Effects of intergroup and interpersonal context, and individuals' appraisal of their in-group on the intragroup comparison process

The present study examined whether individuals' endorsement of intergroup context moderates the social comparison process not only in the intergroup upward comparison condition, but also in the downward comparison condition, by experimentally manipulating the direction of intergroup comparison and interpersonal comparison for participants who appraise their in-group as high or low. As predicted, participants who appraise their in-group as high showed reflection processes in the intergroup upward comparison condition, but comparison processes in the intergroup downward comparison condition because of their endorsement of their in-group position. In contrast, participants who appraised their in-group as low showed comparison processes in the intergroup upward comparison condition, but reflection processes in the intergroup downward comparison condition. These results imply that the interplay between intergroup context and individuals' internal factors affect intragroup comparison processes.     

When the means justify the ends: effects of observability on the procedural fairness and distributive fairness of resource allocations

While there is substantial research examining how recipients react to allocations that vary in procedural fairness (Colquitt, Conlon, Wesson, Porter, & Ng, 2001 ), previous research has not examined how those dividing resources among themselves and others manipulate procedural fairness (Tyler & Smith, 1998 ). In this paper, we introduce a measure that allows us to compare procedural fairness across resource allocations, and we use an experimental procedure in which participants vary the procedural fairness of their allocations. In three studies, we show that those dividing resources make proactive tradeoffs between distributive and procedural fairness. Participants increased the procedural fairness of their allocations when they knew recipients would observe their procedures, but they were less likely to divide the resources equally among recipients. The decreased emphasis on distributive fairness when procedures were observable resulted in higher joint outcomes, suggesting that the observability of procedures has important implications for the efficiency of resource allocation in groups. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Effect of Political Positioning on Explanations of Delinquency: An Experimental Study of Social Differentiation and Representation

Why and under what conditions do subjects from diverse political orientations tend to offer different explanations of a social problem? Past studies have found evidence of a connection between political orientations and explanations of delinquency, for example. However, observing such differences among subjects with diverse political orientations is not enough to prove the existence of an organic link between social differentiation and the representations of delinquency. The aim of this paper is to provide an experimental proof of such a link. The results show that: (a) right‐wing and left‐wing subjects tend to offer different types of explanations of delinquency, but they refer to several common organizing principles; (b) divergence increases when social comparison between groups is activated; (c) differences are bigger if this comparison induces a discrimination; (d) the bigger the differences the more likely are the groups to resort to their ideological principles. Results are discussed in terms of theoretical, methodological, deontological, and practical implications.     

Idiosyncratic matching and choice: When less is more

In three studies, reliance on “goodness-of-fit” criteria exerted an influence on assessments of pay-TV packages that challenged normative standards relating to the principle of dominance. Studies 1 and 2 showed that the addition of one or more non-favored channels to a package of favored ones resulted in lower consumer interest, and the subtraction of one or more non-favored channels from a mixed package resulted in greater consumer interest, even when the relevant offering price remained unchanged. Study 3 demonstrated the specific relevance of perceived idiosyncrasy to this phenomenon. Thus, participants responded more positively to a given price reduction for relinquishing a channel they did not like when they believed that their preference ordering was idiosyncratic rather than one shared by their peers. These findings, buttressed by additional data collection to rule out some alternative interpretations and permit within-subject as well as between-subject comparisons, extend the theoretical and practical implications of previous research on the non-normative use of personal “goodness-of-fit” criteria in evaluating the attractiveness of products and programs.     

父母物质主义与大学生网络强迫性购物:序列中介效应分析

本研究基于生命历程范式,探讨父母物质主义与大学生网络强迫性购物的关系,并在此基础上建构了一个序列中介效应模型,考察大学生物质主义和社会比较的中介作用。采用方便抽样法对武汉市一所综合性大学858名具有网络购物经验的学生进行问卷调查,结果显示：（1）父母物质主义、大学生物质主义、社会比较和网络强迫性购物两两显著正相关;（2）在控制了性别和家庭社会经济地位之后,父母物质主义对大学生网络强迫性购物具有显著正向预测作用;（3）大学生物质主义和社会比较在父母物质主义与大学生网络强迫性购物之间起中介作用。具体而言,父母物质主义通过两条路径影响大学生网络强迫性购物,一是大学生物质主义的单独中介作用;二是大学生物质主义和社会比较的序列中介作用。上述结果表明,父母物质主义对大学生网络强迫性购物具有一定影响,且这种影响是通过个体因素（物质主义）和同伴互动因素（社会比较）共同作用形成的。     

How Financial Constraints Influence Consumer Behavior: An Integrative Framework

Financial constraints are economic limitations on behavior. Given that millions of people experience chronic or episodic financial constraints, we sought to review research that provides insight into how they affect consumer behavior. We propose an integrative framework that draws insights from multiple literatures that have examined financial constraints from different perspectives. The framework distinguishes between four perspectives, which are rooted in literatures on resource scarcity, choice restriction, social comparison, and environmental uncertainty and highlights different temporal stages of responding to financial constraints, distinguishing between reacting, coping, and adapting. Beyond the obvious negative effects of financial constraints, our framework emphasizes consumer resilience, highlighting that consumers often successfully cope with and devise adaptive strategies to deal with financial constraints. By broadening the behavioral and temporal scope of financial constraints considered within consumer psychology, this framework helps us to understand the often strong and sometimes counterintuitive effects of financial constraints on consumer behavior.     

Rough Sets and 3-Valued Logics

In the paper we explore the idea of describing Pawlak’s rough sets using three-valued logic, whereby the value t corresponds to the positive region of a set, the value f — to the negative region, and the undefined value u — to the border of the set. Due to the properties of the above regions in rough set theory, the semantics of the logic is described using a non-deterministic matrix (Nmatrix). With the strong semantics, where only the value t is treated as designated, the above logic is a “common denominator” for Kleene and Łukasiewicz 3-valued logics, which represent its two different “determinizations”. In turn, the weak semantics—where both t and u are treated as designated—represents such a “common denominator” for two major 3-valued paraconsistent logics. We give sound and complete, cut-free sequent calculi for both versions of the logic generated by the rough set Nmatrix. Then we derive from these calculi sequent calculi with the same properties for the various “determinizations” of those two versions of the logic (including Łukasiewicz 3-valued logic). Finally, we show how to embed the four above-mentioned determinizations in extensions of the basic rough set logics obtained by adding to those logics a special two-valued “definedness” or “crispness” operator.     

Peers and Performance: How In-Group and Out-Group Comparisons Moderate Stereotype Threat Effects

The present study examined how exposure to the performance of in-group and out-group members can both exacerbate and minimize the negative effects of stereotype threat. Female participants learned that they would be taking a math test that was either diagnostic or nondiagnostic of their math ability. Prior to taking the test, participants interacted with either an in-group peer (a female college student) or an out-group peer (a male college student) who had just taken the test, and learned that the student had either performed well or poorly on the test. Exposure to either an in-group or an out-group peer whose performance was consistent with the negative stereotype (a poor-performing female or a strong-performing male) exacerbated stereotype threat effects. In contrast, exposure to an in-group or an out-group peer whose performance challenged the negative stereotype (a strong-performing female or a poor-performing male) eliminated stereotype threat effects. These findings demonstrate that people can look to both in-group and out-group peers as sources of inspiration in the context of a negative stereotype.

Assimilation and contrast to group primes: The moderating role of ingroup identification

This research examined the conditions under which behavioral contrast would be observed in relation to ingroup and outgroup primes. The authors tested the hypothesis that differing levels of commitment to the ingroup would predict diverging behavioral responses to outgroup but not ingroup primes. Across two studies, featuring both age and gender groups, we found that ingroup identification predicted responses to outgroup primes with higher identifiers showing an increased tendency to contrast, that is, behave less like the outgroup, and more like the ingroup. Ingroup identification did not predict responses to ingroup primes. The implications of these findings for social comparison and social identity theories are discussed.     

The Effect of Education on Nationalism and Ethnic Exclusionism: An International Comparison

In most studies on ethnic attitudes, a rather strong negative relationship has been found between educational attainment and positive ingroup attitudes (or negative outgroup attitudes). However, it is not well known to what extent this educational effect varies across different national contexts. This study investigated the effect of education on different dimensions of nationalism and ethnic exclusionism with the use of 1995 survey data gathered in 22 countries. Notions from socialization theory were used to test whether the educational effect varies according to the length of liberal-democratic tradition and the degree of religious heterogeneity within a country. Results indicate that educational attainment is strongly related to ethnic exclusionism as well as chauvinism, but not to patriotism. Moreover, the effect of education on ethnic exclusionism is smaller in recently established democracies. The hypothesis regarding stronger educational effects in societies with more religious heterogeneity was not supported.