Junhui Wu

Chinese Academy of Sciences | CAS · Institute of Psychology

Although theory suggests individuals are more willing to incur a personal cost to benefit ingroup members, compared to outgroup members, there is inconsistent evidence in support of this perspective. Applying meta-analytic techniques, we harness a relatively recent explosion of research on intergroup discrimination in cooperative decision making to...

Reputation through gossip is a key mechanism promoting cooperation. The present research proposes that gossip promotes cooperation when one anticipates future interdependence with the gossip recipient (Hypothesis 1), that this effect is more pronounced for proself, compared to prosocial, individuals (Hypothesis 2), and explores the mediating role o...

We advance a framework for understanding why and how gossip may promote generosity and cooperation, especially in situations that can result in greater indirect benefits from others. Drawing on evolutionary theory, we derive novel hypotheses about how two reliably recurring properties of human social networks – they are “small” and contain fewer we...

Prior theory suggests that reputation spreading (e.g., gossip) and punishment are two key mechanisms to promote cooperation in groups, but no behavioral research has yet examined their relative effectiveness and efficiency in promoting and maintaining cooperation. To examine these issues, we observed participants interacting in a four-round public...

Why do people cooperate? We address this classic question by analyzing and discussing the role of reputation: people cooperate to maintain a positive reputation in their social environment. Reputation is a key element fueling a system of indirect reciprocity, where cooperators establish a good reputation and are thus more likely to receive future b...

This three-wave longitudinal study investigated the stability and changes in HEXACO personality traits and tested whether socioeconomic factors relate to the initial levels and changes of personality among Chinese adolescents ( N = 1,646, Wave 1 M age = 15.21 years). The findings revealed high rank-order stability of HEXACO personality traits. Cons...

Drawing on self-determination theory and problem-behavior theory, we tested the relation between parental psychological control and adolescents’ problematic mobile phone use, and the sequential mediation effects of basic psychological need experiences (i.e., need frustration and satisfaction) and negative affect in this relation. A total of 4299 Ch...

Decades of research predominantly conducted in Western societies reveals that people, especially the less wealthy, are averse to high levels of inequality. However, empirical comparative studies on perceived wealth and inequality aversion across nations are rare. Here, we examine how responses to unequal monetary allocations among those with high o...

People are increasingly relying on social networking sites (SNSs) to satisfy their needs for relatedness. However, the psychological benefits of receiving others' feedback on SNSs remain relatively understudied. To fill this research gap, the present research examined whether and how others' feedback to one's status updates on WeChat Moments (i.e....

Nielsen et al. (1) argue that Van Doesum et al. (2) need to consider three points for their interpretation of a positive association between individual-level social mindfulness (SoMi) and environmental performance (EPI) at the country level (3). The association is weaker when 1) it is controlled for GDP and 2) when the data of three countries are r...

Cooperation among strangers has been hypothesized to have declined in the United States over the past several decades, an alarming trend that has potential far-reaching societal consequences. To date, most research that supports a decline in cooperation has relied on self-report measures or archival data. Here, we utilize the history of experimenta...

People are averse to being treated unfairly, and are even willing to pay a personal cost to reject unfair others. Despite this general tendency, there might be individual differences in responses to unfairness. Across two studies, we measured participants' self-reported self-esteem and examined how people varying in self-esteem respond to unfairnes...

Emotions are linked to wide sets of action tendencies, and it can be difficult to predict which specific action tendency will be motivated or indulged in response to individual experiences of emotion. Building on a functional perspective of emotion, we investigate whether anger and shame connect to different behavioral intentions in dignity, face,...

Controlling the spread of an infectious disease depends critically on the general public’s adoption of preventive measures. Theories of health behavior suggest that risk perceptions motivate preventive behavior. The supporting evidence for this causal link is, however, of questionable validity. The COVID-19 pandemic provides a rare opportunity to e...

Gossip, or sharing information about absent others, has been identified as an effective solution to free rider problems in situations with conflicting interests. Yet, the information transmitted via gossip can be biased, because gossipers may send dishonest information about others for personal gains. Such dishonest gossip makes reputation-based co...

Gossip—a sender communicating to a receiver about an absent third party—is hypothesized to impact reputation formation, partner selection, and cooperation. Laboratory experiments have found that people gossip about others' cooperativeness and that they use gossip to condition their cooperation. Here, we move beyond the laboratory and test several p...

Punishment and reputation-based mechanisms play a major role in supporting the evolution of human cooperation. Theoretical accounts and field observations suggest that humans use multiple tactics to intervene against offences—including confrontation, gossip and ostracism—which have unique benefits and costs. Here, we draw a distinction between dire...

Reward and punishment change the payoff structures of social interactions and therefore can potentially play a role in promoting prosocial behavior. Yet, there are boundary conditions for them to be effective. We review recent work that addresses the conditions under which rewards and punishment can enhance prosocial behavior, the proximate and ult...

Humans are social animals, but not everyone will be mindful of others to the same extent. Individual differences have been found, but would social mindfulness also be shaped by one’s location in the world? Expecting cross-national differences to exist, we examined if and how social mindfulness differs across countries. At little to no material cost...

Direct and indirect reciprocity are two fundamental mechanisms that promote prosocial behavior within groups and across societies. Here, we review recent work that illustrates how a (direct and indirect) reciprocity framework can illuminate our understanding of several factors related to prosocial behavior—namely group membership, gossip, and third...

Punishment and reputation-based mechanisms play a major role in supporting the evolution of human cooperation. Theoretical accounts and field observations suggest that humans use multiple tactics to intervene against offenses—including confrontation, gossip, and ostracism—which have unique benefits and costs. Here, we draw a distinction between dir...

Gossip, or sharing information about absent others, has been identified as an effective solution to free rider problems in situations with conflicting interests. Yet, the information transmitted via gossip can be biased, because gossipers may send dishonest information about others for personal gains. Such dishonest gossip makes reputation-based co...

Norm enforcement may be important for resolving conflicts and promoting cooperation. However, little is known about how preferred responses to norm violations vary across cultures and across domains. In a preregistered study of 57 countries (using convenience samples of 22,863 students and non-students), we measured perceptions of the appropriatene...

Understanding the interaction between cooperation and conflict in establishing effective social behaviour is a fundamental challenge facing societies. Reflecting the breadth of current research in this area, this volume brings together experts from biology to political science to examine the cooperation–conflict interface at multiple levels, from g...

This meta-analytic review aims to address the mixed findings in previous research by quantifying the associations between early-life stress and risk, time, and prosocial preferences, and testing the boundary conditions of these associations. We meta-analyze 123 articles reporting 867 effect sizes among 199,019 adults to test different predictions f...

Gossip—a sender communicating to a receiver about an absent third party—is hypothesized to impact reputation formation, partner selection, and cooperation. Lab experiments have found that people gossip about others’ cooperativeness and that they use gossip to condition their cooperation. Here, we move beyond the lab and test several predictions fro...

Objectives Abundant evidence has demonstrated that self-compassion robustly contributes to individuals’ psychological well-being. Yet, less is known about the social benefits of self-compassion. The present research sought to test whether self-compassion is related to less unethical behavior, as well as the mediating role of moral disengagement in...

Reputation and punishment are two distinct mechanisms that facilitate cooperation among strangers. However, empirical research on their effectiveness is mainly limited to relatively small groups and does not address how they enhance cooperation in relatively larger groups. We address this gap in the literature by testing hypotheses from competing p...

The status-legitimacy hypothesis proposes that people with lower socioeconomic status (SES) are more likely to justify the social system than those with higher SES. However, empirical studies found inconsistent findings. In the present research, we argue that at least part of the confusion stems from the possibility that objective and subjective SE...

Early-life experience affects individuals' lifelong development in various domains. In this research, we examine how early-life experience affects adolescents' prosocial behavior using a large-scale survey among 2,975 Chinese senior high school students (47.6% boys, M age = 16.12 years). We operationalize disadvantaged early-life experience as havi...

Across three studies, we examine whether system justification enhances psychological well-being among members of both advantaged and disadvantaged groups. In addition, we test the novel hypothesis that perceived individual upward mobility explains this positive effect of system justification. We address these issues by focusing on system justificat...

In this research, we examine how cooperation emerges and develops in sequential dyadic interactions when the initial interaction varies in strategic considerations (i.e., fear of partner rejection) or potential gossip by one's partner that may affect subsequent interactions. In a lab experiment involving real-time interactions (N = 240) across 39 s...

Previous research on cooperation has primarily focused on egalitarian interactions, overlooking a fundamental feature of social life: hierarchy and power asymmetry. While recent accounts posit that hierarchies can reduce within-group conflict, individuals who possess high rank or power tend to show less cooperation. How, then, is cooperation achiev...

Previous research on cooperation has primarily focused on egalitarian interactions, overlooking a fundamental feature of social life: hierarchy and power asymmetry. While recent accounts posit that hierarchies can reduce within-group conflict, individuals who possess high rank or power tend to show less cooperation. Then how is cooperation achieved...

Color has been argued to exert a powerful effect on motivation and behavior. This has led researchers, most notably in social psychology, to examine the effects of color on perceptions of (sexual) attractiveness. Building on a body of work on the ‘romantic red effect’ Lin (2014) found evidence that the color of a laptop influenced ratings of a woma...

Donors' social class may provide cues for others to judge their underlying motives and prosociality. We test whether donors' social class affects their prosocial reputation through perceived authentic motivation. Across four studies, we find that low-class donors are perceived as more authentically motivated to care about others' welfare, and thus...

Color has been argued to exert a powerful effect on motivation and behavior. This has led researchers, most notably in social psychology, to examine the effects of color on perceptions of (sexual) attractiveness. Building on a body of work on the ‘romantic red effect’, Lin (2014) found evidence that the color of a laptop influenced ratings of a wom...

Violators of cooperation norms may be informally punished by their peers. How such norm enforcement is judged by others can be regarded as a meta-norm (i.e., a second-order norm). We examined whether meta-norms about peer punishment vary across cultures by having students in eight countries judge animations in which an agent who over-harvested a co...

What does it do to people when they are rich or poor? Do they differ in their responses to unfair treatment? For example, are the wealthy more or less likely to accept an unfair offer in an ultimatum game where it is costly to reject an unfair offer? How about when it is not costly to reject an unfair offer? In the present research, we measured sel...

Across five studies using samples from both Japan and United States (N = 2345), we take a multi-method approach to test the prediction from life history theory that a slow, compared to fast, life history strategy promotes investment in cooperative relationships. Studies 1 and 2 examined how different measures as proxies for life history strategy (i...

Bounded generalized reciprocity (BGR) predicts that people cooperate to maintain a positive reputation with ingroup, but not outgroup, members—and this explains ingroup favoritism in cooperation. We propose that the benefits of maintaining a positive reputation are not limited by group boundaries and so people may cooperate to maintain a good reput...

Theories suggest that political ideology relates to cooperation, with conservatives being more likely to pursue selfish outcomes, and liberals more likely to pursue egalitarian outcomes. In study 1, we examine how political ideology and political party affiliation (Republican vs. Democrat) predict cooperation with a partner who self-identifies as R...