Power of the desired self: Influence of induced perceptions of the self on reasoning

This research shows that the motivation to posses a desired characteristic (or to avoid an undesired one) results in self-perceptions that guide people’s use of base rate in the Lawyer–Engineer problem (Kahneman & Tversky, 1973). In four studies, participants induced to believe (or recall, Exp. 2) that a rational cognitive style is success-conducive (or an intuitive cognitive style failure-conducive) subsequently viewed themselves as more rational and relied more on base rate in their probability estimates than those induced to believe that a rational cognitive style is failure-conducive (or an intuitive cognitive style success-conducive). These findings show that the desired self had an influence on reasoning in the self-unrelated lawyer–engineer task, since the use of base rates was mediated by changes in participants’ perceptions of their own rationality. These findings therefore show that the desired self, through the working self-concept that it entails, constitutes another factor influencing people’s use of distinct modes of reasoning.     

Moving memories: Behavioral synchrony and memory for self and others

Establishing and maintaining connections with others is central to a fulfilling social life. In this respect, behavioral coordination provides one avenue by which interpersonal linkages can be formed. Drawing from the dynamical systems approach, the present research explored whether temporary interpersonal connections founded on coordinated behavior influence memory for self and others. To do so, we measured participants’ incidental recall of self and other-relevant information after a period of either in-phase or anti-phase interpersonal coordination. While participants in the less stable anti-phase condition demonstrated the typical memory advantage for self-related compared to other-related information, this effect was eliminated when participant and confederate movements displayed in-phase coordination. These results are discussed with respect to the interplay between the systems that support interpersonal synchrony and basic social-cognitive processing.     

Is social projection based on simulation or theory? Why new methods are needed for differentiating

The literature on social cognition reports many instances of a phenomenon titled ‘social projection’ or ‘egocentric bias’. These terms indicate egocentric predictions, i.e., an over-reliance on the self when predicting the cognition, emotion, or behavior of other people. The classic method to diagnose egocentric prediction is to establish high correlations between our own and other people's cognition, emotion, or behavior. We argue that this method is incorrect because there is a different way to come to a correlation between own and predicted states, namely, through the use of theoretical knowledge. Thus, the use of correlational measures is not sufficient to identify the source of social predictions. Based on the distinction between simulation theory and theory theory, we propose the following alternative methods for inferring prediction strategies: independent vs. juxtaposed predictions, the use of ‘hot’ mental processes, and the use of participants’ self-reports.     

道德自我调节对亲社会行为和违规行为的影响

本文通过两个研究探讨道德自我调节对亲社会行为和违规行为的影响。研究一中,被试随机分为三组,分别抄写“正性特质词语”“负性特质词语”或“中性词语”,并回忆自己所经历的与关键词有关的事情。启动完成后,考察其捐助行为。结果发现,正性特质启动组被试愿意捐助的数目显著高于负性特质和中性词语启动组。研究二用同样的方法改变被试的道德自我知觉,然后对被试的作弊行为进行了考察。结果发现,正性特质启动组的作弊严重程度显著低于中性词语启动组,负性特质启动组的作弊发生率和作弊严重程度显著低于中性词语启动组。本研究表明,道德自我调节过程不一定遵循负反馈机制：虽然“道德净化效应”在本研究中得到了部分验证,但是我们的实验结果不符合“道德许可效应”的预期。     

A case of hand waving: Action synchrony and person perception

While previous research has demonstrated that people’s movements can become coordinated during social interaction, little is known about the cognitive consequences of behavioral synchrony. Given intimate links between the systems that regulate perception and action, we hypothesized that the synchronization of movements during a dyadic interaction may prompt increased attention to be directed to an interaction partner, hence facilitate the information that participants glean during a social exchange. Our results supported this prediction. Incidental memories for core aspects of a brief interaction were facilitated following in-phase behavioral synchrony. Specifically, participants demonstrated enhanced memory for an interaction partner’s utterances and facial appearance. These findings underscore the importance of action perception to social cognition.     

The typical student as an in‐group member: eliminating optimistic bias by reducing social distance

While demonstrations of optimistic bias are plentiful, successful attempts at eliminating the bias (debiasing) are rare. The current study attempted to debias by reducing the perceived social distance between the self and the typical own university student. Using self‐categorisation theory, it was predicted that rating the out‐group target (the typical student at another university) before the in‐group one would reduce the perceived social distance between the self and the latter and lead to a reduction in optimistic bias. Both predictions were supported, with optimistic bias being eliminated for negative events and attenuated for positive events. In the standard optimistic bias condition (in‐group first) optimistic bias was obtained for both negative and positive events. The findings provide support for perceived social distance in determining optimistic bias. The implications for recent arguments that comparisons with an abstract target automatically evoke an ‘I am better than average’ heuristic or necessarily entail the use of distributional judgmental frameworks are explored. Whilst the automatic linking of abstract targets with heuristic or distributional thinking is called into question, a case is made for integrating these ideas with the self‐categorisation approach. Where practitioners aim to reduce optimistic bias, the findings suggest promoting the perception of the target as a fellow in‐group member may help do so. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

When ignorance is no excuse: Different roles for intent across moral domains

A key factor in legal and moral judgments is intent. Intent differentiates, for instance, murder from manslaughter. Is this true for all moral judgments? People deliver moral judgments of many kinds of actions, including harmful actions (e.g., assault) and purity violations (e.g., incest, consuming taboo substances). We show that intent is a key factor for moral judgments of harm, but less of a factor for purity violations. Based on the agent’s innocent intent, participants judged accidental harms less morally wrong than accidental incest; based on the agent’s guilty intent, participants judged failed attempts to harm more morally wrong than failed attempts to commit incest. These patterns were specific to moral judgments versus judgments of the agent’s control, knowledge, or intent, the action’s overall emotional salience, or participants’ ratings of disgust. The current results therefore reveal distinct cognitive signatures of distinct moral domains, and may inform the distinct functional roles of moral norms.     

Perceptions of morality and competence in (non)interdependent games

Individuals’ actions and their stated beliefs affect how others perceive them. In a prisoner’s dilemma, a defector who expects others to cooperate is perceived as less moral than a defector who expects others to defect; a cooperator who expects others to defect is perceived as less competent than a cooperator who expects others to cooperate (Experiment 1). This pattern suggests that in a context of interdependence, a stated expectation that the behavior of others will resemble one’s own may protect one’s social reputation. When outcomes are not interdependent, expectations do not moderate the effects of behavior on reputation (Experiment 2). In such a context, inductive reasoning is sufficient to explain social projection. Both types of results are replicated in a modified N-person social dilemma (Experiment 3), further validating the inductive-reasoning hypothesis.     

My face or yours? Event-related potential correlates of self-face processing

The neural basis of self-recognition is mainly studied using brain-imaging techniques which reveal much about the localization of self-processing in the brain. There are comparatively few studies using EEG which allow us to study the time course of self-recognition. In this study, participants monitored a sequence of images, including 20 distinct images of their own face, a friend’s face and a stranger’s face articulating different speech sounds, while EEG was recorded from 64 scalp electrodes. Differences in the ERP waveforms were observed very early on, with increased N170 and VPP amplitude to self relative to both friend and stranger measured over posterior and fronto-central sites, respectively. This ‘self effect’ was also marked at ∼250 ms where P2/N2 amplitude was significantly reduced for self-faces. By comparison, differences between friend and stranger faces did not emerge until 250 ms and beyond, where a more conventional ‘familiarity effect’ was observed. The data also point to a ‘less lateralized’ representation of self over posterior sites. These findings are consistent with both behavioral and fMRI studies which suggest that self-face processing is ‘special’ and are discussed with reference to EEG studies of face processing.     

Self‐evaluation and social comparison amongst adolescents with learning difficulties

Two studies are presented which examine self‐evaluation in adolescents with learning difficulties and how these adolescents strategically protect their self‐concept through the use of social comparison. Study one involved 145 adolescents with learning difficulties and the same number of non‐disabled adolescents aged between 11 to 16 years. All adolescents completed Harter's ‘Self Perception Profile for Children’ (SPPC). No significant overall differences were found between the self‐evaluations of the adolescents with learning difficulties and non‐disabled adolescents. In addition, adolescents with learning difficulties strategically devalued less favourable comparison dimensions and valued more positive comparison attributes. Study two utilized a four condition between‐groups design with a sample of 68 adolescents with learning difficulties. All participants completed the SPPC, but the availability of a social comparison group was systematically varied between conditions. The self‐evaluations made by adolescents changed significantly when the social comparison group made available was altered. The findings are discussed with regard to their theoretical implications and in terms of inclusion policies for adolescents with learning difficulties. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Self-evaluative effects of temporal and social comparison

Social and temporal comparisons are two fundamental information sources for evaluating one’s characteristics and abilities. The current study demonstrates that when social comparison (where people’s performance stood in the overall distribution) and temporal comparison (whether performance improved or deteriorated over time) information are both provided, each independently influences actors’ self-evaluations of task performance and ability. In contrast, yoked observer participants paid virtually no attention to temporal comparison information, preferring to evaluate actors based solely on their status relative to others. Furthermore, when the feedback actors received suggested that they were getting worse, their self-evaluation ratings were approximately equal to that of the observers who had access to the same information. However, when their fortunes improved over time, actors used this temporal information as a basis for evaluating themselves more favorably than observers. We argue that both egocentrism and self-enhancement account for the differences between actors’ and observers’ performance evaluations.     

Devaluation versus enhancement of attractive alternatives: a critical test using the calibration paradigm

The calibration paradigm was used to test the competing hypotheses that (a) commitment motivates unduly negative evaluations of attractive alternatives (devaluation) versus (b) low commitment motivates exaggerated positive evaluations of attractive alternatives (enhancement). Single participants and dating participants low and high in relationship commitment were presented with an attractive, available person of the opposite sex and asked to judge the person's romantic appeal from their own perspective or from the perspective of their friends. Contrary to predictions based on the enhancement hypothesis, single and low-commitment participants did not provide higher ratings from their own perspective. In support of devaluation and calibration hypotheses, committed participants did provide lower ratings from their own perspective. Singles did not rate the target less attractive in a third condition in which the target was unavailable. However, dating participants, regardless of commitment level, rated the unavailable alternative negatively, consistent with social comparison processes and interdependence theory.     

Explaining enduring empowerment: a comparative study of collective action and psychological outcomes

An ethnographic study of two crowd events was carried out in order to develop a hypothesis about the experience of empowerment in collective action. Qualitative comparison of an anti‐roads occupation and a mass eviction suggests that empowerment as an outcome of collective action is a function of the extent to which one's own action is understood as expressing social identity, a process we term collective self‐objectification. The comparison indicates that empowerment is not reducible to the experience of success. While both events came to be construed by participants as ‘victories’, their associated emotions (joy versus despair and anger) and rationales for future participation (confidence versus enhanced self‐legitimacy) were different. The relation between collective self‐objectification and self‐efficacy is discussed. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Blaming the Kids: Children's Agency and Diminished Responsibility

Children are less blameworthy for their beliefs and actions because they are young. But the relationship between development and responsibility is complex. What exactly grounds the excuses we rightly give to young agents? This article presents three distinct arguments for children's diminished responsibility. Drawing on significant resources from developmental psychology, it rejects views which base the normative adult/child distinction on children's inability to participate in certain kinds of moral communication or to form principled self‐conceptions which guide their actions. The article then argues that children's responsibility ought to be diminished because (and to the degree that) they are less competent at using features of their moral agency to meet social demands. This ‘normative competence’ view is philosophically defensible, supported by research in developmental psychology, and provides us with a method to evaluate whether things like peer pressure are relevant to responsibility.     

The higher they are,the harder they fall: The effects of wrongdoer status on observer punishment recommendations and intentionality attributions

In two studies, we explore whether the status of a wrongdoer affects observers’ attributions for the wrongdoer’s actions and opinions about the wrongdoer’s deserved punishment. We find that observers attribute greater intentionality to the actions of high status wrongdoers than the identical actions of low status wrongdoers, and consequently recommend more severe punishments for the former than the latter. Additionally, we find that the relationship between a wrongdoer’s status and observers’ attributions is driven by observers’ perceptions of the wrongdoer’s underlying social motives: high status wrongdoers are presumed to be more interested in their own welfare (self-concerned), and less interested in the welfare of others (other-concerned), than low status individuals. These findings have implications for the psychology of retributive justice, and suggest that punitive reactions may be influenced as much by characteristics of the criminal as they are by characteristics of the crime.     

Psychological group memberships as outcomes of resource distributions

We propose that people can and will infer group memberships from resource distributions, and that these distributions have implications for people's understandings of the groups themselves and their own associations with these groups. We derive hypotheses from social identity and self‐categorization theories, and test them in three experiments. In Experiment 1, participants systematically rated specific patterns of group memberships as more likely than others in light of specific resource distributions in a manner consistent with our predictions. In Experiment 2, intragroup distributive fairness led to greater perceived self‐in‐group similarity than intra‐group distributive unfairness, while distributively unfair, in‐group favouritism led to greater perceived self‐in‐group similarity than intergroup fairness. In Experiment 3, social identification dropped following unfair, out‐group favouritism and intragroup unfairness, but not unfair, in‐group favouritism, or intragroup and intergroup fairness. The current data provide support for our hypotheses and clear evidence that resource distributions can be providers of group membership information. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Keeping it real: self‐control depletion increases accuracy,but decreases confidence for performance

We propose that egotism about one's abilities may be related to good self‐regulation and a lack of self‐control may reduce estimations of aptitudes. Self‐control depletion should lead to more accurate and therefore less lofty predictions of future performances. In two experiments, self‐control depletion was manipulated by having participants either resist tempting cookies or by inhibiting thoughts about a white bear. In both cases, nondepleted participants made bolder predictions about their future performance on a video game than their depleted counterparts. Instead, depleted participants were more modest in their predictions and more accurate in their predictions than nondepleted participants. These findings suggest that depletion undermines self‐assurance in oneself, which may have implications for theories of depressive realism, accuracy, confidence, and goal setting.     

青少年网络不道德行为与父母教养方式的关系——道德脱离、责任心、道德同一性的中介作用

研究采用问卷法,对764名青少年进行测试,用结构方程模型检验了教养方式、责任心、道德同一性、道德脱离和网络不道德行为之间的关系模型。结果表明,拒绝型教养方式通过责任心、道德同一性和道德脱离的中介来间接影响网络不道德行为。责任心可以直接作用于网络不道德行为,也可以通过道德脱离的中介来影响网络不道德行为。道德同一性只能通过道德脱离来影响不道德行为。     

Self and Social Judgments of Ability: Beyond Distributional Information

ABSTRACT

In a given domain, low-skill individuals typically evaluate the ability level of other people more favorably than high-skill individuals. The current study tests whether this tendency continues to occur even when people have unambiguous distributional information available through which to judge others. Students received distributional information detailing their percentile rank in a statistics course and the percentile rank of another student in the course. Then, students were asked to evaluate their own and the other students' statistics ability. Students evaluated the other person's ability more favorably when their own rank in the course was low rather than high. Therefore, people may use themselves as a standard of comparison when they judge others even when more diagnostic sources of information are available.