Journal of Experimental Social Psychology最新文献

Individuals tend to follow choices and behaviors that are common among others, indicating majority influence. Nevertheless, majority behaviors that appear to be consistent can be generated by different factors during the decision-making process; hence, the current study addressed whether people consider the source of majority behavior and follow the majority differently when that behavior is formed under different choice conditions. The participants were asked to select a safe exit after observing others' choices in simulated fire escape scenes, and their probability of adopting the majority choice was tested when all or some of the other persons were free or constrained to choose an exit for escaping under different sizes of majority. The results showed that people are more likely to follow the majority's choice when faced with available options than when constrained to make a common choice, and an increase in majority size leads to an increase in majority influence only when the majority behavior is formed under free choice. Importantly, when the majority behavior is generated by a computer algorithm, the majority influence is not affected by the availability of options, ruling out nonsocial differences as contributors to source-dependent majority influence. These findings indicate that people do not simply engage in any form of majority behavior at face value but rather distinguish between different types of majority behavior while following the majority. This finding highlights the fact that people account for rational factors and seek to maximize information gains when following the majority.

Individuals differ in their general propensity to believe in conspiracy theories, often referred to as conspiracy mentality. Because prototypical conspiracy theories exhibit a conspiratorial content (i.e., they claim that a conspiracy occurred) and an alternative status (i.e., they are rejected by authorities), it is unclear if conspiracy mentality captures a general tendency to believe in conspiracies, to endorse alternative narratives, or to believe in conspiratorial alternative narratives. To adjudicate between these interpretations, we carried out three experimental studies (Ns = 364, 772, 629) in which we experimentally manipulated the respective statuses (endorsed by authorities vs. rejected by the authorities) of competing conspiratorial and non-conspiratorial explanations for fictitious controversial events. Overall, conspiracy mentality predicted the endorsement of conspiratorial explanations and the rejection of non-conspiratorial explanations. However, these relationships were moderated by the respective statuses of these explanations. When authorities endorsed the conspiratorial explanation and rejected the non-conspiratorial explanation, the relationships were either nullified (in Studies 1 & 3) or attenuated (in study 2). These effects were driven by participants scoring low on the conspiracy mentality measures, who reported a lower endorsement of the conspiratorial explanation when it was rejected by authorities. They also reported a stronger endorsement of the non-conspiratorial explanation when it was presented as endorsed by authorities. By contrast, conspiracy believers' endorsement of the explanations was unaffected by their status. These findings are informative of what conspiracy mentality scales capture and highlight the need to adopt more specific definitions in psychological research on conspiracy theories.

Weight-based stigma is prevalent, increasing, and has many negative consequences. This research examines people's beliefs about what other people with heavy versus thin body types enjoy, in terms of food and activities. Predictions of others' enjoyment are important, as they can shape various downstream judgments, including beliefs about other people's likely goal pursuit success, and recommendations and choices for others. Six pre-registered experiments compare predictions of others' enjoyment of healthy and unhealthy foods and activities, based on whether others have heavy versus thin body types. These experiments show that whereas beliefs about what people with thin body types enjoy are flexible, beliefs about what people with heavy body types enjoy are narrow and inflexible. Specifically, if people with thin body types engage in counter-stereotypical unhealthy behavior, they are perceived to enjoy such behavior as much as people with heavy body types. By contrast, even if people with heavy body types engage in counter-stereotypical healthy behavior, they are perceived not to enjoy such behavior as much as people with thin body types. The potential wide-ranging implications of the belief that heavy people have narrower ranges of potential enjoyment are discussed.

An analysis drawing on Signal Detection Theory suggests that people may fall for misinformation because they are unable to discern true from false information (truth insensitivity) or because they tend to accept information with a particular slant regardless of whether it is true or false (belief bias). Three preregistered experiments with participants from the United States and the United Kingdom (N = 961) revealed that (i) truth insensitivity in responses to (mis)information about COVID-19 vaccines differed as a function of prior attitudes toward COVID-19 vaccines; (ii) participants exhibited a strong belief bias favoring attitude-congruent information; (iii) truth insensitivity and belief bias jointly predicted acceptance of false information about COVID-19 vaccines, but belief bias was a much stronger predictor; (iv) cognitive elaboration increased truth sensitivity without reducing belief bias; and (v) higher levels of confidence in one's beliefs were associated with greater belief bias. The findings provide insights into why people fall for misinformation, which is essential for individual-level interventions to reduce susceptibility to misinformation.

In many contexts, the magnitude of discrimination in social judgment is determined by the level of sensitivity and bias in evaluation. However, little is known about factors that shape these processes. Using a mock admissions task, we investigated how variation in the time spent processing non-diagnostic social information (e.g., a face communicating attractiveness) versus decision-relevant information (e.g., information about candidate's qualifications) differentially impacted sensitivity versus bias, using both correlational eye-tracking (Study 1) and experimental approaches (Studies 2–3). Higher sensitivity (i.e., less judgment errors) was consistently related to the amount of time participants viewed decision-relevant information. However, bias (i.e., selection leniency based on attractiveness) was unrelated to the amount of time participants chose to view or were allowed to view faces. Bias emerged when faces were shown for as little as 350 milliseconds. The ease with which social information is encoded suggests that merely limiting its' presentation is ineffective for reducing discrimination.

Reducing political polarization requires finding common ground among people with diverse opinions. The current research shows that people generally expect that expressing ambivalence about political issues—endorsing some considerations on both sides, for instance—can help them establish positive relations with others holding a wide variety of political views. However, across several policy topics—COVID-19 mask mandates, immigration, and the death penalty—we found that targets expressing a given position with more (vs. less) ambivalence were not liked more, whether perceivers agreed or disagreed with their overall position. In fact, when perceivers agreed with targets' overall positions, they judged those with more (vs. less) ambivalent attitudes as less likeable, warm, and competent. Although views of ambivalent targets varied across perceivers, the negative effect when targets and perceivers shared overall positions was larger and more consistent than any positive effects among opposing perceivers. This exposes a mismatch between expectation and social reality: Whereas expressing ambivalence might make intuitive sense toward bridging political divides, we found it was ironically more likely to reduce liking among allies while maintaining disliking among adversaries. These findings speak to the interpersonal dynamics of political polarization, highlighting a potential social disincentive against publicly taking nuanced positions on political issues.

Despite caring for animals, most people use products tested on lab-animals daily, and rarely consider the implications of their choices for animal testing. We experimentally examined across four preregistered and high-powered online studies (total N = 3405) whether categorizing animals as being lab-subjects, in a context where people are also reminded of the implications of their own consumer choices, could lead to their mind denial. Findings confirmed that participants consistently denied mind to animals used for product testing compared to those same animals presented outside of this context. Manipulating the perceived suffering experienced by laboratory animals and the responsibility of individuals, however, did not affect the extent of mind denial. Our findings suggest, consistent with previous work, that categorizing animals as ‘furry test-tubes’ changes how we perceive them, in order to rationalize their use for testing the products we consume on a daily basis.

Research has identified forgiveness as one of the most productive forms of resolution following an interpersonal transgression. Despite the benefits of forgiveness, some individuals are more forgiving than are others. Although past work has examined gender differences in forgiveness, less is known about how within-sex individual differences may affect the willingness to forgive. In this paper, we study how masculinity concerns relate to forgiveness in men. We assert that forgiveness is associated with a perceived lack of masculinity and predict that, because of this relationship, men who are more concerned about maintaining their sense of masculinity will be less forgiving following a transgression. Across four studies, we find support for our predictions. In addition, we show how a small intervention in which participants reassert their sense of manhood reduces this effect, making men more willing to forgive.