Pluralistic ignorance and misperception of social norms concerning cheating in dating relationships

Two studies tested the hypothesis that beliefs about infidelity in dating relationships reflect pluralistic ignorance, a misperception in which people mistakenly believe that their own personal attitudes and behavior differ from others' when they do not. Consistent with pluralistic ignorance findings in other domains, undergraduates reported that the average university student (a) saw dating infidelity as more acceptable and (b) engaged in unfaithful acts more frequently than they themselves did. Neither type of infidelity (sexual, emotional, both sexual and emotional, or unspecified; Study 1, N = 176) nor motivated reasoning (i.e., defensiveness; Study 2, N = 359) moderated this pattern of results. Possible sources of misperceived norms concerning fidelity in dating relationships and the implications of such misperceptions are discussed.     

“Foot-in-the-Mouth” Versus “Door-in-the-Face” Requests

Abstract

According to the attribution-value model, prejudice toward a group stems from 2 interrelated variables: attributions of controllability and cultural value. Thus, prejudice toward gay men and lesbians may stem from others' holding them responsible for their behaviors and perceiving negative cultural value regarding homosexuality. The author tested that model by using the issue of homosexuality. The participants were Turkish undergraduates who completed a homophobia scale and answered questions about the origins of homosexuality, cultural attitudes toward homosexuality, and their own gender and sexual preferences. In general, the participants were prejudiced against gay men and lesbians. As expected, attributions of controllability and negative cultural value regarding homosexuality operated jointly to explain 39% of the variation in homophobia. The participants who thought that homosexuality was controllable had more negative attitudes toward gay men and lesbians than did those who thought that homosexuality was uncontrollable. The female participants were more tolerant of homosexuality than were the male participants.     

Being better than others but otherwise perfectly normal: Perceptions of uniqueness and similarity in close relationships

The current research addresses individuals' self-generated thoughts regarding their own and others' relationships, examining the ways in which perceptions of uniqueness and similarity are manifested in judgments regarding own and others' responses to dissatisfying incidents. Consistent with the uniqueness bias, participants characterized their own relationships by a greater number of constructive responses and a smaller number of destructive responses relative to characterizations of others' relationships. Moreover, external raters judged own constructive responses to be more constructive than others' constructive responses. Consistent with the similarity bias, external raters judged items describing others' responses to be less frequently occurring and more extreme than their own responses. Also, this research revealed support for the claim that the similarity bias is more pronounced for destructive responses than for constructive responses. A recall task corroborated these findings, revealing very good recall for destructive responses enacted by others and poor recall for destructive responses enacted by oneself.     

The Influence of Social Consensus Information on Intergroup Attitudes: The Moderating Effects of Ingroup Identification

ABSTRACT

Two studies examined the role of ingroup identification in the influence of social consensus information (information about others' beliefs) on intergroup attitudes. Research demonstrates that consensus information influences individuals' intergroup attitudes. However, the extent to which individuals identify with the group providing consensus information seems important to understanding consensus effects. In Study 1, 100 high or low ingroup identifiers received information that other ingroup members held favorable or unfavorable attitudes toward African Americans and then provided their own attitudes. In Study 2, 250 participants completed an ingroup identification manipulation (high, low, or control) before receiving favorable or no consensus information. Results of both studies demonstrated that ingroup identification moderated consensus effects, such that high identifiers were more susceptible to others' beliefs than individuals in the low identification and control conditions. In determining critical factors involved in consensus effects, we hope to create a useful method to promote favorable intergroup attitudes and behaviors.     

The Receiver's Dilemma: Impressions Formed in Response to Impression Management

Two studies examined the extent to which individuals' racial attitudes are influenced more by interdependent others' attitudes than people with whom they do not mutually depend. Study 1 demonstrated that participants significantly changed their racial attitudes when they received disagreement feedback from an ingroup friend, whereas there was no change in attitudes when participants received disagreement feedback from an ingroup stranger, agreement feedback, or no feedback. Furthermore, feelings of interdependence mediated the relationship between feedback from a friend versus stranger and changes in racial attitudes. In Study 2, we manipulated interdependence and found that interdependent partners altered their racial attitudes after receiving disagreement information, whereas independent partners did not. The importance of interdependent others' attitudes in reducing prejudice is discussed.     

Exploiting the Wisdom of Others to Make Better Decisions: Suspending Judgment Reduces Egocentrism and Increases Accuracy

Although decision makers often consult other people's opinions to improve their decisions, they fail to do so optimally. One main obstacle to incorporating others' opinions efficiently is one's own opinion. We theorize that decision makers could improve their performance by suspending their own judgment. In three studies, participants used others' opinions to estimate uncertain quantities (the caloric value of foods). In the full‐view condition, participants could form independent estimates prior to receiving others' opinions, whereas participants in the blindfold condition could not form prior opinions. We obtained an intriguing blindfold effect. In all studies, the blindfolded participants provided more accurate estimates than did the full‐view participants. Several policy‐capturing measures indicated that the advantage of the blindfolded participants was due to their unbiased weighting of others' opinions. The full‐view participants, in contrast, adhered to their prior opinion and thus failed to exploit the information contained in others' opinions. Moreover, in all three studies, the blindfolded participants were not cognizant of their advantage and expressed less confidence in their estimates than did the full‐view participants. The results are discussed in relation to theories of opinion revision and group decision making. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Pursuing Goals with Others

This article explores motivation in a social context: how people pursue goals with others, with information on others, and for the self and others. As people incorporate close others into their extended selves (Aron et al., 1991 ), they begin to treat others' actions and outcomes as partially their own. This tendency, in turn, has implications for coordinating goal pursuits with others and for the preference for actions that maximize the total benefits for the self and others. To demonstrate these principles – coordination and joint‐benefits maximization – we first explore coordination in pursuing goals with others (i.e., working in teams), showing that people respond to others' actions and lack of action similarly to how they respond to their own actions and lack of action. We next explore coordination in pursuing goals with information on others, showing that people conform to others' preferences and attitudes yet choose actions that complement others' actions. Finally, we review research on pursuing goals for the self and others, showing that people wish to maximize the total benefits for the group.     

Social Comparisons of One's Own With Others' Attitudes Toward Casual and Responsible Sex1

College students perceive their risks for negative outcomes from sexual behavior as lower than that of their peers. We examined whether similar biases would occur when undergraduates rated their own, their close friends', and the typical college student's attitudes regarding casual sex and sexual responsibility. Participants rated their own attitudes relative to all others' as the least permissive and most sexually responsible. Close friends' attitudes were rated as less permissive and more responsible than the average college student's. Finally, individuals with unrestricted sociosexual orientations and men attributed more permissive and less sexually responsible attitudes to both themselves and close friends than did individuals with restricted sociosexual orientations and women. These latter effects were absent when rating the typical college student.     

Princesses,Princes, and Superheroes: Children's Gender Cognitions and Fictional Characters

The goal of the present study was to identify whether children recognize the gender stereotypes prevalent within the increasingly popular princess, prince, and superhero characters. Interviews with 126 children from the northeast region of the Unites States (3–11 years old) indicated that children recognized the gender-typed personality traits of princesses, princes, and superheroes, with older children holding more gender-typed cognitions about the characters. Children's own-schemas (i.e., beliefs that apply to themselves) and superordinate schemas (i.e., include beliefs about others' preferences and behaviors) for the characters were mostly gender typed and congruent. Older children gender-typed princesses as for girls more than younger children, whereas older children considered superheroes to be for boys and girls more than younger children did. Older children also considered the characters to be for them less, potentially reducing the negative implications of exposure to gender-typed messages associated with the characters. Individual differences exist in children's perceptions of these fictional characters, with children's own androgyny being positively correlated with their perceptions of princesses' androgyny levels. Further, girls were more flexible in their stereotyping of princesses, noting they were “for girls and boys” more. The authors discuss the results' practical and theoretical implications.     

Effects of Interpersonal Goals on Inadvertent Intrapersonal Influence in Computer‐Mediated Communication

This research explores a sequence of effects pertaining to the influence of relational goals on online information seeking, the use of information and arguments as relational management strategies in computer‐mediated chat, and the intrapersonal attitude change resulting from these processes. Affinity versus disaffinity goals affected participants' information seeking for communicatory utility ( Atkin, 1972 ), their conversational behaviors, and their own attitudes toward the topic and partner. People with negative relational goals used the Web to seek information for discussions more than affinity‐goal participants. Individuals expressed affinity‐disaffinity through arguments, agreements, and disagreements with partners' preferences, which led to changes in their own attitudes. Findings suggest renewed consideration of the interplay between mass media and interpersonal sources accessible on the Internet.     

Religiosity,the need for structure,death attitudes,and funeral preferences

Study one (N?=?309) verified the common assumption that religious beliefs provide a sense of structure. Religion and structure indices contributed both shared and unique variance to the prediction of hope, affect, and life satisfaction. In a second study, 368 participants self-reported death attitudes, desire for structure, and answered questions concerning their own death (e.g., disposition of body, style of memorial). Strongly held religious beliefs linked to more positive and less negative attitudes toward death. The need for structure resonated with pain and natural aspects of death. Religious beliefs and structure needs further independently influenced attitudes toward and planning for one's own death.     

The face‐mind link: Why we see minds behind faces,and how others' minds change how we see their face

Understanding others' minds has puzzled philosophers for centuries. Psychologists, too, have recently begun asking questions about what causes us to see another person as having complex or simple mental faculties. Here, we review recent evidence linking how we perceive others' faces with how we perceive others' minds—the face‐mind link. We first discuss research demonstrating a face‐to‐mind effect, showing that both certain facial features (e.g., eyes) and face perception processes (e.g., configural processing) can trigger the perception that a face has a mind. We then discuss recent evidence demonstrating a mind‐to‐face effect, showing that believing a person is inhumane (i.e., their mind) leads their face to be processed less like a face and more like an object. Finally, we consider both the consequences of this bidirectional face‐mind link, and what the next steps may be in understanding how and why we infer minds from faces, and how and why beliefs about others' minds affects how we see their face.     

Attachment to objects as compensation for close others' perceived unreliability

Attachment theory posits that close interpersonal relationships provide people with psychological security across the lifespan. Research shows that when people perceive that close others are unreliable, they may seek alternative, non-social sources of security (e.g., deities). Building on this work, the authors hypothesized that attachment to objects compensates for threatened attachment security when close others are unreliable. Participants primed with close others', but not strangers', unreliability reported increased attachment to belongings (Study 1), and this effect was mediated by feelings of attachment anxiety (concern over close others' availability), but not attachment avoidance (avoiding emotional dependence; Study 2), suggesting that object attachment compensates for the perception that close others are unreliable rather than consistently rejecting. In Study 3, when a valued belonging was removed, participants primed with uncertainty about their relationships showed increased separation anxiety and motivation to reunite with the belonging, regardless of the belonging's perceived importance for facilitating relationships.     

Application of the attribution-value model of prejudice to homosexuality

According to the attribution-value model, prejudice toward a group stems from 2 interrelated variables: attributions of controllability and cultural value. Thus, prejudice toward gay men and lesbians may stem from others' holding them responsible for their behaviors and perceiving negative cultural value regarding homosexuality. The author tested that model by using the issue of homosexuality. The participants were Turkish undergraduates who completed a homophobia scale and answered questions about the origins of homosexuality, cultural attitudes toward homosexuality, and their own gender and sexual preferences. In general, the participants were prejudiced against gay men and lesbians. As expected, attributions of controllability and negative cultural value regarding homosexuality operated jointly to explain 39% of the variation in homophobia. The participants who thought that homosexuality was controllable had more negative attitudes toward gay men and lesbians than did those who thought that homosexuality was uncontrollable. The female participants were more tolerant of homosexuality than were the male participants.     

Perceptions of Brainstorming in Groups: The Quality Over Quantity Hypothesis

Our research focused on the implicit beliefs of potential brainstormers about the possible outcomes of brainstorming. We conducted four studies to assess the relative importance of quality and quantity as goals of brainstorming. In Study 1, we found evidence for a quality over quantity hypothesis: participants indicated that it was more important to produce creative, original, and high quality ideas than to generate a large number of ideas. In Studies 2 and 3, participants displayed support for the quality over quantity hypothesis by showing in group favoritism for a quality dimension but not a quantity dimension. Study 4 showed that participants believed brain-storming would enhance the quality of others' ideas more than one's own ideas, but they did not display a similar bias about idea quantity.     

The Selective Laziness of Reasoning

Reasoning research suggests that people use more stringent criteria when they evaluate others' arguments than when they produce arguments themselves. To demonstrate this “selective laziness,” we used a choice blindness manipulation. In two experiments, participants had to produce a series of arguments in response to reasoning problems, and they were then asked to evaluate other people's arguments about the same problems. Unknown to the participants, in one of the trials, they were presented with their own argument as if it was someone else's. Among those participants who accepted the manipulation and thus thought they were evaluating someone else's argument, more than half (56% and 58%) rejected the arguments that were in fact their own. Moreover, participants were more likely to reject their own arguments for invalid than for valid answers. This demonstrates that people are more critical of other people's arguments than of their own, without being overly critical: They are better able to tell valid from invalid arguments when the arguments are someone else's rather than their own.     

Lay Persons' and Police Officers' Beliefs Regarding Deceptive Behaviour

Research on the detection of deception, via non-verbal cues, has shown that people's ability to successfully discriminate between truth and deception is only slightly better than chance level. One of the reasons for these disappointing findings possibly lies in people's inappropriate beliefs regarding ‘lying behaviour’. A 64-item questionnaire originally used in Germany, which targets participants' beliefs regarding truthful and deceptive behaviour, was used. The present study differed from previous research in three ways: (i) instead of a student population, police officers and lay people were sampled, (ii) both people's beliefs regarding others' deceptive behaviour and their beliefs regarding their own deceptive behaviour were examined, and (iii) both non-verbal cues to, and content characteristics of, deceptive statements were examined. Results were consistent with previous studies, which found significant differences between people's beliefs regarding deceptive behaviour and experimental observations of actual deceptive behaviour. Further, police officers held as many false beliefs as did lay people and finally, participants were more accurate in their beliefs regarding their own deceptive behaviour than they were in their beliefs regarding others' behaviour.     

Dreading the pain of others? Altruistic responses to others' pain underestimate dread

A dislike of waiting for pain, aptly termed ‘dread’, is so great that people will increase pain to avoid delaying it. However, despite many accounts of altruistic responses to pain in others, no previous studies have tested whether people take delay into account when attempting to ameliorate others' pain. We examined the impact of delay in 2 experiments where participants (total N = 130) specified the intensity and delay of pain either for themselves or another person. Participants were willing to increase the experimental pain of another participant to avoid delaying it, indicative of dread, though did so to a lesser extent than was the case for their own pain. We observed a similar attenuation in dread when participants chose the timing of a hypothetical painful medical treatment for a close friend or relative, but no such attenuation when participants chose for a more distant acquaintance. A model in which altruism is biased to privilege pain intensity over the dread of pain parsimoniously accounts for these findings. We refer to this underestimation of others' dread as a ‘Dread Empathy Gap’.     

Can Patients' Views of a Therapeutic System Predict Outcome? An Empirical Study with Depressive Patients

Using the principles of brief therapy as developed at the Mental Research Institute (MRI) in Palo Alto, this study examined how patients viewed psychiatrists' and significant others' attitudes toward the severity of their illness, as compared with their own attitude, and whether these views were related to outcome. Forty-one depressive inpatients were asked a two-part question — Who regards your illness as being more severe: (a) you or your significant others; (b) you or your psychiatrist? Two subsamples of patients were identified: those who viewed psychiatrists' and significant others' attitudes toward the illness as similar (equally structured systems) and those who viewed them as dissimilar (differently structured systems). Both groups showed equal and significant improvement during hospital treatment; but the group that viewed the attitudes held by psychiatrists and significant others as dissimilar reported improvement after discharge.     

The Ideology of Anti-Fat Attitudes1

We surveyed over 1,000 undergraduates about their attitudes toward fatness and fat people. A consistent pattern of attitudes emerged: People who were anti-fat shared an ideologically conservative outlook on life. Those who disliked fatness tended to be politically conservative, racist, in favor of capital punishment, and less supportive of nontraditional marriages. By contrast, negative attitudes toward fatness were not associated with conservative sexual attitudes (which are less likely to be ideologically based), although they were related to less tolerance of sexuality among the handicapped, homosexuals, and the elderly. Antifat attitudes seem to be based on ideology, and not on one's own weight situation: Anti-fat attitudes were virtually unrelated to one's own degree of fatness. The relationship between ideology and anti-fat attitudes was stronger among men than among women, which indicates that a variety of other, perhaps more self-relevant factors, play into the anti-fat attitudes of women. For example, when women held a conservative, anti-fat ideology, and were in the heaviest weight group, they suffered from low self-esteem. This relationship did not hold for men, indicating that the relationship between ideology and self-derogation may be based on the greater self-relevance weight holds for women. In a second study, we found that anti-fat attitudes were substantially correlated with authoritarianism, indicating that prejudice against fat people may be another manifestation of a collection of political and social attitudes predicated on conventionalism and a narrow latitude of acceptance of others' behaviors.