Brad Sagarin

Northern Illinois University · Department of Psychology

While most successful attempts at humor are met with laughter or smiles, an exception is found in puns. Puns are often met with groans, a reaction which seems distinctly negative and indicative of anguish. We therefore conducted two studies to investigate punning as a form of everyday sadism, a personality trait which describes an individual's tend...

The One Ring Model suggests that when a culture presents both ideas valuing female purity (Purity Culture) and ideas promoting sexual violence against women (Rape Culture), people acquire both sets of ideas and these two idea systems can be cognitively linked. Results from Studies 1 through 4 (a) present correlational evidence of this between-const...

The bondage-discipline, dominance-submission, and sadism-masochism (BDSM) community has achieved diversity with respect to gender identity and sexual orientation yet does so to a lesser extent with respect to race and ethnicity. A total of 398 BDSM practitioners recruited in 2018 and 2019 from BDSM conferences located within the Southern, Midwester...

Disinformation in politics, advertising, and mass communications has proliferated in recent years. Few counterargumentation strategies have proven effective at undermining a deceptive message over time. This article introduces the Poison Parasite Counter (PPC), a cognitive-science-based strategy for durably countering deceptive communications. The...

Research has begun to investigate subclinical levels of sadism including “everyday sadism:” an enjoyment of cruelty in normal, everyday situations. Thus far, subclinical sadism has been conceptualized as inherently antisocial, as with Internet trolls. We examined a potentially prosocial manifestation of sadism: self-identified sadists in the BDSM (...

Historically, writers from within and outside the BDSM/Leather community have argued that long-term BDSM relationships are likely to fail due to the incompatibility between satisfying SM and romantic affection (Townsend, 1972) and the unlikelihood of finding a perfect match of fetishes and interests (Money, 1986). The present study tested these arg...

Sexual entitlement is a belief that one has a right to sex and has the right to demand it. Previous research has shown that sexual entitlement, or sexual narcissism, can predict negative sexual outcomes, such as infidelity and sexual aggression. This study (N = 217) investigated whether sexual narcissism might be related to dating beliefs and techn...

Previous research results have yielded a consistent link between rape myth acceptance and sexual assault victim blaming: Individuals reporting higher levels of rape myth acceptance also report higher levels of victim blaming. In four studies we explored whether the presentation of rape-myth confirming information or rape-myth debunking information...

Numerous studies have shown that men experience relatively greater levels of jealousy in response to the sexual aspects of an infidelity (relative to women), whereas women experience relatively greater levels of jealousy in response to the emotional aspects of an infidelity (relative to men). The traditional explanation for this relationship sugges...

Despite advances in gender and sexual equality, women are still constrained by standards and norms in American culture. Women hear messages that they must remain sexually abstinent, and if they violate these proscriptions, they are met with negative social consequences. The present study examined a potential source for such messages: women-directed...

Participation in extreme rituals (e.g., fire-walking, body-piercing) has been documented throughout history. Motivations for such physically intense activities include religious devotion, sensation-seeking and social bonding. The present study aims to explore an extreme ritual within the context of bondage/discipline, dominance/submission and sadis...

Researchers studying consensual bondage/discipline, dominance/submission, and sadism/masochism (BDSM) have theorized that individuals pursue BDSM activities, in part, due to the pleasant altered states of consciousness these activities produce. However, to date, no research has tested whether BDSM activities actually facilitate altered states. To t...

Extreme rituals (body-piercing, fire-walking, etc.) are anecdotally associated with altered states of consciousness-subjective alterations of ordinary mental functioning (Ward, 1984)-but empirical evidence of altered states using both direct and indirect measures during extreme rituals in naturalistic settings is limited. Participants in the "Dance...

With the recent national focus on rates of sexual violence, many interventions have been proposed, including those that focus on affirmative consent (e.g., "Yes Means Yes" campaign). The goal of the present study was to test whether individuals within a subculture with long-standing norms of affirmative consent-the bondage and discipline/dominance...

Mate value is a construct of importance to many psychological (especially evolutionary psychological) theories. However, there are no well validated self-report measures of mate value. In light of this, we designed the Mate Value Scale (MVS): a brief, four-item measure that can assess mate value of the self, of one’s partner, or of another target....

When data analyses produce encouraging but nonsignificant results, researchers often respond by collecting more data. This may transform a disappointing dataset into a publishable study, but it does so at the cost of increasing the Type I error rate. How big of a problem is this, and what can we do about it? To answer the first question, we estimat...

Treatment noncompliance in randomized experiments threatens the validity of causal inference and the interpretability of treatment effects. This article provides a nontechnical review of 7 approaches: 3 traditional and 4 newer statistical analysis strategies. Traditional approaches include (a) intention-to-treat analysis (which estimates the effect...

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The present experiment tested a novel method of manipulating subjective sexual arousal to examine the effects of sexual arousal on disgust sensitivity. Participants were instructed to employ their own preferred methods of achieving sexual or physiological arousal in the privacy of their own home to reach a target state of arousal. Participants then...

It is a common problem in psychology subject pools for past study participants to inform future participants of key experimental details (also known as crosstalk). Previous research (Edlund, Sagarin, Skowronski, Johnson, & Kutter, 2009) demonstrated that a combined classroom and laboratory treatment could significantly reduce crosstalk. The present...

Treatment non-compliance in randomized experiments threatens the validity of causal inference and the interpretability of treatment effects. This paper provides a nontechnical review of seven approaches, three traditional and four newer statistical analysis strategies. Traditional approaches include (1) intention to treat analysis (which estimates...

Studies examining sex differences in jealousy have often relied on student samples and were restricted to the evaluation of a selected few moderators. In this study, a nationally representative survey of American households was presented with either an actual or a hypothetical infidelity scenario (which appeared as either a forced choice or as cont...

The theory of evolved sex differences in jealousy predicts sex differences in responses to sexual infidelities and emotional infidelities. Critics have argued that such differences are absent in studies that use continuous measures to assess responses to hypothetical infidelities or in studies that assess responses to real infidelities. These criti...

Although heterosexual women and men consistently demonstrate sex differences in jealousy, these differences disappear among lesbians and gay men as well as among heterosexual women and men contemplating same-sex infidelities (infidelities in which the partner and rival are the same sex). Synthesizing these past findings, the present paper offers a...

Despite the widespread belief that the use of vividness in persuasive communications is effective, many laboratory studies have failed to find vividness effects. A possible explanation for this discrepancy is that many laboratory tests have not vivified solely the central thesis of the message but have vivified irrelevant portions of the message as...

Studies have long investigated similarities and differences in men’s and women’s mate preferences. This study sought to expand on previous research by investigating whether mate value moderated participants’ design of mates. Using both a budgeted and a non-budgeted mate design task, we investigated the effect of mate value on the design of a mate....

This study examined whether sex differences in jealousy would generalize to online infidelity. Based on the evolutionary psychological explanation for sex differences in jealousy (ancestral men's challenge of paternal uncertainty vs. ancestral women's challenge of ensuring paternal investment), we expected that men and women would perceive online i...

Previous research on heterosexuals' attitudes toward gays is characterized by a focus on negative attitudes and minimal use of behavioral dependent variables. In an attempt to rectify this situation, the present study explored the psychological antecedents of heterosexuals' pro-gay activism behavior in an undergraduate sample using the theory of pl...

This study examined attitude strength in the context of the 2004 U.S. presidential election. Surveys of 299 undergraduates assessed attitudes and attitude strength constructs toward Bush/Kerry. The results suggest that (a) attitude strength constructs, especially importance and value-relevance, predict political behavior, (b) indicators of attitude...

Studies examining sex differences in jealousy using continuous measures have produced inconsistent findings. To  explain these inconsistencies, this study critically evaluates the criterion used to test the sex difference in jealousy, demonstrating that the Participant Sex × Infidelity Type interaction is the only relevant effect. Then, using a U.S...

Foreknowledge in research participants can undermine the validity of psychological research. Three studies examined a potentially major source of foreknowledge: participant crosstalk in an undergraduate subject pool. Participants in all three studies attempted to win extra experimental credit by guessing the number of beans in a jar-a nearly imposs...

Chen argued that the proper null hypothesis for free-choice studies examining shifts in choice was 66.7%. Sagarin and Skowronki (2009) questioned the appropriateness of this value, noting that it was based on an unwarranted assumption that subjects always choose preferred options over less preferred options. In this paper, we respond to the points...

Examinations of post-choice decision-making behavior often involve two successive choices. At time 1, participants choose between two equally attractive items. At time 2, participants choose between the unchosen item from time 1 and a new item that is roughly equal in attractiveness to the other two. The option rejected at time 1 will tend to again...

Whereas a variety of research has investigated how individual differences moderate attitude change (persuasion) processes, there is a relative dearth of research investigating how such individual differences moderate behavior change (compliance) processes. The current research assessed the extent to which two well-studied personality traits predict...

The present study examined political partisanship stability in the context of transitional and consolidated democracies. We hypothesised that (a) in both democratic systems, personality differences as well as socialisation patterns and socioeconomic factors would be related to the stability of party identification directly, and that (b) the relatio...

In two studies, 58 sadomasochistic (SM) practitioners provided physiological measures of salivary cortisol and testosterone (hormones associated with stress and dominance, respectively) and psychological measures of relationship closeness before and after participating in SM activities. Observed activities included bondage, sensory deprivation, a v...

Many individuals intend to exercise, but fail to link this intention to behavior. The present study examined the impact of an implementation intention intervention (i.e., instructions to form specific if-then plans) on an exercise intention-behavior relationship among working adults who varied in reported occupational stress levels. Results indicat...

Two studies assessed sex differences and the effects of relationship status and a person's own promiscuous proclivities in strategic friendship formation. In Study 1, participants generated overt and subtle promiscuity cues. In Study 2, a different sample of participants reported their willingness to befriend a person based on these overt and subtl...

Reciprocity is an important social norm that regulates interpersonal interactions. This study investigated whether the belief in a just world moderates the responses to a reciprocal obligation. A confederate gave (or did not give) a gift to participants and later solicited the participants to purchase raffle tickets. Participants who were stronger...

This experiment examined the effects of judicious swearing on persuasion in a pro‐attitudinal speech. Participants listened to one of three versions of a speech about lowering tuition that manipulated where the word “damn” appeared (beginning, end, or nowhere). The results showed that obscenity at the beginning or end of the speech significantly in...

In order to mobilise action against a social problem, public service communicators often include normative information in their persuasive appeals. Such messages can be either effective or ineffective because they can normalise either desirable or undesirable conduct. To examine the implications in an environmental context, visitors to Arizona's Pe...

The present studies address two criticisms of the theory of evolved sex differences in jealousy: (a) that the sex difference in jealousy emerges only in response to hypothetical infidelity scenarios, and (b) that the sex difference emerges only using forced-choice measures. In two separate studies, one a paper-and-pencil survey with a student sampl...

A central premise of the functional approach is that the same behavior may serve different functions for different individuals. More recently, this approach has been used to understand the motives behind volunteering. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether certain volunteer tasks (e.g., reading to the blind, entering data) differentia...

We describe an exercise based on the 1964 murder of Catherine Genovese—a murder observed by 38 witnesses, none of whom called the police. Students read a summary of the murder and worked in small groups to design an experiment to test the competing theories for the inaction of the witnesses (Americans' selfishness and insensitivity vs. diffusion of...

In a recent article, Harris (2003) concluded that the data do not support the existence of evolved sex differences in jealousy. Harris' review correctly identifies fatal flaws in three lines of evidence (spousal abuse, homicide, morbid jealousy), but her criticism of two other lines of evidence (self-report responses, psychophysiological measures)...

This study assessed whether previously reported sex differences in jealousy could be accounted for by other related emotions. Participants were presented with hypothetical scenarios involving both a sexual and an emotional infidelity, then were asked how jealous, angry, hurt, and disgusted they would be (using continuous scales). The results replic...

Reports an error in "Dispelling the illusion of invulnerability: The motivations and mechanisms of resistance to persuasion" by Brad J. Sagarin, Robert B. Cialdini, William E. Rice and Sherman B. Serna (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2002[Sep], Vol 83[3], 526-541). On p. 535, second column, in the third sentence of the Demonstrated v...

Research on sex differences in jealousy using continuous measures sometimes reveals that women report more intense jealousy than men in response to both sexual and emotional infidelity. Two studies tested whether these findings might have stemmed from sex differences in the interpretation of the upper anchor of the jealousy scales (e.g., “extremely...

Past demonstrations of sex differences in jealousy have generally employed Buss et al.'s [Psychol. Sci. 3 (1992) 251] forced-choice methodology, a limitation criticized by DeSteno and Salovey [Psychol. Sci. 7 (1996) 367]. The present studies address this criticism by demonstrating the sex difference using both forced-choice and continuous measures...

Past demonstrations of sex differences in jealousy have generally employed Buss et al.'s [Psychol. Sci. 3 (1992) 251] forced-choice methodology, a limitation criticized by DeSteno and Salovey [Psychol. Sci. 7 (1996) 367]. The present studies address this criticism by demonstrating the sex difference using both forced-choice and continuous measures...

To investigate the existence of true altruism, the authors assessed the link between empathic concern and helping by (a) employing an experimental perspective-taking paradigm used previously to demonstrate empathy-associated helping and (b) assessing the empathy-helping relationship while controlling for a range of relevant, well-measured nonaltrui...

Three studies examined the impact of a treatment designed to instill resistance to deceptive persuasive messages. Study 1 demonstrated that after the resistance treatment, ads using illegitimate authority-based appeals became less persuasive, and ads using legitimate appeals became more persuasive. In Study 2, this resistance generalized to novel e...

Three studies examined the impact of a treatment designed to instill resistance to deceptive persuasive messages. Study 1 demonstrated that after the resistance treatment, ads using illegitimate authority-based appeals became less persuasive, and ads using legitimate appeals became more persuasive. In Study 2, this resistance generalized to novel e...

The estimated cost of repairing damage caused to recreational sites annually is in the hundreds of millions of dollars. These depreciative activities also reduce the quality of visitors' experiences in the damaged areas. Indirect methods, such as visitor education through brochures and signs, continue to be the least controversial management approa...

Although psychologists have long recognized the havoc that a discovered lie can wreak on a relationship, this study indicates that even an undiscovered deception can bring about negative consequences. An experiment explored one such consequence by examining the hypothesis that in a dyadic relationship, if one partner lies to the other, the liar wil...

The reliance on signs as a mode of agency communication with visitors requires an examination of message presentation and content in order to evaluate message impact and effectiveness. This paper reports on a systematic evaluation of signs and messages at 42 recreation areas in California and Arizona. A number of factors, including type of site, ma...

To properly test the hypothesis that empathy-associated helping is altruistic, one needs to (a) consider plausible nonaltruistic alternatives for the observed empathy–helping effects, (b) validly and reliably measure these nonaltruistic alternatives, and (c) examine whether the empathy–helping relationship remains after removing the effects of the...

This study examined the effectiveness of instilling resistance to scarcity advertisements among college students. Participants, who were undergraduate students enrolled in introductory psychology classes in their first year of college, were taught the distinction between legitimate and illegitimate uses of scarcity in advertisements through constru...

This study examined whether participants can induce rules discriminating illegitimate from legitimate scarcity tactics in advertisements and assessed persuasiveness and perceived manipulative intent for illegitimate and legitimate ads. Participants were provided with unmarked ads and were told that not all ads use scarcity tactics legitimately. Par...

Thesis (M.A.)--Arizona State University, 1996. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [32]-35).