It is necessary to understand the causal mechanism of aggressive behavior toward out-group members (out-group aggression) to prevent tragic intergroup conflicts. Recent research suggests that individuals sometimes engage in out-group aggression to maintain their reputation. However, it remains unclear how people actually evaluate those who engage in out-group aggression (intergroup aggressors). Across three experiments—a vignette-based study (Study 1) and two economic game studies (Studies 2, 3)—we examined how situational factors influence the reputation of intergroup aggressors. The results demonstrated that intergroup aggressors’ reputation improved under conflicting interests between groups. This effect was caused by the fact that intergroup aggressors in such situations benefit their in-group, rather than simply by harming the out-group. In addition, the perceived prosocial motivation of intergroup aggressors was shown to be an important determinant of their reputation. Our findings are consistent with the idea that reputation plays an important role in the emergence and escalation of intergroup conflict and provide important implications for intergroup conflict prevention.
A widely publicized prophecy proclaiming that a major disaster would strike Japan on July 5, 2025 was disconfirmed, providing a rare opportunity to examine public reactions to a failed prophecy. Two surveys were administered before (July 3) and after (July 10) the predicted date; Japanese adults who completed both waves ( N = 318) provided matched pre–post data. We first tested prophecy belief by relating pre-survey belief to individual differences in reflective thinking, scientific reasoning, and conspiracy mentality. We subsequently assessed hindsight and retrospective biases by comparing pre- and post-July 5 belief ratings, anxiety, and precautionary actions (stockpiling, schedule changes, information sharing). Finally, we evaluated “moving the goal-post” using linear mixed-effects models predicting three prophecy-fulfillment criteria (casualties, location, temporal window) using survey time, pre-survey belief, and their interactions. Pre-survey belief was negatively related to reflective thinking and scientific reasoning and positively related to conspiracy mentality. Paired-samples t-tests yielded a pattern consistent with memory reconstruction: after learning that the prophecy failed, participants recalled lower pre-prophecy belief, anxiety, and precautionary actions than initially reported. In the mixed-effects models, evidence of goal-post moving emerged only for the temporal window criterion: the effect of time was significantly positive at high (+1 SD) prior belief but non-significant at low (-1 SD); no interactions appeared for casualties or location. Overall, susceptibility to unfounded claims varied with cognitive style and conspiracy mentality, and learning that the prophecy failed led to post-hoc changes in both recollection and evaluative criteria.
Societal threat perception, worry, and issue salience are central to research in psychology and political science, and previous research suggests considerable overlap between the three measures. Nevertheless, they have not yet been empirically distinguished. This study addresses whether the empirical patterns of these three measures are consistent and whether they yield congruent conclusions about political ideology across twelve societal issues. Using data from a diverse Dutch sample (N = 1863), we first show that threat and worry, but not salience, produce similar empirical patterns in terms of means and correlations, as citizens find issues more important than threatening or worrying. Next, we find that threat and worry correlate overall similarly with ideology -- but also highlight exceptions -- whereas issue salience often overestimates this relationship (Type M error) but rarely reverses its direction (Type S error). These findings clarify the unique roles of threat, worry, and issue salience in (political) psychology, offering a framework for future research on the threat-politics link.
Across 4 correlational studies, using currently unresolved separatist conflicts in West Papua, Indonesia as a contextual background, our work aimed to examine the role of beliefs in foreign country conspiracies in igniting negative reactions of members of a non-separatist society when responding to a political issue. Study 1 ( N = 88) constitutes a preliminary investigation revealing that beliefs in foreign country conspiracies, referring to the extent to which non-separatist members believe that foreign countries have clandestinely backed up the separatist group, positively corresponded to the legitimization of the separatist group as a terrorist organization. In Study 2 ( N = 325), results showed that more beliefs in foreign country conspiracies, in line with Study 1, corresponded to more endorsement of the Indonesian government’s decision to judge the West Papuan separatist group as a terrorist organization. Study 2 also demonstrated that beliefs in foreign country conspiracies translated into generalized negative attitudes towards West Papuan society, manifested in symbolic racism. Study 3 ( N = 497) extended Study 2, showing how blaming the separatist group mediated the role of beliefs in foreign conspiracies as positive antecedents of support for the terrorist label and symbolic racism. Study 4 ( N = 550) replicated Study 3 and additionally found that the positive relationship between beliefs in foreign country conspiracies and symbolic racism was more prominent among high national glorifiers. These findings suggest that negative attitudes toward the separatist movement can be rooted in people’s attribution of the independence movement to a distal, international factor.
Is kindness regulated by a cost-benefit ratio? Previous research suggests that money allocation decisions are regulated by a 'welfare trade-off ratio' (WTR) that reflects the weight attached to the actor's welfare relative to the recipient's welfare. Here we replicate this research, and extend it by creating a new measure-The Kindness Questionnaire-which asks which real-world acts of kindness, previously rated for cost and benefit, participants would perform for others. In Study 1 (n = 6,601) money allocation (MA) and Kindness Questionnaire (KQ) decisions for family, friends, colleagues and strangers were highly consistent with an underlying WTR (similar to 92%); more consistent than would be expected by chance; and generally more consistent than with cost or benefit alone. WTRs were high (similar to 0.81); and, for money allocation, declined with social distance. In Study 2 (n = 8,492) MA and KQ decisions for neighbors were highly consistent with an underlying WTR (similar to 89%); more consistent than would be expected by chance; and generally more consistent than with cost or benefit alone. WTRs were high (similar to 0.75). In both studies, The Kindness Questionnaires showed good convergent, divergent and incremental validity. These studies corroborate 'welfare tradeoff ratio' theory, establish proof of principle for a new way of measuring kindness, and provide new tools for measuring kindness to colleagues, strangers and neighbors.
Experiments that manipulate the presence of mimicry generally find that mimicry benefits the mimicker. These results led to the "mimicry-as-a-social-glue" hypothesis, which considers mimicry as a mechanism responsible for starting and maintaining social relations. There are two novel aspects in the present pre-registered experiment. First, the experiment examines temporal aspects by including four conditions: no mimicry, mimicry during the first five minutes, the last five minutes, or mimicry present throughout the interaction. By doing so, we contribute to ongoing efforts to standardise mimicry methodology. Second, this explores the underexplored issue of potential costs associated with mimicry and challenges the "mimicry-as-a-social-glue" hypothesis. The results demonstrate a relationship between temporal factors and the effects of mimicry. Participants who were mimicked during the final five minutes of the interaction reported significantly lower self-esteem compared to those mimicked during the initial five minutes. However, no significant differences in self-esteem were found between the no mimicry condition and mimicry during the first five minutes, nor between the final five minutes condition and mimicry sustained throughout the entire interaction. Similarly, no significant differences were observed between the no mimicry condition and the condition in which mimicry was sustained for the entire interaction. These findings suggest that the costs and benefits associated with mimicry depend on its temporal dynamics.
We examined the impact of dispersion and volume of product ratings on product preferences. Earlier work shows that extremely positive exemplars have a disproportionate influence on people's decision-making when they seek desirable outcomes. We examined if the occurrence of both extremely positive and extremely negative review ratings changed people's preferences, even if the average review ratings remained similar, in a within-person experiment that simulated an online purchasing website. Participants (N = 281 adults residing in the USA) repeatedly chose one out of four products with review ratings. We experimentally varied the dispersion and volume of these rating scores. As hypothesized, individuals preferred products accompanied by a high volume and highly dispersed set of review ratings. The results hold important implications for understanding the influence of reviews on consumer purchasing intentions and behavior.
A paper recently published by Turner-Zwinkels et al. (2025) contains a peculiar set of findings: using cross-sectional analyses of international survey data, one study found that the more partisans agree with their co-partisans on matters of policy and ideology, the less they like the party they all support, whereas in another study these variables were uncorrelated. These negative and null relationships are counter-intuitive and conflict with prior findings showing that greater perceived ideological similarity tends to increase liking. Turner-Zwinkels et al. suggest these results could be a product of optimal distinctiveness theory. However, I suggest that this result is a statistical artefact caused by collider bias. I explain how collider bias could create this result even if the true relationship between liking and ideological similarity is positive. I demonstrate the plausibility of this explanation using simulations and a re-analysis of Turner-Zwinkels et al.'s data.
Asians and Asian Americans have experienced increased discrimination due to COVID-19. Building on the rejection-identification model (RIM; Branscombe et al., 1999) and the rejectiondisidentification model (RDIM; Jasinskaja-Lahti et al., 2009), we sought to examine how COVID-19 discrimination has impacted Asian Americans' identities and well-being. Asian and Asian American individuals currently residing in the United States were recruited to participate in our study. The relations between perceived COVID-19 discrimination, identification, and well-being were examined correlationally (Study 1) and experimentally (Studies 2 and 3). Across 3 studies, COVID-19 discrimination is associated with increased levels of anxiety and stress but decreased identification with being American. At the same time, perceived discrimination was unrelated to participants' Asian (Study 1, 2, and 3) and specific ethnic (Study 3) identities. In Study 2, we experimentally demonstrated that reading about the negative impact of COVID-19 on Asian Americans interacted with perceived discrimination to decrease the extent to which participants identified as American, which has implications for anxiety and stress. Results from Study 2 supported the RDIM predictions and was replicated in a US-born sample in Study 3. Our studies suggest that Asian and Asian Americans' well-being is harmed through the decrease of a positive identity (i.e., being an American) without the compensation of another positive identity (i.e., being Asian or being a specific ethnicity) to protect them from the negative impactive of COVID-19 discrimination. Thus, Asian Americans need support now more than ever.
Intellectual humility (IH), the recognition of one’s intellectual limitations, is a promising characteristic to tackle societal conflicts such as affective political polarization. Despite increasing research on IH in recent years, most research has been conducted in the USA, probably due to a lack of scales that are validated in languages other than English. Our objective was to offer researchers in the German context several IH measures to choose from depending on their specific research question. Therefore, we validated and compared four established IH scales within the German context. Items of three widely-used IH scales (CIHS, SIHS, LIHS) were translated from English into German by two independent researchers, rated by experts (n = 8), and pre-tested (n = 13). We then assessed the structural, convergent, discriminant, and incremental validity of the scales plus an existing Swiss-German IH scale (IHS) in a preregistered online-survey (N = 698), representative for Germany regarding age, gender, and education. Discriminant validity was assessed via social desirability, cognitive closure, need for cognition, HEXACO honesty-humility, and openness, and incremental validity regarding affective polarization. Results showed that the IHS did not meet all of our pre-registered criteria, potentially due to cross-cultural differences between Germany and Switzerland. However, the three translated scales were comparable to the original English scales regarding structural, convergent, and discriminant validity. The SIHS showed the best incremental validity in predicting less affective polarization towards opinion-based outgroups. Limitations and directions for future research regarding IH in German-speaking contexts are discussed.
Societal threats such as climate change, economic crises, and wars shape citizens’ political attitudes and behaviors. Yet, the structure of threat perceptions and their socio-demographic and ideological correlates remain underexplored. Using a six-wave Dutch survey ( N = 685) and a network approach, we uncover the complexity of societal threat perceptions. First, we show that societal threat perceptions vary in their interconnectedness, with security threats, such as crime, threats related to asylum seekers, and the war in Ukraine emerging as central nodes. Second, ideology, age, and education are the most relevant variables linked to societal threat perceptions. Third, we replicate the levels and structure of societal threat perceptions over time, highlighting the robustness of our conclusions. Our study’s results indicate that societal threat perceptions form a complex network that replicates over one year. We outline an agenda for the next generation of theorizing on the structure, correlates and stability of societal threat perceptions.
Altruism may not be a unitary concept but may include behaviorally dissociable subfactors. Here, we examined the effects of social distance within and across group boundaries on three facets of altruism: help giving, peer punishment, and moral courage. Using real-life scenarios presented as vignettes, participants were asked to indicate the likelihood that they would engage in the described behaviors across three different social settings: a familiar low-distance in-group, an unfamiliar high-distance in-group, and a hostile out-group. We used the Inclusion of Others in Self (IOS) scale to measure perceived closeness to members of the described social group. We hypothesized that help giving would be most and moral courage least sensitive to variations in social distance. In both studies, results revealed no significant differences in help giving across variations in social distance but a higher self-reported likeliness to show morally courageous acts in the familiar and close in-group compared to the other groups. The results for peer punishment were only partially consistent, following a similar pattern to moral courage. IOS scores discriminated between high and low-distance in-groups, as expected, but did not discriminate well between a high-distance in-group and hostile out-group. On the other hand, facet-specific trait scores correlated significantly with vignette responses. When the three facets were considered together across all vignettes, in-group favoritism became apparent. The studies contribute to our understanding of the social context conditions of altruistic behaviors and call for the refinement of experimental and self-report measures in the study of altruistic behavior.
A substantial body of research has documented significant variations across fields of study in the prevalence of discrimination experiences among women. In the present research, we investigated the role of normative climates in fields of study by focusing on the shared endorsement of hegemonic masculinity on the experiences and anticipations of gender discrimination among female and male students. We recruited a large sample of students attending upper-secondary vocational schools (N = 1,298), segmented into various fields of study (k = 35). We assessed students' endorsement of hegemonic masculinity (whose effects were estimated at the field level), along with perceived and anticipated gender discrimination (estimated at the individual level). Multi-level structural equation modelling revealed cross-level interactions consistent with our hypotheses. Female students, particularly in fields of study scoring high in hegemonic masculinity, perceived and anticipated more gender discrimination than their male counterparts. These gender differences were either weaker or absent in fields with a climate low in hegemonic masculinity. These findings highlight the importance of addressing the role of normative climates occurring in local educational contexts to adequately determine the experiences of female and male students.
Evaluative conditioning (EC), the change in the liking of a conditioned stimulus due to its pairing with a positive or negative stimulus, is a key effect in attitude formation. Current theories on EC emphasize the role of memory in EC, assuming that explicit memory on the stimulus pairings strengthens the EC effect. In this paper, we extend the scope of memory's role in EC by focusing on whether the metacognitive experience of ease during memory retrieval influences EC effects beyond the effects of the retrieved memory content. In two preregistered experiments (total N = 392), we tested for ease-of-retrieval effects in EC by letting participants recall few vs. many unconditioned stimuli before giving an evaluative judgment. Although the manipulation was successful in manipulating ease-of-retrieval, we found no evidence for an influence of ease-of-retrieval effects resulting from the experimental manipulation on EC. However, the subjectively perceived ease of retrieval was indeed associated with stronger EC effects. Overall, these findings show no evidence that ease resulting from an instruction to recollect more/less US information contributes to EC effects but leave open whether ease-of-retrieval from other sources contributes to EC effects.
A substantial body of research has shown that risky decisions made for others often differ from those made for oneself. However, findings remain mixed, and there is still ongoing discussion about when and for whom self-other differences are most likely to emerge or be strongest. Building on previous research, which has primarily focused on lay samples and the outcomes of decision-making rather than the underlying processes, the current study reports on four preregistered experiments examining self–other differences across various professional domains, while also testing the commonly assumed cognitive mechanisms. Participants (total N = 1,337) were financial advisors at a large trade union (Experiment 1), leaders at a local government organization (Experiment 2) and a large hospital (Experiment 3), and a general sample of employees and leaders (Experiment 4). Participants completed a risky choice problem tailored to reflect their professional background (Experiments 1-3), where they were asked to choose between a safe and risky option either for themselves or for a hypothetical other, in both gain and loss frames. They then reported the extent to which they engaged in intuitive and analytical processing, and their emotional arousal. There was no evidence for consistent self-other differences in risk and no moderation by frame. In addition, there were no self-other differences in cognitive processing or affect. However, there was a main effect of framing in all experiments—that is, greater risk-seeking in loss (vs. gain) frames.
The collective action of subordinates has historically been the most important factor constraining exploitative behaviour of powerful individuals. However, subordinate collective action is often overlooked within the psychological literature examining the effect of power on decision making. Using a modified multiplayer version of the Ultimatum Game, we investigated how the ease of collective action affected the decision making of Proposers and Responders. Altogether 256 students took part in a 20-round Collective Action Ultimatum Game. They were divided into four conditions and into fixed groups of four (three Responders per group). The ease of collective action was operationalized as the contribution responders needed to make to a ‘collective pot’ to prevent the Proposer receiving their allocation. The mechanism that determined how total contributions could result in a successful rejection varied between the four conditions (‘Easy’, ‘Medium’, ‘Hard’ and ‘Impossible’). The study found that Proposers in the Easy/Medium conditions divided resources more equally than those in the Hard/Impossible conditions from the start of the game. Results also showed that ease did not affect Responders’ willingness to engage in collective action, but in the Hard condition they became more accepting of unequal offers as the game progressed. Results suggest that the ease of collective action (i) induces more egalitarian behaviour by individuals in a position of power, and (ii) makes subordinates less willing to accept inequality.
When employees observe an immoral practice under the control of their employer, they face a decision on whether to act against it. If they do want to act, they need to decide how to report their concerns, that is, whether they want to use internal (i.e., to other members of the organization) or external reporting channels (e.g., to the media). In the present contribution, we investigate which personality traits relate to these two types of whistleblowing decisions. In a two-wave scenario study ( N = 724), we tested whether HEXACO Honesty-Humility is associated with a decision for whistleblowing (vs. inaction) and whether HEXACO Agreeableness is associated with a decision for internal (vs. external) whistleblowing. Our predictions were not confirmed, and all in all, the six HEXACO dimensions jointly explained only a small amount of variance in these two whistleblowing decisions. There was, however, evidence from exploratory analyses showing that higher levels of Honesty-Humility were positively associated with a decision for internal (vs. external) whistleblowing.
Psycholinguistic research on gender-inclusive language has mainly focused on the processing of stereotyped nouns, while other work has centered on the processing of gender-inclusive morphemes (GIMs). This study focuses on Spanish and, by means of an eye-tracking technique, it examines the early and late processing of pronouns ending with the gender-inclusive morpheme –x, in comparison to those ending with the canonical masculine morpheme –o and the feminine morpheme –a. It also considers emerging trends between –x and extralinguistic factors, such as gender identity, sexual orientation, experience with gender studies, and attitudes towards GIMs. Spanish-speaking university students in Puerto Rico completed a sentence reading task and a questionnaire that collected information pertaining to four extralinguistic factors. Linear mixed-effects models display that processing –x is more costly than –o in all early and late reading measures, but more costly than –a only in some early and late reading measures. Furthermore, the random-effects structure showed an inverse relationship between these differences: the smaller the difference between –x and –o, the larger the difference between –a and –x. Emerging trends with extralinguistic factors suggest future studies should further explore their relationship with gender-inclusive morpheme –x. For a holistic understanding of gender-inclusive Spanish processing at the intersection of language and gender, these findings evince the importance of examining GIMs in comparison to both canonical morphemes and measuring both early and late processing.
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.
