Alexander Maki, PhD                  Social Psychologist
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Do Environmental Actions Speak Louder Than Words?

10/23/2014

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Picture courtesy of trbpix (https://www.flickr.com/photos/tbruce)
A common saying among people, especially parents, is the classic “Do as I say, not as I do.” Used when we want to teach other people appropriate behavior, but when we ourselves have failed to engage in that appropriate behavior, we often assume this statement will wipe away the influence of our own behavior.

However, social scientists have long known that this is an ineffective strategy when it comes to influencing another person's behavior. This ineffective strategy becomes particularly important when we try to influence the behavior of large groups of people. For example, a famous 1970’s public service announcement made this mistake. The Keep America Beautiful Iron Eyes Cody commercial was considered an overwhelming success when it was released (see it here, and an updated version released in 1998 here). Through use of an American Indian guide*, the commercial demonstrated how poorly humans had taken care of the planet, and the importance of improving our stewardship toward the Earth. However, years later Robert Cialdini and his colleagues came along and highlighted the mistakes made by this famous commercial.

The explicit message in the commercial is clear: We need to take better care of the environment!  This is what social scientists call an injunctive social norm – what society thinks we should be doing. However, a sinister implicit message is lurking beneath the surface: Nobody takes care of the environment! This is what is called a descriptive social norm – what people are actually doing. The problem is that what we do, the descriptive norms of society, can potentially overwhelm what we should be doing, the injunctive norms. These competing norms end up leading to no change in a message recipient's behavior; in fact, it can even lead to an increase in the negative behavior being rallied against (in this case, people witnessing the commercial might have been unlikely to change their behavior, or might have even been more likely to litter).
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Picture courtesy of Big Grey Mare (https://www.flickr.com/photos/biggreymare)

Robert Cialdini and his colleagues have conducted a number of ingenious experimental studies to examine the separate influence of these different types of social norms. In one study, they wanted to help reduce the amount of theft of petrified wood in Arizona’s Petrified Forest Natural Park. Cialdini and his colleagues noticed that the park had signs everywhere lamenting how often petrified wood was being stolen:

“Your heritage is being vandalized every day by theft losses of petrified wood of 14 tons a day, mostly a small piece at a time.”

These messages were largely just emphasizing how everyone was engaging in the wrong behaviors. Cialdini knew this message was not going to be effective. What to do, then, when the descriptive norm is against you? They made two types of signs: one message similar to the original, highlighting this unsupportive descriptive norm, the second message only highlighting the injunctive norm, imploring people to not steal the wood, but not highlighting how often it was occurring. After innocuously marking pieces of wood by these signs, they found that the first, descriptive norm message led to 8% of the wood being stolen. Alternatively, the injunctive norm led to less than 2% of the wood being stolen; a fourfold difference!

What is the takeaway message from all of this? Well, first of all, actions often speak louder than words. Whether it is you engaging in a less than ideal behavior in front of a child, or pointing out the prevalence of negative societal behaviors, this information often trumps pleas to ignore the acknowledged behavior. Second, if you can’t find a way to highlight a supportive descriptive norm, it is probably best to ignore the descriptive norm and instead highlight the injunctive norm of what you hope people will do. By saying, “don’t do as I do,” you are drawing attention to the negative behavior, a poor start to “do as I say.”

Social norms are intimately related to why people take care of the natural environment, one another, and their own health. We’ll definitely be returning to these ideas in the future.

What do you think about these ideas?

* Iron Eyes Cody was Italian American, not American Indian
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Can Narcissists Learn To Be Empathetic?

10/12/2014

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In the current age of selfies and self-promotion*, do we still have the motivation and capability to understand the suffering of others? Evidence suggests that people in the United States, and potentially around the world, are self-absorbed more now than ever. Assuming these data are correct, there has also likely been a recent increase in the number of narcissistic individuals – those with inflated views of themselves and who exceedingly focus on themselves over others (for fun, discover your own narcissism level**.

Narcissists are less likely to feel empathy, less likely to make personal sacrifices to help the greater good , and more likely to act aggressively toward others. If we experience these individuals in our own lives, we may try to ignore or avoid them if at all possible. But what about when you are stuck working alongside someone high in narcissism on a work or school project? What can we do, if anything, to help these individuals develop more empathy and become more likely to help those in need?

Recent experimental research by Hepper, Hart, and Sedkides tested whether it was possible to influence narcissists to actually feel empathy toward others. The researchers found that asking narcissists to explicitly take the perspective of a suffering person actually helped the narcissists experience stronger feelings of empathy toward that individual. In the experimental study, some individuals were told that they were going to watch a brief documentary about a domestic abuse case, but before watching the video they were asked to think about the feelings of the domestic assault victim while watching the video. Other participants in the study were not assigned to this perspective taking task while watching the documentary.
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Picture courtesy of pearlsareanuisance (https://www.flickr.com/photos/pearlsareanuisance/)
After watching the 10-minute documentary, narcissists were more likely to express empathy toward the victim of domestic abuse, and were also less likely to blame the victim for the abuse. Interestingly, this effect was only true for a group of individuals called “maladaptive narcissists,” or those individuals who are particularly likely to feel a sense of entitlement, are more likely to try to exploit others, and who like to show off in front of others (as compared to “adaptive narcissists,” people moderately high in certain desirable narcissistic traits such as self-confidence, self-sufficiency, and a desire to lead).

In another study, the researchers tested to make sure narcissists weren’t just saying that they felt more empathy. They did this by measuring each participant’s heart rate (i.e., autonomic arousal), which is more likely to increase when people feel empathy toward another person’s suffering. This time, if narcissists were explicitly told to take another person’s perspective, maladaptive narcissists were more likely to both report greater empathy, and also experience a greater increase in heart rate, at least suggesting that these individuals were more physiologically-aroused, and not just stating that they felt stronger emotion (in this case, empathy).

This research provides some evidence that when explicitly asked to focus on the plight of another, narcissists report greater empathy toward another suffering individual, and even experience an increase in their heart rate. However, the social sciences are complex, and additional questions always remain. Do these changes in self-reported empathy and heart rate lead to actual changes in behavior? How long might this increase in empathy last? Does this sort of intervention lead narcissists to feel empathy toward others generally, or just toward the specific target person that they are focusing on? What is the best way to kindly ask a narcissist in your life to take another person's perspective?

What do you think?

* Don’t worry, the irony of reporting this research on my personal website does not evade me.

** I got a 15 out of 40, what did you get?
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    I'm a scientist and educator, exploring why people take care of the natural environment, one another, and their own health.

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