Garriy Shteynberg Published in ‘The Conversation’

January 26, 2024 by Logan Judy

‘Collective mind’ bridges societal divides − psychology research explores how watching the same thing can bring people together

Garriy Shteynberg, University of Tennessee

Only about 1 in 4 Americans said that they had trust in the nation’s institutions in 2023 – with big business (1 in 7), television news (1 in 7) and Congress (1 in 12) scraping the very bottom.

While institutional trust is decreasing, political polarization is increasing. The majority of Republicans (72%) and Democrats (64%) think of each other as more immoral than other Americans – a nearly 30% rise from 2016 to 2022. When compared with similar democracies, the United States has exhibited the largest increase in animus toward the opposing political party over the past 40 years.

When public trust and political consensus disappear, what remains? This question has occupied my research for the past 20 years, both as a scholar trained in social anthropology, organizational science and social cognition and as a professor of psychology.

Researchers don’t have all the answers, but it seems that even in the absence of public trust and agreement, people can share experiences. Whether watching a spelling bee or a football game, “we” still exist if “we” can witness it together.

My colleagues and I call this human capacity to take a collective perspective theory of collective mind. The foundation of collective mind, and what we study in the lab, is shared attention, instances when people experience the world with others.

Shared attention amplifies experiences

Experiments in the laboratory with adults show that shared experiences amplify psychological and behavioral reactions to the world.

My colleagues and I find that compared with attending to the world alone, or at different times than others, synchronous attention with others yields stronger memories, deeper emotions and firmer motivations. Studies show that seeing words together renders them more memorable, watching sad movies together makes them sadder, and focusing together on shared goals increases efforts toward their pursuit. Sharing attention to the behavior of others yields more imitation of that behavior.

Critically, those experiencing something with you need not be physically present. Although in some experiments participants sit side by side, in other studies participants believe they are attending together from different lab rooms or even across the nation. Irrespective of the location, the sense that “we are attending” to something together at the same time – as compared with in solitude or on your own schedule – amplifies the experience.

Laboratories in the United States, Australia, Hungary, Germany and Denmark have found similar results. Notably, some studies have found that people want to have more shared experiences, even when they don’t actually enjoy them more than solitary experiences.

What’s behind these observations? As a social species that survives through joint action, human beings in general need a common baseline from which to act. When shared experiences amplify what we know together, it can guide subsequent behavior, rendering that behavior more understandable and useful to the collective.

Sharing attention builds relationships

Shared attention happens within the bounds of our cherished relationships and groups, like when friends go to a movie together, but also outside of them.

Research suggests that shared attention on a common subjective experience can build relationships across the political divide and strengthen cooperation among strangers. For instance, when people co-witness that they have the same gut reaction to an unfamiliar piece of music or a meaningless inkblot, they like each other more, even if they have opposing political leanings. Critically, relational benefits are more likely when such subjective experiences are shared simultaneously – instances when people are most likely to sense a shared mind.

People can be attending next to one another or thousands of miles apart, in groups of two or 200, and the results are the same – shared attention amplifies experiences, creates social bonds and even synchronizes individuals’ heartbeats and breaths.

Scientists studying kids find that interest in attending with others begins in the first year of human life, predating the development of language and preceding any notion of shared beliefs by several years. Human relationships don’t begin with sharing values; sharing attention comes first.

The role of shared attention in society

Before the advent of the internet, Americans shared attention broadly – they watched the same nightly news together, even if they did not always agree whether it was good or bad. Today, with people’s attention divided into media silos, there are more obstacles than ever to sharing attention with those with whom you disagree.

And yet, even when we can no longer agree on what “we” believe, sharing attention to the basic sights and sounds of our world connects us. These moments can be relatively small, like watching a movie in the theater, or large, like watching the Super Bowl. However, remembering that we are sharing such experiences with Americans of all political persuasions is important.

Consider the Federal Communications Commission’s fairness doctrine, a policy that controversial issues of public importance should receive balanced coverage, exposing audiences to differing views. In effect, it created episodes of shared attention across social, political and economic differences.

Institutional trust is now almost twofold lower than it was in 1987, the year the fairness doctrine was repealed. It is possible that the end of the fairness doctrine helped create a hyperpolarized media, where the norm is sharing attention with those who are ideologically similar.

Of course, sharing attention on divisive issues can be painful. Yet, I believe it may also push us beyond our national fracture and toward a revitalization of public trust.

Why? When we share awareness of the world with others, no matter how distinct our beliefs, we form a community of minds. We are no longer alone. If we are to restore public trust and national ideals, sharing attention across societal divides looks like a way forward.

Garriy Shteynberg, Associate Professor of Psychology, University of Tennessee

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Szymanski Nurtures Collaborative Success as Editor for Psychology of Women Quarterly

December 14, 2023 by Logan Judy

Department of Psychology Professor Dawn Szymanski’s decades of research on multicultural feminist issues in relation to psychological health made her an excellent choice to be editor of Psychology of Women Quarterly (PWQ), a top journal of women’s studies, a role she took on in 2020 and concludes in 2024.

The feminist, scientific, peer-reviewed journal specializes in empirical research, critical reviews, and theoretical articles that advance the field of psychology of women and gender. Szymanski’s top priority as editor was to preserve the integrity and high quality of studies published in the journal.

“PWQ has earned a reputation for scholarly excellence and for publishing studies that are novel, cutting edge, rigorous, and sophisticated, for making important contributions to the existing literature, and addressing major social issues,” said Szymanski. “I focused on promoting visibility, diversity, timely and educative reviews, feminist mentoring, appreciating all those who contribute to PWQ, and recognizing excellence.”

Her approach worked to maintain and even strengthen PWQ’s position as the leading venue for feminist psychological science, and was much appreciated by colleagues.

“Authors reported incredible feedback from Szymanski and her team that enhanced their scholarship through rigorous peer review and editorial collaboration, which is a hallmark of a strong editorial process,” said Patrick Grzanka, professor of psychology and divisional dean of social sciences, College of Arts and Sciences. “Szymanski also gave substantial space in the journal toward special issues on emerging and pertinent topics across the field, including open science and reproductive justice.”

“We published two special Issues, one on Feminist Psychology and Open Science: Challenges and Opportunities (December, 2021) and the other on Reproductive Justice: Advancing Science, Advocacy, and Practice (December, 2023),” said Szymanski. “We continued to lift the voices of those who are underrepresented in our literature by publishing several articles on the experiences of multiply minoritized women—e.g., African American women, Latine and Black sexual minority, gender expansive women, and South Asian women.”

She also collaborated with the American Psychological Association Division 35 leadership to establish a yearly Excellence in Peer Review Award that recognizes the time-consuming, labor intensive, and often under-appreciated service commitment of providing quality peer reviews.

This multifaceted work strengthened not only the PWQ brand, but shone a light on the high quality of UT scholarship in psychology.

“Szymanski’s stewardship of PWQ here at UT deepened recognition across the discipline of psychology that we are a leading institution for critical feminist research,” said Grzanka. “This is a tremendous accomplishment for her as a scholar and a source of pride for our college and university.”

Szymanski credits her editorship experience with enhancing her insight for research, writing, leadership, mentoring, managing a large team, and the editorial and production process. 

“It is exciting to work with, and learn from, the best and brightest researchers in feminist psychology and to help shape the future of feminist psychological science,” she said. “It has influenced how I carry out the variety of roles I play as a professor.”

As she hands off the leadership of PWQ, Szymanski welcomes the ability to spend more time in those roles, including conducting her own research and guiding the investigations of her doctoral students. Their projects seek to improve psychological well-being for women and other minoritized groups working through a spectrum of difficult situations.

“Some of our recent, in the works, and future research efforts include examining experiences of sexual objectification in one’s family of origin, the relation between involvement in LGBTQ activism and positive psychological functioning, the sexual well-being of sexual assault survivors, and experiences of minoritized graduate student researchers and therapists,” she said.

Szymanski’s successful tenure for PWQ and her continued championing of these voices impacts the psychological health of Volunteers at home and around the world.

Todd Freeberg Published in ‘The Conversation’

February 7, 2023 by Logan Judy

Chickadees, titmice and nuthatches flocking together benefit from a diversity bonus – so do other animals, including humans

Todd M. Freeberg, University of Tennessee

Carolina chickadees are small, boisterous year-round residents of the southeastern United States. They are regularly found with much larger tufted titmice, white-breasted nuthatches and various woodpecker species.

In these mixed flocks, chickadees are almost always the subordinate individuals, outcompeted by their larger flockmates. Why, then, do chickadees regularly join these flocks? Might they have a symbiotic relationship with other species in these flocks?

I study animal behavior and am especially interested in testing how diverse groups of animals sometimes outperform uniform groups made up of a single species.

One potential explanation for why chickadees – or any species, for that matter – might join a mixed-species group is that such groups may possess a wider variety of cognitive tools, resulting in increased creativity and innovation for the group as a whole.

More is more

One of the first experiments to demonstrate the benefits of diversity involved honeybees and their ability to maintain optimal hive temperature, which is crucial to egg and larval development.

Scientists manipulated the surrounding temperature of bee colonies that varied in their genetic relatedness. Some colonies had only a single male that mated with the queen, while others had multiple males that mated with the queen. The more genetically diverse colonies were better at maintaining hive temperatures than the genetically alike colonies.

The benefits of diversity within a species appear to extend to mixed-species groups as well.

Scientists have shown that Caribbean zenaida doves benefit by being in groups with Carib grackles, a species of blackbird. Zenaida doves do not have alarm calls of their own but respond to the alarm calls of grackles with increased vigilance. Carib grackles, in turn, may gain foraging benefits from interactions with zenaida doves by copying their foraging behavior and movements.

Similarly, Diana monkeys and Campbell’s monkeys in Côte d’Ivoire regularly join up in mixed-species groups. When this occurs, both species are freed up by the greater number of eyes and ears scanning for trouble, enabling them to focus on other tasks. Diana monkeys forage more in mixed-species groups than when they are alone and Campbell’s monkeys move and call more than when they are alone.

Birds of different feathers also flock together

My colleagues and I found similar results in our research on Carolina chickadees. These birds are often found in flocks with tufted titmice and white-breasted nuthatches, as well as a handful of other occasional species. We have been studying these flocks for two decades using simple platform feeders as a starting point. Once we found that a flock was using our platform feeder, we cleared the seeds and put them in a hopper-style feeder the birds had never seen before.

We found chickadees in flocks with titmice and nuthatches were more likely to figure out the feeder than chickadees in less diverse flocks. Titmice in diverse flocks were also more likely to solve the task than titmice in less diverse flocks. It’s possible, with more eyes and ears to perceive potential threats, individuals can spend less time patrolling for predators and more time problem-solving.

Other research on flocks of chickadees, titmice and nuthatches has supported this idea. When a predator is detected by these birds, they actively mob it in an effort to drive it from the area. Titmice tend to hang back and let the chickadees and nuthatches do the majority of the work, however, so it seems likely that titmice, in particular, benefit from the defensive behavior of the other two species in these flocks. Ongoing work is trying to determine whether titmice are freeloaders in these flocks – or if they are providing anti-predator or food-finding benefits.

Human diversity

The benefits-of-diversity idea has also been studied in people. Multiple experiments reveal that not only do groups make better decisions than individuals, more-diverse groups make better decisions than less-diverse groups.

In an experimental study of simulated marketplace decisions, teams of diverse individuals were better able to judge the true market value of commodities than homogeneous teams, in both southeast Asian and North American populations. In another study, juries of diverse individuals weighed relevant evidence more carefully and deliberated more effectively than homogeneous juries. Similar benefits of diversity are regularly observed in business and educational settings.

Scientists increasingly know there is strength in diversity – not just for bees and birds but for our own species, as well.

Todd M. Freeberg, Professor and Associate Head of Psychology, University of Tennessee

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.