Functional projection: how fundamental social motives can bias interpersonal perception

Results from 2 experimental studies suggest that self-protection and mate-search goals lead to the perception of functionally relevant emotional expressions in goal-relevant social targets. Activating a self-protection goal led participants to perceive greater anger in Black male faces (Study 1) and Arab faces (Study 2), both out-groups heuristically associated with physical threat. In Study 2, participants' level of implicit Arab-threat associations moderated this bias. Activating a mate-search goal led male, but not female, participants to perceive more sexual arousal in attractive opposite-sex targets (Study 1). Activating these goals did not influence perceptions of goal-irrelevant targets. Additionally, participants with chronic self-protective and mate-search goals exhibited similar biases. Findings are consistent with a functionalist, motivation-based account of interpersonal perception.     

Using cumulative-recall curves to assess the extent of relational and item-specific processing

Although distinguishing between item-specific and relational information has proved to be a useful approach for understanding a variety of important memory phenomena, finding measurement tools for assessing the amount and type of information processed has proven difficult. Using the repeated-testing procedure, Burns (1993) demonstrated that item gains (the recall of items on a later test that were not recalled on earlier tests) and item losses (the forgetting of items on a later test that were recalled on earlier tests) reflected differences in amount of item-specific and relational information processed, respectively. Although several researchers have begun to use the measures with apparent success, the present research demonstrates that the accuracy of the item-gain measure is largely dependent on the rather arbitrary choice of recall-test length. We also show that a related but alternative measure, analysis of cumulative-recall curves, avoids some of the shortcomings of the item gain and loss measures. Moreover, we provide evidence for the generality of the cumulative-recall approach by demonstrating its effectiveness in mixed-list designs.     

Response Style Theory Revisited: Gender Differences and Stereotypes in Rumination and Distraction

Response Style Theory [S. Nolen-Hoeksema (1987) “Sex Differences in Unipolar Depression: Evidence and Theory,” Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 101, pp. 259–282] suggests that, when depressed, women ruminate on their sad feelings while men distract themselves from theirs. We sought to examine this gender difference in more detail. In Study 1, 155 students provided stereotype ratings or self-reports of responses to depression. The stereotype ratings conformed precisely to Response Style Theory yet exaggerated self-reported gender differences, especially for men. In Study 2, 40 roommate pairs completed a similar set of ratings. Again, other-ratings conformed exactly to Response Style Theory's predictions while self-ratings showed a more moderated pattern. In both studies, women reported ruminating more than did men, yet men and women were equally likely to report distraction. We conclude by examining several hypotheses for the discrepancies between stereotypes and self-reports for men as well as the increased rates of rumination among women.     

The Impact of Participant Characteristics,Perceived Motives,and Job Behaviors on Co-Workers' Evaluations of Workplace Romances1

Using a policy capturing approach, we examined the importance that observers placed on 7 different factors when evaluating workplace romances. Nearly half the explained variation in observers' evaluations of workplace romances was accounted for by participants' marital status. Participants' organizational status relative to one another was also important in explaining the variation. A series of nomothetic analyses indicated that workplace romance participants' marital status, academic status, motive for entry into the relationship, and job performance affected observers' evaluations of these relationships. Observers' level of prior involvement in a workplace romance was also significantly related to a number of variables. Results suggest that when evaluating workplace romances, observers place the greatest importance on the personal characteristics of participants. Ramifications for policy formation are discussed.     

Men,women, and money: Exploring the role of gender,gender-linkage of college major and career-information sources in salary expectations

Research focused on salary expectations consistently reports gender-based differences in expectations for entry and peak career. Although a number of variables (e.g., value placed on work-facets, fair pay standards) have been found to mediate the relationship between gender and salary expectations, little research has attempted to assess how expectations may be formed. Based on suggestions by Martin (1989) and social comparison theory, we examined the role that sources of career information (e.g., professors, family) play in shaping college students' salary expectations. Results suggest: (1) differences in entry level salary expectations were associated with gender-linkage of college major and differences in peak salary expectations were associated with gender and gender-linkage of college major, (2) women gathered more information from female sources than did men, and men gathered more information from male sources than did women, and (3) career information was not predictive of either entry or peak salary expectations.     

How Parents Still Help Emerging Adults Get Their Homework Done: The Role of Self-Regulation as a Mediator in the Relation Between Parent–Child Relationship Quality and School Engagement

Although parents are increasingly involved in their college students’ academic lives, scholars have yet to investigate parents’ role in their college students’ school engagement. We hypothesized that college students’ self-regulation would mediate the relation between parent–child relationship quality and school engagement. For the 790 undergraduates who completed questionnaires online, self-regulation mediated the relation between mother–child relationship quality and school engagement for men, and an indirect effect was found for the relation between father–child relationship quality and school engagement by way of self-regulation. Therefore, parents continue to matter in promoting their college students’ academic success.     

The Tragedy of the Few

In this article I elaborate and defend a rights-based understanding of climate politics, that is, one that takes climate politics to concern the rights to access of natural resources as opposed to people’s economic incentives. The argument contains two parts. The first is negative: to demonstrate that the tragedy of the commons as a story of climate change is inadequate. The second is positive: to suggest a more satisfactory framework, which I call the tragedy of the few. In this view, climate politics is neither primarily mitigation nor economic incentive politics, but one of distributing rights to access natural resources in a fair and environmentally-friendly way. By changing both the narrative and underlying methodological assumptions, my goal is to enable us to accommodate the rights to access natural resources as a key moral issue in climate politics. I begin by sketching the main features of the tragedy of the commons and demonstrate its inadequacy. I then provide an account of the rights-based view of climate change that consists of two arguments. First, I demonstrate the normative side of the argument by highlighting the importance of environmental rights, and second, I outline the empirical side of the argument by discussing recent studies on the properties of natural resources and on the corporate agents who extract the resources that emit greenhouse gasses.     

Does the Onset Controllability of Diagnostic Labels Affect the Perceived Appropriateness of an Insanity Verdict?1

The present study attempted to look at reactions to an insanity verdict by asking participants to rate the appropriateness of an insanity verdict already handed down by a jury. A sample of 196 adults read a short vignette describing the defendant's crime, a courtappointed psychiatrist's diagnosis, and a jury's verdict (guilty; or not guilty by reason of insanity, NGRI). Using Weiner's (1995) responsibility model, it was predicted and found that an insanity verdict was deemed less appropriate when the defendant was construed to have an onset controllable disorder. Path analyses indicate that onset controllability, responsibility judgments, and affective reactions do not account for the perceived appropriateness of guilty and NGRI verdicts in the same way.     

Correction to: Is it still worth it? Applying expectancy-value theory to investigate the intraindividual motivational process of forming intentions to drop out from university

Motivation and Emotion - An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via the original article.