three people joking around in a car designed like a big dog (Dumb and Dumber,. 1994), a father interacting with his children while making dinner in a bustling.
Abstract Factors in Understanding and Emotional Engagement During Real-‐Time Interactions Oriana R. Aragón 2014 Within social interactions people communicate not only explicitly through what they say, but also through implicit channels of facial expressions and body language. Whether a brief interaction between strangers, or a weighty interaction between relationship partners, people will implicitly express emotions, intentions, and desires. Within successful social interactions partners reciprocate with appropriate emotional responsiveness. In this dissertation I present three factors that interfere with emotional responsiveness or engagement with one’s partner. I address how these factors can affect perception of partners’ emotional and internal states, emotional responsiveness towards partners, and social connection with partners. In particular I suggest that: a) being inclined to reason through situations, b) not being focused on one’s partner, while in particular, being self-‐focused, and c) being self-‐ protective, will all interfere with emotional engagement with partners. Based on the importance of responsiveness to one’s partner’s emotions for enhancing in relationship quality, I suggest that not being emotionally engaged with partners has negative consequences in interpersonal relationships.
2
Factors in Understanding and Emotional Engagement During Real-‐Time Interactions A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Yale University in Candidacy for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Oriana Rachel Aragón Dissertation Director: Margaret S. Clark May 2014
3
© 2014 by Oriana Rachel Aragón All rights reserved.
4
Table of Contents
Abstract .....................................................................................................................................................1 Acknowledgments .................................................................................................................................7 General Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 13 Chapter One .......................................................................................................................................... 17 Study 1: Reliance on Reasoning and Being Emotionally Moved by Interactions...... 22 Method .............................................................................................................................................................. 24 Results ............................................................................................................................................................... 26 Figure 1. Participants’ emotional engagement to interactions depicted in film clips. ... 28 Discussion........................................................................................................................................................ 28 Study 2: Relationship Between Reasoning and Reduced Emotional Engagement in Real-life Interactions, a Longitudinal Study.......................................................................... 31 Figure 2. Pathways of emotional engagement (or lack thereof) with partners ................ 37 Method .............................................................................................................................................................. 39 Figure 3. The Inferences Matrix ............................................................................................................. 41 Results ............................................................................................................................................................... 42 Figure 4. Reliance on reasoning and emotional engagement to real-‐life interactions... 45 Figure 5. Perceivers’ regard for high reasoning partners........................................................... 49 Discussion........................................................................................................................................................ 49 Figure 6. Reliance on reasoning and inferences made about partners from “sense” of and explicit information. ........................................................................................................................... 52 Study 3: Reasoning and Biases for Explicit over Implicit Information When Choosing an Interaction Partner............................................................................................... 52 Method .............................................................................................................................................................. 54 Results ............................................................................................................................................................... 58 Figure 7. Reliance on reasoning and choice of partner from implicit and explicit cues 59 Discussion........................................................................................................................................................ 60 Study 4: Manipulation of Reason-able Material in the Interaction Environment .... 63 Method .............................................................................................................................................................. 64 Results ............................................................................................................................................................... 66 Figure 8. Emotional engagement to interactions as a function of viewer’s reliance on reasoning and “reason-‐able” content................................................................................................... 67 Discussion........................................................................................................................................................ 69 Study 5: Biases for Explicit over Implicit Information When Choosing an Interaction Partner, an Experimental Design.............................................................................................. 70 Method .............................................................................................................................................................. 71 Results ............................................................................................................................................................... 73 Figure 9. Manipulated reasoning and choice partner based on implicit versus explicit cues. .................................................................................................................................................................... 75 Discussion........................................................................................................................................................ 76 Study 6: Manipulation of Reasoning by Choice Versus Forced Reasoning, and the Outcome of Emotional Engagement, and Experimental Design ..................................... 76 Figure 10. Manipulations of intrinsic versus extrinsic reasoning........................................... 83 Method .............................................................................................................................................................. 84 Results ............................................................................................................................................................... 89 Figure 11. Evidence of reasoning in text analysis .......................................................................... 91
5 Figure 12. Emotional engagement scores across conditions .................................................... 92 Figure 13. Participants’ emotional engagement through getting a sense of characters 95 Discussion........................................................................................................................................................ 96 Study 7: The Relationship Between Reasoning and Electrophysiological Indices of Attentional Deployment, and Neural Systems of Understanding Others.................... 97 Method ........................................................................................................................................................... 103 Results ............................................................................................................................................................ 106 Discussion..................................................................................................................................................... 109 Study 8: Relationship Outcomes for Those Who are High in Reasoning ...................110 Figure 14. Depiction of the cascade of emotional engagement ............................................. 111 Method ........................................................................................................................................................... 112 Results ............................................................................................................................................................ 113 Figure 15. Friendship Outcomes for High Reasoners with Consideration of Each Step of the Emotional Exchange ......................................................................................................................... 114 Discussion..................................................................................................................................................... 115 Figure 16. Liking of those high and low in reliance on reasoning........................................ 117 Chapter One Conclusion.............................................................................................................118 Figure 15. Chronic Reasoning in Dyad Pairs and mutual liking ............................................ 123
Chapter 2..............................................................................................................................................128 Focus of Attention During Social Interactions ........................................................................128 Study 1: Relationship Between Focus of Attention and Emotional Engagement....132 Method ........................................................................................................................................................... 133 Results ............................................................................................................................................................ 134 Figure 1. Foci of Attention and Emotional Engagement to Viewed Interactions........... 135 Figure 2. Self-‐Focus and Negative Inferences Made About Interaction Partners.......... 136 Discussion..................................................................................................................................................... 136 Study 2: Focus of Attention and Real-Life Interactions, a Longitudinal Study ........137 Method ........................................................................................................................................................... 138 Results ............................................................................................................................................................ 140 Figure 3. Partner-‐Focus, Inferences About Partners and Emotional Engagement ....... 142 Discussion..................................................................................................................................................... 143 Study 3: Focus of Attention During Dyadic Interactions.................................................144 Method ........................................................................................................................................................... 145 Results ............................................................................................................................................................ 147 Figure 4. Partner-‐Focus and Emotional Engagement................................................................ 150 Discussion..................................................................................................................................................... 152 Chapter Two Conclusion ............................................................................................................154 Chapter Three ....................................................................................................................................158 Self-protection and Social Disconnection .................................................................................158 Study 1: Self-Protection in Relationships and Outcomes for Emotional Engagement ............................................................................................................................................................159 Method ........................................................................................................................................................... 163 Results ............................................................................................................................................................ 165 Figure 1. Self Protection and Emotional Engagement, Interest in Partners, and Reports of Relationship Quality............................................................................................................................ 168 Discussion..................................................................................................................................................... 168 Study 2: Self-Protection and Electrophysiological Evidence of Social Disconnection ............................................................................................................................................................170
6 Method ........................................................................................................................................................... 175 Figure 2. Experimental Stimuli............................................................................................................ 177 Results ............................................................................................................................................................ 183 Figure 2. Mu Suppression When Socially Disconnected........................................................... 188 Figure 3. Links Between Desire to Socially Connect and Mu Suppression....................... 190 Discussion..................................................................................................................................................... 192 Chapter Three Conclusion.........................................................................................................198
General Conclusion ..........................................................................................................................201 Chapter 1 References.......................................................................................................................208 Chapter 2 References.......................................................................................................................223 Chapter 3 References.......................................................................................................................227 Appendix A ..........................................................................................................................................235 Reliance on Reasoning Scale Development.........................................................................235 Reliance on Reasoning Scale ....................................................................................................235 Table 1. Reliance on Reasoning in relation to other factors ................................................... 237 Appendix B: Trust in Intuition......................................................................................................239 Trust in Intuition Scale...............................................................................................................240 Appendix C ..........................................................................................................................................245 Details of Movie Clips Used in Study One .............................................................................245 Appendix D ..........................................................................................................................................246 Analysis of the Direct Question and Coded Variables Separately................................246 Appendix E ..........................................................................................................................................248 Study Two Full Method...............................................................................................................248 Chapter 1, Table 2 ..................................................................................................................................... 253 Descriptive Statistics of Reported Interactions .................................................................253 Appendix F ..........................................................................................................................................255 Study 2 Detailed Analysis...............................................................................................................255 Figure 1. Reasoning and Emotional Engagement with Little Known Others .................. 257 Figure 2. Reasoning and Emotional Engagement with Well-‐Known Others ................... 259 Appendix G ..........................................................................................................................................260 Detailed Method and Results of Partner Choice Study ....................................................260 Figure 3. Partner choice profile photographs. .............................................................................. 266 Study 3 Expanded Results ..................................................................................................................... 269 Appendix H ..........................................................................................................................................273 Details of Experimental Partner Choice Method and Results .......................................273 Appendix I ...........................................................................................................................................279 Detailed information about second summer cohort........................................................279 Appendix J ...........................................................................................................................................281 Detailed Method Dyad Study ....................................................................................................281 Appendix K ..........................................................................................................................................288 Focus of Attention Validation...................................................................................................288
7
Acknowledgments I owe special thanks to Margaret S. Clark whose guidance and care helped me enormously through this project and others. I would also like to acknowledge Margaret S. Clark, John A. Bargh, Paul Bloom, Jaime Napier, and Yarrow Dunham for their helpful reviews of this manuscript. I owe a special thank you to John Bargh who collaborated with me, inspired new thought, and encouraged new exploration. I am indebted to Lindsay Davis, Alana Gebhart, Madeline Gobrecht, William Kim, Sean Malahy, Andre Morales, Erica Reetz, Elizabeth Sharer, Lisa Tran, and Juliana Zhou for their assistance in conducting these and other studies, and to Tessa West for her guidance in the statistical analysis of these studies. This project would not have been possible without the fellowship support of Yale University’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, the Psychology Department Graduate Funds, and the Zimbardo Dissertation Prize. I also want to acknowledge my family and friends including my dear Husband Brian Schenck, my Father Charles Aragón, Rosa Garcia, and Bob and Marilyn Schenck for their unwavering support. Much love and thanks to my brothers Juan Aragón, and Henry Aragón. I also could not have persisted without the advice and support of Lindsey Beck, Julie Huang, and Ed Lemay. Most of all, I must acknowledge the contribution of my dear son Nicholas Clark. I am forever in your debt. You have been my closest ally through all of these years. You have always shown strength, kindness, patience, and understanding. Thank you for sharing your Mother with her passion of discovery.
8
This dissertation is dedicated to my grandparents Raquel and Manuel Aragón, who wrote the following for us. “When we are no longer among you, whatever might happen to whatever material possessions we might have accumulated in this world will be of no importance. But there is something precious which we wish to leave our children. If we can accomplish this, our life will have endowed a treasure that no amount of money could ever hope to buy. We wish to leave you the value of your own dreams in this world. We want you to consider your own life worthy and to treat it as your most precious possession. We want you to fill your lives with days of happiness alongside of those who will surround you. We wish to leave our children a respect for work as an end unto itself.
We confess here that there have been few times in our life when we have found ourselves happier that when we were involved in things we deeply believed in. We also want to leave with you the ability to control your own actions, so that when the occasion demands it, that you act with conviction. We want our children to know that they were always loved completely; regardless of whatever course their lives might have taken, because as parents, our love for them was absolute. We wish to leave you our love. May that be our endowment to our beloved children and to their children, and to the children of their children.” - Manuel and Raquel Aragón
9
10
Prologue Mary brusquely asked for two train tickets from the agent. Preoccupied with figuring out her travel timetable, she did not notice that the ticket agent was troubled and having a rough day. The agent, wrapped up in her own thoughts and feelings, misread Mary’s brusqueness as insensitivity. The agent could have, with some extra effort, provided two seats, but that would have involved going above and beyond her normal duties to rearrange things in the computer. The agent was miffed by Mary’s rudeness, and withdrew any compassion for Mary. She denied her the tickets knowing full well that Mary would be waiting for 5 hours until the next train. This brief scenario depicts an unfortunate lack of understanding, and
compassion between two people. For these two women the lack of understanding and social connection between them, ended in negative outcomes for both. This dissertation focuses on three factors that interfered with their social understanding and connectedness. Mary displayed the first factor in that Mary was preoccupied, figuring out her travel plans, with the goal of understanding how her travel connections could work. Because of her motivation to reason through her travel plans, she failed to infer how the agent was feeling and did not respond sensitively to the agent in turn. Mary appeared to be unsympathetic to the agent, but actually she was oblivious to the agent’s emotional state, and subsequently not appropriately emotionally
11
engaged. If only Mary would have smiled and spoken in a more gentle tone, the exchange would have proceeded in a more congenial manner. In fact, Mary would have responded in such a way if she had perceived the agent’s distress. However, if asked after the fact, how the interaction went, Mary most likely would be unaware of the full scope of what had transpired. She would be able to recall the details of the interaction, including the dialogue that was exchanged, but she also would say that she was not particularly emotionally involved in the interaction and that the agent didn’t say anything about how she was feeling and didn’t seem particularly emotional either. She might say that the interaction went as well as one might expect. She would go on to say that she was unable to get the tickets that she needed in order to make her connection, and that she would had to figure out a new plan. The second factor is the factor of focus of attention. At the onset the agent was not focused on Mary and was actually self-‐focused with her attention turned inward toward her own distress. As a result of that self-‐focus she did not construe Mary’s brusque request as a request by one who was distracted with thought, but rather more negatively as an insensitive act. Mary might have been perceived-‐ not as an antagonist but rather just a hurried traveler, had the agent herself focused her attention on her interaction partner, and gotten a full sense of Mary. Unfortunately, the agent did make a negatively biased inference about Mary, and then responded with the third factor, self-protection. When the agent judged Mary to be a rude person, she disconnected from Mary and Mary’s situation, allowing for her calloused actions. If asked how the interaction went, the agent
12
would most likely say that the interaction was not good and that she certainly did not feel understood, accepted, or cared for by Mary. Surely, other factors might lead to a lack of understanding between people during interactions; however, I demonstrate in this research that these three factors systematically make a difference in social understanding and connection. Just as Mary and the ticket agent suffered negative outcomes, I believe, so do people everyday in real-‐life situations.
13
General Introduction A primary element of successful social navigation is mutual understanding. To be more specific, in an interaction in which one would like to initiate or preserve good relationships, not only does the understanding of one’s interaction partner need to be present but appropriate responsiveness based on that understanding must be present as well (Collins & Feeney, 2000; Feeney & Collins, 2003; Reis & Shaver, 1988; Reis & Clark, 2014). Not responding reciprocally to a person’s wonderful news, or saddened state will communicate a lack of understanding, validation and care which will, in turn, stymie relationships. Here I investigate three factors which, when present in individuals, may stop the flow of responsiveness in relationships by blocking a person’s initial tendency to infer and connect with other people’s emotional states. When I reference understanding of others’ emotional and internal states, what might come to mind are the literatures on emotion perception and theory of mind. However, those research traditions mainly are focused on the ability to read emotions in others or the ability to infer another’s desires or intentions. The stimuli used for those investigations are usually of a static nature, or presented in isolation and participants in such research are often explicitly given the task of inferring the stimulus person’s emotional state. My work is very different from the emotion perception and theory of mind work, because I do not investigate the ability to infer another’s emotional or internal states. Rather I investigate people’s tendencies to infer another’s emotional and internal states. Furthermore, in the course of our
14
investigations, we use not only controlled static stimuli, but we also test our participants in the perceptually busy environments of real-‐time interactions. In other words, I am not asking, “Are we able to make correct inferences about others?” but rather, “Do we make correct inferences about others in the course of real-‐time interactions?” and, when we do not, “What are the factors that appear to be in play?” Clearly, our understanding of another depends not only upon the internal factors within the perceiver, but also upon situational factors, and the nature of the target person’s relationship with us. This dissertation focuses more so on the internal factors; however, one can easily see how all three may be interrelated. Even so, certain internal factors do stand out as systematically interfering with understanding. Through the use of laboratory studies, dyadic paradigms, round robin paradigms, electroencephalography (EEG), and longitudinal diary research I show that: 1) a motivation to reason, 2) a lack of focus on one’s partner, and in particular a focus on the self, and a 3) motivation to self-‐protect, alter a perceiver's emotional connection with his or her partner. Subsequently this alters the perceiver's responsiveness to that interaction partner. This dissertation provides evidence that this is detrimental to relationship outcomes. Understanding the role of attentional resources should help make it clear to the reader why these factors that shift attentional resources, impact partner understanding. Stimuli that capture attention can be both stimulus driven (a woman screams), or attended to through cognitive control (you are vigilantly following the basketball during the playoff game). Regardless of whether attention is guided automatically through capture or consciously through control, those things that are
15
selected for are then processed for experience and meaning. The stimuli might be lightly processed (for less experience and meaning; e.g. that’s a smile), or deeply processed (for greater experience and meaning; e.g. she is really a warm person). Because attentional resources are finite, the higher the allocation of attentional resources to the processing of the selected stimuli, the more neglected are other elements from within the perceptual environment (e.g. you are oblivious to the gorilla crossing the basketball court because you are keeping your eye on the ball and counting passes; Simons & Chabris, 1999). Relevant to the research presented in this dissertation is the fact that the attentional components of selection and processing can be shaped by current goal states. For instance, when an individual is hungry and, consequently, has an active motivation to eat, he or she shows biased attentional selection and processing toward those things that signal food from within his or her environment. In the case of reasoning (Chapter One), when one is motivated to reason he or she has a biased attentional selection toward those things within environment about which reasoning may take place (e.g. verbal aspects) to the neglect of those aspects in his or her environment that are not (e.g. subtle and dynamic face and body cues)1. In the case of self-‐focus, attentional resources are focused on the individual’s own thoughts, feelings and behaviors to the neglect of one’s partner entirely (Chapter Two). In the case of social self-‐protection tested in Chapter Three, it appears that attentional resources are selective and, when we do not want to socially connect 1 More information about the different types of information within an interaction about which reasoning may easily take place will be discussed in Chapter One, Study 2.
16
with another person, we may attend to our partners but only insofar as attending to the actions that are relevant to our own well being. As a result, we can at times selectively disconnect from another’s’ emotion signals, which allows for calloused actions toward him or her. In the general conclusion the findings are summarized and the relevance of the work in real world settings is discussed.
17
“Mary brusquely asked for two train tickets from the agent. Preoccupied with figuring out her travel timetable, she did not notice that the ticket agent was troubled and having a rough day.” Chapter One A Motivation to Reason and Social Interactions When interacting with another person, most people understand their partners not only from what the person explicitly says or overtly does, but also from reading the person’s implicit cues such as facial expressions, body language, tone of voice and general demeanor. These implicit cues, at times, are more informative of the other’s needs, desires and intentions than what a person explicitly says or overtly does. Making inferences about another’s emotional and internal states feels effortless (in that there is simply this bubbling up of understanding) and in many ways feels automatic (Anderson, et al., 2003; DeGelder, 2005, 2006; Tracy, 2008). However this seemingly effortless process can be thwarted, as it requires at least some of our attentional resources (Okon-‐Singer, et al., 2007). When distracted our
18
attentional resources are directed elsewhere, and emotional engagement can be reduced even in the most emotionally eliciting of situations (Sheppes & Gross, 2011). We believe that a motivation to reason is a naturally occurring distraction that interferes with understanding our partners. We believe that a motivation to reason arises from a goal to understand, and, we believe, it can and often does pull attentional resources away from emotion cues, reducing understanding and emotional engagement with interaction partners in real world situations. Having a goal to reason can be thought of as a chronic individual trait or as a temporary state. In the work reported here, we provide evidence for both. In short, having a motivation to reason, we believe, interferes with intuitive, automatic processes in perceiving our partner’s emotional and internal states. We are not the first to suggest that reasoning can interfere with the inferences that come from intuitive, automatic processes (e.g. Wilson & Schooler, 1991; Wilson, et al., 1993). For instance, individuals have been found to be happier with their choices of art, when they were not asked to think about, and explain their choice-‐ before it was made (Wilson, et al., 1993), and people are more accurate at choosing the “best” jam (as qualified by jam experts) when not told to explain why the jam is the best (Wilson & Schooler, 1991). In short, it is thought that inferences that bubble up to the perceiver from automatic processes are less influential when individuals are in a reasoning mode. Past research has focused on reasoning and the outcomes in decision-‐making or understanding others in the realm of persuasion (e.g. Cacioppo, et al, 1986). However, I am interested in reasoning in the social realm of real-‐time interpersonal
19
interactions, and the potential impact of reasoning on interaction and relationship quality. The question of whether conscious reasoning interferes with picking up on the information that bubbles up from another person to inform the perceiver while interacting with another person (i.e. the warmth of a person) remains open despite the fact that analogous studies have been done with regard to automatic inferences made about jam and paintings (e.g. Wilson & Schooler, 1991; Wilson, et al., 1993). Failing to pick the jam experts feel is best, or selecting the wrong painting for one’s apartment, matters little in the grand scope of life. However, failing to pick up on a partner’s feelings will influence the giving of support in social interactions, which, in turn, impacts the creation and maintenance of relationships with those people, the development of intimacy in those relationships our well-‐being and our life satisfaction (Bradbury, 2000; Clark, et al., 1987; Clark, et al., 2001; Graham, et al., 2008; Marsh & Ambady, 2007). Past researchers have used language that implies that those who are high in rational traits are not caring about emotions or not caring at all about social information (e.g. Epstein et al., 1996; Stanovich & West, 2000). People chronically high in rational thought, are labeled as “asocial,” and also are called “rule-‐based”, and “depersonalized” (Stanovich & West, 2000). In general, researchers represented in the literature have arrived at the conclusion that those who habitually reason are asocial and emotionally disconnected, which is a reasonable leap given the consistent finding that those who were high in a rationality traits are less swayed by social and emotional information (e.g. Caccioppo, et al., 1986; Mayer & Tormala, 2010).
20
Research thus far has fallen short in clarifying our understanding of how reasoning interferes in regard to perception and decision-‐making. It could be that intuitive inferences are made-‐ bubbling up to consciousness and then are overridden by thought “-‐-‐mmm…the jam is good, but I am not going to consider those feelings because I am focusing on sugar ratios and texture.” This idea of an override supports the asocial account because it would predict that reasoners disregard feelings about people in the same way that they disregard feelings about jam. On the other hand, it could be that when an individual is reasoning, that those inferences that would automatically bubble up to inform the perceiver are missed altogether—“I am focused on sugar ratios and texture and I have not even considered the experiential sense of its -‐-‐goodness.” This idea that reasoners are “missing it” supports an account that those who are reasoning are oblivious to their partners’ emotions, and that is why they are not responsive. This has not been empirically addressed. Either an asocial or an oblivious account could be true, and either would be consistent with existing literature on the topic. The importance of understanding the mechanisms in play comes to the fore if one considers the different consequences of each in the social realm. The difference between an asocial account and an oblivious account implies different motivations when considering high reasoners’ interactions with other people. For one, if a perceiver understands full well his partners’ emotional signals (Andy is sad), but then clearly disregards this information, and does not respond to his friend in a sympathetic way, that could leave his friend assuming a host of negative things. His friend might label him as stoic, unwilling to be influenced by any emotion-‐ and
21
therefore cease to turn to his friend when he is in times of emotional need. Even worse, the friend may feel that his partner understands how he feels and simply does not care about his emotions. Or perhaps, his friend may think that the perceiver wants to avoid intimacy with him —as has been suggested by past researchers (Epstein, et al., 1996). All of these assumed characteristics (stoic, not caring, and avoidant) do not bode well in a relationship setting. However, a very different scenario may be playing out—one that looks much more like one of missed opportunity. Reasoners simply may be distracted. Reasoners may miss pertinent signals about their partner’s emotional and internal states. If this is the case then it is not a lack of value given to emotions generally, a lack of care, or a lack of value given to relationships, but rather an unfortunate lack of understanding of one’s partner that results in an emotional disconnection from him or her. If high reasoners indeed are missing their partners’ emotions, we must then question is if this is due to a lack of ability or due to tendencies to be distracted. In this chapter I delve into the mechanism of how (override or oblivious) and why (uncaring and/or unaware) people who are thinking are less swayed by emotional information. Contrary to what has been written in the past, I do not believe that people who are high in reasoning, do not care, and/or do not value emotions, and/or wish to avoid emotions, or want to avoid close relationships. Instead, I hypothesize that those who are high in reasoning simply are missing vital emotion cues (and are unaware that they are missing vital emotion cues) because they are distracted away from emotion cues. Here I not only demonstrate how and
22
why this happens, but also show that this disconnection occurs where it counts, in real-‐world interactions and relationships that the participants encounter naturally. In this series of investigations the hypotheses are as follows. H1: There will be a relationship between a high motivation to reason and lower emotional engagement to social interactions in laboratory and real-‐world settings. H2: This relationship will be explained by the inferences reasoners fail to make about their partners that are to come from implicit channels. Reasoners will have no deficit in making inferences from explicit channels. H3: High reasoners will report caring about and paying attention to their real-‐life partners. H4: For reasoners, being chronically less emotionally engaged with partners will be detrimental to reasoners’ relationships. H5: Manipulating the situation such that explicit information (e.g. verbal information) is scarce and implicit information (e.g. facial expressions and body language) is highlighted during an interaction will lead to improved perception of emotional and internal states for those who are high in tendencies to reason. H7: It is a motivation to reason, not mere cognitive business that explains this effect. H8: A motivation to reason will predict differences in neural systems associated with person understanding, giving support to the idea of a lack of understanding, rather than the idea of understanding coming to consciousness followed by a cognitive override of that understanding. Study 1: Reliance on Reasoning and Being Emotionally Moved by Interactions
23
Study 1 demonstrates the relationship between reasoning and decreased emotional reactivity and engagement during real-‐time interactions. We believe that a motivation to reason can be a state or exist within some individuals as a trait. This trait is marked by a chronic goal of wanting to understand. A person with this tendency might habitually ask “Why?” or “How?” and consider all aspects before feeling that understanding has been satisfied. This person may do this spontaneously across situations, and reasoning may be the primary lens through which this person views the world. When an individual has a chronic goal to understand (through reasoning) we suggest that such a person is high in a reliance on reasoning, because reasoning is the means by which understanding is obtained. Our construct of reliance on reasoning as an individual difference is an adaptation of Cacioppo & Petty’s (1982) construct of need for cognition (and also the construct of rationality as discussed by Epstein, et al., 1996). The need for cognition is defined as “individual differences in intrinsic motivation to engage in effortful cognitive endeavors generally” (c.f. Cacioppo, et al., 1986). For our purposes, the existing scale of need for cognition is problematic because they include the constructs of liking of cognitive complexity and the perceived ability to reason (Tanaka, et al., 1988; e.g. “I really enjoy a task that involves coming up with new solutions.”) We wished to measure tendencies to reason regardless of whether people like to reason or believing that they have high ability to reason relative to other people. To maintain clarity, we adapted from the Need for Cognition (Cacioppo & Petty, 1982), a 9-‐item measure, reliance on reasoning, which simply asks people if they reason across different contexts such as in decision making about
24
things and people. See Appendix A for list of items and validation of the adapted measure. In Study 1, participants completed our measure of reliance on reasoning. They then viewed interpersonal interactions depicted in short film clips, rated how emotionally moved they were by each clip and wrote their thoughts about the clip freely. This gave us text to code for how emotionally moved each participant appeared to be by the film clips. Appearing to be responsive and emotional engaged is of interest to us, because the presence or absence of perceived responsiveness is vital to relationship well being. We predicted that those high in a reliance on reasoning would report being less emotional moved by interactions depicted in the clips and that they would appear to be less emotionally moved in what they wrote about the clips. Method Participants. Forty-‐eight (18 men) undergraduates participated for class credit, mean age=18.56, SD=2.98 years. Participants were 8.30% Hispanic, 52.10% Caucasian, 25.00% Asian, 8.30% Black, and 6.30% from other backgrounds. Materials. Measure of motivation to reason. We measured a motivation to reason with our reliance on reasoning scale, Cronbach’s α=.82. See Appendix A for validation of the scale. Covariates. We collected measures of gender and mood, as both have been found to influence empathy and the way that one perceives others (Forgas, 1982; Lennon & Eisenberg, 1987). For the measure of mood, 10 items asked about participants’ current emotional state (upset, hostile, alert, ashamed, inspired,
25
nervous, determined, attentive, afraid and active; PANAS; Watson, Clark & Telegen, 1988) with the following stem, “Think about yourself and how you feel right now. To what extent do you feel…” Responses could range from 1=not at all to 7=completely. Stimuli. Five, 1-‐2.5 minute movie clips were shown (with the order of presentation randomized by software program, MediaLab, 2008). Means of the responses to the emotionally moved question (on a 1 to 5 point Likert scale, described below) ranged between M=2.33, SD=.92 to M=3.84, SD=1.16, suggested that we were successful in finding moderately moving movie clips. See Appendix C for detailed description of all clips used. Outcome variables. How emotionally moved participants were by the movie clips, was measured with a direct question, “How emotionally moved were you by the movie clip?” with responses provided on a Likert-‐type scale (1=Not at All Moved to 5=Completely Moved). We also asked participants to “Please free write one or two short paragraphs about the movie” following each clip. As a second measure of the dependant variable, four female raters, (age range 23-‐59), who had no indication of the participants’ reliance on reasoning score read what each participant wrote about each clip. Then using the same scale as the participants used to indicate how emotionally moved they had been by the clip, our four female raters rated how emotionally moved the participant appeared to have been by each clip. Procedure. Participants arrived individually at the lab and began with a paper and pencil questionnaire (demographics, mood and reliance on reasoning) that we were supposedly “validating for future research.” Next participants were taken to an adjacent room to begin the second part of their research participation.
26
We told them that we were preparing some movie clips for future use and that we would just like them to watch the clips and answer a few questions after each. A computer guided them through the viewings, and collected their self-‐reports of how emotionally moved they were by each clip as well as their text responses to each clip. Finally, participants were queried for suspicion and debriefed. No participant indicated knowledge of the true purpose of the experiment. Results Data Preparation. Covariates. Gender of participants was coded male=1 and female=0. Our measure of mood was used to create positive affect (an average of the 5 positive words; α=.63) and negative affect (an average of the participants’ ratings of the 5 negative words; α=.83) scores. Outcome variables. Four coders independently rated the degree to which each written response indicated that participant had been emotionally moved by the clip. Inter-‐rater reliability was high (α=.90). Therefore we averaged the four coders’ responses into a single coded “emotionally moved” score. The direct question and the coded responses were significantly related when entered into a multilevel linear model (which controlled for the non-‐independence of the repeated responses of the participants across 5 movies), b=.46, SE=.07 , β=.43, Wald=7.00, p*"?%&'!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!74.89:4!!BCDE-0-1#!==>*"?%&F#!A=>*"G%&'!!
Figure 4. Reliance on reasoning and emotional engagement to real-life interactions
46
This figure shows that those higher in reasoning report being less emotionally engaged with partners. This appears to be explained, at least in part, by the fact that participants higher in reasoning are reporting that they have made fewer inferences about their partners when those inferences were to come from have a sense of them from their tone or demeanor. In sum, as predicted even though participants gave equal (or more in the case of new acquaintances) attention to their interaction partners, the higher our participants scored on our reliance on reasoning measure, the less they reported having been moved by their own personal day-‐to-‐day interactions. There is evidence that this relationship was explained by having a reduced sense of their interaction partners’ emotional and internal states that came from implicit channels. Reliance on reasoning was not related to inferences made from explicit cues, and explicit cues did not explain the relationship between reliance on reasoning and being less emotionally moved by one’s real-‐life interactions. Test of Trust in Intuition. A trust in Intuition did not predict how emotionally moved participants were by their own real-‐life interactions in this longitudinal study, b=-‐.04, SE=.02, t(17.94)=-‐1.89, p=.08. Furthermore, with trust in intuition in the model, the relationship between reliance on reasoning and emotional engagement (b=-‐.51, SE=.13, t(17.86)=-‐3.93, p@BB) ;"#%)"+1-&) 13):%"(13,3$) &=,())H@DIG)#)O@DJ) ;'))@IHG)#)>@PH)
!=,()6%#(13) L39%#(&"39(G) M55%
