Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin

Marion-Jetten, Ariane S.; Taylor, Geneviève; Schattke, Kaspar

doi: 10.1177/0146167220986310pmid: 33501890

Action crises describe the intra-psychic conflicts people face when deliberating whether to continue pursuing or to give up a goal for which difficulties keep accumulating. Action crises lead to negative consequences such as elevated distress and depression. Less is known about their predictors. We propose mindfulness as a negative predictor of action crises because mindful people should set more autonomous goals and better regulate their emotions. Three prospective studies examined the relation between mindfulness and action crises and explored goal motivation and emotion regulation as mediators (Study 1, N = 137 students, mean age 22; Study 2, N = 79 students, mean age 24.27; Study 3, N = 236 workers, mean age 40.71). Results showed that mindfulness predicts action crises over time and that this relation is mediated by goal motivation and emotion regulation. We discuss how mindfulness can affect action crises in the phases of the Rubicon Model of goal pursuit.

Newman, David B.; Nezlek, John B.

doi: 10.1177/0146167220980882pmid: 33504280

We examined within-person relationships among daily events, emotion regulation strategies, and well-being in daily life. Each day for 2 to 3 weeks, participants in two studies (total N = 445) reported the extent to which they reappraised and suppressed their positive and negative emotions, the types of events they experienced, and their well-being. Using multilevel modeling, we found that the extent to which people reappraised positive and negative emotions and suppressed negative emotions was positively related to the number/importance of daily positive events, whereas the suppression of positive emotions was negatively related. Furthermore, the positive relationships between well-being and reappraisal of positive and negative emotions and the suppression of negative emotions were stronger as the number of negative events increased. These results demonstrate that most emotion regulation strategies are employed when the day is going well but are most beneficial for people’s well-being when the day is not going well.

Garinther, Alexander; Arrow, Holly; Razavi, Pooya

doi: 10.1177/0146167220982734pmid: 33514284

Studies of victim number effects in charitable giving consistently find that people care more and help more when presented with an appeal to help an individual compared with an appeal to help multiple people in need. Across three online experiments (N = 1,348), Bayesian estimation revealed the opposite pattern when people responded to multiple appeals to help targets of different sizes (1, 2, 5, 7, and 12). In this joint evaluation context, participants donated more to larger groups, when appeals were presented in both ascending order (Study 1) and random order (Study 2). The pattern held whether or not participants saw an overview of all appeals at the start of the study and when a single individual was added to the array (Study 3). These results clarify how compassion fade findings typical of separate evaluations may not generalize to contexts in which people encounter multiple appeals within a short temporal window.

Bettinsoli, Maria Laura; Suitner, Caterina; Maass, Anne; Finco, Luigi; Sherman, Steven J.; Salvador Casara, Bruno Gabriel

doi: 10.1177/0146167220984297pmid: 33514275

In four studies, we test the hypothesis that people, asked to envisage interactions between an ingroup and an outgroup, tend to spatially represent the ingroup where writing starts (e.g., left in Italian) and as acting along script direction. Using soccer as a highly competitive intergroup setting, in Study 1 (N = 100) Italian soccer fans were found to envisage their team on the left side of a horizontal soccer field, hence playing rightward. Studies 2a and 2b (N = 219 Italian and N = 200 English speakers) replicate this finding, regardless of whether the own team was stronger or weaker than the rival team. Study 3 (N = 67 Italian and N = 67 Arabic speakers) illustrates the cultural underpinnings of the Spatial Intergroup Bias, showing a rightward ingroup bias for Italian speakers and a leftward ingroup bias for Arabic speakers. Findings are discussed in relation to how space is deployed to symbolically express ingroup favoritism (Spatial Ingroup Bias) versus shared stereotypes (Spatial Agency Bias).

Posavac, Steven S.; Kardes, Frank R.; Posavac, Heidi D.; Gaffney, Donald R.

doi: 10.1177/0146167220980887pmid: 33514279

This research was conducted to highlight the utility of considering clinical psychology concepts in judgment and decision research. Our overarching thesis is that the judgments and choices people make may often be influenced by clinically relevant phenomena, and that understanding these relationships can, in a reciprocal fashion, help advance our understanding of judgment and decision making as well as specific clinical diagnoses and proclivities. We focused on histrionic personality disorder and conducted four studies that show that histrionic symptomology predicts preferences and choices that facilitate grabbing others’ attention, even when such choices cost more money, and are at the expense of giving up more tangible features. In addition to demonstrating a new implication of the histrionic personality, we provide insight into the process underlying this tendency and discuss implications for mental health service providers.

Ma, Debbie S.; Kantner, Justin; Benitez, Jonathan; Dunn, Stephanie

doi: 10.1177/0146167221989836pmid: 33559533

The rise of the multiracial population has been met with a growing body of research examining multiracial face perception. A common method for creating multiracial face stimuli in past research has been mathematically averaging two monoracial “parent” faces of different races to create computer-generated multiracial morphs, but conclusions from research using morphs will only be accurate to the extent that morphs yield perceptual decisions similar to those that would be made with real multiracial faces. The current studies compared race classifications of real and morphed multiracial face stimuli. We found that oval-masked morphed faces were classified as multiracial significantly more often than oval-masked real multiracial faces (Studies 1 and 2), but at comparable levels to unmasked real multiracial faces (Study 2). Study 3 examined factors that could explain differences in how morphs and real multiracial faces are categorized and pointed to the potential role that unusualness/distinctiveness might play.

Rivera, Grace N.; Salter, Phia S.; Friedman, Matt; Crist, Jaren; Schlegel, Rebecca J.

doi: 10.1177/0146167221994025pmid: 33648408

Meritocracy is a prominent narrative embedded in America’s educational system: work hard and anyone can achieve success. Yet, racial disparities in education suggest this narrative does not tell the full story. Four studies (N = 1,439) examined how applicants for a teaching position are evaluated when they invoke different narratives regarding who or what is to blame for racial disparities (i.e., individuals vs. systems). We hypothesized these evaluations would differ depending on teacher race (Black/White) and evaluator political orientation. Results revealed conservatives evaluated Black and White applicants advocating for personal responsibility more favorably than applicants advocating for social responsibility. Liberals preferred social responsibility applicants, but only when they were White. They were more ambivalent in their evaluations and hiring decisions if the applicants were Black. Our findings suggest that Black applicants advocating for social change are penalized by both liberal and conservative evaluators.

O’Brien, Laurie T.; Merritt, Sally K.

doi: 10.1177/0146167220988372pmid: 33682529

As the United States becomes more racially and ethnically diverse, interactions between Black people and other minority groups have become increasingly common. The present research examined how a perpetrator’s group membership affects judgments of employment discrimination against a Black victim. Four experiments (combined N = 1,016) tested predictions derived from the prototype model of discrimination. Participants reviewed a case file where a Black, Latino, Asian, or White manager rejected a Black job applicant. Attributions to discrimination were much stronger for a Latino, Asian, or White manager compared with a Black manager. Attributions to discrimination were slightly stronger for a White manager compared with an Asian or Latino manager; however, effect sizes for these differences were small. Attributions to discrimination were similar for the Asian and Latino managers. Whether the perpetrator had outgroup standing relative to the victim was the strongest factor influencing attributions to discrimination for a Black victim of employment discrimination.

Sillito Walker, Sheli D.; Bonner, Bryan L.

doi: 10.1177/0146167221992220pmid: 33686889

Task demonstrability defines the criteria that, when met, facilitate the effective exchange of knowledge within a problem-solving group. The extent to which those criteria are met should vary as a consequence of the relevant experiences that members have prior to entering the group. We investigate whether group members’ ability to coordinate with one another is facilitated by their prior task-related experiences. Participants worked individually, then in groups, and then individually again to complete a series of circuit board assembly tasks. Groups in which all members had pre-task experience performed significantly better than groups with even a single member lacking task experience, or individuals. Mediation analysis showed that prior task experience helps group members coordinate by improving task demonstrability. Group experience composition also affected post-group individual performance. Groups with diverse task experience produced individuals who performed better solo but only after working on an unstructured task that allowed for greater exploration.

Bowes, Shauna M.; Costello, Thomas H.; Lee, Caroline; McElroy-Heltzel, Stacey; Davis, Don E.; Lilienfeld, Scott O.

doi: 10.1177/0146167221997619pmid: 33719720

In recent years, an upsurge of polarization has been a salient feature of political discourse in America. A small but growing body of research has examined the potential relevance of intellectual humility (IH) to political polarization. In the present investigation, we extend this work to political myside bias, testing the hypothesis that IH is associated with less bias in two community samples (N1 = 498; N2 = 477). In line with our expectations, measures of IH were negatively correlated with political myside bias across paradigms, political topics, and samples. These relations were robust to controlling for humility. We also examined ideological asymmetries in the relations between IH and political myside bias, finding that IH–bias relations were statistically equivalent in members of the political left and right. Notwithstanding important limitations and caveats, these data establish IH as one of a small handful psychological features known to predict less political myside bias.