Advances in Experimental Social Psychology

In this article, we discuss the hypothesis that affect is a fundamental, psychologically irreducible property of the human mind. We begin by presenting historical perspectives on the nature of affect. Next, we proceed with a more contemporary discussion of core affect as a basic property of the mind that is realized within a broadly distributed neuronal workspace. We then present the affective circumplex, a mathematical formalization for representing core affective states, and show that this model can be used to represent individual differences in core affective feelings that are linked to meaningful variation in emotional experience. Finally, we conclude by suggesting that core affect has psychological consequences that reach beyond the boundaries of emotion, to influence learning and consciousness.

This chapter discusses what people do when they openly cooperate in one another's presence to sustain some joint form of activity. The chapter suggests that it is fruitful to look upon the behavior of people engaged in focused interaction as an organized, skilled performance, analogous to skills such as car driving. It outlines the model that has been developed in the past several years for the analysis of sensorimotor skills, but with specific reference to the interaction situation. Studies of the patterns of activity involved in interaction has been then be reviewed and considered all aspects of a person's behavior that have been found to affect the other in interaction, including physical proximity, posture, orientation, language, and speech, patterns of looking at the other, bodily movements, and facial expression. The chapter indicates the way these different aspects of behavior are interrelated. It mentions the presentation of the self-image, the breakdown of the social performance, and the question of training in specific social skills.

An action‐based model of dissonance is presented. This model accepts the original theory's proposal that a sufficient cognitive inconsistency causes the negative affective state of dissonance. It extends the original theory by proposing why cognitive inconsistency prompts dissonance and dissonance reduction. After reviewing past theoretical and empirical developments on cognitive dissonance theory, we describe the action‐based model and present results from behavioral and physiological experiments that have tested predictions derived from this model. In particular, this evidence converges with recent neuroscience evidence in suggesting that the anterior cingulate cortex and left prefrontal cortical region are involved in conflict detection and resolution, respectively. We end by reviewing research on individual differences in dissonance arousal and reduction, and present a new measure designed to assess these individual differences.

The purpose of this chapter is to review research that focuses on a new conceptualization on passion for activities, the Dualistic Model of Passion (DMP) [Vallerand, R. J., Blanchard, C. M., Mageau, G. A., Koestner, R., Ratelle, C. F., Léonard, M., et al. (2003). Les passions de l'âme: On obsessive and harmonious passion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85, 756–767.]. Passion is defined as a strong inclination toward a self-defining activity that people love, find important, and in which they invest time and energy. This model further posits the existence of two types of passion (harmonious and obsessive) each associated with different determinants, outcomes, and psychological processes. Harmonious passion originates from an autonomous internalization of the activity in identity, leading people to choose to engage in the activity that they love. It is expected to mainly lead to adaptive outcomes. Conversely, obsessive passion is derived from a controlled internalization and is experienced as an uncontrollable desire to engage in the activity that one loves. Obsessive passion is hypothesized to typically predict less adaptive outcomes. Results of several studies conducted with participants of all ages engaged in a diverse range of activities provide support for the model. These findings reveal that passion matters not only with respect to intrapersonal outcomes (e.g., cognition, affect, psychological well-being, physical health, and performance), but also for interpersonal, intergroup, and societal consequences. The determinants of passion as well as the importance of taking into account the nature of the situation to better predict the consequences of the two types of passion are also addressed. Overall, the research reviewed clearly supports the DMP and attests to the significant role of passion in people's lives.

Retributive justice is a system by which offenders are punished in proportion to the moral magnitude of their intentionally committed harms. This chapter lays out the emerging psychological principles that underlie citizens' intuitions regarding punishment. We rely on experimental methods and conclude that intuitions of justice are broadly consistent with the principles of retributive justice, and therefore systematically deviate from principles of deterrence and other utilitarian‐based systems of punishing wrongs. We examine the recent contributions of social‐neuroscience to the topic and conclude that retributive punishment judgments normally stem from the more general intuitive‐based judgment system. Particular circumstances can trigger the reasoning‐based system, however, thus indicating that this is a dual process mechanism. Importantly, though, evidence suggests that both the intuitive and reasoning systems adhere to the principles of retribution.

The inclusion/exclusion model provides an integrative framework for conceptualizing the emergence of assimilation and contrast effects in evaluative judgment. The model assumes that feature-based evaluative judgments require a mental representation of the object of judgment (target) and of a standard to which the target is compared. Both representations are context sensitive and based on the information that is most accessible at the time. The way in which accessible information influences the judgment depends on how it is used. Information that is used in forming a representation of the target results in assimilation effects; information that is used in forming a representation of the standard results in contrast effects. How information is used depends on (i) individuals' beliefs about whether the information was brought to mind by some irrelevant influence, (ii) the information's perceived representativeness for the target, and (iii) conversational norms that influence the perceived appropriateness of information use. We summarize the core assumptions of the inclusion/exclusion model, review empirical evidence bearing on it, and highlight its integrative nature.

This chapter examines the contexts in which people will process more deeply, and therefore be more influenced by, a position that is supported by either a numerical majority or minority. The chapter reviews the major theories of majority and minority influence with reference to which source condition is associated with most message processing (and where relevant, the contexts under which this occurs) and experimental research examining these predictions. The chapter then presents a new theoretical model (the source‐context‐elaboration model, SCEM) that aims to integrate the disparate research findings. The model specifies the processes underlying majority and minority influence, the contexts under which these processes occur and the consequences for attitudes changed by majority and minority influence. The chapter then describes a series of experiments that address each of the aspects of the theoretical model. Finally, a range of research‐related issues are discussed and future issues for the research area as a whole are considered.

Some attitudes are durable and impactful, whereas others are weak and inconsequential. Over the last few decades, researchers have identified roughly a dozen attributes of attitudes that differentiate the strong from the weak. However, considerable controversy remains regarding the relations among these attributes. Some scholars have suggested that the various strength‐related attributes reflect a small number of latent constructs, whereas others have suggested that each is a distinct construct in its own right. We review this ongoing controversy, and we then review a diverse set of recent studies that provide new evidence in support of the latter perspective. We consider the implications of our findings for the conceptualization of attitude strength and for the methods by which it is studied.Attitudes determine for each individual what he [or she] will see and hear, what he [or she] will think and what he [or she] will do …. They draw lines about, and segregate, an otherwise chaotic environment; they are our methods for finding our way about in an ambiguous universe. —Gordon W. Allport, 1935, p. 806

And if by chance I wake at night and I ask you who I am, oh take me to the slaughterhouse I will wait there with the lamb. —Leonard CohenWhatever satisfies the soul is truth. —Walt WhitmanI prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence. —Frederick DouglassIn this chapter, we present research and theory pertaining to our multicomponent perspective on authentic functioning. We begin with a historical account of various philosophical perspectives on authentic functioning and briefly review several past and contemporary psychological perspectives on authenticity. We then define and discuss our multicomponent conceptualization of authenticity and describe each of its components and their relationships to other constructs in the psychology literature. Next, we present an individual differences measure we have developed to assess dispositional authenticity and each of its components, and we report findings attesting to the adequacy of its psychometric properties. In addition, we present findings from a variety of studies we have conducted to examine how authenticity relates to diverse aspects of healthy psychological and interpersonal functioning. These studies pertain to a wide range of phenomena, including the following: verbal defensiveness, mindfulness, coping styles, self‐concept structure, social‐role functioning, goal pursuits, general well‐being, romantic relationships, parenting styles, and self‐esteem. Following this, we discuss potential downsides or costs for authentic functioning and describe some future directions for research on authenticity.

Why do interactive brainstorming groups perform so much worse than individuals working as nominal groups? This was the original question, which stimulated three decades of research, as described in this chapter. Three different phases in brainstorming research can be distinguished, each of which answered a new question. In Phase 1, interactive brainstorming groups were compared with nominal groups with respect to the quantity of ideas produced, and production blocking (having to take turns to express ideas) was identified as the major cause of productivity loss. But why did production blocking have such devastating effects on idea generation? To answer this question, a cognitive model was developed and tested in Phase 2. Blocking was shown to lead to cognitive interference. But at the same time, evidence indicated that exchanging ideas could have cognitive stimulation effects. This opened the possibility that with blocking effects removed, exposure to the ideas of others could increase idea quality as well as quantity. Therefore, in Phase 3, research attention shifted to idea quality. It was found that a deep exploration of categories of ideas led to higher idea originality. To assess whether participants were able to identify their best ideas, we added idea selection to idea generation and found that people prefer ideas that are feasible to those that are original. The outcomes of each of these phases have implications for work in other areas, including group performance, human memory, and creativity. These implications, as well as the implications for practice, are discussed.

The stereotype content model (SCM) defines two fundamental dimensions of social perception, warmth and competence, predicted respectively by perceived competition and status. Combinations of warmth and competence generate distinct emotions of admiration, contempt, envy, and pity. From these intergroup emotions and stereotypes, the behavior from intergroup affect and stereotypes (BIAS) map predicts distinct behaviors: active and passive, facilitative and harmful. After defining warmth/communion and competence/agency, the chapter integrates converging work documenting the centrality of these dimensions in interpersonal as well as intergroup perception. Structural origins of warmth and competence perceptions result from competitors judged as not warm, and allies judged as warm; high status confers competence and low status incompetence. Warmth and competence judgments support systematic patterns of cognitive, emotional, and behavioral reactions, including ambivalent prejudices. Past views of prejudice as a univalent antipathy have obscured the unique responses toward groups stereotyped as competent but not warm or warm but not competent. Finally, the chapter addresses unresolved issues and future research directions.

Good things happen. In fact, positive events occur more often than negative events. In this chapter, we review research showing that people often turn to others to share their good news, a process called capitalization. These studies show that both the act of telling others about good events and the response of the person with whom the event was shared have personal and interpersonal consequences. We outline a theoretical foundation and propose a model of capitalization processes that includes mechanisms linking the act of telling others and their response to personal and interpersonal outcomes. This research has shown that when the close other responds in an active and constructive manner (and not in a passive or destructive manner), both the discloser and the relationship between the discloser and the responder profit. Personal benefits linked to capitalization processes include increased positive emotions, subjective well-being, and self-esteem, and decreased loneliness. Relationship benefits associated with capitalization processes include satisfaction, intimacy, commitment, trust, liking, closeness, and stability. We also review evidence for mechanisms involved in capitalization processes. Throughout this chapter, we discuss capitalization processes in the larger context of how people “cope” during good times and the value of having supportive partners in this process. Although research has consistently emphasized coping with negative events, our work suggests that positive events similarly provide both opportunities and challenges.

For more than a decade, researchers have convincingly shown that people's social behavior can be affected by primed constructs without people having any awareness of their influence. Earlier research proposed direct priming accounts for these effects, suggesting that primed constructs exert their effect on behavior in a relatively direct fashion without an intervening role for perceptual processes. In this chapter, we review evidence in favor of an indirect priming account for behavioral priming effects. In these indirect priming effects, a primed construct affects behavior via shifts in perceptions of a perceptual target. We review three types of indirect priming mechanisms: a self-perception, person-perception, and situation-perception mechanism. We also present various moderators that affect the direction and magnitude of each of the indirect priming effects. In addition, we identify factors, related to the attentional focus of the prime recipient, that indicate when each of the different mechanisms operates. Understanding the role of perceptual processes in the prime-to-behavior pathway can unravel more mysteries about the rich and complex nature of social behavior.

Introspection involves looking inward into conscious thoughts, feelings, motives, and intentions. Modern social psychological research has raised questions about the value and reliability of information gained via introspection. This chapter concerns people's heavy weighting of introspective information for making self‐assessments. It also concerns a few principles associated with that weighting—that is, that it does not extend to how people treat others' introspections, that it can lead people to disregard information conveyed by their own (but not others') behavior, and that it is rooted not only in people's unique access to their introspections but also in the unique value they place on them. Over‐valuing of personal introspections occurs in a variety of domains, including judgment and decision making, personal relationships, and stereotyping and prejudice. An understanding of it sheds light on theoretical concerns involving the actor–observer bias, self‐enhancement, temporal distance effects, and the perception of free will. People's unique valuing of their introspections likely has deep roots, but this “introspection illusion” also causes problems. It can foster conflict, discrimination, lapses in ethics, and barriers to self‐knowledge and social intimacy. Understanding its sources and effects may help alleviate some of those problems.

This article describes the basic mechanisms underlying persuasion highlighting the role of a recently discovered new process—called self‐validation. Unlike previous mechanisms in attitude change that focus on primary or first‐order cognition, this new process emphasizes secondary or meta‐cognition. The key notion of self‐validation is that generating thoughts is not sufficient for them to have an impact on judgment. Rather, one must also have confidence in them. We review research revealing that this new mechanism can account for some already established outcomes in persuasion, but by a different process than postulated previously, as well as for some new findings. Specifically, we describe how source (e.g., credibility), recipient (e.g., bodily responses), message (e.g., matching), and context (e.g., repetition) variables can influence persuasion by affecting thought‐confidence. We also describe how establishing a basic mechanism such as self‐validation can provide a novel framework for understanding a variety of additional phenomenon in the domain of persuasion and beyond.

Human mimicry is ubiquitous, and often occurs without the awareness of the person mimicking or the person being mimicked. First, we briefly describe some of the major types of nonconscious mimicry—verbal, facial, emotional, and behavioral—and review the evidence for their automaticity. Next, we argue for the broad impact of mimicry and summarize the literature documenting its influence on the mimicry dyad and beyond. This review highlights the moderators of mimicry as well, including the social, motivational, and emotional conditions that foster or inhibit automatic mimicry. We interpret these findings in light of current theories of mimicry. First, we evaluate the evidence for and against mimicry as a communication tool. Second, we review neuropsychological research that sheds light on the question of how we mimic. What is the cognitive architecture that enables us to do what we perceive others do? We discuss a proposed system, the perception‐behavior link, and the neurological evidence (i.e., the mirror system) supporting it. We will then review the debate on whether mimicry is innate and inevitable. We propose that the architecture enabling mimicry is innate, but that the behavioral mimicry response may actually be (partly) a product of learning or associations. Finally, we speculate on what the behavioral data on mimicry may imply for the evolution of mimicry.

Optimal distinctiveness theory [Brewer, M. B. (1991). The social self: on being the same and different at the same time. Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin, 17(5), 475–482] proposes that individuals have two fundamental and competing human needs—the need for inclusion and the need for differentiation—that can be met by membership in moderately inclusive (optimally distinct) groups. In this chapter, the optimal distinctiveness model and its origins are summarized, and theoretical extensions and empirical tests of the model are discussed. In particular, the empirical review summarizes the model's consequences for social identification, social cognition, and intergroup relations. The evidence strongly supports the notion that the needs for inclusion and differentiation influence self-categorization resulting in a curvilinear relation between group inclusiveness and group identification. The existing evidence also indicates that the two needs influence perceptions and judgments of the self and others and the nature of intragroup and intergroup relations. The chapter concludes by discussing the interplay of the needs for inclusion and differentiation across levels of the self and how the needs for inclusion and differentiation influence which level of self (individual or collective) is motivationally primary.

Evaluative conditioning (EC) refers to attitude formation or change toward an object due to that object's mere co-occurrence with another valenced object or objects. This chapter focuses on the “How” question, that is, the question of what cognitive processes intervene between mere co-occurrence and attitude formation or change. Though EC has typically been thought of as occurring through a single, albeit contentious, mechanism, we begin by pointing out that both the heterogeneity of EC methodologies and the abundance of inconsistent results suggest that multiple processes with different characteristics can produce EC. We describe how the earliest posited process of EC, Pavlovian conditioning or signal learning, is a valid mechanism of EC that appears to have operated in some experiments but is unlikely to have operated in others and also cannot account for various EC findings. We describe other mechanisms of EC, when they can be expected to occur, and what characteristics they have. We particularly focus our attention on a process model of EC we have recently introduced, the implicit misattribution model. Finally, we describe the implications of a multiprocess view of EC, which we argue can help resolve theoretical controversies and further the application of EC as a practical intervention for influencing attitudes in various domains.

Many well-known psychological theories on diverse processes (e.g., moral and political judgment, prejudice, the self) ascribe vital roles to social values, but define values vaguely. The psychological functioning of values can be clarified by conceptualizing them as mental representations that operate at a system level, (abstract) value level, and an instantiation level. At the system level, values reflect motivational tensions described within Schwartz's [Schwartz, S. H. (1992). Universals in the content and structure of values: Theoretical advances and empirical tests in 20 countries. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 25, 1–65] circular model of values. These tensions are evident in correlations between values, the accessibility of values from memory, judgments of value coargumentation in rhetoric, feelings of ambivalence toward others, effects of value priming on behavior, and patterns of value change. At the value level, values are more strongly connected to feelings than to past behavior or beliefs, and the types of emotion depend on the values' roles as ideal versus ought self-guides. At the instantiation level, contemplation of concrete, typical instantiations of a value increase value-affirming behavior by affecting perceptual readiness to detect and apply the value. All three levels of representation are crucial for addressing key puzzles in the role of values in social psychological processes.

Differences among people in the actions they take or the opinions they express do not always reflect differences in underlying attitudes, preferences, or motivations. When people differ in the extent to which they are psychologically licensed (i.e., feel able to act without discrediting themselves), they will act differently despite having similar attitudes, preferences, and motivations. Wanting to do something is not sufficient to spur action; one must also feel licensed to do it. We show that feeling licensed can liberate people to express morally problematic attitudes that those who do not feel licensed are inhibited from expressing. We also show that feeling one lacks license can inhibit people from expressing even morally nonproblematic attitudes that those who feel licensed are comfortable expressing. This chapter explores a wide range of social phenomena in which licensing plays a role and identifies a number of variables that grant or revoke psychological license.

This chapter explores the issue of evaluative consistency and context-dependence by considering when stability or flexibility in evaluative responding would be most useful for the social organism. We propose that cues about distance functionally shape evaluations to flexibly incorporate information from their current context when individuals are acting on proximal stimuli, but to transcend these immediate details when acting on distal stimuli. In this chapter, we review research within and beyond the attitude domain that has helped to shed light on issues of evaluative consistency, and then build on this research to describe the proposed link between distance and evaluative consistency in more detail. We suggest that construal level provides a cognitive mechanism by which distance can regulate evaluative consistency, and describe both past research that can be reinterpreted in this light as well as more recent research that provides some direct support for our approach. We conclude by discussing implications for shared reality and social influence.

A levels of processing model of the commitment‐insurance system is described to explain how low and high self‐esteem people cope with the interdependence dilemma posed by ensuring that a partner's commitment is commensurate with their own. Two levels to this system are detailed: (1) the procedural rules that govern perception and behavior without conscious awareness and regardless of self‐esteem and (2) the controlled or deliberated rules that govern perception and behavior differentially as a function of self‐esteem. In the automatic rule system, feeling as valuable as the partner signals the partner's intrinsic motivation to be responsive, and thus the safety of seeking connection. In contrast, feeling inferior activates an exchange script specifying that partners need to match in desirability to avoid being replaced. Once activated, exchange concerns then motivate reparative behavioral efforts to secure the partner's dependence, thereby soliciting a supplementary, instrumental form of commitment‐insurance against rejection and nonresponsiveness to need. In the controlled rule system, optimistic chronic expectations of acceptance allow high, but now low, self‐esteem people to override the application of these automatic contingencies. Research supporting the model is reviewed and provides the basis for delineating a novel formulation of interdependence theory.

This chapter reviews the empirical results and theoretical underpinnings of studies of fear arousing communications. It focuses on the interrelationship of emotional and instrumental behavior. The chapter presents an overview of the key components of fear communication experiments and introduces the two major theoretical paradigms that can be used to interpret the findings. The first and historically most important of the paradigms is the fear drive model, a variant of the classic drive reduction model used in many animal learning studies. It assumes that the emotional response of fear functions as a drive that mediates belief change and behavior change. The second paradigm was suggested by the experimental data. This model assumes that the communication produces both persuasion and fear; fear does not cause persuasion. The chapter reviews the evidence regarding interactions between the level of fear elicited by the communication and other factors such as personality variables and recommendation effectiveness. It reveals that the outcomes are often influenced by complex contingencies. But despite the complexity, serious effort has been made to identify empirical regularities and presents a theoretical model to provide conceptual integration.

According to system justification theory, there is a general social psychological tendency to rationalize the status quo, that is, to see it as good, fair, legitimate, and desirable. This tendency is reminiscent of the dispositional outlook of Voltaire's famous character, Dr. Pangloss, who believed that he was “living in the best of all possible worlds.” One of the means by which people idealize existing social arrangements is by relying on complementary (or compensatory) stereotypes, which ascribe compensating virtues to the disadvantaged and corresponding vices to the advantaged, thereby creating an “illusion of equality.” In this chapter, we summarize a program of research demonstrating that (1) incidental exposure to complementary gender and status stereotypes leads people to show enhanced ideological support for the status quo and (2) when the legitimacy or stability of the system is threatened, people often respond by using complementary stereotypes to bolster the system. We also show that (noncomplementary) victim‐blaming and (complementary) victim‐enhancement represent alternate routes to system justification. In addition, we consider a number of situational and dispositional moderating variables that affect the use and effectiveness of complementary and noncomplementary representations, and we discuss the broader implications of stereotyping and other forms of rationalization that are adopted in the service of system justification.From time to time, Pangloss would say to Candide:There is a chain of events in this best of all possible worlds; for if you had not been turned out of a beautiful mansion at the point of a jackboot for love of Lady Cunégonde, if you had not been clamped into the Inquisition, if you had not wandered about America on foot, and had not struck the Baron with your sword, and lost all those sheep you brought from Eldorado, you would not be here eating candied fruit and pistachio nuts. “That's true enough,” said Candide; “but we must go and work in the garden.”—Voltaire, 1758/1947, Candide or Optimism, p. 144

The leader is an individual in the group, who directs and coordinates task-relevant group activities, or who, in the absence of a designated leader, automatically performs these functions in the group. This chapter provides an overview of the framework for the understanding of factors which determine a leader's personality attributes and its impact on group performance, the development of integrative model, and empirical support for the model. A leader is either appointed by a representative of the larger organization of which the group is a part; or is elected by the group; or in case there is neither an elected nor an appointed leader, he can be identified as most influential on task-relevant questions of a sociometric preference questionnaire. The leader and member abilities are among the most important predictors of group performance, and a high correlation between the leader's ability score and the group's performance presumably reflects the degree of leader influence over the task itself. The negative correlations suggest that the leader's influence, or his contribution to the task is minimal. A leader can be trained to modify these attitudes, but considerable effort might be required on the part of many individuals to make them. The leader's task functions and his therapeutic attitudes are highly speculative, and extensive future research is required to elucidate the role, which these therapeutic attitudes play in the group process.

This chapter argues for the importance of understanding the role of culture in structuring people's personal phenomenological experience. Such an understanding is (1) important per se and (2) important for elucidating the feedback loops between culture and self, between macro‐level ideology and micro‐level experience. To illustrate, we contrast the “outsider” perspective on the self of Asian‐Americans with the “insider” perspective on the world for Euro‐Americans. We examine (1) the outsider versus insider perspective by looking at the phenomenology of memory imagery, online imagery, visualization and embodiment of narratives, and relational versus egocentric projection; (2) the implications for cultural differences in egocentric biases that derive from dwelling too much in one's own internal experience; and (3) the emergence of developmental differences in characterizing the social world. We argue that the lessons of experience and cultural ideology cocreate each other, and we illustrate this by describing some ways that distinct phenomenological experiences are intimately tied to cultural norms, beliefs, and ideals.

Social decisions are heavily influenced by emotion. For decades, the dominant research paradigm has been characterized by a focus on the decision maker's own positive or negative mood. We argue that a full understanding of the role of emotion in social decision making requires a complementary focus on interpersonal effects (i.e., the effects of one individual's emotions on the other's behavior); a focus on discrete emotions rather than general mood states; and a distinction between cooperative and competitive settings. To advance insight into these issues, we present the Emotions as Social Information (EASI) model. The model is grounded in two basic assumptions, namely that individuals use others' emotions to make sense of ambiguous situations, and that the effects of others' emotions and the processes that drive them depend critically on the cooperative or competitive nature of the situation. A review of recent research supports our analysis. We demonstrate that the interpersonal effects of emotions are pervasive and can be better understood in terms of the unique social functions of each emotion than in terms of valence. Effects in cooperative settings are best explained in terms of affective reactions (i.e., emotional contagion, affect infusion, and mood management), whereas effects in competitive contexts are better understood in terms of the strategic inferences individuals draw from other's emotions. We conclude by discussing the implications of our model and highlighting avenues for future research.

This chapter comprehensively reviews the literature manifestly concerned with group risk-taking and examines in detail the major alternative interpretations offered to explain the risky-shift. Four explanations receive particular consideration: diffusion of responsibility, persuasion, familiarization, and cultural values. They are chosen because they are the most frequently cited explanations in the literature and have generated the bulk of empirical research on group risk-taking. Other more specific hypotheses concerning the risky-shift effect have been considered but are not dealt with in detail. The chapter uses a standard format in considering each of the four selected interpretations. In each case, derivative hypotheses have been specified and underlying mechanisms presumed responsible for the risky-shift effect have been examined in detail. Relevant research has been brought to bear upon these elements and it serves as the basis for a judgment of the adequacy and validity of each of the four hypothesized explanations.

While I write this chapter, millions of people in the Darfur province of Sudan have been terrorized off their land; the entire population of Iraq has little idea what the future of their country will be; survivors of hurricane Katrina are dispersed across the United States; people in Britain are anxious about immigration and are toying with the idea of supporting the British National Party; people in a small town in Tasmania wait to hear if members of their community have been found alive in a mine collapse; air travelers the world over have no idea what new security arrangements await them when they get to the airport; and we all wonder about the consequences of further escalation in the price of oil and of the standoff over Iran's uranium enrichment program. The world is an uncertain place, it always has been, and these uncertainties can make it very difficult to predict or plan our lives and to feel sure about the type of people we are.In this chapter, I describe how feelings of uncertainty, particularly about or related to self, motivate people to identify with social groups and to choose new groups with, or configure existing groups to have, certain properties that best reduce, control, or protect from feelings of uncertainty. I consider this uncertainty–identity theory to be a development of the motivational component of social identity theory. It addresses why, when, and how strongly people identify with groups, and why groups may have particular generic properties in certain contexts. Of particular relevance to contemporary postmodern society, uncertainty reduction theory provides an account of zealotry and the cult of the “true believer” in the thrall of ideology and powerful leadership—an account of conditions that may spawn extremism, a silo mentality, and a loss of moral or ethical perspective.In this chapter, I describe uncertainty–identity theory and some conceptual elaborations and applications, review direct and indirect empirical tests, and locate the theory in the context of related ideas and theories in social psychology. I start with a historical sketch of why, when, and how uncertainty–identity theory was developed, then go on to discuss uncertainty reduction as a motivation for human behavior. I then detail the process by which group identification reduces uncertainty and describe a program of studies showing that people who feel uncertain are more likely to identify and identify more strongly with groups. High‐entitativity groups are best equipped to reduce uncertainty through identification—entitativity moderates the uncertainty–identification relation. I discuss this idea and describe research that supports it, and then extend the analysis to deal with extremism and totalistic groups—describing how extreme uncertainty may encourage strong identification (zealotry, fanaticism, being a true believer) with groups that are structured in a totalistic fashion. Again I describe some research supporting this idea.The next section deals with extensions, applications, and implications of uncertainty–identity theory. I discuss the relation between depersonalization and self‐projection processes in uncertainty‐motivated group identification, and then, in a subsection entitled central members, marginal members, leaders, and deviants, I focus on the role of group prototypicality in uncertainty reduction processes. The role of trust, the relation between uncertainty, identity, and ideology, and the role of uncertainty in social mobilization are also discussed. The final section, before concluding comments, discusses other theories, approaches, and topics that deal with constructs related to those discussed by uncertainty–identity theory. Specifically, I discuss uncertainty as a state versus a trait, with a focus on the constructs of need for cognitive closure and uncertainty orientation; the role played by culture in uncertainty; and the relevance of terror management, compensatory conviction, self‐verification, and system justification.

The term social interaction conjures up images that involve at least two people. These two people are likely to have beliefs about one another, beliefs about how the other person views them, and beliefs about the interaction. Moreover, these beliefs are likely to influence both individuals' experiences during the interaction. Although interconnectedness of this type has been pursued in examinations of interpersonal interactions (e.g., Baldwin, 1992; Darley & Fazio, 1980), research on interracial interactions has tended to adopt a more individualistic approach. Similar to interpersonal interactions, individuals' experiences in interracial interactions are often shaped by the beliefs individuals have about one another and their beliefs about how they will be perceived by their interaction partners. In this chapter we examine interracial interactions from a perspective that highlights the interconnectedness that is often at the core of interpersonal interactions between members of different racial groups. This perspective highlights that there are two people involved in dyadic interracial interactions and these two people influence each other's outcomes and experiences.

Publisher Summary The chapter discusses the identification, consequences, and processes of self-monitoring. Empirical research on self-monitoring processes began with the construction and validation of the Self-Monitoring Scale, an instrument designed to translate the self-monitoring construct in an instrument that reliably and validly identifies it. Self-monitoring is the proposition that individuals can and should exercise control over their expressive behavior, self-presentation, and nonverbal displays of affect. Self-monitoring processes meaningfully channel and influence worldviews, behavior in social situations, and the unfolding dynamics of interactions with other individuals. It is the intent of this chapter to trace the origins and development of the social psychological construct of self-monitoring, to chart the behavioral and interpersonal consequences of self-monitoring, and to probe the cognitive and psychological processes of self-monitoring. The chapter provides some guidelines for conceptualizing and investigating the interplay of individuals and their situations.

This chapter gives an overview of the Rochester Interaction Record (RIR), with its rationale, usages, and limitations. The reader and potential researcher is oriented to the technique, and is furnished with an overview of the various procedural and psychometric concerns that have guided the work. Theoretically useful conclusions are the “sine qua non” of methodological innovation in behavioral sciences. The chapter also describes some of the findings that have emerged from studies using the RIR and related instruments. It explains the rationale for the RIR, including comparison with traditional methods in interaction research, the technique in terms of its essential procedural and data analytic details, a discussion of reliability and validity issues, and the application of the RIR and related methods to other problems in social psychology. The chapter provides an overview on the self-reported questionnaires, behavioral observation, and comparison of the RIR with global questionnaires.

It is a basic and an undeniable fact of social life that one form impressions of other people whom they encounter in the day-to-day lives. As a direct result of generations of theory and research on impression formation and person perception, investigators have learned a great deal about the way individuals process information to form beliefs and impressions of other people. Accordingly, there exists considerable knowledge about the antecedents of social beliefs. The practical implications of these reality-constructing consequences of social beliefs are considerable, both at the level of individual lives and at the level of society. This chapter highlights that the processes of social thought are intimately woven into the fabric of social interaction and interpersonal relationships. The events of the lives are very much a reflection of one's beliefs about other people in the social worlds. Finally, it is in this sense that beliefs can and do create reality.

Publisher Summary This chapter focuses on norms, which can be demonstrated to affect human action systematically and powerfully. Three distinct types of norms that are effective: social norms of the descriptive kind, which guides the behavior via the perception of how most others would behave; social norms of the injunctive kind, which guides the behavior via the perception of how most others would approve/disapprove of a person's conduct; and personal norms, which guides the behavior via the perception of how a person would approve/disapprove of his own conduct. At a given time, an individual's actions are likely to conform to the dictates of the type of norm that are familiar even when the other types of norms dictate contrary conduct. The chapter discusses those injunctive social norms—once activated—is likely to lead to beneficial social conduct across the greatest number of situations and populations. By focusing subjects on one or another type of norm, the action of a particular kind of norm was stimulated, without activating the other kinds.

This chapter describes the contingency model and the dynamics of the leadership process. The Contingency Model provides a conceptual framework which enables to explain the effects of such change-inducing conditions as organizational turbulence, leadership experience, training, and job rotation. The integrating concept in the dynamic interpretation of this theory is the leader's situational control and influence, which, as it changes, brings about a corresponding change in the leader's behavior and performance. The Contingency Model has a number of shortcomings that need to be remedied as new research data become available. Specifically, there is need of a conceptually cleaner definition and a better metric of the situational control dimension, and it is necessary to continue research on personality and behavioral correlates of LPC, and on the effect of this variable on interpersonal encounters outside the leadership context. In addition, it is important to seek concepts which integrate different leadership theories of proven worth. The interpretation of the situational control dimension as a correlate of uncertainty and anxiety is a promising development in this direction. Leadership, and the authority relationship of which it is a part, is a central and important phenomenon in our everyday life. It plays a powerful role in the governance of our institutions and our society, and it makes obvious the critical need for understanding, developing, and improving the leadership resources at our disposal.

The chapter discusses two types of social behavior: compliance and conversion. Four assumptions are discussed in the chapter, in order to understand Compliance and Conversion. The four assumptions present a picture in which a consistent minority can exert an influence to the same extent as a consistent majority, and that the former will generally have a greater effect on a deeper level, while the latter often has less, or none, at that level. These assumptions allow formulating some interesting and verifiable predictions: (1) Conversion is produced by a minority's consistent behavior; (2) The conversion produced by a minority implies a real change of judgments or opinions; (3) The more intense the conflict generated by the minority, the more radical is the conversion; (4) At least where perceptions are involved, conversion is more pronounced when the influence source is absent. The chapter presents a certain number of facts that substantiate these predictions and make them more plausible. Experimental studies are also mentioned wherein preliminary results, direct and indirect influences, conflict and conversion behavior, minority influence, majority influence and compliance are discussed. Final observation indicates convergence between the elements of the proposed theory and the experimental illustrations of conversion behavior.

This chapter describes a series of experiments that show the multiplicity of influences promoting and/or inhibiting the giving of aid to those in physical distress. Physical distress represents one of the most basic and important conditions requiring assistance; this is the reason for selecting helping behavior in response to physical distress as the focus of study. In a series of experiments, Berkowitz and his associates explored the conditions under which a person was willing to expend effort to help another person gain prestige and material reward. They found that, the greater the dependence of one person on another, the more likely it is that the latter will work hard in order to help. Berkowitz and Daniels suggested that a norm of social responsibility, which prescribes that people should help others who are dependent on them, guides this helping behavior. The chapter presents a general theoretical discussion of what motivates or restrains helping behavior, what are some reasons for helping or not doing so. Several groups of experiments have been presented, each introduced by a more detailed discussion of certain relevant determinants of helping.

This chapter examines the current status of the motor theory of emotion and point the way to future developments. It offers an information-processing analysis of emotions that incorporates recent developments in the study of cognitive processes. This formulation is essentially a network analysis. The requirements for a theory of the mechanisms that mediate the construction of emotional experience and expression are focused in the chapter. The chapter offers a model that might meet investigators needs. The model diverges from recent social psychological theorizing in arguing for the reality of emotional experience; the qualities of emotion or primary emotional meaning are given by an innate sensory–motor structure and not derived from social influence. The chapter suggests two different ways in which emotional experiences are stored: schematic or perceptual memories and conceptual or reflective verbal memories. The modes of storage effect the organization of emotional processing and generate a series of problems for the elicitation and control of emotion. The operation of the expressive-motor component of the system and a hypothesis about the structure is described in the chapter. The relationships among the processing systems are also discussed in the chapter. The study of emotional interactions holds the key to future advances.

This chapter focuses on the role of specific outcome expectancies in self-regulation. It is observed that specific expectancies are commonly found to be optimistic. The results from studies of specific expectations provide considerable substance to Lewin's paradox that the key to effective self-regulation of behavior and well-being involves the interplay of optimistic expectations and the demands of reality. It is also noted that optimistic expectations can sometimes be disconfirmed. People deal with these disconfirmations by using any of the variety of mechanisms for maintaining optimistic beliefs even in the face of their disconfirmation. Through the combination of relative and strategic optimism and strategies for minimizing the potentially adverse effects of disconfirmations of optimistic expectations, people are able to simultaneously meet the self-regulatory needs to extract meaningful information from their environment and to maintain a positive sense of self. The chapter considers expectancies from different domains and integrates results from a wide variety of empirical paradigms.

This chapter presents a framework for predicting the behavior of persons who occupy the allocator's role. The framework takes account of other persons insofar as they influence the allocator's decisions about rewards and resources. Persons of higher rank, who are the allocator's superiors, may strongly influence his or her decisions, and so may the recipients who are subordinate to him or her. In addition, other parties who observe the allocator may influence his or her decisions. Allocation decisions are instrumental acts through which the allocator tries to achieve various goals. The chapter takes account of a wide range of goals and motives that affect his or her decisions. In any allocation situation there is considerable potential for conflict between the allocator and recipients, or between the recipients themselves.

The questions the authors address in this chapter can be traced over two decades of work by J. T. Spence and her colleagues. More than any other single researcher, Spence has sought to establish the content of beliefs about women, to determine whether these beliefs are merely descriptions of women or prescriptions for how women ought to be, and to document what has changed and what has remained the same in attitudes toward women across decades of social turmoil in male–female relations. This article addresses the issue of whether gender stereotypes are purely descriptive expectations or prescriptions that are enforced through punishment when they are violated. Implicit in the question is the notion that "feminine" women are seen as very likable but as less competent than men. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

This chapter examines one factor that contributes to the current frustrations of black Americans: the operation of a subtle form of racism among individuals that is less overt but just as insidious as old-fashioned racism. Despite encouraging trends in the intergroup attitudes of white Americans, there are still reasons for concern. One reason is that, across a variety of surveys and polls, 10%–15% of the white population still expresses the old-fashioned, overt form of bigotry. These respondents consistently describe blacks as innately less intelligent than whites, say that they will not vote for a well-qualified presidential candidate simply because of that person's race, and oppose programs designed to ensure full integration and equal opportunity. Another reason for concern is that a substantial portion of the white population expresses merely racial tolerance but not true openness to or enthusiasm for full racial equality. A third reason for concern, which is this chapter's current focus, is that there is also evidence that many of the people who are part of the 85%–90% of the white population who say and probably believe that they are not prejudiced may nonetheless be practicing modern, subtle form of bias. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Holding a strong goal intention ("I intend to reach Z!") does not guarantee goal achievement, because people may fail to deal effectively with selfregulatory problems during goal striving. This review analyzes wether realization of goal intentions is facilitated by forming an implementation intention that spells out the when, where, and how of goal striving in advance ("If situation Y is encountered, then I will initiate goal-directed behavior X!"). Findings from 94 independent tests showed that implementation intentions had a positive effect of medium-to-large magnitude (d= .65) on goal attainment. Implementation intentions were effective in promoting the initiation of goal striving, the shielding of ongoing goal pursuit from unwanted influences, disengagement from failing courses of action, and conservation of capability for future goal striving. There was also strong support for postulatad component processes: Implementation intention formation both enhanced the accessibility of specified opportunities and automated respective goal-directed responses. Several directions for future research are outlined.

This is a RG generated duplicate entry. Paper is here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/29870484_Mood_and_persuasion_Affective_states_influence_the_processing_of_persuasive_communications

This chapter provides a critical and historical overview of the leadership research, and an overview of key components of the social identity perspective. It discusses the ways in which a focus on group membership, framed by the social identity perspective, can explain important aspects of leadership. The chapter describes the social identity analysis of leadership, including a description of the ways that prototypical leaders can protect their tenure through manipulation and control of the group's prototype. It discusses key empirical tests of the social identity analysis—these tests necessarily hinge on a demonstration that leadership processes become more prototype based with increasing group salience. Several direct and indirect tests from a number of laboratories and research groups around the world that provide support for the social identity analysis have been dealt in the chapter. It presents the results of about 25 independent samples from 16 different studies, and explores implications and extensions of the analysis in the context of the study of leadership.

This chapter summarizes research on free will. Progress has been made by discarding outmoded philosophical notions in favor of exploring how ordinary people understand and use the notion of free will. The concept of responsible autonomy captures many aspects of layperson concepts of free will, including acting on one's own (i.e., not driven by external forces), choosing, using reasons and personal values, conscious reflection, and knowing and accepting consequences and moral implications. Free will can thus be understood as form of volition (action control) that evolved to enable people to live in cultural societies. Much work has shown that belief in free will (as opposed to disbelief) is associated with actions that are conducive to functioning well in culture, including helpfulness, restraint of aggression, learning via counterfactual analysis, thinking for oneself, effective job performance, and appropriate gratitude. Belief in free will increases in response to misdeeds by others, thus emphasizing the link to personal responsibility. Research on volition indicates that self-regulation, intelligent reasoning, decision making, and initiative all deplete a (common) limited energy source, akin to the folk notion of willpower and linked to the body's glucose supplies. Free will is thus not an absolute or constant property of persons but a variable, fluctuating capability—one that is nonetheless highly adaptive for individuals and society.

Power has been used as an explanatory construct for coordinating the behavior changes in one participant to the prior actions of his partner, and could subsume traditional content areas, such as learning, attitude change, leadership, and conformity behavior. This chapter describes the theoretical and empirical developments explicitly dealing with power as a characteristic of a social relationship. The ultimate usefulness of a power concept will depend on several possible lines of development, and one of these is advances in theoretical formulations that place power in a well-defined construct network capable of generating meaningful research issues. Some of the problem areas that have been emphasized in this review are: the effectiveness of different power bases, the effects of a consumable power base, the conditions leading to the exercise of power and to the development of power strategies, the consequences to the high-power person of exercising his power, and the interpersonal by-products of power relationships. Progress in any of these areas would contribute to the robustness of power research and would help to realize the potential hoped for by many authors. The current power formulations quickly lead into the area of need satisfaction or utility judgments, and any progress made is areas, such as classification of needs, comparisons among different needs, or comparisons among utility judgments, would provide sharper tools with which to conduct power research.