It ain’t over ‘til it’s over: The effect of task completion on the savoring of success

The present research investigated a common yet to date unexamined assumption that individuals are unlikely to savor success when they have not yet fully completed a task. In Study 1 (N = 83), we assessed savoring responses of soccer players who were either winning or were tied at the end of the first half (in progress) and at the end of the match (completed). In Study 2 (N = 121 undergraduates), performance feedback (successful vs. average) and task completion (in progress vs. completed) were manipulated and savoring was assessed. In both studies, successful individuals reported savoring their positive experience less when the task was in progress as compared to completed. Results of a third study (N = 152 undergraduates) showed that lower savoring of success was due to individuals’ focus on and worries about future performance as well as the perception that positive emotions have limited utility. We discuss these findings in terms of the consequences for performance and well-being.     

Adolescents’ Involvement in Cyber Bullying and Perceptions of School: The Importance of Perceived Peer Acceptance for Female Adolescents

Young people are spending increasing amounts of time using digital technology and, as such, are at great risk of being involved in cyber bullying as a victim, bully, or bully/victim. Despite cyber bullying typically occurring outside the school environment, the impact of being involved in cyber bullying is likely to spill over to school. Fully 285 11- to 15-year-olds (125 male and 160 female, M _age = 12.19 years, SD = 1.03) completed measures of cyber bullying involvement, self-esteem, trust, perceived peer acceptance, and perceptions of the value of learning and the importance of school. For young women, involvement in cyber bullying as a victim, bully, or bully/victim negatively predicted perceptions of learning and school, and perceived peer acceptance mediated this relationship. The results indicated that involvement in cyber bullying negatively predicted perceived peer acceptance which, in turn, positively predicted perceptions of learning and school. For young men, fulfilling the bully/victim role negatively predicted perceptions of learning and school. Consequently, for young women in particular, involvement in cyber bullying spills over to impact perceptions of learning. The findings of the current study highlight how stressors external to the school environment can adversely impact young women’s perceptions of school and also have implications for the development of interventions designed to ameliorate the effects of cyber bullying.     

Dog owners show experience-based viewing behaviour in judging dog face approachability

Psychological Research - Our prior visual experience plays a critical role in face perception. We show superior perceptual performance for differentiating conspecific (vs non-conspecific), own-race...     

The relationship between social-cultural attitudes and behavioral measures of cognitive style: a meta-analytic integration of studies

The present meta-analysis investigates the relationship between social-cultural right-wing attitudes and objective measures of cognitive style on a set of 124 unique samples, with a total of 29,209 participants. Intolerance of ambiguity and cognitive ability yielded relationships of moderate strength with right-wing attitudes, whereas only mixed evidence was obtained for rigidity, complexity, and field dependence. In the discussion, we compare the present weak to moderate relationships with a meta-analysis conducted by Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski, and Sulloway (2003b), included predominantly self-report measures of cognitive style, reporting moderate to strong relationships between conservatism. The need to study cognitive ability as a basis of ideological attitudes is also discussed.     

Individuals and environments: Linking ability and skill ratings with interests

Holland's (1997) theory of corresponding person and work environment structures was evaluated by comparing the integration of individual and occupational ratings of interests, abilities, and skills. Occupational ratings were obtained from the U.S. Department of Labor's O*NET database (U.S. Department of Labor, 2007). College students (494 women, 526 men) provided self-ratings of their interests, abilities, and skills. Property vector fitting was used to embed ability and skill ratings into the Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional (RIASEC) interest structure, and bootstrapping was used to generate confidence intervals for the angles of the vectors and the magnitude of their fit to the Holland model. Across the individual and occupational ratings, 18 of 45 (40%) ability vectors and 41 of 48 (85%) skill vectors were fit into the RIASEC model. No significant gender differences were found in the integration of self-rated abilities and skills into the RIASEC circumplex; however, some differences were found between individual and environmental ratings. Obtained results highlight the potential utility and limitations of using Holland's model for representing both individual and occupational data in a common structure.     

Political groups in contact: The role of attributions for outgroup attitudes in reducing antipathy

In two cross‐sectional surveys and one experiment, we tested the hypothesis that attributions for outgroup ideologies would mediate the relationship between quality of contact and reduced prejudice. In Study 1, a British sample (N = 85) rated their perceptions of, and attributions for, their political outgroup's (i.e., conservative or liberal) belief system. Supporting our hypothesis, the relationship between contact and outgroup attitudes was mediated by rationality attributions—attributions that outgroup members obtained their views via rational thought processes. Study 2 was a replication of Study 1 with an American sample (N = 229) and expanded construct measurement. The results of Study 2 replicated those of Study 1, showing support for rationality attributions as a mediator of the contact–prejudice link. In Study 3 (N = 132), we experimentally manipulated the priming of past positive or negative outgroup contact with individual outgroup members and measured the proposed mediational constructs with respect to that outgroup encounter. Results further supported the role of rationality attributions as mediators of the contact–prejudice link. The implications of these findings for perceptions and relations between antagonistic ideological groups are discussed. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Coping With Discrimination: The Subjective Well‐Being of South Asian American Women

The relationship between coping strategies used by South Asian American women and subjective well‐being (SWB) was studied. Second‐generation women were found to use more support compared with 1st‐generation women. Problem‐solving coping was inversely related to age. Avoidance coping was found to predict SWB when controlling for age and generational status. Se estudió la relación entre las estrategias de afrontamiento empleadas por mujeres americanas surasiáticas y el bienestar subjetivo (SWB, por sus siglas en inglés). Se descubrió que las mujeres de segunda generación emplean más apoyos que los que emplearon las mujeres de primera generación. El afrontamiento basado en la resolución de problemas fue inversamente proporcional a la edad. También se halló que el afrontamiento basado en la evitación puede predecir el SWB, cuando se controlan los datos de edad y estatus generacional.