PSYC3121 S2 2015 Scientists on Science Assignment

QUESTION

PSYC3121 S2 2015Scientists on Science AssignmentDue: Friday, 25 September, midnightOverviewIn this assignment, you will write a media piece for the fictional news outlet, Scientists on Science. Thismedia piece should be oriented to a general readership – that is, the audience is the general public whomay or may not be trained in science, psychology, or statistics. You are to fulfil the following “brief” forthe media piece:At Scientists on Science (SoS), we ask scientists to become journalists. Your job in this pieceis to cover the findings of Fay & Maner (2015): “Embodied effects are moderated bysituational cues: Warmth, threat, and the desire for affiliation” You need to convey thefindings of this research article in an engaging way, so that our audience will be interestedin reading the article. You must also present the findings reported in this article in anobjective, balanced, and accurate manner that reflects your understanding of the findingsusing a critical thinking approach.Here at SoS, we believe in placing recent findings into the broader context in which theyappear. Therefore, you also need to integrate relevant research, describing at least one, butnot more than three, other studies that relate to this topic.You do not need to source a photo, but you do need to propose a title for your piece. The bodyof your piece should be no longer than 1000 words.With regard to integrating relevant research, you should only include academic, peer-reviewed journalarticles. Unpublished manuscripts, student theses/dissertations, conference abstracts, books, and othersources should not be used. You should only cite sources that you have read.Assignment Length and FormattingThe body of your assignment (excluding the heading, Title, by-line, and References) should be no longerthan 1000 words. It should be in 12-point Times New Roman font, be double-spaced throughout (andshould not have extra spaces between paragraphs), and have 2.54 cm margins.The References section of your assignment should follow the same formatting rules as above with regardto font, spacing, and margins. The references should appear immediately at the end of the body of yourassignment, not on a new page, with the word “References” centred above them. Each citation shouldfollow APA 6th-edition formatting guidelines. Note that you do not need to include the digital objectidentifier (i.e., “doi”) or URL for each citation.You do not need a cover page. The top of the first page should appear as follows:Scientists on Science Assignment – PSYC3121 S2 2015[your name]Tutor: [your tutor’s name]Tutorial: [your tutorial day and time][Title of your media piece]By [your name]Assignment SubmissionYou must submit your assignment to the Turnitin link on the course Moodle site. No hardcopysubmissions are needed. DUE: Friday, 25 September, midnight. Late assignments will receive adeduction in marks according to School policy. Turnitin is a plagiarism checking tool and the results ofthe plagiarism analysis will be reviewed by the Course Coordinator. Suspected plagiarism will bereported to the School of Psychology Student Ethics Officer for investigation.(see other side for assignment assessment criteria)Assessment CriteriaYou will be assessed on the following criteria:Attribution of sources: whenever research is referenced, including the target article, refer to the sourcein text, including the journal name, if relevant.Overall readability (including grammar and sentence structure)Engagement: successful tone that engages the reader without being too chatty.Objectivity: avoidance of sensationalising or editorializing, especially with regard to the target article.Balanced coverage: achievement of balance between accurately portraying the research and notincluding too much information. This balance is dependent upon the audience. The author needs todecide which aspects of the study design are relevant to describe (e.g., covariates, comparisonconditions).Accurate conclusion-making: conclusions should be drawn within the framework of the statisticsutilised by the researchers.Integration of other, relevant research: success with which at least one but no more than three otherstudies/articles that relate to this topic are integrated into the piece. The relevance of that other researchneeds to be made clear.NOTE: While author and expert interviews were described as a positive aspect of media coveragein prior tutorials, do not contact the authors of this research or other researchers in order to conductan interview for the purposes of this assignment.291British Journal of Social Psychology (2015), 54, 291–305© 2014 The British Psychological Societywww.wileyonlinelibrary.comEmbodied effects are moderated by situationalcues: Warmth, threat, and the desire for affiliationAdam J. Fay1* and Jon K. Maner212Department of Psychology, SUNY Oswego, New York, USADepartment of Management and Organizations, Kellogg School of Management,Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, USARecent research demonstrates fundamental links between low-level bodily states andhigher order psychological processes. How those links interact with the surroundingsocial context, however, is not well-understood. Findings from two experiments indicatethat the psychological link between physical warmth and social affiliation depends on thesituation in which the warmth is experienced. Participants who had been primed withphysical threat (as compared with control conditions) responded to warmth withstronger increases in affiliative motivation. This effect replicated across different threatand warmth primes. These findings support a view in which physical sensations interactdynamically with aspects of the immediate situation to influence the activation andapplication of higher order social processes. This view implies that many embodiedpsychological processes could function to help people respond adaptively to situationalthreats and opportunities.Recent experiments suggest the presence of fundamental links between low-level physicalsensations and higher order psychological processes. Physical weight influences subjectivejudgments of importance (Jostmann, Lakens, & Schubert, 2009); verticality increasesperceptions of social power (Schubert, 2005); and physical warmth leads people to see theworld through the lens of social affiliation (Fay & Maner, 2012; Williams & Bargh, 2008).Such findings reinforce the notion that many social-cognitive processes are closelyintertwined with low-level perceptions of the physical environment (Barsalou, 2008;Glenberg, 2010; Lakoff & Johnson, 1999; Meier, Schnall, Schwarz, & Bargh, 2012), and evenwith metaphors that invoke the presence of physical stimuli (Citron & Goldberg, 2014).Theories of embodied cognition – which emphasize the dynamic interactions amongperception, action, and cognition – provide a useful explanatory framework forunderstanding such findings. Nevertheless, researchers have called for studies thatenhance our understanding of the nature of embodied processes and move beyond simpledemonstrations of their existence (Meier et al., 2012). One way to increase ourunderstanding of how bodily sensations influence psychological states is to investigatemoderating variables. Examining the moderating effects of social context, in particular,has potential for generating important insight into the nature and function of embodiedprocesses (Semin & Smith, 2002).*Correspondence should be addressed to Adam Fay, Department of Psychology, SUNY Oswego, 7060 State Route 104, Oswego,NY 13126, USA (email: adam.fay@oswego.edu).DOI:10.1111/bjso.12088292Adam J. Fay and Jon K. ManerPsychological responses to bodily sensations may serve important social functions(Kaschak & Maner, 2009). To the extent that a link between physical sensations and socialcognition serves some function, one would expect that link to operate more strongly insome circumstances than others. For example, if the link between verticality and powerhelps people understand and interface with social hierarchies, then that link might comeonline especially in circumstances involving social hierarchy (e.g., interactions withleaders or subordinates). Identifying when particular processes come online speaks to thetypes of challenges those processes may be designed to face.Nevertheless, most previous investigations have tested for basic main effects (ratherthan moderated effects) of sensory states on psychological processes. Thus, the extantliterature sometimes provides a view in which sensory primes seem to activate higherorder psychological processes in a relatively constant fashion across people andsituations. If people’s reactions to bodily sensations facilitate functional responses tothe demands of a given social situation, however, those reactions should be observedprimarily when they are germane to the demands of that situation. That is, the activationand application of embodied processes should be responsive to functionally relevantcontextual cues. Thus, investigating the moderating effects of social context can helpclarify the dynamics through which embodied mental processes are activated and applied,as well as the functions those processes might serve.Most previous studies of embodied social cognition have stopped short of examiningsituational moderating variables. Whereas some researchers have begun to identifyindividual difference moderators of embodiment or metaphor effects (Fay & Maner, 2012;IJzerman, Karremans, Thomsen, & Schubert, 2013; Landau, Oyserman, Keefer, & Smith,2014; Robinson & Fetterman, 2013; Schnall, Haidt, Clore, & Jordan, 2008), much less isknown about situational moderators (see, however, Lee & Schwarz, 2012). In the currentresearch, we extend the literature by investigating a hypothesized situational moderatorof the embodied link between warmth and affiliation.Warmth and social affiliationNumerous studies have documented a psychological link between temperature and socialprocesses (e.g., Gockel, Kolb, & Werth, 2014; Steinmetz & Mussweiler, 2011). Inparticular, warmth has been implicated in social-affiliative processes (e.g., IJzerman &Semin, 2009, 2010). For example, holding a warm beverage leads people to judge others asfriendlier and more inviting (Williams & Bargh, 2008). Following the experience ofphysical warmth, people also behave in affiliative and friendly ways (IJzerman et al., 2013;Kang, Williams, Clark, Gray, & Bargh, 2011).Previous work suggests that warmth motivates social affiliation, in part, becausewarmth psychologically signals the presence of someone nearby who could provide asource of affiliation (Fay & Maner, 2012). In the same way that babies use warmth as a cueto their mother’s presence, so too may adults use warmth as a cue to the nearby presenceof a potential caregiver or other source of affiliation (Williams, Huang, & Bargh, 2009).Perceiving a nearby source of affiliation, in turn, may increase people’s motivation toaffiliate because people are generally more motivated to pursue a goal as their proximity tothat goal increases (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1974; F€rster, Liberman, & Friedman, 2007).oIndeed, warm temperature sensations have been shown to increase both perceptions ofproximity and motivations to affiliate (Fay & Maner, 2012).Research has begun to identify individual difference moderators of the warmth–affiliation link. For example, the extent to which warmth activates affiliative cognitionWarmth, threat, and affiliation293depends on individual differences in attachment style (Fay & Maner, 2012; IJzerman et al.,2013). That is, although warmth has been shown to increase affiliative social responses,this pattern was not observed among all people. Such evidence suggests that the extent towhich feelings of warmth bring affiliative thoughts and motives online depends on one’schronic social goals and schemas. In the current article, we propose that the link betweenwarmth and affiliation may be sensitive also to the social context in which warmth isexperienced. That is, warmth may increase people’s motivation to affiliate more stronglyin some situations than in others.Affiliation under conditions of threatOne type of situation that may potentiate the psychological link between warmth andaffiliation involves the presence of danger. How people respond to physical threats hasbeen shown to depend on the affordances present in the threatening situation (Cesario,Plaks, Hagiwara, Navarrete, & Higgins, 2010). Although danger often promotes animmediate orientation towards fight or flight (Blanchard, Flannelly, & Blanchard, 1986;Blanchard, Hynd, Minke, Minemoto, & Blanchard, 2001), if a potential ally is nearbypeople often turn towards that person as a source of safety or defence (Van Vugt, DeCremer, & Janssen, 2007). There is safety in numbers, and bonding with others can helpindividuals ward off threats when potential allies are present.Indeed, classic research in social psychology suggests that the presence of a physicalthreat promotes cognitive and behavioural changes associated with the pursuit ofaffiliation, so long as affiliative targets are nearby and available (e.g., Sarnoff & Zimbardo,1961). For example, threats can promote agreeableness (White et al., 2012) and facialmimicry (Gump & Kulik, 1997), two factors that may increase a person’s success informing social bonds. Critically, such affiliative tunings may be deployed mainly whendirected towards a person representing a strong prospect for affiliation. For example, aftera threat prime, people become more agreeable towards familiar others but not strangers;they also display intentions to help ingroup members but not outgroup members (Whiteet al., 2012). Attempting to affiliate in the context of a threat can backfire if theprospective allies do not provide assistance or are themselves dangerous. Indeed, whenconfronted with unfamiliar outgroups, people may become less affiliative after a threatprime (White et al., 2012). Thus, affiliative strategies in response to threat are oftenobserved mainly in circumstances that afford promising and immediate prospects forsocial bonding.Our theoretical framework implies that although social avoidance might be a reflexiveresponse to threat when affiliation is not possible or is uncertain, people may instead bemotivated to affiliate if promising allies are nearby. Consequently, in the presence ofthreat, people may become especially responsive to cues – such as warmth – that signalstrong opportunities for social affiliation. Thus, upon perceiving that a strong opportunityfor affiliation is present, people who feel threatened may be especially likely to pursueaffiliation rather than display a fight or flight response. Consequently, the degree to whichwarmth activates affiliative motivation may depend on whether that warmth isexperienced in the context of a perceived threat.We conducted two experiments to investigate the interactive effects of warmth andthreat on people’s level of affiliative motivation. In the absence of cues signalling thepresence of potential allies, threat might lead people to adopt a general orientationtowards avoiding other people (Neuberg, Kenrick, & Schaller, 2011). However, whenpeople are primed with threat, they may also become particularly attentive to cues in the294Adam J. Fay and Jon K. Manerenvironment – such as warmth – that signal the presence of others who could providesafety or support. When such cues are perceived in the context of a threatening situation,the perception of those cues may potentiate an especially strong desire to bond with otherpeople, because those bonds could help the individual avoid danger. Thus, in the currentwork, we hypothesized that warmth would lead to stronger activation of affiliativemotivation when experienced in a threatening context than when experienced in aneutral context.EXPERIMENT 1Experiment 1 tested the hypothesis that warmth (vs. non-warm control) leads to higherlevels of affiliative motivation when participants are primed with threat as compared witha neutral state. After viewing either a threat-inducing or neutral video clip, participantswere primed with warmth (via a heating pad) or non-warm control. Participants thenreported on their level of affiliative motivation.MethodParticipantsNinety-three undergraduates (aged 18–31; 68 female) participated in exchange for coursecredit. Data collection was terminated at the end the academic term. No participants wereexcluded from the analyses.Materials and procedureAfter reporting to the laboratory, participants were told that the first part of the studyinvolved a perspective-taking exercise. Participants then underwent a threat manipulation from previous research (Maner et al., 2005; Miller, Maner, & Becker, 2010).Participants were randomly assigned to watch one of two film clips (approximately 7 minlong) while imagining the thoughts and feelings of the main character in the clip (Gross &Levenson, 1995). In the threat condition, participants watched a clip from the film Silenceof the Lambs (Bozman, Saxon, Utt, & Demme, 1991) in which a serial killer stalks an FBIagent through a dark basement. To enhance the manipulation, the lights in thewindowless laboratory room were turned off and remained off for the duration of theexperiment. This was done because ambient darkness has been shown to promoteperceptions of threat (Schaller, Park, & Mueller, 2003). In the neutral condition,participants in a well-lit room viewed time-lapsed videography of urban living from thefilm Koyaanisqatsi (Reggio & Coppola, 1983).The experimenter explained that, after watching the film clip, participants wouldanswer questionnaires as part of an unrelated study regarding sensation and cognition.After viewing the film clip, participants moved to a computer and completed aquestionnaire containing the dependent measure. (The experimenter was not in the roomat this time so as to eliminate any social interaction.) While completing the questionnaire,participants sat on a different chair which, by random assignment, had a Sunbeam 765-500electric heating pad (Sunbeam, Boca Raton, FL, USA) set to low heat (approximately 47°C;warm condition) or no heat pad (control condition). Participants in all conditions sat on apadded desk chair, and began the questionnaire immediately upon sitting. In the warmcondition, the heating pad was placed on the seat of the chair and turned on before theWarmth, threat, and affiliation295participant entered the laboratory to ensure that it was fully heated before the warmthmanipulation. Participants in the warm condition were told merely that the computer taskconcerned ‘how physical sensations influence cognition’, and that the heating pad playeda role in the study (no information was offered about the nature of that role or thehypotheses of the study).Participants then completed the 10-item Need to Belong (NTB) scale (Leary, Kelly,Cottrell, & Schreindorfer, 2007; e.g., ‘I need to feel that there are people I can turn to intimes of need;’ ‘I want other people to accept me’, a = .77). Participants were told only torate their agreement with each statement, and did so on 5-point scales from stronglydisagree to strongly agree. This provided a dependent measure of social-affiliativemotivation.Results and discussionWe conducted a 2 (threat vs. neutral) 9 2 (warm vs. control) ANOVA on participants’NTB scores. There was no main effect of threat condition, F(1, 89) = 0.11, p = .75,g2 = .001. We observed a main effect of warmth condition, F(1, 89) = 5.97, p = .02,pg2 = .06, such that those in the warmth condition (Mwarm = 3.51, SDwarm = .60)pdisplayed greater NTB than in the control condition (Mcontrol = 3.22, SDcontrol = .63).However, this effect was qualified by an interaction between warmth and threatcondition, F(1, 89) = 4.78, p = .03, g2 = .05. Planned contrasts revealed that warmthp(compared to control) increased people’s NTB scores in the threat condition,F(1, 89) = 9.85, p = .002, g2 = .10 (Mwarm = 3.68, SDwarm = .58; Mcontrol = 3.09,pSDcontrol = .56), but not in the neutral condition, F(1, 89) = 0.04, p = .85 (Mwarm = 3.36,SDwarm = .59; Mcontrol = 3.33, SDcontrol = .67). See Figure 1.To interpret the pattern further, we tested the effect of threat in each temperaturecondition. In the warmth condition, threat (relative to neutral) increased NTB, F(1,89) = 3.53, p = .06, g2 = .04. There was no effect of threat in the control temperaturepcondition, F(1, 89) = 1.57, p = .21, g2 = .02. A planned 3 versus 1 contrast comparingpparticipants in the threat/warmth condition to the other conditions confirmed thatFigure 1. Warmth increased self-reported affiliative motivation (relative to control) in the threatcondition but not the neutral condition. Error bars represent standard errors.296Adam J. Fay and Jon K. Manerparticipants in that condition displayed the highest levels of NTB F(1, 89) = 8.70,p = .004, g2 = .09.pThus, the effect of warmth on level of affiliative motivation depended on whetherpeople were primed with threat. Although there was a statistical main effect of warmth onaffiliative motivation, this effect was qualified by an interaction with the surroundingsocial context. Participants who watched a threat-inducing film clip responded to warmthwith increased self-reported affiliative motivation, whereas participants who experiencedwarmth in a neutral context did not. The effect of warmth in participants primed withthreat may have reflected a desire for safety or social support. Thus, the operation of thewarmth–affiliation link depended on moderating effects of the immediate social context.There were no effects of threat in the absence of warmth, which may reflect competingfight versus flight responses in the absence of a strong affiliative opportunity.One limitation of this study is that it used a highly overt affective procedure to primeperceptions of threat. Although the prime was intended to prime threat and evoke selfprotective motivation, one possibility is that the priming procedure may also have evokedmore general affective responses (including negative mood). Negative mood has beenshown to induce a tendency towards generating concrete construals (Maglio & Trope,2012), which can make people especially sensitive to sensory primes (Labroo & Patrick,2009). Therefore, in Experiment 2, we sought to replicate this pattern using a moreimplicit priming manipulation in order to demonstrate that the effects generalize acrossdifferent types of primes and to rule out the possibility that the effects are due simply toalterations in mood.1EXPERIMENT 2In Experiment 2, we sought to replicate the finding that warmth leads to stronger levels ofaffiliative motivation when people have been primed with threat as compared to a neutralstate. Whereas Experiment 1 used a highly salient threat prime (a frightening film clip),Experiment 2 used an implicit word-search threat prime, which was not expected toinfluence participants’ mood. After being primed with threat (or neutral prime), weprimed warmth by asking participants to hold a warm beverage (or cold beverage in acontrol condition). Following Experiment 1, we predicted that holding the warmbeverage would increase affiliative motivation (compared to control) especially amongpeople who had just completed the threat word search.In addition, we included an exploratory condition to test the possibility that primingpeople with the concept of caregiver might also moderate effects of warmth on affiliativemotivation. Recent research suggests that the warmth–affiliation link may be rooted inpeople’s interactions with early caregivers (Fay & Maner, 2012; IJzerman et al., 2013).Therefore, we wondered if experiencing a caregiver prime might shape people’smotivational responses to warmth consistent with the particular social motivationsevoked by caregivers. In considering effects of a caregiver prime, we entertained twocompeting predictions. On the one hand, after a caregiver prime (similar to a threat prime)people may respond to warmth with increased affiliative motivation. If priming the idea of1Data from an independent sample of 39 participants confirmed that the word-search manipulation in Experiment 2 did notinfluence participants’ mood (assessed via the Brief Mood Introspection Scale; Mayer & Gaschke, 1988). There were nodifferences between priming conditions in affective valence, F(2, 36) = 0.60, p = .56; Mthreat = 5.85, SDthreat = 7.66;Mneutral = 8.38, SDneutral = 5.45; Mcaregiver = 5.8…

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