Incipient Social Groups: An Analysis via In-Vivo Behavioral Tracking

Social psychology is fundamentally the study of individuals in groups, yet there remain basic unanswered questions about group formation, structure, and change. We argue that the problem is methodological. Until recently, there was no way to track who was interacting with whom with anything approximating valid resolution and scale. In the current study we describe a new method that applies recent advances in image-based tracking to study incipient group formation and evolution with experimental precision and control. In this method, which we term “in vivo behavioral tracking,” we track individuals’ movements with a high definition video camera mounted atop a large field laboratory. We report results of an initial study that quantifies the composition, structure, and size of the incipient groups. We also apply in-vivo spatial tracking to study participants’ tendency to cooperate as a function of their embeddedness in those crowds. We find that participants form groups of seven on average, are more likely to approach others of similar attractiveness and (to a lesser extent) gender, and that participants’ gender and attractiveness are both associated with their proximity to the spatial center of groups (such that women and attractive individuals are more likely than men and unattractive individuals to end up in the center of their groups). Furthermore, participants’ proximity to others early in the study predicted the effort they exerted in a subsequent cooperative task, suggesting that submergence in a crowd may predict social loafing. We conclude that in vivo behavioral tracking is a uniquely powerful new tool for answering longstanding, fundamental questions about group dynamics.社会心理学本质上是对群体中个体的研究，但关于群体的形成、结构与演化，仍存在诸多尚未解决的基础性问题。我们认为该问题的根源在于方法论层面。直至近年，尚无能够在近似合理的分辨率与观测规模下，追踪个体间互动对象的技术手段。在本研究中，我们提出一种全新方法：该方法借助近年基于图像的追踪技术进展，以实验级精度与控制变量条件，探究初始群体的形成与演化过程。我们将该方法命名为“活体行为追踪（in vivo behavioral tracking）”：通过架设于大型野外实验室顶部的高清摄像机，追踪个体的运动轨迹。本研究报告了一项初步实验的结果：该实验量化了初始群体的构成、结构与规模。我们同时运用活体空间追踪技术，探究被试的合作倾向与其在群体中的嵌入程度之间的关联。我们发现，被试平均会组成7人规模的群体；被试更倾向于趋近外貌吸引力相近的个体，在性别相似性上的趋近倾向则相对较弱；此外，被试的性别与外貌吸引力均与其在群体空间中心的位置显著相关：女性与外貌出众的个体，相较于男性与外貌平平的个体，更有可能处于群体的中心位置。此外，被试在研究初期与他人的亲近程度，能够预测其在后续合作任务中的投入程度，这表明个体融入群体的程度或许可以解释社会懈怠现象。综上，我们认为活体行为追踪（in vivo behavioral tracking）是一种极具独特优势的全新工具，能够为解答群体动力学领域中长期存在的基础性问题提供助力。