European Journal of Social Psychology最新文献

We identified and tested a novel aspect of human resilience: The daily pursuit of maintenance goals. Taking inspiration from archaeological records, which point at routinized cultural practices as a central resilience factor, we tested whether personal routine practices, governed by maintenance goals, serve a similar function to individuals as traditional practices do to societies. Namely, we hypothesized that maintenance striving increases individuals’ resilient responses to stressful events. Confirming this prediction, a longitudinal Study 1 showed that maintenance striving but not avoidance striving, predicted subsequent increases in well-being following the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany. Study 2 confirmed our predictions on trait resilience and maintenance versus avoidance motivations in the household and relationship life domains in cross-sectional data. These studies contribute to the understanding of resilience by demonstrating the benefits of maintenance goals for both situational and trait-level resilience.

Imagery rescripting (ImRs) is a prominent approach to help individuals alleviate the negative consequences following victimization. In two studies (total N = 641), participants experienced a victimization incident induced by a video. In subsequent audio-guided (ImRs or control) interventions, we examined the impact of imagined (i) victims' active or passive role, (ii) punishment for the offender (yes/no), and (iii) offender moral change (yes/no) on both psychological states and behavioural intentions. Specifically, after the ImRs, participants reported their feelings of empowerment, justice-related satisfaction, positive and negative affect, and intention to act after the intervention. Results revealed that ImRs significantly reduced negative consequences of victimization, with active ImRs surpassing passive ImRs in enhancing victims’ empowerment and positive affect. Notably, neither imagined offender punishment nor moral change affected the efficacy of ImRs. We discuss these findings in light of ImRs as an intervention to address victims’ threatened needs.

Previous research has shown that people judge sacrificing a few people to save a larger number to be morally permissible when the intervention targets the threat but not when it targets the victims. We investigated whether this distinction according to the locus of intervention influences people's evaluations of wartime scenarios and whether such evaluations vary according to different types of victims (e.g., civilians vs. soldiers). We observed a significant effect of locus of intervention in situations in which a smaller number of civilians were sacrificed to save a larger number of civilians (Study 1; N = 142). However, the effect of locus of intervention was less pronounced in scenarios in which soldiers were sacrificed to save civilians (Studies 2 and 3; N = 173 and N = 841). A fourth experiment (N = 477) explored why participants treated soldiers and civilians differently. Participants believed that it is more permissible to sacrifice soldiers because they consent to being harmed.

Many lay people believe that the best way to develop a clear sense of ‘who you are’ is to shut yourself off from others and engage in introspection. Increasingly, however, empirical evidence points to the social aspects of identities and identity development. Building on this, we argue that a strong sense of personal identity is more likely to be derived from meaningful social interaction. More specifically, we argue that when communication allows people to develop a sense of shared identity, it can also promote a sense of personal self. Consistent with this hypothesis, evidence from three experiments indicates that social interaction indirectly enhances people's self-concept clarity and personal identity strength, through an increased experience of shared identity and social validation. This suggests that a sense of ‘me’ is not formed independently of others but also through the experience of ‘we’ in interaction.

Despite the widespread use of face masks to combat COVID-19, little is known about their immediate and delayed social consequences. To understand short- and long-term effects of face masks on interpersonal perception, we measured the evaluation of faces with and without masks at four time points—June 2020, January 2021, September 2021 and June 2022—from the early months of the pandemic in North America to the more recent, and from the implementation of mask mandates to the end of these requirements. Surprisingly, we found that, in general, faces with masks were perceived as more competent, warm, trustworthy, considerate and attractive, but less dominant and anxious than faces without masks. Moreover, differences in attributions of dominance, trustworthiness and warmth between faces with and without masks increased in a linear trend from June 2020 to June 2022. Notably, the impact of masks on perceptions of competence, considerateness, attractiveness and anxiousness did not change over time. We discuss how mask mandates can alter people's social perceptions of others who wear masks compared to those who do not wear masks and how these mandates may influence attributions of some traits more than others through mere exposure and/or social norms.

This Special Issue editorial explores perspectives on intergroup reconciliation and its underlying processes in post-conflict societies, emphasizing the importance of four key themes: 1) victimhood, 2) acknowledgment, 3) forgiveness, and 4) intergroup contact. After presenting the state of the art in reconciliation research, we present the individual contributions in this Special Issue, and we link them to the four key themes. We end this editorial by setting out an agenda for future research, underscoring the timeliness and relevance of reconciliation efforts in today's world. By offering insights into evidence-based interventions and practical strategies for promoting positive intergroup relations, this Special Issue hopes to contribute to the broader discourse on peacebuilding and social cohesion in post-conflict societies.

Scholars pay great attention to sociopsychological factors that predict attitudes toward military action, but they rarely address personality variables. The purpose of this study was to analyse the relationship between the Dark Triad traits, general moral disengagement, and military attitudes. We conducted three surveys between May and November 2022 in three samples of Russian residents (N = 736, 795, and 752). The results showed that the Dark Triad was only marginally related to attitudes toward military action abroad, but emerged as a consistent positive predictor of support for violence against civilians with psychopathy showing the strongest effect. Moreover, this relationship was mediated by moral disengagement. At the same time, Big Five traits and sociopsychological variables predicted the attitudes toward military action, but were generally unrelated to the attitudes toward violence against civilians. The findings suggest the existence of distinct pathways underlying the support of general military action and unethical military action.

1 INTRODUCTION

The European Journal of Social Psychology (EJSP) has been a key outlet for social psychological research across the world for more than 50 years. The myriad changes that have occurred in the last half-century continue to present the field, and EJSP more specifically, with a number of opportunities and challenges. In terms of opportunities, new social and political environments continue to spur innovation in topics, research practices and in the shape of manuscripts. In terms of challenges, the steady increase in the number of empirical contributions has placed existing models of manuscript evaluation under intense strain; it has also increased the need for stronger theoretical integration as well as the integration of empirical work in a given subfield. In our editorial term, we aim to ensure that we are making the most of opportunities by, among the things, encouraging researchers to address contemporary debates in social psychology and society as a whole in their work. We also aim to address the challenges by, among other things, building reviewer capacity and providing opportunities for integrative perspectives on the field. To achieve these aims, we are making a number of changes.

This study explored how children's perceptions of social group differences relate to attitudes and behaviour towards real-world outgroups. We examined Arab-Christian children living in Israel (N = 231, 52% female, average age 9.8 years) and randomly presented them with either Arab-Muslim or Jewish outgroup targets. The children performed tasks measuring attitudes and prosocial behaviour towards the outgroup. Additionally, they were asked to describe the differences between their ingroup and the outgroup target. We found that children favoured the Arab-Muslim outgroup over the Jewish outgroup, and perceived it as having fewer dimensions of difference from their ingroup. Fewer perceived dimensions of difference correlated with more positive attitudes. By the age of 12, however, perceiving more dimensions of difference was linked to increased compensatory prosocial behaviour towards the Jewish outgroup. The findings emphasize the dynamic interplay between cognitive development and intergroup experiences in understanding children's prosocial behaviour towards different outgroups.

Parents, especially mothers, and young women without children, face a subtle threat in job interviews: being asked inappropriate questions about parental status. In three vignette experiments (N = 760), we compared personal (perceived likability and likelihood of being hired) and social consequences (perceived chances that the interviewer will ask the inappropriate question again) of different response strategies. Results suggest that deflection (i.e., responding with another question) is a superior strategy at the personal level, as it increases the perceived chances to be hired in comparison to truth-telling (Study 1) and confrontation (Studies 1–3) without hurting likability (Study 1). Confrontation (i.e., saying that the question is inappropriate) is a superior strategy at the social level, decreasing the perceived probability that the interviewer will keep asking inappropriate questions in comparison to deflection (Studies 2 and 3) and truth-telling (Study 3). No gender differences were apparent. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.