Journal of personality and social psychology最新文献

Life satisfaction is an important component of well-being to consider in relation to cognitive function due to its modifiability, potential utility in public health policy, and associations with cognitive health outcomes. However, little is known about the directionality of the association between life satisfaction and cognitive function, and past longitudinal work has yielded mixed findings. Using a coordinated data analytic approach, the current research used data from five longitudinal studies with at least three co-occurring waves of life satisfaction and cognitive function assessments, including over 60,000 individuals aged 50 years and older across multiple countries. Bivariate latent growth curve models and random intercept cross-lagged panel models were used to model between- and within-person associations and to test the potentially bidirectional association between life satisfaction and cognitive function over time. Findings revealed modest between- and within-person associations between life satisfaction and cognitive function. At the between-person level, individuals with higher life satisfaction also had higher cognitive function, and the two constructs changed together across time. However, initial levels of one did not predict long-term change trajectories in the other. At the within-person level, declines in life satisfaction predicted subsequent declines in cognitive function, and vice versa. The current research advances our understanding of the relationship between life satisfaction and cognitive function, suggesting that these constructs change together in the long term and predict changes in each other in the short term. Findings provide observational evidence for the potential utility of life satisfaction in promoting healthy cognitive aging. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

For decades, psychologists have appreciated that the average person sees themselves as better than average, particularly in moral domains. Although self-other comparisons permit establishing normative violations, they leave unanswered whether people see themselves and others positively or negatively in an absolute sense. The present research introduces a novel measure of moral thresholds to identify the behavioral tipping point that subjectively differentiates morality from immorality. Participants in two countries viewed themselves as clearly moral while viewing the other participants as falling short of the moral threshold (Study 1 and Supplemental Study A). Social targets of course take different forms. Study 2 (and Supplemental Study B) found that even when collectives (e.g., others in the study) were seen to fall short of moral thresholds, randomly selected individuals in those collectives-whether individuating information was offered about them or not-were estimated to exceed moral thresholds. The relative positivity of behavioral estimates (self > individuals > collectives) could not be explained by perceivers' confidence in those assessments (Study 3). Studies 4a-4b completed an experimental causal chain to identify one reason individuals are judged more positively than collectives. People anticipated feeling worse if they were to be cynical about an individual (as opposed to a collective). This heightened anticipated negative experience was causally responsible for more positive behavioral forecasts. The moral threshold allows moral perception to join other domains (e.g., monetary outcomes, attitudes) in which identifying neutral reference points has been core to theoretical and empirical development. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Attachment theory (Bowlby, 1973, 1980, 1969/1982) suggests that early interpersonal experiences lay the foundation for the ways people think, feel, and behave in close relationships throughout life. The present study examined this fundamental assumption, analyzing longitudinal data collected from 705 participants and their families over 3 decades, from the time participants were infants until they were approximately 30 years old (M_age = 28.6, SD = 1.2; 78.7% White, non-Hispanic, 53.6% female, 46.4% male). We examined the associations between early levels and growth (or changes) in the quality of people's close relationships during childhood-including with their parents, friends, peers, and romantic partners-and their attachment orientations in adulthood. The findings suggest that early experiences with caregivers play a foundational and enduring role in people's attachment-related functioning: Early levels of mother-child relationship quality predicted individual differences in general attachment anxiety and avoidance in adulthood, as well as adults' relationship-specific attachment orientations in each of their close relationships, including with their mothers, fathers, romantic partners, and best friends (median R² = 3% for attachment anxiety and avoidance across relationship domains). Early levels and growth in the quality of people's friendships during childhood also predicted general attachment orientations in adulthood (R²_{attachment anxiety} = 2%; R²_avoidance = 9%) and played a particularly important role in guiding the ways adults tended to think, feel, and behave in their friendships and romantic relationships (R²_{attachment anxiety} = 4%; R²_avoidance = 10%-11%). (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Effort is commonly characterized as a negative, unpleasant experience. This research explores the extent to which individuals vary in whether they believe effort to be enjoyable or aversive and how this relates to a range of behavioral and physiological indicators of effort exertion. In five studies (N = 2,338), participants either completed an Effort Enjoyment Belief Scale or were experimentally led to believe that effort is enjoyable or aversive. Across our studies, descriptive analyses of the Effort Enjoyment Belief Scale revealed no general tendency among participants to perceive effort as aversive; instead, some participants tended to endorse a belief that effort is enjoyable. Both measured and manipulated effort enjoyment belief predicted difficulty selection on an arithmetic task. Further, the belief predicted effort exertion as assessed via cardiovascular measurements (β-adrenergic sympathetic activity) and was associated with high school grades and subjective evaluation of academic success at university. These results imply that the subjective cost or value of effort may be affected by (social) learning experiences, shaping individuals' effort enjoyment belief and, in turn, their tendency to approach or avoid demanding tasks and the exertion of effort. Thus, when modeling behavior as the result of a cost-benefit analysis, effort may not contribute exclusively to the costs but also add value to a course of action, depending on individuals' effort enjoyment belief. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).