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Social Sampling and Expressed Attitudes: Authenticity Preference and Social Extremeness Aversion Lead to Social Norm Effects and Polarization

A cognitive model of social influence (Social Sampling Theory [SST]) is developed and applied to several social network phenomena including polarization and contagion effects. Social norms and individuals’ private attitudes are represented as distributions rather than the single points used in most...

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Autores principales: Brown, Gordon D. A., Lewandowsky, Stephan, Huang, Zhihong
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: American Psychological Association 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8908732/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35266789
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/rev0000342
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author Brown, Gordon D. A.
Lewandowsky, Stephan
Huang, Zhihong
author_facet Brown, Gordon D. A.
Lewandowsky, Stephan
Huang, Zhihong
author_sort Brown, Gordon D. A.
collection PubMed
description A cognitive model of social influence (Social Sampling Theory [SST]) is developed and applied to several social network phenomena including polarization and contagion effects. Social norms and individuals’ private attitudes are represented as distributions rather than the single points used in most models. SST is explored using agent-based modeling to link individual-level and network-level effects. People are assumed to observe the behavior of their social network neighbors and thereby infer the social distribution of particular attitudes and behaviors. It is assumed that (a) people dislike behaving in ways that are extreme within their neighborhood social norm (social extremeness aversion assumption), and hence tend to conform and (b) people prefer to behave consistently with their own underlying attitudes (authenticity preference assumption) hence minimizing dissonance. Expressed attitudes and behavior reflect a utility-maximizing compromise between these opposing principles. SST is applied to a number of social phenomena including (a) homophily and the development of segregated neighborhoods, (b) polarization, (c) effects of norm homogeneity on social conformity, (d) pluralistic ignorance and false consensus effects, (e) backfire effects, (f) interactions between world view and social norm effects, and (g) the opposing effects on subjective well-being of authentic behavior and high levels of social comparison. More generally, it is argued that explanations of social comparison require the variance, not just the central tendency, of both attitudes and beliefs about social norms to be accommodated.
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spelling pubmed-89087322022-03-17 Social Sampling and Expressed Attitudes: Authenticity Preference and Social Extremeness Aversion Lead to Social Norm Effects and Polarization Brown, Gordon D. A. Lewandowsky, Stephan Huang, Zhihong Psychol Rev Articles A cognitive model of social influence (Social Sampling Theory [SST]) is developed and applied to several social network phenomena including polarization and contagion effects. Social norms and individuals’ private attitudes are represented as distributions rather than the single points used in most models. SST is explored using agent-based modeling to link individual-level and network-level effects. People are assumed to observe the behavior of their social network neighbors and thereby infer the social distribution of particular attitudes and behaviors. It is assumed that (a) people dislike behaving in ways that are extreme within their neighborhood social norm (social extremeness aversion assumption), and hence tend to conform and (b) people prefer to behave consistently with their own underlying attitudes (authenticity preference assumption) hence minimizing dissonance. Expressed attitudes and behavior reflect a utility-maximizing compromise between these opposing principles. SST is applied to a number of social phenomena including (a) homophily and the development of segregated neighborhoods, (b) polarization, (c) effects of norm homogeneity on social conformity, (d) pluralistic ignorance and false consensus effects, (e) backfire effects, (f) interactions between world view and social norm effects, and (g) the opposing effects on subjective well-being of authentic behavior and high levels of social comparison. More generally, it is argued that explanations of social comparison require the variance, not just the central tendency, of both attitudes and beliefs about social norms to be accommodated. American Psychological Association 2022-01 /pmc/articles/PMC8908732/ /pubmed/35266789 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/rev0000342 Text en © 2022 The Author(s) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/This article has been published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Copyright for this article is retained by the author(s). Author(s) grant(s) the American Psychological Association the exclusive right to publish the article and identify itself as the original publisher.
spellingShingle Articles
Brown, Gordon D. A.
Lewandowsky, Stephan
Huang, Zhihong
Social Sampling and Expressed Attitudes: Authenticity Preference and Social Extremeness Aversion Lead to Social Norm Effects and Polarization
title Social Sampling and Expressed Attitudes: Authenticity Preference and Social Extremeness Aversion Lead to Social Norm Effects and Polarization
title_full Social Sampling and Expressed Attitudes: Authenticity Preference and Social Extremeness Aversion Lead to Social Norm Effects and Polarization
title_fullStr Social Sampling and Expressed Attitudes: Authenticity Preference and Social Extremeness Aversion Lead to Social Norm Effects and Polarization
title_full_unstemmed Social Sampling and Expressed Attitudes: Authenticity Preference and Social Extremeness Aversion Lead to Social Norm Effects and Polarization
title_short Social Sampling and Expressed Attitudes: Authenticity Preference and Social Extremeness Aversion Lead to Social Norm Effects and Polarization
title_sort social sampling and expressed attitudes: authenticity preference and social extremeness aversion lead to social norm effects and polarization
topic Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8908732/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35266789
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/rev0000342
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