{"title":"Does Emotion Regulation Flexibility Work? Investigating the Effectiveness of Regulatory Selection Flexibility in Managing Negative Affect","authors":"Philippa Specker, G. Sheppes, A. Nickerson","doi":"10.1177/19485506231189002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/19485506231189002","url":null,"abstract":"Regulatory selection flexibility—the ability to flexibly choose emotion regulation strategies that are appropriate to dynamic contextual demands—has been theorized as a critical component of adaptive emotional functioning. Despite this, little research has investigated whether individual differences in regulatory selection flexibility influence real-time emotional experiences. The current study aimed to test the effectiveness of regulatory selection flexibility in reducing negative affect while exposed to emotion-eliciting stimuli. Using a behavioral regulatory selection task, participants viewed negative images that differed in emotional intensity and selected between engagement cognitive change (reappraisal) or attentional disengagement (distraction) strategies to manage their emotional responses. Negative affect was rated immediately before and after the regulatory period, to index emotional experience. Greater regulatory selection flexibility was associated with greater reductions in negative affect. Our findings offer preliminary evidence for the immediate psychological benefit of regulatory selection flexibility and highlight some promising avenues for future research.","PeriodicalId":21853,"journal":{"name":"Social Psychological and Personality Science","volume":"8 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.7,"publicationDate":"2023-07-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83513907","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Yuwan Dai, Tonglin Jiang, T. Wildschut, C. Sedikides
{"title":"Nostalgia Counteracts Social Anxiety and Enhances Interpersonal Competence","authors":"Yuwan Dai, Tonglin Jiang, T. Wildschut, C. Sedikides","doi":"10.1177/19485506231187680","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/19485506231187680","url":null,"abstract":"Socially anxious individuals struggle with establishing and maintaining social relationships. We hypothesized that, when socially anxious, people often turn to nostalgia, which alleviates the interpersonal competence deficits that accompany social anxiety. We tested and supported this hypothesis in six studies ( N = 1,858), three preregistered. In cross-sectional Study 1, higher (compared with lower) social anxiety individuals more frequently identified interpersonal incompetence as a trigger of nostalgia. In cross-sectional Study 2, social anxiety was associated negatively with interpersonal competence, but positively with nostalgia, which in turn predicted higher interpersonal competence. In the final four studies, we tested causation. Although social anxiety reduced interpersonal competence, it also triggered nostalgia (Studies 3–3S), and nostalgia increased interpersonal competence (Studies 4–5).","PeriodicalId":21853,"journal":{"name":"Social Psychological and Personality Science","volume":"222 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.7,"publicationDate":"2023-07-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79924490","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
B. Gronfeldt, A. Cislak, Gaëlle Marinthe, A. Cichocka
{"title":"When Less Is More: Defensive National Identity Predicts Sacrifice of Ingroup Profit to Maximize the Difference Between Groups","authors":"B. Gronfeldt, A. Cislak, Gaëlle Marinthe, A. Cichocka","doi":"10.1177/19485506231185406","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/19485506231185406","url":null,"abstract":"We propose that defensive forms of identity (i.e., nationalism and national narcissism) can harm the nation through a tendency to maximize the difference between own and other groups in resource allocation. We test this hypothesis by adopting a classic social psychological paradigm, the Tajfel’s matrices, to real-life scenarios designed in the COVID-19 context. We captured maximizing the difference as a preference for one’s nation being allocated more medical resources relative to other countries, but at the expense of absolute ingroup profit. In Studies 1 and 2, defensiveness in national identity predicted this counterproductive strategy that ultimately benefits neither ingroup nor outgroup. In experimental Study 3, inducing ingroup disadvantage led to a greater tendency to maximize the difference. The results provide evidence that defensive national identity might be liked to support for policies that offer a positive intergroup comparison, but simultaneously harm one’s own ingroup.","PeriodicalId":21853,"journal":{"name":"Social Psychological and Personality Science","volume":"331 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.7,"publicationDate":"2023-07-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76303011","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Perceptions of Bisexual Individuals Depend on Target Gender","authors":"Emma L. McGorray, Christopher D. Petsko","doi":"10.1177/19485506231183467","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/19485506231183467","url":null,"abstract":"Across three experiments (total N = 1,149), we examine whether bisexual men (more so than women) are viewed as similar to their same-gender gay counterparts and whether bisexual women (more so than men) are viewed as similar to their same-gender heterosexual counterparts. We find support for the notion that bisexual men are stereotyped as more similar to their gay counterparts than bisexual women are. These perceptions of bisexual targets’ stereotypical similarity to their gay counterparts were linked to identity-denying perceptions that bisexual individuals are “actually gay,” a belief held more strongly about bisexual men (vs. women). Bisexual men and women were viewed as possessing stereotypically heterosexual characteristics to similar extents, although bisexual women (vs. men) were indeed more strongly characterized by the identity-denying belief that they are “actually heterosexual.” Collectively, these findings suggest that bisexual men and women encounter different challenges to their identities that may require different interventions.","PeriodicalId":21853,"journal":{"name":"Social Psychological and Personality Science","volume":"46 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.7,"publicationDate":"2023-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73804023","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Giuliana Spadaro, James H. Liu, R. Zhang, Homero Gil de Zúñiga, D. Balliet
{"title":"Identity and Institutions as Foundations of Ingroup Favoritism: An Investigation Across 17 Countries","authors":"Giuliana Spadaro, James H. Liu, R. Zhang, Homero Gil de Zúñiga, D. Balliet","doi":"10.1177/19485506231172330","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/19485506231172330","url":null,"abstract":"Ingroup favoritism can represent a challenge for establishing cooperation beyond group boundaries. In a behavioral experiment conducted across 17 societies ( N = 3,236), we tested pre-registered hypotheses forwarded by social identity and material security frameworks to account for ingroup favoritism in trust toward national ingroups. We related individual-level measures of national identification and perception of institutions to trust, trustworthiness, and behavioral expectations of partner’s trustworthiness toward a national ingroup, outgroup, or unidentified stranger in a trust game. Our findings support a social identity framework, as national identification was positively associated with greater ingroup favoritism. However, in contrast to predictions from a material security framework, perceptions of national institutions as trustworthy and benevolent were positively associated with greater ingroup favoritism. These findings suggest some potential challenges that support for national institutions might pose to the establishment of trust beyond group borders.","PeriodicalId":21853,"journal":{"name":"Social Psychological and Personality Science","volume":"7 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.7,"publicationDate":"2023-06-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78440525","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Do Conspiracy Theories Shape or Rationalize Vaccination Hesitancy Over Time?","authors":"Jan-Willem van Prooijen, Nienke Böhm","doi":"10.1177/19485506231181659","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/19485506231181659","url":null,"abstract":"Conspiracy beliefs are associated with vaccination hesitancy, which is commonly interpreted as evidence that conspiracy theories contribute to a worldview that damages public health. An alternative, and often ignored, explanation for this relationship is that people may rationalize their existing vaccination hesitancy through conspiracy theories. In two panel studies conducted at multiple time points during the vaccination campaign of 2021, we tested the temporal relationships between COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs and vaccination intentions. Study 1 (three waves in a Dutch sample) provided evidence for temporal effects of conspiracy beliefs on vaccination hesitancy and of vaccination hesitancy on conspiracy beliefs. Study 2 (two waves in a U.S. sample), however, only supported an effect of vaccination hesitancy on conspiracy beliefs over time. Although these findings provide some support for the idea that conspiracy beliefs shape increased vaccination hesitancy, they more consistently support the alternative idea that vaccination hesitancy shapes increased conspiracy beliefs.","PeriodicalId":21853,"journal":{"name":"Social Psychological and Personality Science","volume":"23 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135187838","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Is It Safe for Us to Be Together Again? Identity, Trust, and Perceived Risk at Mass Events During the COVID-19 Pandemic","authors":"T. Morton, Séamus A. Power","doi":"10.1177/19485506231179769","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/19485506231179769","url":null,"abstract":"Three years after the outbreak of COVID-19, governments are still working toward a return to “normal life.” Yet, the twin forces of ongoing disease threat and progressively relaxing restrictions raise important questions about whether, where, and when people feel safe. We analyzed data from post-event surveys of participants at live events held across Denmark between June and November 2021 (nindividuals = 4,932; nevents = 79). Consistent with the social identity model of risk-taking, identification with the audience, trust in others, and felt safety were interrelated. Multi-level modeling revealed that audiences responded to the heightened risk posed by crowds after COVID-related attendance restrictions were lifted, but also that individual differences in identification blunted the connection between crowd density at events and individual feelings of trust and safety. These findings point to a potential identity-based slippage between felt safety and actual safety in the context of collective participation and disease threat.","PeriodicalId":21853,"journal":{"name":"Social Psychological and Personality Science","volume":"45 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.7,"publicationDate":"2023-06-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90492498","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Efrén O. Pérez, Jessica HyunJeong Lee, Ana L Oaxaca, Tania Solano Cervantes, Jasmine García Rodríguez, Kimberly Lam, David McFall
{"title":"Manifold Threats to White Identity and Their Political Effects on White Partisans","authors":"Efrén O. Pérez, Jessica HyunJeong Lee, Ana L Oaxaca, Tania Solano Cervantes, Jasmine García Rodríguez, Kimberly Lam, David McFall","doi":"10.1177/19485506231180650","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/19485506231180650","url":null,"abstract":"We investigate how threats to White identity operate among White Democrats and Republicans. We evaluate four identity threats that prior work has underexplored: distinctiveness threat (loss of unique ingroup attributes), power threat (perceiving outgroup collusion), morality threat (impugning an ingroup’s integrity), and meritocratic threat (questioning an ingroup’s advantages). We pinpoint which threats catalyze White identity among specific partisans—and with what political consequences. Leveraging a pre-registered experiment with 2,000 White Democrats and 2,000 White Republicans, we find most identity threats significantly catalyze White identity among all partisans at comparable intensity ( d = .20). However, among White Democrats, a heightened sense of racial identity generates more downstream opposition to pro-outgroup policies (e.g., pathway to immigrant citizenship) and greater support for pro-ingroup policies (i.e., legacy college admissions) than among White Republicans. These indirect effects are highly robust and underscore White identity’s viability as a key mechanism behind contemporary partisan politics.","PeriodicalId":21853,"journal":{"name":"Social Psychological and Personality Science","volume":"84 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.7,"publicationDate":"2023-06-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83067781","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Abstraction Allows Susceptibility to the Perspective of Others: The Case of Decreased Public Self-Awareness Due to Concrete Thinking","authors":"Jochim Hansen, Nicole Neumeier, Magdalena Höller","doi":"10.1177/19485506231179772","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/19485506231179772","url":null,"abstract":"The ability to process information abstractly functions to traverse psychological distance and expand one’s mental horizons. Therefore, abstract (vs. concrete) thinking may expand (vs. contract) one’s social scope. Accordingly, it was hypothesized that concrete (vs. abstract) processing makes one less (vs. more) susceptible to the perspective of others, attenuating (vs. increasing) public—but not private—self-awareness. Four studies (total N = 708) tested this idea. In a pilot study, a positive correlation between abstraction and public (but not private) self-awareness was found. In Studies 1a, 1b, and 2, manipulated concrete (vs. abstract) thinking reduced public self-awareness but not private self-awareness. Study 1b additionally indicated that public self-awareness was reduced by concrete thinking rather than increased by abstract thinking. Study 2 also investigated the effect of abstraction on social anxiety and embarrassment. It was demonstrated that concrete (relative abstract) thinking indirectly reduced social anxiety and embarrassment via public self-awareness. Implications of the findings are discussed.","PeriodicalId":21853,"journal":{"name":"Social Psychological and Personality Science","volume":"40 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.7,"publicationDate":"2023-06-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81299256","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
L. Fan, C. Molho, Tom R. Kupfer, D. Sauter, J. Tybur
{"title":"Beyond Outrage: Observers Anticipate Different Behaviors From Expressors of Anger Versus Disgust","authors":"L. Fan, C. Molho, Tom R. Kupfer, D. Sauter, J. Tybur","doi":"10.1177/19485506231176954","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/19485506231176954","url":null,"abstract":"The modern world affords unprecedented opportunities for individuals to express moral sentiments. The widespread distribution of one specific type of sentiment — outrage — has consequences for social and political harmony. The current investigation contributes to better understanding these consequences by examining what types of aggression people expect from the outraged. Furthermore, it delineates how these expectations are shaped by the emotion used to express outrage. Three pre-registered studies ( N’s = 800, 1630, 1100) revealed that people infer different types of aggression from individuals who expressed anger nonverbally compared with those who expressed disgust nonverbally. Perceptions that the outraged individual was angry corresponded with expectations of direct aggression rather than indirect aggression, whereas perceptions that the outraged individual was disgusted corresponded with expectations of indirect aggression rather than direct aggression. These results revealed that the distinct emotions used to communicate outrage shape observers’ expectations of how moral conflicts will unfold.","PeriodicalId":21853,"journal":{"name":"Social Psychological and Personality Science","volume":"13 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.7,"publicationDate":"2023-06-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85667176","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}