Current research in ecological and social psychology最新文献

Recently, I presented evidence that there are two broad kinds of dehumanization: descriptive dehumanization and normative dehumanization. An individual is descriptively dehumanized when they are perceived as less than fully human in the biological-species sense; whereas an individual is normatively dehumanized when they are perceived as lacking a deep-seated commitment to good moral values. Here, I develop the concept of normative dehumanization by addressing skepticism about two hypotheses that are widely held by dehumanization researchers. The first hypothesis is that dehumanization is distinct from mere dislike and other non-dehumanizing attitudes. The second hypothesis is that dehumanization is an important predictor of intergroup hostility. Across four studies, I found evidence that normative dehumanization is distinct from mere dislike, and denials of ideal humanness. I also found that it is a unique predictor of intergroup hostility. These findings suggest that research into dehumanization and intergroup hostility will benefit from recognizing the distinction between descriptive and normative dehumanization.

Research on pro-environmental behavior (PEB) informs social policies and interventions, so the quality of PEB measurement is critical. Self-reported PEB measures in surveys often contain non-negligible measurement error that can bias estimates and lead to incorrect findings. Given the potential presence of error, we hypothesize that changes to the way self-reported PEB is measured might lead to systematic measurement errors that affect the validity of results. Study 1 (N = 951) showed that priming participants with related scales like environmentalist identity did not substantively change reported behavior (all ds ≤ 0.12). To investigate the possibility of overreporting without priming, Study 2 (N = 385) measured littering prevention behavior using the Unmatched Count Technique. A standard questionnaire format led to much higher reported behavior compared to the more anonymous covert condition, d = 0.53, and this effect appeared driven by participants who reported a stronger environmentalist identity. These results may help to explain some of the observed error in PEB measures. We suggest that researchers could reduce measurement bias with indirect questioning techniques.

People in economically advantaged nations tend to evaluate their life as more positive overall and report greater well-being than people in less advantaged nations. But how does positivity manifest in the daily life experiences of individuals around the world? The present study asked 15,244 college students from 62 nations, in 42 languages, to describe a situation they experienced the previous day using the Riverside Situational Q-sort (RSQ). Using expert ratings, the overall positivity of each situation was calculated for both nations and individuals. The positivity of the average situation in each nation was strongly related to the economic development of the nation as measured by the Human Development Index (HDI). For individuals’ daily experiences, the economic status of their nation also predicted the positivity of their experience, even more than their family socioeconomic status. Further analyses revealed the specific characteristics of the average situations for higher HDI nations that make their experiences more positive. Higher HDI was associated with situational experiences involving humor, socializing with others, and the potential to express emotions and fantasies. Lower HDI was associated with an increase in the presence of threats, blame, and hostility, as well as situational experiences consisting of family, religion, and money. Despite the increase in a few negative situational characteristics in lower HDI countries, the overall average experience still ranged from neutral to slightly positive, rather than negative, suggesting that greater HDI may not necessarily increase positive experiences but rather decrease negative experiences. The results illustrate how national economic status influences the lives of individuals even within a single instance of daily life, with large and powerful consequences when accumulated across individuals within each nation.

The COVID-19 pandemic heightened risk factors for suicide globally. Using prominent sociocultural theories of suicide, we investigated whether the COVID-19 pandemic affected suicide rates differently across demographic groups and regions in the United States of America. In Study 1, we found that after 2020 suicide rates increased especially among young Black and Alaskan Native populations. Conditional process analyses were conducted to shed light on racial disparities in the temporal impact of unemployment on suicide from 2018 to 2021. The results showed that suicides among younger Asians and Blacks were affected by the surge in unemployment, whereas Whites, especially the older population, benefitted from the increased unemployment. In Study 2, we explored the regional variation in the temporal associations between suicide, unemployment, and depression across the 50 U.S. states from 2019 to 2021 taking into account pre-pandemic between-state conditions. Multilevel regression analyses showed that urbanism (characterized by low firearm proportion, high income, high cultural looseness, and high population density) but not social integration (characterized by low social capital, high collectivism, and high southerness), partially explained the regional variation in the temporal pattern of suicide rates. We also found that in states with already high depression levels, the temporal increase in depression predicted increases in suicide from 2019 to 2021, whereas it had minimal impact in states with low average depression. We emphasize the need for future theories to consider longitudinal designs and highlight two key takeaways: (1) the pandemic reshaped racial disparities in suicide, and (2) the temporal effects brought by the national crisis on suicide patterns depended on existing between-state differences.

In the era of increasing global interconnectedness and decreasing cultural insularity, investigating how individuals navigate conflicting cultural norms and behavioral choices is increasingly important. This paper focuses on the impact of the contact between religiously tight cultures and industrialized, liberalized loose cultures on menstruation-related practices and traditions. In-depth interviews conducted in Jerusalem and Mumbai revealed that the nature of contact between these two conflicting ecologies impacted which traditions are adopted and how they are molded. Diffused contact, as was witnessed in Jerusalem, leads to more hybridized behaviors, and religious and non-religious practices are performed simultaneously. Whereas a more concentrated contact, as was seen in Mumbai, leads to the performance of religious norms only in situations where figures of authority can issue sanctions. Moreover, it was also found that individuals used considerable self-reflection to decide how and which practices to adopt. These findings imply that individuals are agentic operators, and that they exert considerable influence on their environment and how they adopt the cultural norms that surround them. This paper leaves scope for further research on the nature of cultural contact zones and the role of self-reflection in the collaborative co-construction of cultural norms. This paper also hopes to provide insight towards helping resolve intra-group conflict.

Previous research established that people who are or feel more privileged tend to be less religiously fundamentalist. However, in the present research we predicted this association to be reversed when political leaders such as governments are promoting and incentivizing (religious) fundamentalism. Using Turkey as an example, we found support for our hypothesis in a Muslim sample (N = 736) representative for age, gender, education-level ethnicities, and urbanicity: Individuals, who feel more privileged – i.e., less deprived – were more fundamentalist, even after controlling for a range of other variables that were previously associated with fundamentalism including conspiracy beliefs, personality, and sociodemographic variables. This negative association between deprivation and religious fundamentalism was not mediated by conspiracy beliefs. Interestingly, the associations of the control variables such as authoritarianism and conspiracy beliefs with religious fundamentalism mostly replicated previous research. Implications are discussed.

As a worldwide pandemic, COVID-19 has affected billions of people's lives. The disease threatens people's health, wrecks the global economy, and triggers social problems. Beyond doubt, people feel threatened by the pandemic. We hypothesized that people would dehumanize themselves when faced with the threat of COVID-19. The current three studies confirmed our hypothesis (N_total = 2301). Specifically, we found that the threat of COVID-19 was positively related to self-dehumanization (Study 1). In Study 2, the manipulation of the threat of COVID-19 further indicated its causal effect on self-dehumanization. Moreover, we also examined the adverse consequence of self-dehumanization. People in Study 3a experienced poor psychological well-being when they were threatened by COVID-19, which was mediated by stronger self-dehumanization. Moreover, we identified the causal relationship between self-dehumanization and poor psychological well-being in Study 3b. In sum, our findings suggest the negative effect of the perceived threat of COVID-19 on self-perception and psychological health. We also discussed the theoretical and practical implications.

Extensive research has examined the dehumanization, or perception of others as less than human, of various stigmatized/minoritized groups. Previous literature investigating dehumanization of groups often considers dehumanization along a single dimension (e.g., denial of human emotions, denial of mind), despite the existence of many different models of dehumanization. In the current work, we integrate four popular models of dehumanization (i.e., infrahumanization, dual model of dehumanization, mind perception, and blatant dehumanization). Here, we focus on dehumanization of people with physical disabilities, a stigmatized group often overlooked in the dehumanization literature. In this work, we examined whether people with physical disabilities (i.e., paralysis from a spinal cord injury) are dehumanized relative to people without physical disabilities. Across 2 samples (N = 405), we found that participants dehumanized people with (relative to people without) physical disabilities on the dual model of dehumanization, mind perception, and blatant dehumanization measures. However, we observed the opposite pattern for infrahumanization whereby participants dehumanized people without physical disabilities relative to people with physical disabilities. This research extends dehumanization research first by integrating four popular models of dehumanization and second by considering an overlooked population (i.e., people with physical disabilities) in the literature. Further, this work may aid in informing future intervention approaches aimed at decreasing dehumanization of people with physical disabilities.

Organizations can play a significant role in advancing gender equality and environmental sustainability. Increasing the number of women on corporate boards has been offered as a means to increase organizational environmental sustainability. We examined relations between board gender diversity and organizational environmental performance in two studies. The first study examined board gender diversity's relations to corporate environmental sustainability initiatives for 79 largest Turkish organizations. Even though only a small proportion of directors among Turkish organizations are women, the results linked their representation on corporate boards to better environmental performance for all categories of environmental sustainability. The second study examined board gender diversity-corporate environmental performance relations using a sample of 1,776 organizations from 45 countries and representing 8 cultural clusters, greatly expanding the cross-cultural scope of our research. Board gender diversity correlated positively with overall environmental performance (r = 0.26), however there was much variability by country. Gender gap/parity at the national level did not appreciably influence board gender diversity-environmental performance associations. However, there were systematic differences between cultural clusters countries belonged to. Associations were positive and sizable for Anglo, Latin Europe, and Middle Eastern cultural clusters, negligible for Nordic Europe, Eastern Europe, and Confucian Asia cultural clusters, or mostly negligible with great variability for the Southern Asian cultural cluster. Findings highlight the important role that national context and culture play in how women's representation on corporate boards translates or fails to translate into organizational environmental sustainability performance.

Countries have managed COVID-19 infection and mortality differently. Ghana, a resource-constrained country, with a poorer healthcare system, had fewer infections and more recoveries than high-income countries. Although an acculturation framework is commonly discussed in relation to individuals adapting to a new society, we used it to understand how people adapt to rapid changes orchestrated by the COVID-19 pandemic. From pre-pandemic to post-pandemic era, we see a change from the ‘old normal’ to the ‘new normal’. Thus, we sought to understand how people were living their lives under the ‘new normal’. Data was gathered from 416 adults on their attitudes towards obedience to authority, compliance with COVID-19-related activities, and changes in the extent of carrying out these activities three and nine months into the pandemic. COVID-19 acculturation strategies were also assessed. Descriptive and inferential analyses showed that most Ghanaians obeyed authorities and followed the preventive measures. However, after five months of the peak period, compliance dropped, and behavioral fatigue increased significantly. Regarding the acculturation strategies integration, which involves keeping old health care practices and adopting new ones, improved behavioral adjustment the most followed by separation (i.e., rejecting the new health care practices and holding on strongly to the old ones) and assimilation (i.e., rejecting old health care practices and adopting new ones). Marginalization which encompasses rejecting both old and new health care practices was the least. These results suggest that integration strategy had a significant positive impact on behavioral adjustment compared to assimilation and separation strategies.