Psychological science
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Psychological science · Nov 2015
The Extravert Advantage: How and When Extraverts Build Rapport With Other People.
Extraverts are better than introverts at building rapport, but it remains unknown what they do behaviorally to better connect with other individuals. We hypothesized that extraverts mimic more than introverts as a way to build rapport; however, we predicted that this social skillfulness of extraverts emerges only when they are motivated to affiliate. ⋯ Our findings are the first to identify a behavior that extraverts engage in that helps them build rapport. Furthermore, our studies show that this skillfulness of extraverts emerges only when they are motivated to affiliate, providing evidence in favor of the reward-sensitivity-as-core model of extraversion over the sociability-as-core model of extraversion.
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Psychological science · Nov 2015
Conceptual Conditioning: Mechanisms Mediating Conditioning Effects on Pain.
Classical conditioning can profoundly modify subsequent pain responses, but the mechanisms that drive this effect are unresolved. In pain-conditioning studies, cues are typically conditioned to primary aversive reinforcers; hence, subsequent pain modulation could reflect learned precognitive associations (i.e., those involving neural plasticity independent of expectations and other forms of conceptual thought) or conceptual expectancies. We isolated conceptual contributions using a thermal pain-conditioning procedure in which different conditioned stimulus (CS) cues were repeatedly paired with symbolic representations of high and low noxious heat. ⋯ These effects were mediated by participants' self-reported expectancies. CS cues associated with high temperature also evoked larger anticipatory SCRs than did CS cues associated with low temperature, but larger anticipatory SCRs predicted smaller subsequent heat-evoked SCRs. These results provide novel evidence that conditioned modulation of pain physiology can be acquired through purely conceptual processes, and that self-reported expectancies and physiological threat responses have opposing effects on pain.