Tjits van Lent , Gijsbert Bijlstra , Rob W. Holland , Erik Bijleveld , Harm Veling
{"title":"On rewarded actions and punishment-avoidant inactions: The action–valence asymmetry in face perception","authors":"Tjits van Lent , Gijsbert Bijlstra , Rob W. Holland , Erik Bijleveld , Harm Veling","doi":"10.1016/j.jesp.2025.104754","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jesp.2025.104754","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Although social interactions are ubiquitous, people often choose <em>not</em> to interact with others—for example, people may choose to not greet a stranger, to not talk to a colleague at work, or to ignore a text message from a friend. Here, we systematically investigate how people's actions, inactions, and their consequences (rewards and punishments) affect impressions. In four preregistered experiments (<em>N</em> = 240), we used a reinforcement learning go/no-go task, in which people learned to act or not act to images of fractals/faces to obtain rewards or avoid punishments. Findings replicated the action–valence asymmetry in learning (Experiments 1–4): People more easily learned to act when acting led to the attainment of rewards (vs. the avoidance of punishments), while people learned inactions more easily when these inactions led to the avoidance of punishments (vs. the attainment of rewards). Our experiments demonstrate that these action–valence asymmetries extend to social stimuli (Experiment 2 ingroup faces; Experiment 3 outgroup faces; Experiment 4 ingroup and outgroup faces) and that they affect subsequent impressions. That is, people evaluated faces most positively when acting had previously led to the attainment of rewards; people evaluated faces most negatively when <em>not</em> acting had previously led to the avoidance of punishment. We discuss our findings in light of the approach–avoidance literature. This work has implications for our understanding of the role of inactions in social contexts: It shows evidence that inactions lead to less positive impressions than actions, over and above the effect of punishment signals.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48441,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Social Psychology","volume":"119 ","pages":"Article 104754"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-04-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143816838","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":"When everything is at stake: Understanding support for radical collective actions and collective victimhood through anger in a post-conflict setting","authors":"Islam Borinca, Russell Spears","doi":"10.1016/j.jesp.2025.104752","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jesp.2025.104752","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In post-conflict societies, peace and safety often depend on political and economic support from international organizations. But what happens when this support is withdrawn? To investigate this question, we conducted two cross-sectional (<em>N</em> = 832) and one two-wave longitudinal experiment (with waves two weeks apart, Wave 1: <em>N</em> = 416; Wave 2: <em>N</em> = 400) in the post-conflict context of Kosovo, exposing disadvantaged group members (Kosovo Albanians) to information suggesting that relevant organizations (i.e., NATO and the EU) were no longer (vs. still) supporting them. Withdrawal of international support was framed as a psychological experience of perceived abandonment and heightened uncertainty, reinforcing concerns about group security and international exclusion. Results showed that withdrawing either political (NATO) or economic (EU) support independently increased anger toward historical antagonists, support for radical collective action, perceptions of ingroup radicalization, and collective victimhood. Crucially, the combined withdrawal of both intensified these effects, highlighting the interplay between political and economic instability in shaping intergroup attitudes. Anger toward historical antagonists mediated these effects, and the two-wave experiment confirmed that the impact of withdrawn support persisted over time. This article discusses the theoretical and practical implications of these findings for collective action and intergroup relations.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48441,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Social Psychology","volume":"119 ","pages":"Article 104752"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-04-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143816834","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":"Exploring the gender-portion association in stereotypes, cognition, and treatment","authors":"Elisabeth Irvine, William Li, Jordan Axt","doi":"10.1016/j.jesp.2025.104755","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jesp.2025.104755","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Gender stereotypes take many forms. One relatively under-studied stereotype concerns gender and food. While prior work finds certain foods are viewed as more masculine or feminine, there is limited research on how the same food becomes gendered depending on portion size. Four studies (<em>N</em> = 2178) found that 1) participants held implicit and explicit associations between men with large portions and women with small portions, and 2) participants had better memory for counter-stereotypical pairings (e.g., women with large portions) than stereotype-consistent pairings. However, a field experiment (<em>N</em> = 182) failed to produce strong evidence that this association impacted behavior, as men did not receive reliably larger portions than women when being prepared identical orders during face-to-face interactions with servers at fast casual restaurants. These findings highlight the strength of the gender-portion association in cognition but suggest other factors (e.g., standardization) may constrain its influence on behavior.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48441,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Social Psychology","volume":"119 ","pages":"Article 104755"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-04-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143800196","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Undoing harm: The communicative content of action-oriented and person-oriented punishment","authors":"Christian Mott, Larisa Heiphetz Solomon","doi":"10.1016/j.jesp.2025.104749","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jesp.2025.104749","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Punishment can serve as a form of communication: People use punishment to express information to its recipients and interpret punishment between third parties as having communicative content. Prior work on the expressive function of punishment has primarily investigated the capacity of punishment in general to communicate a single type of message – e.g., that the punished behavior violated an important norm. The present work expands this framework by testing whether different types of punishment communicate different messages. We distinguish between <em>person-oriented</em> punishments, which seek to harm the recipient, and <em>action-oriented</em> punishments, which seek to undo a harmful action. We show that people interpret action-oriented punishments, compared to person-oriented punishments, to indicate that the recipient will change for the better (Study 1). The communicative theory can explain this finding if people understand action-oriented punishment to send a message that is more effective than person-oriented punishment at causing such a change. Supporting this explanation, inferences about future behavior track the recipients' beliefs about the punishment they received, rather than the punisher's intentions or the actual punishment imposed (Study 2). Indeed, when actual recipients of a person-oriented punishment believed they received an action-oriented punishment and vice versa, predictions of future behavior tracked the recipients' beliefs rather than reality, and judgments about what the recipients learned from the punishments mediated this effect (Study 3). Together, these studies demonstrate that laypeople think different types of punishment send different messages to recipients and that these messages are differentially effective at bringing about behavioral changes.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48441,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Social Psychology","volume":"119 ","pages":"Article 104749"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-04-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143767766","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":"Effects of moral stereotypes on the formation and persistence of group preferences","authors":"Inga K. Rösler , Isabel Kerber , David M. Amodio","doi":"10.1016/j.jesp.2025.104750","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jesp.2025.104750","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Do stereotypes have a stronger and more persistent effect on impressions when they are moral in tone? In two experiments (<em>N</em> = 187), participants interacted with members of two groups in an interactive social decision game, modeled on a reward reinforcement task, in which they formed impressions of players based on their feedback. Prior to the task, participants were exposed to positive or negative group stereotypes that were moral or nonmoral in content. Although players from each group were, on average, equally likely to provide reward feedback, participants formed behavioral choice preferences for players from positively-stereotyped groups over negatively-stereotyped groups. Importantly, this effect was moderated by the moral content of the stereotypes: in the moral stereotype condition, participants formed more extreme initial expectancies for players' feedback and showed more resistance to updating in response to stereotype-disconfirming feedback, whereas in the nonmoral stereotype condition, initial expectancies were weaker and preferences were updated over time to match players' actual feedback. Study 2 replicated this effect and additionally showed that moral stereotypes generalize more strongly to impressions of novel group members compared with nonmoral stereotypes. Computational modeling suggests this moral stereotype effect is due to extreme initial expectancies combined with group-based updating of member impressions. Together, these studies demonstrate that moral stereotypes have a stronger influence on person impressions than nonmoral stereotypes, and that they do so by inducing stronger expectancies for a group member's behavior while impairing individuated updating.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48441,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Social Psychology","volume":"119 ","pages":"Article 104750"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-03-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143725786","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Sybille Neji , Miles Hewstone , Chloe Bracegirdle , Oliver Christ
{"title":"Perceived outgroup entitativity mediates stronger effects of intergroup contact for majority than minority status groups","authors":"Sybille Neji , Miles Hewstone , Chloe Bracegirdle , Oliver Christ","doi":"10.1016/j.jesp.2025.104748","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jesp.2025.104748","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Positive intergroup contact reduces prejudice. However, the strength of intergroup contact effects is typically weaker for members of minority as compared to majority groups. Research on perceived outgroup entitativity (i.e., the extent to which an aggregate of people is perceived as a unified whole) has shown that minority group members perceive the majority outgroup as less entitative, while majority group members perceive the outgroup minority as comparatively more entitative. Moreover, there is evidence that people generalize the effects of intergroup contact from a single outgroup member to the outgroup as a whole more strongly when they perceive outgroups as more (versus less) entitative. We integrate these different lines of research and propose that the difference in the strength of intergroup contact effects between numerical majorities and minorities may be explained, in part, by differences in perceived outgroup entitativity. We conducted two preregistered experiments using a minimal group paradigm (<em>N</em><sub>1</sub> = 347, <em>N</em><sub>2</sub> = 396) in which we manipulated numerical majority-minority group status (Study 1 and 2) as well as outgroup entitativity (Study 2). In Study 2, we applied a parallel design combining measurement of the mediation and manipulation of the mediator to provide stronger evidence for a causal process. The results were in line with our hypotheses: perceived outgroup entitativity mediated the differential effect of intergroup contact for numerical majority versus minority groups. Implications for future research are discussed, including the need to investigate whether entitativity explains differences in intergroup contact effects among various real-life groups.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48441,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Social Psychology","volume":"119 ","pages":"Article 104748"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-03-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143677740","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Hsuan-Che (Brad) Huang , Ruodan Shao , Ann E. Tenbrunsel , Kristina A. Diekmann , Daniel P. Skarlicki
{"title":"The plurality effect: People are more dishonest toward group than individual targets","authors":"Hsuan-Che (Brad) Huang , Ruodan Shao , Ann E. Tenbrunsel , Kristina A. Diekmann , Daniel P. Skarlicki","doi":"10.1016/j.jesp.2025.104746","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jesp.2025.104746","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Prior research on the relationship between group versus individual targets and unethical behavior directed toward those targets is incomplete. Extending this line of research, the present paper examines whether individuals engage in more dishonest behaviors when interacting with a group (vs. an individual). Across six experiments and three supplemental studies (<em>N</em> = 2376), we found that individuals demonstrated more dishonesty toward groups as opposed to individual targets, which we label the <em>plurality effect</em>. This effect was observed across a variety of situations (both low-stakes and high-stakes contexts with real monetary payouts), including when providing advice to others with an incentive to be dishonest, in employment interviews, and in negotiations. Mediation tests revealed that participants experienced lower moral concern when the target was a group versus an individual, and this finding held after testing for alternative explanations. Group membership and collectivism jointly moderated the effect, such that the plurality effect was stronger for targets who are members of the decision makers outgroup (vs. ingroup) among decision makers with high (vs. low) collectivistic values.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48441,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Social Psychology","volume":"119 ","pages":"Article 104746"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-03-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143611650","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Mathias Twardawski , Moritz Fischer , Philipp Agostini , Johannes Schwabe , Mario Gollwitzer
{"title":"The role of just-world beliefs, victim identifiability, and the salience of an alternative target for victim blaming","authors":"Mathias Twardawski , Moritz Fischer , Philipp Agostini , Johannes Schwabe , Mario Gollwitzer","doi":"10.1016/j.jesp.2025.104721","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jesp.2025.104721","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Victim blaming—the tendency to attribute responsibility and blame to innocent victims—is associated with people's belief that the world is a just place where everybody gets what they deserve and deserves what they get. In the present research, we examine the extent to which the relationship between just-world beliefs and victim blaming depends on (a) whether or not the victim is identifiable and (b) whether or not another involved person is salient (e.g., an offender). Results from a pre-registered pilot experiment (Study 1; <em>N</em> = 363) suggest that, in the absence of a salient offender, identifying information about the victim (vs. no information) increased the relationship between just-world beliefs and victim blaming. In contrast, when there was a salient offender, identifying information about the victim (vs. no information) decreased this relationship. We attempted to replicate these findings in a pre-registered experiment (Study 2; <em>N</em> = 1143), implementing several changes to the design to address some limitations of Study 1. Here, we only found main effects of just-world beliefs and the salience of a second person, but none of the hypothesized interaction effects. Possible explanations and implications are discussed.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48441,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Social Psychology","volume":"119 ","pages":"Article 104721"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-03-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143551837","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Harrison Oakes , Richard P. Eibach, Hilary B. Bergsieker
{"title":"Closets breed suspicion: Environments that stigmatize concealable identities cast doubt on claims to non-stigmatized identities","authors":"Harrison Oakes , Richard P. Eibach, Hilary B. Bergsieker","doi":"10.1016/j.jesp.2025.104736","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jesp.2025.104736","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Social environments that stigmatize concealable identities increase observers' suspicion that an individual's claimed identity is not their “true” identity. Identity-stigmatizing environments incentivize “closeting” (i.e., concealing) targeted identities, rendering claims to contrasting non-stigmatized identities ambiguous (e.g., self-protective? self-expressive?). Such ambiguity fosters <em>identity suspicion</em>. In three experimental studies with nine adult American samples (<em>N</em> = 3148), participants expressed more suspicion about an individual's claim to a non-stigmatized concealable identity within an environment that stigmatized (vs. affirmed) the contrasting concealable sexual (<em>d</em> = 0.40) or religious (<em>d</em> = 0.70) identity. Identity suspicion was strongest for individuals with attributes stereotypically associated with the stigmatized identity but persisted even for individuals with attributes stereotypically associated with the <em>non-stigmatized</em> identity (Study 2). Observers' perceived likelihood of identity suspicion predicted their perceived incentive for individuals to conceal attributes stereotypically associated with the stigmatized identity, even to the point of incurring personal costs (Study 1f).</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48441,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Social Psychology","volume":"119 ","pages":"Article 104736"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-03-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143551836","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}
Janis H. Zickfeld, Ana Sofía Ramirez Gonzalez, Panagiotis Mitkidis
{"title":"Investigating the morning morality effect and its mediating and moderating factors","authors":"Janis H. Zickfeld, Ana Sofía Ramirez Gonzalez, Panagiotis Mitkidis","doi":"10.1016/j.jesp.2024.104698","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jesp.2024.104698","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Dishonest behavior is a prevalent phenomenon, and recent studies have suggested that seemingly trivial factors, such as the time of the day, can influence individuals' propensity to act dishonestly. Specifically, research has identified a phenomenon known as the <em>Morning Morality Effect</em>, where participants exhibit greater dishonesty during the afternoon or evening than in the morning. However, recent investigations have questioned the validity of this effect and its theoretical basis, with limited high-powered replications to support its existence. This conceptual replication revisited the morning morality effect and its possible mediating factors, including self-control and subjective sleepiness, and moderating factors, including chronotype, unhealthy sleep, age, caffeine intake, and honesty-humility. We conducted an online study across <em>N</em> = 1006 UK-based participants who were randomly allocated to perform a repeated die roll task during morning or evening hours, while also controlling for their chronotypes. Our study revealed the absence of evidence for a morning morality effect (<em>OR</em> = 1.04 [95 % CI 0.93, 1.17]) when testing it against a practically meaningful effect, which was also supported when meta-analyzing the current and previous studies (<em>d =</em> 0.04 [−0.01, 0.10]). We did not observe significant effects for any of the proposed mediators or moderators. Exploration revealed some evidence that higher levels of self-control in the evening for evening chronotypes were associated with higher die roll reports. Altogether, the current study calls the morning morality effect further into question and appeals for more valid and concrete theorizing on the link among time of the day, self-control, and dishonesty.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48441,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Social Psychology","volume":"118 ","pages":"Article 104698"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-02-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143480239","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}