Michael D Buhrmester
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 3485366 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | Michael D Buhrmester |
| NOMBRES | Michael D |
| APELLIDO | Buhrmester |
| FIRMA | BUHRMESTER M D |
| AFILIACIONES | University of Oxford |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-9892-3334 |
| VERIFICADO | Sí |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 24 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 204 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 24 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2011 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2021 |
| ÍNDICE H | 6 |
Go Wild, Not Weird
Reliance on convenience samples for psychological experiments has led to the oversampling of Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) populations (Henrich et al. 2010a). Our analysis of academic articles from six leading psychology journals revealed a significantly lower but still very high percentage of studies from European and English-speaking nations (92%), compared to a decade ago (95%), largely due to more studies fro…
Asymmetries in Mutual Understanding
All too often, people who develop exceptionally astute insights into others remain mysterious to these others. Evidence for such asymmetric understanding comes from several independent domains. Striking asymmetries occur among those who differ in status and power, such that individuals with low status and power understand more than they are understood. We show that this effect extends to people who merely perceive that they have low status: indiv…
Ritual, fusion, and conflict
Herder–farmer conflicts in West Africa have caused thousands of deaths in recent years. Many conflicts are triggered by localized events that rapidly spiral out of control. What leads specific interpersonal conflicts to scale up into intergroup violence? We propose that such conflicts are rooted in identity and ritual dynamics. We present evidence that participants in Mambila traditions of masquerade initiation in Cameroon report especially stron…
Censoring political opposition online
Beliefs in national continuity are related to essentialist thinking and to perceptions of the nation as a family
National narratives serve to foster a sense of collective continuity—the perception that the nation has preserved its traits, values and goals across many generations. The present study explores some of the correlates of such perceptions of collective continuity (PCC). We predicted that people who see their nation as more continuous would tend to think about social groups in more strongly essentialist terms and to feel personally attached to othe…
Ritual, identity fusion, and the inauguration of president Trump
The US Presidential Inauguration is a symbolic event which arouses significant emotional responses among diverse groups, and is of considerable significance to Americans’ personal and social identities. We argue that the inauguration qualifies as an Imagistic Ritual. Such ritual experiences are thought to produce identity fusion: a visceral sense of oneness with the group. The 2017 Inauguration of President Trump was a unique opportunity to exami…
Why people abandon groups
Brazil's football warriors
An Evaluation of Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, Its Rapid Rise, and Its Effective Use
Over the past 2 decades, many social scientists have expanded their data-collection capabilities by using various online research tools. In the 2011 article “Amazon’s Mechanical Turk: A new source of inexpensive, yet high-quality, data?” in Perspectives on Psychological Science, Buhrmester, Kwang, and Gosling introduced researchers to what was then considered to be a promising but nascent research platform. Since then, thousands of social scienti…
Winning at any cost
From verbal abuse to physical intimidation of opponents, some ingroup members seek to maximize their group’s competitive edge regardless of personal repercussions. What motivates such extreme commitment? Based on identity fusion theory, we argue that strongly fused persons seek ingroup victory at any cost when they believe that a competition’s outcome affects the group’s essence. Two studies, conducted across four countries and in two sports cont…
The evolution of extreme cooperation via shared dysphoric experiences
Willingness to lay down one’s life for a group of non-kin, well documented historically and ethnographically, represents an evolutionary puzzle. Building on research in social psychology, we develop a mathematical model showing how conditioning cooperation on previous shared experience can allow individually costly pro-group behavior to evolve. The model generates a series of predictions that we then test empirically in a range of special sample …
Religious actions speak louder than words
One of the central aims of the cognitive science of religion (CSR) is to explain why supernatural agent beliefs are so widespread. A related but distinct aim is to explain why some individuals hold supernatural agent beliefs but others do not. Here, we aim to provide an initial test of the power of exposure to what Henrich calls “credibility-enhancing displays” (or “CREDs”) in determining whether or not an individual holds explicit supernatural a…
Identity Fusion
Identity fusion represents a new form of alignment with groups that motivates personally costly, pro‐group behaviors. The approach posits that fused individuals experience a visceral sense of “oneness” with a group, wherein their personal self (characteristics of individuals that make them unique) joins with a social self (characteristics of individuals that align them with groups). Research has identified several cognitive and affective mechanis…
Amazon's Mechanical Turk
Identity Fusion
Identity fusion is a visceral sense of “oneness” with a group and its individual members that motivates personally costly, pro-group behaviors. Past approaches, most notably social identity theory, have assumed that when people align with groups, the group category eclipses both the personal self and the relationships among individual group members. Also, social identity researchers have focused on intergroup processes. In contrast, fusion theory…
The Dynamic Identity Fusion Index
We introduce a computer-based measure of “identity fusion,” a form of group alignment characterized by a visceral feeling of oneness with a group. Past measures of identity fusion (a single pictorial item and a 7-item verbal scale) have demonstrated a unique capacity to predict willingness to engage in extreme pro-group behaviors (e.g., fighting and dying for one’s group). The Dynamic Identity Fusion Index (DIFI) combines the simplicity of the si…
Brothers in arms
Significance The human propensity to sacrifice one’s life for genetic strangers has puzzled scientists since Darwin. Here, we sought answers to this puzzle by embedding ourselves within groups of individuals prepared to die for one another—Libyan revolutionary battalion members who fought against Gaddafi’s regime in 2011. We found striking evidence of extraordinarily tight, familial-like bonds among those who put themselves directly in harm’s way…
When Terror Hits Home
When tragedy strikes a group, only some group members characteristically rush to the aid of the victims. What motivates the altruism of these exceptional individuals? Here, we provide one set of answers based on data collected before and shortly after the 15 April 2013, Boston Marathon bombings. The results of three studies indicated that Americans who were strongly “fused” with their country were especially inclined to provide various forms of s…
Contemplating the ultimate sacrifice
Although most people acknowledge the moral virtue in sacrificing oneself to save others, few actually endorse self-sacrifice. Seven experiments explored the cognitive and emotional mechanisms that underlie such endorsements. Participants responded to 1 of 2 moral dilemmas in which they could save 5 members of their country only by sacrificing themselves. Over 90% of participants acknowledged that the moral course of action was to sacrifice onesel…
What makes a group worth dying for? Identity fusion fosters perception of familial ties, promoting self-sacrifice
We sought to identify the mechanisms that cause strongly fused individuals (those who have a powerful, visceral feeling of oneness with the group) to make extreme sacrifices for their group. A large multinational study revealed a widespread tendency for fused individuals to endorse making extreme sacrifices for their country. Nevertheless, when asked which of several groups they were most inclined to die for, most participants favored relatively …
Do people want to be flattered or understood? The cross-cultural universality of self-verification
Amazon's Mechanical Turk
Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk) is a relatively new website that contains the major elements required to conduct research: an integrated participant compensation system; a large participant pool; and a streamlined process of study design, participant recruitment, and data collection. In this article, we describe and evaluate the potential contributions of MTurk to psychology and other social sciences. Findings indicate that (a) MTurk participant…
On the nature of identity fusion
Previous research has documented the consequences of feeling fused with a group; here we examine the nature of identity fusion. Specifically, we sought to determine what fusion is and the mediating mechanisms that lead fused individuals to make extraordinary sacrifices for their group. Guided by the assumption that fusion emphasizes the extent to which people develop relational ties to the group, we developed a measure designed to capture feeling…
Implicit self-esteem
Gaining insight into the nature and consequences of people's global self-evaluations (i.e., their self-esteem) has been fraught with difficulty. Nearly 2 decades ago, researchers suggested that such difficulties might be addressed by the development of a new class of measures designed to uncover implicit self-esteem. In this article, we evaluate the construct validity of the 2 most common measures of implicit self-esteem, the Implicit Association…
On the nature of identity fusion
Previous research has documented the consequences of feeling fused with a group; here we examine the nature of identity fusion. Specifically, we sought to determine what fusion is and the mediating mechanisms that lead fused individuals to make extraordinary sacrifices for their group. Guided by the assumption that fusion emphasizes the extent to which people develop relational ties to the group, we developed a measure designed to capture feeling…
What makes a group worth dying for? Identity fusion fosters perception of familial ties, promoting self-sacrifice
We sought to identify the mechanisms that cause strongly fused individuals (those who have a powerful, visceral feeling of oneness with the group) to make extreme sacrifices for their group. A large multinational study revealed a widespread tendency for fused individuals to endorse making extreme sacrifices for their country. Nevertheless, when asked which of several groups they were most inclined to die for, most participants favored relatively …
Contemplating the ultimate sacrifice
Although most people acknowledge the moral virtue in sacrificing oneself to save others, few actually endorse self-sacrifice. Seven experiments explored the cognitive and emotional mechanisms that underlie such endorsements. Participants responded to 1 of 2 moral dilemmas in which they could save 5 members of their country only by sacrificing themselves. Over 90% of participants acknowledged that the moral course of action was to sacrifice onesel…
Implicit self-esteem
Gaining insight into the nature and consequences of people's global self-evaluations (i.e., their self-esteem) has been fraught with difficulty. Nearly 2 decades ago, researchers suggested that such difficulties might be addressed by the development of a new class of measures designed to uncover implicit self-esteem. In this article, we evaluate the construct validity of the 2 most common measures of implicit self-esteem, the Implicit Association…
Why people abandon groups
The Dynamic Identity Fusion Index
We introduce a computer-based measure of “identity fusion,” a form of group alignment characterized by a visceral feeling of oneness with a group. Past measures of identity fusion (a single pictorial item and a 7-item verbal scale) have demonstrated a unique capacity to predict willingness to engage in extreme pro-group behaviors (e.g., fighting and dying for one’s group). The Dynamic Identity Fusion Index (DIFI) combines the simplicity of the si…
Ritual, fusion, and conflict
Herder–farmer conflicts in West Africa have caused thousands of deaths in recent years. Many conflicts are triggered by localized events that rapidly spiral out of control. What leads specific interpersonal conflicts to scale up into intergroup violence? We propose that such conflicts are rooted in identity and ritual dynamics. We present evidence that participants in Mambila traditions of masquerade initiation in Cameroon report especially stron…
Beliefs in national continuity are related to essentialist thinking and to perceptions of the nation as a family
National narratives serve to foster a sense of collective continuity—the perception that the nation has preserved its traits, values and goals across many generations. The present study explores some of the correlates of such perceptions of collective continuity (PCC). We predicted that people who see their nation as more continuous would tend to think about social groups in more strongly essentialist terms and to feel personally attached to othe…
Censoring political opposition online
Do people want to be flattered or understood? The cross-cultural universality of self-verification
Amazon's Mechanical Turk
Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk) is a relatively new website that contains the major elements required to conduct research: an integrated participant compensation system; a large participant pool; and a streamlined process of study design, participant recruitment, and data collection. In this article, we describe and evaluate the potential contributions of MTurk to psychology and other social sciences. Findings indicate that (a) MTurk participant…
On the nature of identity fusion
Previous research has documented the consequences of feeling fused with a group; here we examine the nature of identity fusion. Specifically, we sought to determine what fusion is and the mediating mechanisms that lead fused individuals to make extraordinary sacrifices for their group. Guided by the assumption that fusion emphasizes the extent to which people develop relational ties to the group, we developed a measure designed to capture feeling…
Implicit self-esteem
Gaining insight into the nature and consequences of people's global self-evaluations (i.e., their self-esteem) has been fraught with difficulty. Nearly 2 decades ago, researchers suggested that such difficulties might be addressed by the development of a new class of measures designed to uncover implicit self-esteem. In this article, we evaluate the construct validity of the 2 most common measures of implicit self-esteem, the Implicit Association…
Do people want to be flattered or understood? The cross-cultural universality of self-verification
Brothers in arms
Significance The human propensity to sacrifice one’s life for genetic strangers has puzzled scientists since Darwin. Here, we sought answers to this puzzle by embedding ourselves within groups of individuals prepared to die for one another—Libyan revolutionary battalion members who fought against Gaddafi’s regime in 2011. We found striking evidence of extraordinarily tight, familial-like bonds among those who put themselves directly in harm’s way…
When Terror Hits Home
When tragedy strikes a group, only some group members characteristically rush to the aid of the victims. What motivates the altruism of these exceptional individuals? Here, we provide one set of answers based on data collected before and shortly after the 15 April 2013, Boston Marathon bombings. The results of three studies indicated that Americans who were strongly “fused” with their country were especially inclined to provide various forms of s…
Contemplating the ultimate sacrifice
Although most people acknowledge the moral virtue in sacrificing oneself to save others, few actually endorse self-sacrifice. Seven experiments explored the cognitive and emotional mechanisms that underlie such endorsements. Participants responded to 1 of 2 moral dilemmas in which they could save 5 members of their country only by sacrificing themselves. Over 90% of participants acknowledged that the moral course of action was to sacrifice onesel…
What makes a group worth dying for? Identity fusion fosters perception of familial ties, promoting self-sacrifice
We sought to identify the mechanisms that cause strongly fused individuals (those who have a powerful, visceral feeling of oneness with the group) to make extreme sacrifices for their group. A large multinational study revealed a widespread tendency for fused individuals to endorse making extreme sacrifices for their country. Nevertheless, when asked which of several groups they were most inclined to die for, most participants favored relatively …
Identity Fusion
Identity fusion represents a new form of alignment with groups that motivates personally costly, pro‐group behaviors. The approach posits that fused individuals experience a visceral sense of “oneness” with a group, wherein their personal self (characteristics of individuals that make them unique) joins with a social self (characteristics of individuals that align them with groups). Research has identified several cognitive and affective mechanis…
Amazon's Mechanical Turk
Identity Fusion
Identity fusion is a visceral sense of “oneness” with a group and its individual members that motivates personally costly, pro-group behaviors. Past approaches, most notably social identity theory, have assumed that when people align with groups, the group category eclipses both the personal self and the relationships among individual group members. Also, social identity researchers have focused on intergroup processes. In contrast, fusion theory…
The Dynamic Identity Fusion Index
We introduce a computer-based measure of “identity fusion,” a form of group alignment characterized by a visceral feeling of oneness with a group. Past measures of identity fusion (a single pictorial item and a 7-item verbal scale) have demonstrated a unique capacity to predict willingness to engage in extreme pro-group behaviors (e.g., fighting and dying for one’s group). The Dynamic Identity Fusion Index (DIFI) combines the simplicity of the si…
The evolution of extreme cooperation via shared dysphoric experiences
Willingness to lay down one’s life for a group of non-kin, well documented historically and ethnographically, represents an evolutionary puzzle. Building on research in social psychology, we develop a mathematical model showing how conditioning cooperation on previous shared experience can allow individually costly pro-group behavior to evolve. The model generates a series of predictions that we then test empirically in a range of special sample …
Religious actions speak louder than words
One of the central aims of the cognitive science of religion (CSR) is to explain why supernatural agent beliefs are so widespread. A related but distinct aim is to explain why some individuals hold supernatural agent beliefs but others do not. Here, we aim to provide an initial test of the power of exposure to what Henrich calls “credibility-enhancing displays” (or “CREDs”) in determining whether or not an individual holds explicit supernatural a…
Brazil's football warriors
An Evaluation of Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, Its Rapid Rise, and Its Effective Use
Over the past 2 decades, many social scientists have expanded their data-collection capabilities by using various online research tools. In the 2011 article “Amazon’s Mechanical Turk: A new source of inexpensive, yet high-quality, data?” in Perspectives on Psychological Science, Buhrmester, Kwang, and Gosling introduced researchers to what was then considered to be a promising but nascent research platform. Since then, thousands of social scienti…
Winning at any cost
From verbal abuse to physical intimidation of opponents, some ingroup members seek to maximize their group’s competitive edge regardless of personal repercussions. What motivates such extreme commitment? Based on identity fusion theory, we argue that strongly fused persons seek ingroup victory at any cost when they believe that a competition’s outcome affects the group’s essence. Two studies, conducted across four countries and in two sports cont…
Ritual, identity fusion, and the inauguration of president Trump
The US Presidential Inauguration is a symbolic event which arouses significant emotional responses among diverse groups, and is of considerable significance to Americans’ personal and social identities. We argue that the inauguration qualifies as an Imagistic Ritual. Such ritual experiences are thought to produce identity fusion: a visceral sense of oneness with the group. The 2017 Inauguration of President Trump was a unique opportunity to exami…
Why people abandon groups
Ritual, fusion, and conflict
Herder–farmer conflicts in West Africa have caused thousands of deaths in recent years. Many conflicts are triggered by localized events that rapidly spiral out of control. What leads specific interpersonal conflicts to scale up into intergroup violence? We propose that such conflicts are rooted in identity and ritual dynamics. We present evidence that participants in Mambila traditions of masquerade initiation in Cameroon report especially stron…
Censoring political opposition online
Beliefs in national continuity are related to essentialist thinking and to perceptions of the nation as a family
National narratives serve to foster a sense of collective continuity—the perception that the nation has preserved its traits, values and goals across many generations. The present study explores some of the correlates of such perceptions of collective continuity (PCC). We predicted that people who see their nation as more continuous would tend to think about social groups in more strongly essentialist terms and to feel personally attached to othe…
Go Wild, Not Weird
Reliance on convenience samples for psychological experiments has led to the oversampling of Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) populations (Henrich et al. 2010a). Our analysis of academic articles from six leading psychology journals revealed a significantly lower but still very high percentage of studies from European and English-speaking nations (92%), compared to a decade ago (95%), largely due to more studies fro…
Asymmetries in Mutual Understanding
All too often, people who develop exceptionally astute insights into others remain mysterious to these others. Evidence for such asymmetric understanding comes from several independent domains. Striking asymmetries occur among those who differ in status and power, such that individuals with low status and power understand more than they are understood. We show that this effect extends to people who merely perceive that they have low status: indiv…
Psychology (21 obras) · Social Psychology (18 obras) · Social and Intergroup Psychology (15 obras) · Cultural Differences and Values (13 obras) · Political science (11 obras) · Social group (10 obras) · Social identity theory (10 obras) · Social Psychology (10 obras) · Identity (music (9 obras) · Law (9 obras)