Olga Stavrova

Tilburg University | UVT · Department of Social Psychology

Despite the importance of transparent communication of uncertainty surrounding scientific findings, there are concerns that communicating uncertainty might damage the public perception and dissemination of science. Yet, a lack of empirical research on the potential impact of uncertainty communication on the diffusion of scientific findings poses ch...

Ostracism—being ignored and excluded—is part of many individuals’ daily lives. Yet, ostracism is often studied in laboratory settings and rarely in natural settings. Here, we report one of the first investigations into ostracism in everyday life by documenting how often and where ostracism occurs; who the sources of ostracism are; and how ostracism...

Parenthood is often assumed to profoundly impact well-being. Yet, few studies have explored how the transition to parenthood relates to parent’s family-life satisfaction, and existing research has produced conflicting results. We propose that expected costs and rewards of having children (individual differences in the perceived value of children in...

Researchers often use promotional language (“hyping”) in scientific publications to draw attention to their findings. Here we examined whether promotional language is indeed associated with higher academic impact and public attention. A content analysis of over 130,000 abstracts published in three major interdisciplinary outlets (Science, Nature, P...

People with extreme political attitudes are often assumed to be more resistant to change than moderates. If this assumption is true, extreme attitudes would ossify and continuously aggravate intergroup conflict and polarization. To test this assumption of stubborn extremists, we use large-scale panel surveys of attitudes towards policy issues and g...

Do cynical individuals have a stronger desire for power and are they more likely to acquire power at work? The negative consequences of cynicism—for cynics themselves and the people around them—render the examination of these questions particularly important. We first examined the role of cynicism in power motives. Results showed that more cynical...

There is a notable similarity in psychological well-being among romantic partners. Drawing on valence asymmetry research (e.g., negativity bias), we tested whether partners’ convergence toward a similar level of well-being is marked by the happier partner’s over-time deterioration or by the less happy partner’s over-time improvement. In two studies...

Unlabelled: People are often advised to engage in social contact to cope with the experience of loneliness and improve well-being. But are the moments of loneliness actually more bearable when spent in other people's company? In this research, we proposed and tested two conflicting theoretical accounts regarding the role of social contact: social...

The global COVID‐19 pandemic led to a widespread increase in remote work arrangements. This trend raised concerns regarding the potential negative ramifications it might have for organizational trust and cooperation. We explored the initial effect of COVID‐19 induced remote work on trust in organizations: trust in co‐workers, trust in the superviso...

This study explores the role of trait self-control in individuals’ changes in performance and well-being when working from home (WFH). In a three-wave longitudinal study with UK workers in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, we find that low self-control workers experienced a significant positive adjustment to WFH over time: The number of reported...

Objective: People value solitude for themselves. Yet little is known about how people perceive dispositional preference for solitude in others. Does dispositional preference for solitude represent a protective factor from psychological distress during times of social distancing? And do laypeople have accurate beliefs about the role of preference f...

Cynicism – the belief that people are driven primarily by self-interest – has been predominantly associated with detrimental consequences for individuals and organizations. Less is known about its potentially positive implications. We investigated whether lay people consider cynicism helpful in preventing antisocial behavior and therefore see value...

Objective. People value solitude for themselves. Yet little is known about how people perceive dispositional preference for solitude in others. Does dispositional preference for solitude represent a protective factor from psychological distress during times of social distancing? And do laypeople have accurate beliefs about the role of preference fo...

Although relationship theories often describe infidelity as a damaging event in a couple’s life, it remains unclear whether relationship problems actually follow infidelity, precede it, or both. The analyses of dyadic panel data of adults in Germany including about 1,000 infidelity events showed that infidelity was preceded (but not followed) by a...

Despite widespread recognition that conspiracy theories carry the potential for serious harm, relatively little research has investigated possible antidotes to conspiracy beliefs. Previous theorizing posits that belief in conspiracy theories is driven in part by existential motives related to a sense of control and social motives aimed at maintaini...

Existing research has documented the social benefits (i.e., higher popularity and liking) of extraversion and agreeableness. Do these positive reputational consequences extend to social dilemma situations that require trust? We found that people do not trust extraverts more than introverts. Instead, people's trust decisions are guided by their part...

Prior research on personality and prosocial behavior has focused on actor‐level effects of personality by examining which personality traits predict individuals' prosocial behavior. But do lay people take into account others' personality when making predictions of others' future prosocial behavior? The present research was designed to answer this q...

Theories and laboratory research in social psychology associate parenthood with increased vigilance and distrust. Yet, longitudinal studies examining whether the transition to parenthood affects trust in real life are lacking. We examined the temporal dynamics of trust surrounding the transition to parenthood in a sample of adults followed for up t...

Social contact is an important ingredient of a happy and satisfying life. But is more social contact necessarily better? Although it is well-established that increasing the quantity of social interactions on the low end of its spectrum promotes psychological well-being, the effect of interaction quantity on the high end remains largely unexplored....

Social contact is an important ingredient of a happy and satisfying life. But is more social contact necessarily better? While it is well-established that increasing the quantity of social interactions on the low end of its spectrum promotes psychological well-being, the effect of interaction quantity on the high end remains largely unexplored. We...

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, organizations around the world rapidly transitioned to enforced remote work. We examined the relationship between personality and within-person changes in five job outcomes (self-reported performance, engagement, job satisfaction, burnout, and turnover intentions) during this transition. We conducted a fou...

In some online interactions, people use avatars to represent themselves and judge whether interaction partners should be trusted. However, little is known about human accuracy in perceptions of avatar trustworthiness. We conducted a two-stage study to investigate whether people are able to accurately judge trustworthiness in avatars. In Stage 1, pa...

Concerns about declining trust and rising cynicism are recurrent in academic research and the media. Yet, prior studies focused on explaining, rather than predicting, temporal changes in trust. We tested prediction models of trust change across (up to) 98 countries over six measurement waves (from 1981 to 2014). We tested whether different ecologic...

Online discussions about politics and current events play a growing role in public life, and they can foster positive outcomes (e.g., civic engagement and political participation) and negative outcomes (e.g., hostility and polarization). The present research examines how the use of doubtful (vs. confident) language influences behavior in online dis...

Prior research suggests that food is embedded in a system of meanings. Yet, little is known about how the different meanings people attribute to food affect their food consumption behavior. Results of a nationally representative survey in Austria reveal how food meanings (sacred, moral, health, social, and aesthetic, assessed with the Meaning of Fo...

Previous research has shown that people tend to perceive organic consumers as more moral and higher status than conventional consumers. We propose that organic consumption might have reputational costs as well. Drawing from research on do-gooder derogation, virtue signaling, and cynicism, we suggest that people might see organic consumption as driv...

Loneliness has been associated with multiple negative outcomes. But what contributes to loneliness in the first place? Drawing from the literature on the importance of self-regulatory ability for successful social functioning, the present research explored the role of low self-control as a factor leading to loneliness. A set of four studies (and th...

How do expressions of doubt affect trust in online reviews? Some previous studies find that people trust confident advisors more than doubtful advisors, whereas others find doubtful advisors are trusted more. We tested the effects of expressing doubt using Yelp data and in a controlled experiment: In Study 1, reviews from Yelp (N = 5.9 million) wer...

Frequent social contact has been associated with better health and longer life. It remains unclear though whether there is an optimal contact frequency, beyond which contact is no longer positively associated with health and longevity. The present research explored this question by examining nonlinear associations of social contact frequency with h...

Prior research has shown that routines and beneficial habits largely explain high self-control people's success at goal pursuit. However, COVID-19 self-quarantine measures and country-level lockdowns have largely challenged people's ability to stick to their daily routines and habits. How successful at goal pursuit are people with high self-control...

Social networking sites (SNS) are frequently criticized as a driving force behind rising depression rates. Yet empirical studies exploring the associations between SNS use and well-being have been predominantly cross-sectional, while the few existing longitudinal studies provided mixed results. We examined prospective associations between SNS use a...

Although perceptions of subjective well-being (SWB) in unacquainted others have been shown to play a major role in impression formation, little is known about how accurate such perceptions are. In two original studies and one pre-registered replication, we explored the accuracy of life satisfaction and happiness judgments from texts and its underly...

We tested how cynicism emerges and what maintains it. Cynicism is the tendency to believe that people are morally bankrupt and behave treacherously in order to maximize self-interest. Drawing on literatures on norms of respectful treatment, we proposed that being the target of disrespect gives rise to cynical views, which predisposes people to furt...

We tested how cynicism emerges and what maintains it. Cynicism is the tendency to believe that people are morally bankrupt and behave treacherously to maximize self-interest. Drawing on literatures on norms of respectful treatment, we proposed that being the target of disrespect gives rise to cynical views, which predisposes people to further disre...

This article presents a review of empirical research exploring cross-national differences in the correlates of subjective well-being (SWB). I start by giving an overview of the concept of SWB across psychological, sociological, and economic literature. Measures of SWB have good cross-cultural validity, yet there is currently little consensus regard...

How do expressions of doubt affect trust in online reviews? Previous research leads to conflicting predictions: some studies find that people trust confident advisors more than doubtful advisors, whereas others find doubtful advisors are trusted more, especially when advisors have salient conflicts-of-interest. We tested the effects of doubt in the...

Studies have shown that individuals’ choice of a life partner predicts their life outcomes, from their relationship satisfaction to their career success. The present study examined whether the reach of one’s spouse extends even further, to the ultimate life outcome: mortality. A dyadic survival analysis using a representative sample of elderly coup...

stavrova_online_appendix – Supplemental material for The Cynical Genius Illusion: Exploring and Debunking Lay Beliefs About Cynicism and Competence

The present research explored whether self-control is associated with the perception of meaning in life. A week-long daily diary study (Study 1) showed trait self-control (but not daily experiences of self-control failure) to be positively associated with a general sense of meaning in life and daily experiences of meaning. This association was robu...

Cynical hostility (or cynicism) is often considered as a major factor leading to bad health outcomes. The present research proposes that poor health might represent both a consequence and a source of cynicism. Using cross‐lagged path analyses, we documented bidirectional associations between health and cynicism in a nationally representative sample...

While life satisfaction has been identified as an important predictor of occupational success, the question of whether it might contribute to reemployment success among unemployed individuals has received much less research attention. Contrasting three theoretical perspectives (motivation theories, positive psychology, and the optimum level of well...

Why is trait self‐control associated with successful goal progress? Existing research has attempted to answer this question by focusing on individual differences in the process of goal pursuit. Herein, we propose and test a novel mechanism suggesting that self‐control facilitates goal attainment not only by affecting the process of goal pursuit but...

What do people value about a creation: the idea behind it or the labor needed for its implementation? Recent developmental research suggests that children by the age of 6 begin to value ideas over labor. Yet, much less is known about whether adults similarly attribute a higher value to ideas and idea givers than to labor and idea executors. In seve...

While people’s forecasts of future outcomes are often guided by their preferences (“desirability bias”), it has not been explored yet whether people infer others’ preferences from their forecasts. Across three experiments and overall thirty judgments, forecasters who thought that a particular future outcome was likely (vs. unlikely) were perceived...

Cynicism refers to a negative appraisal of human nature – a belief that self-interest is the ultimate motive guiding human behavior. We explored laypersons’ beliefs about cynicism and competence and to what extent these beliefs correspond to reality. Four studies showed that lay people tend to believe in cynical individuals’ cognitive superiority....

Mate selection requires a prioritization and joint evaluation of different traits present or absent in potential mates. Herein, we focus on two such traits – physical attractiveness and prosociality – and examine how they jointly shape impressions of overall desirability. We report on two related experiments which make use of an innovative methodol...

Confident business forecasters are seen as more credible and competent (“confidence heuristic”). We explored a boundary condition of this effect by examining how individuals react to the trade‐off between confidence and optimism. Using hypothetical scenarios, we examined this trade‐off from the perspectives of judges (i.e., business owners who hire...

This research examines the role of trait empathy in emotional contagion through non-social targets—art objects. Studies 1a and 1b showed that high- (compared to low-) empathy individuals are more likely to infer an artist’s emotions based on the emotional valence of the artwork and, as a result, are more likely to experience the respective emotions...

Drawing from the literature on the interpersonal functions of self-control, we examined longitudinal associations between trait self-control and social desirability, using a survey of the general population in the Netherlands. Trait self-control at baseline was positively associated with social desirability at a follow-up, even when controlling for...

Although cynical beliefs about human nature yield numerous adverse consequences for individuals’ life outcomes and well-being, very little is known about factors that counteract the development of cynical beliefs. Drawing from the literature on the “education effect” describing the importance of education in overcoming close-mindedness and negative...

We investigated how victim sensitivity and news media exposure conjointly contribute to the formation of political attitudes in the context of the euro crisis. Study 1 (N = 208) showed that observer-sensitive individuals were more likely and victim-sensitive individuals were less likely to support solidarity with countries in need of financial supp...

Contagion refers to the belief that individuals or objects can acquire the essence of a particular source, such as a disgusting product or an immoral person, through physical contact. This paper documents beliefs in a "contact-free" form of contagion whereby an object is thought to inherit the essence of a person when it was designed, but never act...

This research extends the Better-Than-Average effect commonly observed in judgments of abilities and personality traits to the domain of attitudes. Participants reported their attitudes towards 18 socio-political issues and estimated the attitudes of most other people towards these issues. Consistent with the research on pro-norm and anti-norm devi...

Prior research has shown that conservatives report higher levels of subjective well-being than liberals (happiness gap). We investigate to what extent this phenomenon exists in different time periods within the United States (Study 1, N = 40,000) and in different countries (Study 2, N = 230,000). Consistent with our hypotheses grounded in the “shar...

While numerous studies have examined the positive association between religious beliefs and subjective well-being, there is a notable absence of research addressing the potential role of secular beliefs as a source of happiness and life satisfaction. Drawing from literature on compensatory control, the present research fills this void by exploring...

This article explores the role of magical thinking in the subjective probabilities of future chance events. In five experiments, we show that individuals tend to predict a more lucky future (reflected in probability judgments of lucky and unfortunate chance events) for someone who happened to purchase a product associated with a highly moral person...

This research extends the better-than-average (BTA) effect commonly observed in judgments of abilities and personality traits to the domain of attitudes. Participants reported their attitudes toward 18 sociopolitical issues and estimated the attitudes of most other people toward these issues. Consistent with the research on pro-norm and anti-norm d...

Multiple studies have shown that the sense of belonging and connectedness contribute to meaning in life, but does meaning also influence social connectedness? The present research examines the reciprocal relationships between meaning and different types of connectedness: intimate, relational, and collective. Analyzing data from a nationally represe...

Recent research has shown that life satisfaction is lower in states with a high neuroticism level than in less neurotic states. The present study disentangles the effect of state- and individual-level neuroticism on life satisfaction in a multilevel regression analysis using nationally representative data from 16 German federal states. The results...

Existing research, mostly based on the data from the United States, suggests that religiosity contributes to better health and longevity. The present paper explores the association between religiosity and self-rated health across 59 countries and shows that the positive association between religiosity and self-rated health is an exception found in...

Based on the existing literature on worldview beliefs, cynical hostility, and Machiavellian cynicism, we suggest that holding cynical beliefs about human nature can be detrimental for individuals' income. Cynical individuals are more likely to avoid cooperation and trust or to overinvest in monitoring, control, and other means of protection from po...

In line with the sexual selection for altruism hypothesis, research has shown that men and women typically prefer hypothetical partners who are described as prosocial to otherwise similar individuals. In the present study, we consider this hypothesis in the real world by examining whether prosocial behavior conveys actual benefits in terms of real-...

This research investigates the relation between informal help and subjective well-being and its underlying mechanisms using a cross-national perspective. We focus on two potential mechanisms derived from the self-determination theory and conformity to the social norms literature. From the standpoint of self-determination theory, helping others is g...

We investigate the effect of individual differences in justice sensitivity (JS) on giving behavior in a solidarity game, its potential moderators and the underlying psychological mechanisms. In a solidarity game, subjects are asked to make decisions about transferring money to other players in a case in which they win a random draw and the other pl...

Although the question of whether parenthood is generally beneficial for well-being is currently being hotly debated in the social sciences (e.g., Nelson, Kushlev, English, Dunn, & Lyubomirsky, 2013), single parents are nearly unanimously assumed to be worse off than their partnered counterparts. The present research questions this finding by demons...

Research of personal relationships has typically linked childbearing in cohabiting (compared to married) couples to decreased well-being. Using data from 24 European countries, we show that this effect is not universal; rather, it is restricted to countries with a strong social norm that proscribes childbearing in cohabiting unions. We examine two...

The question of whether religiosity is linked to prosocial behavior is currently hotly debated in psychology. This research contributes to this debate by showing that the nature of individuals' religious orientations and their relationships to prosociality depend on their country's social enforcement of religiosity. Our analyses of data from more t...

This study examines the effect of justice sensitivity on the life satisfaction and job-seeking behavior of unemployed individuals and considers the likelihood of experiencing long-term unemployment. We focus on two facets of dispositional justice sensitivity that reflect individual differences in perception and reactions to perpetrating injustice a...

Psychological research postulates a positive relationship between virtue and happiness. This article investigates whether this relationship holds in cultures where virtue is not socially appreciated. We specifically focus on civic virtue, which is conceptualized as citizens' honesty in interactions with state institutions (e.g., tax compliance). Tw...

Drawing on social norms theories, we suggest that religiosity substantially increases subjective well-being if it is considered normative in a certain national context. In Study 1, we test this hypothesis using an indicator of a country's social norm of religiosity that includes both the national level of religiosity and the social desirability of...

Research commonly finds married people to be slightly happier than unmarried cohabitors—the phenomenon referred to as the cohabitation gap. In this article, we examine several relationships. First, we consider whether there are gender differences in the cohabitation gap; second, whether these gender differences are the same in different countries;...

This paper examines cross-national and temporal variations in the effect of personal unemployment on life satisfaction. To account for these variations we consider the social norm to work and national systems of unemployment benefits. Following the social psychological approach to social norms (Cialdini, Reno, & Kallgren, 1990) we differentiate bet...

The study examines the nature, conditions, and outcomes of student learning from an organised guided tour in the Deutsches Museum in Munich. The instructional methods that best support students’ cognitive and affective learning as well as how students’ motivational and emotional states influence their achievement were investigated. A sample of 96 s...

The study examines the nature, conditions and outcomes of student learning from an organized guided tour in the German Museum in Munich. The instructional methods that best support student cognitive and affective learning were investigated as well as how students' motivational and emotional states influence their achievement. A sample of 96 seconda...