Identification During Imposed Change: The Roles of Personal Values,Type of Change,and Anxiety

Using a person‐situation perspective, we explain what happens to individuals' identification with a collective in the context of a change. We propose that given the anxiety that often emerges during change, individuals' personal values (conservation and openness to change) interact with type of change (imposed vs. voluntary) in predicting identification following change. In a pilot, longitudinal field study (N = 61, 67% female) of an imposed university campus relocation, we measured employees' values and identification with the university before and several months after the relocation. In two lab experiments (Study 1: N = 104, 91.3% female; Study 2: N = 113, 75.2% female), we manipulated a change to be either imposed or voluntary and compared the relationships between values and identification across types of change. In Study 2, we also measured anxiety from the change. When change was imposed (all three studies), but not when voluntary (Studies 1 and 2), individuals' conservation was positively, and openness negatively, related to individuals' post‐change identification. The effects emerged only for individuals who experienced change‐related anxiety (Study 2). Our findings demonstrate that individuals' identification with a changing collective depends on the amount of anxiety change elicits and on the particular combination of their values and type of change.     

Relationship tensions and mood: Adult children's daily experience of aging parents' stubbornness

This study examined middle‐aged individuals' reports of parents' behaviors commonly attributed to stubbornness. Middle‐aged adults (N = 192) completed a 7‐day diary reporting their mood and how often they felt their parents (N = 254) engaged in behaviors often described as “stubbornness” (insistent or risky). Thirty‐one percent of middle‐aged children reported insistent behaviors, and 17% reported risky behaviors by their parent(s). Daily reports of parent behaviors attributed to stubbornness were positively associated with parent–child relationship quality, parent functional limitations, and child neuroticism. Reports of perceived parent insistent behaviors were also associated with greater daily negative mood among adult children. Findings highlight the impact of adult children's daily perceptions of parent behaviors commonly attributed to stubbornness on the individual and relationship.     

Prefer feeling bad? Subcultural differences in emotional preferences between Han Chinese and Mongolian Chinese

As a multi‐ethnic country that is comprised of diverse cultural systems, there has been little research on the subcultural differences in emotional preferences in China. Also, little attention has been paid to examine how explicit and implicit attitudes towards emotions influence emotional preferences interactively. In this study, we manipulated explicit attitudes towards emotions among Han (N = 62) and Mongolian Chinese individuals (N = 70). We assessed participants' implicit attitudes towards emotions to explore their contributions to emotional preferences. (a) Han Chinese had lower preferences for pleasant emotions than Mongolian Chinese after inducing contra‐hedonic attitudes towards emotions, and (b) after priming contra‐hedonic attitudes towards emotions, the more Han Chinese participants evaluated pleasant emotions as negative implicitly, the less they preferred to engage in pleasant emotional activities. These findings contribute to the growing literature of subcultural differences and demonstrate that explicit and implicit attitudes towards emotions interactively influence individuals' emotional preferences between different subculture groups.     

Recruiting Through Job Advertisements: The Effects of Cognitive Elaboration on Decision Making

We applied a model of persuasion – the elaboration likelihood model – to investigate whether individuals' decisions about responding to job advertisements are affected by how deeply they process recruitment messages (i.e., elaboration likelihood, EL). We manipulated individuals' (N=112) motivation and ability to carefully process job advertisements (ads). As hypothesized, individuals in the lower (vs. higher) EL conditions chose more ads containing cues unrelated to the job (e.g., bolded font), and fewer ads containing higher quality arguments. Participants also reported that they “skimmed” and carefully read job ads in the past, providing evidence for variability in EL among job seekers. We discuss the implications of the findings for recruiters who wish to increase the size of their applicant pool.     

Avoiding affect in intergroup relations: The roles of dispositional and intergroup empathy in the relationship between alexithymia and prejudice

Alexithymia, that is, difficulties in recognizing, communicating, and processing one's own emotions, is associated with poorer interpersonal relations. Emotional processes are key drivers and mechanisms of prejudice and its reduction, and alexithymia is thought to influence individuals' empathic responses. This research examined the relationship between alexithymia and prejudice, and the role of empathy in this relationship. Three studies were conducted in three intergroup contexts to test whether alexithymia is also associated with poorer intergroup relations with lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender+ individuals (Study 1, N = 126 heterosexual late adolescents) and Asian British people (Study 3, N = 300 White adults) in the United Kingdom, and immigrants in Italy (Study 2, N = 381 Italian adults). Participants completed the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20), measures on dispositional and intergroup empathic concern (EC) and perspective taking (PT) as well as measures of prejudice (anti-outgroup hostility, anti-outgroup attitudes, and anti-outgroup behavioral intentions). Lower dispositional EC (Studies 1, marginal effect in Study 2) and intergroup EC and PT (Study 3) mediated the relationship between the Externally Oriented Thinking subscale of the TAS-20 (i.e., avoiding emotions and affective thinking) and greater prejudice. The findings are important for understanding the challenges of late adolescents and adults with alexithymia in intergroup relations, highlighting the role of dispositional and intergroup empathy for individual differences such as alexithymia in endorsing prejudice.     

Justice sensitivity and forgiveness in close interpersonal relationships: the mediating role of mistrustful, legitimizing, and pro-relationship cognitions

The purpose of the present investigation was to explore and better understand the relationship between justice sensitivity from a victim's perspective (JS‐victim) and interpersonal forgiveness. In particular, we aimed to identify the cognitive mechanisms mediating this relationship and test the moderating influence of post‐transgression perpetrator behavior. We used data from a questionnaire study employing a Swiss community sample (N = 450) and 2 scenario‐based studies employing German online samples, in the context of romantic (N = 242) and friendship relationships (N = 974). We consistently found JS‐victim to be negatively related to dispositional (Study 1) and situational forgiveness (Studies 2 and 3). Study 2 demonstrated the relationship between JS‐victim and reduced forgiveness to be partly mediated by mistrustful interpretations of the partner's post‐transgression behavior. In Study 3, cognitions legitimizing one's own antisocial reactions and a lack of pro‐relationship cognitions were identified as further mediators. These variables mediated the negative effect of JS‐victim on forgiveness largely independent of whether the friend perpetrator displayed reconciliatory behavior or not. Findings suggest that the cognitive mechanisms mediating victim‐sensitive individuals' unforgiveness could barely be neutralized. Future research should investigate their malleability in light of qualitatively different perpetrator behaviors as well as their broader relational implications.     

Changes in childhood caregiving impressions among middle-aged and older adults

Childhood experiences and impressions are important for individuals' health and well-being—they often set the stage for how people approach relationships across the lifespan and how they make sense of their relational worlds. However, impressions of these experiences are likely not static and can change over time, even years after these experiences happened. The current study examined how impressions of parental relationships in childhood changed over time, and predictors of these changes, among middle-aged and older adults followed over a 4-year period (N = 2692; M_age = 66.67, SD = 9.15; 64.1% women). Childhood impressions of parental care were mostly stable over time, with 53.5%–65.0% of participants reporting consistent impressions. Becoming divorced/separated as an adult was associated with more negative impressions about relationships with fathers in the past. Having a mother pass away was associated with more positive impressions of mothers' caregiving when participants were children. Higher depressive symptoms at follow-up were associated with darker perceptions of the past—more negative impressions of mothers and fathers as caregivers. The current study is one of the most comprehensive studies of late-life changes in childhood impressions to date, suggesting future directions for studying the organization of relational experiences and recollection over time.     

Does anxiety sensitivity correlate with startle habituation? An examination in two independent samples

Individuals with anxiety disorders have previously demonstrated abnormal habituation to aversiveness over time. As anxiety sensitivity (AS), or an individuals' propensity to fear of anxiety-related sensations, has been shown to be a risk factor for anxiety disorders (particularly panic disorder), the present study examined whether AS was also associated with abnormal habituation. This association was examined in two independent samples of undergraduates (N_total=178). Habituation was operationalised as the reduction in startle response to multiple startle probes presented over 2.5 minutes and three definitions of this reduction were employed. Results indicated that individuals with higher levels of AS evidenced deficits in startle habituation, but the strength of this relationship was somewhat dependent on the definition of startle habituation, with the most robust definition being an analysis of participants' individual slopes across all nine blinks. The present findings suggest that startle habituation is a key mechanism underlying AS, and may help elucidate the role this risk factor plays in the pathogenesis of anxiety disorders.     

Maternal self‐perceptions and reactions to infant crying among intrusive and withdrawn depressed mothers

This study compared intrusive (N =15) and withdrawn (N = 10) mothers' ratings of their own interaction styles with their infants and the behaviors of videotaped models of intrusive and withdrawn mothers. Withdrawn mothers rated themselves as less withdrawn than the model withdrawn mother. Intrusive mothers viewed themselves as more intrusive than the model intrusive mother. Both groups viewed their own infants as more outgoing than the infants of the model intrusive and withdrawn mothers. The withdrawn mothers reported feeling more distressed when they observed an infant (of an intrusive or withdrawn mother) crying, suggesting that they feel more empathy than the intrusive mothers. © 2001 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health.     

Women's career patterns: A study of Swedish women born in the 1950s

Patterns of career development have been found to be an important factor for long‐term career rewards and well‐being. However, existing career models excessively focus on men or elite women and upon paid work, typically without considering other roles. Based on a life course perspective, this study aimed to identify women's career development patterns by examining the dynamic interactions between individuals' involvement in working life and other career‐related domains of life. Career biographies, from the ages of 16 to 43, were recorded through retrospective reports from a representative sample of Swedish women (N = 549) participating in a longitudinal programme on individual development. Seven career‐related activities were coded and combined into career sequences covering the entire period. Data were analysed using optimal matching, and nine distinct career patterns ‐ disparate in terms of the timing, ordering and duration of activities ‐ were identified. There were significant differences between the career patterns in early educational aspirations and early sexual experiences, as well as in life‐role values and socio‐economic status in middle age. With respect to the consequences of career patterns for well‐being, there were significant differences in self‐rated health but not in job satisfaction or life satisfaction. The diversity of patterns is discussed from a perspective that takes account of both life course theory and the choices made by individual women in a society that provides childcare facilities, parental leave and other types of support to working parents.     

Poaching,promiscuity, and deceit: Combatting mating rivalry in same‐sex friendships

If humans faced recurrently over evolutionary history the adaptive problem of competition with same‐sex friends for mates, they may have evolved psychological mechanisms designed to prevent and combat mating rivalry with same‐sex friends. Four studies were conducted to test hypotheses about the design of these mechanisms. In Studies 1 and 2 (N= 406 and N= 342, respectively) we found that, as predicted, people experience more upset in response to imagined rivalry from a friend than from a stranger. In Study 3 (N= 455), in which a between‐subjects design was utilized, we found that women's, but not men's, willingness to become friends with a member of the same sex is lower when the person is described as sexually promiscuous. In Study 4 (N= 169) we found that people report being deceived by friends about mating rivalry more often than they themselves report engaging in deceit about rivalry, and women more than men deceive each other about how sexually experienced and promiscuous they are. Discussion addresses implications of the findings and the use of an evolutionary approach for understanding conflict in same‐sex friendship.     

Narcissism and Discrepancy Between Self and Friends' Perceptions of Personality

Most research on narcissism and person perception has used strangers as perceivers. However, research has demonstrated that strangers' ratings are influenced by narcissists' stylish appearance (Back, Schmukle, & Egloff, 2010). In the present study, we recruited participants and their close friends, individuals whose close relationship should immunize them to participants' superficial appearance cues. We investigated the relation between narcissism and personality ratings by self and friends. Participants (N = 66; 38 women; M_age = 20.83 years) completed the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (Raskin & Terry, 1988) and described their personality on the 100‐item California Adult Q‐Sort (CAQ; Block, 2008). Participants' personality was also described on the CAQ by close friends. The “optimally adjusted individual” prototype was used to summarize participant and friend personality ratings (Block, 2008). Participants with high narcissism scores were ascribed higher optimal adjustment by self than by friends. Narcissistic individuals' self‐ratings were extremely positive and more favorable than friends' ratings of them.     

Prosocial thinkers and the social transmission of justice

Feeling the sting of another's injustice is a common human experience. We adopt a motivated information processing approach and explore how individual differences in social motives (e.g., high vs. low collectivism) and epistemic motives (e.g., high vs. low need for closure) drive individuals' evaluative and behavioral reactions to the just and unjust treatment of others. In two studies, one in the laboratory (N = 78) and one in the field (N = 163), we find that the justice treatment of others has a more profound influence on the attitudes and behaviors of prosocial thinkers, people who are chronically higher (vs. lower) in collectivism and lower (vs. higher) in the need for closure. In all, our results suggest that chronically higher collectivism and a lower need for closure work in concert to make another's justice relevant to personal judgment and behavior.     

Avengees' perspectives on revenge: Commitment as a predictor and relationship type differences

This study investigated how people respond emotionally to and make sense of the experience of being on the receiving end of an angry relationship partner's attempted revenge. Using an interdependence theory framework, we tested hypotheses concerning the role of commitment and investigated differences due to relationship type. We asked participants (N = 439) if they had experienced revenge at the hands of either a romantic partner, family member, or associate. Among those who had (N = 254), we found support for hypotheses linking commitment with avengees' affective and evaluative responses to being the target of revenge, but little evidence that these associations vary by relationship type. Possible routes by which commitment may influence people's experiences as avengees are discussed.     

Dynamic self‐representation of interdependent Chinese: The effect of bicultural experience

The process of globalisation has increased the opportunity for Chinese individuals to utilise influences from other cultures that differ from their own collectivistic culture. The explorations of the impact of acculturation on Chinese individuals' self‐construals have become intriguing. Thus, we recruited German‐Chinese (N = 192) people who live in Germany and had direct bicultural experiences, as well as Mainland‐Chinese (N = 192) people who live in Mainland China and had internalised a second culture through more indirect means of exposure. We investigated their accessibility to both interdependent and independent cultural frameworks using temporal self‐construal priming. The results showed that priming effects were observed in both cultural groups. However, the self‐construals of the German‐Chinese participants were more flexible than those of Mainland‐Chinese under self‐construal priming. Also, the results suggested that women were easier to be influenced by direct bicultural experiences, due to their private and collective self were different between the two cultures. These findings provide evidence regarding the opinion that individuals could use influences from more than one culture. More importantly, these results suggest that the acculturation induced by direct bicultural experiences facilitates cultural frame switching.     

“Fury,us”: Anger as a basis for new group self-categories

We tested the hypothesis that shared emotions, notably anger, influence the formation of new self-categories. We first measured participants' (N = 89) emotional reactions to a proposal to make university assessment tougher before providing feedback about the reactions of eight other co-present individuals. This feedback always contained information about the other individuals' attitudes to the proposals (four opposed and four not opposed) and in the experimental condition emotion information (of those opposed, two were angry, two were sad). Participants self-categorised more with, and preferred to work with, angry rather than sad targets, but only when participants' own anger was high. These findings support the idea that emotions are a potent determinant of self-categorisation, even in the absence of existing, available self-categories.     

Heterosexist discrimination and relational sacrifice of same-sex couples

Drawing on the family stress process model and using data from 141 same-sex couples (N = 282 partners), we examined associations between heterosexist discrimination and relational sacrifices (i.e., willingness and behaviors). We also examined the moderating roles of both partners' internalized homophobia and state-level liberalism on same-sex marriage legalization. Actor-partner interdependence moderation models were conducted. Most of our findings supported hypotheses from the family stress process model. One individual's experiences of greater heterosexist discrimination were related to the partner's higher levels of sacrifice willingness and the individual's own higher frequency of sacrifice behaviors. Such associations emerged (a) among couples living in more liberal states that legalized same-sex marriage earlier, and (b) when the individual's partner reported lower levels of internalized homophobia. Yet the moderating role of an individual's internalized homophobia was the opposite of our hypothesis. When individuals reported high (versus low) internalized homophobia, individuals' experiences of more discriminative events were related to partners' higher levels of sacrifice willingness. Collectively, our study findings highlight that—when investigating how same-sex couples forge and maintain romantic bonds—researchers should consider their experiences in the social cultural context of heteronormativity, which includes the focus on discrimination, stigma, and affirmative laws and policies.     

Eliciting human intelligence: The effects of social exclusion and inclusion on information disclosure

Eliciting information from semicooperative sources presents a major challenge in investigative and intelligence settings. This research examines the role of the human need to belong in individuals' willingness to disclose critical information. We hypothesised that social exclusion would exert a threat to individuals' need to belong and self‐esteem, which would make them strive for social reconnection through sharing information with others. In two experiments (N = 150 and N = 135), social exclusion and inclusion were manipulated before participants were given the opportunity to disclose critical information in a semicooperative game setting (Study 1) or a mock intelligence interview (Study 2). Social exclusion did not influence information disclosure in any of the experiments. Instead, however, social inclusion unexpectedly increased information disclosure in the interview setting. We conclude that prior social experiences can influence the outcome of subsequent interviews, but the precise mechanisms underlying such influence are currently unknown.     

Ordinance influences individuals' perceptions towards prospects of social circumstance but not the status quo: An experimental field study on sexual minorities issues in Japan

Scientific evidence shows that institutional decisions can change individuals' private attitudes towards relevant issues. However, little is known about their effect on individuals' perceptions of social norms. This intriguing question has gained the attention of scholars. Nonetheless, the findings are primarily observed only in samples of the Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, and Democratic countries, leading to doubts about their generalisability. This study experimentally tested residents' (N = 411) reactions to the new Tokyo ordinance prohibiting discrimination against sexual minorities enacted on October 5, 2018, and tested whether it dispelled self–other discrepancies regarding tolerance towards sexual minorities (i.e., pluralistic ignorance). The results showed that exposure to information about enactment increased future perceptions of support and understanding of sexual minorities. By contrast, private attitudes, perceptions of current social norms, and willingness to speak out did not change. Willingness to speak out was indirectly enhanced through increased perceptions of gaining future support. Furthermore, Tokyo residents overestimated other residents' negative attitudes towards sexual minorities. However, even when informed of the new ordinance, this self–other discrepancy in intolerance towards sexual minorities was not corrected. These findings suggest that institutional decisions can shape the perception of social norm change in the future beyond Western countries.     

The Effect of Gender Role Orientation on Same- and Cross-Sex Friendship Formation

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of gender role orientation on factors related to same- and cross-sex friendship formation. Participants (N = 278) completed a version of the Bem Sex Role Inventory. Each participant listed their closest friends, the sex of each friend, and the closeness level of each relationship. They also indicated whether they prefer same- or cross-sex friendship. The results suggest that gender role orientation affects inclination for cross-sex friendship, particularly the relative frequency of cross-sex friendship. Feminine men had a significantly higher proportion of cross-sex friendships than did masculine men, and masculine women had a significantly higher proportion of cross-sex friendships than did feminine women. A significant number of participants indicated that they did not prefer one sex or the other for friendship. Gender role orientation had no impact on levels of closeness in either same- or cross-sex friendship.