Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin最新文献

We examined whether mental contrasting inhibits the pursuit of difficult goals in an Eastern culture-Japan-rooted in self-improvement. Our pilot study found that, compared with American participants, Japanese participants did not perceive a difficult situation as a cue to abandon their goal and pursue alternative objectives. Studies 1a-1c found that mental contrasting encouraged Japanese participants to pursue difficult goals. When Japanese participants perceived their own goals as unattainable, they were more likely to pursue these goals if they mentally contrasted their desired future with the inhibiting reality than if they simply imagined their desired future. Study 2 showed that mental contrasting encouraged Japanese (but not American) participants to pursue difficult goals. Study 3 evidenced the causal effect of beliefs about difficulties on the impact of mental contrasting on motivation to pursue difficult goals. Culturally formed beliefs about difficulties underlie the effect of mental contrasting on difficult goal pursuit.

Proximal socio-economic drivers of gender equality tend to obscure its remote ecological origins. General systems theory predicts that the greater annual variability in daylength, temperature, and daily precipitation at higher latitudes requires greater psychosocial flexibility. We extend this prediction to gender equality as a likely consequence. Accordingly, for 87 pre-industrial societies after 1500 CE, we find more gender equality in more variable habitats, and that this link is mediated by greater subsistence flexibility-foraging rather than raising plants and animals. Mutatis mutandis, these ecological predictors of global gender equality replicate in 175 modern countries after 2000 CE. Gender equality was, and still is, lowest around the Equator, higher toward the North and South Poles, and invariant in east-west direction. The geographical positioning of gender equality in pre-industrial times can predict over 40% of the opposite north-south gradients of gender equality in the opposite Northern and Southern Hemispheres today.

In three studies, we investigated the role of linguistic features characterizing texts aiming to mobilize others. In Study 1 (N = 728), participants produced a leaflet either mobilizing others to engage in an action or expressing their thoughts about that action, and evaluated how action-oriented their text was. Mobilizing texts included more verbs and concrete words, and the presence of these linguistic characteristics was positively linked to participants' evaluations of their messages as action-oriented. In Studies 2 and 3 (N = 557 and N = 556), independent groups of participants evaluated texts produced in Study 1. Readers' perceptions of texts as action-oriented were associated with the same linguistic features as in Study 1 and further positively linked to perceived message effectiveness (Study 2) and behavioral intention (Study 3). The studies reveal how encoding and decoding of verbs and concrete words serve as distinct persuasive tools in calls to action.

We investigated how individuals judge politicians embroiled in scandal. Drawing on social identity and realistic group conflict theory, we predicted that beyond an overall ingroup bias, partisans would be particularly forgiving of in-party politicians who denied or justified their misconduct rather than apologize for it. By insisting that they did nothing wrong, these politicians defend the public image of their party and signal their commitment to partisan goals. We find qualified support for this prediction across three experiments. Participants did not respond negatively to in-party politicians who apologized but did react more positively to those who denied or justified wrongdoing (relative to silence). These accounts worked only for in-party politicians and were more effective for those whose misconduct furthered their party's agenda or whose seat was high-status or pivotal for party goals. In intergroup contexts like politics, people may accept explanations for misconduct that they would otherwise find offensive.

Face individuation involves sensitivity to physical characteristics that provide information about identity. We examined whether Black and White American faces differ in terms of individuating information, and whether Black and White perceivers differentially weight information when judging same-race and cross-race faces. Study 1 analyzed 20 structural metrics (e.g., eye width, nose length) of 158 Black and White faces to determine which differentiate faces within each group. High-utility metrics (e.g., nose length, eye height, chin length) differentiated faces of both groups, low-utility metrics (e.g., face width, eye width, face length) offered less individuating information. Study 2 (N = 4,510) explored Black and White participants' sensitivity to variation on structural metrics using similarity ratings. High-utility metrics affected perceived dissimilarity more than low-utility metrics. This relationship was non-significantly stronger for same-race faces rather than cross-race faces. Perceivers also relied more on features that were racially stereotypic of the faces they were rating.

The amount of effort required to bring about a prosocial outcome can vary from low-handing a stranger the wallet she just dropped-to high-spending days tracking down the owner of a lost wallet. The goal of the current research is to characterize the relationship between prosocial effort and moral character judgments. Does more prosocial effort always lead to rosier moral character judgments? Across four studies (N = 1,658), we find that moral character judgments increase with prosocial effort to a point and then plateau. We find evidence that this pattern is produced, in part, by descriptive and prescriptive norms: exceeding descriptive norms increases moral character judgments, but exceeding prescriptive norms has the opposite effect, which leads to a tapering off of moral character judgments at higher levels of effort.

We test the hypothesis that the perception of stability in one's self-concept (i.e., future self-continuity) enables the experience of meaning in life because perceiving a stable sense of self confers a sense of certainty to the self-concept. Study 1 provided initial evidence of the influence of future self-continuity on feelings of meaning in life (MIL) in a nationally representative sample. In Studies 2a and 2b, we manipulated future self-continuity by varying the expectedness of one's future self, demonstrating the causal influence of future self-continuity on self-certainty and feelings of MIL. Study 3 again manipulated future self-continuity, finding an indirect effect on feelings of meaning in life via self-certainty. Our findings thus suggest the experience of meaning in life arises from the perception of a stable sense of self. We discuss the implications for the antecedents and conceptualization of MIL as well as the nature of the self-concept.

We propose that awe has multifaceted relations with existential isolation, a feeling of separation between the self and others or the world. Three studies examined the relation between awe and existential isolation via feelings of small self (vastness, self-size, self-perspectives) and a sense of connectedness. Awe (vs. a control topic) was induced either using virtual reality (Study 1) or a recall task (Studies 2 and 3) and was indirectly associated with higher and lower levels of existential isolation through differing pathways. Awe was associated with lower feelings of existential isolation via an increased sense of vastness, which in turn predicted greater connectedness; whereas awe was associated with higher feelings of existential isolation via increased sense of feeling small, which in turn predicted lower connectedness. This work advances understanding of the complex nature of awe-revealing its competing effects on the self and the social connectedness pathways through which awe can influence existential isolation.

Producers and creators often receive assistance with work from other people. Increasingly, algorithms can provide similar assistance. When algorithms assist or augment producers, does this change individuals' willingness to assign credit to those producers? Across four studies spanning several domains (e.g., painting, construction, sports analytics, and entrepreneurship), we find evidence that producers receive more credit for work when they are assisted by algorithms, compared with humans. We also find that individuals assume algorithmic assistance requires more producer oversight than human assistance does, a mechanism that explains these higher attributions of credit (Studies 1-3). The greater credit individuals assign to producers assisted by algorithms (vs. other people) also manifests itself in increased support for those producers' entrepreneurial endeavors (Study 4). As algorithms proliferate, norms of credit and authorship are likely changing, precipitating a variety of economic and social consequences.

Communicators commonly present two-sided messages to avoid being perceived as biased. This approach equates bias with one-sidedness rather than divergence from the position supported by available data. Messages often concern topics with mixed qualities: a product is exceptional but expensive; a politician is inexperienced but ethical. For these topics, providing a two-sided message should reduce perceived bias according to both views of bias as one-sidedness and divergence from available data. However, if perceived bias follows divergence from available data, for topics viewed as one-sided (univalent), a two-sided message should not reduce perceived bias. Across five studies, acknowledging two sides reduced perceived bias for novel topics. In two of the studies, two-sidedness no longer reduced perceived bias for topics viewed as univalent. This work clarifies that people conceptualize bias as a divergence from available data, not simply one-sidedness. It also clarifies when and how to leverage message-sidedness to reduce perceived bias.