Other Minds in Social Context

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Other Minds in Social Context

• February 11

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Multiple processes

• Contagion
• Empathy
• Perspective taking
• General Mental state inference
• State vs. Trait
• Baron-Cohen and others
• Mark Davis

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Social Dimensions

• Social functions
• Understand social cognition
• Coordinate social interaction
• Manipulate social interaction
• Social moderators
• Relationship/liking
• Self-other merging? (Davis et al., Aron et al.)
• Power/status
• Dyad vs. group

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Social Consequences Davis

• Improved communication?
• Only empathic concern trait from ISI
• Common ground research
• In interaction contagion and reciprocity vs.
  empathy and perspective taking
• Relationship satisfaction trait perspective
  taking Forgiving, nonpunitive, considerate style
• Problems Ambiguity effect sizes
  inconsistencies (EC, PT,) little experimental
  work.

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Accuracy

• Ickess interpersonal cognition program
• Empathic accuracy procedure
• Critique?
• Variations by Sara Hodges
• Sex differences?
• Ive been there? video
• Motivated inaccuracy? Simpson et al.

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Please read each statement carefully and consider
how well or poorly it describes you as a person.
Then respond to the statement as accurately as
possible using the following scale. Choose the
number that best indicates the degree to which
each statement describes you. 1. I daydream and
fantasize, with some regularity, about things
that might happen to me. 0 1 2 3 4 DOES NOT
DESCRIBE DESCRIBES ME ME VERY WELL VERY
WELL 2. I often have tender, concerned feelings
for people less fortunate than I am. 0 1 2 3 4
DOES NOT DESCRIBE DESCRIBES ME ME VERY
WELL VERY WELL 3. I sometimes find it
difficult to see things from the other guys
point of view. 0 1 2 3 4 DOES NOT
DESCRIBE DESCRIBES ME ME VERY WELL VERY
WELL 4. Sometimes I dont feel very sorry for
other people when theyre having problems. 0 1 2
3 4 DOES NOT DESCRIBE DESCRIBES ME ME VERY
WELL VERY WELL
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Physiological and Behavioral Linkage (
LEVENSON RUEF, 1997 )

• Menstrual synchrony
• Emotional reliving of own experience
• Heart rate and skin conductance correlations in
  partners
• Facial mimicry
• Postural mirroring
• Mechanisms?
• shared stimuli (environment, conversation)
• As emotion As face Bs face
  Bs emotion