Action Generalization Across Group Members: Action Efficiency Matters

Abstract

Actions are usually generalized among social group members. Importantly, the efficiency of an action with respect to achieving an external target determines action understanding, and it may have different degrees of social relevance to social groups. Thus, this study explored the role of action efficiency in action generalization. We used computer animations to simulate actions in social groups initiated by visual action cues or category labels, and we measured differences in response times between identifying actions that were and were not consistent with group members, without explicit requirements regarding generalization. It was found that in both visually introduced and explicitly labeled social groups, when the group members acted inefficiently toward the external object, perceivers identified group‐consistent actions faster than group‐inconsistent actions, indicating that the exemplars' common inefficient actions are generalized to the unknown ingroup member, accordingly facilitating the identification of expected consistent inefficient action (Experiment 1). As this effect was not present when removing social group cues, it was determined to be specific to social groups (Experiment 2). Importantly, such generalization was not observed when the identical action was deemed efficient toward the external object (Experiment 3) and was specific to the demonstration of the action being completed by multiple group members rather than being repeated twice by one group member, supporting the group‐based inference and ruling out the possibility of the increased memorability of inefficient actions leading to more generalization relative to efficient actions (Experiment 4). Therefore, the efficiency of an action bounds the generalization of the action across social group members through a process that is spontaneous and implicit. This constrained action generalization may be due to inefficient actions being represented as culture‐specific conventional forms.

More evidence, greater generalization? The relation between the prevalence of observed action and the strength of generalization depends on action properties.

“…Social groups specify boundaries for individuals and can activate categorical thinking (Bodenhausen et al, 2012; Rhodes & Baron, 2019). It has been documented that when making predictions about unknown members of social groups, people tend to generalize the actions of known members to them, showing person-to-person generalization (Duan et al, 2021; Powell & Spelke, 2013; Xu et al, 2019; Yin et al, 2022). Such action generalization was found to be held very early in development (Powell & Spelke, 2013) and, importantly, was not observed when social group cues were removed (Xu et al, 2019).…”

“…How are these two types of action properties generalized? Duan et al (2021) reported that when the observed group members perform the same inefficient movements toward an external goal, the movements are more likely to be generalized to other group members, as these inefficient movements may come to represent relevant norms and rituals shared by a social group (Kapitány & Nielsen, 2015; Legare & Souza, 2012). Moreover, when both movements and goals are available, action generalization is based on common goals, instead of shallow-level movements, among group members (Yin et al, 2022).…”

“…Namely, people generalize the action properties shared by all known instances to a new group member. Previous studies have largely focused on situations in which all known cases have the same action property as positive evidence supporting generalization (Duan et al, 2021; Powell & Spelke, 2013; Yin et al, 2022), but action properties are sometimes shared by a proportion of the instances. Given that inductive generalization is based on accumulated samples of evidence, the extent of action generalization within social groups must be determined by the statistical prevalence of relevant action properties; it is possible that action generalization is driven primarily by statistical evidence, showing monotonicity.…”

“…Concerning the implicit measurement for goal-based generalization, we used a method similar to that of Yin et al (2022) with computer-animated events. This method allows possible confounding factors to be strictly controlled and to effectively inspect the rules of generalizing actions (Duan et al, 2021; Powell & Spelke, 2013; Yin et al, 2022) but still induces almost the same social meanings (e.g., social group, goal-directed action) as those induced by human-generated stimuli (Chaminade et al, 2007; Hamlin, 2013; Mar et al, 2007). Specifically, we presented five cartoonized agents as group members performing goal-directed actions by manipulating the statistical prevalence of approaching a common goal among two possible targets.…”

“…To investigate whether social groups underlie the generalization effects of goals, in Study 2, we introduced a manipulation wherein individuals were spatially separated and independent in terms of actions during the phase of forming social groups. This operation has been widely documented to be sufficient to reduce social group information (Duan et al, 2021; Yin et al, 2022). If the social group is the determinative factor for generalization, no or a weak difference should be observed between conditions at each prevalence when the social group information is reduced; that is, the goal-based generalization effect should be absent or weak.…”