Psychological Openness and Counselor Effectiveness: A Further Investigation

The purpose of this study was to crossvalidate previous findings which lend credence to the widely hypothesized positive relationship between a student's psychological openness and his effectiveness as a counselor. Rorschach indicators of psychological openness were compared with supervisor ratings of competence and scores obtained from the application of the Truax Scales of accurate empathy, genuineness, and nonpossessive warmth to tapes of actual counseling sessions. The data offer further support for the hypothesis that psychological openness is an important predictor of success in counselor training.     

The prospective relationship between child personality and perceived parenting: Mediation by parental sense of competence

This study examined the prospective relationship between childhood Big Five personality characteristics and perceived parenting in adolescence. In addition, we investigated whether this relationship was mediated by parental sense of competence, and whether associations were different for mothers and fathers. For 274 children, teachers reported on children’s Big Five personality characteristics at Time 1, mothers and fathers reported on their sense of competence at Time 2, and the children (who had now become adolescents) rated their parents’ warmth, overreactivity and psychological control at Time 3. Mediation analysis revealed both direct and indirect effects. No differences in associations were found for perceived parenting of mothers and fathers. This study demonstrates that child personality in late childhood is significantly related to perceived parental warmth, overreactivity and psychological control in adolescence. In addition, parental sense of competence mediates the relationship between child conscientiousness and perceived parental warmth, overreactivity and psychological control.     

情境对“热情优先效应”的影响——基于同伴提名法的检验

本研究同时从热情和能力维度独立和互依视角,采用同伴提名法考察社交与工作导向情境对“热情优先效应”的增强与削弱作用。结果发现：（1）社交导向情境下表现出明显的“热情优先效应”;（2）工作导向情境对能力的突显效应与“热情优先效应”的表现相反：在热情与能力独立视角下,情境的削弱效应使得“热情优先效应”无法表现;而在热情与能力互依视角下,“热情优先效应”则强于情境对其的削弱效应。     

Projecting Lower Competence to Maintain Moral Warmth in the Avoidance of Prosocial Requests

When faced with prosocial requests, consumers face a difficult decision between taking on the request's burden or appearing unwarm (unkind, uncaring). We propose that the desire to refuse such requests while protecting a morally warm image leads consumers to under‐represent their competence. Although consumers care strongly about being viewed as competent, five studies showed that they downplayed their competence to sidestep a prosocial request. This effect occurred across both self‐reported and behavioral displays of competence. Further, the downplaying competence effect only occurred when facing an undesirable prosocial request, not a similarly undesirable proself request. The final studies showed that people specifically downplayed competence and not warmth. We further distinguished between social warmth (e.g., humor) and moral warmth (e.g., kindness), showing that when competence, social warmth, and moral warmth were all requisite skills for a prosocial task, people downplayed competence and social warmth more than moral warmth. These findings underscore that although people care strongly about being viewed as competent, they willingly trade off competence evaluations if evaluations of warmth—particularly moral warmth—are at risk.     

You want to appear competent? Be mean! You want to appear sociable? Be lazy! Group differentiation and the compensation effect

Using the two fundamental dimensions of social judgment, warmth and competence, we show that, contrary to general models of impression formation, negative information on one dimension has positive consequences on the way a target is judged on the other dimension. Participants learned about two groups which were either congruent on warmth and competence (one group high on both and the other low on both) or they were compensatory (one group high on warmth and low on competence, the other high on competence and low on warmth). Our results show that in the compensatory condition, the groups were rated more extremely than in the congruent condition and that this was especially the case for the dimension on which the groups were high. Results are discussed both in terms of how they run counter to traditional theories of impression formation and what they tell us about the fundamental dimensions of social judgment.     

“凭感觉”的热情与能力：社会认知内容的生理线索

热情与能力是解析社会认知的普适性框架,同现实情境中诸多要素存在着关联。与众多明显带有社会属性的要素相比,源自面孔或者颜色的视觉、声音的听觉、身体姿态的动觉、温度变化的肤觉等生理线索,也可以跟热情与能力的社会知觉产生关联,这个过程可能基于生理–社会的知觉联结假设或者知觉启动假设而发生。以生理–社会的知觉关系为切入点,热情与能力更能发挥解析具体情境的灵活性。侧重典型生理线索的挖掘、建立生理线索同热情与能力的组态关系,以及这种关系对社会性偏向的影响,将有助于推进热情与能力融入更为广泛的社会应用之中。     

The effect of video observation on warmth and competence ratings of individuals with a disability

ObjectivesThis study examined whether a video featuring an adult with a physical disability engaging in either sport, exercise, or an activity of daily living (ADL) can mitigate negative stereotypes of disability held by people without a disability.DesignThis study used a pre-post design, involving three participant groups.MethodsParticipants (n = 212) read a vignette describing an adult with a disability (target). Consistent with the stereotype content model, participants judged the target's warmth and competence. One week later, participants viewed a video of the target participating in sport, exercise, or an ADL and judged the target's warmth and competence.ResultsJudgements of competence but not warmth changed over time. The greatest increases occurred in the sport condition. At follow-up, the typical high warmth low competence stereotype of disability was reversed; the character was judged as being more competent than warm especially in the sport condition.ConclusionVideos of adults with a disability engaging in physical activity, particularly sport, have potential to mitigate negative stereotypes of disability.     

To switch or not to switch: Inviting bilingual clients to switch languages in psychotherapy

In the present study, we used an audio-analog design to test whether exposing bilingual participants to a therapist who invited a bilingual client to switch languages in a psychotherapy session would have a positive effect on participants’ perceptions of the therapist. We also explored whether participants’ sense of belonging to their ethnic group and to the larger US culture would enhance or attenuate this effect. Sixty-three bilingual Latino/a university students listened to one of two recordings of a simulated psychotherapy session with a bilingual Latina therapist and client. In one recording, the therapist invited the client to switch from English to Spanish when the client had trouble expressing complicated feelings; in the other, the therapist did not invite the client to switch. When listening, participants were asked to imagine themselves in the role of client and to rate the credibility and multicultural competence of the therapist, and the emotional bond they would anticipate with her. Contrary to expectation, only participants who expressed a greater sense of belonging to US culture rated the therapist who invited the client to switch as being more multiculturally competent. We discuss how these findings contribute to the literature on language switching and bilingualism in psychotherapy.     

Beauty Is in the Eye of the Beer Holder: An Initial Investigation of the Effects of Alcohol,Attractiveness, Warmth,and Competence on the Objectifying Gaze in Men

Despite literature revealing the adverse consequences of objectifying gazes for women, little work has empirically examined origins of objectifying gazes by perceivers. Integrating alcohol myopia and objectification theories, we examined the effects of alcohol as well as perceived female attractiveness, warmth, and competence on objectifying gazes. Specifically, male undergraduates (n?=?49) from a large U.S. Midwestern university were administered either an alcoholic or placebo beverage. After consumption, participants were asked to focus on the appearance or personality (counterbalanced) of pictured women who were previously rated as high, average, or low in attractiveness, warmth, and competence. Replicating previous work, appearance focus increased objectifying gazes as measured by decreased visual dwell time on women’s faces and increased dwell time on women’s bodies. Additionally, alcohol increased objectifying gazes. Whereas greater perceived attractiveness increased objectifying gazes, more perceived warmth and perceived competence decreased objectifying gazes. Furthermore, the effects of warmth and competence perceptions on objectifying gazes were moderated by alcohol condition; intoxicated participants objectified women low in warmth and competence to a greater extent than did sober participants. Implications for understanding men’s objectifying perceptions of women are addressed, shedding light on potential interventions for clinicians and policymakers to reduce alcohol-involved objectification and related sexual aggression.     

A model of (often mixed) stereotype content: competence and warmth respectively follow from perceived status and competition

Stereotype research emphasizes systematic processes over seemingly arbitrary contents, but content also may prove systematic. On the basis of stereotypes' intergroup functions, the stereotype content model hypothesizes that (a) 2 primary dimensions are competence and warmth, (b) frequent mixed clusters combine high warmth with low competence (paternalistic) or high competence with low warmth (envious), and (c) distinct emotions (pity, envy, admiration, contempt) differentiate the 4 competence-warmth combinations. Stereotypically, (d) status predicts high competence, and competition predicts low warmth. Nine varied samples rated gender, ethnicity, race, class, age, and disability out-groups. Contrary to antipathy models, 2 dimensions mattered, and many stereotypes were mixed, either pitying (low competence, high warmth subordinates) or envying (high competence, low warmth competitors). Stereotypically, status predicted competence, and competition predicted low warmth.     

Girls’ perceptions of their mothers at work and home: Warm does not mean weak

Upper elementary school girls were surveyed about their mothers’ and fathers’ warmth, competence, and agency at home and how they imagine their parents at work. Mothers’ warmth at home was positively correlated with perceived competence and agency both at home and at work. Differences between daughters’ perceptions of their mothers and fathers at work are discussed.     

Relationship context and personality shape people's preferences for network relationship partners

This study investigates how people weight potential relationship partners' personal characteristics (i.e., warmth and competence) when deciding to initiate professional versus personal network relationships, and it also examines how certain personality traits (extraversion and conscientiousness) shape this process. Results from two samples indicate that people tend to value competence more highly when initiating professional relationships, whereas they tend to value warmth more highly when initiating personal relationships. Furthermore, neither extraversion nor conscientiousness was related to how people weighted competence when initiating professional relationships. However, supplementary analyses demonstrated that people high in conscientiousness tend to value competence and people high in agreeableness tend to value warmth in their network relationship partners, regardless of whether they are initiating a professional or personal relationship.     

Influence of warmth and competence on the promotion of safe in-group selection: Stereotype content model and social categorization of faces

Categorizing an individual as a friend or foe plays a pivotal role in navigating the social world. According to the stereotype content model (SCM), social perception relies on two fundamental dimensions, warmth and competence, which allow us to process the intentions of others and their ability to enact those intentions, respectively. Social cognition research indicates that, in categorization tasks, people tend to classify other individuals as more likely to belong to the out-group than the in-group (in-group overexclusion effect, IOE) when lacking diagnostic information, probably with the aim of protecting in-group integrity. Here, we explored the role of warmth and competence in group-membership decisions by testing 62 participants in a social-categorization task consisting of 150 neutral faces. We assessed whether (a) warmth and competence ratings could predict the in-group/out-group categorization, and (b) the reliance on these two dimensions differed in low-IOE versus high-IOE participants. Data showed that high ratings of warmth and competence were necessary to categorize a face as in-group. Moreover, while low-IOE participants relied on warmth, high-IOE participants relied on competence. This finding suggests that the proneness to include/exclude unknown identities in/from one's own in-group is related to individual differences in the reliance on SCM social dimensions. Furthermore, the primacy of the warmth effect seems not to represent a universal phenomenon adopted in the context of social evaluation.     

情境线索对社会认知内容推断的影响

本研究考察了情境线索对社会目标不同内容维度之间的推断的影响。研究一发现,缺乏情境线索时,两个基本维度热情和能力之间呈一种正向推断。研究二发现,当情境线索明确指向高能力时,高热情描述会导致低能力推断,同时也引发了消极的行为倾向。研究三进一步考察了热情的两个子维度社交性和道德性之间的推断,结果发现描述社交性职业的社交性信息或者描述道德性职业的道德性信息时,对目标对象的整体评价和行为意愿都更为积极。本研究表明,情境的预期性线索为社会认知内容的推断提供了基本的认知框架,当信息呈现与情境预期相匹配时,更容易产生积极推断。     

情境线索对社会认知内容推断的影响

本研究考察了情境线索对社会目标不同内容维度之间的推断的影响。研究一发现,缺乏情境线索时,两个基本维度热情和能力之间呈一种正向推断。研究二发现,当情境线索明确指向高能力时,高热情描述会导致低能力推断,同时也引发了消极的行为倾向。研究三进一步考察了热情的两个子维度社交性和道德性之间的推断,结果发现描述社交性职业的社交性信息或者描述道德性职业的道德性信息时,对目标对象的整体评价和行为意愿都更为积极。本研究表明,情境的预期性线索为社会认知内容的推断提供了基本的认知框架,当信息呈现与情境预期相匹配时,更容易产生积极推断。     

The influence of perceived warmth and competence on realistic threat and willingness for intergroup contact

Unwillingness for contact with outgroup members is a form of prejudice. In two studies, we tested the proposition that perceived competence has an indirect effect on willingness for intergroup contact through its effect on realistic threat, and that perceived warmth moderates this relationship. In Study 1, Hong Kong students (N = 144) rated the perceived warmth and competence of an outgroup, Mainland Chinese students, as well as the extent to which they perceived the group as presenting a realistic threat, and willingness for contact with them. In Study 2 (N = 205), we attempted to manipulate the warmth (high vs. low) and competence (high vs. low) of an unfamiliar outgroup, and tested the effects on realistic threat and willingness for intergroup contact. In both studies, we found an interaction effect between warmth and competence in the prediction of realistic threat. When the outgroup was perceived as warm, competence was found to have a negative association with realistic threat (Study 1), whereas when the outgroup was perceived as lacking warmth, competence was found to have a positive association with realistic threat (Study 2). In both studies, perceived warmth moderated the indirect effect of perceived competence on willingness for intergroup contact. Implications for the role of warmth and competence stereotypes in threat perception and prejudice are discussed.     

Insensitivity to Gradations in Warmth Traits Constrains Beliefs About Others’ Potential for Improvement

Do people believe that others can improve their traits and personalities? Three experiments find that the answer depends on the trait in question. People believe that others’ potential for improving warmth traits is systematically lower than others’ potential for improving competence traits (Experiments 1a–1c). Consequently, shortcomings related to one's warmth are considered harder to overcome than shortcomings related to one's competence (Experiment 2). This asymmetry is partly rooted in people's relative inability to detect gradations in warmth-related behaviors (Experiments 3–5). Enabling participants to more easily distinguish between moderate and high levels of warmth also increased their beliefs that other people can improve warmth traits. Beliefs about potential for improvement depend on how easily a trait can be evaluated.     

热情与能力的关系及其影响因素

社会认知的两个基本维度热情与能力之间存在一种特殊的关系, 它既可能是晕轮效应所认为的正向关系, 也可能是补偿效应和影射效应所认为的负向关系, 还有可能是受多种因素影响的正交关系。热情与能力的关系受到知觉者自身因素、知觉对象的特点、知觉者与知觉对象的关系以及外部环境等多种因素的影响, 而热情与能力关系的内部机制不明确是学者们对其关系产生分歧的根本原因。今后需要进一步探讨热情与能力的内部机制, 进行跨文化的检验和比较研究, 进一步探索其关系的影响因素, 建构热情与能力的关系模型。     

Valence and Origin of Emotional Words Influence on Subsequent Perception of Ambiguous Stimuli in Terms of Competence Versus Warmth

The aim of this study was to examine whether the valence and origin of emotional words can alter perception of ambiguous objects in terms of warmth versus competence, fundamental dimensions of social cognition. 60 individuals were invited into the study focusing on the limits of intuition. They were asked to try to guess the meaning of Japanese pictorial signs in terms of their warmth versus competence connotations. Before each trial a subsequent memory load task was applied. Participants were supposed to read and remember words creating a factorial manipulation of valence (three levels) and origins (three levels: automatic, neutral and reflective) of affective connotations presenting to them for 500 ms. For positively valenced words, automatic originated ones resulted in perception of ambiguous signs more in terms of warmth, while reflective originated words resulted in perception of signs more in terms of competence. This study shows that social perception of warmth versus competence is susceptible to emotional influence of unrelated stimulation, and thus can be primed by objects in the environment. Warmth may be treated as linked with automatic mind processes, while competence may be treated as associated with the controlled part of the mind. In a broader context, this experiment results support claim that distinct dualities identified in dual-processes theories of mind are related to one another, and in fact they may be emanations of two more general systems of mind.     

自我表露热情与能力对人际吸引的差异化影响

研究考察了自我表露热情与能力是否对人际吸引存在不同影响。通过两个实验发现,自我表露热情对社会吸引影响更大,自我表露能力对任务吸引影响更大,但表露负面热情也会显著削弱任务吸引,且表露正面热情与能力在社会吸引上的差异在男性身上不再显著。研究表明,自我表露热情与能力对人际吸引存在不同影响,且会受到表露内容效价与表露者性别的调节。