Where you are, what you want, and what you can do: The role of master statuses, personality traits, and social cognition in shaping ego network size, structure, and composition

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 356-380
Author(s):  
Matthew E. Brashears ◽  
Laura Aufderheide Brashears ◽  
Nicolas L. Harder

AbstractEgo networks are thought to be influenced by the opportunities provided to associate with others given by our master statuses (e.g., race or sex), by the preferences individuals possess for interaction given our personality traits (e.g., extroverted or neurotic), and by the capacity to manage interactions on an ongoing basis given our cognitive ability to recall network information. However, prior research has been unable to examine all three classes of predictors concurrently. We rectify this deficiency in the literature by using a novel dataset of nearly 1000 respondents collected using controlled laboratory designs; using this dataset, we can simultaneously examine the impact of master statuses, personality traits, and social cognitive competencies on ego network size, structure (i.e., density), and composition (i.e., diversity). We find that all classes of predictors influence our ego networks, though in different ways, and point to new avenues for research into human sociability.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
pierre-aurélien beuriat ◽  
Shira Cohen-Zimerman ◽  
Gretchen Smith ◽  
Frank Krueger ◽  
Barry Gordon ◽  
...  

Abstract Introduction: Theory of Mind (ToM) is a social-cognitive skill that allows the understanding of the intentions, beliefs, and desires of others. There is a distinction between affective and cognitive ToM, with evidence showing that these processes rely on partially distinct neural networks. The role of the cerebellum in social cognition has only been rarely explored. In this study, we tested whether the cerebellum is necessary for cognitive and affective ToM performance. Material and methods: We investigated adults with traumatic brain injury (n=193) and healthy controls (n=52) using voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping (VLSM) and by measuring the impact on functional connectivity. Results: First, we observed that damage to the cerebellum affected Cognitive but not Affective ToM processing. Further, we found a lateralization effect for the role of the cerebellum in cognitive ToM with participants with left cerebellar injury performing worse than those with right cerebellar injury. Both VLSM and standard statistical analysis provided evidence that left cerebellar Crus I and lobule VI contributed to ToM processing. Lastly, we found that disconnection of the left thalamic projection and the left fronto-striatal fasciculus was associated with poor cognitive ToM performance. Conclusions: Our study is the first to reveal direct causal neuropsychological evidence for a role of the cerebellum in cognitive, but not in affective, ToM, processing. It reinforces the idea that social cognition relies on a complex network functionally connected through white matter pathways that include the cerebellum. It supports evidence that the neural networks underpinning cognitive and affective ToM can be differentiated.


2007 ◽  
Vol 19 (12) ◽  
pp. 1923-1931 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Strobel ◽  
Gesine Dreisbach ◽  
Johannes Müller ◽  
Thomas Goschke ◽  
Burkhard Brocke ◽  
...  

Although it is widely accepted that serotonin plays a pivotal role in the modulation of anxiety- and depression-related personality traits as well as in the pathogenesis of anxiety disorders and depression, the role of serotonin in cognition is less clear. In the present study, we investigated the involvement of serotonin in cognitive behaviors by examining the impact of genetic variation in key regulators of serotonergic neurotransmission on behavioral measures in a cognitive control task. Eighty-five healthy participants performed a cued continuous performance task (the AX Continuous Performance Task [AXCPT]) and were genotyped for polymorphisms in the transcriptional control regions of the tryptophan hydroxylase 2 gene (TPH2 G-703T; rs4570625) and the serotonin transporter gene (5-HTTLPR). The core result was that individuals lacking the rare TPH2 T allele were not faster than T allele carriers, but committed fewer errors and were less variable in responding. These findings parallel those of a recent study where an enhancement of executive control in individuals without the rare TPH2 T/T genotype was observed. Together with recent evidence that individuals without the T allele exhibit higher scores in anxiety- and depression-related personality traits, our results underscore the role of the TPH2 G-703T polymorphism in the modulation of behavior and raise the intriguing possibility that genetic variants associated with higher negative emotionality may have beneficial effects on some cognitive functions.


Author(s):  
Giovanni Andrea Cornia

This chapter discusses the structural difference in family size, structure, location, and preferences, as well as the features of the formal and informal financial markets that determine the access to credit of various types of firms. It also reviews the role of the exchange rate, interest, rate and inflation in determining money demand. It then discusses behavioural equations for aggregate consumption, investment, and money demand that fit the reality of developing countries, and compares them with those discussed in Chapter 3 for the advanced economies. It shows that their inclusion in the IS-LM and AS-AD models often modifies the impact of policy changes and endogenous shocks in relation to those obtained in the advanced economies.


2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ifigeneia Leri ◽  
Prokopis Theodoridis

Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate the moderation effects of the Big Five personality traits on the relationships between holistic experience constructs (i.e. servicescape and other visitors’ behaviours), emotional responses and revisit intention in the context of winery visitation experiences in Greece. Design/methodology/approach The study adopts a holistic approach to visitor experience and suggests that visitors base their experience perception on the servicescape’s attributes and other visitors’ suitable behaviours. Path analysis was adopted to measure the impact of these constructs on visitors’ emotions and the role these emotions play in predicting visitors’ revisit intentions. The moderation effect of the Big Five personality traits in such relationships was examined using the SPSS PROCESS. A self-administered, highly structured questionnaire was distributed to winery visitors in Greece; a total of 615 responses were used in data analysis. Findings The results indicate that all the examined relationships become stronger as a result of visitors having high or average scores for openness, extraversion, agreeableness and conscientiousness, or low scores for neuroticism. Research limitations/implications The findings enhance the existing literature pertaining to experiential marketing, wine tourism marketing and the role of personality in tourism by providing new insights. Practical implications The overall findings may benefit wineries in their efforts to carry out the following: increase visitors’ revisit intentions; design and manage the winery environment and the winery experience effectively; and design marketing strategies. Originality/value The paper’s originality lies in providing information to clarify the role of visitors’ personalities as a contributing factor to their emotional stimulation and their revisit intentions in terms of both constructs of experience (i.e. servicescape and other visitors’ behaviours). Furthermore, this study attempts to respond to recent calls to conduct multidimensional research on the servicescape construct, focusing on both the substantive staging of the servicescape and the communicative staging of the servicescape. Finally, the present study provides new and practical insights regarding the winery experience in the Greek context – an area where very limited research has been conducted so far.


2018 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 368-394 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann Rousseau ◽  
Jennifer Stevens Aubrey ◽  
Steven Eggermont

The present three-wave panel study of 496 preadolescent boys ( Mage = 11.36, SD = 1.07) examined the impact of sports magazine consumption on mesomorphic body standards and self-sexualizing behaviors (e.g., drinking shakes in order to gain muscle mass, choosing clothing to show off muscles). Grounded in social cognitive theory, we also examined the moderating role of reward sensitivity. Results revealed that boys who consumed more sports magazines at wave 1 (W1) were more likely to report personal mesomorphic standards and perceived mesomorphic standards for men and boys in general at wave 2 (W2). Additionally, W2 personal mesomorphic standards mediated the relationship between sports magazine consumption at W1 and self-sexualizing behaviors at wave 3. Reward sensitivity moderated the relationship between personal mesomorphic standards and self-sexualizing behaviors.


2018 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 672-694 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irem Demirkan

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to propose that the resources that a firm owns and has full control (firm-level resources) and resources that a firm access through direct connection with other firms (network-level resources) will impact firm innovation when effectively deployed by the firm. While previous research examined these factors separately, the author takes a holistic view and looks into their effects on innovation simultaneously. The author also introduces the moderating effects, i.e. the variables that can enhance firm innovation through their interaction with internal and external resources.Design/methodology/approachThe author tested the role of financial resources and slack resources in the form of cash slack and human slack at the firm level, and network size, network tie strength, and network diversity at the network level on the firm innovation. Using generalized negative binomial model with Huber-White procedure, the author analyzed 306 firms from the biotechnology industry over a span of 17 years.FindingsThe analysis suggests that cash slack impact innovation negatively. However, this link is moderated by firm size such that for large firms cash slack affects innovation positively. Network-level resources all positively impact innovation and have more economic impact on firm innovation than firm-level resources. Furthermore, although human slack negatively affects innovation, its interaction with network size enhances innovation.Originality/valueThe research makes important contributions to both strategic management and innovation literatures especially when, the author considers the role of firm-level slack in driving firm innovation. Previous research reported conflicting findings about the availability of slack resources and firm performance. The results showed that the relationship between slack resources and firm innovation is negative and significant, both for available slack and human slack. This finding parallels with previous research which reported that constraints such as lack of slack resources can actually facilitate innovation. The author also contributes to the literature by introducing boundary conditions which can enhance firm innovation through their interaction with firm-level internal and network-level external resources. In this respect, to the author’s knowledge, this is among the first studies to combine the slack literature focusing on firm-level resources with the literature on network-level resources.


2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 23-42
Author(s):  
V.A. Barabanschikov ◽  
A.V. Zhegallo ◽  
Y.N. Smolny ◽  
M.M. Marinova

This study the role of emotional expressions of the sitter’s face in the perception of his personality traits. The scores given by observers on the scales of the “Personality Differential” for images of a calm face and the face of the same sitter, demonstrating six basic emotions, were compared. Forty-nine photographic images of the emotional states of seven sitters included in the RaFD database were used as stimulus material. A total of 193 Moscow university students (66 men and 127 women, mean age 23.3 years) participated in the experiment. A 17% statistically significant change in personality scores was recorded, two-thirds of which tended toward the positive poles of the scales. Changing perceptions of a person’s personality suggests a coherent relationship between emotion modality and personality traits. Each basic expression influences a specific group of 10-15 traits, and in different ways. Each trait relies on an affective configuration with its own specificity. Disgust has the maximum integrative influence on the view of the sitter’s personality. Joy causes extremely high positive changes, while sadness and astonishment cause moderate, symmetrical changes in the ratio of positive and negative shifts. Fear and anger lead to an equilibrium of positive and negative evaluations. The highest volume of trait changes is obtained for the “Activity” factor (A), which is associated mainly with positive shifts, the lowest volume is for the “Evaluation” factor (E), which is, together with the “Strength” factor (S), the main source of negative changes in the sitters’ perception. The volume of affective feature shifts is determined by the morphotype of the face and the individual stylistics of emotion expression. In everyday life, the possibility of affective changes in traits does not violate the general invariance of interpersonal perception.


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