Psychology Commons^™

Examining The Distinct Effects Of Emotive Triggers On Public Reactions To International Terrorism, Cigdem V. Sirin, Nehemia Geva

Cigdem V. Sirin

Proof For The Power Of Prayer?, Thomas Schwartz

Thomas W Schwartz

Mindfulness meditation has been found in the research literature to promote a sense of well-being, quality of life, and even physical health among its practitioners. Does centering prayer have the same effects? A reflection.

Group Dynamics, Donelson R. Forsyth

Donelson R. Forsyth

Offering the most comprehensive treatment of groups available, Group Dynamics, sixth edition, combines an emphasis on research, empirical studies supporting theoretical understanding of groups, and extended case studies to illustrate the application of concepts to actual groups. This best-selling book builds each chapter around a real-life case, drawing on examples from a range of disciplines including psychology, law, education, sociology, and political science. Tightly weaving concepts and familiar ideas together, the text takes students beyond simple exposure to basic principles and research findings to a deeper understanding of each topic.

Groups And Teams, Crystal L. Hoyt, Donelson R. Forsyth

Donelson R. Forsyth

To understand leaders and leadership, one must understand groups and their dynamics. This chapter describes group-centered leadership, leading change in groups, leaders in groups, decision-making and leadership and social influence and leadership.

心态决定国运 (Attitude Determines National Destiny), Shanghai, China: Oriental Morning Post, July 11, 2013., Zheng Wang

Zheng Wang

No abstract provided.

Some Personality Predictors Of Tolerance To Human Diversity: The Roles Of Openness, Agreeableness And Empathy, Rivka Witenberg, Ninawa Butrus

Rivka T Witenberg Dr

The aim of this study was to determine the most salient predictors of tolerance to human diversity. A total of 118 individuals (M = 32.93 years, SD = 13.80) responded to dilemma-like stories involving holding prejudicial beliefs (beliefs), talking about them (speech) and acting on them (acts). Participants also completed the Openness and Agreeableness scales from the Big Five Inventory and the Interpersonal Reactivity Index. Differences in tolerance judgements were found to be related to differences in personality characteristics. Results showed that Openness and Agreeableness were predictors of tolerance in the belief dimension; whereas the most salient predictor of tolerance …

Putting Their Best Foot Forward: Emotional Disclosure On Facebook, Lin Qiu, Han Lin, Angela Ka Yee Leung, William Tov

Ka Yee Angela LEUNG

Facebook has become a widely used online self-representation and communication platform. In this research, we focus on emotional disclosure on Facebook. We conducted two studies, and results from both self-report and observer rating show that individuals are more likely to express positive relative to negative emotions and present better emotional well-being on Facebook than in real life. Our study is the first to demonstrate impression management on Facebook through emotional disclosure. We discuss important theoretical and practical implications of our study.

Revisiting The Multicultural Experience-Creativity Link: The Effects Of Cultural Distance And Comparison Mindset, Chi-Ying Cheng, Angela K.-Y. Leung

Ka Yee Angela LEUNG

A growing literature provides evidence for the multicultural experience-creativity link such that exposure to the juxtaposition of two cultures facilitates individual creativity. The underlying mechanisms for this relationship, however, are still far from being well explored. Drawing upon the novel perspective of motivated cognition, we hypothesize that two factors interact to affect creative outcomes: (a) perceived cultural distance between the two juxtaposed cultures, and (b) comparison mind-sets. Specifically, we argue that individuals’ creative performance will be increased only when a difference mind-set is employed to process the cultural stimuli that are sufficiently different from each other. In two studies, individuals …

Killing, Letting Die, And The Case For Mildly Punishing Bad Samaritanism, Ken M. Levy

Ken Levy

For over a century now, American scholars (among others) have been debating the merits of “bad-samaritan” laws – laws punishing people for failing to attempt “easy rescues.” Unfortunately, the opponents of bad-samaritan laws have mostly prevailed. In the United States, the “no-duty-to-rescue” rule dominates. Only four states even have bad-samaritan laws, and these laws impose only the most minimal punishment – either sub-$500 fines or short-term imprisonment.

This Article argues that this situation needs to be remedied. Every state should criminalize bad samaritanism. For, first, criminalization is required by the supreme value that we place on protecting human life, a …

An Event-Related Examination Of Neural Activity During Social Interactions, Jason R. Themanson, Stephanie M. Khatcherian, Aaron B. Ball, Peter J. Rosen

Jason R. Themanson, Ph.D

Social exclusion is known to cause alterations in neural activity and perceptions of social distress. However, previous research is largely limited to examining social interactions as a unitary phenomenon without investigating adjustments in neural and attentional processes that occur during social interactions. To address this limitation, we examined neural activity on a trial-by-trial basis during different social interactions. Our results show conflict monitoring neural alarm activation, indexed by the N2, in response to specific exclusionary events; even during interactions that are inclusionary overall and in the absence of self-reported feelings of social pain. Furthermore, we show enhanced attentional activation to …

The Better-Than-Average Effect In Hong Kong And The United States: The Role Of Personal Trait Importance And Cultural Trait Importance, Kim-Pong Tam, Angela K.-Y. Leung, Young-Hoon Kim, Chi-Yue Chiu, Ivy Yee-Man Lau, Al K. C. Au

Ka Yee Angela LEUNG

People tend to make self-aggrandizing social comparisons on traits that are important to the self. However, existing research on the better-than-average effect (BTAE) and trait importance does not distinguish between personal trait importance (participants’ ratings of the importance of certain traits to themselves) and cultural trait importance (participants’ perceptions of the importance of the traits to the cultural group to which they belong). We demonstrated the utility of this distinction by examining the joint effects of personal importance and cultural importance on the BTAE among Hong Kong Chinese and American participants. Results showed that the BTAE was more pronounced for …

English Learning Demotivation Studies In The Efl Contexts: State Of The Art, Yoon-Kyoung Kim, Tae-Young Kim

Dr. Tae-Young Kim (김태영, 金兌英)

This paper reviews the studies conducted on English learning demotivation in the EFL contexts. Demotivation research in the EFL contexts is significant given the learners’ less opportunities to use the target language outside school and consequent difficulties in maintaining their interest in learning it. In order to look into how this issue of demotivation has been addressed, the previous EFL demotivation studies are analyzed based on (a) their research methods and (b) perspectives on the definition of demotivation. The research methods adopted by the previous research include quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods. In terms of different underlying assumptions on what …

Same Environment, Different Affordances: Ecological Analysis Of Four Different Learners In A University Context, Miso Kim, Tae-Young Kim

Dr. Tae-Young Kim (김태영, 金兌英)

This study investigates the subjective realization of objective environmental factors and learners’ agency in constructing their meaning potential. According to van Lier’s (2000, 2002, 2004) ecological perspective, the environment is yet an unrealized set of potential, and affordance is what was felt meaningful to the learner. Also, learners actively construct their terms and conditions of learning with their agency (Lantolf & Pavlenko, 2001). Based on van Lier’s ecological framework, two pairs of students enrolled in two same English classes were recruited. Life history, semi-structured interview, and task recall data revealed that for some students, affordance of the English classroom was …

The Coevolution Of Networks And Political Attitudes, David Lazer, Brian Rubineau, Carol Chetkovich, Nancy Katz, Michael Neblo

Brian Rubineau

How do attitudes and social affiliations co-evolve? A long stream of research has focused on the relationship between attitudes and social affiliations. However, in most of this research the causal relationship between views and affiliations is difficult to discern definitively: Do people influence each other’s views so that they converge over time or do they primarily affiliate (by choice or happenstance) with those of similar views? Here we use longitudinal attitudinal and whole network data collected at critical times (notably, at the inception of the system) to identify robustly the determinants of attitudes and affiliations. We find significant conformity tendencies: …

Individual Differences That Moderate The Effectiveness Of Relational Reasons For Self-Improvement, Jonathan Gore

Jonathan Gore

Two studies tested the hypotheses that relationally-autonomous reasons (RARs) for goals predict attainment, and that this relationship is stronger among highly relational and agreeable people than others. Study 1 (n = 134) assessed participants’ self-construal and Agreeableness, and their tendency to pursue subgoals for RARs, relationally-controlled reasons (RCRs), and personally-controlled reasons (PARs). One month later, they indicated the number of subgoals they had attained. RARs were positively correlated with attainment, and this relationship was stronger among highly relational and agreeable people than others. In Study 2 (n = 74), self-construal and Agreeableness were assessed then participants generated possible outcomes of …

Socially-Mediated Internet Surveys (Smis): Recruiting Participants For Online Experiments, Erin C. Cassese, Leonie Huddy, Todd K. Hartman, Lilliana Mason, Christopher R. Weber

Todd K. Hartman

Socially-Mediated Internet Surveys (SMIS) is a new method to obtain web-based, adult samples for experimental political science research. SMIS targets central figures in online social networks to help recruit participants, who visit their websites. We present data from six samples collected using the SMIS method and compare them to those gathered by other sampling approaches such as Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. While not representative of the general adult population, our SMIS samples are significantly more diverse than undergraduate convenience samples, not just demographically but also politically. Moreover, we also discuss how the SMIS approach can be used to target special subpopulations …

How Successful You Have Been In Life Depends On The Response Scale Used: The Role Of Cultural Mindsets In Pragmatic Inferences Drawn From Question Format, Ayse K. Uskul, Daphna Oyserman, Norbert Schwarz, Spike Lee, Alison Xu

Ayse K Uskul

To respond to a question, respondents must make culturally relevant, context-sensitive pragmatic inferences about what the question means. Participants in a culture of modesty (China), a culture of honor (Turkey), and a culture of positivity (U.S.) rated their own (Study 1) or someone else’s (their parents or people their parents’ age, Study 2) success in life using either a rating scale that implied a continuum from failure to success (-5 to +5) or varying degrees of success (0 to 10). As predicted, culture and rating format interacted with rating target to influence response patterns. Americans, sensitive to the possibility of …

Can Happiness Boost Self-Worth? : Exploring The Impact Of Subjective Well-Being On The Global Self-Esteem, Jesus Alfonso D. Datu

Jesus Alfonso D Datu

Consistent with the contention that happiness leads to desirable outcomes (Diener, 2012), the current study examines the relationship of subjective well-being (SWB) to self-esteem of Filipino adolescents. The cognitive and affective domains of SWB were utilized as determinants of global self-esteem through regression analyses. Findings of the study showed that gender, and all dimensions of SWB significantly predicted the appraisal of self-worth among the respondents, with life satisfaction as its strongest predictor. From these results, premises of the broaden-and-build theory was confirmed as it elaborates how adolescents’ appreciation of self profits from positive emotions and satisfaction with life. Implications of …

On Dialogue Studies, Donal Carbaugh

Donal Carbaugh

The study of dialogue is a way to open several intellectual arenas for investigation while at the same time offering insights into multiple scenes of practical yet culturally diverse human practices. This article reviews several such arenas including studies of dialogue as a culturally distinctive form of communication, dialogue as an approach to understanding social practices, dialogic ethics, as well as dialogue as an integrative view of not only cultural practice but also natural environments. Throughout, dialogue studies are cast as a broad field with distinct disciplines within it, as holding deep value for understanding diversity in peoples’ practices, as …

Decreasing The Economy’S Impact On Evaluations Of The President: An Experiment On Attribution Framing, Brian Newman

Brian Newman

Decades of research has shown that economic considerations are strongly tied to evaluations of the president. Many studies have found that framing (often called priming) by news coverage, events, and presidential rhetoric can increase the weight of economic and other considerations in presidential evaluations. I use a survey experiment to show that attribution frames can decrease the weight of economic considerations on presidential evaluations. The finding holds implications for the public’s capacity to hold the president accountable and presidents’ legislative strategies.

The Effects Of A Computer Malfunction On Subsequent Task Performance, Nicole Zimmerman, Everett Sambrook, Jonathan Gore

Jonathan Gore

Although previous research has examined the effects of computer malfunctions on employee frustration, to our knowledge no research has explored computer malfunction's effect on subsequent task performance. It was hypothesised that participants who experience a malfunction would perform worse on a subsequent task than those who experience no malfunction. Participants (n = 204) were randomly assigned to experience either a computer malfunction or not during the first task. Participants then completed a subsequent task. The results confirmed that the Malfunction group performed worse than the Control group on both tasks. Implications for workplace performance are discussed.

DOI: 10.1080/0144929X.2012.733412

Defining The Importance Of Mental Preparedness For Risk Communication And Residents Well-Prepared For Wildfire, Christine Eriksen, Timothy Prior

Christine Eriksen

Building on a recognised information-to-action gap in wildfire risk communication, this paper examines what being physically and mentally ‘well prepared’ actually means to wildfire agency staff and volunteers in charge of disseminating risk information. Using the results of an open-ended survey conducted in southeast Australia, we examine how a set of preparedness messages is interpreted. The paper demonstrates that the concept of wildfire preparedness is ambiguous, and that being ‘well prepared’ is a complex mix of practical and mental preparedness measures. Many of the individual interpretations of preparedness messages are found to not align with the official outlined intent. In …

Maybe It’S Right, Maybe It’S Wrong: Structural And Social Determinants Of Deception In Negotiation, Mara Olekalns

Mara Olekalns

Context shapes negotiators’ actions, including their willingness to act unethically. Focusing on negotiators use of deception, we used a simulated two-party negotiation to test how three contextual variables - regulatory focus, power, and trustworthiness - interacted to shift negotiators’ ethical thresholds. We demonstrated that these three variables interact to either inhibit or activate deception, providing support for an interactionist model of ethical decision-making. Three patterns emerged from our analyses. First, low power inhibited and high power activated deception. Second, promotion-focused negotiators favored sins of omission whereas prevention-focused negotiators favored sins of commission. Third, low cognition-based trust influenced deception when negotiators …

Natural Born Peacemakers? Gender And The Resolution Of Conflict, Mara Olekalns

Mara Olekalns

Two males sit apart, staring at each other from the corners of their eyes. A female approaches one and takes him by the arm, pulls him towards the other male. She alternates between the two and eventually brokers peace. In a different scenario, two males are again in conflict. A third male inserts himself between them, screaming at them or physically separating them to prevent the conflict from escalating. He keeps them separate and harangues them into submission (De Waal, 2009). Female as peacemaker, male as peacekeeper. These examples fit with our intuitions about how gender might shape the way …

From The University To The Barn And Back, Armando A. Arias Jr.

Armando Arias, Ph.D.

No abstract provided.

Confrontation Vs. Withdrawal: Cultural Differences In Responses To Threats To Honor, Susan E. Cross, Ayse K. Uskul, Berna Gercek-Swing, Zeynep Sunbay, Bilge Ataca

Ayse K Uskul

This study compares evaluations by members of an honor culture (Turkey) and a dignity culture (northern USA) of honor threat scenarios, in which a target was the victim of either a rude affront or a false accusation, and the target chose to withdraw or confront the attacker. Turkish participants were more likely than American participants to evaluate positively the person who withdrew from the rude affront and the person who confronted the false accusation. Participants in both societies perceived that others in their society would endorse confrontation more than withdrawal in both types of scenarios, but this effect was larger …

Integrating Religiosity And Pornography Use Into The Prediction Of Bystander Efficacy And Willingness To Prevent Sexual Assault., John D. Foubert, Andrew J. Rizzo

John D. Foubert

This study examined relationships between intrinsic and extrinsic religiosity, reasons for using Internet pornography, frequency of using Internet pornography during the last year, and the degree to which participants believed they were both confident in their efficacy and were willing to intervene to help prevent a sexual assault from occurring. Students volunteered to take an online survey as one of several options for course credit in a research participation system in a School of Education at a midwestern public university. Men’s extrinsic religiosity was positively correlated with their use of Internet pornography and negatively correlated with willingness to intervene as …

Analyzing The Determinants Of Group Identity Among Alevis In Turkey: A National Survey Study, Cigdem V. Sirin

Cigdem V. Sirin

This study systematically explores the factors that affect collective identity associations within the Alevi community in Turkey by employing the social identity approach and examining survey data collected through fieldwork. The results show that Kurdish Alevis express lower levels of attachment to their religious identity as compared to Turkish Alevis. The results also indicate that personal experiences of discrimination tend to increase one's prioritization of Alevi identity. Last, no significant differences are observed regarding group identity between Alevis who reside in urban areas and those who live in rural areas.

Relational Psychophysiology And Mutual Regulation During Dyadic Therapeutic And Developmental Relating., Kymberlee M. O'Brien

Kymberlee M. O'Brien

Abstract. Human experiences of empathy and presence are quintessential in therapeutic as well as intimate relationships. The work on relational psychophysiology has informed psychotherapeutic research by illustrating how early life physiological concordance between mother and infant are critical in mutual dyadic regulation. These processes cross several developmental domains, including biological, affective, social, and self-identity. By examining physiological concordance, this research has propelled our understanding of mutual regulation into the more expansive understanding of dyadically expanded states of consciousness. The core of the therapeutic relationship inherently engenders expanded opportunities and reorganization of the client, as well as the therapist. By incorporating …

Relationship Between Hair Cortisol And Perceived Chronic Stress In A Diverse Sample., Kymberlee M. O'Brien, Edward Tronick, Celia L. Moore

Kymberlee M. O'Brien

No abstract provided.