Journal of Applied Social Psychology最新文献

This study investigates the adverse impact of community-level wealth inequality in the aftermath of a natural disaster, and explores the role of community strength (i.e., community identification, cohesion, and identity continuity) in potentially mitigating these negative effects. Using geo-targeted survey data from communities affected by the 2019/2020 Black Summer Bushfires in Australia (N = 363), we found that greater perceived wealth inequality was associated with lower confidence that the community would make necessary changes to meet the threat of future bushfires, lower collective efficacy regarding future bushfires, and lower anticipated quality of life. However, we also found evidence some of these adverse effects were attenuated among those who reported higher levels of community identification and community cohesion. This study illustrates that problems posed by wealth inequality extend to the context of disaster recovery and climate change adaptation, and further underscores the socially mediated nature of this threat by demonstrating the potential for community strength to play a buffering role.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 sparked protests around the globe. Most of Europe had – luckily – not seen violent conflict of this scale on their doorstep for more than 30 years. For Germany, the period was even longer. Being confronted with news about the war drove thousands of German citizens to the streets. In passionate protests, they made various demands of their government. Herein, we investigate the links between Germans' emotions and their readiness to engage in such protests. Drawing on collective action research, we predicted that anger and sympathy would correlate positively with Germans' protest readiness. Given the context and public debate, we predicted that fear should also correlate with protest readiness. Two surveys (total N = 905) conducted with residents of Germany – one day after the invasion and at its first anniversary – supported our hypotheses. We consistently found that the more sympathy and anger respondents experienced, the greater their readiness to protest. Fear explained variance beyond sympathy and anger in two cases and in an information-seeking measure of protest readiness: Greater fear correlated with a higher interest in demonstrations advocating peace negotiations and a lower interest in demonstrations calling for solidarity with Ukraine. These findings underscore the links between sympathy, anger, fear, and the readiness to protest in response to the contemporary crisis that is the war in Ukraine.

The climate crisis calls for radical action, but what drives people to engage in climate protest? We recruited respondents during protests of Extinction Rebellion in the Netherlands and examined how intentions to engage in normative action (e.g., protest march), moderate nonnormative action (e.g., roadblock), and openness to more extreme nonnormative action (e.g., property damage) related to perceived injustice and trust in authorities. Study 1 found that perceived injustice was linked to all action intentions, while trust was only negatively associated with nonnormative protest. Study 2 revealed that nonnormative protest was specifically related to lower trust in democracy, judges, and the police. Furthermore, moderate action intentions were related to various injustice perceptions, whereas extreme actions were exclusively linked to social injustice.

The extant empirical evidence indicates that multicultural experiences (MCEs) are linked to numerous positive outcomes, including increased trust, reduced intergroup bias, and the promotion of large-scale cooperation. These beneficial effects partly depend on the fact that increased MCEs enhance cultural sensitivity, which may enable individuals to better empathize with others. Therefore, we explored the beneficial effects of MCEs on empathy, along with the potential mechanisms. A sample of 1480 Chinese young adults (M = 21.40, SD = 1.86) were employed to complete anonymous questionnaires on their MCEs, positive emotions, critical thinking, empathy, and multicultural breadth. By controlling for gender and family socioeconomic status, parallel mediation analysis revealed that MCEs can independently influence individuals' levels of empathy through both positive emotions and critical thinking. Thereafter, multicultural breadth was determined as a moderator influencing this model. The results highlighted the role of MCEs in increasing empathy through their relationship with cognitive and emotional processes. This study is significant in expanding our understanding of the consequences of MCEs and has practical value in promoting more interpersonal harmony and social tolerance through enhanced empathy.

Many people support and stand by political candidates in the same way that a person might support a significant other. In two studies, we preliminarily explored the utility of a triangular theory of love proposed for political figures. In the first study, data from 87 university students were used to obtain results relating to levels of intimacy, passion, commitment, and satisfaction for a participant-chosen political figure. We hypothesized that intimacy, passion, and commitment would predict higher levels of satisfaction with political figures. Correlational analyses revealed significant relationships between all three variables and satisfaction. In stepwise multiple regressions, intimacy and passion retained significant relationships with satisfaction. In the second study, 299 university students reported levels of intimacy, passion, commitment, and satisfaction for three political figures: Joe Biden, Donald Trump, and Barack Obama. All three variables were significantly correlated with satisfaction for each candidate. Stepwise multiple regression analyses revealed that intimacy and commitment, but not passion, predicted satisfaction for Joe Biden and Donald Trump. Intimacy, passion, and commitment significantly predicted satisfaction for Barack Obama. Voters may experience a kind of love for political figures, and understanding this relationship may have implications for helping voters make informed decisions during elections.

Body dissatisfaction reflects a person's negative perceptions, thoughts, and feelings regarding their body. Two factors—(1) self-compassion, a positive attitude of self-acceptance despite flaws, and (2) gratitude, the capability to notice and appreciate the positive aspects of life—may help to reduce body dissatisfaction. The present research aimed to provide further evidence for the relationship between gratitude, self-compassion, and body dissatisfaction and test whether meditation focusing on self-compassion can reduce body dissatisfaction. Two online studies were conducted with samples of adult women recruited in the United Kingdom (N = 342 and 117). Study 1 found that self-compassion, but not gratitude, significantly predicted lower levels of body dissatisfaction. Study 2 found that participating in a 3-week meditation program—whether focused on self-compassion or relaxation—increased self-compassion over time and reduced body dissatisfaction. Taken together, the findings that regular meditation can bring positive outcomes to women with body dissatisfaction, regardless of the specific focus or content of the meditation.

Health research demonstrates that prosocial health behaviors, while typically voluntarily, can be influenced by dispositional empathy. However, the motivating circumstances regarding this link between empathy and prosocial health behavior have not been well understood. Self-determination theory provides a framework for motivating voluntary behavior. Three preregistered studies (n_total = 630) sought to integrate self-determination's autonomous and controlled motivation to protect vulnerable populations from illness as potential mediators associated with dispositional empathy and face mask wearing behavior (Studies 1 and 2), and flu vaccination (Study 3). Results demonstrate that autonomous motivation positively mediates the empathy-prosocial health behavior pathway whereas controlled motivation does not. Findings postulate the importance of identifying motivation in predicting face mask behavior and flu vaccination.

Researchers have theorized about how belief in conspiracy theories can negatively affect interpersonal relationships. However, despite growing anecdotal evidence of the effects that conspiracy theories seem to have on people's relationships, a systematic assessment of these effects is lacking. In seven studies (six of them preregistered, N = 2526), we examined whether people's perceptions of others' conspiracy beliefs were negatively associated with their actual (or anticipated) relationship satisfaction with those others. We found that participants' perceptions of their social contacts' beliefs in general (Pilot Studies 1–2) and specific conspiracy theories (Study 1) were negatively associated with their relationship satisfaction with those contacts. Using a hypothetical scenario, we further observed that participants anticipated that their relationship satisfaction would worsen when one of these social contacts explicitly endorsed (vs. opposed) a conspiracy theory (Studies 2, 3a, and 3b). Finally, participants expected lower relationship satisfaction with a stranger who endorsed (vs. opposed) a conspiracy theory in their online dating profile (Study 4). Importantly, across all studies we observed that participants' own conspiracy beliefs moderated the association between others' conspiracy beliefs and relationship satisfaction, revealing a similarity–dissimilarity pattern: although the association was negative among participants with weaker conspiracy beliefs, we observed signals of reversal among participants with stronger conspiracy beliefs. Our findings further suggest that a process of attitudinal distancing (among other relational changes) could explain why perceived conspiracy beliefs negatively predicted relationship satisfaction. Taken together, this research provides evidence that conspiracy beliefs have the potential to harm interpersonal relationships.

Workplace loneliness is an epidemic in the United States and a serious problem in organizations. The solution may seem obvious: create high-quality interpersonal relationships. Employees, however, are not guaranteed to establish such relationships for a multitude of reasons. This raises the question: are there influences that would buffer against loneliness even in the absence of high-quality interpersonal relationships? Addressing this issue, we propose that understanding loneliness in the workplace requires looking beyond one's relationships with people to consider other key elements of work life, such as an employee's relationship with their work and the organization. We hypothesize that work centrality and organizational identification substitute for high-quality relationships with peers (conceptualized as team–member exchange, TMX). In a survey separating predictor variables and loneliness in time, we find that TMX is negatively associated with workplace loneliness and that work centrality acts as a substitute for TMX. Organizational identification does not substitute for TMX, and this finding is discussed. This paper contributes to the nascent body of work on workplace loneliness by investigating what factors contribute to workplace loneliness and whether relationships with abstract entities can provide a bond sufficient to substitute for interpersonal relationships.