You are not alone! Sharing ostracism fosters group identification but does not improve well-being.
Experiencing ostracism is a painful situation that can urge a desire to restore social bonds. However, few studies have investigated the conditions under which it leads to ingroup identification. In three studies using minimal groups (N = 611), we have investigated the consequences of coexperiencing ostracism for group identification and well-being. In Study 1a and 1b (N = 171; N = 211), the results showed that sharing a common experience of ostracism with an ingroup member increases ingroup identification but does not improve psychological needs during the ostracism experience. In Study 2 (N = 230), we replicated our resu...
Source: Social Psychology - August 18, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Nostalgia and spirituality: The roles of self-continuity and meaning in life.
We investigated the relation between nostalgia and spirituality. We hypothesized that nostalgia is linked to greater spirituality through self-continuity and, in turn, meaning in life. In Study 1, we measured nostalgia and spirituality. Nostalgia predicted greater spirituality. In Study 2, we tested this relation in a nationally representative sample. Nostalgia again predicted greater spirituality, and this relation remained significant after controlling for key demographic variables and core personality traits. In Study 3, we manipulated nostalgia and measured self-continuity, meaning in life, and spirituality. Nostalgia ...
Source: Social Psychology - August 18, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Causal attributions of happiness and critical events: How beliefs about people's happiness are affected by moments of crisis and joy.
This study extends the literature on people’s understanding of happiness by asking whether positive and negative events could affect the causal attributions of what makes others happy. Using a factorial survey applied to a representative and probabilistic sample of Chileans, we examined three central causal attributions deeply rooted in Latin American folk culture. The results show that the positive family causal attribution of others’ happiness is reinforced by both negative and positive events that happened to the observer. Moreover, the attributions of health and income are unchanged. Finally, we discussed how this ...
Source: Social Psychology - August 11, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Nudging for lockdown: Behavioral insights from an online experiment.
We test the effectiveness of a social comparison nudge (SCN) to enhance lockdown compliance during the COVID-19 pandemic using a French representative sample (N = 1,154). Respondents were randomly assigned to a favorable/unfavorable informational feedback (daily road traffic mobility patterns, in Normandy—a region of France) on peer lockdown compliance. Our dependent variable was the intention to comply with a possible future lockdown. We controlled for risk, time, and social preferences and tested the effectiveness of the nudge. We found no evidence of the effectiveness of the SCN among the whole French population, but ...
Source: Social Psychology - July 11, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Exploring the relationship between loneliness and social cognition in older age.
Social Psychology, Vol 54(1-2), 2023, 16-26; doi:10.1027/1864-9335/a000482Understanding others is a key component of successful social interactions, and declines in social abilities during later life can lead to social isolation and loneliness. We investigated the relationship between different subcomponents of social cognition and loneliness in a large sample of older adults. We tested perspective-taking and mentalizing skills, alongside self-reported loneliness and social functioning. The results revealed that both loneliness and age correlated significantly with older adults' ability to resist egocentric interference wh...
Source: Social Psychology - July 7, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Not humans, but animals or machines: Evidence of dehumanization in children.
The aims of the present research are (1) to provide empirical evidence on animalization and, especially, mechanization in childhood and (2) to determine if outgroup stereotypical characteristics influence the dehumanization strategy chosen by children. In Study 1 (Study 1A: N = 77, Mage = 13.18; Study 1B: N = 140, Mage = 12.28), we investigated whether children associate machine-related words with the outgroup (Japanese) to a greater extent than with the ingroup (Spanish). In Study 2 (Study 2A: N = 118, Mage = 11.72; Study 2B: N = 142, Mage = 11.66), we examined whether the perception of competence (Japanese-high competenc...
Source: Social Psychology - July 4, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
A modifying effect of trait empathy on frustration-related attentional processing of aggression-related words: An ERP study.
This study describes two experiments conducted to investigate the modifying effect of trait empathy on attentional processing of emotionally laden (i.e., aggression-related) words in frustrating situations. A dot-probe task was used in the first experiment. The results showed that low-empathy individuals exhibited attentional bias toward aggressive words under both frustrating and nonfrustrating conditions. High-empathy individuals demonstrated attentional bias only under frustrating conditions. In the second experiment, the effect of frustration on high-empathy individuals’ aggression was reflected by N200, P300, and la...
Source: Social Psychology - May 12, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
The factorial structure of stigma and its targets.
We aimed to determine (1) the attributes of multiple stigmatized populations, (2) whether Kurzban and Leary’s (2001) functional typology of stigma emerges and identifies the dimensions upon which each stigma type differs, and (3) the emotional responses toward emergent stigma types. Participants (N = 2,674) were assigned to 1/52 stigma target conditions and their attitudes surveyed. Data were analyzed by multilevel factor analysis with stigma targets at Level 2. There were five within-factors at Level 1 (social competence, interpersonal access, social inclusion, immorality, perceived permanence) and three between-factors...
Source: Social Psychology - May 12, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Caught COVID-19? Covidiot! Attributions of humanness and social punishment toward an ingroup member who breaks lockdown rules.
Many governments’ COVID-19 prevention messages highlighted individual accountability and the stigmatization of individuals who violate lockdown rules. The present study examined French people’s (N = 567) attributions of humanness to and willingness to punish (i.e., whether the target deserved medical care, helping intentions toward the target) an individual who respected versus violated the rules of the country’s first (March to May) versus second (November to December) lockdowns. Participants attributed less humanness to and were more willing to punish the deviant target than the compliant target. These effects were...
Source: Social Psychology - May 12, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Cues of collective threat increase salience of positive ingroup agency-related traits.
Three studies investigated the influence of collective threat on the importance of agency- and communion-related traits used in ingroup perception. Study 1 (N = 137) investigated how cues of such threat affect reaction times when individuals are asked to ascribe agentic or communal traits to their ingroup. Study 2 (N = 96) and Study 3 (N = 337) examined the role of social identification in response to a collective threat. The results suggest that cues of threat may lead to preferential processing of positive (but not negative) ingroup agency over ingroup communion, the effect particularly likely among highly identified ind...
Source: Social Psychology - May 12, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Keeping the kids home: Increasing concern for others in times of crisis.
Social Psychology, Vol 54(1-2), 2023, 27-39; doi:10.1027/1864-9335/a000463During the COVID-19 pandemic, social consequences in day-to-day decisions might not have been salient to the decider and thus egoistic. How can prosocial intentions be increased? In an experimental vignette study with N = 206, we compared the likelihood that parents send sick children to kindergarten after four interventions (general information about COVID-19, empathy, reflection of consequences via mental simulation, and control group). Independent of the intervention, empathic concern with individuals who were affected by COVID-19 and the salience...
Source: Social Psychology - April 11, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Authenticity occurs more often than inauthenticity in everyday life: Evidence from retrospective reports.
Researchers have assumed that people generally strive toward authenticity, yet have also argued that authenticity may often be impeded by social constraints. Against this backdrop, it is unclear whether people feel authentic or inauthentic more often in everyday life. To address this question, we examined the retrospective frequency of these feelings. As researchers have conceptualized authenticity and inauthenticity in various ways, we also tested for generalization of the results across different conceptualizations. Our results indicate that authenticity occurs more often than inauthenticity in everyday life. While the r...
Source: Social Psychology - April 11, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Deontological and utilitarian responses to sacrificial dilemmas predict disapproval of sin stocks.
Investors sometimes invest in the so-called “sin” stocks that cause social harm as a by-product of doing business (e.g., tobacco companies). Three studies examined whether people who reject harm and maximize outcomes in sacrificial dilemmas approve less of investing in sin (but not conventional) stocks. We employed process dissociation to assess harm-rejection (deontological) and outcome-maximization (utilitarian) response tendencies independently. Study 1 (N = 337) assessed moral approval of stocks: People scoring higher on either deontological or utilitarian response tendencies disapproved of investing in sin, but no...
Source: Social Psychology - April 11, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Not getting what you want: Aggression, prosocial behaviors, and popularity.
As adolescents desire the benefits of having greater social status, some teenagers cannot acquire their desired level of popularity. The current study uses a single high school to examine how the discrepancy between popularity goals and actual popularity aligns with aggression and prosocial behaviors. The current study suggests that the discrepancy between popularity and popularity goals aligns with having more aggression and prosocial behaviors when adolescents are in less popular peer groups. Within one’s own peer group, adolescents with greater discrepancy between popularity and popularity goals utilize more aggressio...
Source: Social Psychology - March 24, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
When you are wrong on facebook, just admit it: Wrongness admission leads to better interpersonal impressions on social media.
Intellectually humble behavior, like admitting when you are wrong, leads to better impression formation. However, online social networks (OSNs) have changed the impression formation process. We investigated the impact of wrongness admission on impression formation during an OSN argument. In four experiments (N = 679), participants witnessed a user engage in wrongness admission, refuse to admit, or not respond, in an argument on a Facebook wall. Participants reported their impressions of whether they would be willing to interact with the (non)admitting user. User reputation ratings and interaction intentions were higher in ...
Source: Social Psychology - March 24, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
