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Previous research has focused on the importance of leaders being seen to be of the group (i.e. to be prototypical of a group) but less on the impact of leaders' own degree of identification with the group. Also, little is known about the combined impact of leader prototypicality and leader identification on followers' responses. This paper reports two studies that address these lacunae. Study 1 shows experimentally that perceived leader identification and prototypicality interact to determine followers' personal identification with leaders and their perceptions of leader charisma. Findings indicate that high identification can compensate for low prototypicality such that high-identified leaders are able to inspire followership when leaders are low prototypical. Study 2 replicates these findings in the field by examining followers' responses to workgroup leaders. In addition, results demonstrate that the aforementioned responses are more pronounced for highly identified followers. The present research extends social identity theorizing by demonstrating that leaders' inability to inspire followership derives as much from their failure to project a sense of 'we' and 'us' as part of their self-concept as from a failure to exemplify group-typical attributes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research has demonstrated that leader performance and leader prototypicality are both predictors of leader endorsement. While performance and prototypicality have generally been considered to be independent, this paper suggests that performance and prototypicality are interdependent and have a bi-directional impact both on each other and on leaders' capacity to engage in identity entrepreneurship (i.e., to define shared group norms and ideals). Two experimental studies indicate that followers infer leaders' prototypicality from their performance and that a leader's prototypicality determines perceptions of performance (indicating reversed causality). Moreover, there is evidence that both performance and prototypicality enhance leaders' capacity to act as identity entrepreneurs. These findings extend our understanding of the mutually dependent causal relationship between followers' perceptions that a leader is 'one of us' and that he or she is 'doing it well'. They also provide the first experimental evidence that these factors are joint determinants of leaders' identity entrepreneurship. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although punishment and forgiveness frequently are considered to be opposites, in the present paper we propose that victims who punish their offender are subsequently more likely to forgive. Notably, punishment means that victims get justice (i.e. just deserts), which facilitates forgiveness. Study 1 reveals that participants were more likely to forgive a friend's negligence after being primed with punishment than after being primed with inability to punish. In Study 2, participants were more forgiving towards a criminal offender if the offender was punished by a judge than if the offender escaped punishment, a finding that was mediated by the just deserts motive. Study 3 was in the context of actual recalled ongoing interpersonal relations and revealed that punishment predicted forgiveness indirectly via just deserts, not via victims' vengeful motivations. It is concluded that punishment facilitates forgiveness because of its capacity to restore a sense of justice. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper extends the needs-based model of reconciliation to contexts marked by status inequalities rather than by overt intergroup aggression. Specifically, we investigated whether and when members of high-status versus low-status groups experience divergent socio-emotional needs vis-à-vis members of the respective other status group. Building on research informed by social identity theory, we hypothesized that the groups' different positions in the social hierarchy only translate into divergent needs when the status differences are perceived as illegitimate. In Study 1 (N = 130), we tested this prediction by manipulating status and perceived legitimacy of status differences in a setting with artificially created groups. Results confirmed that the need to be socially accepted by members of the other status group was stronger in high-status compared with low-status group members but, as expected, only when the status differences were perceived to be illegitimate. Also as predicted, the need to be empowered by the other status group was stronger in low-status compared with high-status group members, again only under conditions of illegitimate status differences. Study 2 (N = 169) further corroborated our perspective by replicating these findings in a naturalistic intergroup context. Implications for the role of legitimacy perceptions in determining differential socio-emotional needs and for the promotion of sustainable social change are discussed. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we examined how identification with urban districts as a common ingroup identity and perceived ingroup prototypicality influence the attitudes of residents toward other ethnic groups in their neighborhood. The overall conclusion of two field studies (N = 214 and N = 98) is that for majority-group members, there may be a positive relation between identification with an overarching identity and outgroup attitudes but only when they perceive their ingroup as low in prototypicality for the overarching group (Study 1 and 2). Conversely, for minority-group members, there may be a positive relation between identification and outgroup attitudes but only when they perceive their ingroup as high in prototypicality for the overarching group (Study 2). Outgroup prototypicality did not moderate the relation between identification and outgroup attitudes. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the current paper, we examine the role of vertical individualism in determining revenge behavior following an injustice. Drawing on existing theory and research, we hypothesized that victims who are more vertically individualistic will be more likely than those who are less vertically individualistic to engage in revenge following the experience of injustice as a means of restoring self-esteem. The results from three studies-employing different methodologies and operationalizations of revenge-support our reasoning. Moreover, two of the studies provide support for the proposed self-esteem maintenance mechanism underlying the relation between vertical individualism and revenge. Although much research in psychology and organizational justice has demonstrated that the experience of injustice can threaten one's identity, our data are the first to demonstrate that responding to injustice can restore people's self-esteem to homeostasis. The present studies thus demonstrate that in some instances revenge may have an intrapsychic benefit for the victim, which helps to explain why some people engage in revenge despite possible negative interpersonal consequences. We discuss implications of our findings for social and organizational justice theory and for potentially mitigating revenge reactions to injustice. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Measures of self-forgiveness that merely focus on the outcome of positive self-regard risk neglecting the process through which offenders restore it. They may thus tap pseudo self-forgiveness where offenders downplay their responsibility for the wrongdoing. For genuine self-forgiveness, the process should instead involve an attenuation of the negative link between responsibility acceptance and positive self-regard. In this paper, we examine how acts of value reaffirmation facilitate genuine self-forgiveness. In Study 1, a role-play experiment (N = 90), participants either confessed their wrongdoing to the victim or not. Although responsibility acceptance was strongly negatively related to reported self-forgiveness (i.e., self-regard), this relationship was tempered when participants confessed their wrongdoing to the victim and, through this, reaffirmed the violated values. In Study 2, a longitudinal study referring to self-reported transgressions (N = 74), responsibility acceptance was negatively related to self-forgiveness measures as well as self-esteem when offenders showed little value reaffirmation, but not when they more strongly reaffirmed the violated values. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aims of this paper are two-fold: (i) to examine the impact of audience individualism and collectivism orientation on the judgment of strategic self-presentations and (ii) to test whether audience individualism and collectivism orientation would affect the importance of likeability and competence in determining social outcomes. In two studies, participants evaluated modest and boastful presentations in an achievement context. It was found that the more collectivistic the audience was, the more likely the modest presenter was to be rated as likable, competent, and deserving of a desirable social outcome. In contrast, the more individualistic the audience was, the more likely the boastful presenter was to be rated as likeable, competent, and deserving of a desirable social outcome. The importance of likeability and competence in predicting the final social outcome was moderated by audience individualism and collectivism orientation. Likeability was more important in deciding the social outcome for those who were more collectivistic than for those who were less so (Study 1). Competence was more important in determining the social outcome for those who were more individualistic (Study 2). These studies build a potential theoretical bridge between social influence and social perception/social judgment literature. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hedonic overconsumption is often considered to be caused by impulsive factors. The current paper investigates whether self-licensing, relying on reasons to justify subsequent gratification, can also be included as a significant contributor to hedonic consumption. Two studies were conducted to investigate whether self-licensing can account for an increase in hedonic consumption while ruling out impulsive factors such as resource depletion, negative affect, and visceral state as alternative explanations. A pilot study indicated that perceiving oneself as having invested greater effort and thus having a self-licensing cue did not lead to a decline in self-control capacity compared with not having a self-licensing cue. The main study employed the same procedure and established that having a licensing cue did lead to increased snack intake while controlling for impulsive factors. Together, these studies support the notion that self-licensing is a separate mechanism leading to hedonic gratification independent of impulsive factors. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper investigates how cognitive projection processes instigate social identification. We complement the classical self-stereotyping approach (i.e., conforming to prototypical group norms) by investigating self-anchoring (i.e., projection from self to group) as a distinct cognitive route to social identification. Self-anchoring has mainly been investigated as predictor of intergroup differentiation. Surprisingly, no reliable link has been provided yet between self-anchoring and social identification. In Study 1, we provide first evidence for this positive link. In Study 2, we add self-stereotyping to our model and show that self-anchoring is still positively related to social identification when controlling for self-stereotyping. Additionally, we show that self-anchoring is positively related to affective components of identification, while self-stereotyping is positively related to cognitive components. Moreover, we examined the impact of self-concept stability on self-anchoring. Self-concept stability was positively related to self-anchoring, and hence to social identification (Study 1), independently from self-stereotyping (Study 2). In the discussion, we argue that disentangling self-anchoring from self-stereotyping is important as it increases our insight in how people identify, and how this may vary depending on self-concept and group context. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper aims to elucidate under what conditions victims of injustice who seek revenge feel satisfied and perceive that everybody got what he or she deserved. Two hypotheses are discussed: The comparative suffering hypothesis states that seeing the offender suffer from fate is sufficient for evoking satisfaction and perceptions of deservingness among victims. The understanding hypothesis states that revenge can only be satisfactory when the offender understands it as a response to his or her prior behavior. These hypotheses were tested in three experimental studies. The comparative suffering hypothesis received only weak support. The understanding hypothesis, on the other hand, received much stronger support: When the offender understood revenge as punishment, revenge led to satisfaction and deservingness among victims. These findings are discussed with regard to the question why people take revenge. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes how different self-construals influence people's perception of temporal distance and in turn their task evaluation. We hypothesize that people with a more accessible interdependent (vs. independent) self-construal perceive future events as temporally more proximal, and that people's reaction toward a task is intensified when the temporal distance to the task matches (vs. mismatches) their self-construal. Across four studies, we showed that individuals with a more accessible interdependent self-construal (Study 1) and East Asians (Study 2) perceived future events as more proximal than those with a more accessible independent self-construal and European Americans. Further, when considering a task at a temporal distance that fits their self-construal, individuals perceived a pleasant task as more motivating (Study 3) and an unpleasant task as less motivating (Study 4). Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines memory for collective apologies. Our interest was in determining whether people are aware of intergroup apologies and whether this contributes to forgiveness for offending groups. Surveys conducted in three nations affected by Japanese World War II aggression found that participants were more likely to believe (incorrectly) that Japan had not apologized for WWII than to believe (correctly) that they had (Study 1). In contrast, participants were eight times more likely to believe that a corporation had apologized for misconduct than to (correctly) recall that they had not (Study 1). Forgiveness levels were higher among those who believed the group had apologized than among apology deniers, although the effect was weak and inconsistent. However, in a follow-up study that measured identification with the victim group it was found that high identifiers were significantly less likely to 'remember' an apology (Study 2). Results suggest that memories for collective apologies are fluid and may not be causally related to intergroup forgiveness. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While research on counterfactuals has closely examined the psychological antecedents and consequences of thinking counterfactually (imagining alternatives to past events), little is known about the effects of counterfactual communication, and in particular, how such thoughts are interpreted by others. In this paper, I argue that counterfactual communication differentially affects impressions formed of speakers by receivers depending on the general content of the counterfactual. Findings from an archival study and a scenario study demonstrated convergent results: Individuals who communicated upward counterfactuals (thoughts of how things could have been better) were more positively perceived by receivers than were individuals who communicated downward counterfactuals (thoughts of how things could have been worse). This difference stemmed from an enhancement effect of upward counterfactuals. Further analysis revealed that the relationship between counterfactual communication and impression formation was mediated by receivers' perceptions of the extent to which speakers took responsibility for their actions. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building and extending on just world theory, this paper studies people's negative reactions to innocent victims of rape or sexual assault. Specifically, we focus on an as yet unexplored variable that may help to explain these reactions, namely whether the perpetrator of the crime was similar or dissimilar to people who observed what happened to the victim. Perpetrator similarity refers to whether the perpetrator belongs to the personal world of the observer or not, and in accordance with predictions derived from just world theory, findings of three studies reveal that especially men take more physical distance from an innocent victim (Study 1) and blame (Study 2) and derogate (Study 3) an innocent victim more when the perpetrator is similar to them as opposed to when the perpetrator is different from them. Implications are discussed. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Across cultures, people believe that moral actions have 'karmic' consequences. Do cultures share assumptions about how karma operates? Four studies (N = 1114) assessed cultural differences in perceptions of inevitability associated with karmic justice and whether perceiving karma as inevitable curbs antisocial behaviours, such as revenge. Study 1 found that Indians perceived karmic justice as more inevitable than Americans and reported lower revenge. Studies 2–3 manipulated whether participants saw karmic justice as inevitable (vs. probable), finding that both Indians and Americans in the inevitable justice condition reported lower revenge. Study 3 found that perceived punishment certainty for oneself (for enacting revenge) rather than perceived punishment certainty for the offender (for the offence) better explained condition differences in revenge. Study 4 uncovered that reincarnation belief related to, and explained, cultural differences in inevitable karmic justice, which subsequently curbed revenge. Research on karma can uncover a range of cultural differences in psychological functioning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pointing to novel links between mental representation and social communication, we examine the association between vividness of imagery and use of metaphors. In a study on individual differences and three experiments, we demonstrate that vivid imagery is linked to greater use of metaphors and that this relationship is bi‐directional. We also show that this relationship is stronger in the context of negative valence. We demonstrate that vivid imagery results in greater generation of metaphors (in particular, for negative concepts). In examining the reverse direction of influence, we show that in the negative (rather than positive) context, use of metaphors results in greater perceptions of vividness. We suggest that vividness can be signified and produced by using metaphors that play an important role in meaning making and communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Past research has found that regulatory closure, that is, successful goal striving regulated either under a promotion or prevention focus, has important consequences in terms of motivational activation and mobilisation of cognitive resources in subsequent tasks, but it mostly investigated motivation in the same or similar tasks to the one for which closure was achieved. Drawing from an energisation‐deactivation hypothesis, we investigated the effect of closure on performance and persistence in unrelated subsequent cognitive tasks. Across four studies, we found that promotion closure had an energising effect leading to: quicker decision times in lexical tasks (Studies 1–2), increased persistence and greater originality (Study 3), and greater visuospatial memory performance (Study 4). In contrast, prevention closure had a deactivating effect leading to reduced performance and persistence. No systematic differences arose in situations of non‐closure. We discuss results and implications with respect to both regulatory closure and regulatory fit theoretical approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Embarrassment arises when we reveal an apparent flaw of the self in front of others, for instance, in a faux pas situation. An audience is crucial for embarrassment, but the group membership of the audience has not yet been studied. According to the social identity approach, we assign more importance to evaluations by ingroup than by outgroup members, particularly when we identify highly, and the outgroup is of lower status. A pilot study (N = 30) showed that embarrassment correlated positively with group membership of the audience and with identification. Studies 1 to 3 presented participants with several faux pas scenarios. In Study 1 (between-participants design; N = 75), participants reported higher embarrassment in ingroup (Norwegian) and equal-status outgroup (Swedish) conditions than in a lower-status outgroup condition (Polish). In Study 2 (within-participants design; N = 135), participants reported higher embarrassment when they imagined the audience to be other Scots (ingroup) than Americans or Poles (outgroups), particularly when they perceived the outgroup to be lower in status. In Study 3 (between-participants design; N = 59), high identifiers but not low identifiers showed the expected ingroup-outgroup audience effect. Implications for intergroup relations are discussed. Key Message: Embarrassment following faux pas situations depends on the group membership of the audience, relative status of the audience and ingroup identification. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When two actors have the same mental state but one happens to harm another person (unlucky actor) and the other one does not (lucky actor), the latter elicits a milder moral judgement. To understand how this outcome effect would affect post‐harm interactions between victims and perpetrators, we examined how the social role from which transgressions are perceived moderates the outcome effect, and how outcome effects on moral judgements transfer to agentic and communal interpersonal goals. Three vignette experiments (N = 950) revealed similar outcome effects on moral judgement across social roles. In contrast, outcome effects on agentic and communal goals varied by social role: victims exhibited the strongest outcome effects and perpetrators the weakest, with bystanders falling in between. Moral judgement did not mediate the effects of outcome severity on interpersonal goals. We discuss the possibility that outcome severity raises normative expectations regarding post‐harm interactions that are unrelated to moral considerations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three experiments investigated whether and why sharing experiences of social exclusion or social acceptance with others strengthens social bonds. Participants experienced either social exclusion or social acceptance alongside another co‐participant who either also experienced the same outcome, or experienced a different outcome, as them. Multilevel modeling results showed that participant dyads who shared the experience of social exclusion or social acceptance felt closer to each other than those who experienced different outcomes, and that perceived similarity mediated the effect of shared experiences on social bonds. Interestingly, participants felt closer to one another after having shared social acceptance, more so than when they have shared social exclusion. Implications of the present findings are interpreted in light of theories of social exclusion, shared experiences, and social bonding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two studies examined whether morality‐related information has a greater impact than sociability‐ or competence‐related information upon the spontaneous mimicry of an interaction partner. Participants were video recorded during an interaction with a confederate previously presented as moral versus lacking morality, or sociable versus lacking sociability (Study 1), or competent versus lacking competence (Study 2). Two coders rated the extent to which participants imitated the gestures of the confederate, participants' postural openness, and the general smoothness of the interaction. When the confederate lacked moral qualities, mimicry and postural openness were lower, and the interaction was less smooth than when the confederate was highly moral, unsociable, or incompetent. Moreover, our findings showed that global impression is the key mediating mechanism driving such an effect. Indeed, knowing that another person behaved immorally resulted in a negative impression, which in turn hindered behavioral mimicry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We tested both Rogers's hypothesis that listening enables speakers to experience psychological safety and our hypothesis that the benefit of listening for psychological safety is attenuated by avoidance-attachment style. We tested these hypotheses in six laboratory experiments, a field correlational study, and a scenario experiment. We meta-analyzed the results of the laboratory experiments and found that listening increased psychological safety on average but that the variance between the experiments was also significant. The between experiment variance in the effect of listening manipulation on psychological safety exposes a methodological challenge in choosing a research paradigm of good-versus-normal listening, as opposed to normal-versus-poor listening. More importantly, we found, as expected and across all designs, that the higher the avoidance-attachment style was, the lower the effect of listening on psychological safety. This finding has implications both for practice and for placing a theoretical boundary on Rogers's theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When only a handful of members from a disadvantaged group occupy positions of power, they are considered tokens. Previous research suggests that observers tend to consider tokenism as an egalitarian practice. Given its ambiguous nature, we hypothesized that reactions to tokenism would be shaped by individuals' sensitivity to inequality. In Study 1, we showed that women (vs. men) and individuals low (vs. high) on social dominance orientation differentiated more between a token and an egalitarian decision in the context of gender-related practices. Similar findings were observed in Study 2, which involved gender and feminist identification as independent variables. Additional support, particularly for the role of social dominance orientation, was found in Study 3, which involved an ethnic token. Together, results demonstrate the role of individuals' chronic sensitivity to inequality in shaping their reactions to token practices. Theoretical and practical implications regarding the effect of tokenism on individuals' evaluations and responses to inequality are discussed. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Boredom makes people attempt to re-establish a sense of meaningfulness. Political ideologies, and in particular the adherence to left- versus right-wing beliefs, can serve as a source of meaning. Accordingly, we tested the hypothesis that boredom is associated with a stronger adherence to left- versus right-wing beliefs, resulting in more extreme political orientations. Study 1 demonstrates that experimentally induced boredom leads to more extreme political orientations. Study 2 indicates that people who become easily bored with their environment adhere to more extreme ends of a political spectrum compared with their less easily bored counterparts. Finally, Study 3 reveals that the relatively extreme political orientations among those who are easily bored can be attributed to their enhanced search for meaning. Overall, our research suggests that extreme political orientations are, in part, a function of boredom's existential qualities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present the results of a study in which we measured automatic intergroup behavior and evaluations in ethnic majority and minority group members. We focus our attention on the level of segregation and diversity of immediate life contexts as indicators of outgroup exposure. Specifically, Dutch ethnic minority and majority students enrolled at ethnically segregated and diverse schools completed a measure of automatic approach and avoidance behavior and reported explicit intergroup attitudes. The research is framed into prevailing theories in the field: Social Identity Theory and System Justification Theory. Results of our study suggest that segregation of minority group members' immediate life context may be an important moderator of evaluations as well as approach and avoidance behavior toward ingroup and outgroup. In particular, minority members in segregated schools showed an approach bias towards their ingroup, whereas minority members in diverse schools showed an approach bias towards the majority outgroup. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Across four studies, we demonstrate that effects obtained from the Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure, like those obtained from other indirect procedures, are not impervious to strategic manipulation. In experiment 1, we found that merely informing participants to 'fake' their performance without providing a concrete strategy to do so did not eliminate, reverse, or in any way alter the obtained outcomes. However, when those same instructions orientated attention toward the core parameters of the task, participants spontaneously derived a strategy that allowed them to eliminate their effects (experiment 2). When the participants were provided with a viable response strategy, they successfully reversed the direction of their overall Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure effect (experiment 3). By refining the nature of those instructions, we managed to target and alter individual trial-type effects in isolation with some success (experiment 4). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our daily interactions are influenced by the social roles we endorse. People however underestimate these role constraints in their everyday explanation relying on individual dispositions to make sense of behaviors. Two studies investigated whether this bias is exacerbated when role structure is legitimated and when power matches the advantages conferred by the social roles of a quiz game. Legitimacy as well as power increased the tendency for both advantaged (questioner) and disadvantaged (answerer) actors (Study 1) as well as naïve observers of the quiz game (Study 2) to attribute to ability the behaviors elicited by social roles. These results extend previous findings. People are more prone to explain constrained behaviors by differences in ability when role structure is legitimated and when power asymmetry matches role structure. Legitimacy and power may then play an important role in the translation of role constraints into inferences about ability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most research on threat documents its negative consequences. Similarly, most research on intergroup contexts has emphasized their negative behavioral effects. Drawing on the Meaning Maintenance Model and recent perspectives on the potential for positivity in intergroup conflict, we predicted that meaning threat can produce both antisocial and prosocial responses to intergroup conflict, depending on people's preexisting meaning frameworks. Studies 1 and 2 demonstrated that under meaning threat, low ingroup glorifiers strengthened their support for peaceful conflict resolution, whereas high ingroup glorifiers strengthened their support for military-based conflict resolution. In the context of the Israel-Palestinian conflict, Study 3 found that low glorification was associated with greater support for peace during 'hot' (but not 'cold') conflict, because hot conflict reduced their meaning in life. These findings are consistent with the notion that when meaning is threatened, people affirm their preexisting values-whether prosocial or antisocial-even in the context of intergroup conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The influence of construal level on political ideology is unclear. Some research says that abstraction polarizes political attitudes by making liberals more liberal and conservatives more conservative. Other research instead argues that an abstract construal causes people to exhibit similar political attitudes as each other. The current research presents two experiments in which abstraction polarizes political attitudes on issues of social inequality. However, abstraction also increases traditionalism, and so it increases a preference for maintaining the societal status quo, such as by increasing one's disagreement with or opposition to homosexuality. The dual impacts of abstraction parallel the two distinct dimensions of political ideology (i.e., acceptance of social inequality and preference for the status quo), both of which prior research on construal level has not yet considered. Overall, the current findings indicate that the effects of construal level and the dimensions underlying political ideology need to be teased apart to fully understand the exact relationship between the two. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although previous literature has revealed the effect of a single social identity on trust, only few studies have examined how multiple social identities affect trust in others. The present research examined the effects of trustors' social identity complexity on their level of trust toward another person (interpersonal trust), outgroup members (outgroup trust), and ingroup members (ingroup trust). Study 1, which was a correlational study, indicated that trustors' social identity complexity was positively related to their interpersonal and outgroup trust. Three experimental studies were performed to identify causal relationships. Study 2 found that activating trustors' high social identity complexity produced high levels of interpersonal trust, and Studies 3 and 4 found that this effect was more pronounced when the trustee was an outgroup member (outgroup trust) rather than an ingroup member (ingroup trust). The implications of these results for social harmony are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current research question sought to examine political psychology as it relates to evolutionary mismatch. The basic hypothesis is that people will be more cognitively prepared to think about political situations that are relatively small in scale compared with political situations that are large in scale. This research also examined the effects of whether the political situation is highly relevant to oneself. To test these questions, 49 young adults were presented with four sets of instructions. They were asked to write paragraphs describing (i) a large-scale, self-relevant political situation, (ii) a large-scale non-self-relevant political situation, (iii) a small-scale self-relevant political situation, and (iv) a small-scale non-self-relevant political situation. Paragraphs generated by the participants were analyzed using Tyler's () Writing Sample Readability Analyzer. Results demonstrated that paragraphs designed for large-scale political situations had more sentences and were less readable than paragraphs designed for small-scale situations-while paragraphs designed for small-scale political situations were relatively readable and included more words per sentence, suggesting that, consistent with the core hypothesis, participants had an easier time processing information related to small-scale political situations than large-scale political situations. Implications for the nature of modern politics are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Individuals consider abstract values and principles important aspects of their identities. Nonetheless, they often make judgments and decisions that contradict these values and principles for the sake of pragmatic benefits. Assuming that the process of weighting idealistic and pragmatic concerns is context sensitive, the present research argues that affect influences the relative weight of idealistic versus pragmatic concerns in decision situations owing to its influence on the level of abstraction at which individuals represent situations mentally. Studies 1 and 2 demonstrate that more positive affect increases the prominent weighting of idealistic over pragmatic concerns while less positive affect leads to less differentiation between the relevance of idealistic and pragmatic concerns. Studies 3 and 4 test the assumption that affective influences on mental abstraction are crucial for affect-dependent shifts in the weighting of idealistic and pragmatic concerns. By bringing together theorizing on affect and cognition with recent theorizing on the role of mental abstraction for decision processes, this article highlights a mechanism through which decisions can be influenced by feelings that goes beyond the mechanisms that have typically been discussed in the affect and cognition literature so far. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global environmental degradation creates and exacerbates social injustices. Using relative deprivation (RD) theory, we investigate whether people perceive environmental degradation in Australia, and extend RD theory by connecting it to the construct of place attachment (PA) at multiple scales. We surveyed 5163 Australians, measuring RD, PA, personal and collective environmental behaviours, and policy support. About one-third believed environmental quality is worsening and felt angry about it. We regressed each of the behaviour and policy-support measures onto the RD and PA measures. Collective environmental behaviours and policy support were more strongly predicted, in each case by RD and just one of the PA measures. RD partially mediated the association between PA and each of the behavioural measures. Responses to global environmental degradation are an admixture of injustice and place attachments at multiple scales. Efforts to promote environmentally relevant behaviours require attention to local and global attachments and identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study proposed a new perspective to look at the consequences of the formation of immigrant communities in globalized societies, by investigating the impact of two forms of group indispensability on majority attitudes towards immigrants. Specifically, it explored whether perceived indispensability of different immigrant groups to the national identity and their contributions to the functioning of the host society are related to the development of more positive attitudes towards them. We also explored whether such effects would be mediated by the inclusion of immigrants within the national common identity and whether these effects would be stronger among host country members with a stronger civic than ethnic conception of national citizenship. Results supported these predictions among a sample of native Portuguese citizens ( N = 118). As predicted, these effects were driven by perceptions of different types of indispensability for three immigrant groups in Portugal, who differed in their historical relations with the host society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People's perceptions are often distorted in a way that aligns with their desires and goals. We argue that having a goal to affiliate changes the perception of interpersonal distance in a way that may help to fulfil this affiliation goal. As other people are goal-relevant when having an affiliation goal, we expected that people with affiliation goals would estimate the distance between themselves and another person as smaller than people with no affiliation goals. In two studies, we manipulated affiliation goals by priming participants with affiliation or control words. Our main dependent variable was the estimated interpersonal distance between themselves and the experimenter. Results showed that participants primed with affiliation estimated the interpersonal distance as smaller compared with participants primed with control words. We did not obtain reliable differences between the affiliation and control conditions on other distance and height estimations. Our results suggest that having or not having affiliation goals influences people's perception of the distance between them and other people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Self-interested behavior may have positive consequences for individual group-members, but also negatively affects the outcomes of the group when group-level and individual-level interests are misaligned. In two studies, we examined such self-interested, group-undermining behavior from the perspective of regulatory focus theory. We predicted that when individual and group interests are out of alignment, individuals under promotion focus would be more likely than individuals under prevention focus to pursue individual success at the expense of their group. Two studies provided support for this prediction. Promotion oriented individuals were more willing to act in their self-interest (at the expense of their group) than individuals under prevention focus when self-interested goals were not compatible with cooperation. No effect of regulatory focus on group loyalty was found when cooperation formed the only viable route to individual success. We discuss how these findings extend our understanding of the role of regulatory focus in social situations and of the practice of ensuring loyalty in contexts where individual and group goals are misaligned while cooperation is an important part of group success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Communicators often tune their message about a target to the audience's attitude toward that target. This tuning can shape a communicator's own evaluation of the target, which reflects the creation of a shared reality with the audience. So far, evidence for shared-reality creation has been confined to one specific target. In two experiments, we examined whether and when a shared reality would generalize to other targets. In Experiment 1, shared-reality creation about an ambiguous sexist target generalized to the evaluation of a new ambiguous sexist target for which no audience attitude was provided. However, this happened only when there was high (vs. low) commonality with the audience regarding previous judgments. In Experiment 2, we investigated conditions for the temporal persistence of generalization. One week after message tuning to a high-commonality audience, a shared reality generalized to a new ambiguous sexist target when participants recalled the shared-reality creation about the initial target, but it did not generalize in conditions without such recall. Also, no generalization occurred for non-ambiguous or non-sexist targets. Results suggest that shared reality generalization depends on perceived commonality with the audience, recollection of shared reality at time of judgment, and similarity between new and initial targets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When other ingroup members behave immorally, people's motivation to maintain a moral group image may cause them to experience increased threat and act defensively in response. In the current research, we investigated people's reactions to others' misconduct and examined the effect of group membership and the possible threat-reducing function of moral opportunity-the prospect of being able to re-establish the group's moral image. In Study 1, students who were confronted with fellow students' plagiarism and who received an opportunity to improve their group's morality reported feeling less threatened than students who did not receive such opportunity. In Study 2, students reacted to a recent academic fraud case, which either implicated an ingroup (scholar in their own discipline) or an outgroup member (scholar in another discipline). Results indicated that participants experienced more threat when an ingroup (versus an outgroup) member had committed the moral transgression. However, as hypothesized, this was not the case when moral opportunity was provided. Hence, the threat-reducing effect of moral opportunity was replicated. Additionally, participants generally were more defensive in response to ingroup (versus outgroup) moral failure and less defensive when moral opportunity was present (versus absent). Together, these findings suggest that the reduction of threat due to moral opportunity may generally help individuals take constructive action when the behavior of fellow group members discredits the group's moral image. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Collective memory theories propose that groups' remembrances of their past depend upon their current social situation. In Belgium, a significant proportion of Dutch speakers share a collective memory of past victimisation by French speakers and fight for an ever-larger autonomy of their region. Yet, as the respective economic, political and social situations of the linguistic regions of Belgium recently evolved with a reversal of fortunes, the current experience of younger Dutch speakers does not fit the traditional memory anymore. We thus predicted that the collective memories of victimhood would decline amongst them, thus bringing changes in intergroup attitudes and political aspirations. Three generations were compared in a survey of 1226 French-speaking and 1457 Dutch-speaking individuals. For both groups, younger generations evidenced less regionalist and more integrative positions than older ones. However, these effects were stronger for Dutch-speaking respondents, and for them, collective memory of victimhood mediated the relation linking age and identification with Belgium, intergroup attitudes and political aspirations. We concluded that the current social context has decisive consequences for collective remembrances, which, in turn, impact intergroup relations and political attitudes and choices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the ways in which players of massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) internalize being a player into their self-concept. In accordance with the social identity framework, we assume that being a player and being a member of a guild within the game can both shape the social identity of members. In two studies, we survey players inside or outside the MMORPG. Players are interviewed either at an interguild comparison level or at the more inclusive level of MMORPG players. Study 1 (n = 84) reveals favoritism for the in-group guild in a within-game context, and Study 2 (n = 200) shows that valuation of and identification with the in-group are moderated by the interview context and the level of category inclusion: Inside the game, the guild is more valued and identification is emphasized. In contrast, valuation of and identification with MMORPG players is not influenced by the interview context. Together, by examining both valuation and identification processes, this research reveals that playing online games may be self-involving because being a player, but also being a member of a guild, directly contribute to the social identity. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Members of conflicting groups often engage in 'competitive victimhood', that is, they are motivated to gain acknowledgment that their in group is the conflict's 'true' victim. The present study found that compared with a control group, Israeli Jews and Palestinians reassured that their in group had won the victim status showed increased willingness to reconcile with the outgroup and held less pessimistic, fatalistic views of the conflict. Moreover, for members of the stronger party--Israeli Jews--winning the victim status also led to increased group efficacy and consequent readiness to take action toward resolution. These findings extend previous theorizing about the positive effects of addressing group members' need for acknowledgement of their victimization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Individual differences in disgust sensitivity have been linked to social attitudes and ideology, but the generalizability of this effect and the nature of the political issues implicated remain unclear. In two studies using large Dutch samples, we find that disgust sensitivity predicts political attitudes for issues in several domains related to physical/spiritual purity and pathogen risk. Sensitivity to disgust was significantly associated with attitudes for a general 'physical and spiritual purity' factor, as well as specific issue factors regarding sex and sexual minorities, immigration, and foreign outgroups. Additionally, disgust sensitivity was associated with greater likelihood of voting for the socially conservative 'Freedom Party' (Partij Voor de Vrijheid). These results suggest that the tendency to experience disgust influences a specific subset of social and political attitudes across cultures. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In three studies, we examined the effect of intergroup status on group members' tendencies to characterize the ingroup's relationship with an outgroup as conflictual following outgroup action. Findings from all three studies supported the prediction that the intergroup relationship would be characterized as less conflictual when the ingroup had relatively high rather than low status. Consistent with the hypothesis that the effect of status reflects strategic concerns, it was moderated by the perceived relevance of the outgroup's action to intergroup status relations (study 1), it was sensitive to audience (study 2), and it was partially mediated by status management concerns (study 3). The role of strategic, status-related factors in intergroup relations is discussed. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ninety-six male fraternity members (Study 1), 112 female voters (Study 2), and 219 undergraduates (Study 3) read scenarios in which a group representative forgave, retaliated, or left a romantic partner after the partner's sexual infidelity was publically revealed. Observers rated a victim who forgave his or her partner to be as mature as a victim who ended the relationship, but also as weaker and less competent. They rated a victim who forgave to be more mature but almost as weak and incompetent as a victim who retaliated. Symbolic concerns that the victim's behavior violated shared values (all three studies) or damaged the group's power/status (Study 3) mediated the relationship between victim behavior and victim ratings. These data demonstrate how the symbolic concerns that shape observers' judgments of an offender can extend to observers' judgments of the victim. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People often talk to themselves using the first-person pronoun (I), but they also talk to themselves as if they are speaking to someone else, using the second-person pronoun (You). Yet, the relative behavioral control achieved by I and You self-talk remains unknown. The current research was designed to examine the potential behavioral advantage of using You in self-talk and the role of attitudes in this process. Three experiments compared the effects of I and You self-talk on problem solving performance and behavioral intentions. Experiment 1 revealed that giving self-advice about a hypothetical social situation using You yielded better anagram task performance than using I. Experiment 2 showed that using You self-talk in preparation for an anagram task enhanced anagram performance and intentions to work on anagrams more than I self-talk, and that these effects were mediated by participants' attitudes toward the task. Experiment 3 extended these findings to exercise intentions and highlighted the role of attitudes in this effect. Altogether, the current research showed that second-person self-talk strengthens both actual behavior performance and prospective behavioral intentions more than first-person self-talk. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Members of groups with low societal status can pursue individual upward mobility to improve their status. We examine the conditions under which ingroup and outgroup members are most inclined to support such upward mobility attempts. Whereas both ingroup and outgroup supports are important, there may be tension: dissociation from the low status group may lower ingroup support, whereas association with the low status group may lower outgroup support. Ingroup association can be expressed by communicating one's affective involvement or by behaving in line with typical ingroup practices. As predicted, studies 1 and 2 show that support from the low status ingroup depends more on affective involvement than on behavioral identity expression (BIE). In contrast, studies 3-5 show that support from the high status group is more driven by the upwardly mobile individual's BIE. Mediational analyses show that these opposite patterns are driven by differential processes, prompted by the group's respective positions in the social hierarchy. The findings provide insight into how members of low status groups negotiate the competing demands of the high and low status groups as they pursue upward mobility. Moreover, they show how affective involvement and BIE differentially affect ingroup support and outgroup opposition. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although bystanders can play an integral role in the process of social change, relatively few studies have examined the factors that influence bystander collective action. The present research explores the effect of perpetrator power on bystander efficacy and collective action, as well as the moderating role of impact of the injustice event. Across two experiments, bystanders perceived that collective action would be less effective and were less willing to engage in collective action when a high-power perpetrator engaged in injustice, compared with a low-power perpetrator. These effects were moderated by impact of the injustice event, such that the effects of power were especially present under conditions of large impact (many victims), compared with small impact (fewer victims). Whereas the effect of the interaction of perpetrator power and impact on bystander efficacy was explained by perceptions of normativity of the injustice event, the effect of the interaction on bystander collective action was explained by bystander efficacy. Implications for bystander collective action and social change are discussed. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many people are reluctant to behave in environmentally friendly ways. One possible explanation might be that the motivation to behave in environmentally friendly ways is undermined by the way scientific progress is overstated in the popular media. Four experiments show that portraying science as rapidly progressing-and thus enabling society to control problems related to the natural environment and human health in the not-too-distant future-is detrimental to environmentally friendly behaviour because such a frame affirms perceptions of an orderly (vs chaotic) world. This in turn negatively affects the likelihood of engaging in environmentally friendly behaviour. Simultaneously, communication that questions (vs affirms) scientific progress leads to lower perceptions of order and consequential increases in environmentally friendly behaviour. These findings show that when the aim is to promote environmentally friendly attitudes and behaviour, it helps to not overstate scientific progress. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forgiveness research has predominately focused on individual/relational outcomes such as well-being and closeness. Less research has examined group outcomes such as cohesiveness or collective action. Forgiveness studies have also emphasized the victim's or transgressor's perspective, neglecting the effects of forgiveness on ingroup members who have neither given nor received forgiveness. We theorize that forgiveness promotes collective action among ingroup members through group cohesiveness and that transgressors' apologetic reactions impact this process. In a laboratory experiment, 229 students (175 females) were led to believe they were in a social dilemma with three others. Some participants witnessed group members forgive an apologetic, obstinate, or neutral defector, whereas others witnessed an unforgiving response. Forgiveness of apologetic and neutral defectors increased later cooperation among ingroup members. This effect was generally mediated by group cohesiveness. Our findings suggest that forgiveness can impact cooperation on a group level, providing a path to successful resolutions to collective action problems. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]