Why Do People Join Groups? Three Motivational Accounts from Social Psychology

This paper describes and contrasts three contemporary social psychological theories that focus on why people join and identify with groups: the sociometer model, terror management theory, and uncertainty–identity theory. The sociometer model argues that people have a need to be socially included, and that self‐esteem is a meter of successful inclusion and group belonging. Terror management theory argues that people are motivated to reduce fear of the inevitability of their own death, and that the consensual belief–confirmation provided by groups drives people to belong. Uncertainty–identity theory argues that people have a basic need to reduce uncertainty about themselves, their attributes, and their place in the world, and that cognitive processes associated with group identification reduce such uncertainty. We critically contrast these three accounts to conclude that all three motivational processes may play a role, but that self‐uncertainty may have the benefit of wide generality to all groups and group contexts and of detailed specification of cognitive processes.     

What Do People Infer from Social Comparisons? Bridges between Social Comparison and Person Perception

Human judgment is basically comparative, with self‐judgments in particular being based on social comparison. Not surprisingly, much research has focused on how self‐comparisons shape comparers’ self‐views on the specific comparison dimension. We argue that both comparers and observers may, and do, draw various other inferences and that they do so from both self‐comparisons and other‐comparisons. In both cases they may draw inferences from (a) the fact that social comparison has taken place, (b) the allocation of the target and referent roles, and (c) the stated relationship between the target and the referent. In order to show how exploring these inferences may lead social comparison research into new and exciting directions, we point out some unanswered questions about them.     

Why Do People Like Natural? Instrumental and Ideational Bases for the Naturalness Preference

Naturalness preference refers to the tendency to prefer natural things to otherwise equivalent unnatural alternatives. Previous research suggests that the naturalness preference is largely due to ideational reasons (moral or aesthetic appeals), rather than instrumental reasons (inferred functional superiority), because the natural and unnatural alternatives were specified as identical. The current studies showed that people do not always believe that natural and unnatural alternatives can be identical. Responses that in previous studies would have been interpreted as ideational‐based naturalness preference were correlated with beliefs in instrumental advantages of natural products. We propose that instrumental and ideational reasons are closely connected, and instrumental beliefs may contribute to the “natural is better” heuristic. The financial consequence of naturalness preference was also demonstrated.     

Why Ask,Why Tell? Teaching and Learning about Lesbians and Gays in Family Therapy

The article by J.K. Long (1996) in this issue of Family Process helps puncture the conventional secrecy around homosexuality, challenging the silence of many supervisors. In this commentary, I will expand on the themes raised by Long and offer some tangible steps we can take to teach and learn about lesbians/gays in couples and families.     

Why Teach Literature and Medicine? Answers from Three Decades

In this essay, I look back at some of the earliest attempts by the first generation of literature-and-medicine scholars to answer the question: Why teach literature and medicine? Reviewing the development of the field in its early years, I examine statements by practitioners to see whether their answers have held up over time and to consider how the rationales they articulated have expanded or changed in the following years and why. Greater emphasis on literary criticism, narrative ethics, narrative theory, and reflective writing has influenced current work in the field in ways that could not have been foreseen in the 1970s. The extraordinary growth of interest and work in the field nationally and, especially since 1996, internationally has included practitioners in many additional areas such as disability studies, film studies, therapeutic writing, and trauma studies. Along with the emergence of narrative medicine, this diverse community of scholars and practitioners—affiliated more through their use of narrative methodologies than the teaching of literature—makes the perennial challenge of evaluation and assessment even more complicated.     

Community Psychology: Where Do We Go from Here?

Following a developmental analogy, community psychology may be experiencing a mid-life crisis as it enters middle age. The field needs to determine where to go from here. This paper argues that the field should attempt to expand. Expansion can best be accomplished by celebrating the diversity of orientations within the field (e.g., those emphasizing prevention, empowerment, and the ecological perspective) and the wide range of human problems of interest to community psychologists. To promote expansion of the field, community psychologists need to seek out relationships with diverse groups, such as the international community, those working in applied settings, ethnic minorities, and students and early-career professionals.     

What Do People Want to Feel and Why?: Pleasure and Utility in Emotion Regulation

ABSTRACT— It is typically assumed that people always want to feel good. Recent evidence, however, demonstrates that people want to feel unpleasant emotions, such as anger or fear, when these emotions promote the attainment of their long-term goals. If emotions are regulated for instrumental reasons, people should want to feel pleasant emotions when immediate benefits outweigh future benefits, but when future benefits outweigh immediate benefits, people may prefer to feel useful emotions, even if they are unpleasant. In this article, I describe an instrumental account of emotion regulation, review empirical evidence relevant to it, and discuss its implications for promoting adaptive emotional experiences.     

Why Do People Hurt Themselves?: New Insights Into the Nature and Functions of Self-Injury

ABSTRACT— Nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) is a prevalent but perplexing behavior problem in which people deliberately harm themselves without lethal intent. Research reveals that NSSI typically has its onset during early adolescence; most often involves cutting or carving the skin; and appears equally prevalent across sexes, ethnicities, and socioeconomic statuses. Less is known about why people engage in NSSI. This article presents a theoretical model of the development and maintenance of NSSI. Rather than a symptom of mental disorder, NSSI is conceptualized as a harmful behavior that can serve several intrapersonal (e.g., affect regulation) and interpersonal (e.g., help-seeking) functions. Risk of NSSI is increased by general factors that contribute to problems with affect regulation or interpersonal communication (e.g., childhood abuse) and by specific factors that influence the decision to use NSSI rather than some other behavior to serve these functions (e.g., social modeling). This model synthesizes research from several different areas of the literature and points toward several lines of research needed to further advance the understanding of why people hurt themselves.     

Ruminations and Flow: Why Do People with a More Harmonious Passion Experience Higher Well-Being?

Research shows that harmonious and obsessive passion are positively and negatively linked to well-being respectively (e.g., Vallerand et al. in J Personal 75:505?C534, 2007; Psychol Sport Exerc 9:373?C392, 2008). The present study investigated the psychological mechanisms underlying the different impact of the two types of passion on well-being. A theoretical model involving passion, ruminations, flow experiences, and well-being was tested. Results showed that the more people have a harmonious passion, the more they tend to experience flow in their favorite activity, which in turn predicts higher well-being. Obsessive passion did not seem to be systematically linked to flow in the favorite activity. In contrast, the more people have an obsessive passion, the more they tend to ruminate about their passionate activity while engaging in another activity, which did not seem to be systematically the case for people with a harmonious passion. These ruminations are negatively related to flow experiences in the other activity, which are positively associated with well-being. Flow and ruminations thus seem to contribute to the understanding of the link between passion and well-being.     

Why Do Certain States of Affairs Call Out for Explanation? A Critique of Two Horwichian Accounts

Philosophia - Motivated by examples, many philosophers believe that there is a significant distinction between states of affairs that are striking and therefore call for explanation and states of...     

How Do Social Structures Become Taken for Granted? Social Reproduction in Calm and Crisis

Human Studies - This paper identifies experiential processes through which social structures become taken for granted, termed processes of “structure marginalization”. Passive processes...     

Why Do People Save? Attitudes to,and Habits of Saving Money in Britain

This study investigates the relationship between demographic (age, sex, education, vote, and income), psychological beliefs (alienation, Protestant Work Ethic, and conservatism), and attitudes toward, as well as habits of, saving money, in Britain. Over 250 people from a variety of backgrounds completed a number of standardized self-report measures. A factor analysis of the attitude toward saving scale revealed five clearly interpretable factors, which were later computed into five subscale scores. Analysis of variance showed that age and education most differentiated subjects' attitudes toward saving. A canonical correlational analysis showed age, vote, income, and alienation were clearly related to various attitude toward saving factors. Analysis of the saving habits questionnaire showed that sex, age, and income were among the most important discriminators of saving habits. These results are discussed in terms of economic socialization and various social policy decisions are considered.     

Where To From Here for the Psychology of Social Change? Future Directions for Theory and Practice

For a vibrant and viable psychology of social change it is necessary to examine its place and contribution to the societal processes it seeks to understand, explain, and (potentially) affect. In this article, we first consider the impact that research and theorizing on social change (should) have and related issues of how we communicate about our work (and to whom) and dilemmas around researchers being active participants in the change process. Second, we consider emerging trends in the field and comment on meta‐theoretical and “meta‐methodological” issues in going forward, including the interaction between individual and society, having theoretical models of the person that allow us to account for such an interaction, as well as rethinking our methodology and ways of “doing” psychology to better reflect people's experiences of mobilization and participation. In line with the proposed rethinking of our theories and methods, the final section introduces a new paradigm for investigating the nexus of social change and leadership dynamics. The overall aim of the article is to reflect on key questions and dilemmas facing the field and provide some starting points for debating and shaping its future.     

Pet Peeves and Happiness: How Do Happy People Complain?

The present study was designed to investigate the relationships among mindfulness, happiness, and the expression of pet peeves. Previous research has established a positive correlation between happiness and mindfulness, but, to date, no research has examined how each of these variables is related to complaining in the form of pet peeves. Four hundred ten male and female college students listed the pet peeves they had with a current or former relationship partner. They also completed measures of happiness, positive and negative affect, depression, mindfulness, relationship satisfaction, and satisfaction with life. Pet peeves were negatively correlated with relationship satisfaction, well-being, and mindfulness. Consistent with hypotheses, support was found for the mediating role of mindfulness in the relationship between happiness and pet peeves.     

How Do Groups Work? Age Differences in Performance and the Social Outcomes of Peer Collaboration

Do children derive different benefits from group collaboration at different ages? In the present study, 183 children from two age groups (8.8  and 13.4 years) took part in a class quiz as members of a group, or individually. In some groups, cohesiveness was made salient by awarding prizes to the top performing groups. In other groups, prizes were awarded to the best performing individuals. Findings, both in terms of social outcomes and performance in the quiz, indicated that the 8‐year olds viewed the benefits of group membership in terms of the opportunities to receive information from other members. The 13‐year olds, in contrast, viewed group collaboration as a constructive process where success was connected with group cohesiveness.     

Why Do Some Owners Allow Their Dogs to Foul the Pavement? The Social Psychology of a Minor Rule Infraction1

This study combines observational, attitudinal, and self‐report measures, and compares a group of irresponsible dog owners who allow their dogs to foul with a control group of responsible owners who clean up after their dogs. The owners are compared on a variety of attitudinal and personal orientation measures. We observed 101 instances of dog fouling in both park and pavement, and 87 respondents subsequently returned questionnaires. The majority (59%) of people observed cleaned up after their dogs. The irresponsible owners were significantly more tolerant of fouling (dog feces were seen as natural waste and biodegradable) and were more likely to agree that the laws were illegitimate and restrictive.     

Commentary: Why Do Research on Spirituality and Health, and What Do the Results Mean?

I address two related questions in this article. First, why conduct research on religion/spirituality (R/S) and health? Second, what are the dangers of misinterpreting or misapplying the results from such research? If relationships are found, so what? What is the practical value or clinical relevance of such information? Why should investigators spend time and scarce financial resources to explore such connections? What might health care professionals do differently as a result? How would people live their lives differently in light of such information? Questions like these need solid answers for the field to continue to move forward. Related to the "So what?" question is the issue of how results from research in this area are translated into popular understanding and application. After discussing why conducting research on religion and health is important, I identify a recently published research report that focuses on the relationship between R/S and self-control, an article that received considerable media press coverage. I present the results reported by the authors of this study and then examine a column written about the study that appeared in the New York Times. Finally, I explore what the findings mean, how the media portrayed the findings, and problems that might result depending on how people applied those findings.