Enhancement of joint flanker effect in intergroup competition

Abstract

Representing the mental state of the partner lays the foundation for successful social interaction. While the representation of group members has been extensively studied, it is unclear how intergroup interactions affect it. In three experiments utilizing the joint flanker task, we found that competition between groups brought about a greater joint flanker effect (Experiment 1). Such phenomenon was not due to competition per se, as competition that occurred between individuals from different groups did not enhance the joint flanker effect (Experiment 2). Using the minimal grouping method to directly manipulate group entitativity, we found that the joint flanker effect was larger when participants perceived the group as being more closely connected; conversely, when they perceived the group as less close, the joint flanker effect was attenuated (Experiment 3). These results suggested that beliefs about the group may be key to how group competition enhanced the joint flanker effect. The potential cognitive mechanisms producing this phenomenon are fully discussed. Overall, our study is the first to explore the impact of intergroup interactions on the joint flanker effect and provides a new perspective on understanding the relationship between within-group representations and intergroup interactions.

Keywords

group competition / group entitativity / joint flanker effect / shared representation / social interaction

References

[1] Atmaca, S., Sebanz, N., & Knoblich, G. (2011). The joint flanker effect: Sharing tasks with real and imagined co-actors. Experimental Brain Research, 211(3–4), 371–385.

[2] Atmaca, S., Sebanz, N., Prinz, W., & Knoblich, G. (2008). Listening to humans walking together activates the social brain circuitry. Social Neuroscience, 3(3–4), 410–420.

[3] Beaurenaut, M., Dezecache, G., & Grèzes, J. (2021). Action co-representation under threat: A social Simon study. Cognition, 215, 104829.

[4] Dolk, T., Hommel, B., Prinz, W., & Liepelt, R. (2013). The (not so) social Simon effect: A referential coding account. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 39(5), 1248–1260.

[5] Dolk, T., Hommel, B., Prinz, W., & Liepelt, R. (2014). The joint flanker effect: Less social than previously thought. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 21(5), 1224–1230.

[6] Dötsch, D., & Schubö A. (2015). Social categorization and cooperation in motor joint action: Evidence for a joint end-state comfort. Experimental Brain Research, 233(8), 2323–2334.

[7] De Dreu, C. K. W., Gross, J., & Romano, A. (2023). Group formation and the evolution of human social organization. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 19, 320–334.

[8] Duan, J., Jiang, Y., He, Y., Zhang, F., Shen, M., & Yin, J. (2021). Action generalization across group members: Action efficiency matters. Cognitive Science, 45(4), e12957.

[9] Echterhoff, G., Higgins, E. T., & Levine, J. M. (2017). Shared reality: Experiencing commonality with others’ inner states about the world. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 4(5), 496–521.

[10] Eriksen, B. A., & Eriksen, C. W. (1974). Effects of noise letters upon the identification of a target letter in a nonsearch task. Perception & Psychophysics, 16(1), 143–149.

[11] Faure, R., Righetti, F., Seibel, M., & Hofmann, W. (2018). Speech is silver, nonverbal behavior is gold : How implicit partner evaluations affect dyadic interactions in close relationships. Psychological Science, 29(11), 1731–1741.

[12] Frank, M. C., & Goodman, N. D. (2012). Predicting pragmatic reasoning in language games. Science, 336(6084), 998.

[13] Frank, M. C., & Goodman, N. D. (2014). Inferring word meanings by assuming that speakers are informative. Cognitive Psychology, 75, 80–96.

[14] Henrich, J., & Muthukrishna, M. (2021). The origins and psychology of human cooperation. Annual Review of Psychology, 72, 207–240.

[15] Ho, M. K., Saxe, R., & Cushman, F. (2022). Planning with theory of mind. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 26(11), 959–971.

[16] Hommel, B. (2011). The Simon effect as tool and heuristic. Acta Psychologica, 136(2), 189–202.

[17] Jara-Ettinger, J., Schulz, L. E., & Tenenbaum, J. B. (2020). The Naïve utility calculus as a unified, quantitative framework for action understanding. Cognitive Psychology, 123, 101334.

[18] McEllin, L., Fiedler, S., & Sebanz, N. (2023). Action planning and execution cues influence economic partner choice. Cognition, 241, 105632.

[19] Moll, H., & Meltzoff, A. N. (2011). How does it look? Level 2 perspective-taking at 36 months of age. Child Development, 82(2), 661–673.

[20] Moll, H., & Tomasello, M. (2006). Level I perspective-taking at 24 months of age. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 24(3), 603–613.

[21] Pesowski, M. L., Powell, L. J., Cikara, M., & Schachner, A. (2023). Interpersonal utility and children’s social inferences from shared preferences. Cognition, 232, 105344.

[22] Rhodes, M., & Chalik, L. (2013). Social categories as markers of intrinsic interpersonal obligations. Psychological Science, 24(6), 999–1006.

[23] Roberts, S. O., Ho, A. K., & Gelman, S. A. (2017). Group presence, category labels, and generic statements influence children to treat descriptive group regularities as prescriptive. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 158, 19–31.

[24] Samson, D., Apperly, I. A., Braithwaite, J. J., Andrews, B. J., & Bodley Scott, S. E. (2010). Seeing it their way: Evidence for rapid and involuntary computation of what other people see. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 36(5), 1255–1266.

[25] Schmitz, L., Vesper, C., Sebanz, N., & Knoblich, G. (2017). Co-representation of others’ task constraints in joint action. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 43(8), 1480–1493.

[26] Sebanz, N., Knoblich, G., & Prinz, W. (2003). Representing others’ actions: Just like one’s own? Cognition, 88(3), 11–21.

[27] Sebanz, N., Knoblich, G., & Prinz, W. (2005). How two share a task: Corepresenting stimulus-response mappings. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 31(6), 1234–1246.

[28] Shteynberg, G., Hirsh, J. B., Wolf, W., Bargh, J. A., Boothby, E. J., Colman, A. M., Echterhoff, G., & Rossignac-Milon, M. (2023). Theory of collective mind. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 27(11), 1019–1031.

[29] Simon, J. R., & Rudell, A. P. (1967). Auditory S-R compatibility: The effect of an irrelevant cue on information processing. Journal of Applied Psychology, 51(3), 300–304.

[30] Spears, R. (2021). Social influence and group identity. Annual Review of Psychology, 72, 367–390.

[31] Tomasello, M., & Vaish, A. (2013). Origins of human cooperation and morality. Annual Review of Psychology, 64, 231–255.

[32] Wang, R. E., Wu, S. A., Evans, J. A., Tenenbaum, J. B., Parkes, D. C., & Kleiman-Weiner, M. (2021). Too many cooks: Bayesian inference for coordinating multi-agent collaboration. Topics in Cognitive Science, 13(2), 414–432.

[33] Wolf, W., & Tomasello, M. (2023). A shared intentionality account of uniquely human social bonding. Perspectives on Psychological Science.

[34] Yin, J., Duan, J., Huangliang, J., Hu, Y., & Zhang, F. (2022). Members of highly entitative groups are implicitly expected to behave consistently based on their deep-level goals instead of their shallow-level movements. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning Memory and Cognition, 48(1), 13–28.

[35] Yin, J., Sun, M., Sun, H., Ai, D., Lin, J., & Guo, X. (2023). The influence of social valence on predicting group Members’ behaviors:The role of group norms and individual differences. Chinese Journal of Applied Psychology, 29(6), 522–537.

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

2024 The Author(s). PsyCh Journal published by Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences and John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd.