Self-other Differences Research Articles

Exploring the Role of Social Norms in Buprenorphine Prescribing among Providers in a Rural Health System

Background: The opioid epidemic in the United States continues to accelerate, with opioid-related deaths increasing 30% from 2019 to 2021. Though medication assisted therapy (MAT) is an effective strategy for the treatment of opioid use disorder (OUD), utilization of this tool remains low, particularly in rural health settings. The aims of this study were (a) to examine perceived barriers to using MAT in a sample of rural health providers, (b) to examine the accuracy of medical providers’ perceptions of descriptive (eg, frequency) and injunctive (ie, approval of) norms related to the use of buprenorphine, and (c) to determine whether greater self-other differences predict greater likelihood of prescribing buprenorphine. Methods: An anonymous electronic survey was sent to 775 rural medical providers (response rate = 9.7%). Results: Results indicated that most providers do not prescribe buprenorphine or do so infrequently. Providers inaccurately believed that they were more accepting than their peers with regards to providing addiction care. Providers who assumed that peers were prescribing buprenorphine more often and were more accepting of it were more likely to engage in this practice themselves. Conclusions: These findings lay the groundwork for testing norms interventions that might enhance the uptake of the use of evidence-based substance use treatment by rural medical providers.

People have different expectations for their own versus others' use of AI-mediated communication tools.

Artificial intelligence (AI) can enhance human communication, for example, by improving the quality of our writing, voice or appearance. However, AI mediated communication also has risks-it may increase deception, compromise authenticity or yield widespread mistrust. As a result, both policymakers and technology firms are developing approaches to prevent and reduce potentially unacceptable uses of AI communication technologies. However, we do not yet know what people believe is acceptable or what their expectations are regarding usage. Drawing on normative psychology theories, we examine people's judgements of the acceptability of open and secret AI use, as well as people's expectations of their own and others' use. In two studies with representative samples (Study 1: N = 477; Study 2: N = 765), we find that people are less accepting of secret than open AI use in communication, but only when directly compared. Our results also suggest that people believe others will use AI communication tools more than they would themselves and that people do not expect others' use to align with their expectations of what is acceptable. While much attention has been focused on transparency measures, our results suggest that self-other differences are a central factor for understanding people's attitudes and expectations for AI-mediated communication.

A Cognitive Toolbox for Persuasion. Perceived Diagnosticity and Persuasibility Bias of Persuasive Features

Persuasive features such as argument quality, source expertise, support, affect, consensus, source likability, and source attractiveness are linked to mental rules that vary in their reliability in supporting the persuasive process. We address these features as cognitive tools available to support judgments, investigating their self-other perceived diagnosticity and persuasibility, and using self-other differences as an index of perceived bias. Results show that participants explicitly consider argument quality, source expertise, and support (number of arguments) as diagnostic of the validity of a claim. Such diagnosticity predicted perceived persuasibility, and self-other differences linked non-diagnostic features to bias. We further discuss the relevance of these findings for a more comprehensive understanding of the cognitive toolbox that supports persuasive influences.

The influence of COVID-19 on intertemporal choices in the health and economy domains

BackgroundWith the spread of COVID-19, concerns regarding its adverse effects have arisen. Based on affect regulation theory and construal level theory, this study explored how COVID-19 affects intertemporal choice in the health and economy domains, self-other differences for intertemporal choice were also inspected. The study examined whether psychological safety can moderate the relationship between COVID-19 and intertemporal choice. MethodsA 2 (COVID-19 status: pre-COVID-19, during-COVID-19) × 2 (decision maker role: decision for self, decision for others) × 2 (domain: health, economy) three-factor hybrid experiment was employed. Results(1) Individuals in during-COVID-19 condition preferred more immediate options. (2) Delayed options were preferred more in the health domain. Preference for immediate money options enhanced during than before COVID-19. However, COVID-19 status did not affect choices related to health. (3) Delayed options were preferred more when making intertemporal choices for others than for oneself under the pre-COVID-19 condition. Self-other differences for intertemporal choice disappeared during COVID-19. (4) Psychological safety moderated the effect of COVID-19 on intertemporal choice. ConclusionsDuring COVID-19, individuals’ impulsive preference of intertemporal choice increased. COVID-19 affected intertemporal choice regarding economy and the self-other differences for intertemporal choice. Psychological safety could buffer the effect of COVID-19 on intertemporal choice. ValueThis study can provide empirical evidence to affect regulation theory and level of explanation theory as well as guide individuals in making scientific decisions in health and economic domains under public health emergencies.

Normative Perceptions and Medical Providers' Help-Seeking Behavior in a Rural Health Setting.

Healthcare providers experience greater work stress and mental health concerns compared to the general population. This study aimed to better understand factors that promote engagement in help-seeking behaviors among rural medical providers. Considering a social norms perspective, this study examined: (a) the accuracy of medical providers' perceptions of injunctive (i.e., approval of) norms related to seeking time off for their own medical, mental, and social health care (b) determine whether greater self-other differences (SODs) predict a greater likelihood of help-seeking behavior, and (c) examine associations between self-valuation, SODs, and self-care behaviors. Electronic surveys were emailed to 805 rural medical providers (17.8% response rate). Findings suggested that providers believed that their coworkers were less approving of help-seeking behavior for a psychosocial or mental health reason than they actually were. Furthermore, self-other differences (SODs) of injunctive norms predicted help-seeking behavior, such that those with greater SODs reported less help-seeking behavior. Although this research provides some foundational evidence for the role of normative perceptions in self-care behaviors, larger systemic and organizational problems continue to drive these struggles and contribute to burnout. Future research might examine the interplay of normative interventions and organizational changes to enhance help-seeking behaviors among medical providers.

Self-Other(s) Risk Decision Differences in Different Domains in the Chinese Context: A Social Value Theory Perspective.

The core question explored in this study was whether social value theory, which can explain the domain specificity of self-other differences, still was applicable when choice recipients change. A pre-experiment and three formal experiments were conducted to explore the differences in self-other risk decision-making in different domains and different recipients from the perspective of social value theory. Experiment 1 involved 152 participants who were asked to make decisions for themselves and a single other in three risk domains. In Experiment 2, 178 participants were recruited, with money loss domain added and the "others" divided into "intimate others" to explore the effect of social distance on self-others risk decision-making in four domains. In Experiment 3, 233 participants were involved, and the number of "others" was expanded to explore the differences between "individual decision-making" and "group decision-making". In the relationship domain, individuals were more risk-averse when making decisions for themselves, while in the money gain domain and personal safety domain, individuals' risk-taking tendencies when making decisions for themselves were significantly higher than that for new friends. In the money loss domain, no significant difference was found among the three decision-maker roles. When making decisions for a group (including the decision-maker), individuals exhibit a "compromise effect" in the non-monetary domain, where their risk appetite falls between making decisions for themselves and for the group. The domain differences in self-other risk decision-making can be explained by the social value theory.

Opinions for you, not me: Self-other differences in review reliance

Opinions for you, not me: Self-other differences in review reliance

Growing out of your own mind: Reexamining the development of the self-other difference in the unexpected contents task

The unexpected contents task is a well-established measure for studying young children's developing theory of mind. The task measures whether children understand that others have a false belief about a deceptive container and whether children can track the representational change in their own beliefs about the container's contents. Performance on both questions improves between the ages of 3 and 4. A previous meta-analysis (Wellman, Cross, & Watson, 2001) found little evidence for a difference in children's responses on these questions, but did not investigate the weak effect size that was reported for the interaction between age and question type. The two meta-analyses reported here update the literature review, and find a more robust interaction between question type and age. Three-year-olds showed better performance on questions about their own representational change than others' false belief, while older children showed the reverse pattern. A mega-analysis of a sample of over 1200 children between the ages of 36–60 months then showed the same result. This response pattern requires novel theoretical interpretations, which include reframing the development of children's understanding of false belief.

Choosing more aggressive commitment contracts for others than for the self

Abstract Commitment contracts are a strategy for binding self-control failures, such as skipping a gym visit or breaking a dieting regime, to monetary penalties. Despite evidence that commitment contracts with stronger penalties improve self-control, they are relatively underused. Across 5 experiments, we find that decision makers are less likely to select commitment contracts with more severe penalties (i.e., anti-charity contracts) for themselves than they are for others. This self-other difference in contract choice arises because decision makers believe anti-charity contracts will be more effective for others than for themselves. Our results suggest that people recognize the potential effectiveness of using more aggressive commitment contracts to overcome self-control problems, but view themselves as an exception to that general rule.

Self-other differences in social mindfulness: Beliefs about other people's selfishness are grounded in one's own selfish impulses

There is a robust tendency for people to expect others to be more immoral than them, for instance, more selfish. Where do these pessimistic beliefs come from? We explore a socio-metacognitive account whereby those beliefs originate in one's own impulses to act selfishly. In two studies, we used the social mindfulness paradigm, a task that provides the initial chooser the opportunity to be socially mindful about other people or not. Results show 1) that people expect others to be more selfish than them, and 2) that this belief in the selfishness of others is related to one's own impulses to act selfishly. Thus, even when people are kind in their choices, they tend to be less generous in their beliefs about the kindness of others, and this is particularly the case when those selfless choices did not come easily to them, but rather required suppressing an impulse to act selfishly.

The brain stimulation of DLPFC regulates choice preference in intertemporal choice self-other differences

Intertemporal choice requires to make decision by evaluating the value of two options consisting of different times and benefits. The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) is a key brain region for modulating intertemporal choice. The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of non-invasive brain stimulation over DLPFC on intertemporal choice behavior for self and others. We used transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) and continuous theta burst stimulation (cTBS) to stimulate bilateral DLPFC in two experiments respectively. After stimulation, subjects made a choice between a Smaller-Sooner (SS) reward and a Larger-Later (LL) reward in intertemporal choice task. The results showed that cTBS stimulation on the left DLPFC reduced the choice preference for SS reward when individuals made choices for themselves. The cTBS stimulation caused preference difference between choosing for self and parents. But tDCS stimulation had no effect on regulating choice preference. In addition, subjects preferred SS reward for self than strangers. Time-types and monetary difference of rewards affected the choice preference. The presence of immediate time increased the choice preference of SS reward. As the monetary difference increased, the choice proportion of SS reward decreased. Our study demonstrates that brain stimulation on the left DLPFC can regulate choice preference behavior in intertemporal choice.

Self-other differences in perceptions of wealth

People evaluate their own wealth differently from how they evaluate the wealth of others. Across six experiments, we find evidence that people focus disproportionately on debt when thinking about their own (vs. another person's) wealth. In Experiments 1–3, participants predicted how wealthy they or someone else would be in one year, assuming they had the same amount in assets and debt today. While participants were generally optimistic about the future, they believed debt would shrink faster for themselves than for others. Participants focused more on paying down debt than growing assets when thinking about their own wealth. Further, when asked to consider what they would do with a windfall, they allocated more towards repaying debt than they believed others would. In Experiments 4 and 5, participants assessed their own wealth or that of another person after purchasing a car or a house and borrowing to do so. In every case, participants considered others (vs. oneself) as better off financially when holding the price and amount borrowed constant. As debt increased, the gap between self and others widened. In Experiment 6, a separate group of participants also reported their beliefs about how others might see them. When actively considering another person's perspective, people saw themselves as wealthier. We conclude by discussing the role that different evaluations of wealth might play in patterns of conspicuous consumption.

Bullying Among Medical Residents: Gender, Social Norms, and Reporting Behavior.

Bullying behavior in residency is common, with prevalence rates ranging from 10% to 48%. Negative acts adversely impact junior physicians. The aims of this study were to examine (a) gender differences in experiences of bullying and/or negative acts while working as a medical resident, (b) residents' perceptions of injunctive (ie, approval of) and descriptive (ie, behavior) norms related to reporting bullying behaviors, and (c) whether greater self-other differences predict greater engagement in reporting bullying behavior by others in the workplace. Self-report surveys were administered to family medicine, internal medicine, surgical, and emergency medicine residents (N=61). Female residents reported experiencing significantly more bullying than males. Overall, resident physicians held inaccurate beliefs, and thought other residents reported bullying more often than they did. Finally, the degree of inaccuracy was associated with reporting bullying behavior. These findings are an initial indication that normative interventions may be applicable with this population. In a field that struggles with high rates of burnout, finding ways to improve the culture of an organization may assist with addressing at least part of these systemic issues.

I'm wearing a mask, but are they?: Perceptions of self-other differences in COVID-19 health behaviors.

As information about COVID-19 safety behavior changed, people had to judge how likely others were to protect themselves through mask-wearing and vaccination seeking. In a large, campus-wide survey, we assessed whether University of Kansas students viewed others’ protective behaviors as different from their own, how much students assumed others shared their beliefs and behaviors, and which individual differences were associated with those estimations. Participants in our survey (N = 1, 704; 81.04% white, 64.08% female) estimated how likely they and others were to have worn masks on the University of Kansas campus, have worn masks off-campus, and to seek a vaccine. They also completed measures of political preference, numeracy, and preferences for risk in various contexts. We found that participants estimated that others were less likely to engage in health safety behaviors than themselves, but that their estimations of others were widely shared. While, in general, participants saw themselves as more unique in terms of practicing COVID-19 preventative behaviors, more liberal participants saw themselves as more unique, while those that were more conservative saw their own behavior as more similar to others. At least for masking, this uniqueness was false—estimates of others’ health behavior were lower than their actual rates. Understanding this relationship could allow for more accurate norm-setting and normalization of mask-wearing and vaccination.

Self-other differences in intertemporal decision making: An eye-tracking investigation

This study investigated how intertemporal choices made for others differed from those made for oneself, and how attention directed to specific attributes of the choice problem contributed to such differences. Moderating effects of components of trait empathy, chronic construal-level, and personal sense of power were examined. Thirty-five participants performed a money choice task where they made choices for themselves and on behalf of an acquaintance, during which their eye movements were tracked. Results showed that lower scores on the fantasy component of empathy predicted decreased delay discounting while making decisions for others, while higher empathic concern favoured less impulsive choices for both self and others. Higher sense of power favoured less impulsive choices for both self and others. While making decisions for others, higher power biased more attention towards the reward attribute of the choice, which in turn predicted less delay discounting. Results are discussed from a construal-level perspective.

Comparative Optimism, Self-Superiority, Egocentric Impact Perception and Health Information Seeking: A COVID-19 Study.

We examined perceived self-other differences (self-uniqueness) in appraisals of one’s risk of an infectious disease (COVID-19), one’s adherence to behavioural precautionary measures against the disease, and the impact of these measures on one’s life. We also examined the relationship of self-uniqueness with information seeking and trust in sources of information about the disease. We administered an online survey to a community sample (N = 8696) of Dutch-speaking individuals, mainly in Belgium and The Netherlands, during the first lockdown (late April-Mid June 2020). As a group, participants reported that they were less likely to get infected or infect others or to suffer severe outcomes than average (unrealistic optimism) and that they adhered better than average to behavioural precautionary measures (illusory superiority). Except for participants below 25, who reported that they were affected more than average by these measures (egocentric impact bias), participants also generally reported that they were less affected than average (allocentric impact bias). Individual differences in self-uniqueness were associated with differences in the number of information sources being used and trust on these sources. Higher comparative optimism for infection, self-superiority, and allocentric impact perception were associated with information being sought from fewer sources; higher self-superiority and egocentric impact perception were associated with lower trust. We discuss implications for health communication.

Social Norms and Engagement in Protective Health Behaviors Among Rural Health Providers.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had far-reaching effects for individuals and healthcare systems in the United States. Increasing and sustaining behavioral changes to reduce transmission of disease among medical providers is essential for the protection of the community at large. Using a social norms perspective, this study aimed to (a) examine the accuracy of perceptions of engagement in protective health behaviors among a sample of rural health providers, and (b) determine whether greater self-other discrepancies were associated with engagement in these behaviors. Electronic surveys were completed by 214 rural medical providers. Findings suggested that rural healthcare providers had exaggerated perceptions of peer engagement in several COVID-19-related protective health behaviors. As expected, positive self-other differences were positively associated with providers’ own behaviors, and perceived descriptive norms were associated with providers’ engagement in these behaviors. Future studies using normative interventions might examine how positive self-other differences increase the use of protective health behaviors over time.

Perceived Social Norms Guide Health Care Decisions for Oneself and Others: A Cross-Sectional Experiment in a US Online Panel.

Global aging has increased the reliance on surrogates to make health care decisions for others. We investigated the differences between making health care decisions and predicting health care decisions, self-other differences for made and predicted health care decisions, and the roles of perceived social norms, emotional closeness, empathy, age, and gender. Participants (N = 2037) from a nationally representative US panel were randomly assigned to make or to predict a health care decision. They were also randomly assigned to 1 of 5 recipients: themselves, a loved one 60 y or older, a loved one younger than 60 y, a distant acquaintance 60 y or older, or a distant acquaintance younger than 60 y. Hypothetical health care scenarios depicted choices between relatively safe lower-risk treatments with a good chance of yielding mild health improvements versus higher-risk treatments that offered a moderate chance of substantial health improvements. Participants reported their likelihood of choosing lower- versus higher-risk treatments, their perceptions of family and friends' approval of risky health care decisions, and their empathy. We present 3 key findings. First, made decisions involved less risk taking than predicted decisions, especially for distant others. Second, predicted decisions were similar for others and oneself, but made decisions were less risk taking for others than oneself. People predicted that loved ones would be less risk taking than distant others would be. Third, perceived social norms were more strongly associated than empathy with made and predicted decisions. Hypothetical scenarios may not adequately represent emotional processes in health care decision making. Perceived social norms may sway people to take less risk in health care decisions, especially when making decisions for others. These findings have implications for improving surrogate decision making. People made less risky health care decisions for others than for themselves, even though they predicted others would make decisions similar to their own. This has implications for understanding how surrogates apply the substituted judgment standard when making decisions for patients.Perceived social norms were more strongly related to decisions than treatment-recipient (relationship closeness, age) and decision-maker (age, gender, empathy) characteristics. Those who perceived that avoiding health care risks was valued by their social group were less likely to choose risky medical treatments.Understanding the power of perceived social norms in shaping surrogates' decisions may help physicians to engage surrogates in shared decision making.Knowledge of perceived social norms may facilitate the design of decision aids for surrogates.

Self–other discrepancies in electrophysiological response to outcome evaluation in the Balloon Analogue Risk Task

The topic of self-other differences in decision-making has gained considerable attention in recent years. Despite a broad range of behavior studies that have shown self-other discrepancy in decision-making, few neuroimaging studies with event-related potentials (ERPs) have directly compared decisions made for oneself with those made for others. It remains controversial whether self-other differences of outcome evaluations in gambling tasks can also be shown in brain potentials. In this study, we used event-related potentials with a Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART) paradigm, a sequential, dynamic decision-making task to examine the effects of self-other differences on evaluation outcome in brain activity. Feedback Related Negativity (FRN) and P300 components were analyzed with respect to feedback valence (win vs. loss) and beneficiary (self vs. stranger). The ERP results showed that when making decisions for oneself, the negative outcome feedback evoked a larger P300 compared to making decisions for a stranger. However, there was no significant effect of self-other differences when the outcome feedback was positive. In contrast, regardless of whether the feedback was positive or negative, the FRN amplitude was insensitive to the self-other manipulation. Furthermore, we found that both components were modulated by the valence of the feedback. More pronounced FRN and P300 were induced when the feedback was negative, relative to when the feedback was positive. Our findings indicate that brain responses to outcome evaluation on the BART may be divided into an early semi-automatic processing stage and a later cognitive appraisal stage and that the self-other differences in sequential, dynamic decision-making tasks under uncertainty mainly affect the allocation of attention resources in the late cognitive processing stage.

Self-referential processing in false recognition and source monitoring: Self-other differences

ABSTRACT The present experiment examined the effect of self, close other, and unknown other-references on false recognition and source monitoring in the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm. In the present study, participants were shown items with their own name, the name of a closely known other, an unknown other, or alone. Then, they were asked to recognise the items and the reference conditions. The results showed that the items paired with oneself and a closely known other lead to higher true recognition scores compared to other two conditions. Moreover, the source of the items in the self and the close other-reference conditions were more likely to be attributed to the correct sources than the latter two. However, the self and the close other-referenced items increased false recognition and source misattribution scores. The findings indicate that referencing the self and close others may lead to memory illusions via distorting source monitoring abilities.