On becoming a leader: Effects of gender and cultural differences on power distance reduction

The present research focused on power processes in a simulated organizational structure consisting of three hierarchical levels occupied by different numbers of mules and females. Subjects were presented with a chart showing the organizational hierarchy of which they were a member placed at the lowest level, and asked to nominate any person for the leader position vacated by the current incumbent. The results of Experiment I (n = 88 Dutch male and female university students) showed that male subjects strongly overnominated themselves, whereas a majority of the female subjects nominated either self or another female. Of the others that were nominated by both males and females, almost all were occupants of positions immediately below the leader position, indicating the normative influence of a bureaucratic rule of leader succession. Experiment 2 was a replicational study carried out in a different culture (n = lOl Polish male and female university students). Polish subjects adhered to the bureaucratic rule more strongly than their Dutch counterparts, and both females and males nominated mostly males. Results are discussed with reference to gender self-stereotypes and cultural differences.     

Cohort differences in Big Five personality factors over a period of 25 years

The notion of personality traits implies a certain degree of stability in the life span of an individual. But what about generational effects? Are there generational changes in the distribution or structure of personality traits? This article examines cohort changes on the Big Five personality factors Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, and Openness to Experience, among first-year psychology students in The Netherlands, ages 18 to 25 years, between 1982 and 2007. Because measurement invariance of a personality test is essential for a sound interpretation of cohort differences in personality, we first assessed measurement invariance with respect to cohort for males and females separately on the Big Five personality factors, as measured by the Dutch instrument Five Personality Factors Test. Results identified 11 (females) and 2 (males) biased items with respect to cohort, out of a total of 70 items. Analyzing the unbiased items, results indicated small linear increases over time in Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness and small linear decreases over time in Neuroticism. No clear patterns were found on the Openness to Experience factor. Secondary analyses on students from 1971 to 2007 of females and males of different ages together revealed linear trends comparable to those in the main analyses among young adults between 1982 onward. The results imply that the broad sociocultural context may affect personality factors.     

Breaking habits with implementation intentions: a test of underlying processes

Implementation intentions specifying the replacement of a habitual response with an alternative response in a critical situation can overrule habits. In three experiments the cognitive effects of such counterhabitual implementation intentions were investigated. Results showed that implementation intentions eliminated the cognitive advantage of the habitual means in the "horse race" with the alternative response. That is, in the control condition, the habitual means was more accessible than the alternative means on encountering the critical situation, but this was no longer the case when implementation intentions were formulated. However, the cognitive advantage of the habitual means was not immediately replaced by an automatic activation of the alternative means. This suggests that formulating counterhabitual implementation intentions increases individuals' flexibility to choose which behavior to perform in the critical situation but that actual behavior will depart from their habits only to the extent that individuals have strong alternative goal intentions.     

Confabulating reasons for behaving bad: The psychological consequences of unconsciously activated behaviour that violates one's standards

Numerous studies have been conducted to demonstrate that behaviours are frequently activated unconsciously. The present studies investigate the downstream psychological consequences of such unconscious behaviour activation, building on work on the explanatory vacuum and post‐priming misattribution. It was hypothesized that unconsciously activated behaviours trigger a negative affective response if the behaviour violates a personal standard and that this negative affect subsequently motivates people to confabulate a reason for the behaviour. Results provided evidence for this mediated moderation model. Study 1 showed that participants who were primed to act less prosocially indeed reported increased levels of negative affect and, as a result, were inclined to confabulate a reason for their behaviour. Study 2 replicated these findings in the domain of eating and provided evidence for the moderating role of personal standards as well as the entire mediated moderation model. These findings have relevant theoretical implications as they add to the modest number of studies that demonstrate that the effect of unconscious priming may extend well beyond performing the primed behaviour itself to influence subsequent affect and attribution processes. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Roles of Shame and Guilt in the Development of Aggression in Adolescents With and Without Hearing Loss

Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology - This longitudinal study examined how shame and guilt contribute to the development of reactive and proactive aggression in adolescents with and...     

Social Comparison as the Thief of Joy: Emotional Consequences of Viewing Strangers’ Instagram Posts

This experiment investigates the emotional consequences of viewing strangers’ positive posts on Instagram. From a social comparison perspective, strangers’ positive posts on social media are expected to negatively affect viewers’ emotions. From an emotional contagion perspective, strangers’ positive posts should positively affect viewers’ emotions. The current lab experiment examines both the social comparison and the emotional contagion perspective while taking individual differences into account. Participants viewed positive, neutral, or no posts of confederates. In support of the social comparison perspective, individuals who tend to compare themselves to others reported lower positive affect if they had viewed positive posts than if they had viewed neutral or no posts. In support of the emotional contagion perspective, individuals who tend not to engage in social comparison reported higher positive affect after viewing positive posts than after viewing neutral or no posts. These findings indicate that individual differences in processing tendencies lead people to respond to social information on social media in opposite ways.     

Remembering the orientation of newly learned characters depends on the associated writing knowledge: a comparison between handwriting and typing

Recent data support the idea that movements play a crucial role in letter representation and suggest that handwriting knowledge contributes to visual recognition of letters. If so, using different motor activities while subjects are learning to write should affect their subsequent recognition performances. In order to test this hypothesis, we trained adult participants to write new characters either by copying them or by typing them on a keyboard. After three weeks of training we ran a series of tests requiring visual processing of the characters' orientation. Tests were ran immediately, one week after, and three weeks after the end of the training period. Results showed that when the characters had been learned by typing, they were more frequently confused with their mirror images than when they had been written by hand. This handwriting advantage did not appear immediately, but mostly three weeks after the end of the training. Our results therefore suggest that the stability of the characters' representation in memory depends on the nature of the motor activity produced during learning.     

When planning is not enough: Fighting unhealthy snacking habits by mental contrasting with implementation intentions (MCII)

In two experiments a self‐regulatory strategy combining mental contrasting with the formation of implementation intentions (MCII) was tested for its effectiveness in diminishing unhealthy snacking habits. Study 1 (N = 51) showed that participants in the MCII condition consumed fewer unhealthy snacks than participants in a control condition who thought about and listed healthy options for snacks. In Study 2 (N = 59) MCII was more effective than mental contrasting or formulating implementation intentions alone and mental contrasting was found to increase perceived clarity about critical cues for unhealthy snacking. Together, these findings suggest that MCII is an effective strategy for fighting habits and that one of the underlying processes making MCII superior to implementation intentions alone may be that mental contrasting produces clarity about the critical cues for the unwanted habitual behavior. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Modeling the Dynamics of Risky Choice

Individuals make decisions under uncertainty every day. Decisions are based on incomplete information concerning the potential outcome or the predicted likelihood with which events occur. In addition, individuals' choices often deviate from the rational or mathematically objective solution. Accordingly, the dynamics of human decision making are difficult to capture using conventional, linear mathematical models. Here, we present data from a 2-choice task with variable risk between sure loss and risky loss to illustrate how a simple nonlinear dynamical system can be employed to capture the dynamics of human decision making under uncertainty (i.e., multistability, bifurcations). We test the feasibility of this model quantitatively and demonstrate how the model can account for up to 86% of the observed choice behavior. The implications of using dynamical models for explaining the nonlinear complexities of human decision making are discussed as well as the degree to which the theory of nonlinear dynamical systems might offer an alternative framework for understanding human decision making processes.