Don't hate me because I'm beautiful: Anti-attractiveness bias in organizational evaluation and decision making

Within organizational judgment and decision making contexts, biases based on an evaluated person's attractiveness are among the most salient and frequently investigated. An enormous amount of research indicates favoritism for attractive people compared to unattractive ones. The current research demonstrates that the nature of this bias depends on whether one is evaluating a member of the same sex or the opposite sex. Experiment 1 (n = 2639) investigated selection of scholarship applicants and demonstrated that a pro-attractiveness bias held only for selection of opposite-sex scholarship applicants; no such bias was observed for highly attractive same-sex applicants. Experiment 2 (n = 622) investigated evaluations of prospective job candidates and demonstrated again that pro-attractiveness bias was observed only for opposite-sex candidates; participants discriminated against highly attractive same-sex candidates. Moreover, this bias was not observed among highly attractive participants; it held only for moderately attractive participants, those for whom highly attractive same-sex individuals can pose especially potent social threats. Findings suggest that attractiveness biases in organizational decision making are rooted partly in the social threats and opportunities afforded by attractive people.     

Prejudice in person memory: Self‐threat biases memories of stigmatized group members

The present research investigated whether self‐threat biases memory via retrieval‐induced forgetting. Results show that people under self‐threat whose goal is to restore their self‐worth by making prejudicial judgments that deprecate others are more likely to exhibit an enhanced RIF effect for positive items and a reduced RIF for negative items ascribed to a stereotyped target (i.e., homosexual). Overall, the present findings are consistent with the view that motivation can affect the magnitude of RIF effects in person memory and that, in turn, they can serve as mechanisms for justifying desired conclusions.     

What you don’t know won’t hurt me: Costly (but quiet) exit in dictator games

We used simple economic games to examine pro-social behavior and the lengths that people will take to avoid engaging in it. Over two studies, we found that about one-third of participants were willing to “exit” a $10 dictator game and take $9 instead. The exit option left the receiver nothing, but also ensured that the receiver never knew that a dictator game was to be played. Because most social utility models are defined over monetary outcomes, they cannot explain choosing the ($9, $0) exit outcome over the dominating $10 dictator game, since the game includes outcomes of ($10, $0) and ($9, $1). We also studied exiting using a “private” dictator game. In the private game, the receiver never knew about the game or from where any money was received. Gifts in this game were added innocuously to a payment for a separate task. Almost no dictators exited from the private game, indicating that receivers’ beliefs are the key factor in the decision to exit. When, as in the private game, the receivers’ beliefs and expectations cannot be manipulated by exit, exit is seldom taken. We conclude that giving often reflects a desire not to violate others’ expectations rather than a concern for others’ welfare per se. We discuss the implications of our results for understanding ethical decisions and for testing and modeling social preferences. An adequate specification of social preferences should include “psychological” payoffs that directly incorporate beliefs about actions into the utility function.     

Don’t be afraid of the General Factor of Personality (GFP): Its relationship with behavioral inhibition and anxiety symptoms in children

Two studies examined the relationship between the General Factor of Personality (GFP) and behavioral inhibition and anxiety symptoms in primary school children. The GFP is assumed to reflect effectiveness in interaction with others. In Study 1, using self-reports and parent ratings of 226 non-clinical children, we found GFP scores to be negatively related to behavioral inhibition and anxiety symptoms. In Study 2 we compared non-clinical children (N = 81) with children with anxiety disorders (N = 45). In both groups we obtained child and parent ratings. The clinically referred children scored significantly lower on the GFP than the non-clinical children. Moreover, as in Study 1, higher GFP scores were associated with lower levels of behavioral inhibition and anxiety symptoms. The two studies support the view that the GFP is a relevant construct in anxiety proneness and anxiety problems.     

Anger in Wikipedia: Perceived intentionality and threat appraisal as mediators of anger about man‐made attacks

The online encyclopedia Wikipedia has established strict guidelines for the objectivity of content. At the same time, Wikipedia includes articles on negative events, such as disasters or man‐made attacks. These events can elicit strong emotions, which in turn may spill over into Wikipedia articles. Previous research has shown that Wikipedia articles on man‐made attacks contain more anger‐related content than Wikipedia articles on disasters. Building on these findings, we aimed to investigate whether the threat that Wikipedia authors experience when they learn of an attack is relevant as a factor in explaining the anger effect. Threat is known to elicit active and engaged reactions, such as anger, which is why it is a likely explaining factor. Our research also aimed to replicate the findings from the linguistic analysis of the Wikipedia articles using controlled scenario‐based laboratory experiments. Three studies demonstrated that man‐made attacks (terrorist attack, shooting rampage) elicited more threat, more anger, and more expressions of anger‐related content in Wikipedia texts than nature‐made disasters (earthquake, flood) and man‐made disasters (train accident). Moreover, threat was relevant as a factor in explaining the effects on anger and anger‐related content in the Wikipedia texts. These mediations could be explained by the perceived intentionality of the event. This research highlights the findings that perceived intentionality and threat are relevant mediating factors for feelings and expressions of anger after man‐made attacks.