Asch, S. E.. (1956). Studies of independence and conformity: I. A minority of one against a unanimous majority.. Psychological Monographs: General and Applied
“The investigations described in this series are concerned with the conditions of independence and lack of independence in the face of group pressure. the abstract temper of present-day theory and investigation in this region rests to a considerable degree on a neglect of the cognitive and emotional experiences that are part of the individual’s psychological field. the understanding of social influences will require the study of a wide range of conditions and of the interrelated operations of different psychological functions. a group of seven to nine individuals was gathered in a classroom to take part in what appeared to be a simple experiment in visual discrimination. the subjects were all male, white college students, ranging in age from 17 to 25; the mean age was 20. for certain purposes a large number of critical subjects was required for the present experiment. the present report is based on a total of 123 subjects. the task consisted of the comparison of a standard line with three other lines, one of which was equal in length to the standard. we investigated some of the conditions responsible for independence and lack of independence in the face of arbitrary group pressure. to this end we produced a disagreement between a group and one individual member about a clear and simple issue of fact. the interview, which followed the experimental session, provided qualitative evidence concerning the effects produced by the majority, the particular properties of the experimental situation and their relation to more usual social contradictions were described. (psycinfo database record (c) 2012 apa, all rights reserved)”
Baron, R. S., Vandello, J. A., & Brunsman, B.. (1996). The Forgotten Variable in Conformity Research: Impact of Task Importance on Social Influence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
“Two studies examined how incentives for accuracy (task importance) affected the social influence of inaccurate confederates in a modified asch situation (s. e. asch, 1951). not unexpectedly, when task difficulty was low, incentives for accuracy reduced the social impact of (inaccurate) confederates (study 1). however, when task difficulty was increased, the reverse was true, with individuals conforming more to an inaccurate confederate norm when incentives for accuracy were high (studies 1 and 2). the results are discussed in terms of possible mediating mechanisms and also in terms of their historical and pragmatic implications.”
Kundu, P., & Cummins, D. D.. (2013). Morality and conformity: The Asch paradigm applied to moral decisions. Social Influence
“Morality has long been considered an inherent quality, an internal moral compass that is unswayed by the actions of those around us. the solomon asch paradigm was employed to gauge whether moral decision making is subject to conformity under social pressure as other types of decision making have been shown to be. participants made decisions about moral dilemmas either alone or in a group of confederates posing as peers. on a majority of trials confederates rendered decisions that were contrary to judgments typically elicited by the dilemmas. the results showed a pronounced effect of conformity: compared to the control condition, permissible actions were deemed less permissible when confederates found them objectionable, and impermissible actions were judged more permissible if confederates judged them so.”
Walker, M. B., & Andrade, M. G.. (1996). Conformity in the asch task as a function of age. Journal of Social Psychology
“The social conformity paradigm of asch (1956) was replicated to investigate the relationship between age and conformist behavior. one hundred ten australian school children and adolescents between 3 and 17 years of age participated in the study. each participant was placed in the position of being a minority of 1 against a wrong but unanimous majority of 3. the results indicate that conformity decreases with age in perceptually unambiguous tasks. conflicting evidence from earlier studies can be attributed to task ambiguity in those studies.”
Cinnirella, M., & Green, B.. (2007). Does “cyber-conformity” vary cross-culturally? Exploring the effect of culture and communication medium on social conformity. Computers in Human Behavior
“The article focuses on a study in which the effect of centrality in social networks is determined. it states that in a social network centrality has effect on a conformity named asch-type conformity. it mentions that respect social network data and friendship affinity data was collected for two different groups of actors. it informs that central actors are not interested in conforming whereas peripheral actors willing to conform which was expected in asch-type conformity.”
Gerard, H. B., Wilhelmy, R. A., & Conolley, E. S.. (1968). Conformity and group size.. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
“Asch (1951) found a curvilinear relationship between majority size and conformity such that conformity increased with increases in group size up to a majority of 3 and then leveled off. it was hypothesized here that this effect was due to a perceived contingency of the choices of the others and that if perceived contingency were eliminated, conformity would be a linear function of group size. the procedure in 1 treatment was designed to induce perceived contingency in the others’ choices, that is, that they were following the leader, whereas in the other treatment an attempt was made to induce the perception that the others were responding independently of one another. the data indicate a linear trend under both perceived contingency and perceived independence.”
Rosenberg, L.. (1961). Group size, prior experience, and conformity. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology
“An effort was made to validate the findings of 2 previous workers regarding the effect of the size of a group (asch, 1952) and prior experience (mausner, 1953, 1954, 1957) upon conformity in the judgment of the length of lines. the results of asch and mausner were reproduced; there is a curvilinear relationship between size of a group (from 2 to 5) and influence on s to conform to what he believes are the estimates of the lines made by others. prior experience in making judgments of the lines was also found to influence the accuracy of judgment. (psycinfo database record (c) 2012 apa, all rights reserved)”
Neural top–down control of physiology concerns the direct regulation by the brain of emotional and physiological functions. Cellular functions include the immune system’s production of T-lymphocytes and antibodies, and nonimmune related homeostatic functions such as liver gluconeogenesis, sodium reabsorption, osmoregulation, and brown adipose tissue nonshivering thermogenesis.More at Wikipedia
Chiesa, A., Serretti, A., & Jakobsen, J. C.. (2013). Mindfulness: Top-down or bottom-up emotion regulation strategy?. Clinical Psychology Review
McRae, K., Misra, S., Prasad, A. K., Pereira, S. C., & Gross, J. J.. (2012). Bottom-up and top-down emotion generation: Implications for emotion regulation. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience
“Emotion regulation plays a crucial role in adaptive functioning and mounting evidence suggests that some emotion regulation strategies are often more effective than others. however, little attention has been paid to the different ways emotions can be generated: from the ‘bottom-up’ (in response to inherently emotional perceptual properties of the stimulus) or ‘top-down’ (in response to cognitive evaluations). based on a process priming principle, we hypothesized that mode of emotion generation would interact with subsequent emotion regulation. specifically, we predicted that top-down emotions would be more successfully regulated by a top-down regulation strategy than bottom-up emotions. to test this hypothesis, we induced bottom-up and top-down emotions, and asked participants to decrease the negative impact of these emotions using cognitive reappraisal. we observed the predicted interaction between generation and regulation in two measures of emotional responding. as measured by self-reported affect, cognitive reappraisal was more successful on top-down generated emotions than bottom-up generated emotions. neurally, reappraisal of bottom-up generated emotions resulted in a paradoxical increase of amygdala activity. this interaction between mode of emotion generation and subsequent regulation should be taken into account when comparing of the efficacy of different types of emotion regulation, as well as when reappraisal is used to treat different types of clinical disorders.”
Terhune, D. B., Cleeremans, A., Raz, A., & Lynn, S. J.. (2017). Hypnosis and top-down regulation of consciousness. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews
“Hypnosis is a unique form of top-down regulation in which verbal suggestions are capable of eliciting pronounced changes in a multitude of psychological phenomena. hypnotic suggestion has been widely used both as a technique for studying basic science questions regarding human consciousness but also as a method for targeting a range of symptoms within a therapeutic context. here we provide a synthesis of current knowledge regarding the characteristics and neurocognitive mechanisms of hypnosis. we review evidence from cognitive neuroscience, experimental psychopathology, and clinical psychology regarding the utility of hypnosis as an experimental method for modulating consciousness, as a model for studying healthy and pathological cognition, and as a therapeutic vehicle. we also highlight the relations between hypnosis and other psychological phenomena, including the broader domain of suggestion and suggestibility, and conclude by identifying the most salient challenges confronting the nascent cognitive neuroscience of hypnosis and outlining future directions for research on hypnosis and suggestion.”
Zelazo, P. D., & Carlson, S. M.. (2012). Hot and Cool Executive Function in Childhood and Adolescence: Development and Plasticity. Child Development Perspectives
“Executive function (ef), which refers to the more deliberate, top-down neurocognitive processes involved in self-regulation, develops most rapidly during the preschool years, together with the growth of neural networks involving prefrontal cortex but continues to develop well into adulthood. both ef and the neural systems supporting ef vary as a function of motivational significance, and this article discusses the distinction between the top-down processes that operate in motivationally and emotionally significant situations (‘hot ef’) and the top-down processes that operate is more affectively neutral contexts (‘cool ef’). emerging evidence indicates that both hot and cool ef are surprisingly malleable, with implications for intervention and prevention.”
Johnstone, T., van Reekum, C. M., Urry, H. L., Kalin, N. H., & Davidson, R. J.. (2007). Failure to Regulate: Counterproductive Recruitment of Top-Down Prefrontal-Subcortical Circuitry in Major Depression. Journal of Neuroscience
“Although depressed mood is a normal occurrence in response to adversity in all individuals, what distinguishes those who are vulnerable to major depressive disorder (mdd) is their inability to effectively regulate negative mood when it arises. investigating the neural underpinnings of adaptive emotion regulation and the extent to which such processes are compromised in mdd may be helpful in understanding the pathophysiology of depression. we report results from a functional magnetic resonance imaging study demonstrating left-lateralized activation in the prefrontal cortex (pfc) when downregulating negative affect in nondepressed individuals, whereas depressed individuals showed bilateral pfc activation. furthermore, during an effortful affective reappraisal task, nondepressed individuals showed an inverse relationship between activation in left ventrolateral pfc and the amygdala that is mediated by the ventromedial pfc (vmpfc). no such relationship was found for depressed individuals, who instead show a positive association between vmpfc and amygdala. pupil dilation data suggest that those depressed patients who expend more effort to reappraise negative stimuli are characterized by accentuated activation in the amygdala, insula, and thalamus, whereas nondepressed individuals exhibit the opposite pattern. these findings indicate that a key feature underlying the pathophysiology of major depression is the counterproductive engagement of right prefrontal cortex and the lack of engagement of left lateral-ventromedial prefrontal circuitry important for the downregulation of amygdala responses to negative stimuli.”
Heatherton, T. F., & Wagner, D. D.. (2011). Cognitive neuroscience of self-regulation failure. Trends in Cognitive Sciences
Holzman, J. B., & Bridgett, D. J.. (2017). Heart rate variability indices as bio-markers of top-downself-regulatory mechanisms: A meta-analytic review. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews
“Theoretical perspectives posit that heart-rate variability (hrv) reflects self-regulatory capacity and therefore can be employed as a bio-marker of top-downself-regulation (the ability to regulate behavioral, cognitive, and emotional processes). however, existing findings of relations between self-regulation and hrv indices are mixed. to clarify the nature of such relations, we conducted a meta-analysis of 123 studies (n = 14,347) reporting relations between hrv indices and aspects of top-downself-regulation (e.g., executive functioning, emotion regulation, effortful control). a significant, albeit small, effect was observed (r = 0.09) such that greater hrv was related to better top-downself-regulation. differences in relations were negligible across aspects of self-regulation, self-regulation measurement methods, hrv computational techniques, at-risk compared with healthy samples, and the context of hrv measurement. stronger relations were observed in older relative to younger samples and in published compared to unpublished studies. these findings generally support the notion that hrv indices can tentatively be employed as bio-markers of top-downself-regulation. conceptual and theoretical implications, and critical gaps in current knowledge to be addressed by future work, are discussed.”
Kerr, C. E., Sacchet, M. D., Lazar, S. W., Moore, C. I., & Jones, S. R.. (2013). Mindfulness starts with the body: somatosensory attention and top-down modulation of cortical alpha rhythms in mindfulness meditation. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
“Using a common set of mindfulness exercises, mindfulness based stress reduction (mbsr) and mindfulness based cognitive therapy (mbct) have been shown to reduce distress in chronic pain and decrease risk of depression relapse. these standardized mindfulness (st-mindfulness) practices predominantly require attending to breath and body sensations. here, we offer a novel view of st-mindfulness’s somatic focus as a form of training for optimizing attentional modulation of 7-14 hz alpha rhythms that play a key role in filtering inputs to primary sensory neocortex and organizing the flow of sensory information in the brain. in support of the framework, we describe our previous finding that st-mindfulness enhanced attentional regulation of alpha in primary somatosensory cortex (si). the framework allows us to make several predictions. in chronic pain, we predict somatic attention in st-mindfulness ‘de-biases’ alpha in si, freeing up pain-focused attentional resources. in depression relapse, we predict st-mindfulness’s somatic attention competes with internally focused rumination, as internally focused cognitive processes (including working memory) rely on alpha filtering of sensory input. our computational model predicts st-mindfulness enhances top-down modulation of alpha by facilitating precise alterations in timing and efficacy of si thalamocortical inputs. we conclude by considering how the framework aligns with buddhist teachings that mindfulness starts with ‘mindfulness of the body.’ translating this theory into neurophysiology, we hypothesize that with its somatic focus, mindfulness’ top-down alpha rhythm modulation in si enhances gain control which, in turn, sensitizes practitioners to better detect and regulate when the mind wanders from its somatic focus. this enhanced regulation of somatic mind-wandering may be an important early stage of mindfulness training that leads to enhanced cognitive regulation and metacognition.”
Wagner, D. D., Altman, M., Boswell, R. G., Kelley, W. M., & Heatherton, T. F.. (2013). Self-Regulatory Depletion Enhances Neural Responses to Rewards and Impairs Top-Down Control. Psychological Science
“To be successful at self-regulation, individuals must be able to resist impulses and desires. the strength model of self-regulation suggests that when self-regulatory capacity is depleted, self-control deficits result from a failure to engage top-down control mechanisms. using functional neuroimaging, we examined changes in brain activity in response to viewing desirable foods among 31 chronic dieters, half of whom completed a task known to result in self-regulatory depletion. compared with nondepleted dieters, depleted dieters exhibited greater food-cue-related activity in the orbitofrontal cortex, a brain area associated with coding the reward value and liking aspects of desirable foods; they also showed decreased functional connectivity between this area and the inferior frontal gyrus, a region commonly implicated in self-control. these findings suggest that self-regulatory depletion provokes self-control failure by reducing connectivity between brain regions that are involved in cognitive control and those that represent rewards, thereby decreasing the capacity to resist temptations.”
Phillips, A. G., Vacca, G., & Ahn, S.. (2008). A top-down perspective on dopamine, motivation and memory. Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior
“A train of action potentials (a spike train) can carry information in both the average firing rate and the pattern of spikes in the train. but can such a spike-pattern code be supported by cortical circuits? neurons in vitro produce a spike pattern in response to the injection of a fluctuating current. however, corticalneurons in vivo are modulated by local oscillatory neuronal activity and by top-down inputs. in a cortical circuit, precise spike patterns thus reflect the interaction between internally generated activity and sensory information encoded by input spike trains. we review the evidence for precise and reliable spike timing in the cortex and discuss its computational role.”
Behavioral economics studies the effects of psychological, cognitive, emotional, cultural and social factors on the economicdecisions of individuals and institutions and how those decisions vary from those implied by classical theory.
Ostracism (Greek: ὀστρακισμός, ostrakismos) was a procedure under the Athenian democracy in which any citizen could be expelled from the city-state of Athens for ten years. While some instances clearly expressed popular anger at the citizen, ostracism was often used preemptively. It was used as a way of neutralizing someone thought to be a threat to the state or potential tyrant. It has been called an “honourable exile” by scholar P. J. Rhodes.[1] The word “ostracism” continues to be used for various cases of social shunning.
Whitehead, D.. (2003). Ostracism. The Classical Review
“In this review, i examine the social psychological research on os- tracism, social exclusion, and rejection. being ignored, excluded, and/or rejected signals a threat for which reflexive detection in the form of pain and distress is adaptive for survival. brief ostracism episodes result in sadness and anger and threaten fundamental needs. individuals then act to fortify or replenish their thwarted need or needs. behavioral consequences appear to be split into two gen- eral categories: attempts to fortify relational needs (belonging, self- esteem, shared understanding, and trust), which lead generally to prosocial thoughts and behaviors, or attempts to fortify efficacy/ existence needs of control and recognition that may be dealt with most efficiently through antisocial thoughts and behaviors. avail- able research on chronic exposure to ostracism appears to deplete coping resources, resulting in depression and helplessness.”
Williams, K. D., & Nida, S. A.. (2011). Ostracism: Consequences and coping. Current Directions in Psychological Science
“Ostracism means being ignored and excluded by one or more others. despite the absence of verbal derogation and physical assault, ostracism is painful: it threatens psychological needs (belonging, self-esteem, control, and meaningful existence); and it unleashes a variety of physiological, affective, cognitive, and behavioral responses. here we review the empirical literature on ostracism within the framework of the temporal need-threat model.”
Robinson, S. L., O’Reilly, J., & Wang, W.. (2013). Invisible at Work: An Integrated Model of Workplace Ostracism. Journal of Management
“This article offers a review, integration, and extension of the literature relevant to ostracism in organizations. we first seek to add conceptual clarity to ostracism, by reviewing existing definitions and developing a cohesive one, identifying the key features of workplace ostracism, and distinguishing it from existing organizational constructs. next, we develop a broad model of ostracism in organizations. this model serves to integrate the relevant findings related to ostracism in organizations and to extend our theorizing about it. we take a decidedly organizational focus, proposing organizationally relevant factors that may cause different types of ostracism, moderate the experience of ostracism at work, and moderate the reactions of targets. we hope this article will provide a good foundation for organizational scholars interested in studying ostracism by providing a framework of prior literature and directions for future study.”
Zadro, L., Williams, K. D., & Richardson, R.. (2004). How low can you go? Ostracism by a computer is sufficient to lower self-reported levels of belonging, control, self-esteem, and meaningful existence. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
Sebastian, C., Viding, E., Williams, K. D., & Blakemore, S. J.. (2010). Social brain development and the affective consequences of ostracism in adolescence. Brain and Cognition
Ferris, D. L., Brown, D. J., Berry, J. W., & Lian, H.. (2008). The Development and Validation of the Workplace Ostracism Scale. Journal of Applied Psychology
“This article outlines the development of a 10-item measure of workplace ostracism. using 6 samples (including multisource and multiwave data), the authors developed a reliable scale with a unidimensional factor structure that replicated across 4 separate samples. the scale possessed both convergent and discriminant validity, and criterion-related validity was demonstrated through the scale’s relation with basic needs, well-being, job attitudes, job performance, and withdrawal. overall, the present study suggests that the workplace ostracism scale is a reliable and valid measure and that the workplace ostracism construct has important implications for both individuals and organizations.”
Williams, K. D., Cheung, C. K. T., & Choi, W.. (2000). Cyberostracism: Effects of being ignored over the internet. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
“Ostracism is such a widely used and powerful tactic that the authors tested whether people would be affected by it even under remote and artificial circumstances. in study 1, 1,486 participants from 62 countries accessed the authors’ on-line experiment on the internet. they were asked to use mental visualization while playing a virtual tossing game with two others (who were actually computer generated and controlled). despite the minimal nature of their experience, the more participants were ostracized, the more they reported feeling bad, having less control, and losing a sense of belonging. in study 2, ostracized participants were more likely to conform on a subsequent task. the results are discussed in terms of supporting k. d. williams’s (1997) need threat theory of ostracism.”
Zadro, L., Boland, C., & Richardson, R.. (2006). How long does it last? The persistence of the effects of ostracism in the socially anxious. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
Hartgerink, C. H. J., Van Beest, I., Wicherts, J. M., & Williams, K. D.. (2015). The ordinal effects of ostracism: A meta-analysis of 120 cyberball studies. PLoS ONE
“We examined 120 cyberball studies (n = 11,869) to determine the effect size of ostracism and conditions under which the effect may be reversed, eliminated, or small. our analyses showed that (1) the average ostracism effect is large (d > |1.4|) and (2) generalizes across structural aspects (number of players, ostracism duration, number of tosses, type of needs scale), sampling aspects (gender, age, country), and types of dependent measure (interpersonal, intrapersonal, fundamental needs). further, we test williams’s (2009) proposition that the immediate impact of ostracism is resistant to moderation, but that moderation is more likely to be observed in delayed measures. our findings suggest that (3) both first and last measures are susceptible to moderation and (4) time passed since being ostracized does not predict effect sizes of the last measure. thus, support for this proposition is tenuous and we suggest modifications to the temporal need-threat model of ostracism.”
Wesselmann, E. D., Bagg, D., & Williams, K. D.. (2009). “I Feel Your Pain”: The effects of observing ostracism on the ostracism detection system. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
Warburton, W. A., Williams, K. D., & Cairns, D. R.. (2006). When ostracism leads to aggression: The moderating effects of control deprivation. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
Wolf, W., Levordashka, A., Ruff, J. R., Kraaijeveld, S., Lueckmann, J. M., & Williams, K. D.. (2015). Ostracism Online: A social media ostracism paradigm. Behavior Research Methods
“We describe ostracism online, a novel, social media-based ostracism paradigm designed to (1) keep social interaction experimentally controlled, (2) provide researchers with the flexibility to manipulate the properties of the social situation to fit their research purposes, (3) be suitable for online data collection, (4) be convenient for studying subsequent within-group behavior, and (5) be ecologically valid. after collecting data online, we compared the ostracism online paradigm with the cyberball paradigm (williams & jarvis behavior research methods, 38, 174-180, 2006) on need-threat and mood questionnaire scores (van beest & williams journal of personality and social psychology 91, 918-928, 2006). we also examined whether ostracized targets of either paradigm would be more likely to conform to their group members than if they had been included. using a bayesian analysis of variance to examine the individual effects of the different paradigms and to compare these effects across paradigms, we found analogous effects on need-threat and mood. perhaps because we examined conformity to the ostracizers (rather than neutral sources), neither paradigm showed effects of ostracism on conformity. we conclude that ostracism online is a cost-effective, easy to use, and ecologically valid research tool for studying the psychological and behavioral effects of ostracism.”
Hawkley, L. C., Williams, K. D., & Cacioppo, J. T.. (2011). Responses to ostracism across adulthood. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience
“Ostracism is ubiquitous across the lifespan. from social exclusion on the playground, to romantic rejection, to workplace expulsion, to social disregard for the aged, ostracism threatens a fundamental human need to belong that reflexively elicits social pain and sadness. older adults may be particularly vulnerable to ostracism because of loss of network members and meaningful societal roles. on the other hand, socioemotional selectivity theory suggests that older adults may be less impacted by ostracism because of an age-related positivity bias. we examined these hypotheses in two independent studies, and tested mechanisms that may account for age differences in the affective experience of ostracism. a study of 18- to 86-year-old participants in the time-sharing experiments for the social sciences program showed an age-related decrease in the impact of ostracism on needs satisfaction and negative affectivity. a study of 53- to 71-year-old participants in the chicago health, aging, and social relations study (chasrs) showed that ostracism diminished positive affectivity in younger (<60 years) but not older adults. age group differences in response to ostracism were consistent with the positivity bias hypothesis, were partly explained by age differences in the impact of physical pain, but were not explained by autonomic nervous system activity, computer experience, or intimate social loss or stressful life experiences.”
Carter-Sowell, A. R., Chen, Z., & Williams, K. D.. (2008). Ostracism increases social susceptibility. Social Influence
“Ostracism, the act of ignoring and excluding, is a universally applied tactic of social control. individuals who detect ostracism often change their behaviors to be readmitted into the group, even if it means becoming excessively socially susceptible to influence. we tested whether ostracized individuals are more socially susceptible to a subsequent influence attempt. in this study, 65 undergraduates were randomly assigned to a 2 (inclusion or ostracism)?3 (compliance tactic: foot?in?the door, target request only, door?in?the?face) between?participants design. the participants played cyberball and were either included or ostracized, and then they were approached with a request to donate money. despite no differences between the three tactics, ostracism increased compliance across all request types. our discussion focuses on the implications for ostracism?induced social susceptibility. this material is based on work supported by the national science foundation under grant no. 0519209 awarded to the third author. we would like to thank janice kelly for her comments, and jessica bartman, katherine lang, patrick o’brien, vista ritchie, and kirsten zeiser for their excellent acting skills as confederates. ostracism, the act of ignoring and excluding, is a universally applied tactic of social control. individuals who detect ostracism often change their behaviors to be readmitted into the group, even if it means becoming excessively socially susceptible to influence. we tested whether ostracized individuals are more socially susceptible to a subsequent influence attempt. in this study, 65 undergraduates were randomly assigned to a 2 (inclusion or ostracism)?3 (compliance tactic: foot?in?the door, target request only, door?in?the?face) between?participants design. the participants played cyberball and were either included or ostracized, and then they were approached with a request to donate money. despite no differences between the three tactics, ostracism increased compliance across all request types. our discussion focuses on the implications for ostracism?induced social susceptibility. this material is based on work supported by the national science foundation under grant no.0519209 awarded to the third author. we would like to thank janice kelly for her comments, and jessica bartman, katherine lang, patrick o’brien, vista ritchie, and kirsten zeiser for their excellent acting skills as confederates.”
Nezlek, J. B., Wesselmann, E. D., Wheeler, L., & Williams, K. D.. (2012). Ostracism in everyday life. Group Dynamics
“Ostracism is a negative interpersonal experience that has been studied primarily in laboratory settings in which people have been ostracized by strangers and the motives for being ostracized have been ambiguous. this study extended this research by investigating ostracism as it occurs in daily life, focusing on people’s reflective reactions to being ostracized in their daily lives and on the nature of the ostracism they experience. for 2 weeks, 40 participants (adults residing in the community) described what happened each time they felt ostracized using a diary method modeled after the rochester interaction record (rir; wheeler & nezlek, 1977). the questions in the diary were based on williams’s (2007) need-threat model of ostracism. most ostracism episodes were from persons of equal status, and participants reported lower levels of belonging, control, self-esteem, and meaningful existence after being ostracized. participants’ needs were threatened more when friends or close others had ostracized them than when they had been ostracized by acquaintance and strangers, and they reacted more negatively to punitive, defensive, and oblivious ostracism as opposed to role based or ambiguous ostracism. this research suggests that the reflective effects of ostracism can vary as a function of who ostracizes someone and why people feel they have been ostracized.”
Balliet, D., & Ferris, D. L.. (2013). Ostracism and prosocial behavior: A social dilemma perspective. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes
Goodwin, S. A., Williams, K. D., & Carter-Sowell, A. R.. (2010). The psychological sting of stigma: The costs of attributing ostracism to racism. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
Williams, K. D., & Sommer, K. L.. (1997). Social ostracism by coworkers: Does rejection lead to loafing or compensation?. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
“A new theoretical model and research paradigm are introduced to investigate the phenomenon of social ostracism-being ignored by others who are in one’s presence. the authors examined the effects of social ostracism on individuals’ subsequent contributions to a group task. social loafing optically occurs on collective tasks. however; to regain their sense of belonging to the group, the authors expected ostracized individuals to socially compensate-to work harder collectively than coactively. participants were asked to generate as many uses as they could for an object, either coactively or collectively with two others who had either ostracized or included them in an earlier ball-tossing exchange. ostracized females socially compensated, whereas nonostracized females neither loafed nor compensated. ostracized and nonostracized males socially loafed. based on these data and the accompanying attributional and nonverbal analyses, the authors surmised that males and females interpret and respond to social ostracism differently.”
Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an irrational or dysfunctional decision-making outcome.More at Wikipedia
Whyte, G.. (1989). Groupthink Reconsidered. The Academy of Management Review
“History and the daily newspaper provide examples of policy deci- sions made by groups that resulted in fiascoes. the making of such decisions is frequently attributed to the groupthink phenomenon. a different perspective on the occurrence of policy fiascoes, prospect polarization, is offered. this approach employs, in addition to the pressures for uniformity of groupthink, the notions of framing effects, risk seeking in the domain of losses, and group polarization. the applicability of these theoretical mechanisms to several notorious decision fiascoes, past and present, is discussed.”
Janis, I. L.. (2008). Groupthink. IEEE Engineering Management Review
“The bay of pigs decision makers, as well as other major fiascoes such as the failure to be prepared for the attack on pearl harbour, the korean war stalemate and the escalation of the vietnam war cannot be explained by stupidity. the men involved in these decision making processes comprised some of the greatest arrays of intellectual talent in american history. janis looks at these fiascoes from the standpoint of group dynamics, as explored by kurt lewin, and later by a range of psychologists and behavioural scientists. janis proposes they survived from what he called ‘groupthink’. social psychological experiments have shown that powerful social pressures are often brought to bear by the members of a cohesive group whenever a dissident voice begins to voice his objections to group consensus. there are numerous indications pointing to the development of group norms that bolster morale at the expense of critical thinking. one of the most common norms appears to be that of remaining loyal to the group, and committing to decisions, even when it is clear that policies are working out badly or have unintended consequences. groupthink is a quick way to refer to a mode of thinking that person engage in when concurrence seeking becomes so dominant in a cohesive ingroup that it over rides all other considerations. so members of decision making groups become concerned with the avoidance of harsh judgements of their leaders’ or their colleagues’ ideas. paradoxically, soft headed groups are often hard hearted when it comes to dealing with outgroups or enemies, and find it easy to resort to dehumanzing solutions. they are unlike to pursue alternatives to the aggressive approach. nor are they inclined to raise ethical issues, due to the high levels of regard they hold for the group of which they may belong, that may carry the implication that ‘this fine group of ours, with its humanitarianism and its high minded principles, might be capable of adopting a course of action that in inhumane and immoral’. norms: there is evidence that as the members of a group feel more accepted by others, which is a central feature of increased group cohesiveness, they display less over conformity to group norms. in contrast, the groupthink type of conformity tends to increase as group cohesiveness increases. groupthink involves nondeliberate suppression of critical thoughts as a result of internalization of the group’s norms, which is quite different from deliberate suppression on the b…”
Turner, M. E., Pratkanis, A. R., Probasco, P., & Leve, C.. (2006). Threat, cohesion, and group effectiveness: Testing a social identity maintenance perspective on groupthink. In Small Groups: Key Readings
“Although janis’s concept of groupthink is influential, experimental investigations have provided only weak support for the theory. experiment 1 produced the poor decision quality associated with groupthink by manipulating group cohesion (using group labels) and threat to group members’ self-esteem. self-reports of some groupthink and defective decision-making symptoms were independently, but not interactively, affected by cohesion and threat. experiment 2 confirmed the success of the cohesion manipulation. experiment 3 replicated the poor-quality decision making observed in experiment 1 and provided support for a social identity maintenance perspective on groupthink: groups who operated under groupthink conditions but who were given an excuse for potential poor performance produced significantly higher quality decisions than groups who worked under groupthink conditions alone. the results are used to interpret the groupthink phenomenon as a collective effort directed at warding off potentially negative views of the group.”
Bénabou, R.. (2013). Groupthink: Collective delusions in organizations and markets. Review of Economic Studies
“This article investigates collective denial and willful blindness in groups, organizations, and markets. agents with anticipatory preferences, linked through an interaction structure, choose how to interpret and recall public signals about future prospects. wishful thinking (denial of bad news) is shown to be contagious when it is harmful to others, and self-limiting when it is beneficial. similarly, with kreps–porteus preferences, willful blindness (information avoidance) spreads when it increases the risks borne by others. this general mechanism can generate multiple social cognitions of reality, and in hierarchies it implies that realism and delusion will trickle down from the leaders. the welfare analysis differentiates group morale from groupthink and identifies a fundamental tension in organizations’ attitudes towards dissent. contagious exuberance can also seize asset markets, generating investment frenzies and crashes.”
“How should a group with different opinions (but the same values) make decisions? in a bayesian setting, the natural question is how to aggregate cre-dences: how to use a single credence function to naturally represent a collection of different credence functions. an extension of the standard dutch-book arguments that apply to individual decision-makers recommends that group credences should be updated by conditionalization. this imposes a constraint on what aggregation rules can be like. taking conditionalization as a basic constraint, we gather lessons from the established work on credence aggregation, and extend this work with two new impossibility results. we then explore contrasting features of two kinds of rules that satisfy the constraints we articulate: one kind uses fixed prior credences, and the other uses geometric averaging, as opposed to arithmetic averaging. we also prove a new characterisation result for geometric averaging. finally we consider applica-tions to neighboring philosophical issues, including the epistemology of disagreement.”
Lunenburg, F. C.. (2010). Group decision making: the potential for groupthink. Int. J. of Management, Business and Administration
“Http://www.nationalforum.com/electronic%20journal%20volumes/lunenburg,%20fred%20c.%20group%20decision%20making%20ijmba%20v13%20n1%202010.pdf one dysfunction of highly cohesive groups that has received considerable attention is a phenomenon known as groupthink. essentially, groupthink is the tendency of cohesive groups to reach consensus on issues without offering, seekin g, or considering alternative viewpoints. as a result, groupthink has been blamed for decision making fiascoes in politics , the military, as well as in business. in this article, i discuss some famous examples of political and military fiascoes associated with groupthink, some symptoms of groupthink, and ways to avoid groupthink when making group decision s . ___________________________”
Janis, I. L.. (2007). Groupthink: Psychological studies of policy decisions and fiascoes. Sozialpsychologie: Eine Einführung
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“2nd ed. rev. and enl. ed. of: victims of groupthink. 1972. fiascoes. introduction: why so many miscalculations? ; a perfect failure: the bay of pigs ; in and out of north korea: ‘the wrong war with the wrong enemy’ ; pearl harbor revisited: or, why the fortress slept ; escalation of the vietnam war: how could it happen? — counterpoint. the cuban missile crisis ; the making of the marshall plan. — theory, implications, and applications. the groupthink syndrome ; the watergate cover-up: how clever manipulators can get caught in an avoidable quagmire ; generalizations: who succumbs, when, and why ; preventing groupthink.”
McCauley, C.. (1989). The Nature of Social Influence in Groupthink: Compliance and Internalization. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
“I. l. janis’s (1982b) discussion of groupthink is examined to clarify the nature of social influence leading to poor decision making. beginning from janis’s definition of groupthink as premature consensus seeking, the question raised here is whether compliance (public without private agreement) may be as important as internalization (private acceptance of group consensus) in this phenomenon. analysis of the conditions hypothesized by janis to be conducive to groupthink suggests that, contrary to some of janis’s discussion, these conditions conduce to compliance as well as internalization. consistent with this suggestion, a review of the historical examples cited by janis indicates that compliance was an important part of poor decision making in at least two of these cases. the review also indicates that structural conditions, notably promotional leadership and group insulation, predict occurrence or nonoccurrence of groupthink in janis’s examples, but that neither cohesion nor any situational condition is predictive. experimental studies of groupthink are reviewed in light of this analysis, and suggestions are offered for future research. (psycinfo database record (c) 2012 apa, all rights reserved)”
