Theory of collective mind.

Theory of mind research has traditionally focused on the ascription of mental states to a single individual. Here, we introduce a theory of collective mind: the ascription of a unified mental state to a group of agents with convergent experiences. Rather than differentiation between one's personal perspective and that of another agent, a theory of collective mind requires perspectival unification across agents.

Embracing Complexity: A Review of Negotiation Research.

In this review, we identify emerging trends in negotiation scholarship that embrace complexity, finding moderators of effects that were initially described as monolithic, examining the nuances of social interaction, and studying negotiation as it occurs in the real world. We also identify areas in which research is lacking and call for scholarship that offers practical advice. All told, the existing research highlights negotiation as an exciting context for examining human behavior, characterized by features such as strong emotions, an intriguing blend of cooperation and competition, the presence of fundamental issues such as power and group identity, and outcomes that deeply affect the trajectory of people's personal and professional lives.

The thought gap after conversation: Underestimating the frequency of others' thoughts about us.

After conversations, people continue to think about their conversation partners. They remember their stories, revisit their advice, and replay their criticisms. But do people realize that their conversation partners are doing the same? In eight studies, we explored the possibility that people would systematically underestimate how much their conversation partners think about them following interactions.

Why a Simple Act of Kindness Is Not as Simple as It Seems: Underestimating the Positive Impact of Our Compliments on Others.

A simple compliment can make someone's day, start a new friendship, or just make the world a better, kinder place. So, why don't people give more compliments? Perhaps people misforecast the effect their compliment will have. Five studies explored this possibility.

Merged minds: Generalized shared reality in dyadic relationships.

Many everyday conversations, whether between close partners or strangers interacting for the first time, are about the world external to their relationship, such as music, food, or current events. Yet, the focus of most research on interpersonal relationships to date has been on the ways in which partners perceive each other and their relationship. We propose that one critical aspect of interpersonal interactions is developing a sense of dyadic, -the subjective experience of sharing a set of inner states (e.

The Liking Gap in Conversations: Do People Like Us More Than We Think?

Having conversations with new people is an important and rewarding part of social life. Yet conversations can also be intimidating and anxiety provoking, and this makes people wonder and worry about what their conversation partners really think of them. Are people accurate in their estimates? We found that following interactions, people systematically underestimated how much their conversation partners liked them and enjoyed their company, an illusion we call the liking gap.

Communal relational context (or lack thereof) shapes emotional lives.

A case is made that a communal relationship context (or lack thereof) shapes people's emotional lives for three reasons. First, a person's communal partners assume some degree of non-contingent responsibility for the person's welfare. This allows the person, when with or, at times, when thinking about such partners, to drop some self-protective vigilance, appraise situations as less threatening, focus attention outward on to situations and to see those situations through the partner's eyes often enhancing the emotional impact of those situations, express emotions which convey individual vulnerabilities and, in turn, receive and accept emotion regulation from partners.

The invisibility cloak illusion: People (incorrectly) believe they observe others more than others observe them.

Whether at a coffee shop, in a waiting room, or riding the bus, people frequently observe the other people around them. Yet they often fail to realize how much other people engage in the same behavior, and that they, therefore, also are being observed. Because it is logically impossible that people, on average, are the subjects of observation more than they are objects of it, the belief that one watches others more than one is watched is an illusion.

Psychological Distance Moderates the Amplification of Shared Experience.

Sharing an experience with another person can amplify that experience. Here, we propose for the first time that amplification is moderated by the psychological distance between co-experiencers. We predicted that experiences would be amplified for co-experiencers who are psychologically proximate but not for co-experiencers who are psychologically distant.

Shared experiences are amplified.

In two studies, we found that sharing an experience with another person, without communicating, amplifies one's experience. Both pleasant and unpleasant experiences were more intense when shared. In Study 1, participants tasted pleasant chocolate.

Automaticity in social-cognitive processes.

Over the past several years, the concept of automaticity of higher cognitive processes has permeated nearly all domains of psychological research. In this review, we highlight insights arising from studies in decision-making, moral judgments, close relationships, emotional processes, face perception and social judgment, motivation and goal pursuit, conformity and behavioral contagion, embodied cognition, and the emergence of higher-level automatic processes in early childhood. Taken together, recent work in these domains demonstrates that automaticity does not result exclusively from a process of skill acquisition (in which a process always begins as a conscious and deliberate one, becoming capable of automatic operation only with frequent use) - there are evolved substrates and early childhood learning mechanisms involved as well.