R. Vonk

Radboud University | RU · Behavioural Science Institute

Meat eaters have a more hierarchical, less egalitarian view at the world than vegetarians. This can be manifested in social dominance orientation, at the intergroup level, but also at the interspecies level, yielding more empathy with nonhuman animals, and at the interpersonal level. We examined if interpersonal motives in human-human relationships...

Meat eaters have a more hierarchical, less egalitarian view at the world than vegetarians. This can be manifested in social dominance orientation, at the intergroup level, but also at the interspecies level, yielding more empathy with nonhuman animals, and at the interpersonal level. We examined if interpersonal motives in human–human relationships...

Meat eaters have a more hierarchical, less egalitarian view at the world than vegetarians. This can be manifested in social dominance orientation, at the intergroup level, but also at the interspecies level, yielding more empathy with nonhuman animals, and at the interpersonal level. We examined if interpersonal motives in human–human relationships...

Meat-refusers (vegetarians and vegans) are typically derogated by meat eaters because they threaten meat eaters' moral self-image. In two preregistered experiments (N = 323 and N = 243), we examined the effects of communication style on this ‘do-gooder’ derogation. For this purpose, we developed a paradigm to create moral threat in participants in...

Spiritual training is assumed to reduce self-enhancement, but may have the paradoxical effect of boosting superiority feelings. It can, thus, operate like other self-enhancement tools and contribute to a contingent self- worth that depends on one’s spiritual accomplishments. In three studies (N=533, N=2223, N=965), a brief measure of Spiritual Supe...

Contingent self-worth has been studied as an individual differences variable affecting how self-relevant information is processed. We examined the effects of self-relevant information on contingent self-worth as a dependent variable. In Experiment 1 (N = 79, college students), participants’ performance contingency was higher after negative than pos...

Asch’s seminal research on “Forming Impressions of Personality” (1946) has widely been cited as providing evidence for a primacy-of-warmth effect, suggesting that warmth-related judgments have a stronger influence on impressions of personality than competence-related judgments (e.g., Fiske, Cuddy, & Glick, 2007; Wojciszke, 2005). Because this effec...

Social rejection can lead to a variety of emotions. Two studies show that specific emotional reactions to social rejection can be understood by relying on the fundamental distinction between competence and warmth. Rejection that is perceived to be due to incompetence leads to anger, whereas rejection that is perceived to be due to lack of warmth le...

We argue that noncontingent, unconditional self-esteem is not optimal but defensive. We introduce the concept of intrinsic contingency, where self-esteem is affected by whether one's actions are self-congruent and conducive to personal growth. Whereas external contingencies, especially social and appearance, were negatively correlated with authenti...

This paper starts from the assumption that the dimensions of meaning revealed by studies on Implicit Personality Theory (IPT) are primarily determined by the particular traits under consideration; there are individual differences in the traits that are personally relevant to subjects and hence are an integrated part of their IPT. The study of colle...

This study tests the hypothesis that the correspondence bias is reduced when the correspondent inference of a behaviour runs counter to the goal of forming a more favourable impression of in-group than of out-group members. Participants were leaders and subordinates in an organization and read favourable or unfavourable behaviour descriptions of ei...

Third parties are inuential sources of information about other people, but their impact on audiences' impressions may depend on perceptions of their motives to provide the information. In two experiments we showed that when sources had a motive congruent with the target information they provided (i.e., negative information while having an obstructi...

Many forms of self-presentational behavior are very common; so social perceivers are experienced at observing them. In contrast with existing views, we argue that inferences about ulterior, self-presentational motives may be formed as spontaneously as other trait inferences. Applying a relearning paradigm, we assessed implicit, spontaneous inferenc...

People make a variety of automatic inferences when observing others' actions. These include inferences about stable dispositions as well as transitory goal states and social situations. However, models of social inference have rarely considered whether different types of automatic inferences can co-occur. We present three experiments in which parti...

Mimicry and prosocial feelings are generally thought to be positively related. However, the conditions under which mimicry and liking are related largely remain unspecified. We advance this specification by examining the relationship between mimicry and liking more thoroughly. In two experiments, we manipulated an individual's a priori liking for a...

Mimicry has benefits for people in social interactions. However, evidence regarding the consequences of mimicry is incomplete. First, research on mimicry has particularly focused on effects of being mimicked. Secondly, on the side of the mimicker evidence is correlational or lacks real interaction data. The present study investigated effects for mi...

Self-presentation via favorable self-descriptions may not lead to the desired impression, whereas positive descriptions by others may be more effective because they seem less susceptible to motivated bias. In four experiments, we investigated whether person descriptions have more impact on impressions when provided by third parties than by targets...

The sharing of bodily states elicits in mimicker and mimickee corresponding conceptualisations, which facilitates liking. There are many studies showing the relatedness of mimicry and liking. However, the mimicry-liking link has not been investigated under conditions in which the mimickee is liked or disliked a priori. In two studies, we examined m...

The present studies investigated whether mimicry effects on empathizing depend on whether emotional expressions are seen as acted or real. In Study 1, participants saw a fragment from a reality "soap." Half of them received an instruction to imitate facial expressions of the main character, while the other half were instructed not to imitate. Parti...

This research examined self-compassion and self-esteem as they relate to various aspects of psychological functioning. Self-compassion entails treating oneself with kindness, recognizing one's shared humanity, and being mindful when considering negative aspects of oneself. Study 1 (N=2,187) compared self-compassion and global self-esteem as they re...

Mimicry is functional for empathy and bonding purposes. Studies on the consequences of mimicry at a behavioral level demonstrated that mimicry increases prosocial behavior. However, these previous studies focused on the mimickee. In the present paper, we investigated whether mimickers also become more helpful due to mimicry. In two studies, we have...

Individual differences in money-grabbing: The role of entitlement, social value orientation, and misuse of power Individual differences in money-grabbing: The role of entitlement, social value orientation, and misuse of power M. Jongenelen & R. Vonk, Gedrag & Organisatie, volume 20, November 2007, nr. 4, pp. 369-381 This research investigates the r...

We examined the process of becoming suspicious and discovering ulterior motives. Participants read about a likable behavior, then sequentially received ten cues about potential ulterior motives of the actor. Participants were asked to think aloud while they were reading. Their thoughts were coded. We expected that the general impression of the acto...

Contingente zelfwaardering is afhankelijk van bepaalde factoren, zoals iemands uiterlijk, prestaties of goedkeuring door anderen. Er werden twee Nederlandse schalen ontwikkeld: een schaal die uitgaat van globale contingentie (contingentie van zelfwaardering als globale individuele verschilvariabele), en een schaal die uitgaat van domeinspecifieke c...

Self-esteem, self-determination and authenticity: views from social psychology Self-esteem, self-determination and authenticity: views from social psychology R. Vonk, Gedrag & Organisatie, Volume 17, October 2004, nr. 5, pp. 292-302. The first part of this paper describes how people distort reality to protect a favorable self-concept. This creates...

This research views dispositional inference as a process whereby perceivers integrate multiple inferences about a target person's motives and traits. The findings suggest that although perceived motives may stimulate extra attributional processing (S. Fein, 1996), the content of the inferred motive is important as well. Perceivers learned about sit...

Social perceivers have been shown to draw spontaneous trait inferences (STI’s) about the behavior of an actor as well as spontaneous situational inferences (SSI’s) about the situation the actor is in. In two studies, we examined inferences about behaviors that allow for both an STI and an SSI. In Experiment 1, using a probe recognition paradigm, we...

People expect leaders’ behaviors to be more strongly caused by dispositional than by situational factors, compared with subordinates’ behavior. Also, people expect leaders’ behaviors to have more consequences than subordinates’ behaviors. Given these expectancies, we hypothesized that subordinate behavior that has dispositional causes and produces...

We examined the content and dimensional structure of a large and representative sample of gender types. In Study 1, using an open-ended procedure, participants generated 306 different labels for female types (e.g. housewife, feminist, femme fatale, secretary, slob) and 310 for male types (e.g. workaholic, family man, sissy, womanizer, labourer). In...

Persons who are flattered are more likely to assign credibility to and like the flatterer than observers, presumably because they are motivated by vanity. In existing studies, however, the difference between targets and observers has been confounded with other variables. The present experiments demonstrate that the target-observer difference in jud...

This study examines whether stereotypic expectancies about the attitudes of group members (teachers vs. students) affect the attitude inferred from a series of statements. Stereotypes can produce either assimilation, contrast or no effects. Because ingroups are seen as more variable than outgroups, it is possible that assimilation is easily accompl...

Two scenario studies examined the effects of a person's statement about own abilities and the possibility that the statement could be publicly verified by a subsequent test. Inferences of competence, likeability, and self-presentational motives were assessed. As predicted, a low-ability claim was perceived as more strongly driven by self-presentati...

Behaviours are judged by their causes (i.e. the actor's intentions) as well as by their consequences. The present study focuses on the effects of the latter. Subjects judged behaviours that were either socially good, socially bad, competent, or incompetent. The consequences of the behaviours were either (a) personal consequences for the actor, (b)...

Subjects (N=129) judged the favourability of 20 behaviours enacted towards either subordinates or superiors of the actor. Likeable behaviours were evaluated more moderately when they were enacted towards superiors, indicating that subjects took into account the possibility that the actor was engaging in ingratiation. Moderately dislikeable behaviou...

This study addresses spontaneous inferences about causes and consequences of performance-related behavior of leaders and subordinates. Respondents (leaders and subordinates) completed sentences describing the behavior of leaders or subordinates. It was expected that behavior of leaders induces more causal analysis because it can more strongly affec...

The literature on correspondence bias suggests that the bias is increased when perceivers depend on an actor because they are motivated to know the actor’s dispositions and predict future behavior. However, outcome dependency produces enhanced attention and accuracy motivation, which should facilitate situational correction and reduce the correspon...

Two scenario studies address the effects of the consequences of an actor's behavior as a function of behavioral causes (dispositional, situational) and behavior valence. In Experiment 1, the behaviors were likeability related. As predicted, inferences were more extreme when the behaviors produced consequences for others than when they did not affec...

These studies examined the effects of outcome dependency on the motive to form accurate versus desirable impressions, as reflected in attention, liking, and judgments of task-related social (Exp. 1 and 2) or intellectual (Exp. 3) qualities of the target person. Both cooperatively and competitively dependent subjects formed more favorable impression...

An actor who is likeable toward superiors and dislikeable toward subordinates is judged as extremely dislikeable and slimy (Experiments 1 and 2). Subsequent experiments addressed several theoretical accounts of this slime effect. Likeable behaviors toward superiors induce suspicion of ulterior motivation, which is confirmed when dislikeable behavio...

Wagner, Elejabarrieta and Lahnsteiner (1995) conclude that people use gender-stereotypic attributes and sexual metaphors in describing the sperm and the ovum. The conclusion is criticized on the basis of two arguments: (1) the sperm is, in actuality, more active than the ovum and this difference is reflected in subjects' judgements; (2) in their st...

We examined intergroup bias (more favourable evaluations of ingroups than outgroups) at the level of gender subgroups. Male and female subjects listed subgroups of men and women (e.g. career woman, mother). For each subgroup mentioned, we asked the same subjects to (a) describe the characteristics of this group in their own words (coded as positive...

Comments on the articles of S. Plous (see records 84-09797 and 84-20622) on attitudes toward the use of animals in psychological research. The present author attempts to dispel the common belief that "might is right." It is argued in response to other comments on Plous's article that concern for other people seems to go hand in hand with concern fo...

The current research examines social psychologists' beliefs regarding the probability of self and others to engage in desirable and undesirable actions relevant to solving dilemmas of academic practice (e.g. openly discussing versus concealing complex effects in a paper). Consistent with hypotheses, results revealed that social psychologists believ...

Comments on the articles of S. Plous (see records 84-09797 and 84-20622) on attitudes toward the use of animals in psychological research. The present author attempts to dispel the common belief that "might is right." It is argued in response to other comments on Plous's article that concern for other people seems to go hand in hand with concern fo...

The current research examines social psychologists' beliefs regarding the probability of self and others to engage in desirable and undesirable actions relevant to solving dilemmas of academic practice (e.g. openly discussing versus concealing complex effects in a paper). Consistent with hypotheses, results revealed that social psychologists believ...

This study examined the combined effects of likeability-related and potency-related information in an impression formation setting, using a 2 (likeability of target behaviour: high/low)×2(potency: high/low) design. Presumably, the behaviour of a strong, dislikeable person can produce more severe consequences than the behaviour of a weak, dislikeabl...

This study addresses effects of expectancy-inconsistent behaviors on two characteristics of person impressions: the target person 's perceived position and fit within a multidimensional trait structure of Implicit Personality Theory (IPT). Inconsistency was manipulated with respect to two dimensions of IPT evaluation and potency. Behaviors with inc...

The authors examined reading times of attitude statements made by group members as a function of consistency of statements with stereotypic expectancies (between-member) and consistency of statements with other statements from the same member (within-member). Stereotype-inconsistent statements were studied longer than consistent statements only whe...

The authors examined reading times of attitude statements made by group members as a function of consistency of statements with stereotypic expectancies (between-member) and consistency of statements with other statements from the same member (within-member). Stereotype-inconsistent statements were studied longer than consistent statements only whe...

We examined whether inferences from likable versus dislikable behavior are differentially affected by suspicion about ulterior motives of the actor. Using a 2 (Target Behavior: Likable/Dislikable) x 2 (Situational Demands for positive vs. negative behavior) design, we found that a likeable target person was evaluated less favorably when his behavio...

This chapter addresses the question of how schema-inconsistent information about persons is processed and how it affects impressions. Three strategies in resolving inconsistencies are proposed, based on an integration of the literature on trait attribution, impression formation, and person memory. First, inconsistent descriptions can be attributed...

The existing literature on androgyny does not provide information about the fundamental question of how masculine and feminine qualities are organized within the self, and how androgynous persons' view of the self differs from others'. We examined several features in open-ended self-descriptions of subjects classified by a direct self-report measur...

Males and females from thirty intimate couples described their self in general, self with their partner, and their partner. With respect to masculinity and femininity, females' impressions of their male partners corresponded with males' perceptions of self-in-general, while males' impressions of their female partners corresponded more with females'...

Two studies addressed the differential impact of unexpected positive versus negative behaviors on trait ratings and free response impression descriptions, using a 2 (Expected Likability) x 2 (Consistency of Subsequent Behavior) design. Unexpected negative behaviors had more impact than unexpected positive behaviors. In Experiment 1, this negativity...

The hypothesis tested in this study is that judgments of the personality of unfamiliar target persons correspond better with the subject's Implicit Personality Theory (IPT) than judgments of the personality of familiar persons do. Each subject's IPT was individually assessed and represented using multidimensional scaling. Then judgments were obtain...