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Firms increasingly employ artificial intelligence (AI) gift recommendation tools to assist consumers with their gift choices. Yet, a notable gap exists in understanding consumers' responses to AI recommendations in a gift giving context. Through five studies, we found that social closeness between the giver and recipient significantly affects the use of AI gift recommendation tools, driven by two underlying mechanisms: expected relational signaling and preference matching. In addition to establishing these effects, this research identifies relevant boundary conditions. Our findings reveal that self‐oriented perfectionism increases preference matching for gifts to distant friends, while revealing the giver's identity boosts AI tool use for close friends by reducing relational signaling expectations. Additionally, AI tools capable of turn‐taking enhance preference matching and AI tool use, especially for gifts to close friends. Our findings advance the understanding of how and why social closeness influences givers' utilization of AI gift recommendation tools and offer valuable insights for practitioners on designing these tools more effectively, considering the nuances of social relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Humans need social closeness to prosper. There is evidence that empathy can induce social closeness. However, it remains unclear how empathy-related social closeness is formed and how stable it is as time passes. We applied an acquisition-extinction paradigm combined with computational modeling and fMRI, to investigate the formation and stability of empathy-related social closeness. Female participants observed painful stimulation of another person with high probability (acquisition) and low probability (extinction) and rated their closeness to that person. The results of two independent studies showed increased social closeness in the acquisition block that resisted extinction in the extinction block. Providing insights into underlying mechanisms, reinforcement learning modeling revealed that the formation of social closeness is based on a learning signal (prediction error) generated from observing another's pain, whereas maintaining social closeness is based on a learning signal generated from observing another's pain relief. The results of a reciprocity control study indicate that this feedback recalibration is specific to learning of empathy-related social closeness. On the neural level, the recalibration of the feedback signal was associated with neural responses in anterior insula and adjacent inferior frontal gyrus and the bilateral superior temporal sulcus/temporoparietal junction. Together, these findings show that empathy-related social closeness generated in bad times, that is, empathy with the misfortune of another person, transfers to good times and thus may form one important basis for stable social relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we examine the role of reciprocity enabled by digital social platforms for offline healthy behavior. Although reciprocity is a fundamental aspect of human psychology, its application in promoting healthy behavior has been limited. We conduct a randomized field experiment with over 1,700 pairs of users on a mobile social network platform. Individuals in the reciprocity treatment group receive a gift from their friends and are asked to return this favor by participating in a running challenge. Their performance is compared to the self-interest incentives widely used in practice. Building on social exchange theory, we argue that reciprocity-based incentives will outperform self-interest incentives with modest reward for motivating behavior change. We find that, on average, reciprocity is stronger than self-interest in inducing exercise behavior by a substantial amount. Furthermore, our results reveal that the magnitude of the reciprocity effect is contingent on the social closeness between senders and receivers. Interestingly, social closeness has an inverted U-shaped influence on the reciprocity effect. The effect is strongest when closeness is moderate, and wanes when closeness is either too strong or too weak. Compared to commonly used self-interest based financial incentives, our findings offer a potentially more powerful avenue for mechanism design in promoting healthy behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While meditation is commonly practiced by individuals on their own, several programmes have incorporated dyadic forms, too. However, the setting – meditating alone or in dyads – and its impact on the effects of meditation have not yet been examined. We expected that dyadic compassion meditation (CM) may improve perceived social closeness more compared to closely-matched individual CM. N = 50 couples were randomly assigned to do a brief 15-min CM induction either together with their partner or individually. Social closeness was rated by both partners. Secondary outcomes were positive and negative affect as well as parasympathetic response, indicated by heart rate variability (HRV). Due to the dyadic data structure, multilevel models were tested. We found no difference between dyadic and individual CM in self-report. After both forms social closeness and positive affect were improved, while negative affect decreased. Only HRV differed between the two conditions over time: while HRV significantly decreased in the individual condition, there was no such change in the dyadic condition. The accompanying physiological profile suggests that CM may involve effort at least in the individual CM. Done individually or with a partner, brief CM can foster social closeness and improve affect and can be employed to improve socio-emotional well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The police legitimacy literature is grounded predominantly in studies from the Global North. In these contexts, technology and economic resources allow policing institutions to exercise significant reach in ways that mitigate the challenges to service delivery posed by distance and geography while the bureaucratic state relationally distances these same institutions from the public. This scholarship tends to take these governmental 'fixes' as given. In Global South contexts, these fixes are less reliable. The complexities of policing in dispersed states—rural, remote, and island—are frequently mentioned within scholarship. However, the question of how spatial relations impact police legitimacy and services largely remains a passing concern. In this paper, we argue that in the Global South, spatial relations are important elements contributing to police legitimacy. This argument is made by reframing the rural and remote policing literature to explore how spatial archipelagic features influence how policing by the state occurs. This work is used as our analytical scaffold in two case studies of the Solomon Islands and Tonga that illustrate how space influences local views of police. We argue that space is a key contextual characteristic that needs to be considered within future police legitimacy research and theorisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Gift givers balance their goal to please recipients with gifts that match recipient references against their own goal to signal relational closeness with gifts that demonstrate their knowledge of the recipient. Five studies in a gift registry context show that when close (vs. distant) givers receive attribution for the gifts they choose, they are more likely to diverge from the registry to choose items that signal their close relationships. The authors find that close givers’ divergence from the registry is not the result of their altruistic search for a “better” gift but is a strategic effort to express relational signals: it occurs only when givers will receive attribution for their choice. They show that close givers reconcile their goal conflict by engaging in motivated reasoning, which results in their perceptual distortion of the gift options in favor of relational-signaling gifts. Ironically, distant givers are more likely to choose gifts from the registry, resulting in the selection of items that better match recipient preferences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past decade, the world has faced an unprecedented refugee crisis. The large number of incoming refugees represents a challenge for host societies and its citizens triggering reactions from a supportive welcome to brusque rejection and hostile behavior toward refugees. In a pre-registered study, we investigated factors that could promote altruistic behavior in fully incentivized one-shot Dictator Game toward various receiver groups including refugees. We find that host citizens behave more altruistically toward refugees and other receiver groups if they (a) share a local identity with them (i.e., live in the same city), and (b) perceive them to be close (to the self) and warm-hearted. Moreover, citizens that are (c) generally more prosocial and hold a more left-wing political orientation are more willing to give. Unexpectedly, from a theoretical point of view, altruistic giving toward refugees was not influenced in the predicted direction by a shared student identity, competition and perceived income differences (although the latter effect was significant when considering all receiver groups). For shared student identity we even observe a reduction of altruistic behavior, while the opposite effect was predicted. We discuss implications for public policies for successful refugee helping and integration.

Over the past decade, the world has faced an unprecedented refugee crisis. The large number of incoming refugees represents a challenge for host societies and its citizens triggering reactions from a supportive welcome to brusque rejection and hostile behavior toward refugees. In a pre-registered study, we investigated factors that could promote altruistic behavior in fully incentivized one-shot Dictator Game toward various receiver groups including refugees. We find that host citizens behave more altruistically toward refugees and other receiver groups if they (a) share a local identity with them (i.e., live in the same city), and (b) perceive them to be close (to the self) and warm-hearted. Moreover, citizens that are (c) generally more prosocial and hold a more left-wing political orientation are more willing to give. Unexpectedly, from a theoretical point of view, altruistic giving toward refugees was not influenced in the predicted direction by a shared student identity, competition and perceived income differences (although the latter effect was significant when considering all receiver groups). For shared student identity we even observe a reduction of altruistic behavior, while the opposite effect was predicted. We discuss implications for public policies for successful refugee helping and integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do we adopt new rules, such as social distancing? Although human sciences research stresses the key role of social influence in behaviour change, most COVID‐19 campaigns emphasize the disease's medical threat. In a global data set (n = 6,675), we investigated how social influences predict people's adherence to distancing rules during the pandemic. Bayesian regression analyses controlling for stringency of local measures showed that people distanced most when they thought their close social circle did. Such social influence mattered more than people thinking distancing was the right thing to do. People's adherence also aligned with their fellow citizens, but only if they felt deeply bonded with their country. Self‐vulnerability to the disease predicted distancing more for people with larger social circles. Collective efficacy and collectivism also significantly predicted distancing. To achieve behavioural change during crises, policymakers must emphasize shared values and harness the social influence of close friends and family. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is increasing empirical evidence that social distance and timing affect prosocial behavior after acute stress exposure. The present study focused on everyday moral decision-making after acute psychosocial stress and how it is influenced by effects of social closeness and timing. We exposed 40 young healthy men to the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST, n = 20) or its non-stressful placebo version (PTSST, n = 20). Moral decision-making was assessed early (+10 until +30 min) and late (+75 until +95 min) after (P)TSST exposure by the Everyday Moral Conflict Situations (EMCS) Scale. The EMCS Scale requests altruistic versus egoistic responses to everyday moral conflict situations with varying closeness of target persons. Results revealed significantly higher total percentages of altruistic decisions in the stress than in the control condition and for scenarios involving socially close (e.g., mother) versus socially distant (e.g., stranger) protagonists, while the main effect of timing was nonsignificant. Only secondary analyses showed increased altruistic decision-making after acute stress exposure toward socially close but not toward distant protagonists at the early but not at the late point of measurement. Moreover, psychological stress responses and personality traits were significantly associated with EMCS scores. Positive correlations between cortisol levels and altruistic decision-making were descriptively observable, but did not reach statistical significance. In sum, our findings suggest increased altruistic decision-making toward socially close compared to socially distant protagonists and provide further evidence that acute stress influences decision-making in everyday moral conflict scenarios in a prosocial manner. In order to investigate the effects of acute stress on everyday moral decision-making, 40 young healthy men were exposed to moderate psychosocial stress by the use of the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) or its non-stressful placebo version and then completed a hypothetical everyday moral decision-making paradigm. Our findings provide evidence that acute stress exposure influences decision-making in everyday moral conflict situations in a prosocial manner. Furthermore, participants decided more altruistically in scenarios involving socially close (e.g., mother) versus socially distant (e.g., stranger) protagonists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The confluence of two emerging paradigms, Internet of Things and sharing economy, has encouraged people to share their assets, which could include personal devices, with others. Atypical example of such altruistic device sharing is “tethering”in cellular networks: an owner who uses a smartphone relays data from/to base stations for others who do not have direct connectivity to cellular networks. However, when people share devices, they would be concerned about costs such as battery or bandwidth. Device owners generally want to reduce their costs when they share their devices with someone who is less socially close to them. This is because it was reported that our altruistic behavior has clear correlation with social closeness; the less close someone is to you, the less altruistic actions you take towards that person. Therefore, we propose a system that uses online social relationships to meet device owners' demand for shared-resource management to enable altruistic device sharing. By acquiring and evaluating online social relationships between a device owner and user, the proposed system automatically determines how much resources the user is allowed to use. In this paper, we implemented a prototype system to measure its authentication overhead. Using this actual overhead measured on the prototype system, we conducted a simulation with a large-scale data set of a real social network to verify that: 1) the proposed system limits the resource usage for guest users who are not as close to the device owners and 2) the overhead of the authentication process in the proposed system does not interfere with the resource sharing with guest users who are close to the device owners.

This experiment examined the effects of social presence and perceived location of a virtual environment on participants' pain thresholds in a preregistered, within-subjects experiment. First, we examined the effects of social interaction versus being alone in a virtual environment. Second, we compared a virtual environment representing a remote location to a replication of the laboratory environment. Social interaction predicted increased pain tolerance, but there was no effect of the "location" of the virtual environment. To our knowledge, this research project is the first to use real-time social interaction in virtual reality as a distractor for experimental thermal pain, and the first to examine the potential interaction between social interaction and transportation to different virtual locations. While this task is not directly analogous to the experience of pain in a medical setting, this preliminary study indicates future avenues for patient treatment. Clinical Trial Registration number: 1701006910 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on the sixth wave of the World Values Survey, this article examines the correlation between specific trust and subjective wellbeing. We find that (1) specific trust in different types of partners always has a positive correlation with happiness and life satisfaction; (2) the strength of this positive association declines from the socially closest partner to the socially remotest partner; (3) the trust radius is positively related to the indicators of subjective wellbeing; and (4) among the multiple specific trustees, specific trust in family members is comparable with generalized trust in terms of the strength of correlation with subjective wellbeing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reciprocated trust plays a critical role in forming and maintaining relationships, and has consistently been shown to implicate neural circuits involved in reward-related processing and social cognition. Less is known about neural network connectivity during social interactions involving trust, however, particularly as a function of closeness between an investor and a trustee. We examined network reactivity and connectivity in participants who played an economic trust game with close friends, strangers and a computer. Network reactivity analyses showed enhanced activation of the default-mode network (DMN) to social relative to non-social outcomes. A novel network psychophysiological interaction (nPPI) analysis revealed enhanced connectivity between the DMN and the superior frontal gyrus and superior parietal lobule when experiencing reciprocated vs violated trust from friends relative to strangers. Such connectivity tracked with differences in self-reported social closeness with these partners. Interestingly, reactivity of the executive control network (ECN), involved in decision processes, demonstrated no social vs non-social preference, and ECN-ventral striatum connectivity did not track social closeness. Taken together, these novel findings suggest that DMN interacts with components of attention and control networks to signal the relative importance of positive experiences with close others vs strangers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Humans create social closeness with one another through a variety of shared social activities in which they align their emotions or mental states towards an external stimulus such as dancing to music together, playing board games together or even engaging in minimal shared experiences such as watching a movie together. Although these specific behaviours would seem to be uniquely human, it is unclear whether the underlying psychology is unique to the species, or if other species might possess some form of this psychological mechanism as well. Here we show that great apes who have visually attended to a video together with a human (study 1) and a conspecific (study 2) subsequently approach that individual faster (study 1) or spend more time in their proximity (study 2) than when they had attended to something different. Our results suggest that one of the most basic mechanisms of human social bonding—feeling closer to those with whom we act or attend together—is present in both humans and great apes, and thus has deeper evolutionary roots than previously suspected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The predictors of social closeness toward refugees are rarely examined. In this study (N = 337), higher cultural intelligence (CQ) and higher empathy were defined as predictors of higher social closeness (lower social distance [the Social Distance Scale] and warmer feelings [the Feeling Thermometer]) toward refugees from Syria. This is the target group of prejudice and intensive coverage in the European mass media. The obtained results indicated that other‐oriented empathy (empathic concern and perspective taking) and the motivational CQ predicted higher social closeness and warmer feelings toward refugees from Syria. Empathic personal distress predicted lower social closeness and colder feelings toward this group. Motivational CQ consistently served as the mediator of the relationship between empathy dimensions and social closeness toward Syrian refugees. Our findings reveal the previously unexplored correlations between empathy dimensions and cultural intelligence factors, including the mediational effects in predicting social closeness toward Syrian refugees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present research investigated event-related, contextual, demographic, and dispositional predictors of the desire to punish perpetrators of immoral deeds in daily life, as well as connections among the desire to punish, moral emotions, and momentary well-being. The desire to punish was reliably predicted by linear gradients of social closeness to both the perpetrator (negative relationship) and the victim (positive relationship). Older rather than younger adults, conservatives rather than people with other political orientations, and individuals high rather than low in moral identity desired to punish perpetrators more harshly. The desire to punish was related to state anger, disgust, and embarrassment, and these were linked to lower momentary well-being. However, the negative effect of these emotions on well-being was partially compensated by a positive indirect pathway via heightened feelings of moral self-worth. Implications of the present field data for moral punishment research and the connection between morality and well-being are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anthropologists have long been interested in the reasons humans choose to help some individuals and not others. Early research considered psychological mediators, such as feelings of cohesion or closeness, but more recent work, largely in the tradition of human behavioral ecology, shifted attention away from psychological measures to clearer observables, such as past behavior, genetic relatedness, affinal ties, and geographic proximity. In this paper, we assess the value of reintegrating psychological measures-perceived social closeness-into the anthropological study of altruism. Specifically, analyzing social network data from four communities in rural Bangladesh ( N = 516), we show that perceived closeness has a strong independent effect on helping, which cannot be accounted for by other factors. These results illustrate the potential value of reintegrating proximate psychological measures into anthropological studies of human cooperation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores whether the concept of ‘friendship’ is a useful and basic category for the analysis of South Asian history. It begins with a variety of characteristics of relationships that social science has identified as friendship. It then explores the Baburnama, focusing on the social closeness or social distance of several groups and individuals, such as queens, allied leaders, blood kin, clerics and recruits. None were socially close enough to Babur to merit the term friendship. In contrast to these more distant relations, some of the men in proximity to Babur were, indeed, very close. Babur uses two Turkish terms to describe these men. The first term is Içki, which translates as ‘Inner men’, that is, the small group of men (perhaps fifteen in number) who fought next to Babur in battle and often ate with him. They formed his guard at night. The second term is kukäldash, which translates as ‘breast brother’, meaning the few men who shared the same wet nurse as Babur. These men grew up with Babur and were his closest friends. He mourned bitterly when one was killed. Overall, Babur did have friends and companions who were loyal through thick and thin. They formed the very centre of his household troops and the centre of his army. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social anhedonia is an important construct that describes individual differences in preferences for interacting in and experiencing pleasure from social interactions and has been a central construct in the schizotypy literature. The description of social anhedonia is very similar to that of social closeness from the personality literature. However, no published studies have directly compared associations between social anhedonia and social closeness with an array of other measures of anhedonia, personality, and depression. The present study examined the internal psychometrics of primary measures of social anhedonia and social closeness; the bivariate association between social anhedonia and social closeness; and the associations between these target constructs and measures of individual differences in a large sample of undergraduate students (mean age = 20.53 years; 76.3% were women). We found that (a) social anhedonia and social closeness were strongly correlated; (b) the unidimensional measurement model for social closeness was stronger than that for social anhedonia; (c) the pattern of associations for social closeness and social anhedonia with measures of physical anhedonia, personality, and depressive symptoms were substantively identical; and (d) a collection of items from both measures assessed information across a wider range of social anhedonia than either instrument alone. Thus, given the similar patterns of validity against multiple criteria social anhedonia and social closeness appear to be representing very similar constructs. The Social Closeness scale provides complementary information to the social anhedonia dimension. Our results provide recommendations for instrument selection when normative or elevated levels of social anhedonia are intended to be assessed. (PsycINFO Database Record [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social closeness is a potent moderator of vicarious affect and specifically vicarious embarrassment. The neural pathways of how social closeness to another person affects our experience of vicarious embarrassment for the other's public flaws, failures and norm violations are yet unknown. To bridge this gap, we examined the neural response of participants while witnessing threats to either a friend's or a stranger's social integrity. The results show consistent responses of the anterior insula (AI) and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), shared circuits of the aversive quality of affect, as well as the medial prefrontal cortex and temporal pole, central structures of the mentalizing network. However, the ACC/AI network activation was increased during vicarious embarrassment in response to a friend's failures. At the same time, the precuneus, a brain region associated with self-related thoughts, showed a specific activation and an increase in functional connectivity with the shared circuits in the frontal lobe while observing friends. This might indicate a neural systems mechanism for greater affective sharing and self-involvement while people interact with close others that are relevant to oneself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Findings regarding the protective effect of social role functioning on suicide ideation in individuals with schizophrenia have been mixed. One reason for such inconsistencies in the literature may be that individuals with prominent negative symptoms of schizophrenia may not experience a desire for social closeness, and therefore social role functioning may not influence suicide risk in these individuals. The aim of this study was to examine the moderating effects of self-reported desire for social closeness and interviewer-rated negative symptoms on the relationship between social role functioning and suicide ideation. Our sample consisted of 162 individuals who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia-spectrum disorders; all participants completed self-report questionnaires and clinician-administered interviews, and moderation hypotheses were tested with a non-parametric procedure. The results indicated that motivation and pleasure-related negative symptoms moderated the relationship between social role functioning and suicide ideation; self-reported desire for social closeness and negative symptoms related to expression did not have such a moderating effect. Specifically, better social role functioning was associated with less suicide ideation only in those individuals who had low motivation and pleasure-related negative symptoms; no significant relationship was observed between social role functioning and suicide ideation among those with elevated motivation and pleasure-related negative symptoms. These findings suggest that assessing for negative symptoms and social role functioning may inform suicide risk assessments in individuals with schizophrenia, and improving social role functioning may reduce suicide ideation among those with few motivation and pleasure-related negative symptoms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neurobehavioral models of personality suggest that the salience assigned to particular classes of stimuli vary as a function of traits that reflect both the activity of neurobiological encoding and relevant social experience. In turn, this joint influence modulates the extent that salience influences attentional processes, and hence learning about and responding to those stimuli. Applying this model to the domain of social valuation, we assessed the differential effects on attentional guidance by affiliative cues of (i) a higher-order temperament trait (Social Closeness), and (ii) attachment style in a sample of 57 women. Attention to affiliative pictures paired with either incentive or neutral pictures was assessed using camera eye-tracking. Trait social closeness and attachment avoidance interacted to modulate fixation frequency on affiliative but not on incentive pictures, suggesting that both traits influence the salience assigned to affiliative cues specifically.

Social context plays an important role in human communication. Depending on the nature of the source, the same communication signal might be processed in fundamentally different ways. However, the selective modulation (or “gating”) of the flow of neural information during communication is not fully understood. Here, we use multivoxel pattern analysis (MVPA) and multivoxel connectivity analysis (MVCA), a novel technique that allows to analyse context-dependent changes of the strength interregional coupling between ensembles of voxels, to examine how the human brain differentially gates content-specific sensory information during ongoing perception of communication signals. In a simulated electronic communication experiment, participants received two alternative text messages during fMRI (“ happy ” or “ sad ”) which they believed had been sent either by their real-life friend outside the scanner or by a computer. A region in the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) selectively increased its functional coupling with sensory-content encoding regions in the visual cortex when a text message was perceived as being sent by the participant's friend, and decreased its functional coupling with these regions when a text message was perceived as being sent by the computer. Furthermore, the strength of neural encoding of content-specific information of text messages in the dmPFC was modulated by the social tie between the participant and her friend: the more of her spare time a participant reported to spend with her friend the stronger was the neural encoding. This suggests that the human brain selectively gates sensory information into the relevant network for processing the mental states of others, depending on the source of the communication signal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores rural elderly preferences for support across a multi-dimensional measure of elderly care needs. Applying a framework developed in the U.S. to Thailand for the first time, five diverse types of support are considered: meal preparation, personal care, transportation, financial support, and emotional support. The emphasis is on preferences for care and not actual care received. The data are from focus group discussions conducted in seven villages in Nang Rong district, northeastern Thailand. Thailand and the study site represent the social and economic conditions faced by many rapidly industrializing places—where there has been a dramatic demographic transition (lowered fertility and substantial out-migration), growing numbers of older persons remaining in rural settings, and limited publically-financed elderly care or market-based elder care available for purchase. For this study, in each village, male and female older persons aged 60 and over participated in the focus group discussions. As part of the discussion, focus group participants were asked to rank their first four preferences by type of support. Male and female older persons' preferences were slightly different for genderized tasks. In addition, social closeness and geographical proximity mattered. Traditional matrilocal residence patterns contributed to the perceptions of the older persons. Neighbors were preferred when kin were not available. Preferences inform strategic choices by older persons given the context of available resources. Understanding preferences and strategic choices among the older persons can help policy makers tailor programs more effectively and efficiently, without jeopardizing elderly well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drivers who feel social closeness with other drivers tend to drive more safely, according to previous research. Given this, we examine how communication in the driving context influences social closeness, drawing from theories of computer-mediated communication, a context with notable similarities to the road. A survey study found that social closeness with others is associated with greater communication comfort and identity expression through the car, but less treatment of the car as a social entity. An interview study provides context and caveats for these generalizations. Together, these studies present implications for near-future social-mobility services relating to safety on the road. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neurobehavioral models of personality suggest that the salience assigned to particular classes of stimuli vary as a function of traits that reflect both the activity of neurobiological encoding and relevant social experience. In turn, this joint influence modulates the extent that salience influences attentional processes, and hence learning about and responding to those stimuli. Applying this model to the domain of social valuation, we assessed the differential effects on attentional guidance by affiliative cues of (i) a higher-order temperament trait (Social Closeness), and (ii) attachment style in a sample of 57 women. Attention to affiliative pictures paired with either incentive or neutral pictures was assessed using camera eye-tracking. Trait social closeness and attachment avoidance interacted to modulate fixation frequency on affiliative but not on incentive pictures, suggesting that both traits influence the salience assigned to affiliative cues specifically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Comfortable ambient temperatures can influence consumer preferences for conformity. The results of three laboratory experiments suggest that warm (vs. cool) temperatures dispose consumers toward using others' opinions as the basis for product preferences, stock price forecasts, and betting. Warm temperatures increased the participants' perceptions of social closeness to other decision-makers, thus leading them to consider the opinions of those decision-makers to have greater validity. This enhanced validity, in turn, rendered them more likely to conform to the crowd. This effect was confirmed in an analysis of betting behavior at the racetrack over a three-year period. Bets were more likely to converge on the “favorite” (i.e., the majority-endorsed option) when the temperature at the track was warm. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The British royal family has responded to changes in society in recent generations, becoming more accessible to the public through the mass media. The identities of royal family members have become less authoritarian, and their behaviour and speech patterns less formal; they are also more emotionally demonstrative. This is a study of television interviews involving the sporting royals, Prince Andrew and Princess Anne, using a methodology that combines Conversation Analysis with recent approaches to the linguistic construction of identity. The identities of both royals support the hypothesis that changing patterns in society as a whole have indeed led the British royals to develop an identity characterised by social closeness. However, traces of more elitist social attitudes are found in both interviews. It concludes that royal identities oscillate between the preservation of an increasingly threatened private space, and collaboration with media representatives to create an acceptable public image. The collaborative role of media representatives in these processes is also highlighted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research has shown that body postures and body movements influence people's attitudes, preferences and feelings. In the present study, we explored the influence of body posture on the feeling of closeness towards others and how this effect may interact with contextual variables. Study 1 was conducted in a naturalistic setting in which 127 participants observed a series of live dance sequences either standing up or remaining seated. After each sequence, participants reported the feelings elicited by the dance performance on a questionnaire. Visibility of performers' facial expressions and background tempo were used as contextual variables. Results showed that participants who watched the performance standing up felt significantly closer to the dancers than participants who remained seated. Study 2 was carried out in a laboratory setting to explore the relationship between body posture, tempo and heart rate. Results showed a significant increase in heart rate when standing compared to when sitting and no effect of tempo. The present research demonstrates a link between body posture and social connection providing evidence that standing up strengthens the feeling of closeness to others, and showing that posture not only has an impact on self-related feelings (e.g. fear, anger, sadness) as previous research has shown, but also has an impact on feelings towards others at the base of all human social relations. The present research also suggests that heart rate may be a mediator of the effect of posture on the feeling of closeness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] Replicated study shows that personality similarity is negligible in unrelated look-alikes. [•] Unrelated look-alikes express little social closeness toward one another. [•] Unrelated look-alikes do not experience feeling of familiarity toward one another. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The concept of context awareness is believed to be a key enabler for the new ubiquitous network service paradigm brought by cloud computing platforms and smartphone OSs. In particular, autonomous context-based service customization is becoming an essential tool in this context because users cannot be expected to pick step by step the appropriate network services by manually and explicitly matching preferences for their current context. In this work, we hence focus on the core problem of how to detect changes of context for network services. In turn, detection of such changes can trigger timely system reconfigurations. We introduce a trigger detection mechanism based on a mixed graph-based representation model able to encode geographical and social relationships among people and social objects like stores, restaurants, and event spots. Our mechanism generates a trigger when a significant change in the graph takes place, and it is able to render significant changes in a geographical relationship that holds among objects socially connected with each other. The main benefits of our method are that (1) it does not require building reference models in advance, and (2) it can deal with different kinds of social objects uniformly once the graph is defined. A computer simulation scenario provides evidence on the expected performance of our method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: We examined whether interpersonal closeness increases salivary progesterone. One hundred and sixty female college students (80 dyads) were randomly assigned to participate in either a closeness task with a partner versus a neutral task with a partner. Those exposed to the closeness induction had higher levels of progesterone relative to those exposed to the neutral task. Across conditions, progesterone increase one week later predicted the willingness to sacrifice for the partner. These results are discussed in terms of the links between social contact, stress, and health. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Twins' marriages to non-twins yield genetically and socially informative kinships. Monozygotic (MZ) twins' genetic identity makes them ‘genetic parents’ of their nieces/nephews, and their nieces/nephews their ‘genetic children’. The present study is the first to apply twin-family models to study social relatedness. Analyses of twin families (MZ: N = 248; DZ: N = 75) tested evolutionary-based concepts concerning social closeness, perceived similarity and caretaking. Hypotheses based on Hamilton's inclusive fitness theory were supported: MZ twin aunts/uncles expressed greater social closeness towards their nieces/nephews than DZ twin aunts/uncles; and female twins from same-sex pairs expressed greater closeness towards their nieces/nephews than male twins from same-sex pairs. This study underlines benefits of associations between behavioural-genetic and evolutionary psychological theories, methods and interpretations. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Aspects of the Ackerman and Heggestad (1997) meta-analysis were updated and expanded to address the complex, contradictory findings of the extraversion–intelligence relation. Although the estimated effect sizes in the current study remained slightly positive, there was a decrease in the magnitude of the effect across extraversion–intelligence pairs in comparison to the 1997 meta-analytic results. Correlations between the date of publication of the study and the observed extraversion–intelligence correlations were generally negative, which suggested a change in the magnitude of the extraversion–intelligence relation over time. Furthermore, the estimated effect size between extraversion and intelligence for studies conducted in the year 2000 and later was (p <.05), indicating that not only has the magnitude of the correlation decreased, but also that the direction of the correlation has changed from positive to slightly negative. Trends associated with two potential moderator variables are also discussed: the use of different measures and the average age of the samples. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper explores the logic driving the evolving geography of business service provider/suppler relationships in Norway. It explores the ways in which Norwegian SMEs access external knowledge provided by management consultants through three case studies that have been developed using a matched pairs methodology (clients and consultants). The paper highlights the relationships between geography and client sourcing of external knowledge and expertise in three kinds of client/consultant relationship: local (clustered) knowledge; dislocated or distantiated knowledge, and; knowledge that is relatively distance insensitive. The concept of dislocated expertise or knowledge adds an additional dimension to literatures that highlight the importance of localised knowledge and strategies to reduce transaction costs, as well as providing insights into the complex relationships that occur between suppliers and consumers of knowledge and expertise. The importance of local business cultures and patriotic purchasing are also identified as playing important roles in influencing the behaviour of Norwegian firms. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

There are wider issues relating to the communication difficulties experienced by people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) than simply the physical problems caused by diminished oral control. In addition, existing literature on ALS rarely considers communication to be a joint interaction which depends on the strategies adopted by both communication partners, nor does it present communication in real life settings. This paper presents some of the findings from a 3-year research project which investigated the communication of people with ALS and their partners in their own homes. It discusses the purpose of human communication, and through examination of conversations in people's own homes has identified a range of strategies and techniques that families with ALS employ. For some people with ALS, although speech may deteriorate, they are still able to communicate closely and in a way that is more focused on topics that are particularly important to them. The findings from this study will be of interest to those who work with people with ALS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Children and apes have been shown to connect to others by watching a video together. • Here, an experimenter tried to create common ground through a communicative look. • Children approached faster after an experimenter tried to create common ground. • Great apes showed no difference between conditions. • Creating social closeness through common ground may be uniquely human. To create social closeness, humans engage in a variety of social activities centered around shared experiences. Even simply watching the same video side by side creates social closeness in adults and children. However, perhaps surprisingly, a similar psychological mechanism was recently shown in great apes. Here we asked whether the process by which this social closeness is created is the same for children and great apes. Each participant entered a room to see an experimenter (E1) watching a video. In one condition, E1 looked to the participant at the start of the video to establish common ground that they were watching the video together. In another condition, E1 did not look to the participant in this way so that the participant knew they were watching the same video, but the participant did not know whether E1 was aware of this as well, so there was no common ground (E1 looked to the participant later in the procedure). Children, but not great apes, approached the experimenter faster after the common ground condition, suggesting that although both humans and great apes create social closeness by co-attending to something in close proximity, creating social closeness by sharing experiences in common ground may be a uniquely human social-cognitive process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Twin-family designs estimate genetic and environmental influences underlying individual differences in observed traits. The children-of-twins design recognizes human monozygotic (MZ) twins share 100% of their segregating genes, making co-twins the "genetic parents" of their nieces/nephews, as well as their aunts/uncles. Human dizygotic (DZ) twins, who share 50% of their segregating genes on average, retain conventional aunt/uncle-niece/nephew relationships. Twin-family methods can assess hypotheses informed by evolutionary reasoning. Hypothesis 1, derived from inclusive fitness theory, was that MZ twin aunts/uncles should express greater social closeness toward nieces/nephews (co-twin's children) than DZ twin aunts/uncles. This hypothesis was confirmed in prior multivariate analyses from a twin-family project. The present analysis, using a larger sample (n = 482twins), and multivariate analyses and structural equation modeling, extended this finding. Multivariate analyses supported hypothesis 2, derived from the concept of paternity uncertainty, that twins with twin sisters should indicate greater social closeness toward nieces/nephews than twins with twin brothers. Structural equation modeling showed that the relationship between zygosity and closeness (a second-order factor containing perceived closeness and current closeness) is mediated by perceived similarity; factors of perceived closeness, current closeness and perceived similarity were generated by factor analysis. Examining evolutionary-psychological hypotheses via behavioral-genetic methodology is encouraged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human social relationships are often formed through shared social activities in which individuals share mental states about external stimuli. Previous work on joint attention has shown that even minimal shared experiences such as watching something together facilitates social closeness between individuals. Here, we examined whether young children already connect with others through joint attention. In the current studies, children sat next to a novel adult who either watched a film with them or was not able to see the film and read a book instead. After the video, we measured children's willingness (i.e., latency) to approach the experimenter holding out a toy. In both studies, the 2.5-year-olds who watched the film together approached more quickly than the other children. These results show that both minimally interactive shared experiences and noninteractive shared experiences lead children to feel more comfortable with a novel adult. This suggests that joint attention interactions, and shared experiences in general, play an important role not only in children's cognitive development but also in their social development and the formation of their social relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]