Rankings,standards, and competition: Task vs. scale comparisons

Research showing how upward social comparison breeds competitive behavior has so far conflated local comparisons in task performance (e.g. a test score) with comparisons on a more general scale (i.e. an underlying skill). Using a ranking methodology ( Garcia, Tor, & Gonzalez, 2006) to separate task and scale comparisons, Studies 1–2 reveal that an upward comparison on the scale (e.g. being surpassed in rank), rather than in the mere task (e.g., being outperformed), is necessary to generate competition among rivals proximate to a standard (e.g. ranked #3 vs. 4, near “the top”); rivals far from a standard (e.g. ranked #203 vs. 204), on the other hand, still tend to cooperate. Study 3 illustrates this finding with player trades in Major League Baseball. Study 4 further shows how an implicit scale comparison, instead of the commonly assumed explicit task comparison, may account for those classical competition findings in the literature. Study 5 then reveals how scale ranking becomes all important in the proximity of a standard, leading rivals to tolerate even an upward scale comparison to increase their proximity to the standard. Implications for the increasingly popular “forced ranking” management systems (e.g., at General Electric) are also discussed.     

Thou shalt not discriminate: How emphasizing moral ideals rather than obligations increases Whites' support for social equality

An important step toward reducing group-based disparities in society is creating support for equality among advantaged group members (e.g., Whites and men). The current research examined how presenting social equality between ethnic groups in terms of moral ideals (i.e., equal treatment) vs. moral obligations (i.e., non-discrimination) affected the attitudes of Whites (students in Study 1, N = 45 and 2, N = 44 and employees in Study 3a, N = 67 and Study 3b, N = 62) toward various social equality issues. It was found that participants in the moral ideals condition reported more activation rather than inhibition tendencies regarding equality (Study 1), were more supportive of affirmative action (Study 2), indicated lower levels of social identity threat, and were more favorable toward cultural diversity which resulted in greater prioritization of equality (Study 3a) than those in the moral obligation condition. These effects did not arise when the ideals/obligations distinction was applied to a nonmoral domain (i.e., competence, Study 3b), underlining the central argument that these processes are specific to morality. The broader theoretical implications for morality and intergroup research are discussed.     

Natural categories: Well defined or fuzzy sets?

Thirty college students made category membership decisions for each of 540 candidate exemplar-category name pairs (e.g.,apple-fruit) in each of two separate sessions. For highly typical category members (e.g., chair for thefurniture category), and for items unrelated to a category (e.g.,cucumber-furniture), subjects agreed with each other and were consistent in their decisions. However, for intermediate-typicality items (e.g.,bookends-furniture), subjects disagreed with each other and were frequently inconsistent from one session to the next. These data suggest that natural categories are fuzzy sets, with no clear boundaries separating category members from nonmembers.     

Speeded induction under uncertainty: The influence of multiple categories and feature conjunctions

When people are uncertain about the category membership of an item (e.g., Is it a dog or a dingo?), research shows that they tend to rely only on the dominant or most likely category when making inductions (e.g., How likely is it to befriend me?). An exception has been reported using speeded induction judgments where participants appeared to use information from multiple categories to make inductions (Verde, Murphy, &; Ross, 2005). In two speeded induction studies, we found that participants tended to rely on the frequency with which features co-occurred when making feature predictions, independently of category membership. This pattern held whether categories were considered implicitly (Experiment 1) or explicitly (Experiment 2) prior to feature induction. The results converge with other recent work suggesting that people often rely on feature conjunction information, rather than category boundaries, when making inductions under uncertainty.     

Normative Social Role Concepts in Early Childhood

The current studies (N = 255, children ages 4–5 and adults) explore patterns of age‐related continuity and change in conceptual representations of social role categories (e.g., “scientist”). In Study 1, young children's judgments of category membership were shaped by both category labels and category‐normative traits, and the two were dissociable, indicating that even young children's conceptual representations for some social categories have a “dual character.” In Study 2, when labels and traits were contrasted, adults and children based their category‐based induction decisions on category‐normative traits rather than labels. Study 3 confirmed that children reason based on category‐normative traits because they view them as an obligatory part of category membership. In contrast, adults in this study viewed the category‐normative traits as informative on their own (not only as a cue to obligations). Implications for continuity and change in representations of social role categories will be discussed.     

Use of experienced retrieval ease in self and social judgments

People base judgments from memory on both the content of the information they retrieve and the ease they experience in retrieving it (Schwarz, N., Bless, H., Strack, F., Klumpp, G., Rittenauer-Schatka, H., & Simons, A. (1991). Ease of retrieval as information: another look at the availability heuristic. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 61, 195-202). Four studies demonstrate that people rely relatively more on the experienced ease of recall when making judgments about the self compared to judgments about others. This pattern was found for judgments of an “average” (Study 1a) or specific (Study 1b) other. Subjective retrieval ease was less informative when people were relatively less familiar with the specific other person. Providing an alternative explanation for the experienced difficulty of recall affected self, but not social, assessments (Study 2). In addition, the effect generalized to risk judgments about a state of the world; namely, the safety of one’s town (Study 3). A deeper appreciation of when and why people rely on different sources of accessible information when making judgments may help in understanding and reducing social conflict.     

Tainted recommendations: The social comparison bias

The present analysis reveals the social comparison bias – a bias that emerges from the social comparison process and taints recommendations. We hypothesize that people who have high standing on a relevant dimension (e.g., quantity of publications) begin to protect their social comparison context by making recommendations that prevent others, who might surpass them on the relevant dimension, from entering their comparison context. Studies 1 and 2 instantiate this effect in both hypothetical and real decision situations, showing that people tend not to recommend individuals who surpass them on the relevant dimension on which they have high standing. Finally, Study 3, in a sample of real employees, links the effect to one’s concern for protecting self-esteem. Theoretical and organizational implications are discussed.     

Predicting pleasure at others’ misfortune: Morality trumps sociability and competence in driving deservingness and schadenfreude

Schadenfreude occurs when people feel pleasure at others’ misfortunes. Previous research suggested that individuals feel such a malicious pleasure when the misfortune befalls social targets perceived as highly competent but lacking human warmth. Two experiments explored whether the two components of warmth (i.e., sociability and morality) have distinct roles in driving schadenfreude. Study 1 (N = 128) compared a competent but immoral individual to a competent but unsociable person and found that people felt more schadenfreude when a misfortune befell an individual lacking morality. Study 2 (N = 199) confirmed the primary role of morality in driving schadenfreude by manipulating not only morality and sociability, but also competence. Moreover, both experiments showed that social targets lacking moral qualities elicited higher levels of schadenfreude because their misfortunes were perceived as deserved. Overall, our findings suggest that morality has a primary role over other basic dimensions of person perception (i.e., sociability and competence) in driving schadenfreude.     

Beginning readers activate semantics from sub-word orthography

Two experiments assessed whether 7-year-old children activate semantic information from sub-word orthography. Children made category decisions to visually-presented words, some of which contained an embedded word (e.g., hip in ship). In Experiment 1 children were slower and less accurate to classify words if they contained an embedded word related in meaning to the category (e.g., slower to reject ship as a ‘body part’ than an ‘animal’), especially when the embedded word was higher in frequency than the carrier word. This demonstrates that young children activate semantic information from sub-word orthographic representations, and that they do so from the relatively early stages of learning to read. Experiment 2 replicated this effect. Furthermore, we observed semantic interference regardless of whether the embedded word shared its pronunciation with the carrier (e.g., the hip in ship) or not (e.g., the crow in crown), and regardless of its position within the carrier, suggesting that interference was not dependent on phonological mediation. These findings show that by 7-years-of age, children have begun to establish an orthographic system that is capable of activating sub-word orthographic patterns, strong enough to connect with meaning, when reading words silently.     

Do you two know each other? Transitivity, homophily, and the need for (network) closure

The authors investigate whether need for closure affects how people seek order in judging social relations. In Study 1, the authors find that people who have a high need for closure (NFC) were more likely to assume their social contacts were connected to each other (i.e., transitivity) when this was not the case. In Studies 2 and 3, the authors examine another form of order in network relations--racial homophily--and find that high-NFC participants were more inclined to believe that 2 individuals from the same racial category (e.g., African American) were friends than two racially dissimilar individuals. Furthermore, high-NFC individuals were more likely to make errors when judging a racially mixed group of people; specifically, they recalled more racial homophily (racially similar people sitting closer together) than had actually appeared.     

Hiding effort to gain a competitive advantage: Evidence from China

Previous studies with Western populations have shown that adolescents' tendency to downplay their academic effort is affected by two kinds of motives: ability‐related motives (e.g., to appear competent) and social approval motives (e.g., to be popular). In this research, we test for the presence of additional competition‐related motives in China, a culture placing strong emphasis on academic competition. Study 1 (N = 150) showed that, in response to a scenario in which a hard‐working high‐school junior hid effort from classmates, the most highly endorsed explanation was “to influence others to work less hard to maintain a competitive advantage.” Study 2 (N = 174) revealed that competition‐related explanations were endorsed relatively more often when the speaker and audience had similar academic rankings. This tendency was most evident when both speaker and audience were top performers, and when this was the case, participants' desire to demonstrate superiority over others was a positive predictor of endorsement of competition‐related motives. Study 3 (N = 137) verified that competition‐related motives were more strongly endorsed among Chinese participants than U.S. participants. These results suggest that at least in cultures that emphasize academic competition and in contexts where competition is salient, hiding effort is often about attempting to gain strategic advantage.     

Share and Share Alike or Winner Take All?: The Influence of Social Value Orientation upon Choice and Recall of Negotiation Heuristics

Two experiments test the hypothesis that social value orientation influences choice and recall of heuristics in individuals preparing for negotiation. Consistent with predictions, Study 1 shows that in the preparation phase, negotiators with a prosocial value orientation choose more cooperative heuristics (e.g., “equal split is fair”) than competitive heuristics (e.g., “your gain is my loss”) while negotiators with a competitive social value orientation do the reverse. Negotiators with an individualistic social value orientation do not discriminate in their choice between cooperative and competitive heuristics. Study 2 shows that following preparation, prosocial negotiators recall more cooperative than competitive heuristics while individualists and competitors do the reverse. Additional measures suggest that prosocial negotiators prefer cooperative heuristics because these are seen as morally appropriate, whereas individualists and competitors prefer competitive heuristics because these are seen as effective.     

Relationships between perfectionistic strivings,perfectionistic concerns,and competitive sport level

ObjectiveTo determine if the level of competitive sport in which people participate is related to levels of perfectionistic strivings and perfectionistic concerns in sport.DesignA cross-sectional correlational design was employed.MethodA total of 383 (245 female, 138 male) undergraduate students (M age = 20.99 years, SD = 3.40) identified the level of competitive sport in which they were currently involved (i.e., no sport, recreational sport, moderately competitive sport, and highly competitive sport). Participants also completed a domain-specific measure of perfectionism that assessed perfectionistic strivings and perfectionistic concerns in sport.ResultsResults from sequential regression analyses indicated that competitive sport level explained a significant amount of variance in perfectionistic strivings (p < .001) when the overlap between perfectionistic strivings and perfectionistic concerns was controlled. Competitive sport level did not explain a significant amount of variance in perfectionistic concerns when the overlap between perfectionistic strivings and perfectionistic concerns was controlled.ConclusionsFindings indicate that higher (more competitive/serious) levels of competitive sport are associated with higher perfectionistic strivings in sport. Discussion focusses on the potential roles that (a) the competitive sport environment may have upon the development of perfectionistic strivings in sport, and (b) perfectionistic strivings may play in enabling athletes to compete at higher levels of competitive sport.     

Increased experience amplifies the activation of task-irrelevant category representations

Prior research has demonstrated the benefits (i.e., task-relevant attentional selection) and costs (i.e., task-irrelevant attentional capture) of prior knowledge on search for an individual target or multiple targets from a category. This study investigated whether the level of experience with particular categories predicts the degree of task-relevant and task-irrelevant activation of item and category representations. Adults with varying levels of dieting experience (measured via 3 subscales of Disinhibition, Restraint, Hunger; Stunkard & Messick, Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 29(1), 71–83, 1985) searched for targets defined as either a specific food item (e.g., carrots), or a category (i.e., any healthy or unhealthy food item). Apart from the target-present trials, in the target-absent “foil” trials, when searching for a specific item (e.g., carrots), irrelevant items from the target’s category (e.g., squash) were presented. The ERP (N2pc) results revealed that the activation of task-relevant representations (measured via Exemplar and Category N2pc amplitudes) did not differ based on the degree of experience. Critically, however, increased dieting experience, as revealed by lower Disinhibition scores, predicted activation of task-irrelevant representations (i.e., attentional capture of foils from the target item category). Our results suggest that increased experience with particular categories encourages the rapid activation of category representations even when category information is task irrelevant, and that the N2pc in foil trials could potentially serve as an indication of experience level in future studies on categorization.     

Order Matters! Influences of Linear Order on Linguistic Category Learning

Linguistic category learning has been shown to be highly sensitive to linear order, and depending on the task, differentially sensitive to the information provided by preceding category markers (premarkers, e.g., gendered articles) or succeeding category markers (postmarkers, e.g., gendered suffixes). Given that numerous systems for marking grammatical categories exist in natural languages, it follows that a better understanding of these findings can shed light on the factors underlying this diversity. In two discriminative learning simulations and an artificial language learning experiment, we identify two factors that modulate linear order effects in linguistic category learning: category structure and the level of abstraction in a category hierarchy. Regarding category structure, we find that postmarking brings an advantage for learning category diagnostic stimulus dimensions, an effect not present when categories are non-confusable. Regarding levels of abstraction, we find that premarking of super-ordinate categories (e.g., noun class) facilitates learning of subordinate categories (e.g., nouns). We present detailed simulations using a plausible candidate mechanism for the observed effects, along with a comprehensive analysis of linear order effects within an expectation-based account of learning. Our findings indicate that linguistic category learning is differentially guided by pre- and postmarking, and that the influence of each is modulated by the specific characteristics of a given category system.     

Biases in social comparisons: Optimism or pessimism?

Social comparisons typically lead to two kinds of biases: A comparative optimism bias (i.e., a tendency for people to view themselves as more likely than others to be the beneficiaries of positive outcomes) or a comparative pessimism bias (i.e., a tendency for people to view themselves as less likely than others to be such beneficiaries); rarely are people fully calibrated in terms of how they compare to others. However, there is little systematic research on the factors that determine when a comparative optimism versus pessimism bias will occur, how they can be attenuated and whether such attenuation is always desirable. In this paper, we report four studies which demonstrate the following key results: First, we show that perceived level of control over the outcome drives whether a comparative optimism or pessimism bias will occur (Study 1). Second, an increase in perceived similarity between self and a comparison target person attenuates the comparative optimism bias in domains that people view as highly controllable (Study 2a) and attenuates the comparative pessimism bias in domains that people view as less controllable (Study 2b). Finally, we show that people are willing to work harder when they experience more comparative optimism in higher control scenarios and when they experience less comparative pessimism in lower control scenarios, illustrating that motivating people to strive harder for positive outcomes can result from exacerbated or attenuated bias, depending on the context (Study 3).     

Be aware to care: Public self-awareness leads to a reversal of the bystander effect

The classic bystander effect stipulates that people help others more when they are alone than when other bystanders are present. We reason that, sometimes, the presence of bystanders can increase helping, notably in situations where public self-awareness is increased through the use of accountability cues (e.g., a camera). We conducted two experiments in which we tested this line of reasoning. In both experiments, participants read messages soliciting support in an online forum. We varied the number of people that were present in that forum to create a bystander and an alone condition. In Study 1, we introduced an accountability cue by making participants' screen-names more salient, and in Study 2, we used a webcam. Both studies indicate that, as expected, the bystander effect can be reversed by means of cues that raise public self-awareness in social settings.     

Coaches' perceptions of athletes' stress-related growth following sport injury

ObjectiveThe objective of this study was to examine coaches' perceptions of athletes' stress-related growth following sport injury.DesignQualitative inquiry, grounded in a post-positivism paradigm was used to gain an in-depth understanding of the study's objective.MethodA purposeful sample of eight coaches (M age = 45.7; SD = 11.2) were interviewed across different sports and competitive standards. The semi-structured life world interviews were analysed using content analysis, and two trustworthiness procedures were employed to bolster the rigour of the findings (i.e., peer-debriefing and member checking).ResultsFindings revealed four general dimensions of stress-related growth: personal growth (e.g., beliefs), psychological growth (e.g., sporting qualities), social growth (e.g., social support), and physical growth (e.g., strength). The coaches also reported a number of behavioural indicators that reflected the four general dimensions (e.g., health and performance).ConclusionsFindings ‘validate’ or provide coherence with athletes' self-reports of stress-related growth in previous research and also extend the literature by identifying a number of novel types of growth and perceived behavioural correlates. Future avenues of research include the need to conduct prospective studies and explore related concepts (e.g., vicarious stress-related growth).     

Multiple-group membership: warmth and competence perceptions in the workplace

What kinds of stereotypes are evoked when employers review a job application from a 55-year-old Arab woman? Most previous research on stereotypes has focused on single demographic group categories (e.g., race or gender) rather than on their combinations, even though people inevitably belong to multiple group categories simultaneously. The current study examines how different combinations of demographic group categories (ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and age) are perceived in the context of the workplace, with a focus on two fundamental dimensions of social perception: warmth and competence. The results reveal interesting interactions among the studied demographic group categories such that when stigmatized group categories are added to one another, it does not necessarily produce additive negative effects on warmth and competence perceptions. Rather, one category that is perceived negatively in isolation (e.g., homosexuality) can offset the negative impact of another stigmatized category (e.g., Arab ethnicity). Practical implications for stereotyping and discrimination in the workplace are discussed.

     

Understanding social networks and social support resources with sports coaches

ObjectivesResearch on social support with sports coaches is limited, yet the benefits of social support within other occupations have been widely reported. This study explored sports coaches’ social network structures, the social support resources available to coaches, and the situations in which coaches use social support.DesignCross-sectional.MethodData were collected with male (n = 6) and female (n = 7) British coaches (M_age = 34.20, SD = 13.37; M_experience = 13.20, SD = 10.41) using semi-structured interviews and interviewee-aided sociograms. Interview data and sociograms were analyzed using abductive thematic analysis and social network analysis to create ego-network diagrams. The ego-network diagrams were created to provide information on the locality and influence of coaches’ social network members.ResultsThe ego-network diagrams highlight that the structure of coaches’ social networks encompasses support from peers, friends, family, and miscellaneous (e.g., media). The diagrams also demonstrate that support from friends tended to be perceived as most influential. The coaches called on their network for appraisal (e.g., affirmation), emotional (e.g., venting), informational (e.g., training), and or instrumental support (e.g., cooking dinner) for a variety of situations, such as training (e.g., drill ideas) and issues with athletes (e.g., venting about a misbehaving player).ConclusionGiven the pertinence of coaches’ social networks and resources for performance and psychological well-being, coach education programs should include a focus on the importance of building relationships. Longitudinal research methods are warranted to, for example, explore the dynamic functions of coaches’ social support. This will develop a more comprehensive base from which interventions can be developed.