Individualism/Collectivism and Cultures of Happiness: A Theoretical Conjecture on the Relationship between Consumption, Culture and Subjective Well-Being at the National Level

This theory paper seeks to explain an empirical puzzle presented by past research on the relationship between consumption and subjective well-being (SWB). Research has shown that people in rich countries are, on average, significantly higher in SWB than people in poor countries, which is consistent with a strong link between one's overall level of consumption and one's SWB. However, when individuals within the same country are compared, income has little relationship to SWB above the level at which basic needs can be met, suggesting that higher levels of consumption may not be linked to higher levels of SWB. This link between consumption and SWB when nations are compared to each other, but not when individuals within a given nation are compared to each other, presents a puzzle. As a solution, I propose that economic development leads to higher levels of national average SWB not by increasing consumption (again, with the caveat that this statement excludes situations where basic needs are not being met), but by creating more individualistic cultures which encourage their members to pursue personal happiness over honor and meeting social obligations. Whether or not this is seen as a socially positive development depends in a circular fashion on the cultural values of the person making the judgement.     

Third parties, violence, and conflict resolution: the role of group size and collective action in the microregulation of violence

Although researchers know much about the causes of aggression, they know surprisingly little about how aggression leads to violence or how violence is controlled. To explore the microregulation of violence, we conducted a systematic behavioral analysis of footage from closed-circuit television surveillance of public spaces. Using 42 incidents involving 312 people, we compared aggressive incidents that ended in violence with those that did not. Behaviors of antagonists and third parties were coded as either escalating or conciliatory acts. Results showed that third parties were more likely to take conciliatory actions than to escalate violence and that this tendency increased as group size increased. This analysis revealed a pattern of third-party behaviors that prevent aggression from becoming violent and showed that conciliatory behaviors are more successful when carried out by multiple third parties than when carried out by one person. We conclude by emphasizing the importance of collective third-party dynamics in understanding conflict resolution.     

In Experiential Sessions, There Is No Therapist or Client: There Is a “Teacher” and a “Practitioner”

In virtually every kind of psychotherapy, therapist and client attend mainly to one another throughout almost the entire session. If each experiential session is to be successful in enabling the person to become the whole new person that the person can become, and to become free of the painful feeling in the painful situation, the radical alternative is for the experiential teacher–therapist and the person to attend mainly to the third thing that is the important center of attention for the person. An even more radical glimpse into the future includes the person having one's own sessions by oneself, complemented by skill-development sessions with the experiential teacher.     

Drawn towards what others seem to like: Implicit preference for objects and people looked at with a duchenne smile

People tend to like objects that are looked at by others, especially if the person looking at the object expresses a positive emotion. But not all positive emotions are equal. We investigated the effect of third party gazing while expressing subtle positive emotions on perceivers’ subsequent preferences and evaluations of objects and people. In two studies participants saw faces looking at target objects and people either with a Duchenne, a non-Duchenne smile, or a neural expression. Participants first indicated gaze direction and later reported intuitive target preference and evaluated the targets. Results show a preference for target stimuli that were smiled at with a Duchenne smile as opposed to when they were looked at with a non-Duchenne smile or a neutral expression. More explicit evaluations of the target stimuli were not affected by the type of facial expression.     

When do stereotypes come to mind and when do they color judgment? A goal-based theoretical framework for stereotype activation and application

The authors describe a theoretical framework for understanding when people interacting with a member of a stereotyped group activate that group's stereotype and apply it to that person. It is proposed that both stereotype activation and stereotype application during interaction depend on the strength of comprehension and self-enhancement goals that can be satisfied by stereotyping one's interaction partner and on the strength of one's motivation to avoid prejudice. The authors explain how these goals can promote and inhibit stereotype activation and application, and describe diverse chronic and situational factors that can influence the intensity of these goals during interaction and, thereby, influence stereotype activation and application. This approach permits integration of a broad range of findings on stereotype activation and application.     

The Experience of Agency: Feelings, Judgments, and Responsibility

ABSTRACT— The experience of agency refers to the experience of being in control both of one's own actions and, through them, of events in the external world. Recent experimental studies have investigated how people recognise a particular event as being caused by their own action or by that of another person. These studies suggest that people match sensory inputs to a prediction based on the action they are performing. Other studies have contrasted voluntary actions to physically similar but passive body movements. These studies suggest that voluntary action triggers wide-ranging changes in the spatial and temporal experience not only of one's own body but also of external events. Prediction and monitoring of the consequences of one's own motor commands produces characteristic experiences that form our normal, everyday feeling of being in control of our life. We conclude by discussing the implications of recent psychological work for our notions of responsibility for action.     

Young children are intrinsically motivated to see others helped

Young children help other people, but it is not clear why. In the current study, we found that 2-year-old children's sympathetic arousal, as measured by relative changes in pupil dilation, is similar when they themselves help a person and when they see that person being helped by a third party (and sympathetic arousal in both cases is different from that when the person is not being helped at all). These results demonstrate that the intrinsic motivation for young children's helping behavior does not require that they perform the behavior themselves and thus "get credit" for it, but rather requires only that the other person be helped. Thus, from an early age, humans seem to have genuine concern for the welfare of others.     

Big Picture,Bad Outcomes: When Visual Perspectives Harm Health Goal Pursuit

People often fail to achieve health goals, which compromises their well‐being. Prior research suggests that seeing events through an observer's eyes (i.e., adopting a third‐person perspective) should facilitate goal pursuit. However, we find that third‐person perspectives discourage goal‐consistent intentions and behavior for health goals when goal centrality is low (i.e., the goal is peripheral to one's self‐concept). In Experiment 1, people who adopted a third‐person perspective chose more sugary foods if they considered a healthy eating goal to be more peripheral to the self. Experiment 2 examines why a third‐person perspective can hinder goal pursuit; it encourages a breakdown in implemental thinking which, in turn, increases negative self‐conscious emotions. While high goal centrality buffers people from negative effects on goal intentions, low centrality does not. Experiment 3 demonstrates that this effect is robust when goal centrality is manipulated. We recommend that consumers pursuing health goals (and individuals who support them) exercise caution when employing perspective‐based strategies, as they may backfire for people at greatest risk of goal abandonment.     

Some Legal Issues in Counselling and Psychotherapy

Although substantial legal difficulties can face anyone trying to recover compensation from counsellors for breach of their legal duties, such claims can in principle succeed. Counsellors ought to take particular care to provide a physically safe setting for the counselling session. Advice given to the client can lead to liability both to the client and to third parties who may be affected. The impact of the client's actions on third parties can justify, and less often compel, departures from confidentiality. The importance of keeping client records has to be balanced against legal obligations imposed on counsellors in various situations to make such records available for inspection by the client or third parties.     

Coordination success and interpersonal perceptions: matching versus mismatching

Coordination is an essential part of social functioning. The authors distinguish 2 types of coordination: matching and mismatching. In matching, coordination is successful if parties choose the same action. In mismatching, coordination is successful if people choose different actions. In 3 studies, the authors investigated the downstream social consequences of tacit coordination for interpersonal perceptions. In all studies, participants repeatedly choose between 2 bets with equivalent expected values, and payoffs increased either when they choose the same bet or when they choose different bets. In the 1st 2 studies, coordination success increased the perceptions of interpersonal similarity and liking when matching was required but not when mismatching was required. The authors' interpretation is that matching responses and coordination success had countervailing effects in the mismatching task. Also, percentage of matched responses did not affect perceptions when coordination was not required (Experiment 2). In 4 person teams, a frequently matching partner was viewed more favorably (smarter, more similar to self, and more liked) than were other teammates, even when mismatching increased payoffs (Experiment 3).     

Representing others' actions: just like one's own?

Previous research has shown that observing others' actions can affect individual performance of the same actions. In the present study, we developed a new paradigm to investigate whether and how complementary actions at the disposal of another agent are represented and influence one's own actions. A spatial compatibility task was distributed among two people so that each participant took care of one of two responses. The identical task was performed alone and alongside another participant. There was a spatial compatibility effect in the group setting only. It was similar to the effect obtained when one person took care of both responses. This result suggests that one's own actions and others' actions are represented in a functionally equivalent way.     

The Person Positivity and Principal Actor Hypotheses1

Data from election studies in Sweden, the Netherlands, and the U.S. were analyzed to test the external validity of Sears' person positivity hypothesis. Although people in Sweden and the Netherlands did not rate their preferred party less favorably than that party's leader, overall the results in those two countries tended to support the person positivity hypothesis. However, the U.S. data indicated, contrary to the person positivity hypothesis, that people rated political parties more favorably than the nominees, or the people competing for the nominations, of those parties. An alternative, the principal actor hypothesis, was offered which is compatible with the data from all three countries. This hypothesis is that positivity or leniency will be extended in judgments that do not involve the principal actors in a political system. This accords with our findings that in the strong party systems of Sweden and the Netherlands, parties are judged less favorably than party leaders, while in the weak party system of the U.S., parties are judged more favorably than the individuals nominated by the parties.     

Incidental anger and the desire to evaluate

Our results indicate that people experiencing incidental anger are more likely than people in neutral and other emotional states to prefer to perform evaluative tasks, even though their anger may bias the evaluations they make. Induced anger increased participants’ desire to evaluate others’ ideas (Experiment 1) and made the evaluations of those ideas more negative in valence (Experiment 2). Anger increased the appeal of evaluating ideas when evaluations were expected to be largely negative but not when evaluations were expected to be positive (Experiments 3 and 4). Mediation analyses revealed that this willingness to evaluate when angry stems from a belief that evaluating others can leave angry people in a positive mood. Because people are often free to decide when to perform the tasks required of them, this tendency may have implications for how and when ideas are evaluated.     

Be better or be merry: how mood affects self-control

In 6 studies, the authors tested whether the effect of mood on self-control success depends on a person's accessible goal. We propose that positive mood signals a person to adopt an accessible goal, whereas negative mood signals a person to reject an accessible goal; therefore, if a self-improvement goal is accessible, happy (vs. neutral or unhappy) people perform better on self-control tasks that further that goal. Conversely, if a mood management goal is accessible, happy people abstain from self-control tasks because the tasks are incompatible with this goal. This pattern receives consistent support across several self-control tasks, including donating to charity, demonstrating physical endurance, seeking negative feedback, and completing tests.     

The choice between allocation principles: amplifying when equality dominates

One hundred and ninety participants (95 undergraduates and 95 employees) responded to a factorial survey in which a number of case-based organizational allocation tasks were described. Participants were asked to imagine themselves as employees in fictitious organizations and chose among three allocations of employee-development schemes invested by the manager in different work groups. The allocations regarded how such investments should be allocated between two parties. Participants chose twice, once picking the fairest and once the best allocation. One between-subjects factor varied whether the parties represented social (i.e., choosing among allocations between two different work groups) or temporal comparisons (i.e., choosing among allocations between the present and the following year). Another between-subjects factor varied whether participants' in-group was represented by the parties or not. One allocation maximized the outcome to one party, another maximized the joint outcome received by both parties, and a third provided both parties with equal but lower outcomes. It was predicted that equality, although always deficient to both parties, would be the preferred allocation when parties represented social comparisons and when choices were based on fairness. When parties represented temporal comparisons, and when choices were based on preference, maximizing the joint outcome was hypothesized to be the preferred allocation. Results supported these hypotheses. Against what was predicted, whether the in-group was represented by the parties or not did not moderate the results, indicating that participants' allocation preferences were not affected by self-interest. The main message is that people make sensible distinctions between what they prefer and what they regard as fair. The results were the same for participating students who imagined themselves as being employees and participants who were true employees, suggesting that no serious threats to external validity are committed when university students are used as participants.     

Disclosure and nondisclosure about being in counseling

We interviewed 13 undergraduate students who had been or were currently in counseling about whether or not they disclosed about being in counseling. Participants generally disclosed when they felt close to a person, and did not disclose when they felt they would be misunderstood or judged. Participants reported both neutral and positive consequences of having disclosed. Differences were found based on the level of shame-proneness, such that participants who were higher in shame-proneness seemed more self-protective and vigilant about others’ reactions when considering disclosing. Implications regarding how to deal with the stigma related to counseling are discussed.     

Acknowledgment of handicap as a tactic in social interaction

Nonhandicapped people often report discomfort and uncertainty when interacting with handicapped individuals. The three studies reported here investigated a possible tactic that handicapped people could use to reduce a fellow interactant's discomfort and uncertainty. Nonhandicapped subjects watched two videotapes of handicapped individuals being interviewed. Each subject then chose the handicapped person with whom he would prefer to work on a cooperative task. Results of all three studies supported the hypothesis that a handicapped person acknowledging his handicap will be preferred to a handicapped person who does not acknowledge his handicap. In Study 1, subjects significantly preferred a handicapped person who acknowledged his handicap to a handicapped person who did not disclose anything personal. In Study 2, subjects significantly preferred an acknowledging person over one who made a personal disclosure other than about his handicap. In Study 3, subjects preferred the individual acknowledging a handicap over one who disclosed something else personal even when the acknowledging individual was clearly nervous about doing so. These results suggest that acknowledging the handicap may be a promising tactic.     

Attitudes and Attraction: Optimism and Weight as Explanations for the Similarity–Dissimilarity Asymmetry

The positive link between attitude similarity and attraction is one of the fundamental outcomes in social psychology. However, attitude dissimilarity seems to be a stronger driver of this relationship than attitude similarity. The authors review the evidence on this similarity–dissimilarity asymmetry, and discuss two explanations. One is that people generally enter into interactions with optimism, and so supposedly neutral partners are often seen as mildly positive. Another is that dissimilar attitudes carry greater weight than similar attitudes in cognitive processes. Implications of these mechanisms for wider issues in person perception and attitude structure are discussed, connecting them with more recent theories of attitudinal ambivalence and evaluative space.     

The exemplary social emotion guilt: Not so relationship-oriented when another person repairs for you

Guilt is considered by many researchers to be the hallmark social emotion. Guilt theories perceive guilt to be a negative emotion with positive interpersonal consequences, and empirical research has shown guilt to motivate prosocial behaviours aimed at restoring the relationship with one's victims. The current research questions the relationship-oriented nature of this emotion. Five experiments reveal that when a person repairs the transgressor's damage caused to a victim, the transgressor's guilt feelings, reparative intentions, and prosocial behaviour decrease. These findings suggest that it is not the relationship with the victim that is important in the regulation of guilt feelings, but rather the reparative actions that have been undertaken. Implications for theory and behavioural research on guilt are discussed.     

Self‐Enhancement on a Self‐Categorization Leash: Evidence for a Dual‐Process Model of First‐ and Third‐Person Perceptions

Research suggests that first‐ and third‐person perceptions are driven by the motive to self‐enhance and cognitive processes involving the perception of social norms. This article proposes and tests a dual‐process model that predicts an interaction between cognition and motivation. Consistent with the model, Experiment 1 (N = 112) showed that self‐enhancement drove influence judgments when messages were normatively neutral—people reported first‐person perceptions for in‐group‐favoring messages and third‐person perceptions for out‐group‐favoring messages. Experiment 2 (N = 208) showed an additive effect when social norms were also in‐group‐enhancing, but showed a decreased effect when social norms and group‐enhancement were discordant. The findings are hard to reconcile with pure motivational or cognitive explanations, but are consistent with the proposed dual‐process model.