Mimicry in social interaction: Benefits for mimickers,mimickees, and their interaction

Mimicry has benefits for people in social interactions. However, evidence regarding the consequences of mimicry is incomplete. First, research on mimicry has particularly focused on effects of being mimicked. Secondly, on the side of the mimicker evidence is correlational or lacks real interaction data. The present study investigated effects for mimickers and mimickees in face‐to‐face interaction. Feelings towards the immediate interaction partner and the interaction in which mimicry takes place were measured after an interaction between two participants in which mimicry did or did not occur. Results revealed that mimickers and mimickees became more affectively attuned to each other due to bidirectional influences of mimicry. Additionally, both mimickers and mimickees reported more feelings of having bonded with each other and rated the interaction as smoother.     

Why do lower educated people continue smoking? Explanations from the longitudinal GLOBE study.

This article describes the effect of educational level on the decision to continue smoking among 1,354 initially smoking participants (age > or = 20 years) in the Dutch GLOBE study. The effect of education on continued smoking was explained from baseline information (1991) on smoking characteristics, individual characteristics, and environmental factors. Smoking status was reassessed after 6.5 years. Lower educated smokers more often continued smoking (odds ratio 2.09). Poor perceived health and earlier smoking initiation in lower educated groups were main predictors of educational differences in smoking maintenance. Educational differences in chronic illness, perceived control, neuroticism, and emotional support also contributed to the explanation of educational differences in continued smoking. These results have important implications for intervention programs and policy.     

Developing Moral Emotion Attributions in Happy Victimizer Task: Role of Victim Information

Previous happy victimizer (HV) studies have shown that preschool and early elementary school children attribute happy emotions to the violator of moral rules. This study examines the effects of information pertaining to the victim in HV stories on children's emotion attributions. In Study 1, 55 children (aged 5–6 and 7–8 years) participated. Participants heard three types of stories: (a) victim sadness resulting from a character's wrongdoing (normal HV story); (b) victim happiness resulting from a character's wrongdoing (non‐canonical HV story); and (c) victim sadness resulting from an accident (accident story). The children were required to infer the victimizer's feelings and to justify their attributions. Children demonstrated more positive emotion attributions for non‐canonical HV stories than the normal and accident versions. In Study 2, 57 children (aged 5–6 and 7–8 years) judged two types of HV tasks (a story featuring a younger child as victim and a normal HV story). Both groups demonstrated more negative emotion attributions for the young victim stories than the normal HV stories, indicating that children's judgment varied according to contexts and different information in determining emotion attributions.     

Problematic Factorial Validity of Three Language Versions of the Basic Psychological Needs Scale (BPNS): Why and What are the Implications?

Self-determination theory is a macrotheory of human motivation that describes fundamental matters such as personality development, goals and aspirations, and self-regulation. Basic psychological needs theory, a subtheory of self-determination theory, postulates that the needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness are universal and the satisfaction thereof essential for human functioning. Despite the theory’s strong universality claim, almost no studies tested the assumption on the African continent. The present study addressed this by exploring the factorial validity of English, Afrikaans, and Setswana versions of the Basic Psychological Needs Scale (N = 1056). After incorporating a negative-worded method effect and removing several problematic items, the fit of the intended three-factor model was good for the Afrikaans version, marginal for the English version, and poor for the Setswana version. The resulting factors’ reliabilities were low. Configural, metric, and partial scalar invariance were established between the English and Afrikaans versions. Although these findings primarily highlighted problems with the particular scale, there is also the possibility that it could have implications for the validity of the universality assumption of basic psychological needs theory and/or assumptions about denotations or manifestations of the main constructs in various cultural contexts. The study indicated the conceptual and linguistic complexities involved in assessment across diverse and multicultural contexts.     

I feel you feel what I feel: Perceived perspective‐taking promotes victims' conciliatory attitudes because of inferred emotions in the offender

In the context of bullying in a nursing workplace, we test the argument that an offender's perspective‐taking promotes victim conciliation, mediated by perceived perspective‐taking, that is, the extent to which the victim perceives the offender as taking their perspective. Perceived perspective‐taking facilitates the attribution of moral emotions (remorse, etc.) to the offender, thereby promoting conciliatory victim responses. However, perceived perspective‐taking would be qualified by the extent to which the severity of consequences expressed in the offender's perspective‐taking matches or surpasses the severity for the victim. In Studies 1 and 2 (Ns = 141 and 122, respectively), victims indicated greater trust and/or forgiveness when the offender had taken the victim's perspective. This was sequentially mediated by perceived perspective‐taking and victim's inference that the offender had felt moral emotions. As predicted, in Study 2 (but not Study 1), severity of consequences qualified victims' perceived perspective‐taking. Study 3 (N = 138) examined three potential mechanisms for the moderation by severity. Victims attributed greater perspective‐taking to the offender when the consequences were less severe than voiced by the offender, suggesting victims' appreciation of the offender's generous appraisal. Attributions of perspective‐taking and of moral emotions to the offender may play an important role in reconciliation processes. Key outcome: To the extent that victims perceive the offender as taking their perspective (perceived perspective‐taking), they infer that the offender feels more moral emotions, prompting victims to be more conciliatory. Perceived perspective‐taking benefits from the offender over‐stating the consequences to the victim.     

Reflecting on schadenfreude: serious consequences of a misfortune for which one is not responsible diminish previously expressed schadenfreude; the role of immorality appraisals and moral emotions

Participants (Study 1: N = 138, Study 2: N = 153) responded to a video in which a person suffered a mishap. The studies manipulated whether or not the person was responsible for the mishap and the degree to which the consequences were subsequently found to be serious. Results of Study 1 showed reduction in schadenfreude and more compassion for the victim in the serious condition due to appraisals that it was immoral to laugh about the misfortune. The stronger these appraisals and the stronger the initial schadenfreude, the stronger were moral emotions (guilt, shame, and regret) about initially expressed schadenfreude. Moral emotions and compassion fostered prosocial behavior. Study 2 extended these results by showing that seriousness of the consequences acted as a moderator for most of these findings with significant effects occurring in the serious condition only. Most reduction in schadenfreude occurred when the consequences were serious and when the person was less responsible for the misfortune. The studies extend past research by investigating schadenfreude and other emotions in a context that does not involve social comparison and where participants reflected on their initial expressions of schadenfreude.     

The Employment Interview: The Role of Sex Stereotypes in the Evaluation of Male and Female Job Applicants in the Netherlands1

This field study focused on the influence of sex stereotypes in the evaluation of male (N=38) and female (N=21) job applicants in the Netherlands. The employee selection process for higher-level technical and academic jobs in real life situations was studied, with special attention to the assessment of applicants by members of selection committees. It was demonstrated that, according to the job interviewers, the ideal applicant had more masculine than feminine traits. Males and females were regarded as having the same qualifications for the job, but because male applicants were assessed as having more masculine characteristics and female applicants more feminine characteristics, the male applicants were accepted more often. The job interviewers acted according to a fit model: The applicant most similar in traits to the ideal applicant was hired for each job.     

Life stress,social support,and locus of control during early adolescence: Interactive effects

Examined the relationships between negative events, locus of control, social support, and psychological adjustment in an early adolescent sample. Of interest were the potential stress-buffering effects of social support and the conjunctive effects of social support and locus of control upon adjustment. Family support was positively related to adjustment in several domains, whereas school support was only related to school competence. Peer support was positively related to peer competence and anxiety, and negatively related to school competence. Examination of the buffering hypothesis suggested that both family and school support served to moderate the relationship between negative events and school competence. Conjunctive effects were also detected in that school support buffered number of negative events best for those individuals with an internal locus of control for successes.     

The evaluation of effectiveness and likability of gender-role congruent and gender-role incongruent leaders

The aim of the present study was to test the gender-role congruency hypothesis in the context of assumed leadership. Three hundred and forty-two female and 154 male Dutch students participated in a laboratory experiment. We expected that gender-role incongruent leaders would be evaluated less favorably than gender-role congruent leaders and that male subjects would devalue the gender-role incongruent leaders to a greater extent than would female subjects. In addition, we were interested in the relative contribution of the effectiveness and likability measures to the devaluation of gender-role incongruent leaders. The gender-role congruency hypothesis was supported by the data from male subjects only, and then only for the effectiveness measures. The results are discussed in the context of two meta-analyses concerning the impact of gender stereotypes on judgments of competence and evaluation of leaders.