Publications by authors named "Laura Tian"

Psychological ownership refers to the subjective feeling that something is mine. Although research shows that observed behaviours towards a target object can signal psychological ownership to others, we propose that trait cues-specifically, cues of dominance-also inform inferences of psychological ownership. Across four pre-registered studies, we predict and find that another person's trait dominance promotes inferences of psychological ownership for both a tangible (e.

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People ubiquitously smile during brief interactions and first encounters, and when posing for photos used for virtual dating, social networking, and professional profiles. Yet not all smiles are the same: subtle individual differences emerge in how people display this nonverbal facial expression. We hypothesized that idiosyncrasies in people's smiles can reveal aspects of their personality and guide the personality judgments made by observers, thus enabling a smiling face to serve as a valuable tool in making more precise inferences about an individual's personality.

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Disclosing idiosyncratic preferences can help to broker new social interactions. For instance, strangers exchange music preferences to signal their identities, values, and preferences. Recognizing that people's physical appearances guide their decisions about social engagement, we examined whether cues to people's music preferences in their physical appearance and expressive poses help to guide social interaction.

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