Make America gracious again: Collective nostalgia can increase and decrease support for right-wing populist rhetoric

Democracies across the globe are shaken by a new class of populist right-wing politicians. A defining element of right-wing populism is a preference for antagonistic rhetoric to describe opponents. Three studies connect support for right-wing populist rhetoric to collective nostalgia for the past. Importantly, the results show that collective nostalgia can both increase and decrease support for right-wing populist antagonistic rhetoric, depending on how the past is conceptualized. Nostalgia for a past characterized by political incorrectness is associated with increased support, whereas nostalgia for the past's greater decorum is associated with decreased support for right-wing populism. Studies 1 and 2 show this with vignettes. Study 3 measures support for Trump and the GOP in the 2018 midterm elections. Although right-wing populism is often seen as the result of a wave of nostalgia, our results show that this link can be disconnected and even reversed.     

Learning climate scale: Construction,reliability and initial validity evidence

The current study developed an instrument for measuring learning climate in organizations. A review of the organizational learning and facilitation of workplace learning literature resulted in three theoretically relevant dimensions referring to facilitation, appreciation, and error avoidance. The 3-dimensional learning climate scale (LCS) was tested in a heterogeneous sample of Dutch wage earners (N = 1013). Confirmatory factor analysis and analysis of measurement invariance were conducted to establish the factorial structure of the measure. Also, convergent, divergent, and construct validity of the LCS were investigated. The findings showed that the newly developed instrument for learning climate has good psychometric properties: the three-factor structure was supported and the sub-scales were reliable. Furthermore, the LCS showed good convergent and divergent validity.     

The powerful disregard social comparison information

Social comparisons are important because other people can serve as benchmarks to determine one's own capabilities and act as sources for inspiration. Despite this, people do not always fully utilize social comparison information. The present paper demonstrates that feelings of power may reduce use of social comparison information. In three experiments, participants were first induced to feel high or low in power, or were in a control condition. Then, they were exposed to either upward or downward comparison targets. In all three experiments, low power participants responded to targets with contrast or assimilation, whereas high power participants did not. This has important implications for our understanding of how people's positions in the social and organizational hierarchies affect their basic psychological functioning.     

Retraction statement: Racist biases in legal decisions are reduced by a justice focus

The following article from European Journal of Social Psychology, “Racist biases in legal decisions are reduced by a justice focus” by Joris Lammers and Diederik A. Stapel published online on 1 December 2010 in Wiley Online Library ( wileyonlinelibrary.com ), has been retracted by agreement between the co‐author, the journal Editor in Chief, Tom Postmes, and John Wiley and Sons Ltd. The retraction has been agreed following the results of an investigation into the work of Diederik A. Stapel ( https://www.commissielevelt.nl/ ). The Levelt Committee has determined that this article contained data that was fabricated as supplied by Diederik A. Stapel. His co‐author was unaware of his actions, and not in any way involved. REFERENCE Lammers, J. & Stapel, D. A. (2011). Racist biases in legal decisions are reduced by a justice focus. European Journal of Social Psycholology, 41, 375–387. DOI: 10.1002/ejsp.783     

Working Memory Interference Control Deficit in Children Referred by Teachers for ADHD Symptoms

In this exploratory study, the neuropsychological and learning profile of nine primary school age children with velo-cardio-facial syndrome (VCFS) was studied by systematic neuropsychological testing. In five out of nine children, the following profile was found: a VIQ-PIQ discrepancy (in favor of the VIQ), significantly better scores (.05 level) for reading (decoding) and spelling compared to arithmetic, deficient tactile-perceptual skills (difficulties mainly on the left side of the body), weak but not deficient visual-perceptual abilities, deficient visual-spatial skills, extremely poor psychomotor skills (gross motor skills more deficient than fine motor skills), problems with processing of new and complex material, poor visual attention, good auditory memory and relatively good language skills. These findings correspond to the pattern of neuropsychological assets and deficits that has been described for the syndrome of nonverbal learning disabilities (NLD) (Rourke, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1995). The psychosocial profile of all nine children with VCFS also correspond to that of children with NLD. Further studies on the relationship between cognitive function, behavior, psychiatric disorder and abnormalities in brain anatomy in young people with VCFS will be needed. In clinical practice, it is worthwhile exploring in greater depth the neuropsychological functions of children with VCFS to rule out NLD, since they may benefit from specific remediation following the learning principles of the NLD-treatment.     

The Discrepancy Between How Women See Themselves and Feminists Predicts Identification with Feminism

Many women who accept the basic tenets of feminist ideology are reluctant to call themselves feminists, which is problematic because feminist self-identification is related to a variety of positive outcomes. The present research tests the idea that discrepancies between women’s self-view and feminist-view on the dimensions of competence and warmth are related to identification with feminism. This supposition is guided by the idea that a full understanding of why women have difficulty embracing feminism must take into account not only their view of feminists, but also whether women see themselves as different from feminists. Three online survey studies, which included 387, 288, and 116 adult U.S. women, demonstrate that perception of warmth identification with feminism was lower if women regard feminists as less warm than they see themselves. For perceptions of competence, the direction of this discrepancy was irrelevant: The more women see feminists as differently competent (i.e., higher or lower), the less they identify with feminists. Moreover, perceived discrepancy predicted identification with feminism even after controlling for women’s agreement with feminist values. Both endorsement of feminist values and perceived discrepancy are important in predicting identification with feminism and therefore practical interventions to maximize identification should target both of these components. For perceived discrepancy, interventions to reduce feminist-self discrepancies will likely be most effective if they target stereotypes of feminists as being cold.     

Power and behavioral approach orientation in existing power relations and the mediating effect of income

A large number of authors have observed that the experience of power increases behavioral approach tendencies. There are however some important unresolved problems. Predominantly, the literature relies on lab manipulations, priming, and student populations. This has resulted in low face validity. Also, it is unclear what process underlies this effect. A large‐scale survey (N = 3082) reliably measures power among real low‐ and high‐power employees in existing organizations and finds strong support for the effect of power on behavioral approach. Consistent with expectations, this effect is mediated by increased access to resources. We also discuss findings that suggest the shape of this power‐approach effect might be quadratic. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Designing for Trust: A Case of Value-Sensitive Design

In this paper, we consider the meaning, roles, and uses of trust in the economic and public domain, focusing on the task of designing systems for trust in information technology. We analyze this task by means of a survey of what trust means in the economic and public domain, using the model proposed by Lewicki and Bunker, and using the emerging paradigm of value-sensitive design. We explore the difficulties developers face when designing information technology for trust and show how our analysis in conjunction with existing engineering design methods provides means to address these difficulties. Our main case concerns a concrete problem in the economic domain, namely the transfer of control from customs agencies to companies. Control of individual items is increasingly untenable and is replaced by control on the level of companies aimed at determining whether companies can be trusted to be in control of their business and to be in compliance with applicable regulations. This transfer sets the task for companies to establish this trust by means of information technology systems. We argue that this trust can be achieved by taking into account philosophical analyses of trust and by including both parties in the trust relationship as clients for whom the information technology systems are to be designed.     

Abstraction increases hypocrisy

Four studies show that an abstract view on moral issues increases moral hypocrisy. In Experiment 1, participants who were directly instructed to take a more abstract view on a moral issue judged the immoral behavior of others more severely than their own immoral behavior, but participants with a concrete view did not. Experiments 2 and 3 induced an abstract view in an indirect manner, by manipulating temporal distance toward the dilemma. In Experiment 4 abstractness was manipulated completely independent from the moral dilemma, by inducing an abstract or a concrete mindset. In all four studies, abstractness consistently increased hypocrisy. The last study also shows that the effect of abstractness on hypocrisy is mediated by the degree of moral flexibility. Together, these studies show that hypocrisy is directly determined by the focus that people have when making a moral judgment.     

When are workload and workplace learning opportunities related in a curvilinear manner? The moderating role of autonomy

Building on theoretical frameworks like the Job Demands Control model and Action Theory we tested whether the relationship between workload and employees' experiences of opportunities for workplace learning is of an inverted u-shaped nature and whether autonomy moderates this relationship. We predicted that – at moderate levels of autonomy – workload was positively associated with learning opportunities at low levels of workload, but negatively at high levels of workload. Also, we predicted that low autonomy prevents positive effects of moderate workload from materializing whereas high autonomy makes high workload less destructive to the learning process. Furthermore, we examined whether learning opportunities increase particularly as a function of higher matched levels of workload and autonomy and whether mismatch between workload and autonomy is particularly detrimental to the learning process. We found support for these ideas in two large and heterogeneous samples of working adults using moderated and polynomial regression analyses and subsequent response surface methodology. These results integrate conflicting prior findings and extend Karasek's (1979) active learning hypothesis. They also have clear implications for job redesign practices aiming to promote workplace learning opportunities.