolers, I show that the coding scheme used to analyze raw data from this measure has a reliable effect on results, particularly when smaller sample sizes are used. I suggest that the most frequently used coding scheme is flawed. I recommend best practices for scoring the unexpected contents task, and that researchers examine how they analyze data from this measure to ensure the robustness of effects.
March 18 - Fiery Cushman (Assistant Professor, Harvard University)
Title: Habitual Action in Social Settings
Abstract: In this talk I will sketch two new research directions. First, I will present some new studies investigating the “folk theory of habitual control”. Past research on theory of mind and mental state attribution emphasizes our ability to impute goals and plans to socialpartners. Common experience dictate that we sometimes explain others’ behaviors in terms of habits, however. I will present some preliminary evidence that people possess and spontaneously deploy a folk theory of habits, although perhaps less than they should. Second, I will review some evidence that people use habit learning mechanisms to regulate the thoughts that they call to mind, and argue that these habit learning mechanisms might be the functional target of social sanctioning following negligent harm.
March 25 - Boyoung Kim (PhD student, Brown University)
Title: The Influence of Social Media Use on Moral Judgments of Microaggressions
Abstract: Microaggressions are unintentional or thoughtless behaviors that convey negative messages to members of minority groups. Despite heightened attention to the issues related to microaggressions in recent years, people often differ in their judgments about how strongly someone who commits a microaggression should be morally criticized. To account for this individual variation, we explored the potential influence of heavy social media use on individuals’ moral judgments of microaggressive behaviors. Social media increasingly seem to allow individuals to express strong moral criticism of moral violations, including microaggressions. We therefore hypothesized that heavy social media users would endorse intense moral criticism of microaggressions. Consistent with this hypothesis, in the initial study, we found a strong correlation (r = .47) between people’s degree of Facebook use and their endorsement of more intense moral criticism for microaggressions. In follow-up studies, we investigated whether this tendency can be explained by Facebook users’ differences in the perceived badness of microaggressions or the acceptance of generally stronger moral criticism on social media.
March 25 - Xuan Zhao (PhD candidate, Brown University)
Title: Spontaneous visual perspective taking: When do we see through others' eyes?
Abstract: Seeing the world through another person's eyes, also known as "visual perspective taking", plays a fundamental role in our social life. Prior work has focused extensively on the "whether" questions — whether people can perform perspective taking at certain ages and at certain levels of accuracy. My research instead examines the “when” question: In what circumstances people engage in spontaneous perspective taking. In the first half of my talk, I will present data exploring the relation between action observation and visual perspective taking. My research reveals that another person’s behaviors, such as object-directed gaze and goal-directed reaching, are able to trigger a considerable number of observers to spontaneously take the actor’s visual perspective; furthermore, these triggering behaviors are so effective that with their presence, people even attribute distinct visual perspectives to non-human agents, such as robots. In the second half of my talk, I examine perspective taking in communicative contexts and demonstrate that both adults and 4-year-olds take another person's mental states (epistemic states and intentions) into account and selectively engage in visual perspective taking.
April 22 - Patrick Heck (PhD candidate, Brown University)
Title: Prosociality and Egocentrism in the Volunteer’s Dilemma: Behavior, Perception, and Expectation/Outcome Effects
Abstract: In a volunteer’s dilemma (VoD), one person must make a material sacrifice so that others may benefit. If nobody chooses to sacrifice then all players suffer. In this talk, I will present new data demonstrating that the decision to volunteer is a.) driven by rational and evolutionarily adaptive egocentrism and b.) viewed by others as competent and moral behavior. Our perception of volunteering behavior appears to depend on the outcome of the dilemma, however, particularly in the domain of competence. This outcome bias appears to hold regardless of what the agent expected the outcome to be. Finally, I will discuss the nature and implications of outcome biases in the domain of rationality.
May 6 - Malte Jung (Assistant Professor, Cornell University)
Title: Robots and the Dynamics of Emotions in Teams
Abstract: Over the last decade the idea that robots could become an integral part of teamwork developed from a promising vision into a reality. Robots support teamwork across a wide range of settings covering search and rescue missions, minimally invasive surgeries, space exploration missions, and manufacturing. Scholars have increasingly explored the ways in which robots influence how work in teams is performed, but that work has primarily focused on task specific aspects of team functioning such as the development of situational awareness, common ground, and task coordination. Robots, however, can affect teamwork not only through the task-specific functions they have been developed to serve but also by affecting a team’s regulation of emotion. In this talk I present empirical findings from several studies that show how theory and methods that were originally developed to understand the role of emotions in marital interactions can help us to not only further our understanding of teamwork but also to inform how we design robots to improve teamwork through their emotion regulatory behavior.
May 13 - Katherine McAuliffe (Associate Professor, Boston College)
Title: Children’s enforcement of fairness norms
Abstract: A sense of fairness is one of the hallmarks of our species’ unique ability to cooperate with large numbers of unrelated—and often unfamiliar—others. Across societies, humans are willing to sacrifice personal rewards to prevent themselves from being treated unfairly and to prevent others from being treated unfairly. Recent work in developmental psychology has shown that the willingness to enforce fairness in both second- and third-party contexts emerges during childhood, suggesting that children are equipped with the motivations and skills necessary to promote fair behavior in others. In my talk I will survey some of this work by focusing on studies that investigate children’s responses to unfairness in both second- and third-party contexts. I will present results from a number of studies structured around four main questions: (1) When, during development, do children begin to ‘pay’ for fairness?; (2) Does willingness to enforce fairness vary across societies?; (3) What motivates children’s fairness enforcement?; and (4) Are responses to unfairness biased by in-group favoritism?
Title: Coding Choices Affect Interpretations of Theory of Mind Measures (or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Unexpected Contents Task)
Abstract: The unexpected contents task is a ubiquitous measure of false belief. Not only has this measure been used to study children’s developing knowledge of belief, it has impacted the study of atypical development, education, and analyses of many facets of cognitive development. Based on a review of articles using this task, I will show that there is no consensus regarding how to score this measure. Further, examining both a metaanalysis of performance on this measure and performance on a large sample of preschoolers, I show that the coding scheme used to analyze raw data from this measure has a reliable effect on results, particularly when smaller sample sizes are used. I suggest that the most frequently used coding scheme is flawed. I recommend best practices for scoring the unexpected contents task, and that researchers examine how they analyze data from this measure to ensure the robustness of effects.
March 18 - Fiery Cushman (Assistant Professor, Harvard University)
Title: Habitual Action in Social Settings
Abstract: In this talk I will sketch two new research directions. First, I will present some new studies investigating the “folk theory of habitual control”. Past research on theory of mind and mental state attribution emphasizes our ability to impute goals and plans to socialpartners. Common experience dictate that we sometimes explain others’ behaviors in terms of habits, however. I will present some preliminary evidence that people possess and spontaneously deploy a folk theory of habits, although perhaps less than they should. Second, I will review some evidence that people use habit learning mechanisms to regulate the thoughts that they call to mind, and argue that these habit learning mechanisms might be the functional target of social sanctioning following negligent harm.
March 25 - Boyoung Kim (PhD student, Brown University)
Title: The Influence of Social Media Use on Moral Judgments of Microaggressions
Abstract: Microaggressions are unintentional or thoughtless behaviors that convey negative messages to members of minority groups. Despite heightened attention to the issues related to microaggressions in recent years, people often differ in their judgments about how strongly someone who commits a microaggression should be morally criticized. To account for this individual variation, we explored the potential influence of heavy social media use on individuals’ moral judgments of microaggressive behaviors. Social media increasingly seem to allow individuals to express strong moral criticism of moral violations, including microaggressions. We therefore hypothesized that heavy social media users would endorse intense moral criticism of microaggressions. Consistent with this hypothesis, in the initial study, we found a strong correlation (r = .47) between people’s degree of Facebook use and their endorsement of more intense moral criticism for microaggressions. In follow-up studies, we investigated whether this tendency can be explained by Facebook users’ differences in the perceived badness of microaggressions or the acceptance of generally stronger moral criticism on social media.
March 25 - Xuan Zhao (PhD candidate, Brown University)
Title: Spontaneous visual perspective taking: When do we see through others' eyes?
Abstract: Seeing the world through another person's eyes, also known as "visual perspective taking", plays a fundamental role in our social life. Prior work has focused extensively on the "whether" questions — whether people can perform perspective taking at certain ages and at certain levels of accuracy. My research instead examines the “when” question: In what circumstances people engage in spontaneous perspective taking. In the first half of my talk, I will present data exploring the relation between action observation and visual perspective taking. My research reveals that another person’s behaviors, such as object-directed gaze and goal-directed reaching, are able to trigger a considerable number of observers to spontaneously take the actor’s visual perspective; furthermore, these triggering behaviors are so effective that with their presence, people even attribute distinct visual perspectives to non-human agents, such as robots. In the second half of my talk, I examine perspective taking in communicative contexts and demonstrate that both adults and 4-year-olds take another person's mental states (epistemic states and intentions) into account and selectively engage in visual perspective taking.
April 22 - Patrick Heck (PhD candidate, Brown University)
Title: Prosociality and Egocentrism in the Volunteer’s Dilemma: Behavior, Perception, and Expectation/Outcome Effects
Abstract: In a volunteer’s dilemma (VoD), one person must make a material sacrifice so that others may benefit. If nobody chooses to sacrifice then all players suffer. In this talk, I will present new data demonstrating that the decision to volunteer is a.) driven by rational and evolutionarily adaptive egocentrism and b.) viewed by others as competent and moral behavior. Our perception of volunteering behavior appears to depend on the outcome of the dilemma, however, particularly in the domain of competence. This outcome bias appears to hold regardless of what the agent expected the outcome to be. Finally, I will discuss the nature and implications of outcome biases in the domain of rationality.
May 6 - Malte Jung (Assistant Professor, Cornell University)
Title: Robots and the Dynamics of Emotions in Teams
Abstract: Over the last decade the idea that robots could become an integral part of teamwork developed from a promising vision into a reality. Robots support teamwork across a wide range of settings covering search and rescue missions, minimally invasive surgeries, space exploration missions, and manufacturing. Scholars have increasingly explored the ways in which robots influence how work in teams is performed, but that work has primarily focused on task specific aspects of team functioning such as the development of situational awareness, common ground, and task coordination. Robots, however, can affect teamwork not only through the task-specific functions they have been developed to serve but also by affecting a team’s regulation of emotion. In this talk I present empirical findings from several studies that show how theory and methods that were originally developed to understand the role of emotions in marital interactions can help us to not only further our understanding of teamwork but also to inform how we design robots to improve teamwork through their emotion regulatory behavior.
May 13 - Katherine McAuliffe (Associate Professor, Boston College)
Title: Children’s enforcement of fairness norms
Abstract: A sense of fairness is one of the hallmarks of our species’ unique ability to cooperate with large numbers of unrelated—and often unfamiliar—others. Across societies, humans are willing to sacrifice personal rewards to prevent themselves from being treated unfairly and to prevent others from being treated unfairly. Recent work in developmental psychology has shown that the willingness to enforce fairness in both second- and third-party contexts emerges during childhood, suggesting that children are equipped with the motivations and skills necessary to promote fair behavior in others. In my talk I will survey some of this work by focusing on studies that investigate children’s responses to unfairness in both second- and third-party contexts. I will present results from a number of studies structured around four main questions: (1) When, during development, do children begin to ‘pay’ for fairness?; (2) Does willingness to enforce fairness vary across societies?; (3) What motivates children’s fairness enforcement?; and (4) Are responses to unfairness biased by in-group favoritism?
Fall 2015 Talk Series
Sept 18 - Nir Halevy (Associate Professor, Stanford Graduate School of Business)
Title: The Calculus of Peacemaking.
Abstract: Third-parties have acted as peacemakers since the dawn of history. However, little is known about the causes and consequences of voluntary, informal third-party intervention in conflict. Eleven experiments investigated when, why, and how third-parties intervene in others’ conflicts, transform them, and promote cooperation. Overall, this program of research finds that: (a) The mere possibility of third-party intervention is sufficient to increase cooperation among disputants; (b) Third-parties’ willingness to intervene critically depends on their ability to secure gains and avoid costs to themselves; (c) The positive effects of introducing third-party intervention are evident even following a history of conflict; and (d) persist even after the third-party leaves; (e) higher-ranking group members are more likely to intervene in others’ conflicts, an effect mediated by powerholders’ heightened approach tendencies. Taken together, these findings highlight the potential benefits of constructively engaging third-parties in conflict.
Oct 2 - Michael Schober (Professor, the New School for Social Research)
Title: Communication technology alters pragmatic and cognitive processes
Abstract: Pragmatic forces in spoken interaction can be altered by the affordances of communication technologies—texting rather than talking, interacting with a computer rather than a person. The resulting changes in people’s cognitive processes have important implications for response validity and accuracy in interviews, experiments, and therapy, as well as for how we understand each other in everyday interactions.
Nov 13 - Kiley Hamlin (Associate Professor, University of British Columbia)
Title: The origins of human morality: Complex socio-moral evaluation and action in the first two years of life
Abstract: In recent decades there has been an increasing focus on the evolutionary, neurological, and developmental bases of humans’ moral sense. This talk will summarize recent research with human infants, suggesting that some aspects of a moral sense are present early in ontogeny and may be organized in advance of experience. Within the first year of life, infants prefer those who help, versus harm, unknown third parties. Rather than reflecting simple social rules like "helpful=good," infants' social preferences privilege the mental states of both the agents and the recipients of prosocial and antisocial acts and differ based on context rather than on the absolute value of individual acts. In the second year of life, infants begin to direct their overt prosocial actions towards those who have helped third parties and antisocial actions towards those who have hindered them. Similarly to their social preferences, infants' prosocial and antisocial acts are sensitive to recipients' mental states and are contextually nuanced. Together, these results support the hypothesis that the human moral sense is rooted in evolved, universal capacities for sociomoral evaluation and action.
Nov 20 - Joanna Korman (PhD candidate, Brown University)
Title: Mindreading mechanisms in High-functioning Autism
Abstract: High-functioning adults on the autism spectrum (HFA adults) pass first- and second- order theory of mind tasks, yet they struggle to produce and make use of accurate mental state information on a variety of other contexts. One task HFA adults struggle with is "faux pas" task, an advanced test of theory of mind, in which a story character commits an unintentional offense because she has a false belief. In this project I explore the specific mechanisms underlying continued ToM deficits in adulthood, addressing two possible accounts of HFA adults’ struggles on the faux pas task. First, HFA adults may lack the ability to infer novel mental state information from behavior. Second, even if HFA adults might glean such mental state information, they may lack the ability to integrate the information into a coherent understanding of behavior. I discuss emerging results from two ongoing studies, each being conducted in a distinct population of HFA adults.
Dec 4 - Mina Cikara (Assistant Professor, Harvard University)
Title: Their pain, our pleasure
Abstract: Why do interactions become more hostile when social relations shift from “me versus you” to “us versus them”? One possibility is a failure of empathy, which is particularly likely for socially distant targets, such as members of different social or cultural groups. We systematically explore the conditions under which people not only empathize less with out-group relative to in-group members, but also feel pleasure in response to their pain (and pain in response to their pleasure). Another possibility is that acting with a group can reduce spontaneous self-referential processing in the moral domain and, in turn, facilitate competitor harm. We tested this hypothesis in an fMRI experiment in which (i) participants performed a competitive task once alone and once with a group; (ii) spontaneous self-referential processing during competition was indexed unobtrusively by activation in an independently localized region of the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) associated with self-reference; and (iii) we assessed participants' willingness to harm competitors versus teammates. As predicted, participants who showed reduced mPFC activation in response to descriptions of their own moral behaviors while competing in a group were more willing to harm competitors. These results suggest that intergroup competition (above and beyond inter-personal competition) can reduce self-referential processing of moral information, enabling harmful behaviors towards members of a competitive group.
Title: The Calculus of Peacemaking.
Abstract: Third-parties have acted as peacemakers since the dawn of history. However, little is known about the causes and consequences of voluntary, informal third-party intervention in conflict. Eleven experiments investigated when, why, and how third-parties intervene in others’ conflicts, transform them, and promote cooperation. Overall, this program of research finds that: (a) The mere possibility of third-party intervention is sufficient to increase cooperation among disputants; (b) Third-parties’ willingness to intervene critically depends on their ability to secure gains and avoid costs to themselves; (c) The positive effects of introducing third-party intervention are evident even following a history of conflict; and (d) persist even after the third-party leaves; (e) higher-ranking group members are more likely to intervene in others’ conflicts, an effect mediated by powerholders’ heightened approach tendencies. Taken together, these findings highlight the potential benefits of constructively engaging third-parties in conflict.
Oct 2 - Michael Schober (Professor, the New School for Social Research)
Title: Communication technology alters pragmatic and cognitive processes
Abstract: Pragmatic forces in spoken interaction can be altered by the affordances of communication technologies—texting rather than talking, interacting with a computer rather than a person. The resulting changes in people’s cognitive processes have important implications for response validity and accuracy in interviews, experiments, and therapy, as well as for how we understand each other in everyday interactions.
Nov 13 - Kiley Hamlin (Associate Professor, University of British Columbia)
Title: The origins of human morality: Complex socio-moral evaluation and action in the first two years of life
Abstract: In recent decades there has been an increasing focus on the evolutionary, neurological, and developmental bases of humans’ moral sense. This talk will summarize recent research with human infants, suggesting that some aspects of a moral sense are present early in ontogeny and may be organized in advance of experience. Within the first year of life, infants prefer those who help, versus harm, unknown third parties. Rather than reflecting simple social rules like "helpful=good," infants' social preferences privilege the mental states of both the agents and the recipients of prosocial and antisocial acts and differ based on context rather than on the absolute value of individual acts. In the second year of life, infants begin to direct their overt prosocial actions towards those who have helped third parties and antisocial actions towards those who have hindered them. Similarly to their social preferences, infants' prosocial and antisocial acts are sensitive to recipients' mental states and are contextually nuanced. Together, these results support the hypothesis that the human moral sense is rooted in evolved, universal capacities for sociomoral evaluation and action.
Nov 20 - Joanna Korman (PhD candidate, Brown University)
Title: Mindreading mechanisms in High-functioning Autism
Abstract: High-functioning adults on the autism spectrum (HFA adults) pass first- and second- order theory of mind tasks, yet they struggle to produce and make use of accurate mental state information on a variety of other contexts. One task HFA adults struggle with is "faux pas" task, an advanced test of theory of mind, in which a story character commits an unintentional offense because she has a false belief. In this project I explore the specific mechanisms underlying continued ToM deficits in adulthood, addressing two possible accounts of HFA adults’ struggles on the faux pas task. First, HFA adults may lack the ability to infer novel mental state information from behavior. Second, even if HFA adults might glean such mental state information, they may lack the ability to integrate the information into a coherent understanding of behavior. I discuss emerging results from two ongoing studies, each being conducted in a distinct population of HFA adults.
Dec 4 - Mina Cikara (Assistant Professor, Harvard University)
Title: Their pain, our pleasure
Abstract: Why do interactions become more hostile when social relations shift from “me versus you” to “us versus them”? One possibility is a failure of empathy, which is particularly likely for socially distant targets, such as members of different social or cultural groups. We systematically explore the conditions under which people not only empathize less with out-group relative to in-group members, but also feel pleasure in response to their pain (and pain in response to their pleasure). Another possibility is that acting with a group can reduce spontaneous self-referential processing in the moral domain and, in turn, facilitate competitor harm. We tested this hypothesis in an fMRI experiment in which (i) participants performed a competitive task once alone and once with a group; (ii) spontaneous self-referential processing during competition was indexed unobtrusively by activation in an independently localized region of the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) associated with self-reference; and (iii) we assessed participants' willingness to harm competitors versus teammates. As predicted, participants who showed reduced mPFC activation in response to descriptions of their own moral behaviors while competing in a group were more willing to harm competitors. These results suggest that intergroup competition (above and beyond inter-personal competition) can reduce self-referential processing of moral information, enabling harmful behaviors towards members of a competitive group.