Ego depletion and positive illusions: does the construction of positivity require regulatory resources?

Individuals frequently exhibit positive illusions about their own abilities, their possibilities to control their environment, and future expectations. The authors propose that positive illusions require resources of self-control, which is considered to be a limited resource similar to energy or strength. Five studies revealed that people with depleted self-regulatory resources indeed exhibited a less-optimistic sense of their own abilities (Study 1), a lower sense of subjective control (Study 2), and less-optimistic expectations about their future (Study 3). Two further studies shed light on the underlying psychological process: Ego-depleted (compared to nondepleted) individuals generated/retrieved less positive self-relevant attributes (Studies 4 and 5) and reported a lower sense of general self-efficacy (Study 5), which both partially mediated the impact of ego depletion on positive self-views (Study 5).     

Terror salience and punishment: Does terror salience induce threat to social order?

In recent times, international terrorism has become one of the most serious concerns of the modern Western world. As a consequence, the risk and fear of terrorism is more salient in people’s minds (i.e. terror salience), which is supposed to affect behavioral responses in our society. The present research suggests that increased punishment of violations of criminal laws is one societal reaction to increased terror salience. It was consistently shown that increased terror salience, induced by either varying the temporal distance from the London terrorist attacks of July 7, 2005 (Study 1), by vignettes in the form of newspaper articles manipulating the expected terror risk (Study 2), or by pictures of recent terrorist attacks (Studies 3 and 4), significantly increased the punishment assigned to a violation of criminal laws that was completely unrelated to terror (i.e. car theft and rape). Finally, Study 4 revealed that (a) the effect of terror salience on punishment is indeed due to increased perception of threat to social order and (b) that this effect cannot be explained by the general negative nature of the stimulus material employed in this study.     

Becoming More Conscientious or More Open to Experience? Effects of a Two-Week Smartphone-Based Intervention for Personality Change

Research indicates that it might be possible to change personality traits through intervention, but this clinical research has primarily focused on changing neuroticism. To date, there are no established, proven techniques for changing other domains of personality, such as conscientiousness and openness. This research examined the effects of a two-week smartphone-based intervention to either change one facet of conscientiousness (i.e. self-discipline) or one facet of openness to experience (i.e. openness to action). Two intervention studies (total N = 255) with two active intervention groups for mutual comparisons were conducted. Results of self-reports and observer reports showed that people who wanted to become more self-disciplined were less self-disciplined at pretest. Similarly, people who wanted to become more open to action were less open to action at pretest. The results showed that people who chose the self-discipline intervention showed greater increases in self-discipline, and people who chose the openness to action intervention showed greater increases in openness to action compared with the other group. Changes were maintained until follow-up two and six weeks after the end of the intervention. Future work is needed to examine whether these personality changes are enduring or reflect temporary accentuation as a result of participation in the intervention. © 2020 European Association of Personality Psychology     

Justice for the People? How Justice Sensitivity Can Foster and Impair Support for Populist Radical-Right Parties and Politicians in the United States and in Germany

Many people argue that support for populist radical-right political agents is motivated by people feeling “left behind” in globalized Western democracies. Empirical research supports this notion by showing that people who feel personally or collectively deprived are more likely to hold populist beliefs and anti-immigration attitudes. Our aim was to further investigate the psychological link between individuals' justice concerns and their preferences for populist radical-right political agents. We focused on stable individual differences in self-oriented and other-oriented justice concerns and argue that these should have opposing correlations with preferences for populist radical-right parties. We tested our hypotheses in two national samples, one from the United States (N = 1500) and one from Germany (N = 848). Sensitivity to injustice towards oneself enhanced the likelihood of preferring Trump (United States) and Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) (Germany) via increased anti-immigration attitudes and increased populist attitudes. Sensitivity to injustice towards others reduced the likelihood of preferring Trump and AfD via decreased anti-immigration attitudes. We discuss our findings in regard to how stable individual differences in the evaluation of fairness can motivate intra- and interpersonal political conflicts in modern w estern societies and how politics and mass media can fuel these conflicts.     

To belong or not to belong: Protecting minority engagement in the face of discrimination

School belonging is pivotal in enabling sustained task engagement, yet minorities' belonging is contingent on the intergroup context. From a social identity approach, discrimination experiences elicit identity threat, undermining school belonging. Conversely, a positive diversity climate may shield belonging through protecting minority identities. This study addresses minority school belonging and task engagement from the interplay of identity threat and protection in diverse classrooms. We hypothesise that a positive diversity climate can buffer minority disengagement in response to discrimination by protecting school belonging. Drawing on Turkish and Moroccan minority samples (N = 1050) in 274 diverse classrooms in 52 Belgian secondary schools, we test multilevel models with school belonging as mediating process connecting minorities' engagement to the interplay of discrimination experiences with perceived diversity climate. Minority youth who experienced discrimination from teachers reported less school belonging, which in turn predicted lower task engagement. Conversely, minority perceptions of a positive diversity climate predicted more belonging. Moreover, perceived diversity climate buffered minority engagement against personal experiences of discrimination through protecting school belonging. Whereas discrimination experiences undermined minority school belonging and task engagement, minority perceptions of a positive diversity climate protected belonging and engagement against discrimination.     

Change of reference frame for tactile localization during child development

Temporal order judgements (TOJ) for two tactile stimuli, one presented to the left and one to the right hand, are less precise when the hands are crossed over the midline than when the hands are uncrossed. This ‘crossed hand’ effect has been considered as evidence for a remapping of tactile input into an external reference frame. Since late, but not early, blind individuals show such remapping, it has been hypothesized that the use of an external reference frame develops during childhood. Five‐ to 10‐year‐old children were therefore tested with the tactile TOJ task, both with uncrossed and crossed hands. Overall performance in the TOJ task improved with age. While children older than 5½ years displayed a crossed hand effect, younger children did not. Therefore the use of an external reference frame for tactile, and possibly multisensory, localization seems to be acquired at age 5.     

Acquiring experiential traces in word-referent learning

In two experiments, we investigated the activation of perceptual representations of referent objects during word processing. In both experiments, participants learned to associate pictures of novel three-dimensional objects with pseudowords. They subsequently performed a recognition task (Experiment 1) or a naming task (Experiment 2) on the object names while being primed with different types of visual stimuli. Only the stimuli that the participants had encountered as referent objects during the training phase facilitated recognition or naming responses. New stimuli did not facilitate the processing of object names, even if they matched a schematic or prototypical representation of the referent object that the participants might have abstracted during word-referent learning. These results suggest that words learned by way of examples of referent objects are associated with experiential traces of encounters with these objects.     

Why and when justice sensitivity leads to pro- and antisocial behavior

People differ in how injustice-sensitive they are either as victims or as observers. Whereas observer sensitivity is positively related to cooperative behavior, victim sensitivity promotes antisocial and egoistic behavior. The present article investigates the dynamics underlying these effects. Participants played an online-based public goods game and were informed about the number of people who violated a fairness rule in previous rounds of the game (no, some, or many violators). High victim-sensitive participants contributed less to the public good even in the “some violators” condition. High observer-sensitive participants contributed more to the public good even in the “many violators” condition. The findings correspond with the sensitivity to mean intentions model and cannot be explained by individual differences in general trust.     

Biased assimilation: the role of source position

Biased assimilation is the tendency to evaluate belief‐consistent information more positively than belief‐inconsistent information. Previous research has demonstrated that biased assimilation is due to an inconsistency between an argument and the recipient's position toward this argument. The present research revealed that an inconsistency between a source's position (independently of the argument) and the recipient's position is also responsible for biased assimilation. In two studies, participants evaluated arguments stated by a politician. Party affiliation of the politician was correctly labeled, incorrectly labeled, or not labeled. The politicians' arguments were evaluated more favorably by their respective voters when party affiliation was correctly labeled. This biased evaluation diminished when party affiliation was not labeled and even slightly reversed when party affiliation was incorrectly labeled. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.