Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin

We use network psychometrics to map a subsection of moral belief systems predicted by moral foundations theory (MFT). This approach conceptualizes moral systems as networks, with moral beliefs represented as nodes connected by direct relations. As such, it advances a novel test of MFT’s claim that liberals and conservatives have different systems of foundational moral values, which we test in three large datasets (N_Sample1 = 854; N_Sample2 = 679; N_Sample3 = 2,572), from two countries (the United States and New Zealand). Results supported our first hypothesis that liberals’ moral systems show more segregation between individualizing and binding foundations than conservatives. Results showed only weak support for our second hypothesis, that this pattern would be more typical of higher educated than less educated liberals/conservatives. Findings support a systems approach to MFT and show the value of modeling moral belief systems as networks.

This meta-analysis evaluated theoretical predictions from balanced identity theory (BIT) and evaluated the validity of zero points of Implicit Association Test (IAT) and self-report measures used to test these predictions. Twenty-one researchers contributed individual subject data from 36 experiments (total N = 12,773) that used both explicit and implicit measures of the social–cognitive constructs. The meta-analysis confirmed predictions of BIT’s balance–congruity principle and simultaneously validated interpretation of the IAT’s zero point as indicating absence of preference between two attitude objects. Statistical power afforded by the sample size enabled the first confirmations of balance–congruity predictions with self-report measures. Beyond these empirical results, the meta-analysis introduced a within-study statistical test of the balance–congruity principle, finding that it had greater efficiency than the previous best method. The meta-analysis’s full data set has been publicly archived to enable further studies of interrelations among attitudes, stereotypes, and identities.

Previous research has demonstrated that implicit evaluations can be reversed with exposure to a single impression-inconsistent behavior. But what exactly is changing when perceivers encounter diagnostic revelations about someone? One possibility is that rapid changes are occurring in the extent to which perceivers view the person positively or negatively. Another possibility is that they override the expression of initial evaluations through control-oriented processes. We conducted three studies (one preregistered) that used multinomial process trees to distinguish between these possibilities. We find consistent support across two different implicit measures that diagnostic behaviors result in rapid changes in evaluative processes. We obtained only inconsistent evidence for effects on more control-oriented processes. These findings thus help to reveal the cognitive processes underlying rapid implicit revision. Implications for theoretical perspectives on implicit attitudes are discussed.

Researchers have assumed that people judge their own true selves, or their authentic and fundamental nature, to be no better than that of others. This assumption conflicts with self-enhancement perspectives, and with studies on comparative biases in self and social judgment, which assume that people tend to view their characteristics and life prospects more favorably than those of others. The five studies in this article demonstrate that comparative bias operates in self versus other true self comparisons, both with regard to traits (Studies 1–3), and morally relevant behaviors (Studies 4 and 5). Implications for the true and authentic self constructs are discussed.

With a growing body of relationship research relying on dyadic data (i.e., in which both members of a couple are participants), researchers have raised questions about whether such samples are representative of the population or unique in important ways. In this research, we used two large data sets (Study 1: n = 5,118; Study 2: n = 5,194) that included participants with and without a romantic partner participating to examine if co-participation status has substantive relationship implications. Results showed that co-participation status predicted breakup even after controlling for other known predictors such as satisfaction, although the effect weakened over time (Study 2). There was also tentative evidence that factors such as conflict may be differentially related to breakup among couples in which one versus both partners participated. These findings raise caution in interpreting effects found in dyadic studies and highlight the need to be mindful of potential bias in recruitment.

In the United States, both economic inequality and political conflict are on the rise. We investigated whether subjective socioeconomic status (SSS) may help explain why these dual patterns emerge. We hypothesized that higher SSS may increase naïve realism—the belief that one perceives the world as it is, rather than as interpreted through one’s own knowledge and beliefs—regarding political issues. Using a representative sample of the American electorate, we found that higher SSS predicted more political naïve realism toward those from a different political party (Study 1). The remaining experiments examined the causal relationship between SSS and political naïve realism (Studies 2–5). We extended these findings by investigating whether SSS influenced participants’ willingness to exclude those with contrary views from a vote (Studies 4 and 5). Together, these studies demonstrate that SSS enhances political naïve realism and can lead to the exclusion of others with contrary opinions.

Surprisingly little is known about transgender attitudes, partly due to a need for improved measures of beliefs about transgender people. Four studies introduce a novel Implicit Association Test (IAT) assessing implicit attitudes toward transgender people. Study 1 (N = 294) found significant implicit and explicit preferences for cisgender over transgender people, both of which correlated with transphobia and transgender-related policy support. Study 2 (N = 1,094) found that implicit transgender attitudes predicted similar outcomes among participants reporting no explicit preference for cisgender versus transgender people. Across Study 3a (N = 5,647) and Study 3b (N = 2,276), implicit transgender attitudes predicted multiple outcomes, including gender essentialism, contact with transgender people, and support for transgender-related policies, over and above explicit attitudes. This work introduces a reliable means of measuring implicit transgender attitudes and illustrates how these attitudes independently predict meaningful beliefs and experiences.

This article provides an examination of the structure of Islamophobia across cultures. Our novel measure—the Tripartite Islamophobia Scale (TIS)—embeds three theoretically and statistically grounded subcomponents of Islamophobia: anti-Muslim prejudice, anti-Islamic sentiment, and conspiracy beliefs. Across six samples (i.e., India, Poland, Germany, France, and the United States), preregistered analyses corroborated that these three subcomponents are statistically distinct. Measurement invariance analyses indicated full scalar invariance, suggesting that the tripartite understanding of Islamophobia is generalizable across cultural contexts. Furthermore, the subcomponents were partially dissociated in terms of the intergroup emotions they are predicted by as well as the intergroup outcomes they predict (e.g., dehumanization, ethnic persecution). For example, intergroup anger and disgust underpin Islamophobic attitudes, over and above the impact of fear. Finally, our results show that social dominance orientation (SDO) and ingroup identification moderate intergroup emotions and Islamophobia. We address both theoretical implications for the nature of Islamophobia and practical interventions to reduce it.

The present study investigated stability and change in materialism in emerging adulthood as well as the predictive roles of socioeconomic status (SES) and gender on the development of materialistic values. Indicator-specific latent state-trait growth models were applied to four-wave longitudinal data from a sample of 738 Chinese college students. The results showed that materialism was stable: 67% to 86% of the variance in the reliable interindividual differences in materialism was due to trait factors. In addition, materialism showed an increasing trajectory over the college years, and this developmental trend could not be attributed to measurement artifacts or confounding influences. Moreover, low family SES magnified the increase in materialism, whereas being female predicted lower initial levels of materialism. Collectively, these findings illustrate the nature and antecedents of the development of materialism in emerging adulthood.

Growing evidence indicates that whether critical and hostile behavior harms relationships depends on how partners respond. The current studies test a key behavioral indicator of partners’ responsiveness by examining whether partners’ withdrawal when actors exhibit negative-direct behavior predicts within-person and longitudinal declines in perceived partner responsiveness and relationship satisfaction. Test of Actors’ negative-direct × Partners’ withdrawal interactions indicated that partners’ withdrawal in the context of actors’ negative-direct behavior when targeted for change during conflict discussions (Study 1, N = 162 dyads) and during daily interactions (Study 2, N = 151 dyads) predicted lower perceived partner responsiveness and relationship satisfaction. This Actor × Partner effect did not emerge when actors were pushing for change during conflict (Study 1) and was more consistent predicting perceived partner responsiveness. These results illustrate the importance of Actor × Partner effects and indicate that actors’ own destructive behavior provides an important context to diagnose partners’ responsiveness.

Theories link threat with right-wing political beliefs. We use the World Values Survey (60,378 participants) to explore how six types of threat (e.g., economic, violence, and surveillance) are associated with multiple political beliefs (e.g., cultural, economic, and ideological identification) in 56 countries/territories. Multilevel models with individuals nested in countries revealed that the threat-political belief association depends on the type of threat, the type of political belief, and the country. Economic-related threats tended to be associated with more left-wing economic political beliefs and violence-related threats tended to be associated with more cultural right-wing beliefs, but there were exceptions to this pattern. Additional analyses revealed that the associations between threat and political beliefs were different across countries. However, our analyses identified few country characteristics that could account for these cross-country differences. Our findings revealed that political beliefs and perceptions of threat are linked, but that the relationship is not simple.