Need for social approval: Impression management or self-deception?

A bogus pipeline technique was employed to separate the self- and other-deceptive components in social desirability responding and need for social approval. The self- and the other-deceptive components of social desirability responding were found to be independent of each other but to be positively and independently related to individual differences in need for approval score. Self-deceptive persons demonstrated diminished recall while other-deceptive persons exhibited enhanced recall of negatively evaluative characteristics. Such differential association with repressive and sensitizing defensive styles is discussed within the context of defensive denial and impression management conception of approval motivation.     

Sex offender community notification: managing high risk criminals or exacting further vengeance?

The current trend in dealing with convicted sex offenders is to impose long prison sentences followed by stringent release conditions. Added to this practice has been the policy of making such offenders who have been returned to society more visible to the public. In state after state, sex offender community notification laws have been passed, enabling communities to be put on notice that a convicted sex offender has become a resident. To date there has been little empirical evidence regarding the impact of these laws on managing sex offenders in the community. This study focuses on the social and psychological effects of community notification on sex offender reintegration within those communities where notification has occurred. Data are derived from face-to-face interviews with 30 convicted sex offenders, residing in various locations throughout Wisconsin, who were the subjects of community notification. The findings indicate that community notification can have a critical impact on the minimum essentials needed for the reintegration of offenders within the community. What is proposed is a reintegrative approach which suggests that stable housing and employment would mitigate the disruptive and antitherapeutic effects of community notification.     

Impression Management Behavior in Assessment Centers: Artificial Behavior or Much Ado About Nothing?

Candidates’ assertive impression-management (IM) behaviors affect performance ratings during selection interviews, a finding that has caused some concern about selection interviews’ objectivity and accuracy. Similar effects have been proposed for assessment centers, yet research on IM in assessments centers is rare and inconclusive. This study uses trait-activation theory (Tett &; Guterman, 2000 Tett, R. P. and Guterman, H. A. 2000. Situation trait relevance, trait expression, and cross-situational consistency: Testing a principle of trait activation. Journal of Research in Personality, 34: 397–423. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) to predict how assertive IM-behaviors emerge and influence performance ratings during assessments centers. Results showed that candidates’ ingratiation behaviors related to observer ratings on the conceptually related AC-dimension cooperation, whereas self-promotion behaviors related to ratings on the dimensions leadership and planning. Furthermore, assertive IM behaviors during the assessment center construct-related validity and correlated significantly with candidates’ performance in non-evaluative situations. Consequently, assertive IM behaviors in personnel selection may pose less of a threat than frequently assumed but may partially reflect a behavioral manifestation of candidates’ underlying interindividual differences.     

Nice or smart? Task relevance of self-characteristics moderates interpersonal projection

Two studies investigated the impact of trait relevance to a specific task on people's projection of their characteristics onto a cooperative partner. We either measured (Study 1) or manipulated (Study 2) the relevance of a trait to a specific cooperative task. In both studies, participants first rated themselves on a list of traits. Then they imagined completing a cooperative task with an unknown partner. Finally, they rated the partner on the same list of traits. In Study 1, we found partner ratings to be positively influenced by self ratings and the idiosyncratic measure of trait relevance. In Study 2, participants rated the self and the partner on competence and warmth traits while completing an intellectual or a social task. We found partner ratings to be positively influenced by self ratings more on competence than on warmth in the intellectual task, but more on warmth than on competence in the social task. These results suggest that people project onto others in a way that maximizes their chances to succeed in cooperation.     

Machiavellian managers: Do they perform better?

This study investigates the relationship between Machiavellianism and job performance, as measured by sales per square foot, gross margin percentage, and inventory turnover, among 60 retail store managers. Except for a significant relationship between male store managers' gross margin percentage no other relationships were observed between Machiavellianism and job performance. Several explanations for the absence of significant relationships were discussed.     

Divergent viewpoints about lineups: What policy for the identification of criminals?

IntroductionA fair lineup is needed to maximize the likelihood of correct identification of the criminal and minimize the likelihood of mistaken identification. Fairness depends on distractor plausibility and the lineup method (i.e., simultaneous or sequential).ObjectiveThis paper aims to evaluate the advantages and the limits of distractor plausibility and the presentation of the lineup members, and thus show the best method to ensure correct identification.MethodOur conclusions are based on the major experiments published in the field and on recent debates in the scientific community.Results and conclusionIn addition to distractor plausibility, our conclusions, which are based on previous work by Malpass (2006), suggest that sequential and simultaneous lineups are complementary rather than opposed. The paper argues that two tools specifically designed for and adapted to particular situations are better than one.     

Intelligence and Prosocial Behavior: Do Smart Children Really Act Nice?

Results of previous studies of the relationship between prosocial behavior and intelligence have been inconsistent. This study attempts to distinguish the differences between several prosocial tasks, and explores the ways in which cognitive ability influences prosocial behavior. In Study One and Two, we reexamined the relationship between prosocial behavior and intelligence by employing a costly signaling theory with four games. The results revealed that the prosocial level of smarter children is higher than that of other children in more complicated tasks but not so in simple tasks. In Study Three, we tested the moderation effect of the average intelligence across classes, and the results did not show any group intelligence effect on the relationship between intelligence and prosocial behavior.     

Passion or Perjury: Center or Circumference?

Are all transcendental claims a lost cause because they can have no objective empirical truth? Or does the transcendent still move among us as immanent, and, if so, how so? The question of ultimacy and the validity of the symbolic is considered through the views of Paul Ricoeur and Carl Jung.     

How serious a fallacy is inconsistency?

Consistency is often pictured as an indispensable requisite for rationality. The paper argues that this is overly rigoristic. Inconsistency can be treated as a matter of isolable singularities rather than an all-destructive disaster. The paper, supports and illustrates a perspective on which consistency can be seen as a desideratum rather than a totaly non-negotiable demand. The argumentation of the paper casts consistency in the role of a cognitive ideal rather than a sine qua non condition of rational process.     

How serious are common childhood fears?

OBJECTIVE: The present study examined the clinical status of common childhood fears. METHOD: Fears of the 290 children aged 8 to 13 years were assessed and then their severity was explored by means of a structured diagnostic interview measuring anxiety disorders according to the criteria of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). RESULTS: Childhood fears reflect significant anxiety disorders in a substantial minority (i.e. 22.8%) of the children. CONCLUSIONS: In most children, childhood fears are part of the normal development. However, in some children, these fears reflect serious anxiety problems which interfere with daily routine.     

Gurus and Devotees: Guides or Gods? Pathology or Faith?

This research investigated whether individuals who were members of a religious group in which they participated in a guru-devotee relationship differ in particular psychological and developmental ways (the need to be mirrored, the need to idealize, and retrospective perceptions of styles of having been parented) from individuals who were members of other groups, religious or non-religious. One hundred and eight subjects were drawn from three groups: (a) a Hindu based guru-devotee group, (b) a Unitarian Universalist Church with a non-hierarchical polity, and (c) a non-religious group, a computer company. Subjects were men and women ranging in age from 23 to 83. Each completed the Goal Instability and Superiority Scales (GIS) the Parental Authority Questionnaire (PAQ) and a demographics questionnaire. Results demonstrated no statistically significant differences among the groups on the measures of idealizing, mirroring, and perceived styles of having been parented, thus challenging the conventionally held belief that guru-devotee involvement is indicative of pathology. Private practice in     

Impression management and overclaiming on job applications: Related to future sales performance?

Despite decades of research on the role of socially desirable responding (SDR) in hiring contexts, it remains unclear whether job applicant SDR is related to future employee performance. Drawing on a large sample of 1,084 retail sales employees and their original job application data, this study examined the predictive validity of two operationalizations of SDR: (a) impression management captured using a personality scale and (b) overclaiming familiarity with a list of products that were directly relevant to the job. Neither measure was used to inform the hiring decisions. Results showed that job applicant impression management and overclaiming were unrelated to four indicators of future sales performance as employees. Implications for organizational selection policies involving applicant SDR are discussed.     

Perception: Mirror-Image or Action?

In the article two viewpoints on the mind’s influence on perception are considered. One of them was developed on the assumption that perception is a nonproblematic source of knowledge about the world, which is free from mind’s influence—perception as a mirror-image. Another viewpoint is perception as action, i.e. active search and gathering the relevant information, its processing and evaluation. First viewpoint has dominated in philosophy for a long time, the second one has been developing in psychology from the 80th of the 20th century. The aim of the paper is to examine some philosophically significant corollaries from both positions concerning objectiveness, epistemological status of an observation, truth, meaning of name. Analysis showed that perception as action is non-compatible with many traditional concepts, and it goes both against empiricism and against realism as it involves some critical arguments, e.g. theory ladenness of observations, underdetermination of theory by facts, the historical development of a scientific fact.     

Poverty: absolute or relative?

ABSTRACT In recent decades poverty has been defined as a relative rather than absolute notion. Those in poverty have been seen as poor relative to a level of income, or social condition, accepted as average or normal for a society. Poverty has been redefined as 'relative deprivation'. This paper argues, first, that the redefinition of poverty as relative to social norms is a radical departure from the traditional notion of poverty. Secondly, it considers whether such a redefinition gives support to the view that the claims of those in poverty (relative) may be considered as morally equivalent to the claims of those in poverty (absolute). The paper concludes by arguing that the notion of relative poverty is advanced to give support to social and economic policies whose primary aim is equality rather than the relief of poverty.     

Grounding: Necessary or Contingent?

Recent interest in the nature of grounding is due in part to the idea that purely modal notions are too coarse‐grained to capture what we have in mind when we say that one thing is grounded in another. Grounding not being purely modal in character, however, is compatible with it having modal consequences. Is grounding a necessary relation? In this article I argue that the answer is ‘yes’ in the sense that propositions corresponding to full grounds modally entail propositions corresponding to what they ground. The argument proceeds upon two substantive principles: the first is that there is a broadly epistemic constraint on grounding, while the second links this constraint with Fine's Aristotelian notion of essence. Many think grounding is necessary in something like the sense specified above, but just why it's necessary is an issue that hasn't been carefully addressed. If my argument is successful, we now know why grounding is necessary.