Luis Oceja

• Associate Professor
• Professor at Autonomous University of Madrid

Our attention is constantly drawn by messages that propose to us what should (not) be done in a specific place. According to the Evaluative Model of Normative Appeals (EMNA), we perceive them through a process (normative appraisal) that is structured in three dimensions, and assesses the degree to which the proposal (a) comes from an institution th...

En la actualidad existe una amplia oferta de iniciativas de ayuda que paradójicamente puede desconcertar a potenciales colaboradores. ValuesApp es una herramienta telemática que conecta a colaboradores y entidades evaluando el perfil motivacional de los primeros y presentando, de forma coherente y ordenada, las iniciativas de ayuda que ofrecen los...

Based on the Evaluative Model of Normative Appeals (EMNA), we designed a diagnosis tool that allows forecasting the extent to which employees may comply with a set of norms. We first performed two cross-sectional studies to apply the tool within a general sample of workers (Study 1, N = 382) and within a sample of employees of a specific organizati...

People in economically advantaged nations tend to evaluate their life as more positive overall and report greater well-being than people in less advantaged nations. But how does positivity manifest in the daily life experiences of individuals around the world? The present study asked 15,244 college students from 62 nations, in 42 languages, to desc...

According to the awe-quixoteism hypothesis, one experience of awe may lead to the engagement in challenging actions aimed at increasing the welfare of the world. However, what if the action involves damaging one individual? Across four experiments (N = 876), half participants were induced to feel either awe or a different (pleasant, activating, or...

After the publication of the Big Five Inventory-2 (BFI-2) and its short versions, many validations in other languages have been published. Three studies (total N = 1,673) were conducted to validate a Spanish version of the BFI-2, BFI-2-S and BFI-2-XS). Study 1 first tested the structural validity at both the domain and facet levels of 60 BFI-2 item...

After the publication of the Big Five Inventory-2 (BFI-2) and its short versions, many validations in other languages have been published. Three studies (total N=1,673) were conducted to validate a Spanish version of the BFI-2, BFI-2-S and BFI-2-XS). Study 1 first tested the structural validity both at the domain- and facet-levels of 60 BFI-2 item...

A normative appeal indicates that one should (or should not) do a certain action in a concrete situation. According to the Evaluative Model of Normative Appeals (EMNA), willingness to comply with these messages depends on an appraisal formed by two dimensions: formality and protection. In this work we center on the dimension of protection, proposin...

Abstract What does it mean to be happy? The vast majority of cross-cultural studies on happiness have employed a Western-origin, or “WEIRD” measure of happiness that conceptualizes it as a self-centered (or “independent”), high-arousal emotion. However, research from East�ern cultures, particularly Japan, conceptualizes happiness as including an in...

Antecedents Previous research on citizens’ reactions after terrorist events has shown that positive reactions can also emerge alongside pain and horror. Positive emotions have been widely associated with an abstract style of thinking. In the context of the Paris terrorist attacks in 2015, we explored Spanish citizens’ positive reactions – empathic...

Objective The current exploratory study sought to examine dispositional optimism, or the general expectation for positive outcomes, around the world. Method Dispositional optimism and possible correlates were assessed across 61 countries (N = 15,185; mean age = 21.92; 77% female). Mean‐level differences in optimism were computed along with their r...

Quixoteism is a motive that leads people to undertake challenging actions as an instrumental goal toward an ultimate goal of improving the welfare of the world. The present research tests whether the activation of a Quixoteism motive increases a person’s willingness to perform extraordinary helping behaviors. In Study 1 (N = 66), the centrality of...

At what point is an assemblage of individuals perceived as a single, unified group? And how do demographic characteristics of these individuals influence perceptions of groupness? To answer these questions, we conducted four studies in which participants viewed sets of images that varied in the number of individuals depicted, and then identified th...

Recently, empathic concern was separated into the components of sympathy and tenderness (Lishner et al. 2011). So far, these two emotional experiences have been assessed as episodic emotional responses, as the existent dispositional measures remain blind to such distinction. The aim of the present research is to develop and validate a dispositional...

Past research suggests that the connection between values and people's behaviour may not be as straightforward and robust as has been claimed. We propose that a more holistic and discriminative view that acknowledges the influence of a specific combination of values on specific kinds of behaviour is needed. In the current project, we test two hypot...

We conducted five studies to test the transcendental change constellation (TCC)–quixoteism hypothesis: The presence of a specific set of values labeled TCC elicits a motive with the ultimate goal of increasing the welfare of the world (quixoteism). First, the salience of the TCC increased the commitment to (Study 1) and preference for (Study 2) act...

Purpose: The aim of the present work is to advance in a topic that has received little attention in the literature: normative diagnosis; contributing new empirical evidence to a recently proposed model: the Evaluative Model of Normative Appeals (EMNA). Design/methodology: Two field studies were carried out. In Study 1 we tested the EMNA premises b...

Previous research on the one-among-others effect has shown that inducing empathic concern towards a victim presented alongside with a small number of other victims enhances (a) the perception of this set of victims as separate and different individuals (instead of as a group), and (b) the preference to help them individually (rather than collective...

This chapter presents two lines of research about two motives that may lead people to helping a group other than one’s own. First, our research on the one-among-others effect posits that inducing empathic concern for a victim who is presented along with other individuals in need may enhance the willingness to increase the welfare of others (i.e. ge...

Research suggests that empathic concern and distress give rise to different patterns of helping behavior.It has been proposed that this difference is caused by the effects of these emotions on recurrent thoughts about the person in need. However, no research has directly investigated this potential explanation. To remedy this, we tested the hypothe...

Normative appeals refer to those messages that indicate that one should (or should not) engage in a certain action in a given situation. According to the psychosocial research, the decision to fulfill a normative appeal depends on both the extent to which it has captured our attention, and the evaluation of what we may gain or lose by doing so. How...

Previous research on the one-among-others effect has shown that inducing empathic concern towards a victim presented among other individuals in need enhances: (1) awareness of these others and (2) the willingness to help them individually. In this work, we test that these outcomes are linked by an additional process: the generalization of empathic...

In 6 experiments, we manipulated the length of a communication message to assess reciprocity norm-following behaviour during conversational interaction. In Studies 1 and 2, scripts of different length were used in an online chat, and chat logs were analysed. In Studies 3 and 4, participants e-mailed scripts that varied in length to acquaintances, a...

Quixoteism refers to a motive whose ultimategoal is to improve the welfare of the world.It is proposed that this motive is activated by a world-change valuing: the extent to which one individual values changes that go beyond a specific individual or a group. Two studies were conducted to test this proposal. The results of Study 1 (N = 99) showed th...

In two studies the emotional valence, the level of arousal and self-orientation of empathic concern and personal distress are tested. The empathic concern prevalence versus personal distress prevalence is induced through pictures in Study 1 (N = 62) and perspective-taking instructions in Study 2 (N = 60). Results of Study 1 show that participants i...

Resumen Tres grupos de estudiantes universitarios se enfrentaron a un caso escrito en el que debían juzgar algunos de sus personajes. Dichos casos escritos representaban una situación justa (Grupo Control 1), una situación injusta (Grupo Control 2) y una situación con los rasgos definidos por Fernández-Dols (1992) como «norma perversa»: una norma e...

Feeling empathy for a member of the group may result in either favoring this individual at the expense of the group or helping the entire group. We explain these intriguing find- ings by proposing that the combined influence of feeling empathy for one individual and awareness of others enhances willingness to help both the individual and the others (...

Resumen La literatura clásica sobre control social ha insistido en que la aplicación de la ley en ambientes complejos se enfrenta a numerosos problemas prácticos y contradicciones que pueden llevar a decisiones arbitrarias y el incumplimiento de ciertas normas. Basándose en las hipótesis del Modelo) de Norma Perversa (Fernández-Dols, 1992), hemos c...

We analyze the prosocial effect of including the macro-environment in life space. Namely, it is proposed that the extent to which people perceive that their life takes place in broader environmental contexts (e.g., the society, the world) will facilitate prosocial behavior when the situation of need is presented in an abstract fashion (e.g., very b...

World change orientation refers to the extent to which one individual attributes his or her prosocial action to the function of making the world a better place. In Study 1, we developed a scale to measure this world change orientation [world change scale (WCS)] and to analyze its theoretical structure as a distinctive motivational orientation. In S...

When facing a person in need, professional nurses will tend to adopt an objective perspective compared to nursing students who, instead, will tend to adopt an imagine-other perspective. Consequently, professional nurses will show lower vicarious emotional reaction such as empathy and distress. Using samples from Spain (Studies 1 and 2) and United s...

Observing a person in need usually provokes a compound and dynamic emotional experience made up of empathy and personal distress which, in turn, may influence helping behavior. As the exclusive use of rating scales to measure these two emotions does not permit the analysis of their concurrent evolution, we added the analogical emotional scale (AES)...

We tested how anticipated emotions interact with personal experience in risk behavior to improve predictions from TPB on behavioral intention (BI) and behavioral expectation (BE) for sex without condom (Study 1) and excessive drinking (Study 2). In the moderate-high experience group, anticipated emotional profiles (AEPs) improve TPB prediction from...

We use the term Quixoteism to refer to a new social motive. The characterization of this motive deals with two aspects: the definition of the ultimate goal (i.e., to increase the welfare of the world) and the proposal of a process that activates it (i.e., a transcendental-change orientation). Three studies were conducted to test this characterizati...

Tesis doctoral inédita leída en la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Facultad de Psicología, Departamento de Psicología Social y Metodología. Fecha de lectura: 27 de febrero de 2009 Bibliogr.: p. 145-156

We tested the hypothesis that people are more likely to offer aid when the beneficiary of help is congruent with the entity that initiates prosocial action. In 2 experiments conducted in 2 different countries, participants were approached in naturalistic settings with an appeal for help. The target in need (individual vs. individual among others wi...

Classic literature on social control has emphasised that law-enforcement in complex social environments is plagued by practical problems and contradictions that can lead to arbitrary decisions and to breaking some norms. The aim of the study was to test Perverse Norm Model's (Fernandez-Dols, 1992) hypotheses in a law-enforcement professional group....

Feeling empathy for one person in need while being aware of others may increase the motivational ambivalence between the motive of helping the one and the motive of helping the others, and such motivational ambivalence may reduce the helping directed to the person in need. To test these hypotheses we carried out three studies in which participants...

In the present work we test whether the effectiveness of ecological messages may be canceled out when they conflict with the descriptive norm that is salient in the situation. In two studies, participants were unobtrusively observed while performing an ecologically relevant behavior: leaving lights on or off when exiting a public space. The results...

The Vicarious Experience Scale (VES) is a new measure aimed at measuring the disposition to feeling empathy and personal distress. In Study 1, participants completed the VES along with the classic measure of Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI). In Studies 2 and 3, participants observed the case of a person in need and subsequently reported the eli...

This chapter presents the results of two studies. In Study 1, we tested whether social axioms change across generations (i.e., younger than 20 vs. older than 40 years old), and whether social axioms are transmitted within the family context. In Study 2, we explored how social axioms are related to the fulfillment of a diverse set of social norms. T...

The Analogical Emotional Scale (AES) permits respondents to represent the changes that occur in the course of two different emotions over the time in which they are experienced (Carrera & Oceja, 2007). We tested whether the use of the AES allows us to go beyond the distinction between sequential and simultaneous emotional experiences. Specifically,...

Three experiments tested the hypothesis that empathic concern for adults in need is enhanced by the degree of target infant-like characteristics. Participants reported feeling more empathic concern for an adult target with a more infant-like face than for an adult with a more adult-like face in a Spanish sample (Experiment1) and in an American samp...

Empathy for a specific individual may provoke unfair decisions, favoring that specific individual at the expense of others (Batson, Klein et al., 19955. Batson , C. D. , Klein , T. R. , Highberger , L. , & Shaw , L. ( 1995 ). Immorality from empathy-induced altruism: When compassion and justice conflict . Journal of Personality and Social Psych...

In three experiments, participants were faced with a social dilemma in which they could benefit themselves, the group, or other group members as individuals. The results showed that participants who felt high empathy toward a certain individual allocated more resources to the target of empathy, but without reducing the collective good. Then, we ada...

Many everyday collective emotions are shared emotional conventions, that is, social practices with an attributed emotional meaning (e.g., complimenting as a sign of conventional love). Emotional conventions lead to a collective priming of some categories of emotion. For example, New Year Eve's emotional conventions prime words such as “happy.” We d...

With a view to measuring subjective experience of mixed emotions, we designed an Analogical Emotional Scale (AES). This scale permits the analysis of how, at the subjective level, the emotions evolve from the beginning to the end of the experience, allowing discrimination between simultaneous mixed emotional experiences (i.e., two emotions taking p...

Leung and colleagues have revealed a five-dimensional structure of social axioms across individuals from five cultural groups. The present research was designed to reveal the culture level factor structure of social axioms and its correlates across 41 nations. An ecological factor analysis on the 60 items of the Social Axioms Survey extracted two f...

The main hypothesis in this research work is that in their everyday life people form representations of norms by following three criteria: 1) when there is agreement between the norm and their personal principles; 2) when there is the probability of being formally sanctioned (e.g., by receiving a fine) if they transgress it; and 3) when their refer...

In four experiments, 120 subjects had to judge and reward the performance of players in a game. When no player fulfilled the norm of the game, subjects gave rewards arbitrarily or favored their friends among the players; when some players fulfilled the norm of the game, subjects made fair judgments, rewarding the players who fulfilled the norm, and...

The aim of this paper is to offer alternatives for the explanation of pro-environmental actions. With this aim, we propose a dynamic and situational approach to environmental behaviour defined as the result of relevant study variables (attitudinal, contextual—physical and social—and behavioural variables) and the relationships between them. Using a...

Hemos estudiado como cuatro variables ("probabilidad percibida de castigo formal", "desaprobación social", "legitimidad" y "convencionalismo") determinan el cumplimiento o la transgresión de las normas. Se analizó la percepción de cumplimiento de seis normas específicas en 298 hombres y mujeres de tres países (España, Estados Unidos y Chile). Se co...

Describes the development of a tool to measure momentary affect in a Spanish speaking population, evaluated the generalizability of an integrated structure of momentary affect found with English-speaking Canadians to Spanish-speaking Ss, and conducted a cross-language comparison on the connections between affect and personality. The authors develop...

Según el modelo de Fernández-Dols (1992, 1994), las personas que perciben que una norma sujeta a sanción es universalmente incumplida son más tolerantes con respecto a comportamientos que implican corrupción así como perciben a las autoridades encargadas de imponer las sanciones como injustas y arbitrarias. 225 participantes (134 conductores y 85 n...

Según el concepto de «norma perversa» (Fernández-Dols, 1993), la importancia de los amigos y los conocidos en la sociedad española no es debida a un mayor colectivismo sino a graves disfunciones en las organizaciones burocráticas que impulsan a buscar conocidos cuando debemos gestionar una cuestión formal pero no en contextos informales. El present...

El presente informe analiza empíricamente uno de los efectos más importantes de las normas perversas (Fernández-Dols, 1992): su capacidad para crear una mayor tolerancia a la corrupción entre las personas que la sufren. Para ello se ha llevado a cabo un cuestionario en el que un grupo de 123 sujetos (66 conductores y 57 no conductores) evaluaban el...

En: Tarbiya : revista de investigación e innovación educativa Madrid 2001, n. 27, enero-abril ; p. 5-23 Según el modelo de Fernández-Dols (1992,1993), existen ciertas normas que, a pesar de que su incumplimiento, pueden provocar sanciones negativas, son de hecho infringidas por la mayoría de las circunstancias. A esta clase de normas se les denomin...

Tesis doctoral inédita. Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Facultad de Psicología , Departamento de Psicología Social. Fecha de lectura: 12-1-98 Bibliografía: h. 203-206