When does responsiveness pique sexual interest? Attachment and sexual desire in initial acquaintanceships

Three studies examined the contribution of attachment orientation and perceived partner responsiveness to sexual desire in initial acquaintanceships. In all studies, participants discussed a recent negative event with an unfamiliar, opposite-sex partner and then rated how responsive this partner had been during the interaction and their desire to have sex with him or her. Study 1 examined the association between perceived partner responsiveness and sexual desire in randomly paired strangers. Studies 2 and 3 experimentally manipulated partner responsiveness by standardized Instant Messages (Study 2) and a confederate's responsive or unresponsive reactions during face-to-face interviews (Study 3). Results indicated that perceiving a partner as responsive was associated with heightened interest in sex with this partner, primarily among less avoidant people. These results are consistent with research showing that secure individuals see sex as a means of becoming close to relationship partners, whereas avoidant individuals tend to approach sex in distancing ways.     

A friend is a present you give to your “Self”: Avoidance of intimacy moderates the effects of friends on self-liking

The current research proposes that thinking about friends improves feelings about the self and does so differentially depending on avoidance of intimacy. Based on previous findings that individuals who avoid intimacy in relationships (avoidant individuals) contrast their self-concepts with primed friends whereas those who pursue intimacy in relationships (non-avoidant individuals) assimilate their self-concepts to primed friends [Gabriel, S., Carvallo, M., Dean, K., Tippin, B. D., & Renaud, J. (2005). How I see “Me” depends on how I see “We”: The role of avoidance of intimacy in social comparison. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 31, 156-157], we predicted that friends who embody negative aspects of self would lead avoidant individuals to like themselves more, whereas friends who embody positive aspects of self would lead non-avoidant individuals to like themselves more. A pretest determined that good friends were seen as more similar to positive and ideal aspects of the self, whereas friends about whom participants had more mixed feelings (ambivalent friends) were seen as more similar to disliked and feared aspects of the self. Four experiments supported the main hypotheses. In Experiment 1, non-avoidant individuals like themselves more when good friends were primed. In Experiment 2, avoidant individuals like themselves more when ambivalent friends were primed. In Experiment 3, non-avoidant individuals liked themselves better after thinking about a friend’s positive traits, whereas avoidant individuals liked themselves better after thinking about a friend’s negative traits. In Experiment 4, all individuals under self-esteem threat strategically brought friends to mind who would help them like themselves more.     

Honesty: One Effect of Primed Religious Representations

Most demonstrations of the automatic activation of mental representations and resulting behavioral effects have been conducted in the context of specific stereotypes. The main purpose of these studies was to test whether primed religious representations can have automatic influences on relevant (prosocial) behavior (Study 1) regardless of prior religious belief (Study 2). Study 1 found that participants primed with religious representations (religious words) cheated significantly less on a subsequent task. Study 2 replicated the results of Study 1 with subliminal presentations of religious words and further found that participant's intrinsic religiosity had no influence on rates of cheating with the prime received. These results provide the first known demonstration of religious representations automatically influencing behavior. Implications for the psychology of religion are discussed.     

Having a “senior moment”: Induced aging phenomenology, subjective age, and susceptibility to ageist stereotypes

The current research develops methods to experimentally manipulate subjective age in midlife and older adulthood to test whether subjective age moderates the effects of ageist stereotypes on a person’s well-being and expression of age-stereotypic social attitudes. Study 1 manipulates experiences of visual disfluency to test whether participants feel older when they experience unexplained visual disfluency. Study 2 crosses this fluency manipulation with a manipulation of the valence of primed aging stereotypes to test whether participants feel worse about themselves when they are primed with negative aging stereotypes and given an experience of unexplained visual disfluency. Study 3 tests whether participants express more age-stereotypic social attitudes when they are made to feel older through an experience of generation gaps and they are presented with evidence confirming the stereotype linking older age with psychological rigidity. These findings illuminate the phenomenological sources of variation in subjective age and suggest that subjective age influences adults’ susceptibility to ageist stereotypes.     

Identity salience moderates processing of group-relevant information

When an individual is categorized as a member of a group, the individual’s social identity becomes his or her frame for perceiving the world. This research investigates how information can be perceived and processed differently when relevant social identities are salient. In two studies, participants’ individual, student, or American identities were made salient before they read strong or weak arguments in favor of the institution of comprehensive exams at their university in 10 years time. In both studies, student-salient participants analytically processed the message whereas self-salient (Study 1) and American-salient (Study 2) participants failed to agree differentially with strong and weak messages. These data suggest that social-identity salience changes the information that individuals consider relevant, providing clear support for the contention that social identities have a profound impact on the way individuals perceive and interact with the world around them.     

Does peace have a prayer? The effect of mortality salience, compassionate values, and religious fundamentalism on hostility toward out-groups

Religious fundamentalism has been shown to be associated with higher levels of prejudice, ethnocentrism, and militarism, in spite of the compassionate values promoted by the religious faiths that most fundamentalists believe in. Based on terror management theory, we hypothesized that priming these compassionate values would encourage a shift toward less support for violent solutions to the current Middle Eastern conflict, especially when they are combined with reminders of one’s mortality. Study 1 demonstrated that among Americans, religious fundamentalism was associated with greater support for extreme military interventions, except when participants were reminded of their mortality and primed with compassionate religious values. The combination of mortality salience and compassionate religious values led to significant decreases in support for such interventions among high but not low fundamentalists. Study 2 replicated this finding and showed that it depends on the association of the compassionate values with an authoritative religious source; presentation of these values in a secular context had no effect on fundamentalists. Study 3 replicated these effects in a sample of Iranian Shiite Muslims: although a reminder of death increased anti-Western attitudes among participants primed with secular compassionate values, it decreased anti-Western attitudes among those primed with compassionate values from the Koran.     

Alone and without purpose: Life loses meaning following social exclusion

Four studies (N = 643) supported the hypothesis that social exclusion would reduce the global perception of life as meaningful. Social exclusion was manipulated experimentally by having a confederate refuse to meet participants after seeing their videotaped introduction (Study 1) and by ostracizing participants in a computerized ball-tossing game (Study 2). Compared to control condition and acceptance conditions, social exclusion led to perceiving life as less meaningful. Exclusion was also operationalized as self-reported loneliness, which was a better predictor of low meaning than other potent variables (Study 3). Study 4 found support for Baumeister’s model of meaning (1991), by demonstrating that the effect of exclusion on meaning was mediated by purpose, value, and positive self-worth.     

When leaders are not who they appear: The effects of leader disclosure of a concealable stigma on follower reactions

Two studies examined follower reactions to disclosure of concealable stigma (i.e., transgender identity) by a leader. Using 109 employed participants, Study 1 showed followers rated leaders disclosing a stigma less likable and effective. This effect was both direct and indirect through relational identification with the leader. Using 206 employed participants, Study 2 found when a leader's stigma was involuntarily found out and disclosed later they received lower ratings of likability and effectiveness compared to leaders who voluntarily came out and disclosed earlier. Method (found out vs. came out) and timing of disclosure (later vs. earlier) had direct relationships with ratings of likability and effectiveness and method of disclosure had an indirect relationship with the outcomes via relational identification.     

The Receiver's Dilemma: Impressions Formed in Response to Impression Management

Two studies examined the extent to which individuals' racial attitudes are influenced more by interdependent others' attitudes than people with whom they do not mutually depend. Study 1 demonstrated that participants significantly changed their racial attitudes when they received disagreement feedback from an ingroup friend, whereas there was no change in attitudes when participants received disagreement feedback from an ingroup stranger, agreement feedback, or no feedback. Furthermore, feelings of interdependence mediated the relationship between feedback from a friend versus stranger and changes in racial attitudes. In Study 2, we manipulated interdependence and found that interdependent partners altered their racial attitudes after receiving disagreement information, whereas independent partners did not. The importance of interdependent others' attitudes in reducing prejudice is discussed.     

Choosing to Enter or Avoid Diagnostic Social Situations

ABSTRACT— Three studies suggest that people control the nature of their relationships, in part, by choosing to enter (or avoid) situations providing feedback about other people's social interest. In Study 1 , chronically avoidant individuals (but not others) preferred social options that would provide no information about other people's evaluations of them over social options that would, but did not prefer nondiagnostic situations more generally. In Study 2 , chronically avoidant students (but not others) in a methods class preferred to have their teacher assign them to working groups (a nondiagnostic situation) over forming their own groups (a diagnostic situation). In Study 3 , individuals experimentally primed to feel avoidant were less likely than those primed to feel secure to choose to receive feedback about how another person felt about them. Overall, the research suggests that choices of socially diagnostic versus socially nondiagnostic situations play an important role in guiding people's social relationships.     

A grotesque and dark beauty: How moral identity and mechanisms of moral disengagement influence cognitive and emotional reactions to war

Two studies examine the extent to which moral identity and moral disengagement jointly drive reactions to war. Study 1 finds support for a hypothesized positive relationship between moral disengagement and the perceived morality of a highly punitive response to the perpetuators of the September 11th attacks. It also finds that this effect was eliminated for participants who place high self-importance on their moral identities. Study 2 finds that moral disengagement effectively reduced the extent to which participants experienced negative emotions in reaction to abuses of Iraqi detainees by American soldiers; however, the effectiveness of moral disengagement was negated when participants’ moral identities were primed.     

Close relationships and the working self-concept: implicit and explicit effects of priming attachment on agency and communion

Two studies investigated how contextually activating attachment relationships influences the working self-concept in terms of agency and communion. In Study 1, 245 participants were primed with a secure, avoidant, or anxious-ambivalent relationship and the implicit accessibility of agency and communion was assessed using word fragments. Activating a secure relationship increased the accessibility of communion, whereas activating an anxious-ambivalent relationship increased the accessibility of agency. In Study 2, 123 participants were primed with a secure, preoccupied, avoidant-dismissive, or avoidant-fearful relationship and explicit self-perceptions of agency and communion traits were assessed using the Extended Personality Attributes Questionnaire (EPAQ). Gender interacted with the attachment prime, such that men primed with a secure relationship reported higher communion than did men primed with an avoidant (dismissive or fearful) relationship, whereas women primed with an anxious (preoccupied or fearful) relationship reported higher agency than did women primed with a secure relationship.     

The effects of priming legal concepts on perceived trust and competitiveness, self-interested attitudes, and competitive behavior

Socio-legal scholars have suggested that, as a ubiquitous social system, law shapes social reality and provides interpretive frameworks for social relations. Across five studies, we tested the idea that the law shapes social reality by fostering the assumptions that people are self-interested, untrustworthy, and competitive. In Studies 1 and 2, we found that people implicitly associated legal concepts with competitiveness. Studies 3-5 showed that these associations had implications for social perceptions, self-interested attitudes, and competitive behavior. After being primed with constructs related to the law, participants perceived social actors as less trustworthy and the situation as more competitive (Study 3), became more against a political issue when it conflicted with their normative self-interest (Study 4), and made more competitive choices during a prisoner’s dilemma game when they believed that social relations were basically zero-sum in nature (Study 5). The implications and applications of these results are discussed.     

Interpersonal consequences of forgiveness: Does forgiveness deter or encourage repeat offenses?

Benefits of forgiveness have been well documented, but past research has not directly addressed the crucial question of whether forgiveness deters or invites repeat transgressions. Our research indicates that expressing forgiveness typically discourages future offenses. In Study 1, participants playing a form of the prisoner’s dilemma game were more likely to repeat their transgressions against unforgiving victims than forgiving victims, especially when victims had no chance to retaliate. In response to a hypothetical scenario presented in Study 2, participants reported that they would be less likely to risk offending someone for a second time if that person had forgiven their first offense. In Study 3, participants’ autobiographical recollections of their prior transgressions revealed that receiving forgiveness predicted higher repentance motivation.     

Adult attachment and preemptive defenses: converging evidence on the role of defensive exclusion at the level of encoding

The objective of this research was to determine whether the tendency of highly avoidant adults not to recall attachment-related information is best explained through defensive strategies that operate on encoding or retrieval processes. In Study 1 participants listened to an emotionally evocative recording and were given both explicit and implicit tests of their memory for the material. Compared to less avoidant people, highly avoidant people recalled fewer details from the recording and performed worse on an implicit test of their memory for the information. In Study 2 we manipulated people's motivation to retrieve information from memory by offering participants a monetary award for recall. Highly avoidant people recalled less information than less-avoidant people despite the monetary incentive. Taken together, these results suggest that the relative inability of avoidant adults to recall attachment-related information is due to the defensive exclusion of information at the time of encoding rather than the time of retrieval.     

Threat and defense as goal regulation: from implicit goal conflict to anxious uncertainty, reactive approach motivation, and ideological extremism

Four studies investigated a goal regulation view of anxious uncertainty threat (Gray & McNaughton, 2000) and ideological defense. Participants (N = 444) were randomly assigned to have achievement or relationship goals implicitly primed. The implicit goal primes were followed by randomly assigned achievement or relationship threats that have reliably caused generalized, reactive approach motivation and ideological defense in past research. The threats caused anxious uncertainty (Study 1), reactive approach motivation (Studies 2 and 3), and reactive ideological conviction (Study 4) only when threat-relevant goals had first been primed, but not when threat-irrelevant goals had first been primed. Reactive ideological conviction (Study 4) was eliminated if participants were given an opportunity to attribute their anxiety to a mundane source. Results support a goal regulation view of anxious uncertainty, threat, and defense with potential for integrating theories of defensive compensation.     

Attachment and cognitive openness: Emotional underpinnings of intellectual humility

Abstract

The present research begins to fill an important gap in the current literature about intellectual humility (IH) by investigating how an understanding of emotion, emotion regulation, and attachment are crucial to understanding IH, particularly in the arena in which IH may matter most: heated interpersonal disagreement. The primary aim of this research is to investigate the relationship between attachment orientation and cognitive openness – an indication of IH. Study 1 found that participants primed in a secure attachment condition demonstrated significantly greater cognitive openness to counterarguments with regard to (a)theistic belief than those in an ambivalent priming condition. Those identified as secure in their enduring dispositional attachment orientation exhibited significantly higher trait openness than those categorized as avoidant. Study 2 found that attachment anxiety, emotional valence, and the rated intelligence of an interlocutor significantly predicted participants’ openness to hear more counterarguments.     

Interacting with women can impair men’s cognitive functioning

The present research tested the prediction that mixed-sex interactions may temporarily impair cognitive functioning. Two studies, in which participants interacted either with a same-sex or opposite-sex other, demonstrated that men’s (but not women’s) cognitive performance declined following a mixed-sex encounter. In line with our theoretical reasoning, this effect occurred more strongly to the extent that the opposite-sex other was perceived as more attractive (Study 1), and to the extent that participants reported higher levels of impression management motivation (Study 2). Implications for the general role of interpersonal processes in cognitive functioning, and some practical implications, are discussed.