Journal of personality and social psychology最新文献

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).

Striving for social status is a fundamental human motive, yet individuals vary considerably in their status-seeking tendencies. Drawing on attachment literature and life history theory, we propose that attachment anxiety drives status pursuit through heightened intrasexual competition. Across six preregistered studies (N = 4,456) spanning five countries, we find that attachment anxiety, rather than attachment avoidance, predicts status strivings. This relationship is mediated by intrasexual competition-competing with same-sex rivals-rather than, as previously documented, by materialism or general competitiveness. Experimental evidence confirms causality: Inducing attachment anxiety increases the desire for high-status cars and houses through heightened intrasexual competition. A moderation-of-process design demonstrates that experimentally manipulating intrasexual competition correspondingly enhances or reduces the effect of attachment anxiety on status strivings but only for high-status possessions. These effects hold for both men and women. Our findings show that anxiously attached individuals pursue status to compensate for relational insecurities, and they do so by competing with same-sex rivals. This research extends attachment theory to status pursuit and clarifies whether, when, and why individual differences in attachment patterns predict people's status strivings. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Rather than directly confronting their partners, people often use indirect strategies (e.g., making sarcastic comments, muttering under their breath, being passively aggressive). Yet, whereas directly confronting a partner can bring about desired change, indirect opposition tends to undermine relationship quality without bringing about subsequent change. So, why do people engage in indirect opposition? We suggest one reason is to obtain diagnostic information about their partner's commitment. We tested this idea using seven studies that were diverse in design (i.e., cross-sectional, experimental, longitudinal), method of assessment (i.e., observational, self-reports, reaction times), and type of sample (i.e., online crowdsourced, undergraduates, community couples). Across studies, people were more likely to use indirect (vs. direct) oppositional behaviors to the extent that they were uncertain, and motivated to obtain information, about a partner's commitment. Moreover, suggesting that people believe indirect opposition offers more diagnostic information about a partner's commitment, Studies 4 and 5 demonstrated that partners' responses to indirect opposition were perceived to be more authentic and thus reflective of their commitment than responses to direct opposition. Together, these studies suggest that people use indirect opposition to test a partner's level of commitment. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Individual differences in psychological reactivities (i.e., the degree to which individuals react differently to social interactions) are central to psychological research. Previous theory-based research has identified substantial individual differences in reactivities but few robust predictors of these differences. This work aimed to address two questions: First, can individual differences in reactivities to social interactions be accurately predicted at all? Second, what are the most important person-level variables for this prediction? A data-driven machine learning approach was applied to three large-scale experience sampling data sets (overall N = 5,047) to predict the extent to which individuals reacted with positive and negative affect to momentary social interaction characteristics (e.g., interaction depth). Individual differences in reactivities were extracted via multilevel modeling (i.e., random slopes) and then predicted with machine learning methods using a variety of person-level variables (i.e., sociodemographics, personality traits, and political and societal attitudes). The robustness of predictions was examined by built-in cross-validation and across independent samples. Feature importance and interactions were analyzed with SHapley Additive exPlanations values. Our results suggest that, whereas complex prediction models outperformed a baseline model in predicting individual differences in reactivities in most analyses, the overall predictive performance was limited. This finding underlines the importance of replicating machine learning results across outcomes and independent samples. We revealed several predictive patterns that can stimulate future research, elaborate on limitations of current machine learning approaches for intensive within-person data, and discuss the results against the background of dynamic conceptualizations of personality. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).