Fairness lies in the heart of the beholder: How the social emotions of third parties influence reactions to injustice

The present research explores third parties’ (e.g., jurors, ombudsmen, auditors, and employees observing others’ encounters) ability to objectively judge fairness. More specifically, the current research suggests that third parties’ justice judgments and reactions are biased by their attitudes toward the decision recipient and, in particular, the affective aspect of those attitudes as characterized by their felt social emotions. We explore how the congruence of a social emotion (i.e., the extent to which the emotion reflects feeling a subjective sense of alignment with the target of the emotion) can influence their evaluations of recipients’ decision outcomes. The five studies presented show that congruence can lead third parties to react positively to objectively unfair decision outcomes and, importantly, that the influence of social emotions on subjective justice judgments drive third party reactions to decisions, decision makers, and even national policies.     

Stemming the tide: Predicting women engineers' intentions to leave

This investigation adapts and extends the Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT) by integrating it with central constructs from turnover theory. The extended model proposes that domain specific self-efficacy and outcome expectations predict job satisfaction and organizational commitment — the two key job attitudes that have been established as influential predictors of turnover cognitions and behaviors. Further, we proposed that one form of organizational supports, specifically developmental opportunities at work, are sources of self efficacy and outcome expectations, and that the relationship between organizational supports and job attitudes is mediated by self-efficacy and outcome expectations. The proposed model was tested on a national sample of 2,042 women engineers. Overall, the results provided support for our newly developed model. Implications for theory, research, and practice are discussed.     

民营企业家职业倦怠内容和结构研究

本文旨在探讨民营企业家创业过程中体验到的职业倦怠内容和结构。首先对19家来自不同地区和行业的19名不同背景的民营企业家进行了半结构化访谈,其次对访谈记录进行了内容分析,在文献研究和访谈研究的基础上设计了民营企业家职业倦怠问卷,对获取的125份预测数据和215份正式测量数据进行了统计分析。结果揭示了民营企业家职业倦怠的四因素结构模型,包括枯竭、去个性化、创业成就感和创业认同感。     

A case of hand waving: Action synchrony and person perception

While previous research has demonstrated that people’s movements can become coordinated during social interaction, little is known about the cognitive consequences of behavioral synchrony. Given intimate links between the systems that regulate perception and action, we hypothesized that the synchronization of movements during a dyadic interaction may prompt increased attention to be directed to an interaction partner, hence facilitate the information that participants glean during a social exchange. Our results supported this prediction. Incidental memories for core aspects of a brief interaction were facilitated following in-phase behavioral synchrony. Specifically, participants demonstrated enhanced memory for an interaction partner’s utterances and facial appearance. These findings underscore the importance of action perception to social cognition.     

A friend is a present you give to your “Self”: Avoidance of intimacy moderates the effects of friends on self-liking

The current research proposes that thinking about friends improves feelings about the self and does so differentially depending on avoidance of intimacy. Based on previous findings that individuals who avoid intimacy in relationships (avoidant individuals) contrast their self-concepts with primed friends whereas those who pursue intimacy in relationships (non-avoidant individuals) assimilate their self-concepts to primed friends [Gabriel, S., Carvallo, M., Dean, K., Tippin, B. D., & Renaud, J. (2005). How I see “Me” depends on how I see “We”: The role of avoidance of intimacy in social comparison. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 31, 156-157], we predicted that friends who embody negative aspects of self would lead avoidant individuals to like themselves more, whereas friends who embody positive aspects of self would lead non-avoidant individuals to like themselves more. A pretest determined that good friends were seen as more similar to positive and ideal aspects of the self, whereas friends about whom participants had more mixed feelings (ambivalent friends) were seen as more similar to disliked and feared aspects of the self. Four experiments supported the main hypotheses. In Experiment 1, non-avoidant individuals like themselves more when good friends were primed. In Experiment 2, avoidant individuals like themselves more when ambivalent friends were primed. In Experiment 3, non-avoidant individuals liked themselves better after thinking about a friend’s positive traits, whereas avoidant individuals liked themselves better after thinking about a friend’s negative traits. In Experiment 4, all individuals under self-esteem threat strategically brought friends to mind who would help them like themselves more.     

Attending to threat: Race-based patterns of selective attention

The present research investigated the extent to which the stereotype that young Black men are threatening and dangerous has become so robust and ingrained in the collective American unconscious that Black men now capture attention, much like evolved threats such as spiders and snakes. Specifically, using a dot-probe detection paradigm, White participants revealed biased attention toward Black faces relative to White faces (Study 1). Because the faces were presented only briefly (30-ms), the bias is thought to reflect the early engagement of attention. The attentional bias was eliminated, however, when the faces displayed averted eye-gaze (Study 2). That is, when the threat communicated by the Black faces was attenuated by a relevant, competing socio-emotional cue—in this case, averted eye-gaze—they no longer captured perceivers’ attention. Broader implications for social cognition, as well as public policies that reify these prevailing perceptions of young Black men are discussed.     

The egocentric nature of procedural justice: Social value orientation as moderator of reactions to decision-making procedures

In four studies, the authors investigated the individual-oriented versus social-oriented nature of procedural justice effects by comparing fairness-based responses to decision-making procedures among proself versus prosocial oriented individuals. In Studies 1 through 3, we measured participants’ social value orientation and manipulated whether or not they were granted or denied voice in a decision-making process. Results consistently revealed that the effects of voice versus no-voice on fairness-based perceptions, emotions, and behavioral intentions were significantly more pronounced for individuals with proself orientations than for individuals with prosocial orientations. These findings were extended in Study 4, a field study in which perceived procedural justice was a stronger predictor of satisfaction and organizational citizenship behaviors among proselfs than among prosocials. These findings suggest that procedural justice effects can be accounted for by self-oriented motives or needs, rather than prosocial motives that are often conceptualized as being associated with justice.     

The vision heuristic: Judging music ensembles by sight alone

Team effectiveness and group performance are often defined by standards set by domain experts. Professional musicians consistently report that sound output is the most important standard for evaluating the quality of group performance in the domain of music. However, across six studies, visual information dominated rapid judgments of group performance. Participants (1062 experts and novices) were able to select the actual winners of live ensemble competitions and distinguish top-ranked orchestras from non-ranked orchestras based on 6-s silent video recordings yet were unable to do so from sound recordings or recordings with both video and sound. These findings suggest that judgments of group performance in the domain of music are driven at least in part by visual cues about group dynamics and leadership.     

Social cognitive predictors of well-being in African college students

Lent and Brown's (2006, 2008) social cognitive model of work well-being was tested in two samples of African college students, one from Angola (N = 241) and one from Mozambique (N = 425). Participants completed domain-specific measures of academic self-efficacy, environmental support, goal progress, and satisfaction, along with measures of global positive affect and life satisfaction. Path analyses indicated that the model fit the data well overall, both in the full sample and in separate sub-samples by country and gender. Contrary to expectations, however, self-efficacy predicted academic satisfaction only indirectly, via goal progress; and goal progress predicted life satisfaction only indirectly, via academic satisfaction. The predictors accounted for substantial portions of the variance in both academic domain satisfaction and life satisfaction. Implications for research and practice involving the social cognitive model are considered.     

Correlates of youth sport attrition: A review and future directions

ObjectivesThis review aims to (a) identify correlates of youth sport attrition, (b) frame correlates within a multilevel model of youth sport participation (i.e., biological, intra-personal, inter-personal, institutional, community, and policy levels), and (c) assess the level of evidence for each correlate.DesignReview paper.MethodsSystematic review method.ResultsEntering relevant search terms into PubMed, PsycINFO, SPORTDiscus and Web of Knowledge databases identified 23 articles with a total of 8345 participants. Satisfactory articles largely examined sport-specific attrition and sampled youth from western countries (e.g., Canada, France, Spain, United States). Of the 141 correlates examined, most were framed at the intrapersonal (90) and inter-personal levels (43). The level of evidence for each correlate (i.e., high, low, insufficient) was systematically assessed based on the quantity and quality of supporting articles. In total, 11 correlates were categorized as having a high quality level of evidence and 10 as having a low quality. High quality correlates included, among others, age, autonomy, perceived competence, relatedness, and task climate.ConclusionsOverall, established correlates of youth sport attrition are largely social in nature. Future directions surrounding (a) the need to examine correlates at lower (i.e., biological level) and higher (i.e., institutional, community, policy) analytic levels, (b) to sample participants from more culturally diverse societies and (c) to examine sport-general attrition are offered.