Journal of Social Psychology最新文献

Planning through implementation intention involves forming mental representations of a goal-relevant situation and a goal-directed behavior. The main objective of this study was to determine whether mental representations during conscious planning with if-then plan were spontaneously visualized. The sample included 205 participants, asked to perform an easy vs. difficult pro-environmental behavior. They formed an if-then plan vs. a goal intention and were asked whether they spontaneously used mental imagery. Seven days after, 109 participants reported the number of behaviors they performed. The perceived difficulty of the behavior did not differ significantly, this variable was excluded from analyses. A logistic regression was performed and showed that participants who formed an if-then plan used significantly more spontaneous mental imagery compared to goal intention participants. ANCOVAs also revealed that they reported more behaviors than participants who formed a goal intention. However, participants who spontaneously visualized their if-then plan did not report more goal attainment than other participants. This result, which suggests a distinction between spontaneous and instructed visualization (i.e. explicitly requiring participants to visualize their plan), is discussed.

Research on how uncertainty affects the preference for prototypical over non-prototypical leaders has produced mixed results. To understand these discrepancies, two studies explored leader status (prospective versus incumbent) as a potential moderator. Participants reported levels of self-uncertainty (Study 1) or were primed with high versus low self-uncertainty (Study 2) before evaluating a prototypical or non-prototypical leadership candidate who was incumbent or prospective. For incumbent candidates, prototypicality predicted more favorable evaluations under low self-uncertainty, but this relationship was weakened under high self-uncertainty. For prospective candidates, prototypicality predicted more favorable evaluations under high self-uncertainty, but this relationship was weakened under low self-uncertainty.

Although there have been studies in the past that have highlighted the important role of leader traits in motivating employee innovation behavior, leader perfectionism has been scarcely investigated in this context. This study attempts to explore whether leader perfectionism directed toward employees can facilitate or hinder employee innovation behavior. Based on the transactional model of stress, we propose and test a moderated mediation model using data from a multi-wave, multi-source survey of 334 leader-employee questionnaires. The results show that, for employees with high self-efficacy, leader perfectionism has a positive effect on their challenge stress, which in turn promotes employee innovation behavior; Meanwhile, for employees with low self-efficacy, leader perfectionism has a positive effect on their hindrance stress, thereby discouraging employee innovation behavior. This study has significant theoretical and practical implications as it highlights the underlying relationship between leader perfectionism and employee innovation behavior.

This study explored the impact of customer mistreatment on counterproductive work behavior (CWB) and the moderating role of supervisor responses (self-sacrificial and self-serving leadership) to clarify why customer-directed CWB occurs and how it can be reduced. A sample of 392 customer-facing employees in the USA completed measures assessing the meaningfulness of work and self-sacrificial and self-serving leadership experiences. The meaningfulness of work moderated the relationship between customer mistreatment and employee anger, and a three-way interaction was found between employee anger and self-sacrificial and self-serving leadership on customer-directed CWB. Implications for managing customer mistreatment and fostering meaningful work to promote employee well-being are discussed.

In this study, we draw on social identity and social exchange theory to propose pathways via which emotional intelligence directed toward others in the organization has an impact on employee effectiveness. Findings from 122 supervisor-employee dyads showed that employees' other-oriented emotional intelligence is related to their organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) via the mechanisms of building high-quality exchanges with one's leaders and coworkers. We theorize and find evidence for unique mechanisms involved in mediating the effects of other-oriented emotional intelligence on taking charge and helping. Furthermore, both helping others and taking charge influenced performance ratings. We discuss theoretical and practical implications as well as limitations and areas for future research.

Individuals engage in luxury consumption to signal status and realize the benefits of higher status. Research on how observers explain luxury consumption is limited. In Study 1 within a social interaction context and Study 2 within a social media context, luxury consumption increases perceived competence and reduces perceived warmth. Perceived status mediates the effect of luxury consumption on increased competence perception. Study 3 compares the effects of mere wealth and wealth plus luxury. Luxury consumption further reduces perceived warmth, with no effect on perceived competence. Study 4 shows that inference of status signaling motive drives the decreased warmth impression of luxury consumers. In sum, luxury consumption increases competence perception through perceived status, whereas it reduces warmth perception through status signaling motive inference.

The study explored people's reactions to observing the ostracism of stigmatized targets. Participants (n = 198) who observed ostracism experienced need threat regardless of the target's identity. Participants regarded included addicts more positively than ostracized addicts, especially on traits that are considered unique to humans. As for dehumanization, subtle measures demonstrate that ostracized targets are perceived as less human. In contrast, our original measure of blatant dehumanization suggests that targets of ostracism are perceived as more human. The study stresses the inconsistency between dehumanization measurements and the need to specify what each measure taps into and how each contributes to the theory.

Conspiracy theories tend to be disseminated in times when anxiety and uncertainty prevail. Thus, the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic was fertile ground for the dissemination of conspiracy theories. The current study examined the role of conspiracy belief in the association between individual differences in perceptions of lack of control and certainty, and willingness to get vaccinated against COVID-19. Participants (N = 323) completed measures of willingness to get vaccinated, belief in COVID-19 vaccines conspiracy, intolerance of uncertainty (IOU), perceived personal control, and political uncontrollability. Results show that conspiracy beliefs mediated the positive association between perceived personal control and willingness to get vaccinated, and the negative association between political uncontrollability and willingness to get vaccinated. Additionally, conspiracy belief had a suppression effect on the association between IOU and willingness to get vaccinated. These findings indicate that uncertainty and sense of lack of control heighten the need for an explanation that offers some degree of clarity, which in turn is related to adoption of conspiracy theories and may consequently have negative effects on health behavior.