The purpose of the following research was to test the prediction that a sense of social connectedness to a stranger would result in the tendency to share psychological states with him/her. An overview of the literature on state sharing and the psychological merging between other and self is described in Chapter 1. The first test of my prediction is provided in Chapter 2 where I demonstrate that participants who are led to feel socially connected to a confederate--by sharing idiosyncratic preferences in common with her--resulted in the propensity to take on her goals. In Chapter 3, participants who felt connected to a confederate who was asked to complete a stressful speech task experienced more stress themselves. This effect occurred in part through a sense of felt “oneness” with the confederate. Chapter 4 extended these findings by showing that socially connected participants tended to experience secondary appraisal emotions in line with the confederate’s appraisal of the stressful speech task and this occurred through a sense of felt oneness with the confederate. In Chapter 5, participants who felt connected to an outgroup member tended to experience greater empathy for another outgroup member who experienced discrimination. The implications for social interaction in general and for intergroup relations in particular are discussed in Chapter 6.

The purpose of the following research was to test the prediction that a sense of social connectedness to a stranger would result in the tendency to share psychological states with him/her. An overview of the literature on state sharing and the psychological merging between other and self is described in Chapter 1. The first test of my prediction is provided in Chapter 2 where I demonstrate that participants who are led to feel socially connected to a confederate--by sharing idiosyncratic preferences in common with her--resulted in the propensity to take on her goals. In Chapter 3, participants who felt connected to a confederate who was asked to complete a stressful speech task experienced more stress themselves. This effect occurred in part through a sense of felt “oneness” with the confederate. Chapter 4 extended these findings by showing that socially connected participants tended to experience secondary appraisal emotions in line with the confederate’s appraisal of the stressful speech task and this occurred through a sense of felt oneness with the confederate. In Chapter 5, participants who felt connected to an outgroup member tended to experience greater empathy for another outgroup member who experienced discrimination. The implications for social interaction in general and for intergroup relations in particular are discussed in Chapter 6.

Suicide is a public health problem that requires wide-scale intervention. Universal approaches may not adequately address the cultural differences creating further inequities. The present study integrated a developmental and multicultural lens to tailor the suicide ideation to action framework for adolescents from diverse cultural backgrounds. We tested the mediating role of problematic alcohol use on the relationship between adult disconnection and suicide attempts in a national sample of 11,577 adolescents (ages 12-17 years; Mage = 15.4; 52% female) and a subsample of 1422 at-risk adolescents (ages 12-17 years; Mage = 15.5; 66.5% female) who endorsed suicidal ideation at the first timepoint. After examining the complex data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health using structural equation modeling, results indicated that problematic alcohol use mediated the relationship between disconnection to mothers and teachers and suicide attempts one year later. Moderated mediation findings revealed that the pathway from mother and teacher disconnection to problematic alcohol use did not significantly change depending on sex or socioeconomic status. The indexes of moderated mediation revealed that the indirect effect for the students of color was significantly lower than White students indicating that the mediation is stronger for White students compared to students of color for both predictors mother and teacher disconnection. A subsample analysis of Black vs. White students also revealed a stronger effect for White students compared to Black students. For all adolescents, problematic alcohol use may be an important mechanism by which feelings of disconnection from mothers and teachers increase suicide risk. Understanding what drives adolescents from different cultural backgrounds to engage in problematic alcohol use is important in the prevention and treatment of suicidality in adolescents. Treatments targeted to improve communication with mothers and teachers may help to not only increase feelings of connectedness, but help foster healthy behaviors.

The purpose of this dissertation is to explore the effect that a subject's level of social connectedness on their perceptions of a counselor during the intake setting. There is theoretical and empirical evidence arising both from Kohutian self-psychology as well as interpersonal psychological literature that indicates that one's level of social connectedness, race, and gender should directly affect one's perception of counselors in a therapeutic setting. This study found suggestive, but not conclusive, evidence that social connectedness is positively related to how counselors are rated on dimensions of trustworthiness, expertness, and attractiveness. Suggestive differences across race and level of training of the counselor were also found, but the differences were not statistically significant. Implications of this study and suggestions for further research are discussed. / text

abstract: Researchers have found inconsistent effects (negative or positive) of social relationships on self-control capacity. The variation of findings may depend on the aspects of social relationships. In this study, rather than examining overall social relationships and self-control, characteristics in social relationships were clearly defined, including social support, social connection and social conflict, to determine their specific effects on self-control. An online survey study was conducted, and 292 college students filled out the survey. For data analysis, path analysis was utilized to examined the direct effect and indirect effect from social relationships to self-control. Results showed social connection and social conflict may indirectly associate with self-control through stress, but social support does not. It may suggest, in traditional stress buffering model, it is the social connection in social support that really reduce the stress. Concerning the direct effects, social support and social connection were significantly associated with self-control directly, but social conflict does not. This result may support the Social Baseline Theory that positive social relationships have direct regulating effects. Results are good for guidance of experimental manipulation of social relationships in study of social influences of self-control. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.S. Psychology 2012

Social health is an important predictor of overall health. Yet, it is an often neglected area of research. Strikingly, social connectedness is associated with a 50% reduction in risk of early death. While a plethora of research evidence supports the beneficial impact of nature exposure on physical and mental health, literature regarding the beneficial impact of nature exposure on social health is scant. In fact, no research to date has investigated the causal influence of nature exposure on social motivation, a construct comprised here of three measures (State Motivation to Foster Social Connections, State Positive Affect, and State Anxiety). The purpose of this study was twofold: 1) to examine the effects of virtual nature exposure on state social motivation, and 2) to investigate adverse childhood experiences as a moderator of those effects. In this online study, adult participants (N = 444) aged 18 to 58 were randomly assigned to one of the three experimental video conditions (wilderness nature exposure, urban non-nature exposure, indoor non-nature exposure). After watching a 15-minute video, participants completed measures related to state social motivation. Results revealed a significant main effect of nature exposure on state social motivation. However, the effects of nature exposure on state social motivation were not significantly moderated by adverse childhood experiences. Results suggest that nature exposure may have a positive impact on the development and maintenance of social connections and should be explored further as a social health intervention aimed at improving overall health.

During the course of human evolution, being a member of a group has been more beneficial for survival than being alone. Food gathering, protection from predators, cooperation, and care for offspring are distributed among group members, increasing the likelihood for survival. It is as if there is an interplay between agent and environment that interprets being socially cooperative as pleasurable and being left out as painful. Studies have been dedicated to examine how our social life is one of the most important aspects of health and well-being, particularly social relationships. Since this link has been demonstrated, it would be interesting to incorporate the field of neuroscience to understand the involvement of the human brain in our social experiences, specifically the experience of social connection. The current state of neuroscience does not allow researchers to examine this kind of subjective experiences, simply because of the lack of proper tools and knowledge. Research in this field has come a long way since the early stages, and studies have indicated on significant results regarding the involved neural regions. The dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) and the anterior insula (AI) are active when threats to social connection is experienced. They are also active in situations were survival is threatened. An experience of social connection evokes a feeling of (social) safety, in part because it activates regions of the brain associated with physical safety, such as the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC). In similar fashion, a sense of social closeness ("warmth") activates the ventral striatum (VS), which is associated with physical warmth and studies have shown that social and physical warmth share overlapping neural activity in VS. Finally, Mu-opioids have been shown to be responsible for social bonding; while using an opioid antagonist such as naltrexone, decreases the feeling of social connection. Studies in this field are few; one should take their results with caution. The field continues to grow, and the studies that have been done to date give exciting hints of the influence of social relationships on physical health and mental well-being.

Social health is an important predictor of overall health. Yet, it is an often neglected area of research. Strikingly, social connectedness is associated with a 50% reduction in risk of early death. While a plethora of research evidence supports the beneficial impact of nature exposure on physical and mental health, literature regarding the beneficial impact of nature exposure on social health is scant. In fact, no research to date has investigated the causal influence of nature exposure on social motivation, a construct comprised here of three measures (State Motivation to Foster Social Connections, State Positive Affect, and State Anxiety). The purpose of this study was twofold: 1) to examine the effects of virtual nature exposure on state social motivation, and 2) to investigate adverse childhood experiences as a moderator of those effects. In this online study, adult participants (N = 444) aged 18 to 58 were randomly assigned to one of the three experimental video conditions (wilderness nature exposure, urban non-nature exposure, indoor non-nature exposure). After watching a 15-minute video, participants completed measures related to state social motivation. Results revealed a significant main effect of nature exposure on state social motivation. However, the effects of nature exposure on state social motivation were not significantly moderated by adverse childhood experiences. Results suggest that nature exposure may have a positive impact on the development and maintenance of social connections and should be explored further as a social health intervention aimed at improving overall health.

De senaste åren har trenden att använda en second screen i samband med tv-tittande ökat till följd av den ökade användningen av smartphones och surfplattor. Det ökade second screen-användandet medför att innehållet som visas på tv får mindre uppmärksamhet av tittarna. En möjlig lösning för att motverka detta är så kallade programspecifika second screen-applikationer som syftar till att komplettera innehållet som visas på tv och ge tittaren ett mervärde. Denna rapport syftar till att identifiera användningsmönster för en programspecifik second screen-applikation som används under livesända ishockeymatcher samt vilka faktorer som påverkar mönstren. Applikationen består av ett flöde som innehåller inlägg relaterade till matchen, t.ex. kommentarer och videoklipp från sportprofiler samt frågor som tittaren kan besvara och därmed se andra tittares åsikter om olika situationer i matchen. Rapporten diskuterar även förslag på hur resultaten kan användas vid utformandet av flödesbaserade second screen-applikationer samt hanteringen av innehållet i flödet. För att identifiera användningsmönstren utfördes användarobservationer, direkt följda av kompletterade intervjuer, under fem direktsända ishockeymatcher med fem olika användare som ensamma tittade på en match. Resultaten av studien visar att användningsmönstren huvudsakligen påverkas av de olika delarna i sändningen (speltid, studioanalys och reklamavbrott) samt spänningen i matchen. De olika funktionerna i applikationen samt användandet av andra applikationer är också faktorer som påverkar användandet. Resultaten visar även att användarna värdesätter att känna samhörighet med andra som tittar på matchen när de tittar på en match ensam. / The trend of interacting with a second screen while watching TV has evolved over the past years with the increased usage of smartphones and tablets. One program genre in which second screen usage is common is sports. The increasing second screen usage has made it challenging to keep viewers engaged in the content being shown on the TV. A possible solution to this problem is program-specific second screen applications that serve to complement the TV content and give an added value to the viewer. This paper aims to identify usage patterns of a program-specific second screen application, used during broadcasts of live hockey games. The application consists of a feed that contains posts related to the game such as comments and videos posted by sport profiles and editors, and polls that the viewer can answer to see other viewers’ thoughts about different situations in the game. Moreover, the paper analyzes what factors affect the usage patterns and discusses how the findings could be used when developing and managing the content of a feed-based second screen application during a sports game. To identify the usage patterns of the application a triangulation approach was used. Five user observations, directly followed by complementing semi-structured interviews were conducted during five separate live hockey games broadcast on TV. The results show that the usage patterns of the application are mainly affected by the excitement and the different parts of the broadcast (game time, studio analysis and commercial breaks), the different features of the application and the usage of other applications. Moreover, the results highlight the importance of feeling connected to other remote viewers of the game through the application when watching a game alone.

Feelings of social connection are important to maintain physical and psychological well-being. Perceived social isolation, or loneliness, is the subjective experience of feeling socially isolated and may be a direct threat to our health. During recent years, an increasing amount of people report high levels of loneliness, potentially brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic and its restrictions. Recent research suggests that the brain’s default mode network (DMN), a neural network active at wakeful rest, is related to these experiences. This paper aimed to systematically review alterations in the DMN in socially connected and lonely individuals. I searched PubMed and Scopus to find studies using self-report measures of social connection or loneliness, and functional or structural neuroimaging methods on healthy adults. Nine studies were included in this review. Generally, core regions of the DMN typically involved in episodic memory and self-referential processing showed increased activity in lonely individuals and decreased activity in socially connected individuals. These findings may reflect how lonely individuals ruminate about past social events while socially connected individuals attend less to the self. However, methodological heterogeneity between studieslimits the conclusions that can be drawn based on these results.