Moving ahead.
This editorial discusses recent editorial policy changes for open data and materials. Those changes are outlined here. Social Psychology will remain a journal that is open for different perspectives on studying social behavior, as well as for insights from both fundamental as well as applied research projects. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: Social Psychology)
Source: Social Psychology - February 15, 2018 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
A picture is worth a thousand words: The influence of visuospatial and verbal cognitive styles on empathy and willingness to help.
We examined the relationship between cognitive style, empathy, and willingness to help. In Study 1 (N = 186), we measured preference for visuospatial or verbal cognitive style using the ZenQ (Zenhausern, 1978), and empathy using the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (Davis, 1983). In Study 2 (N = 76), we experimentally elicited verbal or visual cognitive processing via priming and measured empathy in response to a vignette about a woman injured in a car accident. In both studies, we measured willingness to help by assessing participants’ willingness to assist the injured woman. Results showed that visuospatial cognitive pro...
Source: Social Psychology - November 30, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Early-career researchers’ perceptions of the prevalence of questionable research practices, potential causes, and open science.
Young researchers of today will shape the field in the future. In light of current debates about social psychology’s research culture, this exploratory survey assessed early-career researchers’ beliefs (N = 88) about the prevalence of questionable research practices (QRPs), potential causes, and open science as a possible solution. While there was relative consensus that outright fraud is an exception, a majority of participants believed that some QRPs are moderately to highly prevalent what they attributed primarily to academic incentive structures. A majority of participants felt that open science is necessary to imp...
Source: Social Psychology - November 30, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Well self-regulated people use mental contrasting.
Mentally contrasting a desired future with reality is a self-regulation strategy helping people manage their life by promoting selective goal pursuit: people pursue feasible futures and disengage from unfeasible ones. We investigated whether participants who effectively regulate their academic and everyday life spontaneously use mental contrasting. Indeed, students who were good self-regulators in the academic domain, as indicated by their high self-reported academic self-regulation skills, high need for achievement, and above-average grades mentally contrasted when writing about an important achievement-related wish (Stud...
Source: Social Psychology - November 30, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Need for closure, torture, and punishment motivations: The mediating role of moral foundations.
When considering how criminals should be punished, most individuals prefer retributive (i.e., punishment compensating for the harm caused by the perpetrator) over utilitarian justice (i.e., punishment with the intent to deter future crime). However, past research has found that individuals with a high (vs. low) need for cognitive closure (NCC) are more likely to endorse utilitarian punishment. In three studies, we replicated past research on the association between need for closure and utilitarian justice (Study 1), and found that this relationship is mediated by moral concerns pertaining to group unity and cohesion (Study...
Source: Social Psychology - November 30, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Intergroup contact as the missing link between LGB rights and sexual prejudice.
Although research has revealed that more progressive LGB (lesbian, gay, and bisexual) rights are positively associated with more favorable attitudes toward sexual minorities, little is known about why LGB rights co-occur with positive attitudes. The present contribution fills this gap by testing whether the prevalence of intergroup contact with LGB individuals explains the relationship between more progressive LGB rights and sexual prejudice. Utilizing representative Eurobarometer data from 28 European Union Member States, we find that progressive institutional arrangements positively predict favorable attitudes toward sex...
Source: Social Psychology - November 30, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Racial prejudice predicts less desire to learn about White privilege.
White people often experience unpleasant emotions in response to learning about White privilege (Phillips & Lowery, 2015; Pinterits, Poteat, & Spanierman, 2009). Two studies (total N = 1,310) examined how race attitudes relate to White people’s desires to avoid or learn information about White privilege. White participants completed measures of their race attitudes, desire to change White privilege, and their desire to avoid learning information about White privilege. Study 1 showed that participants who preferred their racial in-group reported less desire to change White privilege and greater desire to avoid learning in...
Source: Social Psychology - October 23, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Boredom increases impulsiveness: A meaning-regulation perspective.
High (vs. low) levels of boredom are associated with greater (vs. lesser) impulsiveness. It is important to examine the psychological processes that link boredom and impulsiveness to understand this relationship. We propose that heightened impulsiveness in response to boredom partly stems from people’s attempts to deal with meaninglessness when bored. In Studies 1–2, we found that perceived meaninglessness, characteristic of boredom, mediated the relationship between boredom and impulsiveness. In Study 3, we additionally hypothesized that self-awareness serves as a catalyst of boredom-induced impulsiveness by highlight...
Source: Social Psychology - October 23, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
The impact of intergroup helping on third parties’ perceptions of group reputation.
We investigated the consequences of intergroup helping for both the offering and the receiving group’s reputation in the eyes of third parties. In two experiments (N = 116 and N = 78), observers were presented with a group that offered versus requested help. Observers’ status beliefs confirmed the emergence of a status hierarchy that favored the group that offered help. Study 2 demonstrated that the newly emerged status differential quickly solidified. In particular, observers judged the help-offering group as more attractive and allocated more resources to this group. Consistent with the social structural hypothesis o...
Source: Social Psychology - October 23, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Go pro bono: Prosocial language as a success factor in crowdfunding.
Crowdfunding enables fundraising of various ventures by collecting money from several donors. We argue that the inclusion of prosocial language contributes to success in this new domain of resource acquisition. In Study 1, we analyzed 164,056 projects from the online crowdfunding platform Kickstarter and found that the higher the percentage of prosocial words employed in a project’s description, the larger the number of investors and the greater the chances of reaching a funding goal. In Study 2 (N = 234), an experimental study, we documented that the use of prosocial words increases the support people thought they would...
Source: Social Psychology - October 23, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Heading right and judging harsher: Spatial orientation toward the right side and moral judgments.
The term right may imply different meanings, for example, right can be the direction opposite to left, but right can also mean the opposite of wrong. In three experiments, we investigated whether orientation toward the right versus left direction can influence how individuals judge situational moral transgressions. Mental spatial orientation was manipulated by placing the text of moral transgressions on the left versus right side of the screen (Experiment 1) or by presenting different landscape pictures depicting paths that either lead to the left versus to the right (Experiments 2 and 3). In Experiment 3, we also manipula...
Source: Social Psychology - October 23, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
The ego could be depleted, providing initial exertion is depleting: A preregistered experiment of the ego depletion effect.
The ego depletion effect has been examined by over 300 independent studies during the past two decades. Despite its pervasive influence, recently this effect has been severely challenged and asserted to be a fake. Based on an up-to-date meta-analysis that examined the effectiveness of each frequently used depleting task, we preregistered the current experiment with the aim to examine whether there would be an ego depletion effect when the Stroop task is used as the depleting task. The results demonstrated a significant ego depletion effect. The current research highlights the importance of the depleting task’s effectiven...
Source: Social Psychology - September 11, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Choose your words wisely: Stereotypes, emotions, and action tendencies toward fled people as a function of the group label.
Differences in word connotations can have far-reaching consequences. We investigated the content, and emotional and behavioral consequences of the social perception of fled people as a function of their label (“refugees” vs. “asylum seekers”; “war refugees” vs. “economic refugees” vs. “refugees”) using a factorial survey (n = 389). Based on qualitative data on perceived intentions associated with the labels, we deducted predictions regarding differences in the Stereotype Content Model and Behavior from Intergroup Affect and Stereotypes Map. Participants evaluated refugees and asylum seekers similarly. E...
Source: Social Psychology - September 11, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Safety in beauty: Social exclusion, antisocial responses, and the desire to reconnect.
Individuals regularly exhibit antisocial responses after social exclusion. In four unregistered studies (1a, 1b, 2, and 3) and one preregistered experiment (Study 4), we tested the hypothesis that the excluder’s physical attractiveness reduces the relationship between social exclusion and negative responding. Results showed that exclusion by a highly attractive source caused less aggressive and more prosocial responses than exclusion by a less attractive source (Studies 1–3). The interaction effect was mediated by perceived likeability of the excluding person (Study 3). The preregistered experiment did not confirm the ...
Source: Social Psychology - September 11, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Collective apologies moderate the effects of justice concerns on support for collective punishment.
Following an offense, various justice concerns arise, and people might support the punishment of the offender’s entire group to restore a sense of justice (even if the other group members are innocent). We hypothesized that support for collective punishment might increase along one’s justice concerns, and that such effect can be hindered by the group’s collective apologies. In three studies, third-party observers were presented with various cases of aggression and we measured (Study 1) or manipulated (Studies 2 and 3) their justice concerns. In all studies, the presence (vs. absence) of collective apologies was addit...
Source: Social Psychology - September 11, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
