University of Connecticut OpenCommons@UConn Doctoral Dissertations University of Connecticut Graduate School 7-18-2014 The meE rgence of Home Advantage from Differential Perceptual Activity Benjamin R. Meagher University of Connecticut - Storrs, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://opencommons.uconn.edu/dissertations Recommended Citation Meagher, Benjamin R., "The meE rgence of Home Advantage from Differential Perceptual Activity" (2014). Doctoral Dissertations. 469. https://opencommons.uconn.edu/dissertations/469 The Emergence of Home Advantage from Differential Perceptual Activity Benjamin Ryan Meagher, Ph.D. University of Connecticut, 2014 The creation and maintenance of physical territories are behaviors common to many species, including humans. One of the most well-documented outcomes associated with territories is the phenomenon of home advantage, the tendency for residents to prevail disproportionally over intruders during competition. Previous attempts to explain this effect have focused largely on a defense framework: residents, in response to an intruder, experience dominance motivation, which leads to more aggressive behavior. In the current work, I draw on ecological theorizing to develop an alternative account, arguing that differences in perceptual activity necessary for adaptive functioning produces distinct performance outcomes for hosts, relative to visitors. Across four experiments, this proposal is contrasted with the defense account using multiple types of territories (e.g., lab settings, computerized scenes, dormitories) and multiple types of outcomes (e.g., visuospatial ability, visual search, persistence). In Experiment 1, I evaluate a procedure for inducing territoriality after a brief period of time in the laboratory. In Experiment 2, I employ this procedure to evaluate performance on a block design task, measuring visuospatial ability and perspective taking. In Experiment 3, I assess visual search ability across a range of interior scenes designed to simulate resident and visitor status. Finally, in Experiment 4, I employ an ego-depletion paradigm in participants’ dorm rooms and find that residents exhibit greater self-regulatory strength following a depleting task. Taken together, these studies represent initial steps towards moving the study of territorial behavior away from a preoccupation with competitive defense to a broader understanding of the resident-territory relationship. The Emergence of Home Advantage from Differential Perceptual Activity Benjamin Ryan Meagher B.A., Gordon College, 2007 M.A., University of Connecticut, 2011 A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Connecticut 2014 i Copyright by Benjamin Ryan Meagher 2014 ii Acknowledgments This research would never have come about without the help of many people to whom I owe thanks. First, I thank the Psychology Department at UConn for providing me with the tools and knowledge needed to pursue this project. It is hard to imagine the seed for this research ever being planted if I were in the department of any other university. I give special thanks to my advisor, Dr. Kerry L. Marsh, for her ceaseless encouragement over the past five years. Beyond just this dissertation, Kerry has been a wonderful exemplar to me of an interdisciplinary researcher willing to pursue the topics that captivate her interest, and not worrying about the uncharted territories it may take her. I sincerely thank her for providing me with an environment that allowed me to emulate that attitude as best I could. I also thank my advisory committee members, Dr. Felicia Pratto and Dr. Tehran Davis, for their own unique contributions to this project over the past year. In addition to offering very helpful comments and suggestions on this document, they also provided me with the lab space and equipment necessary for doing these studies. Practical support for these experiments was provided by a Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship and a Farber Graduate Fellowship from the University of Connecticut. I am sincerely grateful for these two sources of funding. I thank Timothy Gifford and the Advanced Interactive Technology Center for their hard work designing the program used in Experiment 3 of this dissertation. I also thank the many undergraduate research assistants who worked on these studies: Alexis Doering, Paulina Grzybowski, Devika Prasad, James Scheide, Akshitha Thatiparthi, Gregory Vece, Melissa Volo, Shruti Yedave, and Sarah Ziomek. I asked a great deal of them during the past two years – schlepping numerous times across campus, letting participants into their own dorm iv rooms, honing their acting skills, wrestling with uncooperative eye-tracking hardware – but through it all they maintained their dedication and enthusiasm for the project. This body of work would have been impossible without them. I also thank the extended members of my cohort, all of whom helped me grow as both a scholar and a person over the past five years. It is because of them that my plans for graduate school to be a time of quiet, contemplative solitude were immediately dashed. This was unquestionably a good thing. Finally, I would like to thank my family for the support and prayers they have provided for me since I started here at UConn. Whether you've known it or not, your encouragement has been a continuous source of strength from which I have drawn. Thank you for always believing in me. v Table of Contents 1. The Formation of Territories ....................................................................................... 1 Territoriality in Humans .................................................................................................. 3 The Origins and Functions of Human Territoriality ....................................................... 8 Territoriality as an Evolutionarily Derived Behavioral Instinct .................................. 8 Territoriality as a Strategy for Exerting Social Influence .......................................... 12 Territoriality as a Means of Regulating Social Interaction........................................ 16 2. Territorial Behavior: Defense of Space from Intruders .......................................... 21 Anticipatory Defense..................................................................................................... 23 Verbal and Non-Verbal Communication ...................................................................... 24 Marking Behavior ......................................................................................................... 26 Control-Oriented Marking ......................................................................................... 27 Identity-Oriented Marking ......................................................................................... 29 Active Defense .............................................................................................................. 32 Conflict between Animals ......................................................................................... 33 Sports Competition .................................................................................................... 35 Decision-Making and Negotiation............................................................................. 40 3. An Alternative Account of Home Advantage ........................................................... 45 Problems with the Defense Account ............................................................................. 46 Developing an Alternative Framework ......................................................................... 51 Mechanistic, Two-System Theories of Psychological Activity ................................ 51 Ecological Psychology and Regulation ..................................................................... 57 Home Advantage in Terms of Regulatory Ability .................................................... 61 Outline of the Current Studies ....................................................................................... 73 4. Experiment 1: Inducing Territoriality in a Lab Setting ......................................... 77 Method .......................................................................................................................... 81 Results ........................................................................................................................... 84 Discussion ..................................................................................................................... 86 5. Experiment 2: Visuospatial Task Performance and Perspective Taking .............. 90 Method ........................................................................................................................ 101 Results ......................................................................................................................... 106 vi Discussion ................................................................................................................... 113 6. Experiment 3: Visual Search Behavior in Virtual Territories ............................. 124 Method ........................................................................................................................ 133 Results ......................................................................................................................... 136 Discussion ..................................................................................................................