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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Well-Being On Planet Earth, Ed Diener, William Tov Dec 2009

Well-Being On Planet Earth, Ed Diener, William Tov

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The Gallup World Poll allows a look at how humanity is flourishing, based on the answers of survey respondents sampled from across the globe. Several conclusions are clear. First, how people are doing depends enormously on the society in which they live, and nations vary from doing very well to extremely poorly. In terms of subjective well-being, nations vary greatly, in both judgments of overall life and in positive and negative emotions. The best predictors of global life judgments were income and ownership of modern conveniences, whereas the best predictors of emotions were social factors such as the control of …


The Hard Embodiment Of Culture, Dov Cohen, Angela K. Y. Leung Dec 2009

The Hard Embodiment Of Culture, Dov Cohen, Angela K. Y. Leung

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The way humans move and comport their bodies is one way they (literally) carry their culture. In pre-wired embodiments, body comportment triggers basic, evolutionarily prepared affective and cognitive reactions that subsequently prime more complex representations. Culture suffuses this process, because (1) cultural artifacts, affordances, and practices make certain body comportments more likely, (2) cultural practices, rituals, schemas, and rules promote the learning of an otherwise underspecified connection between a given body comportment and a particular basic reaction, and (3) cultural meaning systems elaborate basic affective and cognitive reactions into more complex representations. These points are illustrated with three experiments that …


Culture, Psyche, And Body Make Each Other Up, Dov Cohen, Angela K. Y. Leung, Hans Ijzerman Dec 2009

Culture, Psyche, And Body Make Each Other Up, Dov Cohen, Angela K. Y. Leung, Hans Ijzerman

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The commentaries make important points, including ones about the purposeful uses of embodiment effects. Research examining such effects needs to look at how such effects play themselves out in people's everyday lives. Research might usefully integrate work on embodiment with work on attribution and work in other disciplines concerned with body–psyche connections (e.g., research on somaticizing versus “psychologizing” illnesses and hypercognizing versus hypocognizing emotions). Such work may help us understand the way positive and negative feedback loops operate as culture, psyche, and body make each other up.


Modeling Change Over Time: Conceptualization, Measurement, Analysis, And Interpretation, David Chan Nov 2009

Modeling Change Over Time: Conceptualization, Measurement, Analysis, And Interpretation, David Chan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The objective of this research report is to provide a state-of-the art review of the issues and methods relating to the modeling of change over time. The focus is on the quantitative assessment of the concept of change of time, which includes issues of conceptualization, measurement, data analysis, and interpretation. The rationale and motivation for this research originated from the author?s observations (specifically in the past decade in the capacities of journal editor, reviewer, symposium discussant, and workshop leader) on the need for a comprehensive and relatively non-technical reference on and integration of various issues in the modeling of change …


Culture As Common Sense: Perceived Consensus Versus Personal Beliefs As Mechanisms Of Cultural Influence, Xi Zou, Kim-Pong Tam, Michael W. Morris, Sau-Lai Lee, Ivy Yee-Man Lau, Chi-Yue Chiu Oct 2009

Culture As Common Sense: Perceived Consensus Versus Personal Beliefs As Mechanisms Of Cultural Influence, Xi Zou, Kim-Pong Tam, Michael W. Morris, Sau-Lai Lee, Ivy Yee-Man Lau, Chi-Yue Chiu

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The authors propose that culture affects people through their perceptions of what is consensually believed. Whereas past research has examined whether cultural differences in social judgment are mediated by differences in individuals’ personal values and beliefs, this article investigates whether they are mediated by differences in individuals’ perceptions of the views of people around them. The authors propose that individuals who perceive that traditional views are culturally consensual (e.g., Chinese participants who believe that most of their fellows hold collectivistic values) will themselves behave and think in culturally typical ways. Four studies of previously well-established cultural differences found that cultural …


Deep Rationality: The Evolutionary Economics Of Decision Making, Douglas T. Kenrick, Vladas Griskevicius, Jill M. Sundie, Norman P. Li, Jessica Yexin Li, Steven L. Neuberg Oct 2009

Deep Rationality: The Evolutionary Economics Of Decision Making, Douglas T. Kenrick, Vladas Griskevicius, Jill M. Sundie, Norman P. Li, Jessica Yexin Li, Steven L. Neuberg

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

What is a “rational” decision? Economists traditionally viewed rationality as maximizing expected satisfaction. This view has been useful in modeling basic microeconomic concepts, but falls short in accounting for many everyday human decisions. It leaves unanswered why some things reliably make people more satisfied than others, and why people frequently act to make others happy at a cost to themselves. Drawing on an evolutionary perspective, we propose that people make decisions according to a set of principles that may not appear to make sense at the superficial level, but that demonstrate rationality at a deeper evolutionary level. By this, we …


Emotional Expression Of Capacity And Trustworthiness In Humor And In Social Dilemmas, Norman P. Li, Daniel Balliet Oct 2009

Emotional Expression Of Capacity And Trustworthiness In Humor And In Social Dilemmas, Norman P. Li, Daniel Balliet

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Humor and social dilemmas are two disparate areas that have been linked to emotions. However, they tend to have been studied apart from considerations of emotion and emotional expression. We provide an overview of how such areas might be illuminated by Vigil's socio-relational framework, and how capacity and trustworthiness are communicated in humor and social dilemmas.


An Evolutionary Perspective On Humor: Sexual Selection Or Interest Indication?, Norman P. Li, Vladas Griskevicius, Kristina M. Durante, Peter K. Jonason, Derek J. Pasisz, Katherine Aumer Jul 2009

An Evolutionary Perspective On Humor: Sexual Selection Or Interest Indication?, Norman P. Li, Vladas Griskevicius, Kristina M. Durante, Peter K. Jonason, Derek J. Pasisz, Katherine Aumer

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Are people who are funny more attractive? Or does being attractive lead people to be seen as funnier? The answer may depend on the underlying evolutionary function of humor. While humor has been proposed to signal “good genes”, the authors propose that humor also functions to indicate interest in social relationships—in initiating new relationships and in monitoring existing ones. Consistent with this interest indicator model, across three studies both sexes were more likely to initiate humor and to respond more positively and consider the other person to be funny when initially attracted to that person. The findings support that humor …


Salespeople's Renqing Orientation, Self-Esteem, And Selling Behaviors: An Empirical Study In Taiwan, Ming-Hong Tsai, Shu-Cheng Steve Chi, Hsia-Hua Hu Jun 2009

Salespeople's Renqing Orientation, Self-Esteem, And Selling Behaviors: An Empirical Study In Taiwan, Ming-Hong Tsai, Shu-Cheng Steve Chi, Hsia-Hua Hu

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The purpose of this study was to investigate how salespeople's renqing orientation and self-esteem jointly affect their selling behavior.Data were obtained from a survey of salespeople from 17 pharmaceutical and consumer-goods companies in Taiwan (n = 216).Salespeople's renqing orientation (i.e., their propensity to adhere to the accepted norm of reciprocity) compensates the negative effect of self-esteem on their selling behaviors, such as adaptive selling and hard work.Our study results underscore the critical role of the character trait of renqing orientation in a culture emphasizing a norm of reciprocity. Therefore, it would be useful to consider a strategy of recruiting salespeople …


The Role Of Ideal Affect In The Experience And Memory Of Emotions, Christie N. Scollon, Amanda H. Howard, Amanda E. Caldwell, Sachiyo Ito Jun 2009

The Role Of Ideal Affect In The Experience And Memory Of Emotions, Christie N. Scollon, Amanda H. Howard, Amanda E. Caldwell, Sachiyo Ito

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

According to Affect Valuation Theory (Tsai et al. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 1031-1039), culture influences how people want to feel (ideal affect). Integrating Affect Valuation Theory with the Time-sequential Framework of Subjective Well-being (KIM-Prieto et al. Journal of Happiness Studies, 6, 261-300), we proposed that cultural norms influence the memory, but not the experience, of emotion. The present study examined the role of ideal affect in relation to experience sampling and retrospective reports of emotion. Ideal affect correlated with retrospective reports but not experience sampling reports. Extraversion and neuroticism were more strongly related to experience sampling reports …


Explaining Incivility In The Workplace: The Effects Of Personality And Culture, Wu Liu, Shu-Cheng Chi, Ray Friedman, Ming-Hong Tsai Apr 2009

Explaining Incivility In The Workplace: The Effects Of Personality And Culture, Wu Liu, Shu-Cheng Chi, Ray Friedman, Ming-Hong Tsai

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This study examines individual and cultural antecedents of incivility in the workplace, using a sample of MBAs and EMBAs from Taiwan and the United States. We predicted that individual achievement orientation would enhance incivility, based on Dollard’s frustration aggression hypothesis, and that those who were higher in direct conflict self-efficacy (i.e., beliefs in one's skills in managing direct conflict) would be higher in incivility. These predictions were supported. We also predicted, and found, that collectivism orientation constrains these main effects, so that for those high in collectivism, the impact of achievement orientation and direct conflict self-efficacy is weak or nonexistent. …


Multiracial Identity Integration: Perceptions Of Conflict And Distance Among Multiracial Individuals, Chi-Ying Cheng, Fiona Lee Mar 2009

Multiracial Identity Integration: Perceptions Of Conflict And Distance Among Multiracial Individuals, Chi-Ying Cheng, Fiona Lee

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This article examines how multiracial individuals negotiate their different and sometimes conflicting racial identities. Drawing from previous work on bicultural identity integration (see Benet-Martinez and Haritatos, 2005), we proposed a new construct, multiracial identity integration (MII), to measure individual differences in perceptions of compatibility between multiple racial identities. We found that MII is composed of two independent subscales: that describes whether different racial identities are perceived as disparate, and that describes whether different racial identities are perceived as in conflict. We also found that recalling positive multiracial experiences increased MII, while recalling negative multiracial experiences decreased MII. These findings have …


Toward A More Complete Understanding Of The Link Between Multicultural Experience And Creativity, William W. Maddux, Angela K.-Y. Leung, Chi-Yue Chiu, Adam D. Galinsky Feb 2009

Toward A More Complete Understanding Of The Link Between Multicultural Experience And Creativity, William W. Maddux, Angela K.-Y. Leung, Chi-Yue Chiu, Adam D. Galinsky

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Responds to G. J. Rich's comments on the current author's original article which presented evidence supporting the idea that multicultural experience can facilitate creativity. Rich has argued that our review, although timely and important, was somewhat limited in scope, focusing mostly on smaller forms of creativity ("little c": e.g., paper-and-pencil measures of creativity) as well as on larger forms of multicultural experience ("Big M": e.g., living in a foreign country). We agree with many aspects of Rich's assessment. The issue of whether different forms of multicultural experience can affect Big C creativity is of interest to both scholars and laypeople …


The Dark Triad: Facilitating A Short-Term Mating Strategy In Men, Peter K. Jonason, Norman P. Li, Gregory D. Webster, David P. Schmitt Feb 2009

The Dark Triad: Facilitating A Short-Term Mating Strategy In Men, Peter K. Jonason, Norman P. Li, Gregory D. Webster, David P. Schmitt

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This survey (N=224) found that characteristics collectively known as the Dark Triad (i.e. narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism) were correlated with various dimensions of short-term mating but not long-term mating. The link between the Dark Triad and short-term mating was stronger for men than for women. The Dark Triad partially mediated the sex difference in short-term mating behaviour. Findings are consistent with a view that the Dark Triad facilitates an exploitative, short-term mating strategy in men. Possible implications, including that Dark Triad traits represent a bundle of individual differences that promote a reproductively adaptive strategy are discussed. Findings are discussed in …


Oestradiol Level And Opportunistic Mating In Women, Kristina M. Durante, Norman P. Li Jan 2009

Oestradiol Level And Opportunistic Mating In Women, Kristina M. Durante, Norman P. Li

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The ovarian steroid hormone oestradiol plays a crucial role in female fertility, sexual motivation and behaviour. We investigated the relationship between oestradiol and the likelihood that women would engage in opportunistic mating. Two salivary samples were taken from normally cycling women within the peri-ovulatory and luteal phase of the menstrual cycle. At both testing sessions, participants also completed selfperceived desirability scales and provided subjective reports of sexual and social motivations, and satisfaction with their primary relationship partner. Oestradiol level was positively associated with a woman’s self- and other-perceived physical attractiveness and with inclinations to mate outside her current relationship. Oestradiol …


Signal Detection With Criterion Noise: Applications To Recognition Memory, Aaron S. Benjamin, Michael Diaz, Wee, Serena Jan 2009

Signal Detection With Criterion Noise: Applications To Recognition Memory, Aaron S. Benjamin, Michael Diaz, Wee, Serena

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

A tacit but fundamental assumption of the theory of signal detection is that criterion placement is a noise-free process. This article challenges that assumption on theoretical and empirical grounds and presents the noisy decision theory of signal detection (ND-TSD). Generalized equations for the isosensitivity function and for measures of discrimination incorporating criterion variability are derived, and the model's relationship with extant models of decision making in discrimination tasks is examined, An experiment evaluating recognition memory for ensembles of word stimuli revealed that criterion noise is not trivial in magnitude and contributes substantially to variance in the slope of the isosensitivity …


The “Booty Call”: A Compromise Between Men And Women's Ideal Mating Strategies, Peter K. Jonason, Norman P. Li, Margaret J. Cason Jan 2009

The “Booty Call”: A Compromise Between Men And Women's Ideal Mating Strategies, Peter K. Jonason, Norman P. Li, Margaret J. Cason

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Traditionally, research on romantic and sexual relationships has focused on 1-night stands and monogamous pairs. However, as the result of men and women pursuing their ideal relationship types, various compromise relationships may emerge. One such compromise is explored here: the ‘‘booty call.’’ The results of an act-nomination and frequency study of college students provided an initial definition and exploration of this type of relationship. Booty calls tend to utilize various communication mediums to facilitate sexual contact among friends who, for men, may represent low-investment, attractive sexual partners and, for women, may represent attractive test-mates. The relationship is discussed as a …