Journal of personality and social psychology最新文献

Exploring how psychological constructs and their outcomes vary across geographic regions is a rapidly expanding area of research, yet fundamental questions remain. Can constructs designed to describe individual variation in attitudes be interpreted in the same way when aggregated to regional levels? To what extent are they related or distinct? We tested the relationship between individual and regional attitudes across four studies in the domain of intergroup attitudes. Participants reported explicit prejudices and stereotypes toward 14 different social groups, and incorporating data from Project Implicit, we compared the characteristics of regional and individual operationalizations of prejudice. Further, we tested whether attitudes related to one another in the same way across levels using representational similarity analysis. Drawing from construct validity theory, we find evidence that regional prejudice is an emergent property of individual attitudes, to which it is related but distinct. These findings contextualize stereotype and prejudice constructs in regional analyses in psychology. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

We propose that, although deeply personal, meaning is facilitated by interpersonal processes. Namely, we theorize that experiencing a sense of shared reality with a close partner (i.e., perceiving an overlap in inner states about the world in general) reduces uncertainty about one's environment, which in turn promotes meaning in work and life. In the current research, we test this hypothesis across five mixed-method studies (e.g., longitudinal, experimental). We find cross-sectional evidence for this association in a couples' study (Study 1: N = 103 romantic dyads) and in ecologically rich samples of people experiencing highly uncertain situations, specifically Black people consistently facing racism in the United States (Study 2: N = 190 participants) and frontline health care workers directly treating COVID-19 patients during the height of the pandemic (Study 3: N = 139 participants). Further, we provide causal evidence for this association in two experiments (Studies 4 and 5: N₄ = 364 participants, N₅ = 389 participants). Taken together, this work suggests that shared reality with close partners has real-world benefits, reducing uncertainty and promoting meaning. In addition, we show that experimentally heightening shared reality, by reducing uncertainty, can promote a greater sense of meaning in life. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Much research has found self-awareness to be associated with positive qualities, but we explore cases in which self-awareness sends a negative signal to others. Specifically, we propose that when a target person appears to be high in social self-awareness-that is, the person seems to accurately know what others think of them-observers infer that the target's actions are more intentional because the target is acting while seeming to know what others think of their actions. Because perceived intent is the key input to trust judgments, perceived self-awareness impacts observers' trust toward the target but does so differently depending on whether the target behaves in ways that positively or negatively impact others. When the target behaves in positive ways, exhibiting high (relative to low) self-awareness should increase trust as the positive behaviors will be interpreted as conveying stronger positive intentions toward others. However, for negative behaviors, exhibiting self-awareness should decrease trust, as it should convey stronger negative intent toward others. Across six studies (N = 4,707) using online experiments, a recall study paradigm, and live interactions in a laboratory setting, we find support for this framework. We also show that when we constrain the extent to which people can infer a target's intentions toward others from their behaviors-by reducing the target's control over their own behavior or by reducing the impact of the target's actions on others-the effect of self-awareness on trust attenuates. Our findings suggest that self-awareness, though often considered a desirable quality, does not universally increase others' trust. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Building on the perspectives reflected in the Western intellectual tradition of the psychology of identity and the self, current research in cultural psychology tends to conceptualize uniqueness preferences as reflecting an identity-based motive and argues that people in Western cultures value uniqueness because it is viewed as inherently important to their identity and individuality. In this research, we introduce a complementary Eastern perspective to understand uniqueness preferences and argue that uniqueness preferences can also reflect a strategic motive where people in East Asian cultures may also value uniqueness because of the instrumental material and social benefits they believe uniqueness may confer. We tested our propositions in nine preregistered studies contrasting the decision making of people in the United States with those in China. We found that compared to participants from the United States, those from China were more likely to pursue uniqueness or believe others would pursue uniqueness in situations where being unique could potentially confer material and social benefits (Studies 1a-1c, 2, 4, 5), and this behavioral tendency could be explained in part by participants from China exhibiting a greater strategic motive for uniqueness seeking (Studies 3-5). Further, correlational and experimental studies provided some evidence for the roles of the need for power, power distance orientation, trait competitiveness, and upward social comparison as psychological antecedents to the strategic motive for uniqueness seeking (Studies 5-7). Overall, this research provides an alternative Eastern cultural perspective to balance the prevailing Western cultural perspective for understanding uniqueness preferences. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Existing research has suggested a predominantly negative view of dependency-oriented help. In contrast, the current research aims to test the positive function of dependency-oriented help in intimate relationships where interpersonal dependency is valued. We hypothesized that dependency-oriented help-seeking could function in communicating liking and romantic interests and, therefore, can be instrumental in attracting mates. Our hypothesis was confirmed across nine studies (N = 2,535). For help-seekers, a mate-seeking motivation could positively predict (Study 1) and lead to (Studies 2A-4) dependency-oriented help-seeking behavior tendencies (Studies 1-2B) and actual behavior (Studies 3 and 4). For help-providers, after activating a mating goal, imagining (Studies 5A and 5B) and actually receiving (Study 6) dependency-oriented (vs. autonomy-oriented) help-seeking requests from a potential mate increased help-providers' romantic interests in that mate. Study 7 further showed the function of dependency-oriented help from the perspective of romantic competitors. As such, people in romantic relationships were more likely to see a potential competitor as a mate poacher when this person asked for dependency-oriented help from their partner. Theoretical and practical implications have been discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Whom do we perceive as more powerful and prefer to give power to: Those who have self-control or those who lack it? Past theory and research provide divergent predictions. Low self-control can be seen as a form of disinhibition, and disinhibition has been associated with greater power. However, high self-control can be seen as a form of agency, which is associated with greater power. Across seven studies, we found that individuals who exhibited high self-control were seen as more powerful, and given more power, than individuals who exhibited low self-control. This result held when the low or high self-control behavior was chosen either quickly or slowly (Studies 3 and 4), and when exhibiting low versus high self-control entailed the same action but different goals (Studies 5 and 6). Study 6 demonstrated important implications of our findings for goal setting: People were perceived as more powerful and given more power when they had a modest goal but exceeded it than when they had an ambitious goal but failed to meet it, even though in both cases they performed the same action. A meta-analysis of our mediation results showed that people perceived individuals higher in self-control as more assertive and competent, which was associated with greater power perception and then with greater power conferral. Perceived competence also directly mediated the effect of self-control on power conferral. The current research addresses a theoretical debate in the power literature and contributes to a better understanding of how power is perceived and accrued. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Status researchers have recognized virtue, competence, and dominance as distinct, viable routes to attaining status. While acknowledging that these routes could be compatible and may not operate independently, prior research relying on a variable-centered perspective has largely neglected their potentially complex interactions. This article integrates a person-centered perspective with the variable-centered perspective to explore how different routes conjointly shape workplace status. Study 1A (N = 537) employs latent profile analysis, an inductive person-centered method, to re-analyze existing survey data, identifying seven distinct profiles of virtue, competence, and dominance that people use to attain status. Study 1B (N = 988) confirms the existence of these profiles in an independent sample of full-time U.S. workers, albeit with nuanced differences in levels. Across our initial studies, these profiles differ in status attainment, with a profile characterized by high virtue and competence but low dominance associated with the highest status-a key discovery challenging to uncover using the variable-centered approach alone. Study 2 (N = 792), a preregistered experiment manipulating the three routes in hypothetical scenarios, gathers causal evidence confirming these profiles' varying effectiveness. Study 3 (N = 785), another preregistered experiment using refined manipulations, corroborates the findings of Study 2 and provides evidence for the relevance of these causal insights to real-life workplace contexts. This research has several crucial implications: reaching the top requires a combination of multiple routes; conflating virtue and competence under the umbrella of "prestige" obscures their unique contributions; and dominance's positive effect on status is not universally applicable. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Awe has been shown to promote well-being through various mechanisms (see Monroy & Keltner, 2023). In this research, we propose a novel perspective for the well-being benefits of awe: Awe fosters equanimity-a balanced state of mind toward all experiences of any valence-and we document how this works, namely, through temporal distancing. Across seven studies, using a combination of experiments, big data analytics, and intervention methods, we provide support for our hypotheses. In Studies 1-3, induced awe increased equanimity, indexed by a self-report scale (Study 1), a decrease in emotional reactivity (Study 2), and an unbiased behavioral approach to positive and negative experiences (Study 3). In Studies 4-6, awe increased equanimity via temporal distancing. This effect persisted beyond self-diminishment (i.e., feeling small and insignificant) and proved to be cross-culturally robust (Study 4). An analysis of almost 200,000 posts on social media (Study 5) revealed that the proposed mediation model manifested in ecologically rich contexts. Study 6 provided causal evidence for the mediation model. Finally, in a 5-day awe intervention (Study 7), awe increased psychological and physical well-being, with equanimity accounting for these benefits. Taken together, these findings reveal that awe cultivates a balanced state of mind by shifting one's temporal perspective on life events. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Every day, humans encounter complex social situations that need to be encoded effectively to allow interaction with others. Yet, principles for organizing the perception of social features from the external world remain poorly characterized. In this large-scale study, we investigated the principles of social perception in dynamic scenes. In the primary data set, we presented 234 movie clips (41 min) containing various social situations to 1,140 participants and asked them to evaluate the presence of 138 social features in each clip. Analyses of the social feature ratings revealed that some features are perceived categorically (present or absent) and others continuously (intensity) and simple social features requiring immediate response are perceived most consistently across participants. To establish the low-dimensional perceptual organization for social features based on movies, we used principal coordinate analysis and consensus clustering for the feature ratings. These dimension reduction analyses revealed that the social perceptual structure can be modeled with eight main dimensions and that behaviorally relevant perceptual categories emerge from these main dimensions. This social perceptual structure generalized from the perception of unrelated Hollywood movie clips to the perception of a full Finnish movie (70 min) and to the perception of static images (n = 468) and across three independent sets of participants (n = 2,254). Based on the results, we propose eight basic dimensions of social perception as a model for rapid social perception where social situations are perceived along eight orthogonal perceptual dimensions (most importantly emotional valence, empathy vs. dominance, and cognitive vs. physical behavior). (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

The explosive growth of individuals identifying as multiracial in the U.S. population has motivated significant interest in multiracial face perception. Interestingly, the literature reveals stunningly low rates of classifications of multiracial faces as multiracial. Five studies examined the possibility that this lack of correspondence is rooted in perceptual confusion. To test this, we utilized multidimensional scaling and discriminant function analysis to determine how participants mentally represent multiracial faces relative to Latinx and monoracial faces. Studies 1-3 establish that multiracial faces are perceptually discriminable from non-multiracial faces using three different sets of facial stimuli: Asian-White female (Study 1), Black-White female (Study 2), and Asian-White male faces (Study 3). Study 4 examined whether mental representation was further moderated by sample demographics by comparing U.S. participants sampled from Hawaii and California. Finally, Study 5 tests the consistency of mental representations across individuals and rules out potential statistical artifacts associated with group multidimensional scaling. These studies provide consistent evidence that multiracial faces are perceptually distinct from Latinx and monoracial faces, suggesting that the categorization patterns of multiracial faces observed in past research likely stem from downstream processes rather than perceptual confusability of multiracial faces. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).