Properties of persons and situations related to overall and distinctive personality-behavior congruence

Congruence is the degree to which one’s personality matches one’s behavior in a particular situation. On four separate occasions over several weeks, 202 undergraduate participants described a situation they encountered the previous day and their behavior. Analyses considered overall congruence as well as distinctive congruence, adjusted for the match of personality and behavior to the normative personality and behavior profile. Overall congruence was strongly associated with better psychological adjustment; distinctive congruence was not. Similarly, situation strength and affordances for autonomy, relatedness to others, and competence were strongly linked to overall congruence, but only weakly associated with distinctive congruence. Behaving in accordance with one’s true self is only related to positive psychological outcomes when it is accordance with normative standards.     

Perceived organizational support as a mediator of the relationship between politics perceptions and work outcomes

The present study investigates the mediating potential of perceived organizational support (POS) on politics perceptions-work outcomes relationships. Consistent with previous research, individuals were able to discriminate political activity at more than one level (i.e., at the highest level in the organization, one level up from one’s current level, and at one’s current level). Further, politics perceived at one level up from one’s current level and politics at the highest levels in the organization were negatively related to perceived organizational support. In addition, POS was related to job satisfaction, performance, affective commitment and job-induced tension providing support for mediation. Implications of these findings, strengths and limitations, and potential avenues for future research are provided.     

Positive perception: A three dimensional model and a scale

Traits and perceptions that predict psychological and physical well-being have been the focus of great interest in Positive Psychology. The paper focused on positive perception (PP) as a case in point. A three dimensional model of PP is proposed. PP represents a general tendency to evaluate positively one’s abilities, one’s past, and human nature. The construction of an 8-item self-report measure of PP, the Positive Perception Scale (PPS), is detailed. Three samples of university students and a national sample of working couples (total N = 796) helped demonstrate various psychometric aspects of the PPS. The studies confirmed the three dimensional model of PP, demonstrated it as both a trait and a state and the PPS as a valid and reliable scale, for both researchers and practitioners.     

The Interplay of Empathy and Individualism in Support for Social Welfare Policies

Public support for government welfare programs is grounded in two potentially conflicting factors: a belief in individualism which undermines support for welfare assistance and the capacity for empathy which potentially enhances support. However, empathy is an expensive psychological commodity subject to pervasive up- and down-regulation. This article examines the degree to which a belief in individualism affects the expression of compassionate support for a person in need among those with the capacity for empathy. In two online survey experiments, empathic ability powerfully increases support for a welfare recipient and social welfare policies when it does not conflict with individualism. But, empathic ability decreases compassion and support for government welfare among strong individualists. Evidence that individualists down-regulate empathy for someone in need of government assistance is consistent with the conservative view that welfare promotes dependency and undermines individual agency. In contrast, charitable assistance is not associated with long-term dependency, and we find that empathy is up-regulated by strong individualists to generate charitable support for the same individual to whom they denied government assistance. The up- and down-regulation of empathy in response to someone in need of government welfare helps illuminate the sharp divisions over social welfare policy among the American public.     

Conspicuous consumption versus utilitarian ideals: How different levels of power shape consumer behavior

The present work examines how experiencing high versus low power creates qualitatively distinct psychological motives that produce unique consumption patterns. Based on accumulating evidence that states of power increase focus on one’s own internal desires, we propose that high power will lead to a greater preference for products that are viewed as offering utility (e.g., performance, quality) to the individual. In contrast, extending past research showing that powerlessness fosters a compensatory motive to restore power; we demonstrate that the powerless prefer visible or conspicuous consumption that signals status to others. Regardless of whether high and low power were measured, episodically primed, or structurally manipulated, and regardless of how consumption patterns were measured (e.g., purchasing intentions, consumer attitudes, or creation of one’s own advertising slogan), five experiments support a parsimonious model for how different levels of power impact consumer behavior. Given the pervasiveness of everyday fluctuations in power, and the governing role of consumption in everyday life, these findings have potentially broad implications, from tailored advertising to different market segments to understanding the rise in consumer debt.     

Authoritarianism and Economic Threat: Implications for Political Behavior

This study examined whether authoritarians experiencing economic threat are more likely than other authoritarians to support social policy and political agendas that restrict benefits or curtail rights for disadvantaged groups. A sample of 131 college students completed questionnaires that measured authoritarianism, degree of economic and societal insecurity, and attitudes toward eight political issues. Economic and social insecurity were indexed to perceptions of whether one's standard of livingg had declined, whether incom inequality had grown among social classes, and whether crime, race relations, environmental quality, and governmental services had worsened. The political scales reflected issues currently debated in public forums; they included funding mechanisms for social security and health care, the state's role in regulating abortion, government services for illegal immigrants, terminating welfare for unemployed women with children, and regulation of sexual conduct. A logistic model found that, relative to non-threatened authoritarians or nonauthoritarians, threatened authoritarians were six times as likely to favor restricting benefits to powerless groups and eight times as likely to support the state's preventing women from securing anabortion. These results are discussed in terms of systemic changes in the economy that have resulted in declines in real income and increasing income inequality.     

Women want taller men more than men want shorter women

Physical characteristics, such as height, play an important role in human mate preferences. Satisfaction with one’s own height and one’s partner height seem likely to be related to these preferences. Using a student sample (N = 650), we show that women are not only more selective, but also more consistent, than men, in their partner height preferences. Women prefer, on average, a larger height difference between themselves and their partner (i.e. males being much taller than themselves) than men do. This effect is even more pronounced when examining satisfaction with actual partner height: women are most satisfied when their partner was 21 cm taller, whereas men are most satisfied when they were 8 cm taller than their partner. Next, using data from our sample and that of a previously published study (N = 52,677), we show that for men, height is more important to the expression of satisfaction with one’s own height than it is for women. Furthermore, slightly above average height women and tall men are most satisfied with their heights. We conclude that satisfaction with one’s own height is at least partly a consequence of the height preference of the opposite sex and satisfaction with one’s partner height.     

Psychological defense and self-esteem instability: Is defense style associated with unstable self-esteem?

Defense styles refer to the characteristic employment of automatic psychological processes to maintain and enhance self-esteem. On the basis of clinical literature pertaining to defense styles, it was hypothesized that the maturity of an individual’s defenses would be associated with fluctuations in one’s state self-esteem over time (i.e., self-esteem instability). To examine this hypothesis, the present study included daily diary measures that tracked the state self-esteem of 123 participants each day for 14 consecutive days. The results of the present study found that higher levels of immature defenses were associated with greater self-esteem instability. For both the intermediate and mature defense styles, their associations with self-esteem instability were moderated by self-esteem level such that higher levels of these defenses were associated with less self-esteem instability among those with low self-esteem.     

BIS- and BAS-activation and study outcomes: A mediation study

Building on Gray’s original Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory, we examined how individual differences in students’ activation of the behavioral inhibition (BIS) and the behavioral approach (BAS) systems relate to overcommitment to one’s studies and study engagement, and how these two forms of heavy study investment relate to three academically relevant outcomes. Using data from 565 Dutch university students, structural equation modeling showed that BIS-activation was positively associated with overcommitment to one’s studies, which in turn was positively related to exhaustion and the intention to quit one’s studies. BAS-activation was positively associated with study engagement, which in turn was negatively related to exhaustion and the intention to quit, and positively related to academic performance. Bootstrapping techniques revealed a mediating role of the two forms of heavy study investment. Apparently, BIS- and BAS-activation are associated with heavy study behavior, student well-being, and study outcomes.     

Family and career path characteristics as predictors of women’s objective and subjective career success: Integrating traditional and protean career explanations

This study examined the effects of family and career path characteristics on objective and subjective career success among 916 employed mothers. Among family variables, age at first childbirth was positively related and career priority favoring the husband was negatively related to both income and subjective career success; number of children was negatively related and years elapsed since first childbirth was positively related to income only. Among career path variables, career gaps, interorganizational mobility and proportion of one’s career spent in part-time work were negatively related to income; career gaps were negatively related to subjective career success. Income was positively related to subjective career success. Results suggest that integration of traditional and protean career perspectives helps to explain women’s career success.     

Evaluating the Redistribution Policy and the Right to Social Welfare in Kant’s Philosophy

The notion of social welfare was created by the paradigm shift from duty-based to right-based morality, in which the satisfaction of human needs is a right in line with preserving human dignity. This paper investigates Kant’s view on social welfare in light of redistribution policy. Kant bases his political philosophy on external freedom. Notwithstanding the ethical principles of his philosophy, he is the first prominent thinker to clearly emphasize the necessity of a redistribution policy by the government toward providing for the needs of the poor and the needy. The important question remaining is whether or not the Kantian ideas of external freedom and redistribution for the sake of satisfying the right to social welfare can reach a compromise. It seems that Kant believes the redistribution policy to be not the right of the poor to be provided welfare by the state, but the right of the state, and as such, the states' right to task the people with providing for the welfare of the poor. Such a policy challenges the freedom of the wealthier class and apparently leads to an inconsistency between the two pillars of Kant’s sociopolitical philosophy. The current paper aims to find Kant’s response to this challenge by referring to his scattered arguments.     

An examination of self-compassion in relation to positive psychological functioning and personality traits

This study examined the relation of self-compassion to positive psychological health and the five factor model of personality. Self-compassion entails being kind toward oneself in instances of pain or failure; perceiving one’s experiences as part of the larger human experience; and holding painful thoughts and feelings in balanced awareness. Participants were 177 undergraduates (68% female, 32% male). Using a correlational design, the study found that self-compassion had a significant positive association with self-reported measures of happiness, optimism, positive affect, wisdom, personal initiative, curiosity and exploration, agreeableness, extroversion, and conscientiousness. It also had a significant negative association with negative affect and neuroticism. Self-compassion predicted significant variance in positive psychological health beyond that attributable to personality.     

Government Subsidized Academic Research: Economic and Ethical Conflicts

Justification for public funding of academic research is based on the linear model of technological advance first proposed by Francis Bacon. The model hypothesizes that government subsidized science generates new technology which creates new wealth. Mainstream economics supports Bacons model by arguing that academic research is a public good. The Bayh–Dole Act allows universities to privatize federally funded research and development (R&D) which is in direct conflict with the public good argument. Diminishing returns to university R&D, challenges to Bacons linear model and the labor exploitation of young scientists by research universities suggest that policy makers may want to reconsider the system for allocating federal R&D to universities and colleges.     

Partage des tâches parentales au sein des couples de mères lesbiennes françaises ayant eu recours à une insémination artificielle avec donneur anonyme

This study, based on a questionnaire survey, examines the division of labor within 52 lesbian couples in France raising at least one child between 6 months and 5 years of age, conceived by anonymous donor insemination. Biological mothers showed slightly more involvement in childcare than non-biological mothers who spent more time in paid employment. The couples’ satisfaction with this asymmetry could be explained by their oscillation between biocentered and/or gendered representations of family and an egalitarian ideal. The link between social support and recognition on one hand, and on the other hand, the modalities of division of labor and related satisfaction seems to show, in a context of legal, judicial and symbolic precariousness, that these couples need parental and familial legitimization.     

Whose self is it anyway? Self-aspect control moderates the relation between self-complexity and well-being

Greater self-complexity refers to the extent that one’s self-concept is comprised of many and relatively differentiated self-aspects. Although some research has found that those greater in self-complexity fare better physically (e.g., fewer illnesses) and psychologically (e.g., less depression) when experiencing stress, other studies have reported another pattern of data (e.g., greater self-complexity predicts greater depression). In the current work, two studies found support for a moderating variable in this latter pattern, self-aspect control. Specifically, for those who perceived relatively little control over their self-aspects, being greater in self-complexity predicted worse physical and psychological outcomes. Study 2 tested alternative explanations and supported an interpretation that perceptions of control over one’s multiple selves, in particular, moderated the relation between self-complexity and well-being.     

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.     

Exploring Mothers’ and Fathers’ Relationships with Sons Versus Daughters: Links to Adolescent Adjustment in Mexican Immigrant Families

Drawing on ecological and gender socialization perspectives, this study examined mothers’ and fathers’ relationships with young adolescents, exploring differences between mothers and fathers, for sons versus daughters, and as a function of parents’ division of paid labor. Mexican immigrant families (N?=?162) participated in home interviews and seven nightly phone calls. Findings revealed that mothers reported higher levels of acceptance toward adolescents and greater knowledge of adolescents’ daily activities than did fathers, and mothers spent more time with daughters than with sons. Linkages between parent-adolescent relationship qualities and youth adjustment were moderated by adolescent gender and parents’ division of paid labor. Findings revealed, for example, stronger associations between parent–adolescent relationship qualities and youth adjustment for girls than for boys.     

Cognitive consequences of affirming the self: The relationship between self-affirmation and object construal

Previous research suggests that affirming one’s important values is a powerful way of protecting one’s general self integrity, allowing non-defensive processing of self-relevant information. In a series of four studies linking self-affirmation with construal level, we find that in addition to any self buffering effect, thinking about one’s values and why they are important more generally shifts cognitive processing towards superordinate and structured thinking. Self-affirmation leads participants to perceive a greater degree of structure within their selves (Study 1), to increasingly identify actions in terms of their end-states (Study 2), to more strongly distinguish between primary and secondary object features (Study 3) and to perform better on tasks requiring abstract, structured thinking than those requiring detail-oriented, concrete thinking. Together, these findings suggest that thinking about important values helps individuals to structure information and focus on the big picture.     

A smart unconscious? Procedural origins of automatic partner attitudes in marriage

The paper examines potential origins of automatic (i.e., unconscious) attitudes toward one’s marital partner. It tests the hypothesis that early experiences in conflict-of-interest situations predict one’s later automatic inclination to approach (or avoid) the partner. A longitudinal study linked daily experiences in conflict-of-interest situations in the initial months of new marriages to automatic evaluations of the partner assessed four years later using the Implicit Associations Test. The results revealed that partners who were initially (1) treated less responsively and (2) evidenced more self-protective and less connectedness-promoting “if-then” contingencies in their thoughts and behavior later evidenced less positive automatic partner attitudes. However, these factors did not predict changes in love, satisfaction, or explicit beliefs about the partner. The findings hint at the existence of a “smart” relationship unconscious that captures behavioral realities conscious reflection can miss.     

Great expectations: A meta-analytic examination of optimism and hope

Optimism and hope—two psychological constructs reflecting positive expectations about one’s future—have garnered considerable research attention and each has been the subject of several narrative reviews. In the current meta-analysis, we examined the optimism–hope relationship and we examined several potential correlates and consequences of optimism and hope. Our results suggest that optimism and hope are distinguishable from each other. Furthermore, both are related to several indices of psychological and physical well-being and both are empirically distinguishable from other personality traits, such as the Five Factor Model characteristics and trait affectivity. We conclude by discussing directions for future research on optimism and hope.