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Abstract

Humans are a fundamentally social species that are strongly motivated to form and maintain connections with other members of their group. The formation of social connections is facilitated by the ability to perceive, understand, and respond to the emotions and actions of others. Social interaction also increases the risk of passing pathogens between individuals, and the motivation to avoid diseases may interfere with the motivation to connect. This dissertation describes three studies that explore individual differences in social motivation and behavior. Chapter 2 explores psychophysiological reactions to viewing others in distress. Emotional states can be correlated with a variety of psychophysiological responses and an emotion shared between individuals will not necessarily be accompanied by the same patterns of activity. This study demonstrated that individuals experience a strong cardiac response to viewing distress, and that this response may not occur in the same direction as the cardiac response of the person they are observing. Additionally, individual differences in interoceptive accuracy predicted emotional contagion and perceptions of anxiety in the speaker. This suggests that interoception may affect aspects of empathy for distress in others, which can then influence social motivation. Chapter 3 explores the perception of pain in others following exposure to disease cues. In previous research, exposure to disease cues has largely been shown to decrease social. However, in certain contexts, disease cues may also indicate that a member of one’s group is in need of care and thus motivate an individual towards social connection. This study found that participants perceived the pain that others were experiencing as more intense after viewing disease-related images. In a separate task, participants also showed reduced attentional bias towards affective content after viewing disease-related images. These results imply that disease cues can cause both a disgust response and increase sensitivity to affective cues that could inform social behavior. Chapter 4 explores the association between the behavioral immune system and social motivation through the lens of loneliness. Loneliness is associated with the motivation to protect and maintain social connections, which requires social interaction. In this context, when social motivation is high, the behavioral immune system may not be able to use social avoidance as a means to prevent infection. The results from this study showed that as loneliness increases, perception of vulnerability to disease also increases, suggesting that the behavioral immune system may heighten sensitivity to possible threats of disease without decreasing social motivation.

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