The Selfish Side of Self‐Control

Self‐control is a powerful tool that promotes goal pursuit by helping individuals curb personal desires, follow norms, and adopt rational thinking. In interdependent social contexts, the socially acceptable (i.e. normative) and rational approach to secure long‐term goals is prosocial behaviour. Consistent with that, much research associates self‐control with prosociality. The present research demonstrates that when norm salience is reduced (i.e. social relations are no longer interdependent), high self‐control leads to more selfish behaviour when it is economically rational. In three studies, participants were asked to allocate an endowment between themselves and another person (one‐round, zero‐sum version of the dictator game), facing a conflict between a socially normative and an economically rational approach. Across the studies, norm salience was manipulated [through manipulation of social context (private/public; Studies 1 and 2), measurement of social desirability (Studies 1 and 3), and measurement (Study 2) and manipulation (Study 3) of social power] such that some participants experienced low normative pressure. Findings showed that among individuals in a low normative pressure context, self‐control led to economically rational, yet selfish, behaviour. The findings highlight the role of self‐control in regulating behaviour so as to maximize situational adaptation. Copyright © 2014 European Association of Personality Psychology     

Face recognition as a predictor of social cognitive ability: Effects of emotion and race on face processing

The human face conveys important social signals when people interact in social contexts. The current study investigated the relationship between face recognition and emotional intelligence, and how societal factors of emotion and race influence people's face recognition. Participants’ recognition accuracy, reaction time, sensitivity, and response bias were measured to examine their face‐processing ability. Fifty Caucasian undergraduates (38 females, 12 males; average age = 21.76 years) participated in a face recognition task in which they discriminated previously presented target faces from novel distractor faces. A positive correlation between participants’ emotional intelligence scores and their performance on the face recognition task was observed, suggesting that face recognition ability was associated with emotional or social intelligence. Additionally, Caucasian participants recognized happy faces better than angry or neutral faces. It was also observed that people recognized Asian faces better than Caucasian ones, which appears to be contradictory to the classic other‐race effect. The present study suggests that some societal factors could influence face processing, and face recognition ability could in turn predict social intelligence.     

社会支持的调节作用研究

为了考察社会支持在人格特征和心理健康水平之间的调节作用,利用症状自评量表、社会支持评定量表和艾森克人格问卷简式量表对1102名大学生进行施测。层级回归分析的结果不仅支持了社会支持的调节作用,而且表明社会支持与个体的心理健康水平之间存在三种不同的关系形式,即(1)社会支持的主效应显著,但是调节效应不显著;(2)社会支持的主效应和调节效应同时显著;(3)社会支持的主效应不显著,但是调节效应显著。     

儿童期社交退缩的亚类型及与社会适应的关系

对20世纪80年代以来有关儿童期社交退缩的研究进行了综述,包括社交退缩的概念、研究方法、亚类型以及不同类型社交退缩行为与儿童社会适应之间的关系。对社交退缩的概念进行了总结,指出社交退缩包括安静退缩、活跃退缩和焦虑退缩3种亚类型,其中安静退缩在儿童中后期与社会适应的关系较为紧密,活跃退缩在整个儿童期都与社会适应水平负向联系,而焦虑退缩与社会适应之间的关系具有情境性的特点,只有熟悉情境下的焦虑退缩行为才与社会适应具有负向联系。最后,文章指出了现有研究的不足和今后的研究方向。     

公平--精神道德观念还是互利合作机制?

公平概念一直都是儿童道德发展研究的一个重要课题。传统上认为公平作为一个道德概念,属于人类精神层面,指导人类行为,是高于社会物质生活的。然而进一步研究关注,公平,作为人类生活中的一个重要而普遍的现象,是如何产生的,又为何能保持在人类社会生活中的。结果表明,公平在是人们在互利的目的下表现出来的一种策略,受到社会信息透明度的影响。一个社会中信息越透明,个体的名声越容易形成,则公平越成为一种最优的策略。     

Social comparison processes in the experience of personal relative deprivation

Drawing on social comparison and equity theories, we investigated the role that perceived similarity of a comparison target plays in how resentful people feel about their relative financial status. In Study 1, participants tended to choose a comparison target who was better off, and they selected a target they perceived to be more similar than dissimilar along dimensions that surrounded their financial outcomes. In Study 1, perceived relative disadvantage was positively associated with resentment regardless of the perceived similarity of the comparison target. The results of Studies 2 to 5b clarified these findings by showing that being both similar and dissimilar to a target can cause resentment depending on the context. Using hypothetical and real social comparisons, we found that people are more dissatisfied with their financial outcomes when their comparative targets have the same background qualifications (i.e., are similar) but are financially better off (Studies 2, 3b, 4, and 5b). However, we also found that when the comparative financial contexts were similar (i.e., equal affluence), participants were more dissatisfied when their target for comparison had lower qualifications (i.e., was dissimilar; Studies 2, 3a, 4, and 5a). In all cases, perceptions of unfairness mediated the effects of social comparison on financial dissatisfaction. Taken together, these studies address some of the ambiguities around what it means to be similar to a target in the context of social comparisons of affluence, and they underscore the importance of perceived unfairness in the link between social comparison and resentment with one's financial status.     

The Mistreatment of My People: Victimization by Proxy and Behavioral Intentions to Commit Violence Among Muslims in Denmark

Islamist extremism is often explained by the suffering endured by Muslims in Islamic countries as a result of Western‐led wars. However, many terrorist attacks have been carried out by European Muslims with no personal experiences of war. Across two studies among Danish Muslims, we tested if what we call “victimization‐by‐proxy processes” motivate behavioral intentions to commit acts of violence. We used Muslim identification, perceived injustice of Western foreign policies, and group‐based anger to predict violent and nonviolent behavioral intentions. More importantly, we compared path models of Danish Muslims from conflict zones with those without direct personal experience of Western‐led occupation. We found similar effects among the participants in each category, that is, vicarious psychological responses mimicked those of personally experienced adversity. In fact, participants born in Western Europe were, on average, more strongly identified with Muslims, more likely to perceive Western foreign policy as more unjust, reported greater group‐based anger, and were more inclined to help Muslims both by nonviolent and violent means.     

材料生态性和性别因素对理解友好与敌对意图的影响

为考察材料生态性、被试性别和角色性别对理解友好与敌对意图的影响,分析了100名被试观察由2名男性或2名女性表演的三类互动意图的照片或卡通时的正确率和反应时。结果：理解真实人物的正确率高于虚拟角色;女性被试理解虚拟角色的反应时长于真实人物,而男性被试却未出现材料生态性差异;理解男性角色敌对意图的反应时短于女性角色的,而理解友好意图时却未出现角色性别差异。研究为负性偏向等理论提供实证证据,揭示材料生态性、角色性别对理解友好和敌对意图的影响机制。