Cause by Omission and Norm: Not Watering Plants

People generally accept that there is causation by omission—that the omission of some events cause some related events. But this acceptance elicits the selection problem, or the difficulty of explaining the selection of a particular omissive cause or class of causes from the causal conditions. Some theorists contend that dependence theories of causation cannot resolve this problem. In this paper, we argue that the appeal to norms adequately resolves the selection problem for dependence theories, and we provide novel experimental evidence for it.     

亲社会行为中的“眼睛效应”

呈现眼睛图片就会使人们的行为发生变化即眼睛效应(the watching eyes effect)。名誉机制和规则心理可以解释眼睛效应,但尚未得出一致的结论。虽然大量研究证明亲社会行为中存在眼睛效应,但任务类型、实验情境、暴露时间、匿名性等客观环境以及被试的群体成员身份和个性特征等因素都会影响眼睛效应的发生及其强度。未来研究可以从具身认知的视角深入探讨眼睛效应的进化心理机制,开展眼睛效应的跨文化研究,探讨其背后的脑神经机制,并扩展眼睛效应的应用型研究。     

市场规范与社会规范冲突视角下的奖励推荐计划作用机制

奖励推荐计划(referral reward program, RRP)越来越成为企业获取新顾客和保留老顾客的有力武器, 然而有关RRP对消费者推荐行为影响的研究却较为匮乏。从RRP引发社会规范与市场规范冲突的视角出发, 以营销学、动机心理学、情绪心理学及行为经济学为基础, 系统研究RRP对推荐行为的影响。具体内容包括：研究奖励框架与社会规范对消费者推荐动机的作用; 探究情绪在动机一致性与推荐行为之间的中介作用; 关注因果定向、自我意识及文化价值观等自我层面因素对以上过程的调节作用。将主要采用系列实验并结合神经营销学方法, 力图彻底搞清现有研究中的争论话题和填补研究空白, 这对从社会规范与市场规范相冲突的视角探讨以动机为主题的RRP研究具有重要的理论意义, 同时对中外企业了解奖励对消费者推荐行为的影响机制以及设计合理有效的RRP具有显著的指导意义。     

Where Do Social Norms Come From?

ABSTRACT— Where do social norms come from? Part of the answer must surely lie in such norms' ability to support individual adaptive success in local ecologies. This theme is dominant in analyses of social behavior by economic game theorists and behavioral-ecology researchers, but it has been neglected by psychologists. An illustration of the methods and advantages of the adaptationist approach to understanding the emergence of social norms is provided. Some surprising behavioral results from modern industrial societies that reflect social-sharing norms of modern hunter-gatherer societies are consistent with our adaptive analysis.     

《中国大学生心理应激量表》的编制

本研究的目的是编制适合中国社会文化特点和大学生使用的心理应激量表,并制订全国大学生常模。通过开放性问卷调查、对大学生心理咨询个案的分析和对高等学校心理咨询教师与专家的访谈以及参考国外同类量表的条目等方式编写条目,通过两次预测筛选、修改并确定量表的项目;在全国采用分层随机采样方式选取182所普通高等学校54708名大学生和研究生进行测试。结果表明,中国大学生心理应激量表具有相当高的重测信度、内部一致性和较高的效标效度。根据常模组测量的结果,给出了85种生活事件和日常琐事的心理影响指数(PII)、心理影响范围和心理影响总量。结论:中国大学生心理应激量表具备令人满意的心理测量学特征,可以被用来评估中国大学生在一段时间内的心理应激水平。     

The impact of past behaviour normality on regret: replication and extension of three experiments of the exceptionality effect

Norm theory (Kahneman, D., & Miller, D. T. (1986). Norm theory: Comparing reality to its alternatives. Psychological Review, 93, 136–153) described a tendency for people to associate stronger regret with a negative outcome when it is a result of an exception (abnormal behaviour) compared to when it is a result of routine (normal behaviour). In two pre-registered studies, we conducted a replication and extension of three classic experiments on past behaviour exception/routine contrasts (N?=?684). We successfully replicated Kahneman and Miller’s (1986) experiments with the classic hitchhiker-scenario (Part 1) and car accident-scenario (Part 2). In both cases, participants examined negative outcomes and tended to indicate a protagonist who deviated from own past behaviour as more regretful than another who followed routine. Pre-registered extensions also showed effects for ratings of social norms, negative affect, and perceived luck. We did not find support for the Miller, D. T., and McFarland, C. [(1986). Counterfactual thinking and victim compensation: A test of norm theory. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 12, 513–519] experiment robbery scenario (Part 3) using a compensation measure, in that compensation to a victim of a robbery was not significantly different comparing exceptional and routine circumstances. However, a pre-registered extension showed that robbery under exceptional circumstances was perceived as more regretful than robbery under routine circumstances. We discuss implications for current and future research.     

Do egalitarians always help the disadvantaged more than the advantaged? Testing a value‐norm conflict hypothesis in Malaysia

Do egalitarians always express greater compassion toward the disadvantaged than toward the advantaged? A closer look at existing scholarship on the topic suggests that they likely do. Here, we investigated whether such tendency is also apparent within interdependent, high power distance cultures where the high‐status privilege prevails. Given the emphasis on harmony in social relations in interdependent cultures, we reasoned that egalitarians might experience a dissonance between their private equity values and a societal norm prescribing high‐status privilege, which we refer to as the value‐norm conflict. We therefore proposed and found evidence in Malaysia (N = 273) that egalitarians succumbed to the normative high‐status privilege in their culture: They displayed greater compassion towards higher than lower status victims, but only when the political cost of doing so was low. Interestingly, anti‐egalitarians displayed equitable levels of compassion for high‐ and low‐status victims, but only when the political cost for taking such action also was low. Hence, we show that even egalitarians can, at times, favor the privileged and that anti‐egalitarians can act equitably, so long as the political cost of doing so is trivial for them.     

Role as Norm,Role and Norm: Homer’s Hero,Hesiod’s Just City,and Plato’s Kallipolis

Role as Norm, Role and Norm: Homer’s Hero, Hesiod’s Just City, and Plato’s Kallipolis     

The role of legal and moral norms to regulate the behavior of texting while driving

Despite a nationwide lawful effort to regulate texting-while-driving behavior, little change has been reported. This study assessed the effect of current legal enforcement on attitudinal and behavioral responses toward texting while driving in conjunction with potential influences of two types of perceived norms—legal and moral. An online survey was conducted with 313 college students recruited from three states where the history of a banning law of texting while driving varied (more than 3 years, less than 1 year, and none). The students self-reported perceived legal norm, perceived moral norm, perceived risk of texting while driving, frequency of texting while driving, attitude toward texting while driving, and intention of texting while driving. General linear model analyses revealed that the mere presence of legal enforcement showed a negative relationship with frequency of behavior only for the state with the banning law in effect more than 3 years. While the perceived legal norm showed inconsistent relationships with outcome variables, the perceived moral norm appeared most promising to discourage texting while driving among young drivers. A banning law for texting-while-driving behavior not only backfired on the actual behavior in a short-term effect, but also required a long-term exposure of the law to change the actual behavior among college students. On the other hand, cultivation of a moral norm to regulate the behavior of texting while driving is particularly encouraged in that the stable nature of this psychological variable can play a role to suppress possible reactance evoked by an external force. Policy makers are encouraged to harness their approach to regulate young drivers’ texting while driving with the strategy that appeals to the drivers’ moral beliefs rather than simply forcing them to comply with the law.