“It wasn’t your fault,but …...”: Schadenfreude about an undeserved misfortune

Although it is well-established that an objectively deserved misfortune promotes schadenfreude about the misfortune, there is a small body of research suggesting that an undeserved misfortune can also enhance schadenfreude. The aim of the present study was to investigate the processes that underlie schadenfreude about an undeserved misfortune. Participants (N?=?61) were asked to respond to a scenario in which a person was responsible or not responsible for a negative action. In the responsible condition, two independent routes to schadenfreude were observed: deservingness of the misfortune (traditional route) and resentment towards the target. More importantly, results showed that when the target of the misfortune was not responsible for the negative action, the relationship between schadenfreude and resentment towards the target was mediated by the re-construal of an objectively undeserved misfortune as a ‘deserved’ misfortune. The study further found that expressing schadenfreude about another’s misfortune makes one feel better about oneself without affecting moral emotions. The findings expand our understanding of schadenfreude about undeserved negative outcomes.     

Measuring culture outside the head: a meta-analysis of individualism-collectivism in cultural products

Although cultural psychology is the study of how sociocultural environments and psychological processes coconstruct each other, the field has traditionally emphasized measures of the psychological over the sociocultural. Here, the authors call attention to a growing trend of measuring the sociocultural environment. They present a quantitative review of studies that measure cultural differences in "cultural products": tangible, public representations of culture such as advertising or popular texts. They found that cultural products that come from Western cultures (mostly the United States) are more individualistic, and less collectivistic, than cultural products that come from collectivistic cultures (including Korea, Japan, China, and Mexico). The effect sizes for cultural products were larger than self-report effect sizes for this dimension (reported in Oyserman, Coon, & Kemmelmeier, 2002). In addition to presenting this evidence, the authors highlight the importance of studying the dynamic relationships between sociocultural environments and psyches.     

Conditions of visual verbal extinction: does the ipsilesional stimulus have to be identified?

Six left-neglect patients were presented with four-letter words in the left and/or right hemifield, in different contextual conditions: unilateral, bilateral-x in which one word appears on one side and a string of "x" appears on the other side (the side of "x' was not predictable), and bilateral-word (presentation of one word in each hemifield). In Experiment 1, left extinction occurred even if the right stimulus was an easily discriminable string of "x." Experiment 2 showed that increasing the size of the left stimuli reduced extinction when a string of "x" was presented on the right hemifield. However, extinction was stronger with bilateral-word presentation. These results indicate the presence of an early component in the extinction phenomenon, i.e., a "magnetic" attraction toward the ipsilesional hemifield, but are also in favor of some additional deficit, at a later stage of information processing.     

GENDER DIFFERENCES IN INTERNAL BELIEFS ABOUT WEIGHT AND NEGATIVE ATTITUDES TOWARDS SELF AND OTHERS

Previous research has found that people with an internal weight locus of control (beliefs in self-control over weight) are more likely to join and stay in weight-loss programs and have higher self-esteem than those who have an external locus of control (e.g., belief that weight is due to luck, genes). There has been no research on how weight locus of control affects the self-esteem of people who are not average weight or not satisfied with their weight. The present study predicted that for people who are overweight, weight locus of control would be negatively related to self-esteem. The results confirmed this interaction between weight locus of control and weight on self-esteem for women, but not for men. The second prediction was that internal weight locus of control would have negative social consequences in terms of greater negative stereotyping of obese people, and this was also confirmed for women. Because weight loss is rarely permanent, it would seem important to change people's attitudes about the lack of control that they (and others) have over body weight.     

ATTITUDES TOWARD WOMEN's BODY HAIR: RELATIONSHIP WITH DISGUST SENSITIVITY

We aimed to further investigate the "hairlessness" norm that is the common practice of body hair removal among women. A sample of 198 undergraduate students (91 men, 107 women) completed questionnaires asking about attitudes toward women's body hair and the reasons women remove this hair, as well as a measure of disgust sensitivity. It was found that the vast majority (98%) of female participants regularly remove their leg and/or underarm hair, most frequently by shaving, and attribute this to femininity and attractiveness reasons. However, the attributions that they and men made for other women were much more socially normative in nature. For the sample as a whole, negative attitudes toward body hair were related to disgust sensitivity. It was concluded that body hair on women, but not on men, has become an elicitor of disgust and its removal correspondingly normative.     

Spare time use and psychological well-being in employed and unemployed young people

Results are presented from a longitudinal study of school leavers spanning the years 1980–1987. Those who were unemployed in 1987 reported spending relatively more of their spare time doing nothing in particular than those who were employed, although the groups did not differ in their reported use of spare time when they were at school. Also there were no differences in reported spare time use between those employed in satisfactory jobs and those employed in unsatisfactory jobs. As other studies have shown, in the unemployed spare time spent in purposeful activities with other people was positively correlated with psychological well-being. Similar associations were observed in the dissatisfied employed, although not in the satisfied employed. The results suggest that purposeful use of spare time may play a buffering role in coping with the stresses of both unemployment and unsatisfactory employment.     

The effects of uncontrollable and unpredictable events on anagram solving

An experiment is reported which investigated the effects of uncontrollability and unpredictability in an anagram solving task. It was found that performance was disrupted following experience of outcomes which were uncontrollable or unpredictable or both. It was concluded that the effects of uncontrollability cannot be explained solely in terms of unpredictability.     

The effect of school environment on body concerns in adolescent women

The study investigated body figure preferences, eating disorder symptomology, and role concerns in 142 Australian caucasian adolescent girls in two different school environments, both of medium to high socioeconomic status. Girls at a private single-sex school nominated a thinner ideal figure and displayed more eating disorder patterns than their counterparts at a private coeducational school. Although the schools did not differ in role concerns, these had a differential impact on prediction of the ideal figure. In particular, the importance placed on professional success predicted the choice of ideal figure for the single-sex but not for the coeducational school. It was concluded that what motivates the wish for thinness differed between the schools.     

An examination of pre-wedding body image concerns in brides and bridesmaids

This study examined the prevalence of appearance and weight-related concerns in brides (N=347) and bridesmaids (N=122). Participants completed a short questionnaire on their pre-wedding beauty preparation plans at two bridal expos held in Adelaide, South Australia. Over 50% of participants planned to lose weight before the wedding, 40% intended to go on a diet, and around 67% indicated that they planned to exercise more. More than 10% of participants had been told by others that they should lose weight for the wedding. Looking good on the wedding day was seen as extremely important for both brides and bridesmaids, with 'for the wedding photos' the most highly cited reason. These results illustrate the focus on appearance in general, and on weight in particular, surrounding contemporary weddings.     

The Effect of Exercise on Body Satisfaction and Self-Esteem as a Function of Gender and Age

The study investigated the relationship between amount of exercise and psychological well-being in a broadly based sample. A questionnaire assessing amount of exercise, reasons for exercise, body satisfaction, and self-esteem was completed by 252 participants between the ages of 16 and 60 years. Almost all participants (>95%) were White. Participants were divided into four groups on the basis of gender and age, resulting in 70 young women, 48 young men, 73 mature women, and 61 mature men. Significant negative relationships between amount of exercise and body satisfaction and self-esteem were found for young women, and positive relationships for the remainder of the sample. Women exercised more for reasons of weight control, tone, and mood enhancement than men. For the whole sample, the first two of these reasons were associated with lower body satisfaction, while exercising for health and fitness reasons was associated with increased self-esteem. It was concluded that reasons for exercising did not provide an adequate explanation for the obtained difference in correlations across gender and age.