Social Psychological Bulletin

The Function of Feeling Kama Muta in Face of Collective Threat

2025-02-05T01:39:15-08:00

Kama muta is a positive emotion that is commonly elicited against a backdrop of difficulties and reorients one’s values towards priorities in life. Hence, we expect kama muta to cause similar beneficial shifts in attitudes, when exposed to collective threat such as natural disasters. In these contexts, kama muta may help to build individuals’ resources for prosocial action, through mechanisms like reducing the perceived burden of their own personal problems. As such, the current research proposes that kama muta reduces negative attitudes towards one's personal problems (personal problem appraisals) and is simultaneously enhanced by exposure to collective threat. Across three studies on Japanese participants (N = 725), we found that participants' experiences of kama muta predicted alleviations in their personal problem appraisals, even after controlling for other positive emotions. However, kama muta was not enhanced by experimental manipulation of collective threat contexts, but was instead positively correlated with subjective perceptions of the societal impact of these threats.

Civic Engagement and Civic Competences in Adolescence: A Gender-Based Perspective

2025-02-05T01:39:17-08:00

As outlined by the Council of Europe’s Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture (RFCDC), civic competences are core elements for active participation in a democratic society. This study aimed to examine the linkages between four civic competences (empathy, respect, responsibility, and cooperation) and civic engagement (attitudes and behaviors) during adolescence, as well as test the potential role played by gender, both as a covariate and a moderator. We recruited a sample of 446 adolescents (70% females; M_age = 16.51, SD = 1.35) from a high school in Southern Italy and administered a set of online self-report scales: civic attitudes and behaviors were evaluated through the Civic Engagement Scale; empathy was assessed through the Empathic Concern subscale of the Brief Interpersonal Reactivity Index; cooperation was assessed through the Cooperation Scale; responsibility and respect were measured through a set of descriptors provided by the RFCDC. A Structural Equation Model (SEM) was run to test the hypothesized associations, and a series of multiple group SEM was performed to evaluate the moderating role of gender on the relations between civic competences and civic engagement. Our findings showed only empathy and cooperation were positively and significantly related to civic attitudes and civic behaviors. Gender differences were found for empathy, cooperation, and respect, with girls reporting higher levels than boys. Adolescents’ gender was also found to be a significant moderator of relations linking empathy, cooperation and respect with civic engagement. Limitations and implications are discussed.

Being Critical Is Innovative: Constructive Patriotism and Collective Actions Are Related to Social Entrepreneurship Intentions

2024-12-19T00:54:21-08:00

Social entrepreneurship, characterized by the development of innovative business solutions for sociocultural and environmental issues, has attracted the interest of psychologists in recent years. Previous work has highlighted the important role of personality and cognitive factors in understanding why individuals become social entrepreneurs. However, less attention has been dedicated to how different variables studied in the group processes literature relate to the formation of intentions toward social entrepreneurship. One possible approach to understanding psychological factors that correlate with social entrepreneurship intentions is the feeling of attachment to one's national group. Constructive patriotism, defined by the support for the ingroup through constructive criticism, shows stronger relations with progressivism and innovation than blind patriotism. We proposed that constructive patriotism, but not its blind counterpart, positively predicts social entrepreneurship intentions by increasing positive change collective action intentions. Two cross-sectional studies (N = 514) showed that constructive, but not blind patriotism, was positively related to social entrepreneurship intentions. Furthermore, constructive patriotism was related to social entrepreneurship intentions through greater levels of collective action intentions. The same mediational pattern did not hold when blind patriotism was considered a predictor of social entrepreneurship intentions. Specifically, being devoted to one's nation and questioning its harmful policies might predict social entrepreneurship intentions through stronger inclinations for social change actions.

Dating a Vegetarian? Perception of Masculinity, Attractiveness, and the Willingness to Date Vegetarians

2024-12-19T00:54:15-08:00

The study examined how following a vegetarian diet affects the attractiveness of a potential dating partner among those who do not follow a vegetarian diet. Participants, 404 heterosexual meat-eaters, took part in an online experiment in which they evaluated the dating profile of a target person who was described as following a vegetarian diet for health, ethical, or environmental reasons, and a control condition that had no description of the target’s diet. Participants rated the target in terms of a feeling thermometer, willingness to date, gender congruence, and possession of masculine and feminine traits. Participant’s level of identification as a meat-eater was also measured. A series of two (participant gender) by four (target diet) ANOVAs found significant interactions in the analyses of the feeling thermometer ratings, showing that women viewed ethically motivated targets less positively than men did. We also found significant main effects of target diet in willingness to date, gender congruence, and possession of feminine and masculine traits. Meat-eaters evaluated targets with no diet information more positively than the health-motivated target. Controlling for identification as a meat-eater, women evaluated ethically-motivated targets as having less feminine traits than men did. The present results suggest that being a vegetarian makes a person less attractive as a potential partner among omnivores, who constitute the majority of people in most Western, industrialized countries.

Is the Role Attributed to Value Congruence in Transformational Leadership Theory a Case of Missing the Forest for the Trees? An Exploratory Study

2024-12-19T00:54:03-08:00

Value congruence between followers and leaders is considered to be a keystone of transformational leadership. However, we do not know whether congruence is important regardless of the content of values, of the leadership behavior assessed, and whether the patterns are stable across leaders. To address these gaps, we recruited a sample of 300 participants, representative of the U.S. population in terms of age, sex, and race, five days before the 2020 U.S. presidential elections. Participants assessed their own values as well as the values and transformational leadership of two presidential candidates. We explored the relationships between variables through multiple specifications of polynomial regressions and lasso regressions. Our results do not suggest that value congruence is particularly importantly related to transformational leadership; however, they do point to an important contribution by perceived leader benevolence. Based on these results, we conclude that the focus on value congruence in the leadership literature might be a case of missing the forest for the trees.

How Early Onset of COVID-19 Changed Vaccine-Related Attitudes: A Longitudinal Study

2024-10-14T00:17:38-07:00

The paper investigates how the onset of the global COVID-19 pandemic has influenced the attitudes and beliefs of a previously anti-vaccine and vaccine-undecided population: how it changed their anti-vaccine beliefs and related arguments, perceptions of scientists’ credibility, as well as what their beliefs about COVID-19 are and what protective action they undertake against it. We used preexisting data from a 2018 study, where we identified groups of anti-vaccine and vaccine-undecided individuals (N = 365) whom we reached out to again in April/May 2020 (during the first months of the pandemic, when no COVID-19 vaccine was available). An online survey was used to measure changes in attitudes toward vaccination, reasons for vaccine rejection, attitudes toward scientists, and (at Measure 2) to measure attitudes toward COVID-19 and protective action against it. Results indicated a general pro-vaccine shift in attitudes, as well as reduced support for all anti-vaccine arguments. Surprisingly, we also found a negative shift in the sample’s perceptions of scientists’ agency and communion. Anti-vaccine individuals were also much less likely to employ any protective measures and had the lowest levels of fear associated with COVID-19. These results show that the initial stages of the COVID-19 outbreak caused a positive change in vaccine attitudes, especially in the vaccine-undecided group. At the same time, strongly anti-vaccine individuals were likely to reject protection against COVID.

Tweeting About a Revolution? A Cross-National Analysis of Tweets on Climate Change During the Rise of “Fridays for Future”

2024-09-20T00:47:48-07:00

In 2018, thanks to the use of social media, the Fridays for Future (FFF) movement brought global attention to climate change. However, in the post-Covid era, the rhetoric of a return to normality seems to have marginalized those issues from the media debate. Looking at the emergence of FFF, the paper applies topic detection to analyze 19,112 tweets on climate change. The emerging contents of social representations are examined in relation to sociocultural (power distance; individualism; uncertainty avoidance; long-term orientation) and structural (level of pollution) factors associated with the country of origin of the tweets. The primary topic among those identified focuses on calls to action, particularly related to the FFF movement. When this topic is absent, others address efforts to mitigate global warming or strategies for adapting to climate change impacts. The main results indicate that tweets from the most polluted countries and from countries high in short-term orientation are more centered on topics concerning a posteriori response to climate change, also denying it as a defense mechanism. This could prevent imagining alternative futures and the projection of concrete means of countering climate change. The study suggests the importance of transcending the on-line and off-line distinction, not only for mobilization but also to form an arena for debate toward social change.

Profit Motives, Environmental Motives, and Perceived Corporate Greenwashing Revisited: A Replication and Extension of de Vries et al. (2015)

2024-09-20T07:13:07-07:00

As the climate change crisis has become more evident, a growing number of businesses and organizations have gotten involved in sustainability efforts. But not all corporate sustainability efforts are applauded: sometimes the public accuses companies of greenwashing, i.e., overstating the extent to which the company is environmentally friendly. There is little research on the factors that influence perceived greenwashing amongst the public. Here, we report a replication and extension of one of the few studies of this topic, Experiment 2 in de Vries et al. (2015, https://doi.org/10.1002/csr.1327). The original study found that people perceived more greenwashing when an oil company communicated an environmental motive for a sustainability investment (carbon capture and storage), as opposed to a profit motive, d = 0.98 [0.37, 1.59]. The present pre-registered replication (n = 516) did not find support for this effect, with very little difference in perceived greenwashing depending on communicated motive, d = -0.09 [-0.38, 0.21]. As extensions, we included a condition where a mixed motive (both environment and profits) was communicated, tested the effect using a different type of company than the original, included a measure of general attitudes to the company in addition to perceived greenwashing, and included measures of individual differences in attitudes towards corporate social responsibility and belief in climate change. The most noteworthy exploratory finding was that attitudes were more positive when an environmental or a mixed motive was communicated rather than a profit motive.

Tolerating Injustice When Feeling in Control: Personal Control Enhances the Link Between Collectivism and Coercion in the Face of Disease Threats

2024-09-09T00:17:00-07:00

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, authorities worldwide imposed coercive regulations aimed at curbing the virus’s spread, often at the expense of individuals who were considered potential threats to public health. We argue that individual differences in their support for such actions can be understood from the perspective of an evolved “behavioral immune system”. We conducted two studies within the context of the “zero-COVID” policy in Mainland China. Study 1 recruited 819 Shanghai residents during a strict citywide lockdown and found that individuals’ collectivistic orientation and personal control over their lives predicted their tolerance of injustices involved in disease-control measures. Moreover, the effect of psychological collectivism was enhanced by personal control. Study 2 (N = 403) partly replicated these findings using hypothetical scenarios related to various fictitious viruses. Notably, the effects found in Study 1 only manifested in scenarios involving ambivalent pathogens, which are seldom fatal but highly contagious. Building on the functional flexibility principle of the behavioral immune system theory, we discussed the unique role of ambivalent pathogen signals in generating within-society variability and fine-tuning behavioral immune responses.

“Too Posh to Push?” Self-Stigmatization in Childbirth

2024-08-15T23:51:26-07:00

Self-stigmatization after intervention-rich births (e.g., via C-section) is an anecdotally well-documented phenomenon. The aim of the present paper was to address this issue empirically. In doing so, we assessed 1,743 mothers who had required medical interventions to give birth and developed a psychometrically sound questionnaire—the Labor and Birth Self-Stigmatization Scale (LBS)—to measure birth-related self-stigmatization. We tested and confirmed the hypothesis that birth-related self-stigmatization was associated with a more negative birth experience, explaining incremental validity over, e.g., neuroticism and self-esteem. Results further revealed that the strongest, but not the only, predictor of self-stigmatization was having a C-section. Participants’ birth-related mindset moderated the negative correlation between self-stigmatization and birth experience, with a more natural mindset strengthening the negative association. The results of the present study illustrate the close association of birth and psychological factors and highlight the importance of studying and understanding self-stigmatization after childbirth.