Journal of Theoretical Social Psychology最新文献

The human face is a key source of social information. In particular, it communicates a target's personal identity and some of their group memberships. Different models of social perception posit distinct stages at which this group-level and person-level information is extracted from the face, with divergent downstream consequences for cognition and behavior. This paper presents four experiments that explore the time-course of extracting group and person information from faces. In Experiments 1 and 2, we explore the effect of chunked versus unchunked processing on the speed of extracting group versus person information, as well as the impact of familiarity in Experiment 2. In Experiment 3, we examine the effect of the availability of a diagnostic cue on these same judgments. In Experiment 4, we explore the effect of both group-level and person-level prototypicality of face exemplars. Across all four experiments, we find no evidence for the perceptual primacy of either group or person information. Instead, we find that chunked processing, featural processing based on a single diagnostic cue, familiarity, and the prototypicality of face exemplars all result in a processing speed advantage for both group-level and person-level judgments equivalently. These results have important implications for influential models of impression formation and can inform, and be integrated with, an understanding of the process of social categorization more broadly.

The motivational theory of role modeling proposes motivational processes as critical mechanisms through which attainable role models can increase role aspirants' adoption of more ambitious goals. We conducted four studies to empirically test this proposition with role aspirants and their role models in field and experimental settings (total N = 2,165). Results provide empirical support for motivational processes of role modelling. Together they demonstrate that role models increase role aspirants' subjectively perceived probability of success (i.e., expectancy) and in turn motivation and goals, but only when they are perceived as attainable. These findings reveal how vital it is to raise the visibility of role models who embody representations of the possible and call for further research to understand how role models can reinforce expectancy by changing perceptions of one's own success, particularly the aspirations of minority group members.

Self-control has important consequences, but key questions remain regarding the underlying mechanisms involved in self-control over time. This research examined this issue, focusing on the process model of depletion. In particular, this study examined have-to and want-to motivation over time to provide a direct examination of central process model propositions and to investigate extensions to this model involving antecedents and outcomes associated with individual differences in have-to and want-to slopes and intercepts. Participants (N = 238) were presented with a self-control task for 45 min and reported have-to and want-to motivation levels every three minutes. Delay of gratification, future time perspective (antecedents), and task performance (outcome) were also measured. Results from multilevel modeling analyses indicated that have-to motivation decreased over time, want-to motivation increased over time, total time on the self-control task predicted have-to slope, future time perspective predicted have-to intercept, and have-to slope predicted task performance. These findings provide support for aspects of the process model, lead to new insights regarding self-control over time, and suggest additional directions for future research to further expand our understanding of control processes.

Psychological science aims to make the abstract measurable and quantifiable. As psychologists it is our challenge and charge to capture complex abstractions (e.g., authoritarianism, prejudice, depression) accurately and with transparency. But recent concerns have been raised about the proliferation of constructs across psychology sub-disciplines, with construct redundancy now rife. Critics charge that we do not take seriously construct validity, especially discriminant validity, which exacerbates the replication crisis. Here the author outlines the problem and discusses at a conceptual level how latent modeling can aptly capture constructs and their interrelations without error, isolating and helping to circumvent construct validity problems. At the core of the issue lies a mathematical reality that seems to be largely ignored in psychology: if correlations within and between indicators of constructs are roughly comparable, their latent factors will correlate near-perfectly and thus be redundant. Thoughts about how the field arrived at this juncture are discussed, along with a recommendation to avoid using cute labels (e.g., jingle-jangle fallacies) to represent very serious problems (better labeled as construct redundancy fallacies). Recommendations for thinking straight about constructs, their validation, and their uniqueness, are offered.

Studying the scope and limits of individuals' moral concern is a relevant topic in many disciplines. The construct of Socio-moral Radar that this study introduces focuses on the behavioral expression of people's commitment with existing social problems and tries to reflect the degree of their moral inclusiveness as active citizens. Our main goal is to explore the extent and variations of people's willingness to engage with different social problems, developing an empirical instrument to measure it. Thus, we design the Socio-moral Radar (SmR) Scale to register the intention to perform different forms of social engagement directed at various causes or entities. We test the relationships of the scale with several variables, including the Moral Expansiveness Scale. We empirically differentiate two facets of the SmR based on the types of entities object of socio-moral commitment: humans and nature. Regression analysis is used to test their predictors. We discuss the usefulness of the SmR to explain social participation through the lenses of moral inclusiveness.

In Milgram's obedience experiment, one of the many adjustments made by the experimenter to his “prods” is the regular use of “we” instead of the “you” required by the protocol. For example, he might say “we must continue” instead of “you must continue.” This text aims to describe the appearance for this use of “we” and suggests ways to understand what the “we” means for the experimenter who uses it, for the subject to whom it is addressed. Although Milgram describes a dualism (I–you), with an authority dominating a subject reduced to the agentic state, the “we” is a sign of similarity between those involved in the interaction and indicates cooperation rather than domination.

A current shift in intergroup relations research aims to delve deeper into whether, and how, individual differences predict social attitudes. Recent research goes beyond the measurement of typical personality traits and focuses also on the subclinical area of malicious traits. The present studies aimed at exploring the role of one such trait, psychopathy, as a predictor of negative social attitudes. The role of empathy was examined as a key underlying process explaining the relationship between primary and secondary psychopathy and social attitudes. Study 1 (N = 171) and Study 2 (N = 332) demonstrated that when entered as simultaneous predictors of negative attitudes toward immigrants (Study 1) and racism (Study 2), only primary psychopathy emerged as a significant predictor. Study 1 further demonstrated that lower levels of empathy mediated the psychopathy—attitudes path. Study 2 decomposed empathy into cognitive and affective, and tested the explanatory role of social dominance orientation (SDO) and right-wing authoritarianism (RWA). Primary psychopathy predicted lower cognitive and affective empathy, which sequentially predicted racism via SDO (in the case of cognitive empathy) and RWA (in the case of affective empathy). The results are discussed in the context of an integration between the personality and intergroup relations literature.