Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin

Research suggests people want to change their normative personality traits—and they can volitionally do so. However, studies have not yet addressed volitional change in pathological personality. Consequently, the current study examined (a) people’s desires to change pathological traits, (b) whether these change goals predict subsequent trait change, (c) whether this withstands controlling normative traits, and (d) the extent to which pathological trait change predicts relevant outcomes. College students (N = 463) self-reported their pathological traits weekly for up to 16 weeks. People with elevated pathological traits generally desired to decrease these traits. Furthermore, goals to change negative affectivity and disinhibition predicted corresponding trait change. Thus, people want to reduce their pathological traits—and they may be able to do so for some traits.

What do people think of when they think of workplace harassment? In 13 pre-registered studies with French, British, and U.S. American adult participants (N = 3,892), we conducted a multi-method investigation into people’s social prototypes of victims of workplace harassment. We found people imagined such victims in physically, socially, psychologically, and economically different ways compared with non-victims: for example, as less attractive, more introverted, and paid less. In addition, we found ambiguous harassment leveled against a prototypical (vs. non-prototypical) victim was more likely to be classified as harassment, and perceived to cause the victim more psychological pain. As such, both lay-people and professionals wanted to punish harassers of victims who “fit the prototype” more. Notably, providing people with instructions to ignore a victim’s personal description and instead assess the harassment behavior did not reduce the prototype effect.

While some people easily align themselves with others, others find themselves less aligned with sociocultural norms (e.g., nonconformists). Though people outside the mainstream tend to capture societies’ attention, very little is known regarding how nonconformists are construed. In these studies, we investigated how different types of nonconformists are stereotyped. We sought to elucidate common and dissociable social stereotypes of two types of nonconformity; mavericks and contrarians, driven toward independence versus being different, respectively. We found that mavericks are construed as highly competent and conscientious, well suited for leadership roles, and more likely to be male, older, and satisfied with their life. Contrarians are construed as highly social, low in warmth and agreeableness, highly neurotic, well suited for roles involving creativity and self-expression, and more likely to be female, younger, and less satisfied with their lives. We situate these findings within models linking cultural context with conformity.

Does the setting in which a relationship initiation attempt occurs matter to its success? Identical initiations could yield differential success if enacted in different settings. Data from five independent samples highlight the role settings play in the perception of (hypothetical) relationship initiation attempts and (expectations of) their success. Study 1a sourced a wide variety of settings for real-world relationship initiations. A separate sample rated the identified settings on initiation appropriateness (Study 1b). Study 2 tested the appropriateness and associated outcomes of initiation settings while varying aspects of the interpersonal context (initiator attractiveness, Study 2a; initiator familiarity, Study 2b; sexual nature of proposition, Study 2c). Irrespective of initiator attractiveness, familiarity, or type of proposal, perceptions of initiations’ success were impacted by the settings’ appropriateness. This work is the first to empirically test whether perceptions and outcomes of initiation attempts differ as a function of the setting in which they occur.

Rituals are pervasive and beneficial. Little is known, however, about causes or antecedents of ritual engagement. We hypothesized that nostalgia—a sentimental longing for one’s past—promotes ritual engagement, which in turn augments meaning in life. We tested this hypothesis in five methodologically diverse studies. In Study 1 (N = 311), nostalgia was positively associated with ritual engagement. In Study 2 (N = 188), nostalgia promoted ritual engagement, and in Study 3 (N = 296), it did so over engagement in a neutral task. In Study 4 (N = 252), nostalgia predicted later ritual engagement but not vice versa, convergent with Studies 2 and 3. Furthermore, nostalgia prospectively predicted meaning in life through specific ritualistic behaviors during a traditional festival. Finally, in Study 5 (N = 166), experimentally manipulated ritual engagement augmented meaning in life. As hypothesized, nostalgia advances ritual engagement, contributing to a meaningful life.

Previous studies have reported mixed findings on how and why unethical behavior affects self-esteem. To address this issue, a contingent dual-process model is proposed and tested. The model postulates a negative impact of unethical behavior on self-esteem through decreased morality, a positive effect through increased competence, and the relative strength of these two paths depending on system-justifying motives. Studies using unethical behavior for self-interest (Studies 1 and 2), involving ingroup interest (Study 3), and measuring (Studies 1 and 3) and manipulating general system justification (Study 2) provide support for the model. By identifying the effects of system-justifying motives and linking the two competing paths, the model reconciles inconsistencies in previous research regarding how self-esteem is influenced by unethical behavior and reveals the underlying mechanism of this association. Accordingly, the current research constructs a motivational and superordinate framework to clarify the dynamic consequences of unethical behavior.

Stressful events can disrupt couples’ emotional connection, yet prior research is mixed regarding whether stress also disrupts couples’ physical intimacy. This study considered whether stress must reach a critical threshold before hindering couples’ sexual activity and physical affection (i.e., a curvilinear association). Couples (N = 144 couples plus four additional wives) completed two 14-day daily diary tasks during the early years of marriage. Multilevel modeling revealed a within-person curvilinear association between daily stress and sexual activity. Contrary to expectations, the likelihood of sexual activity declined as stress increased from low to moderate, then leveled off as stress continued to increase. For physical affection, a linear effect emerged. On days of greater stress, women, but not men, reported less affection. Further analyses suggested that women’s stress is more influential than men’s stress for couple’s physical intimacy. Findings highlight the nuanced ways in which stress is linked to a vital component of satisfying relationships.

Rising economic inequality is associated with more prejudice. Little empirical data, however, investigate how inequality affects individuals’ psychological processing and, in turn, exacerbates perceptions of prejudice in people’s geographic area. We hypothesized that higher perceived economic inequality triggers beliefs that unequal economies are zero-sum and leads to beliefs that people are in competition for limited resources, which may ultimately exacerbate perceived prejudice. Through nine experiments (Studies 1-5 in the manuscript and three additional studies in the Supplement), we provide evidence that higher perceived inequality increases perceived prejudice against a wide range of outgroups. Furthermore, zero-sum beliefs and perceived competition serially mediate this relationship (Studies 2 and 3). In Study 4, we investigate nuance in this hypothesized model by testing whether higher perceived economic inequality exacerbates perceived racial/ethnic prejudice among a large, diverse sample and find a similar pattern of results. Finally (Study 5), we demonstrate that assuaging competition beliefs mitigates perceived prejudice.

The police kill Black Americans at disproportionate rates. Despite this, White Americans remain mixed on support for policing-related policy reform. We examined whether bearing witness to police violence leads to support for policy reforms. Across three studies (N = 943), White participants either viewed a news video about an unarmed Black man killed at the hands of police or in a car accident due to a collision with another driver. Participants lower but not higher in symbolic racism reported more empathy after viewing a police shooting (vs. car accident) news video (Studies 1–3). Empathy predicted policing-related policy reform support (Studies 1–3) and mediated the relationship between condition and policy reform support (Studies 1 and 3), among those lower in symbolic racism (Studies 1–2). Results suggest that empathy for Black victims of police violence predicts policy support but only among those who recognize that such violence is systemic in nature.

We investigate how the complexity of the social environment (more vs. less groups) influences attitude formation. We hypothesize that facing a larger number of groups renders learning processes about these groups noisier and more regressive, which has two important implications. First, more-complex social environments should lead perceivers to underestimate actual group differences. Second, because most people usually behave positively, more-complex social environments produce negatively biased attitudes and cause perceivers to overestimate the frequency of “negative” individuals among groups. We tested these predictions in five attitude formation experiments (N=2,414). Participants’ attitudes and learned base rates of positive and negative group members proved more regressive in complex social environments, that is, with multiple groups, compared with less-complex environments, that is, with fewer groups. In a predominantly positive social environment, this regression caused participants to form more negative group attitudes and more strongly overestimate negative individuals’ prevalence among groups.

A long-standing debate in psychology concerns whether doing something good or bad leads to more of the same or the opposite. Conway and Peetz proposed that conceptual abstraction moderates if past moral deeds lead to consistent or compensatory behavior. Although cited 384 times across disciplines, we did not find any direct replications. It was also unclear how increases or decreases from one’s baseline prosociality might underlie the effect. A large-scale experiment (N = 5,091) in the registered report format tested Conway and Peetz’s original hypothesis. The hypothesized interaction was not replicated: conceptual abstraction did not moderate the effect of recalling moral vs. immoral behavior on prosocial intentions. Our results show that recalling moral behavior led to higher prosocial intentions than recalling either immoral or neutral behavior, irrespective of recalling from the recent or distant past. Thus, the current research found no evidence for compensatory moral behavior, only for positive moral consistency.

Lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) people face frequent discrimination, maltreatment, and violence for transgressing gender roles upheld in heteronormative societies. Ostracism (i.e., being excluded and ignored) is likely another, understudied form of discrimination against sexual minorities. In a multi-method approach using a nationally representative panel (N = 4104) and experience sampling data (N = 467, 14 days, k = 926 ostracism experiences), we find that LGB individuals report more ostracism experiences than straight individuals. In line with the idea that ostracism toward sexual minorities occurs as a function of gender role nonconformity, lesbians and gay men are rated by an independent rater sample as more likely to be ostracized (k = 10,760 ratings) when they are also rated as more lesbian/gay and less gender role conforming. Our findings speak in favor of ostracism as a discriminatory experience of LGB individuals that is driven by transgressions of heteronormativity.

Infectious disease outbreaks are expected to predict support for conservative policies. However, earlier studies (January–June, 2020) reached conflicting findings regarding the association between COVID-19 threat and policy preferences in the United States. We revisit this issue by analyzing five nationally representative surveys conducted during the relatively severe periods of the pandemic (August 2020–December, 2020; total N = 82,753). Using Bayesian inference, we find strong evidence that subjective (e.g., fear of infection and pandemic outrage) but not objective (e.g., local cases and deaths) threat predicted support for liberal policies (e.g., immigration and universal health care). Meta-analyses revealed that the estimates depend on the type of subjective (.05 ≥ r ≤ .60) or objective (.00 ≥ r ≤ .14) COVID-19 threat. We propose an emotion-mediated dual-process model of pathogen management suggesting that infectious disease outbreaks activate both avoidance and caregiving motives that translate, respectively, into support for right-wing and left-wing policies.

If money is good, then shouldn’t more money always be better? Perhaps not. Traditional economic theories suggest that money is an ever-increasing incentivizer. If someone will accept a job for US$20/hr, they should be more likely to accept the same job for US$30/hr and especially for US$250/hr. However, 10 preregistered, high-powered studies (N = 4,205, in the United States and Iran) reveal how increasing incentives can backfire. Overly generous offers lead people to infer “phantom costs” that make them less likely to accept high job wages, cheap plane fares, and free money. We present a theory for understanding when and why people imagine these hidden drawbacks and show how phantom costs drive judgments, impact behavior, and intersect with individual differences. Phantom costs change how we should think about “economic rationality.” Economic exchanges are not merely about money, but instead are social interactions between people trying to perceive (and deceive) each others’ minds.

As autonomous technology emerges, new variations in old questions arise. When autonomous technologies cause harm, who is to blame? The current studies compare reactions toward harms caused by human-controlled vehicles (HCVs) or human soldiers (HSs) to identical harms by autonomous vehicles (AVs) or autonomous robot soldiers. Drivers of HCVs, or HSs, were blamed more than mere users of AVs or HSs who outsourced their duties to ARSs. However, as human drivers/soldiers became less involved in (or were unaware of the preprogramming that led to) the harm, blame was redirected toward other entities (i.e., manufacturers and the tech company’s executives), showing the opposite pattern as human drivers/soldiers. Results were robust to how blame was measured (i.e., degrees of blame versus apportionment of total blame). Overall, this research furthers the blame literature, raising questions about why, how (much), and to whom blame is assigned when multiple agents are potentially culpable.

In principle, the fundamental concepts person, woman, and man should apply equally to people of different genders and races/ethnicities. In reality, these concepts might prioritize certain groups over others. Based on interdisciplinary theories of androcentrism, we hypothesized that (a) person is more associated with men than women (person = man) and (b) woman is more associated with women than man is with men (i.e., women are more gendered: gender = woman). We applied natural language processing tools (specifically, word embeddings) to the linguistic output of millions of individuals (specifically, the Common Crawl corpus). We found the hypothesized person = man / gender = woman bias. This bias was stronger about Hispanic and White (vs. Asian) women and men. We also uncovered parallel biases favoring White individuals in the concepts person, woman, and man. Western society prioritizes men and White individuals as people and “others” women as people with gender, with implications for equity across policy- and decision-making contexts.