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Recent research suggests that inducing fixed (rather than malleable) beliefs about groups leads to more negative attitudes toward out-groups. The present paper identifies the underlying mechanism of this effect. We show that individuals with a fixed belief about groups tend to construe intergroup settings as threatening situations that might reveal shortcomings of their in-group (perceived threat). In the present research, we measured (Study 1) and manipulated (Study 2) participants' lay theories about group malleability. We found that the extent to which individuals had an entity (versus an incremental) group theory influenced the level of threat they felt when interacting with out-group members, and that perceived threat in turn affected their level of ethnocentrism and prejudice. These findings shed new light on the role of lay theories in intergroup attitudes and suggest new ways to reduce prejudice. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dozens of studies have shown that authoritarian people are ethnocentric. They are described as nationalistic, prejudiced, and hostile toward ethnic/national out-groups. However, it can be argued that this critical claim remains unproven, as researchers do not take into consideration the very conservative right-wing views typical of authoritarian people. To address this problem, two theoretical approaches were contrasted: the most commonly used right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) approach and the group authoritarianism approach. Both approaches define authoritarianism as the covariance of submission, aggression, and conventionalism, but they differ in that the former is inextricably related to right-wing ideology while the latter is not. This paper presents the results of two survey studies conducted on samples of 600 and 400 respondents. In Study 1, it was found that RWA and group authoritarianism had different patterns of relationships with in-group and out-group national attitudes, providing strong evidence in support of the hypothesis that the right-wing ideology generated ethnocentric national attitudes. Study 2 showed a strong direct effect of right-wing ideology on ethnocentric national attitudes, while the impact of 'pure' authoritarian covariance is marginal and sometimes even seems to be negative (e.g., ethnic prejudices). These findings suggest that authoritarianism has little to do with ethnocentric national attitudes. It is not the covariance of authoritarian attitudes that results in growing ethnocentrism. The true perpetrator can be found in the large component of right-wing ideology contained in such measurement instruments as the RWA scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From a folk perspective, gossipers (individuals who talk about the behaviours of others) are considered to be immoral individuals, doing harm to those they discuss. However, this folk perspective sits uneasily with recent claims that gossipers may actually do some good. In particular, it has been suggested that gossipers who share diagnostic information about the morality of social targets may help audiences to identify targets who are trustworthy and those who are not. In this way, gossipers may help audiences adaptively regulate their relationships. In this paper, we examined whether audience perceptions of gossiper morality are influenced by their perceptions that the content of gossip is able to help them regulate their relationships. Participants in two scenario studies and a realistic interaction study were presented with gossip items drawn from a pool of 24 unique behavioural descriptions and asked to rate their perceptions of the gossiper and the content of the gossip item. As predicted, participants perceived gossipers as more moral when gossipers shared the diagnostic morality gossip that participants perceived to serve relationship regulatory functions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Societal changes involving power reversal may pose challenges to system justification by a subordinate minority group that had previously held a more privileged position. Derived from originally exploratory qualitative investigation, this paper presents an account of endorsement of justifying the status quo versus the voicing relative deprivation in the context of post-Soviet Estonia. Experiences of alternative societal arrangements in history were actively deployed by (minority ethnic) Estonian Russians to generate temporal comparisons with the past as a cognitive alternative to the present status quo and give voice to experiences of relative deprivation. A struggle for positive social identity was interpreted to motivate Estonian Russians to mobilize the past as a cognitive alternative to delegitimize the status quo. By contrast, Russians were portrayed as invaders, and the Soviet past was represented as unjust by (the majority ethnic) Estonians, whereas the present system was depicted as fair and equitable. Mutually, polemical representations of history and narratives of identity provide the lenses through which the legitimacy of new societal arrangements following the major social change is interpreted. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research has suggested that self-regulation results in low-level construals but has inferred construal levels after self-regulation only indirectly, through construal-dependent judgments and choices. In the present paper, we demonstrate a direct link between engaging in self-regulation and low-level construals, by manipulating self-regulation and subsequently assessing construal levels using well-established and straightforward measures of construal level in three studies. Participants who engaged in self-regulation subsequently provided lower egocentric spatial distance estimates (Studies 1A and 1B), formed more groups when categorizing objects (Study 2), and used more concrete language when describing cartoon main characters' behavior (Study 3) than participants who did not engage in self-regulation. These findings provide direct evidence that low-level construals result from engaging in self-regulation. Copyright © 2012 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]

There are ongoing debates both in personality psychology and social psychology on the causes and consequences of personality stability and change. Recent work on social roles suggests that as people change roles (e.g. employee to manager), different experiences and demands are internalised into one's self-concept shaping identity and personality. In this paper, the emphasis moves beyond 'roles' to other group memberships (e.g. ethnicity) in shaping one's self-view and self-rated personality (e.g. Neuroticism). The results of two experiments demonstrated that the salience of a particular group membership (as a Non-Aboriginal Australian) did significantly impact on Neuroticism. Such findings suggest that social identity processes may offer a hitherto neglected avenue for helping to explain personality (dis)continuity. Implications of these findings for both fields are discussed. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [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]

The purpose of this research was to examine the joint impact of leader achievement goals and hierarchical position of the voicer of creative ideas (subordinate vs. superior) on the extent to which leaders (intent to) integrate these voiced creative ideas with their own ideas (integrative idea management). In a scenario-based survey (study 1; N = 189), in which we measured participants' achievement goals, we found that the relationship between leaders' performance goals and their intention to integrate voiced creative ideas is contingent on the hierarchical position of the idea voicer. Similarly, in an experimental study (study 2; N = 94), in which we experimentally induced achievement goals, we found that leaders display lower integrative intentions when ideas are voiced by a subordinate rather than a superior, but this was only true for leaders pursuing performance goals. Furthermore, the results of an additional, exploratory analysis suggest that the hierarchical position of the voicer of creative ideas had an indirect effect on integrative behavior through integrative intentions for performance goal leaders and no effect for mastery goal leaders. Together, these findings advance our understanding of how middle management leaders are influenced by their own achievement goals when managing the creative ideas voiced by subordinates and superiors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Experimental exclusion manipulations may induce exclusion in a way that participants perceive as unfair. Groups often use exclusion punitively to correct inappropriate behavior, however, which may lead to perceptions that it is potentially justified or fair. The current studies examined if individuals' perceptions of fairness with respect to an exclusion experience moderated their reactions. Participants wrote about or imagined a time in which they were excluded after they did something wrong (fair exclusion) or excluded even though they did nothing wrong (unfair exclusion) or about a mundane experience unrelated to exclusion (control). Compared with fair exclusion, unfair exclusion resulted in significantly weaker efficacy needs satisfaction (Studies 1, 2, and 4), greater antisocial intent (Study 3), and greater sensitivity to signs of interpersonal acceptance and rejection in a visual search task (Study 4). These results suggest that it is important to consider the role of perceived fairness in shaping responses to exclusion. [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]

Survivors of disasters commonly provide each other with social support, but the social-psychological processes behind such solidarity behaviours have not been fully explicated. We describe a survey of 1240 adults affected by the 2010 Chile earthquake to examine the importance of two factors: observing others providing social support and social identification with other survivors. As expected, emotional social support was associated with social identification, which in turn was predicted by disaster exposure through common fate. Observing others' supportive behaviour predicted both providing emotional social support and providing coordinated instrumental social support. Expected support was a key mediator of these relationships and also predicted collective efficacy. There was also an interaction: social identification moderated the relationship between observing and providing social support. These findings serve to develop the social identity account of mass emergency behaviour and add value to disaster research by showing the relevance of concepts from collective action. [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]

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]

There is considerable evidence that psychological membership of crowds can protect people in dangerous events, although the underlying social-psychological processes have not been fully investigated. There is also evidence that those responsible for managing crowd safety view crowds as a source of psychological danger, views that may themselves impact upon crowd safety; yet, there has been little examination of how such 'disaster myths' operate in practice. In a study of an outdoor music event characterized as a near disaster, analysis of questionnaire survey data ( N = 48) showed that social identification with the crowd predicted feeling safe directly as well as indirectly through expectations of help and trust in others in the crowd to deal with an emergency. In a second study of the same event, qualitative analysis of interviews ( N = 20) and of contemporaneous archive materials showed that, in contrast to previous findings, crowd safety professionals' references to 'mass panic' were highly nuanced. Despite an emphasis by some safety professionals on crowd 'disorder', crowd participants and some of the professionals also claimed that self-organization in the crowd prevented disaster. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kony2012 was a viral Internet video that attracted unprecedented online interest in promoting a campaign to arrest the leader of an African militant group. The current research considers the social psychological bases of social media-based collective action. In three cross-sectional surveys ( N = 304) collected before, on, and after the key action date of 20 April 2012, we consider the nature (opinion based or global) and function (emergent or transforming) of social identity in modern forms of social action. Multigroup structural equation modelling showed that Kony2012 action was best captured by an emergent opinion-based social identity. Moreover, the same factors that predicted Kony2012 action generally also predicted engagement in new repertoires of protest (involving the use of social media) and an observable traditional socio-political action (signing a letter to a government minister). The results suggest that there is no sharp dividing line between traditional and new forms of collective action and that both may be understood as valid expressions of collective selfhood. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [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]

Researchers recently introduced a refined theory of 19 basic human values. They demonstrated its utility and discriminant validity through associations with attitudes and beliefs, but not with behaviors. We assess the discriminant and predictive validity of the theory by examining associations of each value with everyday behaviors in a Russian sample. Two hundred sixty-six respondents reported their values and the frequency with which they performed each of the 85 everyday behaviors during the past year. We derived indexes of 19 latent value factors and of 19 latent behavior factors using confirmatory factor analysis. A confirmatory multidimensional scaling analysis arrayed the values, excepting benevolence, on the circular motivational continuum of the theory. Structural equation modeling analyses supported the discriminant and predictive validity of the theory. Of the 19 values, 18 correlated more positively with the behavior chosen a priori as likely to express it than with any other behavior, and all values correlated negatively with behaviors chosen to express motivationally opposed values. The patterns of correlation between the values and behaviors approximated the sinusoid curve implied by the motivational continuum of values in almost all cases. The study suggests that the same motivational compatibilities and conflicts that structure value relations largely organize relations among value-expressive behaviors. The study examines moderation of value-behavior relations by gender and tests the normative pressure explanation of variation in the strength of value-behavior relations across value domains. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research demonstrates social support from fellow group members as unique trigger of additional effort and performance in groups. Support-induced effort gains are shown both compared with groups without social support and individual work. Study 1 examined existing beliefs about motivating group work among employees with professional group work experience (n = 130). The results revealed social support as one of the most frequently reported sources of group-induced effort gains. Study 2 explored self-reported effort intentions in group training scenarios among athletes (n = 94). Finally, Study 3 examined performance as a manifest indicator of effort in an experimental persistence task among students (n = 88). The results of Study 2 and Study 3 showed significant gains due to social support in both self-reported effort and manifest performance, respectively. Together, the results demonstrate that receiving social support from fellow group members leads to higher effort in groups at the level of existing beliefs about motivating group work, at the level of effort intentions, and at the level of manifest performance behavior. The observed findings cannot be explained by established sources of motivation gains in groups such as social comparison or social indispensability. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of humanness as a dimension of social judgment has received extensive attention over the past decade. Although the common reported finding is that people attribute more human characteristics to their ingroup than to the outgroup, similar tendencies are expected to be tempered for minority groups when judging the host society. In Study 1, carried out with Gypsy minority members, we tested the hypothesis that those group members who adopt an assimilative strategy identifying more with the host compared with the heritage culture will display the lowest levels of dehumanisation. In Studies 2 and 3, conducted with immigrants in Italy and in Portugal, respectively, the hypothesis was extended from an identification conceptualisation to an acculturation one. Despite significant variability in intergroup settings and measures, results confirmed our hypothesis that immigrants who choose to assimilate with the host culture dehumanise the outgroup less compared with those who adopt any of the other acculturation strategies. Implications for the ethnocentric nature of dehumanisation biases and for intergroup relations in general are discussed. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bringing together self-determination theory, intergroup theories based on the social identity approach, and normative approaches, three studies conducted among hockey fans tested if social norms and social identity predict greater self-determined motivation to engage in derogatory behaviours against an outgroup team and higher frequency of these behaviours. Higher self-determination was conceptualised as an indicator of internalisation. In Study 1, hockey fans who identified more strongly as fans of the Montreal Canadiens (N = 181) displayed a stronger positive association between the perceived norm in favour of outgroup derogation and self-determined motivation to engage in derogatory behaviours against fans of an outgroup team. This interaction also emerged on the frequency with which the derogatory behaviours were enacted. In Studies 2 and 3 (Ns = 105 and 116), this norm by social identity interaction was replicated on both the self-determination and the frequency outcomes for fans of a diversity of teams in the National Hockey League. In Study 3, these findings were observed over and above a manipulation that framed derogatory behaviours as being either harmful or beneficial. Results are discussed in light of motivational theories, normative approaches, and intergroup theories based on the social identity approach. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerous studies have been conducted to demonstrate that behaviours are frequently activated unconsciously. The present studies investigate the downstream psychological consequences of such unconscious behaviour activation, building on work on the explanatory vacuum and post-priming misattribution. It was hypothesized that unconsciously activated behaviours trigger a negative affective response if the behaviour violates a personal standard and that this negative affect subsequently motivates people to confabulate a reason for the behaviour. Results provided evidence for this mediated moderation model. Study 1 showed that participants who were primed to act less prosocially indeed reported increased levels of negative affect and, as a result, were inclined to confabulate a reason for their behaviour. Study 2 replicated these findings in the domain of eating and provided evidence for the moderating role of personal standards as well as the entire mediated moderation model. These findings have relevant theoretical implications as they add to the modest number of studies that demonstrate that the effect of unconscious priming may extend well beyond performing the primed behaviour itself to influence subsequent affect and attribution processes. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although individuals generally value health and sustainability, they do not always behave in a manner that is consistent with their standards. The current study examines whether attitudes and social norms (i.e., descriptive and injunctive norms) can evoke anticipated pride and guilt, which, in turn, guide behavioural intentions. This self-regulatory function of anticipated pride and guilt is examined in the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) extended with descriptive norms. Study 1 (N = 944) was a cross-sectional study in a sustainable (organic) behaviour context, and Study 2 (N = 990) was a study with a delayed outcome measure in a sustainable (fair trade) and a healthy (fruit consumption) behaviour context. We demonstrate that both negative and positive self-conscious emotions guide behaviour because they mediate the effects of both attitudes and social norms on intentions. Furthermore, the results show that the mediating effects of anticipated pride and guilt significantly improve the explanatory power of the extended TPB in all contexts; however, there are differences in the size of the effects, such that the mediating effect of emotions is larger in a sustainable compared to a healthy context. Theoretical implications of our findings are discussed. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Relying on the framework provided by Schwartz's theory of personal values, we investigated whether values can help explain prosocial behaviour. We first distinguished value-expressive behaviours from value-ambivalent behaviours. The former are compatible with primarily one value or with congruent values, the latter with mutually conflicting values. In Study 1, an analysis over all 41 (39 unpublished) samples in which we measured personal values and prosocial behaviour in monetarily incentivized strategic interactions (N = 1289; data collected between 2007 and 2010 in China, Finland, Germany, Israel, and the West Bank) supported our idea that personal values, universalism in particular, predict value-expressive (prisoner's dilemma cooperation and trust game back-transfers) but not value-ambivalent behaviours (trust game transfers and ultimatum game proposals and responses). Study 2 (N = 56) focused on dictator game behaviours, which we expected and found to be strongly value-expressive. The findings contribute to the ongoing discussion on whether and under which circumstances values shape behaviour. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social identities enhance members' well-being through the provision of social support and feelings of collective efficacy as well as by acting as a basis for collective action. However, the precise mechanisms through which identification acts to enhance well-being can be complicated by stigmatisation, which potentially undermines solidarity and collective action. The present research examines a real-world stigmatised community group in order to investigate the following: (1) the community identity processes that act to enhance well-being and collective action and (2) the consequences of stigmatisation for these processes. Study 1 consisted of a household survey conducted in disadvantaged areas of Limerick city in Ireland. Participants (n = 322) completed measures of community identification, social support, collective efficacy, community action and psychological well-being. Mediation analysis indicated that perceptions of collective efficacy are an important mediator of the effect of identification upon well-being. However, levels of self-reported community action were low and unrelated to community identification. In Study 2, 14 follow-up multiple-participant interviews with residents and community group workers were thematically analysed, revealing high levels of stigmatisation, which was reported to lead to disengagement from identity-related collective action. These findings indicate the potential for stigma to reduce collective action through undermining solidarity and social support. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Implementation intentions have been shown to effectively change counter-intentional habits. Research has, however, almost solely been concerned with the effectiveness of a single plan. In the present research, we investigated the behavioral and cognitive implications of making multiple implementation intentions targeting unhealthy snacking habits and its underlying processes, linking multiple habitual snacking cues to healthy alternatives. Study 1 revealed that formulating multiple implementation intentions was not effective in decreasing unhealthy snacking, whereas formulating a single plan successfully induced behavior change. By using a lexical decision task in Study 2, it was found that when making a single plan, but not multiple plans, the healthy alternative became cognitively more accessible in response to a critical cue prime than the habitual response. However, when making additional plans in an unrelated domain, the negative effects of making multiple plans were absent. In sum, the current findings suggest that formulating multiple implementation intentions is ineffective when changing unwanted behavior. These reduced effects of multiple implementation intentions do not occur when making the plan but are rather due to interference in the enacting phase of the planning process. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Threats to group status can elicit different responses, ranging from those that motivate striving for improvement to those that motivate defending the threatened social identity. We examine why moral threats to group status may inhibit individuals' striving to improve. Specifically, we predicted that a threat to the group's moral status evokes a defensive emotional focus on the out-group that impedes individuals' striving to improve. Two studies (N = 76 and N = 90) showed that moral (as opposed to nonmoral) threats elicited more outrage directed at the out-group and, by trend, less outrage directed at the in-group. The follow-up study further demonstrated that moral threat impeded striving for improvement because of the relative focus of outrage on in-group versus out-group. Moreover, and consistent with our group-based analysis, this pattern was most pronounced among strongly identified group members. We discuss theoretical and practical implications of framing groups' shortcomings in moral versus nonmoral terms. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This contribution addresses the issue of reduction of dehumanisation towards Blacks, an outgroup that has been historically targeted by heinous prejudice. The study tested, for the first time, whether the combination of multiple categorisation and human identity represents the most optimal condition for reducing dehumanisation towards Blacks. The main dependent variables were attribution of secondary emotions and inalienability of human rights. Results highlighted the combination of multiple categorisation and human identity as the most effective strategy in reducing dehumanisation towards Blacks. Evidence of this study sheds light on the possible ways through which conceiving others in terms of complex categorical criteria, that is, as members of the human group in conjunction with other communal or different social categories, can lead to more harmonious intergroup relations. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A distinction between guilt and regret in reactions to in-group atrocities is proposed. Four studies (total N = 1249) support the notion that guilt and regret are distinct emotional reactions. Whereas guilt is a self-focused, aversive emotional reaction following from appraisals of responsibility and associated with the intention to make amends, regret follows from an empathic victim perspective, is less aversive, and is more strongly associated with positive attitudes towards the victim groups and the intention to engage in intergroup contact. These findings suggest that less aversive emotions like regret are more likely to improve intergroup attitudes after a common history of conflict, but the aversive experience of guilt might be more potent in motivating reparations. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Goal priming typically leads to goal-consistent behavior. This uniform pattern is surprising given other types of priming effects, which have been found to be more variable. On the basis of previous research on judgment priming effects, we predicted that a comparative mindset to focus on similarities versus differences also affects the direction of goal priming. Two studies show that assimilation to a primed goal results if participants focus on similarities, whereas a focus on differences leads to contrast. In Study 1, participants induced to focus on similarities behaved more neatly after being primed with neatness rather than the goal to be carefree. For participants induced to focus on differences, the opposite pattern emerged. In Study 2, a similarity focus led to assimilation to an achievement prime, whereas a difference focus resulted in contrast. These findings highlight the importance of comparative processes in goal striving and demonstrate that assimilative goal-priming effects are less invariable than existing research suggests. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the proportion of people who held ambivalent versus univalent sexist attitudes, that is, those who simultaneously endorsed benevolent sexism (BS) and hostile sexism (HS). We examined this by capitalizing on recent innovations in latent class analysis to model latent types of sexists, or response profiles to BS and HS, in a nationally representative New Zealand sample (n = 6450). Our results show, for the first time, that by far, the most common pattern was for people to hold similar levels of BS and HS. Strongly ambivalent sexists, however, constituted only 8%-9% of the population. Most were classified as mild or moderate ambivalent sexists (28% and 44%, respectively). Univalent sexism was exceedingly rare, with between 2% and 5% of people solely endorsing HS but not BS, or BS but not HS. We validated the model by showing theoretically predicted differences across sexist types in demographics (gender, age), ideology (social dominance orientation, right-wing authoritarianism), and relationship satisfaction. Strongly ambivalent sexists also held the highest levels of gender-specific system justification, invariant of gender. This provides novel evidence for the premise that strong sexist ambivalence promotes support for and faith in the patriarchical system. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose that the perceived continuity between a group's past and present can be a psychological resource that provides confidence in the group's future vitality, thereby reducing the need to preserve identity. In two studies, English participants were told that there was continuity or discontinuity between England's past and present. Both studies showed that higher identifiers (but not lower identifiers) experienced more collective angst (i.e., concern for the group's future) and were more opposed to immigration when English history was presented as discontinuous compared with continuous. Importantly, collective angst mediated the effect of the historical continuity manipulation on opposition to immigration. We conclude that, particularly among those higher in group identification, perceived discontinuity of the group's past can undermine the perceived vitality of the future, thereby increasing the need to preserve current collective identity. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates discriminatory peer aggression among primary school aged children as a function of minority status (based on nationality, ethnicity, religion) of the target and the relative proportions of minority and majority children in the school. Participants were 925 8- to 12-year-olds attending schools in Britain. Children of minority status were no more likely than children of majority background to experience peer aggression in general. However, minority children were more likely to experience being the victims of discriminatory aggression. Two contrasting predictions were tested: that discriminatory aggression would be more likely when the minority group was relatively small in number or, alternatively, that as the proportions of children of minority backgrounds increased across schools, discriminatory aggression would be greater. The latter hypothesis was supported. Findings also revealed that in schools with a lower minority presence, discriminatory aggression experienced by majority children was significantly lower than that reported by minority children. When the school minority rate exceeded 81%, discriminatory aggression was more commonly experienced among majority children than among minority children. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Threat has been linked to conformity, but little is known about the specific effects of different kinds of threat. We test the hypothesis that perceived threat of infectious disease exerts a unique influence on conformist attitudes and behavior. Correlational and experimental results support the hypothesis. Individual differences in Perceived Vulnerability to Disease predict conformist attitudes; these effects persist when controlling for individual differences in the Belief in a Dangerous World. Experimentally manipulated salience of disease threat produced stronger conformist attitudes and behavior, compared with control conditions (including a condition in which disease-irrelevant threats were salient). Additional results suggest that these effects may be especially pronounced in specific domains of normative behavior that are especially pertinent to pathogen transmission. These results have implications for understanding the antecedents of conformity, the psychology of threat, and the social consequences of infectious disease. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigated the assumption that independent versus interdependent self-construals yield different manifestations of psychological reactance in different group contexts. We expected collectivists (interdependent) to value the collective freedom of an ingroup more in face of an outgroup threat than individualists (independent) who should be protective of their individual freedom especially within an ingroup. In Study 1, we showed that collectivists (Taiwanese students) did not show reactance when a threat to their freedom of choice originated in the ingroup, but they did show reactance when it originated in an outgroup. In Study 2, Austrian students showed more reactance the more interdependent their self-construal was when confronted with an outgroup restriction. However, the more independent Austrian students' self-construal was, the more reactance they showed when the threat came from the ingroup. Priming an independent (versus interdependent) self-construal in Study 3, we again observed more reactance when freedom was restricted by the ingroup. The findings underline the importance of understanding psychological reactance as a socially situated phenomenon. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cohesiveness of a society depends, in part, on how its individual members manage their daily activities with respect to the goals of that society. Hence, there should be a degree of social agreement on what constitutes action and what constitutes inaction. The present research investigated the structure of action and inaction definitions, the evaluation of action versus inaction, and individual differences in these evaluations. Action-inaction ratings of behaviors and states showed more social agreement at the ends of the inaction-action continuum than at the middle, suggesting a socially shared construal of this definition. Action-inaction ratings were also shown to correlate with the valence of the rated behaviors, such that the more active the behavior, the more positive its valence. Lastly, individual differences in locomotion, need for closure, and Christian religious beliefs correlated positively with a preference for action. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A three-phase longitudinal study (spread over a month's time) was carried out to investigate attitude's persistence and linkage to behavior as it may be affected by the processing of information about the communication source. The following three independent variables were manipulated: (i) contents of the source of information (implying the communicator to be expert or inexpert on the topic of the communication); (ii) length of the source information (brief versus lengthy); and (iii) message recipients' involvement in the issue at hand (high versus low). Replicating prior research when the source information was brief, it exerted greater persuasive impact under low versus high involvement, and when it was lengthy, it exerted greater persuasive impact under high versus low involvement. Of greater importance, the newly acquired attitudes were more persistent and were linked more strongly to actual behavior when the source information was lengthy (versus brief) provided the recipients had high (versus low) involvement in the issue. These findings were interpreted to mean that just like with the message/issue information in prior research, when processed extensively, source information, too, may contribute to the formation of persistent and behavior-driving attitudes. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose morality shifting as a mechanism through which individuals can maintain a moral image of the ingroup. We argue that a shift from the moral principles of harm and fairness to those of loyalty and authority occurs when assessing a potentially threatening event, particularly among high ingroup glorifiers. Three studies confirmed this hypothesis using three different methodologies. Study 1 compared the use of language related to four moral foundations formulated in moral psychology in response to ingroup- and outgroup-committed wrongdoings. Results showed that loyalty- and authority-related words were used more, whereas harm- and fairness-related words were used less in response to ingroup- compared with outgroup-committed wrongdoings. Study 2 replicated this effect with regards to the cognitive accessibility of these moral principles. Study 3 confirmed that morality shifting is a motivated response to social identity threat, rather than a response to mere activation of social identity. Finally, as predicted, Study 3 demonstrated the effect of morality shifting to be moderated by ingroup glorification but not ingroup attachment. Implications and consequences for intergroup and individual wrongdoings, as well as for intergroup relations, are discussed. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Self-handicapping is an anticipatory self-protective strategy in which individuals create or claim obstacles to success prior to an important performance to excuse potential failure. The present research sought in four studies to document the anticipatory nature of self-handicapping, examining the role of prefactual ('what if ...?') thoughts in this strategy. Individuals prone to self-handicap were more likely to generate prefactuals, identifying ways to undermine their performance. Moreover, inducing individuals to consider these thoughts increased self-handicapping behavior, whereas focusing individuals on ways to improve their performance actually reduced self-handicapping behavior. Implications of this work for understanding the cognitive processes underlying self-handicapping behavior and for interventions that seek to minimize this self-defeating behavior are discussed. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unlike other forms of positive thinking (e.g., expectations), research finds that positive fantasies (experiencing one's thoughts and mental images about the future positively) predict low effort and little success in several domains. However, for vocational education students of low socioeconomic status and minority ethnicity, for whom the present environment is especially difficult, perhaps it would be appropriate to indulge in positive fantasies that depict the future as bright and easily attained. Three studies show that this is not the case. Positive future fantasies measured early in the program predicted more days absent (Studies 2-3) and lower grades at the end of the program (Studies 1-3), even when adjusting for initial academic competence, expectations of successful achievement, and self-discipline. Expectations of successful achievement predicted fewer days absent and higher grades only when measured midway through the school year, once participants had experience with their own academic standing (Study 3). Results indicate that positive fantasies, which allow people to indulge in images of a bright future, predict poor achievement even in vocational students immersed in a particularly difficult environment. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The social identity approach assumes that group members are internally motivated to adhere to group norms. Even though there is plenty of evidence for this assumption, research on how group norms translate into behavior is scarce. If ingroup norms are internalized, they should elicit the same effect as individual standards. Derived from research on internally motivated individual standards, it was predicted that discrepancies from group norms result in more negative affect, lower levels of well-being, and-based on self-completion theory-in compensatory effort in case of an opportunity to reduce the discrepancy. One correlational study and four experiments support these predictions. The results are discussed in relation to self-regulation approaches and the social identity approach. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In six studies ( N = 1045) conducted in three European countries, we demonstrate distinctions between causal responsibility, group-based guilt, and moral responsibility. We propose that causal responsibility is an antecedent of group-based guilt linking the ingroup to previous transgressions against the victim group. In contrast, moral responsibility is a consequence of group-based guilt and is conceptualized as a sociomoral norm to respond to the consequences of the ingroup's transgressions and the current needs of the victim group. As such, moral responsibility can be stimulated by group-based guilt and directly predicts individual action intentions. Studies 1 and 2 focus on the conceptual distinctions among the three constructs. Study 3 tests the indirect effect of causal responsibility on moral responsibility via group-based guilt. The remaining studies explore the mediating role of moral responsibility in associations between group-based guilt and compensatory action tendencies, that is, financial compensation (study 4), approach and avoidance tendencies (study 5) and public apology (study 6). Together these studies show that causal and moral responsibility are psychologically distinct concepts from group-based guilt and that moral responsibility plays an important role in shaping the effects of group-based guilt on behavioral intentions. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An abundance of evidence suggests that the consequences of collective ingroup victimization can traverse generations, even among group members who are not direct descendants of victims. It nevertheless remains unclear why only some group members experience vicarious victimization. To examine the role of collective identification in the transmission of trauma across generations, we surveyed members of a Jewish community-including descendants of holocaust survivors and others who were not descendants of the holocaust survivors. Among non-descendants, Jewish identification was negatively associated with symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In contrast, among descendants, Jewish identification was positively associated with PTSD symptoms. Further, familial willingness to discuss the holocaust mediated the relationship between identification and PTSD symptoms. Additional analyses confirmed that these effects were specific to holocaust-related PTSD symptoms and not general anxiety or depression. These findings suggest that collective identity may both buffer and enhance the effects of collective victimization on mental health. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cross-sectional research has shown that frequency of self-disclosure to outgroup members mediates the positive relationship between intergroup friendship and outgroup attitudes. The current research investigated the relationship between self-disclosure and attitudes in more depth. New undergraduate students were asked to nominate an ingroup or outgroup friend and then report the intimacy of their disclosures to them, their anxiety and attitudes towards a series of social groups, in the first week of the semester and 6 weeks later. Intimacy of disclosure predicted more positive attitudes towards outgroups over time, but this association was only found among participants who nominated an outgroup friend. In the ingroup friend condition, a negative association was found. These associations were mediated by general intergroup anxiety. These relationships highlight the importance of integrating theories of interpersonal and intergroup relations when investigating intergroup contact. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]