Beyond Personality Impressions: Effects of Physical and Vocal Attractiveness on False Consensus, Social Comparison, Affiliation, and Assumed and Perceived Similarity

ABSTRACT We examined the effects of target persons' physical and vocal attractiveness on judges' responses to five measures: false consensus (the belief that the target shares one's behavior), choice of targets as comparison others, affiliation with targets, assumed similarity (similarity between self-ratings and ratings assigned to targets), and perceived similarity (direct questions about similarity). Higher physical attractiveness and higher vocal attractiveness were both related to higher scores on all variables. The effect of one type of attractiveness was more pronounced for higher levels of the other type of attractiveness. The joint effect of the two types of attractiveness was best described as synergistic, i.e., only targets high on both types of attractiveness elicited higher scores on the dependent variables. The effect of physical attractiveness on most dependent variables was more pronounced for subjects who were themselves physically attractive. The synergistic effect (the advantage of targets high on both types of attractiveness) was more pronounced for judges high in self-monitoring. The contribution of the study to the literature on attractiveness stereotypes is discussed.     

Facial and vocal cues of deception and honesty

Facial expressions and vocal cues (filtered speech) of honest and deceptive messages were examined in posed and spontaneous situations. The question of interest was the degree to which nonverbal cues transmit information about deception. Results indicated that (a) for both the facial and vocal channels, posing (as compared to spontaneous behavior) produced a higher level of communication accuracy; (b) facial expressions of deceptive (as compared to honest) messages were rated as less pleasant, while vocal expressions of deception were rated as less honest, less assertive, and less dominant, particularly in the posed condition; (c) the sender's ability to convey honesty was negatively correlated with his/her ability to convey deception, suggesting the existence of a demeanor bias—individual senders tend to appear and sound consistently honest (or dishonest) regardless of whether they deliver an honest or a deceptive message; (d) in the posing condition, the sender's abilities to convey honesty/deception via facial and vocal cues were positively and significantly correlated, whereas in the spontaneous condition they were not; and (e) senders whose full (unfiltered) speech indicated more involvement with their responses were judged as more honest from both their vocal (filtered speech) and facial cues, in both the honest and deceptive conditions.     

Writing characteristics of suicidal people on the Internet: a psychological investigation of emerging social environments

Three studies were carried out to investigate the writings of suicidal people on the Internet, hypothesizing consistent findings to equivalent research of offline writing. In Study 1, suicidal persons' (n = 34) attributions as the cause of their condition, as expressed in their free online writing, were compared to those of emotionally distressed, nonsuicidal (n = 16) and to nondistressed (n = 15) individuals. Results showed that suicidal persons have significantly more stable and global attributions than do the other groups. In Study 2, expressions of self-focus in online written messages were compared among suicidal, two levels of nonsuicidal but distressed, and nondistressed individuals (200 messages in each group). With the use of various expressions of self-focus, findings showed that suicidal people were distinctively self-focused in their writing, unlike their counterparts. In Study 3, psychologically relevant themes in the online writing of suicidal (n = 39) and highly distressed, nonsuicidal persons (n = 24) were compared. Results revealed that the former expressed significantly more unbearable psychological pain and cognitive constriction than did the latter. The findings of the three studies are consistent with those found in examinations of offline writing. The research has important implications for the use of online environments for psychological research and means for assessment, as well as for understanding suicidality.     

Collective Action on Behalf of Women: Testing the Conceptual Distinction Between Traditional Collective Action and Small Acts in College Women

Sex Roles - The current study examines the nature of actions that U.S. college women (N?=?267) engage in to promote, protect, or enhance the welfare of other women. The study had two...     

Deterring Anger and Anger-Motivated Behaviors

Two experiments were carried out to explore an anger-reducing strategy based on Brehm's emotional intensity theory. According to this theory, anger can be reduced indirectly by interfering with the feeling of anger rather than by dealing directly with the source of anger. One strategy involves providing the angered person with a reason for feeling happy. We predicted that anger intensity would be reduced not only by a large reason for feeling happy, such as a large gift, but also by a small reason, like a tiny gift. A medium-size gift was expected to maintain anger at approximately its instigated level. Both experiments instigated anger by personal insult and then measured the intensity of felt anger and retaliation after either no further treatment, or a small, a moderate, or large irrelevant gift was presented. The results for felt anger and retaliation confirmed our theoretical expectations.     

Does happiness function like a motivational state?

According to Brehm's intensity of emotion theory, if an emotion has motivational properties, its intensity should be non-monotonically affected by factors similar to those determining the intensity of motivational states. These factors are called deterrents. In the case of emotion, one category of deterrents consists of factors that can potentially interfere with feeling the emotion, such as reasons for not feeling the emotion. Two experiments were carried out to examine whether happiness is a motivational state and, thus, if its intensity is non-monotonically determined by the importance of reasons for not feeling happy. We expected happiness to be reduced by a low importance reason for not feeling happy, to remain high in the presence of a moderately important reason, and to be reduced or eliminated by a very important reason. Both experiments supported the cubic function that results from these expectations, and when the results of the two studies were combined, each of the individual legs of the cubic function was found to be reliable along with the cubic function itself. The theoretical implications of these results are discussed.     

Facilitating Acceptance of Organizational Change: The Importance of Self‐Determination1

Self‐determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985, 1987, 1991) proposes that internalization can be facilitated by supporting a person's autonomy. Autonomy support can be achieved using 3 means: giving a rationale for doing a task, offering some choice about how to do the task, and acknowledging feelings about the task. We examined the effects of these 3 factors on acceptance of change in a work organization. Employees from a large Canadian telecommunications company that was in the midst of profound transformation completed scales on 2 separate occasions. Cross‐sectional and longitudinal results demonstrated that the 3 factors facilitated acceptance of organizational change, with substantial effect sizes. Implications for successful organizational transformation are discussed.     

Characteristics of men who have sex with men on the internet but identify as heterosexual, compared with heterosexually identified men who have sex with women.

We compared men who have sex with other men on the Internet with the remainder of the sample of men who reported only sex with women on the Internet, in a sample of 1,846 Swedish men recruited from a major Swedish portal. We report on the self-identified heterosexual men in the sample who reported engaging in cybersex in the past year, and for whom there was complete data on sexual identity and the gender of cybersexual partners. Of the 244 cases with full data, 76% were heterosexual in both identity and behavior, 16% were gay or bisexual in identity and reported both male and female cybersexual contacts on the Internet, and 8% indicated their sexual preference was heterosexual but also reported at least one male sexual partner on the Internet. Thus, 11% of self-identified heterosexual men had sex with other men online. Comparing the two groups, the men who had sex with men (MSM) who did not identify (MSM-NI) spent significantly more time per week online, although a similar amount of time on sexual pursuits, as the heterosexual men. The MSM-NI were significantly more likely to agree that their online sexuality had affected their sexuality in a positive way, to have bought sex from prostitutes, to agree that they do things online that they would not do offline, have cybersex more often, use a web-camera and microphone more often, flirt and visit contact sites more often, and agree more often that sexual thoughts and behaviors are causing problems, desire to have sex creates problems, and sometimes fail to meet commitments due to their sexual behavior. These data taken together suggest that MSM-NI online are not uncommon and are characterized by the extent of their cybersexual involvement that sometimes extends to other men. Such men may rationalize this cybersex with other men as not, or minimally, sexual in much the same way as Humphreys characterized MSMs in public restrooms.     

Disregarding Preliminary Information When Rating Job Applicants' Performance: Mission Impossible?1

Firms allocate considerable resources to test job applicants' skills and to ensure that hiring decisions are nondiscriminatory. Interpreting selection output in light of preliminary information may undermine the impartiality of personnel selection decisions. In this study, human resource managers were presented preliminary information about a candidate's performance and asked to rate him according to a detailed assessment‐center report of his performance. We examined several interventions for reducing reliance on preliminary information: retrieving assessment‐center information, generating a rating model, or both. Participants (N = 167) excluded preliminary information from the interventions, but relied on it when rating the candidate. The documented failure to control for the effects of preliminary information on subsequent judgments can contribute to improved selection procedures.