Cheating more when the spoils are split

Four experiments demonstrated that people are more likely to cheat when the benefits of doing so are split with another person, even an anonymous stranger, than when the actor alone captures all of the benefits. In three of the studies, splitting the benefits of over-reporting one’s performance on a task made such over-reporting seem less unethical in the eyes of participants. Mitigated perceptions of the immorality of over-reporting performance mediated the relationship between split spoils and increased over-reporting of performance in Study 3. The studies thus showed that people may be more likely to behave dishonestly for their own benefit if they can point to benefiting others as a mitigating factor for their unethical behavior.     

Effects of Target Person Expression on Ethnic Prejudice Toward Middle Easterners and Hispanics

Research on implicit prejudice suggests that target person judgments may be affected by unintentional, but well‐learned, cognitive associations. Ethnicity, gender, and smiling or nonsmiling expression were varied as cues in White college students' perception tasks. The results of a factorial experiment are included as well as a discussion of the implications. La investigación sobre prejuicios implícitos sugiere que los juicios del individuo en cuestión pueden ser afectados por asociaciones cognitivas involuntarias, pero bien aprendidas. Se variaron la etnicidad, el género y la expresión sonriente o carente de sonrisa como entradas para las pruebas de percepción de estudiantes universitarios Blancos. Se incluyen los resultados de un experimento factorial, además de una discusión sobre las implicaciones.     

An Exploration of the Associations Among Multiple Aspects of Religiousness,Body Image,Eating Pathology,and Appearance Investment

The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of positive and negative aspects of religiousness on eating pathology, body satisfaction, and appearance investment beyond previously established variables (age, BMI, exercise frequency, weight stability, and self-esteem). Data collected from 168 adult females at a Catholic-affiliated university were analyzed using hierarchical linear regressions. As expected, some religiousness variables (spirituality and seeing one’s body as having sacred qualities) were associated with eating pathology, body satisfaction, and appearance investment in potentially beneficial ways, and others (negative interaction with one’s religious community) were associated in potentially harmful ways. Interestingly, greater religious meaning, or the importance of religion in one’s life, was associated with greater eating pathology, and some variables (religious coping, participation in and support from one’s religious community) expected to be associated with greater body satisfaction were unrelated. Results are discussed in terms of mechanisms through which the aspects of religiousness may influence body satisfaction, appearance investment, and eating pathology.     

Rejoinder to Wall

Edmund Wall's criticism of the author's earlier analysis of Hare's consequentialism and Kantian ethics claims that the author overlooked Hare's commitment to preference satisfaction as an “ultimate good.” This rejoinder points out that Hare never uses the phrase in question, nor any equivalent phrase or concept, in presenting his own arguments and refers only to the standard of “universalizability” as ultimate, in contexts that support the author's original argument. Hence Wall has only given us yet another example of how Hare's views can be misunderstood by philosophers who fail to attend to the details of Hare's approach.     

Linking Developmental Experiences to Leader Effectiveness and Promotability: The Mediating Role of Leadership Self‐Efficacy and Mentor Network

We developed and tested a model linking developmental experiences to leadership effectiveness and promotability through 2 mediating processes based on social cognitive and social capital theories. We hypothesized that a manager's exposure to 3 types of developmental experiences (formal development programs, developmental job challenges, and developmental supervision) would positively relate to supervisor's assessment of the manager's leadership effectiveness in the current job role and promotability within the organization through the manager's leadership self‐efficacy and size and quality of the manager's mentor network. Results based on a sample of 235 retail managers showed that leadership self‐efficacy and mentor network fully mediated the relationship between job challenges and promotability, whereas leadership self‐efficacy also fully mediated the relationship between job challenges and leadership effectiveness. Developmental supervision was indirectly related to promotability through mentor network. In addition, a 3‐way interaction analysis revealed that participation in formal development activities had a positive indirect relationship with leadership effectiveness and promotability mediated by leadership self‐efficacy when a manager experienced either lower levels of job challenge and developmental supervision, or higher levels of both. Our findings contribute to leadership knowledge by examining how both formal and informal developmental experiences relate to leadership effectiveness and promotability through social processes.     

Need for closure is associated with urgency in perceptual decision-making

Constant decision-making underpins much of daily life, from simple perceptual decisions about navigation through to more complex decisions about important life events. At many scales, a fundamental task of the decision-maker is to balance competing needs for caution and urgency: fast decisions can be more efficient, but also more often wrong. We show how a single mathematical framework for decision-making explains the urgency/caution balance across decision-making at two very different scales. This explanation has been applied at the level of neuronal circuits (on a time scale of hundreds of milliseconds) through to the level of stable personality traits (time scale of years).     

Of Tooth and Claw: Predator Self-Identifications Mediate Gender Differences in Interpersonal Arrogance

Men often score higher than women do on traits or tendencies marked by hostile dominance. The purpose of the present research was to contribute to an understanding of these gender differences. Four studies (total N?=?494 U.S. undergraduates) administered a modified animal preference test in which participants could choose to be predator or prey animals, but not labeled as such. Men were consistently more interested in being predator animals than women were, displaying a sort of hostile dominance in their projective preferences. Predator self-identifications, in turn, mediated gender differences in outcomes related to hostile dominance. Studies 1 and 2 provided initial evidence for this model in the context of variations in interpersonal arrogance, and Studies 3 and 4 extended the model to nonverbal displays and daily life prosociality, respectively. The findings indicate that gender differences in hostile dominance are paralleled by gender differences in preferring to think about the self in predator-like terms. Accordingly, the findings provide new insights into aggressive forms of masculine behavior.     

Flow at Work and Basic Psychological Needs: Effects on Well‐Being

Recent conceptual work draws meaningful distinctions between experiential and declarative well‐being (Shmotkin, 2005 ), but little has been done to apply such distinctions in organisational psychology. We use this framework to integrate self‐determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985 ) and flow theory (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975 ), leading to hypotheses proposing that flow experiences at work (experiential well‐being) lead to declarative well‐being outcomes through their influence on the satisfaction of basic psychological needs for competence and autonomy. Findings from a two‐week experience sampling study of full‐time employees offer support for our hypotheses. This study also shows support for the moderating effect of individual differences in personality on the relationships among flow experiences, need fulfillment, and declarative well‐being.     

Longer is better

The longer something is thought to exist, the better it is evaluated. In Study 1, participants preferred an existing university requirement over an alternative; this pattern was more pronounced when the existing requirement was said to be in place for a longer period of time. In Study 2, participants rated acupuncture more favorably as a function of how old the practice was described. Aesthetic judgments of art (Study 3) and nature (Study 4) were also positively affected by time in existence, as were gustatory evaluations of an edible consumer good (Study 5). Features of the research designs argue against mere exposure, loss aversion, and rational inference as explanations for these findings. Instead, time in existence seems to operate as a heuristic; longer means better.     

Relatedness with teachers and peers during early adolescence: an integrated variable-oriented and person-oriented approach

The primary aims of the present longitudinal study were to examine (a) patterns of early transition relatedness with teachers and peers in 6th grade, (b) whether pre-transition behavior in 5th grade predicted early transition relatedness in 6th grade, and (c) how unique indicators of early transition relatedness with teachers and peers and patterns of early transition relatedness were associated with school adjustment among 383 rural, lower- to middle-class, White youth. Results suggest that behavioral characteristics in elementary school may contribute to early transition patterns of relatedness with teachers and peers in middle school. Findings also indicate that having a pattern of poor relationships with the primary social partners in the school context is negatively associated with adjustment above and beyond the independent indicators of relatedness. Implications for school practice are discussed.