SPSP Board of Directors Election Results Announced

The SPSP Nominations and Elections Committee is pleased to inform you of the results of the 2023 elections:

  • 2025 President: Diana Sanchez
  • Board Member at Large for Science – Education: Jennifer Beer
  • Board Member at Large for Science – Community/Diversity: Debbie Ma
  • Student Committee Chair: Sherika Caliste

We also wish to acknowledge the valuable service of those who agreed to stand for election:

  • Josh Jackson
  • Angela Bahns
  • Eranda Jayawickreme
  • Theresa Vescio
  • Melissa Olson

Thank you to the service of our outgoing Board of Directors:

  • Past President: Laura A. King
  • Board Member at Large for Science - Education: Yuen J. Ho
  • Board Member at Large for Science – Community/Diversity: Keith B. Maddox

Thank you to all who participated in the process, by serving on the Nominations and Elections Committee, participating in the call for applications process, and/or by voting. We feel confident in the future of our society given the caliber of those who chose to run and serve in leadership capacities.

Nominations / Election Committee:

  • Laura A. King, Chair
  • Yulia Chentsova Denton
  • Paul Conway
  • Corey L. Cook
  • Katherine Duggan
  • Kristin N. Dukes
  • Collette Eccleston
  • Shigehiro Oishi

 

Most of What You Know about Body Language is Wrong

You've heard the come-ons. Signs that your partner is cheating! Seven ways to master the hidden language of power! Experts reveal what Harry and Meghan's body language says about their marriage! Anywhere you go these days—in the popular press, on TikTok and Instagram and Facebook, on YouTube—you're told that people's subtle faces and body movements give them away.

Is there any truth to this?

The three of us combined have spent more than 100 years working in the field of Nonverbal Communication (NVC). It's a fascinating area, chock-full of interesting findings. Unfortunately, it's sometimes hard to tell the science from the pseudoscience, and often it's the pseudoscience that grabs more clicks. We felt it was time to set things straight.

There Really Isn't Such a Thing as "Body Language"

Can people's posture, gaze, touch, tone of voice, and faces tell you what they really think or feel? A whole industry pushes the idea that "you can see it in their body language," when "it" can be whether people love or hate us, or whether they're interested customers, innocent defendants, or international terrorists.

Are there any reliable cues? If there truly were a body language, it would operate like a language! In language, words have fairly precise meanings. "Lava" is molten rock spewed by volcanoes, and "eat" means putting food in our mouths. The words can also be assembled to state facts, like "Aardvarks are quadrupeds."

In NVC, though, things are different. Outside of gestures like OK signs and extended third fingers, there aren't the kinds of precise meanings we see in language. If you ask a friend about the weather outside and she scowls, her face may mean that: (a) it's lousy outside; (b) it's so lousy outside that it is ridiculous to ask; or (c) she's still upset from the argument yesterday and the last thing she wants to do is talk to you, especially about the weather. Which one is it? We could look for other nonverbal clues, but the kicker is that we usually have to use language—a real language—to be certain: "Hey, what's with the face?"

We Don't Have a Stable Personal Space

We get upset when others don't "give us our space." The idea that we have a stable, insulating personal space that we defend from invaders is appealing, but we defy it all the time! People allow friends closer than strangers and children closer than friends. With romantic partners, the preference is often no space at all. A close approach can be intimate in one context and sexual harassment in another. With your children you treasure closeness, but when they misbehave you're happy—temporarily!—to have them out of sight. And the boundaries set with others depend not only on distance, but on the gaze, body orientation, posture, and faces exhibited during the interaction.

Physical closeness doesn't imply emotional closeness though, and this is revealed by electronic media. What do you make of two people, sitting a few seats apart in a coffee shop, each on a video call with others halfway across the world? Who is closer to whom?

Our Faces Don't Read Out Our Inner Emotions

How about those posters on every preschool wall showing cartooney faces with words like "Happy," "Sad", "Angry" and "Scared" underneath? Certain faces, everybody's been taught, mean that the people making them are feeling specific emotions. But is that true? Of course not. It makes a difference whether a big smile comes from a child at a birthday party or a scammer after someone's money. A person who approaches you with a tearful pouty face to announce "My child has cancer" may make the same face the next week and say, "She doesn't have cancer after all!"

If faces don't generally express inner emotion, what do they do? If you ask someone, "How was the movie?" and he smiles, the smile is about the movie. Most of the time, faces are about things—things you know, things you want, things you want from others. The so-called "angry" face on the posters signals others to fess up or leave, the "sad" face gets support and hugs, the "scared" face says "I give up." And people in diverse societies make diverse faces, in ways very different from those preschool posters.

You Can't Tell When People Are Lying from Their Bodies or Their Faces

You know the phrase "The body never lies"? Well, that's a lie, but one reason people cling to it is because the truth about lies leaves them feeling so vulnerable. As NVC research has shown for decades, there are no telltale nonverbal signs of lying. Yes, people may fidget, blink more or less, avert their eyes, twitch their lips or noses, stammer, and make fleeting facial "microexpressions," but these are all signs of stress, not lying. People may be giving off these signs while they are lying but it's not because of it.

And you might think that guilty people would be more stressed than innocent ones, but often that's not true. An inveterate liar may be far less stressed about being accused yet again. Innocent people may suffer overwhelming stress not because they are lying, but because they fear being wrongly accused of it, resent the fact that they are suspected of it, or are simply fraught at being put on the spot about it.

Context and Culture Matter

So what does nonverbal behavior tell you? As we hope we've made clear, it depends. You can only make sense of people's nonverbal behavior when you understand who the interactants are, what setting they're in, what they're saying to each other, and what culture they're from. The stakes are high—in relationships, in the boardroom and courtroom, in international affairs—when  people cave to the simplistic pseudoscience on "body language."  

Who said this was going to be easy?


For Further Reading

Patterson, M. L., Fridlund, A. J., & Crivelli, C. (2023). Four misconceptions about nonverbal communication. Perspectives on Psychological Science. https://doi.org/10.1177/17456916221148142

Alan J. Fridlund is Associate Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at University of California, Santa Barbara. He studies the evolution and functions of facial displays.

Miles L. Patterson is Professor Emeritus of Psychological Sciences at University of Missouri, St. Louis. His research concerns the interplay of nonverbal behaviors in social interaction.

Carlos Crivelli is Associate Professor/Reader in Affective Science and Social Interaction at De Montfort University, Leicester, U.K. He investigates facial displays and other nonverbal signals across diverse indigenous societies.

Gul Gunaydin

Gul Gunaydin is a Professor of Psychology at Sabanci University, Istanbul, Turkey. She received her PhD degree in psychology from Cornell University, USA. Her program of research focuses on interpersonal relationships and addresses questions ranging from relationship formation to maintenance to the well-being consequences of relationships.

What led you to choose a career in personality and social psychology?

It was actually a series of happy coincidences. I majored in business so I initially wanted to pursue a PhD in marketing. I thought a master's in social psychology would be a good foundation before I applied to PhD programs. In the first semester of my master's, I took a graduate seminar in close relationships. I was so fascinated by the topic that I had a change of heart and ended up pursuing a PhD in social and personality psychology at Cornell, where I was fortunate to work with Vivian Zayas and Cindy Hazan. And I have been studying interpersonal relationships ever since!

Briefly summarize your current research, and any future research interests you plan to pursue.

In my program of research, I primarily focus on two types of relationships: minimal social connections with weak ties and strangers, and deeper social connections with romantic partners. In my work on minimal social interactions, I study a wide range of phenomena from how we form impressions of strangers to how everyday interactions with them help boost our happiness. In the second line of work, I aim to address questions ranging from romantic relationship formation and maintenance to the well-being functions of romantic relationships.

The project that is currently keeping me busy is a multi-country study on minimal social interactions. I am collaborating with a great team of researchers on this project: Gillian Sandstrom and Ayse Uskul from the University of Sussex, and Emre Selcuk and Esra Ascigil from Sabanci University. Given the importance of minimal social interactions for healthy human functioning, we aim to uncover the predictors of these interactions and their role in well-being across the globe. We now have collaborators from 139 labs across 63 countries, so I am very excited about the next phases of the study!

Do you have any advice for individuals who wish to pursue a career in personality and social psychology?

Maintain work-life balance. This was something I discovered early in my career by following Cindy Hazan's sage advice. Pursuing an academic career offers a more flexible working schedule but you can easily get sucked into long working hours because there is always something else to do. I find that when I spend more time with loved ones and immerse myself in new experiences, work also becomes more productive and fun.

What are you most proud of in your career?

Receiving the Fulbright Award was a life-changing event in my early graduate career. This award allowed me to do an exchange year at the University of California, Berkeley. There, my interactions with Ozlem Ayduk and Serena Chen shaped my future plans and ultimately led to my decision to pursue a PhD degree in the U.S. I am very grateful for having crossed paths with them.

Do you have a favorite course to teach and why?

I absolutely love teaching Applied Social Psychology! In this course, we read and discuss cutting-edge social psychological research with applied implications. Students also work in groups on "weekly challenges" in which someone from academia or industry describes an everyday problem. Then, students try to address the problem by devising policies based on research findings from the course. It is really fun to teach this course because it is a constant reminder of how relevant social psychological research is for addressing profound day-to-day issues.

Outside of psychology, how do you spend your free time?

I love travelling and exploring new food and cuisines—I am very much a foodie. I recently took up learning Japanese, I am hoping to reach an intermediate level before my next trip to Japan.

 

From the Board of Directors: Key Updates from the Winter Meeting

The SPSP Board of Directors held its February meeting on the Sunday after the Annual Convention in Atlanta. Board meetings always include a financial report, reports from committees, and actions taken on proposals from committees or board members. I am excited to share some of the highlights.

Chris Crandall, Chair of the Publications Committee, shared a proposal to collaborate with the journal, Personality Science, one of the journals of the European Association for Personality Psychology. This fully open-access journal has a variety of submission types, welcomes submissions from all over the world, and has a broad definition of personality, including identity, attachment, and basically just about anything related to individual differences. As part of our strategic plan strategy for 2025, we aim to expand our inter-organizational and inter-disciplinary collaborations which we hope to do with this opportunity.  The journal is about to relaunch as a fully open-access, truly global outlet for personality scholarship. As part of the relaunch, EAPP has been in discussions with various societies that might sign on to this exciting venture. The journal, edited by Jaap Denissen, has a variety of submission types and welcomes submissions from all over the world. The proposal was the outcome of a series of conversations, including SPSP leadership, members of the SPSP Publications Committee, outgoing PS editor John Rauthmann, and EAPP President Veronica Benet-Martinez. The Board approved signing on to the consortium of societies supporting the journal, joining the Australasian Congress on Personality and Individual Differences, the Association of Research in Personality, and the Japan Society of Personality Psychology. This is such fantastic news for personality scholars and I hope having SPSP's endorsement sends the signal that the Society values deeply our personality scholars. Social psychologists take note as well. The journal's definition of personality is quite broad, including identity, attachment, and anything related to individual differences.

Another highlight for me was President Dolores Albarracin's review of the SPSP Governance Survey. This is a survey of Board members and volunteers who serve on the important committees within SPSP. We all know that academics can be a harried and stressed-out group; certainly everyone knows that committee work is truly the worst. Yet, 80% of respondents to the Governance Survey found their volunteer work with SPSP to be "a satisfying experience" (compared to 72% in 2021). In addition, 77% viewed their committees as "effective." If you have considered getting involved in SPSP as a volunteer but haven't done so, or even if you have not considered it, you might be interested in some of the comments from our volunteers, describing the best parts of their service to SPSP:

"Being part of an organization, in a deeper way, that has been at the center of my professional experience in academia contributing to our central mission as scientists"

 "I am truly appreciative of SPSP for recognizing that the needs of faculty at PUIs differ from those at R1, and for the past few years it's been clear that SPSP values us now. I am proud to be a part of the support system for PUI faculty"

 "I value the opportunity to be involved with scholars in my field, the possibility to network with others and just making an overall difference. It's clear that what I do makes an impact and SPSP strives to be better."

In her Director's Report, Rachel Puffer described a number of terrific initiatives, including the launch of the journal Personality and Social Psychology Review (PSPR) pilot Editorial Fellowship Program. As part of Editor Jonathan Adler's truly visionary approach to PSPR, the pilot focuses on scholars in Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America, as well as Indigenous scholars in any country. The first fellow (selected by the PSPR senior editorial team) is Dr. Stephen Baffour Adjei, a Senior Lecturer at Akenten Appiah-Menka University of Skills Training and Entrepreneurial Development (AAMUSTED) in Kumasi, Ghana. Learn more about Dr. Adjei in this announcement on the SPSP website. This program is a tremendous and innovative way to create a truly global science of human behavior.

Two additional aspects of the agenda reflected the growth of SPSP on the world stage: First, the Society has implemented new membership and registration rates for those in low- and middle-income countries. Secondly, International Committee Co-Chair Amber Gayle Thalmayer (International Committee Co-Chair) and Rakoen Martens presented information regarding SPSP's UN Consultative status. Yes, SPSP has consultative status with the United Nations. Stay tuned for opportunities in this regard!

The Board also reviewed the current budget. Although the budget shortfalls are not as bad as last year, we have not recovered from the effects of the pandemic. Moreover, our royalties from SPSP journals continue to lag compared to previous years. These are difficult financial times for the Society and we are striving mightily to advance programs that our members value while cutting costs as much as possible. Please keep these issues in mind when you register for the conference or update your membership. Why not consider donating to SPSP, to support the programs that have become an important part of the development of our early career members?

As always, we welcome feedback and suggestions from our members. SPSP governance exists to serve SPSP members, and we seek ways to improve the range and quality of our programming and outreach.

 

Early Career Committee: Dispatches from #SPSP2023

The Early Career Committee is excited to share news about the recent SPSP Annual Convention in Atlanta, Georgia. We are thrilled to report that an impressive 410 Early Career Members (0-6 years post-PhD) attended in person, while an additional 69 joined us virtually.

Early Career (EC) events commenced at the award ceremony on Thursday night, where we celebrated the accomplishments of promising scholars across various fields. Attendees were inspired by the impressive early career scholars who received SAGE Emerging Scholars and SAGE Early Career awards. The ceremony provided a fantastic opportunity to honor and congratulate the recipients. We eagerly anticipate how their work will continue to shape the academic landscape in the future.

People standing around a large SPSP logo in a hotel lobby Whether joining virtually or in-person, the Early Career Committee found ample opportunities for connection and collaboration during the SPSP 2023 Annual Convention.

 

As delayed flights due to a winter storm began to arrive on Thursday night, we hosted a pop-up "EC social hour" where early career scholars could catch up with each other. We are proud to say that this event was a resounding success, offering a relaxed and engaging atmosphere for attendees to connect, build meaningful professional relationships, and collect some SPSP swag! The event enabled early career researchers to exchange ideas and insights on various topics, with many participants remarking on the value of meeting others at similar stages in their careers.

On Friday afternoon, we held not one, but two early career sessions. The first, a special invited session titled "Hidden Stories of Marginalized Scholars and Scholarship: Reflections and Ways to Move Forward," brought together innovative and insightful voices in the field to discuss challenges and opportunities in the publication process faced by marginalized scholars and their scholarship. The panelists shared their experiences and suggested important recommendations for better supporting and amplifying marginalized voices in academic spaces. We extend our gratitude to panelists Valerie Jones Taylor, Olivia Atherton, Kathleen Bogart, and moderators Alison Ledgerwood and Franki Kung.

Simultaneously, the professional development workshop, "Building Professional and Scholarly Communities," provided invaluable insights and tools for establishing and maintaining effective professional networks and fostering a supportive academic culture. We thank our panelists Lara Aknin, Angela C. Bell, Sapna Cheryan, and Margaret Echelbarger, as well as our moderator Sarah Huff.

Later that day, the popular Early Career Mentor Tables event returned. This year, the event drew such a large crowd of early career scholars that we needed to move to a bigger room. Mentors from a wide range of disciplines were available to offer advice, answer questions, and provide guidance on everything from publishing to grant writing to succeeding in your first faculty position. Early career scholars left with valuable insights into the world of academia, industry, government, and more.

Finally, the EC events concluded with the BECOME mentoring program reunion. We hope this gathering becomes an annual event, where mentors and mentees from two BECOME cohorts meet in person for the first time. This occasion allowed our first cohort to reunite with familiar faces and welcome the incoming cohort of BECOME mentees and mentors. Participants were able to mingle and connect with peers and more senior scholars who share similar interests and experiences or have tackled comparable issues in their careers. Attendees left feeling empowered and equipped with new skills to succeed within their fields.

We hope you will join us next year for another incredible SPSP Annual Convention!

Warm regards,
SPSP Early Career Committee

 

From the Board of Directors: Updates on SPSP’s Budget Process

As the SPSP team reflects on the 2023 Annual Convention, we are grateful for the opportunity to gather members and others in the field to share their research and connect. The SPSP Board greatly appreciates our professional staff who created an enjoyable environment and experience for our Annual Conventions through their tireless dedication. As we move forward, the Board is also committed to being transparent about SPSP's budgeting process, the challenges that affect convention planning, and how we will address them.

Those who attended the 2023 Annual Convention may have noticed that the abundance of food and drink served in San Francisco was not available in Atlanta. I'd like to provide background information on the reasons for these hospitality cutbacks, as well as other changes in SPSP spending, as an introduction to the exciting world of academic conference and non-profit finances.

Every year, the SPSP Board of Directors meets in the fall to review current-year finances and approve the budget for the next year. So, we met in November 2022 to review 2022 finances and 2023 projections and to approve the 2023 Annual Budget. Because the projection showed that SPSP continues to operate with a deficit, the Board made the difficult decision to limit spending in 2023 as much as possible and evaluate our business model for financial sustainability. These cuts included reducing costs associated with the conference as well as putting several SPSP programs on hiatus. SPSP is a tax-exempt organization, as described in Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Donations made to SPSP are tax-deductible and as a non-profit, SPSP serves the public good and all "profits" must be used to further the mission of the organization. For SPSP, funding comes primarily from five sources: journal royalties (28%), interest from an endowment (4%), membership fees (13%), conference fees (37%), and philanthropy (2%). For much of the past 20 years, SPSP has brought in more money each year than it spent on scholarships, conference subsidies, programs to support research, and staff to support programming, etc. As a result, SPSP has been able to expand advocacy and programming. However, this is no longer true and SPSP is anticipating budget deficits, requiring that we tap into our savings to cover expenses.

Why is SPSP operating in a deficit?

Deficits have arisen for two main reasons. Firstly, SPSP lost money on the 2022 Annual Convention. The event presented unique financial challenges because we hosted a virtual conference in addition to our in-person program, which added considerably to the costs of the conference. Many attendees opted to attend virtually instead of in-person and unfortunately, registration revenue from the virtual conference was not enough to cover the costs. You might wonder if the conference was over-budget, why did the in-person conference in San Francisco have such great hospitality? Why not spend less at the hotel? As is standard in the meetings industry, conference locations are booked several years in advance. In contracts with hotels and convention facilities, we guarantee that a number of hotel rooms will be rented (room occupancy) and that we will purchase a minimum amount of food and beverages. These guarantees allow us to obtain discounts on conference spaces and services. Regardless of how many people register for the event, we must meet these minimums. So, in San Francisco, where we had fewer attendees, we spent more money per person on food and beverages, audio and visual fees, labor, etc. In Atlanta, we had more attendees and we worked to keep our hospitality costs to that guaranteed minimum. Hotel and conference space contracts also include substantial penalties if we cancel a conference. Penalties increase the closer we get to the meeting date, as the possibility of the hotel finding a replacement conference grows smaller the closer we get to the meeting date. To avoid penalties for the 2021 conference cancellation, SPSP agreed to return to Austin in 2026 with similar room occupancy and hospitality obligations.

A more long-term reason for SPSP's deficit is that revenue from journal subscriptions is no longer growing. In 2019, SPSP could count on publication royalties to provide 25% of our revenue and in 2023 only 19% of our revenue will come from royalties. SPSP is guaranteed a minimum royalty payment for PSPB and PSPR through our contract with SAGE (SPPS is co-owned with other societies and is not yet profitable) and in the past, we received funds above that minimum as university libraries and individuals purchased subscriptions in order to access journal content. However, as institutions face budget cuts and models move towards open access, there are fewer institutional and individual subscriptions which have caused our royalties to decrease by 30%, while our expenses to run the journals have not decreased.

While cutbacks on hospitality and service during Society events are relatively simple to make, long-term threats to SPSP's ability to support other programming are meaningful. SPSP has ambitious goals to create a more inclusive Society and science and those programs require resources. Throughout this year, you will see additional emphases on philanthropy, announced changes to support mechanisms, and reexamination of the efficacy of current programs. Meeting one of the first goals of the new strategic plan is to secure SPSP's financial future, will be a Society-wide effort and input from members is critical.

Many individuals and organizations in our field are navigating these financial challenges and SPSP believes that we can rise to meet them by working together. We thank you, as always, for your support of the Society and I look forward to connecting with you at the SPSP Annual Convention in 2024.

 

Persuading Yourself to be Persuaded by Others

Humans are social animals. It's a cliché. Less known, however, is that people tend to underestimate how much they are influenced by social norms. So, on the one hand, people are social. On the other, people like to view themselves as independent. This might explain why trying to change people's behavior by telling them what other people do sometimes fails to change behaviors.

In general, social norm-based persuasion techniques have been shown to often result in behavioral change. Examples would be learning that your neighbors are saving more energy than you, that more and more people are choosing a vegetarian lunch, or that your colleague peers are not drinking as much alcohol as you might think. Although other people's behaviors could serve as useful social compasses for what is approved or effective, people sometimes react negatively when being informed about other people's behaviors. Maybe because people perceive that someone is trying to persuade them. To avoid this problem, my colleague Emma Ejelöv and I set out to test if people can persuade themselves to be persuaded by others.

Liking My Own Ideas Better than Yours

Most people like to view themselves as autonomous, making their own decisions. This may be why people like a product more after being involved in producing it—which (to my satisfaction as a Swede) is called the "IKEA effect." From a psychological perspective, this tendency reflects the classical theory of cognitive dissonance. People will perceive psychological discomfort when holding two inconsistent beliefs or behaviors. Not practicing what you preach makes you feel like a hypocrite, which in turn motivates you to change either your behavior or what you preach. Or, spending hours assembling your IKEA desk results in more liking because you need to justify the effort.

Self-Persuading Norm

At this point, we know that people tend to be less influenced by social norms because people don't want to view themselves as being influenced by others. We also know that people tend to be influenced by their own actions or arguments. Then, would people be more influenced by social norms if they are given the opportunity to provide their own argument supporting other people's behaviors? In our studies, Emma Ejelöv and I set out to test this notion, which we called the "self-persuading norm."

Our research was straightforward. Participants who were recruited online could choose between pairs of products to buy. In the first two studies, the products were identical apart from the color of the packages, and participants were put into one of three groups. One group could choose between the products without any other information. Those in the second group learned that most other participants choose one of the two products and were then asked to choose between the products (hence, they were presented with a social norm). Finally, those in the third group were given the exact same normative information as the second group, but with an important difference. Before choosing between the products, participants were asked "What do you think, why did most other people choose this product?" Participants provided all kinds of, more or less creative, answers. For example, that the product other people chose seemed to be the "standard choice," "a fresher choice," or "a more environmentally friendly choice." But that is not our main interest. Our main interest is what people in the third group thought about their own explanations for other people's choices. It turned out that 84% thought that their own explanation for other people's choices was a good explanation. And the consequence? Just like loving your IKEA table a little bit more after building it, people were more influenced by others' choices after describing why other people made a good choice.

We call this the self-persuading norm, as it paints a picture of how people persuade themselves to be more persuaded by others.


For Further Reading

Bergquist, M., & Ejelöv, E. (2022). Self-persuading norms: Adding a self-persuading technique strengthens the influence of descriptive social norms. Social Influence, 17(1), 1 – 16. DOI: 10.1080/15534510.2022.2047776

Bergquist, M., Nilsson, A., & Schultz, P. W. (2019). A meta-analysis of field experiments using social norms to promote pro-environmental behaviors. Global Environmental Change, 59, 101941. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2019.101941

Constantino, S. M., Sparkman, G., Kraft-Todd, G. T., Bicchieri, C., Centola, D., Shell-Duncan, B., Vogt, S., & Weber, E. U. (2022). Scaling up change: A critical review and practical guide to harnessing social norms for climate action. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 23(2) 50–97. DOI: 10.1177/15291006221105279

Schultz, P. W. (2022). Secret agents of influence: Leveraging social norms for good. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 31(5), 443-450. DOI: 10.1177/09637214221109572


Magnus Bergquist is an Associate Professor in Psychology at the Department of Psychology, University of Gothenburg. Bergquist's research is largely focused on social influence techniques, but also applied environmental psychology assessing when and why interventions promote pro-environmental behavioral change, why people (don't) support environmental policies, and how people judge environmentally related risks.

Sex and Stereotypes: The Black Superwoman’s Burden

As a young Black woman, it is common for me to be hypervigilant about the ways I am perceived by others, especially in my interpersonal romantic relationships. One stereotype that weighs heavily on my mind has been identified as a defining characteristic of Black womanhood, the Superwoman Schema (SWS). 

The Superwoman Schema (SWS) is a controlling stereotype that lauds Black women as invulnerable superhumans who must use their physical and emotional labor to support their community and the broader U.S. society. Resultingly, the SWS encourages Black women to support others at the expense of their own emotional needs and induces unreasonable pressures to succeed despite inadequate support and resources.

Over time, Black women may internalize this stereotype of superhuman strength as they cope with everyday experiences of racism and sexism that repeatedly devalue Black women's health and well-being. However, endorsement of the SWS has a painful price where Black women may avoid expressions of weakness and "bite their tongues" to hide their discomfort, pain, or need for help. Resultingly, the SWS is accompanied by a slew of stress-related behaviors such as disordered eating and sleep patterns, migraines, hair loss, and panic attacks.

When Roles Collide

As you might have noticed, though the SWS describes strength and resilience, this contrasts with typical gender roles of femininity. Specifically, mainstream U.S. culture has an insidious history of proliferating messages that a woman's worth is defined by her ability to please others sexually, and that women should monitor and/or silence their own sexual desires (see Character & Context, February 24, 2023). Though these ideals are becoming less common in the mainstream, these gender norms remain relevant to modern U.S. society and perpetuate a sexual double standard that women should be sexually available but not appear too sexually assertive.

Because Black women exist at the intersections of race and gender identity, our experiences are shaped by both racialized SWS stereotypes and traditional gendered stereotypes of femininity and deference. The consequences of these competing internalized stereotypes are especially salient in romantic relationships, where Black women may walk a delicate line of maintaining their SWS ideology and their femininity.

This begs the question: How do Black women navigate these opposing expectations in their romantic relationships?

SWS in Romantic Relationships

We queried 402 Black women from across the U.S. to understand the extent to which endorsement of the SWS contributes to Black women's reported sexual assertiveness and satisfaction. Sexual assertiveness is a key point of intervention in understanding women's sexual experiences and describes their ability to discuss their own sexual needs with their partners, which includes, but is not limited to, discussion of previous sexual history and safe sexual practices for STD prevention. Women with low sexual assertiveness can experience difficulties in communicating their sexual needs to increase their sexual satisfaction.

We found that greater endorsement of four SWS tenets—obligation to promote an image of strength, obligation to suppress emotions, obligation to help others, and obligation to hide expressions of vulnerability—shaped the impact of sexual assertiveness on sexual satisfaction. In a nutshell, greater SWS endorsement hindered the positive impacts of sexual assertiveness on sexual satisfaction.

Thus, Black women may navigate sexual interactions through the unique lens of the Superwoman Schema. It is possible that sexually assertive behaviors, such as open communication in times of discomfort, are in direct contrast to the tenets of SWS endorsement, where Black women are discouraged from expressions of vulnerability and weakness. It is possible that Black women with high SWS endorsement may be dissatisfied with their sexual experiences due to their perceived obligations to prioritize their partner's needs. Overall, it appears that the Superwoman Schema may hinder Black women from advocating for their sexual needs, and it is crucial to address how pressures to bear hardships without complaint may contribute to Black women's sexual experiences.

The SWS is just one stereotype that co-exists with the hypersexual Jezebel, the nurturing Mammy, and the aggressive Sapphire—all of which contribute to the dehumanization of Black women's behaviors, bodies, and emotions. These stereotypes are pervasive, and their harm overreaching. It is my hope that with this research, Black women and those who love them can uncover ways to lessen the burden of such ideologies.  


For Further Reading

Abrams, J. A., Hill, A., & Maxwell, M. (2019). Underneath the mask of the strong Black woman schema: Disentangling influences of strength and self-silencing on depressive symptoms among U.S. Black women. Sex Roles, 80(9), 517-526. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-018-0956-y

Manago, A. M., Ward, L. M., Lemm, K. M., Reed, L., & Seabrook, R. (2015). Facebook involvement, objectified body consciousness, body shame, and sexual assertiveness in college women and men. Sex Roles, 72(1), 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-014-0441-1

Perkins, T. R., Aleibar, D., Leath, S., & Pittman, J. C. (2022). Black women's sexual assertiveness and satisfaction: The role of the Superwoman Schema. Journal of Black Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1177/00957984221147796

Woods-Giscombé, C. L., Allen, A. M., Black, A. R., Steed, T. C., Li, Y., & Lackey, C. (2019). The Giscombé Superwoman Schema questionnaire: Psychometric properties and associations with mental health and health behaviors in African American women. Issues in Mental Health Nursing, 40(8), 672-681. https://doi.org/10.1080/01612840.2019.1584654


Tiani Perkins is a PhD candidate in Personality and Social Psychology at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She studies how stereotypes and discrimination influence individuals' well-being.

Selfies and Other Third-Person Photos Help Us Capture the Meaning of Moments

Imagine you are eating your dream meal and want to commemorate the moment: Should you snap a picture of the food by itself or take a selfie with your partner while you eat? New research suggests that people use first-person photography, taking a photo of the scene from one's own perspective, when they want to document a physical experience, but opt for third-person photos, depicting themselves in the scene (like selfies), to capture the deeper meaning of events.

Previous research has focused on how the photo-taker wants to present themselves to others. The current research, published today in Social Psychological and Personality Science, also considers people who are taking photos for themselves to look back on.

"Not only do we find that most people take both types of photos in different situations, but that people also differ across situations in whether their goal for taking a photo is to capture the physical experience of the moment or the bigger meaning of the moment in their life," says lead author Zachary Niese, of the University of Tübingen.

Across six studies involving over 2,100 participants, researchers found that people are more likely to take third-person photos when their goal is to capture meaning, and that people are reminded more of the meaning when looking at their own third-person photos, compared to first-person. Researchers also found that people tend to like their photos more when the perspective matches their goal for taking the photo.

"Taking and posting pictures is a part of everyday life for many people. While there is sometimes derision about photo-taking practices in popular culture, personal photos have the potential to help people reconnect to their past experiences and build their self-narratives," says Dr. Niese.

Dr. Niese warns against inferring that photos taken from one perspective are "better" than another. The research demonstrates that the most effective perspective depends on the person's goal in the moment – whether that be to capture a physical experience or the deeper meaning of an event.

As people become more mindful of their goals when taking pictures and the role of perspective, they can become more skilled at preserving memories that they can reflect on later.

"People's photo-taking practices have the potential to serve a more fundamental human motive to develop and understand our sense of self, both in terms of the experiences in our life as well as their bigger meaning," says Dr. Niese.

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Press may request an embargoed copy at [email protected].

Study: Niese, Zachary Adolph; Libby, Lisa K.; Eibach, Richard P. Picturing Your Life: The Role of Imagery Perspective in Personal Photos. Social Psychological and Personality Science.

People’s Facial Appearance Predicts What Social Groups They Join

People tend to like those who are similar to themselves (or, at least, those whom they perceive to be similar). People, therefore, seek out and form social relationships with others who they think share their characteristics, like personality traits and values. Importantly, one way in which people judge others' characteristics is through their appearance—despite adages to not judge books by their covers.

Given this, it's not surprising that members of social groups tend to share similarities. Researchers have even shown that this includes similarities in appearance. Using photos of people's faces, psychologist Eric Hehman and his colleagues found that members of friend groups, sports teams, and university fraternities physically resemble their fellow group members. They also showed that people form similar impressions (for example, of how intelligent they are) of members of the same group.

Explaining Why People Resemble Their Group Members

But how do people end up in social groups that physically resemble them? One possibility is that because people tend to infer what others are like based on appearance, they may seek out others who look a bit like them because they think those others will be a bit like them. In other words, people may select into groups that resemble them. Relatedly, groups may only let new members join if they bear some resemblance to existing members. If either of these is true, it should be possible to predict what groups people will end up in, based on their appearance, even before they join.

An alternative possibility is that people might come to resemble their group members over time (a type of Dorian Gray effect, named for the character in Oscar Wilde's famous novel), which could happen because of shared environments, habits, or experiences, or conformity in style. If this is the case, people should resemble their group members more (or only) after being part of the group for some time.

Predicting Future Group Membership from Appearance

My colleagues and I tested these different possibilities using the photos of university fraternity and sorority members. We collected yearbook photos of them from (1) their freshman year, before they joined their fraternity/sorority, and (2) their senior year, after being members of their fraternity/sorority for a few years. We then recruited a group of observers to give us their impressions of how attractive, competent, dominant, and trustworthy (all important social judgments) each face looked, and we also took measurements of the faces' shape (for example, face width, eye spacing, jaw shape).

We then could use these impressions and measurements to find out which group (out of 26 different fraternities/sororities) each person would join (for their freshman photos) and was a member of (for their senior photos). Our results were clear—these individuals resembled their group members even before they joined their groups. They also didn't resemble their group members any more at senior year than at freshman year. This suggests that the students selected themselves into groups that resembled them, but not that they became more (physically) like their group members over the course of a few years.

Predicting Group Acceptance

We next looked at photos collected of men during the process of fraternity recruitment. We examined whether impressions of these photos could predict whether the men would be accepted into the fraternity they were hoping to join. Here, we found that participants' impressions of the faces predicted both which fraternity they attempted to join and whether they were accepted. Among those who were accepted, we also found that these future members resembled the existing members of the group. This suggests that the choices of both individuals and existing group members help explain the resemblance among group members.

Altogether, our findings show that people's facial appearance can predict what social groups they attempt to join and whether they'll be accepted into those groups. In terms of explaining how people end up in groups that resemble them, this means that both (1) individuals seek out groups consisting of people who look like them, and (2) groups preferentially accept new group members resembling those already in the group.

Real-World Consequences

While similarity of appearance might sometimes enhance group cohesion, there could also be downsides. Seeking out and accepting physically similar others could lead to highly polarized or exclusive groups. Imagine a workplace where judgments of how well a potential new employee might 'fit' with an organization could be influenced by their appearance, rather than their qualifications. Potential employees may similarly not even apply to workplaces where they don't see anyone resembling them already in that organisation. Both of these possibilities have negative implications for workplace diversity.

Altogether, people seem to gravitate toward similar others, not just in terms of their personality or values, but also in terms of their facial appearance. Birds of a feather do indeed flock together, partly because of the appearance of those feathers.


For Further Reading

Bjornsdottir, R. T., Hehman, E., Agboh, D., & Rule, N. O. (2022). Parsing the mechanisms underlying ingroup facial resemblance. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 48(5), 782-792. https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672211025206

Hehman, E., Flake, J. K., & Freeman, J. B. (2018). The faces of group members share physical resemblance. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 44(1), 3–15. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167217722556

McPherson, M., Smith-Lovin, L., & Cook, J. (2001). Birds of a feather: Homophily in social networks. Annual Review of Sociology, 27 (1), 415–444. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.soc.27.1.415


R. Thora Bjornsdottir is a Lecturer/Assistant Professor in the Psychology Department at Royal Holloway, University of London. Her research focuses on first impressions from faces, including impressions of people's social group memberships (such as social class, sexual orientation, and culture).