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Recent findings suggest that stimulus construal level (high vs. low) is mentally associated with its vertical position (up vs. down). We delve deeper into this association and its meanings, and examine, for the first time, its complementary association, that of stimulus psychological distance (distant vs. close) and its vertical position (up vs. down). In Study 1 and 2 goals of activities were positioned higher than the means of performing them and were perceived as more compatible with a spatially higher viewpoint. In Study 3, self-perceptions were more invariant when items were presented at the top (vs. the bottom) of a visual display. In Study 4, participants positioned imagination-related concepts above reality-related concepts. In Study 5, participants provided more distant time estimates for scenarios presented at the top (vs. the bottom) of a display. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Creativity is vital in the contemporary business world. Drawing on the culture-as-situated-cognition theory, we investigate how language affects divergent thinking. We study multicultural bilinguals (Arabs in Israel) whose two languages reflect contrasting cultural mindsets: individualism (Hebrew) versus collectivism (Arabic). Theoretically, individualism is associated with novel thinking as it encourages autonomy of thought and action, whereas collectivism encourages compliance to social norms. We investigate the impact of language as a factor that may affect performance in divergent thinking tasks through its associated cultural mindset, distinguishing this from the effects of the speaker's proficiency in the language. We expected that individualism induced by language (in this case, Hebrew) would promote greater originality in tasks demanding high, but not moderate, levels of ingenuity. Study 1 (

We suggest that disability is metaphorically represented in people’s minds as heaviness. In three studies we demonstrate the existence of a mental association between physical weight (light vs. hea...

Norm enforcement may be important for resolving conflicts and promoting cooperation. However, little is known about how preferred responses to norm violations vary across cultures and across domains. In a preregistered study of 57 countries (using convenience samples of 22,863 students and non-students), we measured perceptions of the appropriateness of various responses to a violation of a cooperative norm and to atypical social behaviors. Our findings highlight both cultural universals and cultural variation. We find a universal negative relation between appropriateness ratings of norm violations and appropriateness ratings of responses in the form of confrontation, social ostracism and gossip. Moreover, we find the country variation in the appropriateness of sanctions to be consistent across different norm violations but not across different sanctions. Specifically, in those countries where use of physical confrontation and social ostracism is rated as less appropriate, gossip is rated as more appropriate. Little is known about people's preferred responses to norm violations across countries. Here, in a study of 57 countries, the authors highlight cultural similarities and differences in people's perception of the appropriateness of norm violations., Swedish Foundation for Humanities and Social Sciences; Riksbankens Jubileumsfond; Czech Science Foundation; Czech Academy of Sciences; Institute of Psychology; Stockholm University

Tearful crying is a ubiquitous and likely uniquely human phenomenon. Scholars have argued that emotional tears serve an attachment function: Tears are thought to act as a social glue by evoking social support intentions. Initial experimental studies supported this proposition across several methodologies, but these were conducted almost exclusively on participants from North America and Europe, resulting in limited generalizability. This project examined the tears-social support intentions effect and possible mediating and moderating variables in a fully pre-registered study across 7007 participants (24,886 ratings) and 41 countries spanning all populated continents. Participants were presented with four pictures out of 100 possible targets with or without digitally-added tears. We confirmed the main prediction that seeing a tearful individual elicits the intention to support, d = 0.49 [0.43, 0.55]. Our data suggest that this effect could be mediated by perceiving the crying target as warmer and more helpless, feeling more connected, as well as feeling more empathic concern for the crier, but not by an increase in personal distress of the observer. The effect was moderated by the situational valence, identifying the target as part of one's group, and trait empathic concern. A neutral situation, high trait empathic concern, and low identification increased the effect. We observed high heterogeneity across countries that was, via split-half validation, best explained by country-level GDP per capita and subjective well-being with stronger effects for higher-scoring countries. These findings suggest that tears can function as social glue, providing one possible explanation why emotional crying persists into adulthood., National Science Centre, Poland; Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange Bekker Programme; Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology; Hungarian National Research, Development and Innovation Office; Hungarian Brain Research Programme; Internal Fund of the Open University of Israel

Deliberate thinking and systematic thinking are often conflated when contrasted with intuitive thinking. We argue that, in fact, nonintuitive thinking is multidimensional, and that deliberate and systematic thinking are distinct nonintuitive processes. We establish their distinct meanings in 6 studies using 3 research paradigms. Our first paradigm (Studies 1 and 2) takes an individual differences approach. Adopting a meta-analytic design with the addition of new data, we find that deliberate thinking and systematic thinking are differentially associated with personality traits (openness to experience with deliberate thinking; conscientiousness with systematic thinking) and with personal values (self-direction vs. conformity with deliberate thinking; security vs. stimulation with systematic thinking). Our second paradigm (Studies 3 and 4) employs a decision-making task (choosing between different problem types and levels of difficulty) to test for deliberate and systematic thinking in isolation from each other. We show that systematic thinking (in oneself and others) predicts a selection of rule-based over context-based problems, while deliberate thinking predicts a selection of difficult over simple problems. Our third paradigm (Studies 5 and 6) takes a cultural perspective. We show that although deliberate thinking is universally perceived as signifying competence, the contribution of systematic thinking to perceptions of competence is culturally dependent, differing for participants under a collectivistic versus individualistic mindset. Together our findings highlight the need to distinguish between deliberate and systematic thinking and underscore the need for studies of intuitive versus nonintuitive thinking to take a multidimensional perspective. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Norm enforcement may be important for resolving conflicts and promoting cooperation. However, little is known about how preferred responses to norm violations vary across cultures and across domains. In a preregistered study of 57 countries (using convenience samples of 22,863 students and non-students), we measured perceptions of the appropriateness of various responses to a violation of a cooperative norm and to atypical social behaviors. Our findings highlight both cultural universals and cultural variation. We find a universal negative relation between appropriateness ratings of norm violations and appropriateness ratings of responses in the form of confrontation, social ostracism and gossip. Moreover, we find the country variation in the appropriateness of sanctions to be consistent across different norm violations but not across different sanctions. Specifically, in those countries where use of physical confrontation and social ostracism is rated as less appropriate, gossip is rated as more appropriate.

Perceptions of interpersonal similarity are accompanied by attraction and bonding, often leading to physical contact. Given that physical proximity to social beings increases the odds of catching infectious diseases, we propose a reverse relationship, whereby sensitivity to the presence of pathogens results in perceiving unfamiliar others as less similar to oneself. Four studies involving 980 participants and operationalizing others in three different ways confirm that individual differences in propensity to feel disgust (i.e., react emotionally to potential sources of pathogens in the environment) are associated with perceptions of interpersonal similarity to strangers. Study 1 showed that individuals who score higher in disgust sensitivity perceive themselves as less psychologically similar to visually displayed social targets. Study 2, using vague descriptions of hypothetical figures, found that high-disgust-sensitivity participants tend to assume that others' personal preferences contrast with their own. Study 3 demonstrated that the disgust–dissimilarity association holds for prototypical members of social groups. Finally, Study 4 confirmed that this link reflects pathogen-related (above and beyond sexual or moral) disgust. In all studies, controlling for participants' gender, religiosity, and illness recency did not change the results. We discuss our findings and propose novel directions for future research.

Throughout evolutionary history, pathogens have imposed strong selection pressures on humans. To minimize humans’ exposure to pathogens, a behavioral immune system that promotes the detection and avoidance of disease-connoting cues has evolved. Although most pathogens cannot be discerned by our sensory organs, they produce discernable changes in their environment. As a result, a common denominator of many disease-connoting cues is morphological deviance—figurative disparity from what is normal, visual dissimilarity to the prototype stored in memory. Drawing on an evolutionary rationale, we examine the hypothesis that activation of the behavioral immune system renders people more sensitive to morphological deviance and more prone to perceive dissimilarities between stimuli. In Study 1 ( N = 343), participants who scored higher on disgust sensitivity demonstrated greater differentiation between normal and disfigured faces, reflecting greater sensitivity to morphological deviance in the bodily domain. In Study 2 ( N = 109), participants who were primed with pathogen threat demonstrated greater differentiation between perfect and imperfect geometrical shapes, reflecting greater sensitivity to morphological deviance even in stimuli that have nothing to do with health or disease. In Study 3 ( N = 621), participants who scored higher on disgust sensitivity perceived pairs of neutral pictures as less similar (i.e., more dissimilar) to each other. Literature on the relations to social deviance and implications for social perception and for social behavior is discussed.

We investigate how constituents interpret information about political leaders in the course of forming judgments about them. More specifically, we are interested in the intentionality attributed to the actions and decisions taken by political leaders – whether they are perceived as designed to benefit the politician’s own interests, or the interests of the public. In two field studies, we show that the political orientation of constituents plays a central role in driving constituents’ judgments about political leaders and their actions (in terms of beneficiary attributions), reflecting an identity-motivated reasoning process. Political leaders of the ingroup are perceived more favorably than political leaders of the outgroup, in terms of trust and a desire to see that leader represent the country in the international arena. More interestingly, constituents are likely to attribute the actions of ingroup leaders as intended to benefit the country (national interests), and the actions of outgroup leaders as intended to benefit the political leaders themselves (egoistic interests).