Research shows that preemptively confessing a transgression (stealing thunder) enhances trustworthiness, credibility, or expertise compared to third-party revelations. Recent findings suggest that detailed disclosure about the transgression is key to this effect, yet people often hesitate to share comprehensive details before all facts are known. We propose that sharing information about the confession itself can improve reputation without divulging more about the transgression. Across one main and five supplementary experiments, an integrative data analysis revealed that messages elaborating on why the confession was made (disclosure information) or how the transgressor realized the wrongdoing (identification information) enhanced trustworthiness and credibility, but not expertise, for targets like doctors and politicians. These benefits occurred even without reparative actions.

Much research has noted people's tendency toward extremity. This work has made it clear that some people prefer to hold extreme views and might leave the impression that when biases and preferences occur, they primarily favor extremity. In contrast, in the present work, we examine the possibility that some people prefer attitudinal neutrality across two pretesting samples, three main studies, and two supplementary studies (N-total = 1,873). The preference for neutrality is distinguished from low preference for extremity, as well as from an interest in collecting balanced information. We also show that the preference for neutrality is related to a sometimes uncritical and biased pursuit of attitudinal neutrality, paralleling effects found in the attitude extremity literature. The preference for neutrality is related to dispositional attitudinal neutrality and ambivalence, political centrism, a preference for other people with neutral versus extreme views, and biased responding to messages arbitrarily framed as "moderate" versus extreme. Implications for politically polarized attitudes, persuasion, and intellectual humility are discussed. The preference for neutrality may pose a substantial challenge for creating a shared understanding of the world and addressing pressing social issues.

Replicating psychological research has become a central concern for psychologists. Although attention has been paid to the possibility of heterogeneous populations driving replication success/failure, the heterogeneous recruitment strategies researchers use to draw samples from those populations are often overlooked. Yet recruitment strategies may bias the participants who show up and shape replication results. We examine this idea through several unique paradigms (sampling North American university students, Ntotal = 1,009). First, subtle manipulations of recruitment strategies (i.e., mentioning cash, expedient credit, fun, or a study narrative) were differentially appealing to individuals varying on experiential versus reward-based motivations (Experiment 1). Second, employing different recruitment strategies biased the motivational styles of actual participant show-ups, and sometimes even shaped the success of several replication studies (Experiment 2-3). We conclude that recruitment strategies may sometimes alter the degree of successful replication.

People are often advised to project confidence with their bodies and voices to convince others. Prior research has focused on the high and low thinking processes through which vocal confidence signals (e.g., fast speed, falling intonation, low pitch) can influence attitude change. In contrast, this research examines how the vocal confidence of speakers operates under more moderate elaboration levels, revealing that falling intonation only benefits persuasion under certain circumstances. In three experiments, we show that falling (vs. rising) vocal intonation at the ends of sentences can signal speaker confidence. Under moderate elaboration conditions, falling (vs. rising) vocal intonation increased message processing, bolstering the benefit of strong over weak messages, increasing the proportion of message-relevant thoughts, and increasing thought-attitude correspondence. In sum, the present work examined an unstudied role of vocal confidence in guiding persuasion, revealing new processes by which vocal signals increase or fail to increase persuasion.

Much empirical science involves evaluating alternative explanations for the obtained data. For example, given certain assumptions underlying a statistical test, a “significant” result generally refers to implausibility of a null (zero) effect in the population producing the obtained study data. However, methodological work on various versions of p-hacking (i.e., using different analysis strategies until a “significant” result is produced) questions whether significant p-values might often reflect false findings. Indeed, initial simulations of single studies showed that the potential for finding “significant” but false findings might be much higher than the nominal .05 value when various analysis flexibilities are undertaken. In many settings, however, research articles report multiple studies using consistent methods across the studies, where those consistent methods would constrain the flexibilities used to produce high false-finding rates for simulations of single studies. Thus, we conducted simulations of study sets. These simulations show that consistent methods across studies (i.e., consistent in terms of which measures are analyzed, which conditions are included, and whether and how covariates are included) dramatically reduce the potential for flexible research practices (p-hacking) to produce consistent sets of significant results across studies. For p-hacking to produce even modest probabilities of a consistent set of studies would require (a) a large amount of selectivity in study reporting and (b) severe (and quite intentional) versions of p-hacking. With no more than modest selective reporting and with consistent methods across studies, p-hacking does not provide a plausible explanation for consistent empirical results across studies, especially as the size of the reported study set increases. In addition, the simulations show that p-hacking can produce high rates of false findings for single studies with very large samples. In contrast, a series of methodologically-consistent studies (even with much smaller samples) is much less vulnerable to the forms of p-hacking examined in the simulations.

Most work on indicators of vocal confidence (and social influence work more broadly) examines linear relationships between variables. However, in some domains curvilinear (i.e., accelerating or decelerating) relationships may provide greater clarity in understanding human speech patterns. We review mixed past work on vocal speed as a case study, wherein faster vocal speed has been shown both to bolster and inhibit persuasion (e.g., by impairing processing). Across six total studies (Ntotal = 3,958), we show that faster speed initially increases perceived source confidence and message processing but eventually the increase attenuates or reverses. Correspondingly, vocal speed has a decelerating relationship to participants’ processing of persuasive messages, as revealed by two main processes: argument quality effects on attitudes, and the correspondence between thought valence and attitudes. The present work highlights the potential value of high-powered examinations of curvilinear relationships in non-verbal phenomenon for which speed is likely to play a role.

Whereas actual attitudes represent people's evaluations of specific objects as being good or bad, desired attitudes represent the attitude positions that people wish they held. Previous work has established that desired attitudes can have psychological consequences, but has not yet tested the extent to which desired attitudes can predict actual attitude change. In five datasets involving a variety of populations and procedural variations, we explored how political and moral factors motivate people to form desired attitudes distinct from their actual attitudes. These desired attitudes then predicted actual attitude change occurring after the formation of the desired attitudes, even though participants received no new information about the object. The present work demonstrates an additional value of the desired attitude construct: its ability to anticipate how people's attitudes will shift in the future.

Three experiments tested how low versus high pitch generated from sources beyond a message communicator can affect reliance on thoughts and influence recipients' attitudes. First, participants wrote positive or negative thoughts about an exam proposal (Experiments 1, 2) or their academic abilities (Experiment 3). Then, pitch from the message recipient (Experiment 1), channel (Experiment 2), or context (Experiment 3) was manipulated to be high or low. Experiment 1 showed that when participants vocally expressed their thoughts using low (vs. high) pitch, thoughts had a greater effect on attitudes toward exams. Experiment 2 revealed low (vs. high) pitch sounds from the keyboard participants used to write their thoughts produced the same effect on thought usage. Experiment 3 demonstrated that thoughts influenced attitudes more when listed while background music was low (vs. high) Pitch can influence attitudes through a meta-cognitive thought reliance process whether emerging from the recipient, channel, or context.

Traditionally, statistical power was viewed as relevant to research planning but not evaluation of completed research. However, following discussions of high false finding rates (FFRs) associated with low statistical power, the assumed level of statistical power has become a key criterion for research acceptability. Yet, the links between power and false findings are not as straightforward as described. Assumptions underlying FFR calculations do not reflect research realities in personality and social psychology. Even granting the assumptions, the FFR calculations identify important limitations to any general influences of statistical power. Limits for statistical power in inflating false findings can also be illustrated through the use of FFR calculations to (a) update beliefs about the null or alternative hypothesis and (b) assess the relative support for the null versus alternative hypothesis when evaluating a set of studies. Taken together, statistical power should be de-emphasized in comparison to current uses in research evaluation.

Revealing potentially damaging information about oneself before others reveal the same information is known as "stealing thunder". The goal of this tactic is to elicit favorable evaluations from others, thus mitigating the damage that might otherwise occur if others were to reveal this negative information first. Although prior research has shown evaluative advantages to stealing thunder, research has not examined whether the specificity of the information provided by the confessor regarding their transgression matters. Thus, our goals were to identify (1) whether confessions at varying levels of specificity provided any benefit relative to when the negative information was revealed by a third party, and (2) whether the severity of the transgression moderated the efficacy of stealing thunder at different levels of specificity. Across 4 studies, stealing thunder was optimally effective when confessions were made at the greatest level of detail. Confessions made at moderately-specific or very general levels of detail provided comparatively weak and limited evaluative protection. In the final study, potential mechanisms underlying the role of confession specificity in the efficacy of stealing thunder were explored.

Past research has largely focused on how emotional expressions provide information about the speaker’s emotional state, but has generally neglected vocal affect’s influence over communication effectiveness. This is surprising given that other nonverbal behaviors often influence communication between individuals. In the present theory paper, we develop a novel perspective called the Contextual Influences of Vocal Affect (CIVA) model to predict and explain the psychological processes by which vocal affect may influence communication through three broad categories of process: emotion origin/construal, changing emotions, and communication source inferences. We describe research that explores potential moderators (e.g., affective/cognitive message types, message intensity), and mechanisms (e.g., emotional assimilation, attributions, surprise) shaping the effects of vocally expressed emotions on communication. We discuss when and why emotions expressed through the voice can influence the effectiveness of communication. CIVA advances theoretical and applied psychology by providing a clear theoretical account of vocal affect’s diverse impacts on communication.

This article unpacks the basic mechanisms by which paralinguistic features communicated through the voice can affect evaluative judgments and persuasion. Special emphasis is placed on exploring the rapidly emerging literature on vocal features linked to appraisals of confidence (e.g., vocal pitch, intonation, speech rate, loudness, etc.), and their subsequent impact on information processing and meta-cognitive processes of attitude change. The main goal of this review is to advance understanding of the different psychological processes by which paralinguistic markers of confidence can affect attitude change, specifying the conditions under which they are more likely to operate. In sum, we highlight the importance of considering basic mechanisms of attitude change to predict when and why appraisals of paralinguistic markers of confidence can lead to more or less persuasion.

Four experiments explored how extraversion's connection with self-esteem may depend on specific self-enhancement strategies. Participants' self-esteem threatening feedback indicating that they had performed poorly on a vocabulary or emotional intelligence test. In Experiment 1, participants (N = 80) were randomly assigned to either a control condition (no self-enhancement) or a downward social comparison condition. The procedures for Experiments 2 (N = 470) and 3 (N = 514) were similar, adding a self-serving attribution condition (Experiments 2 and 3) and Basking-in-Reflected-Glory (BIRG) condition (Experiment 3). Across the experiments, extraversion was more related to self-esteem under downward social comparison versus other conditions. BIRGing produced higher self-esteem in Experiment 3 across extraversion levels. Experiment 4 (N = 355) focused on downward social comparison versus control, and provided evidence that an increased perception of being similar to the comparison targets may partially explain extraversion's self-esteem link. Theoretical implications concerning both extraversion and self-enhancement are discussed.

Although compliments can be an effective compliance tactic, little is known about the reasons for their effectiveness. Two studies tested three potential mechanisms underlying the use of compliments as a compliance tactic: reciprocity, positive mood, and liking. In both studies, participants were either primed with the reciprocity norm or not, then received either complimentary or neutral feedback from a stranger. Participants were later faced with a request from the stranger. Mood, liking for the requestor, and compliance were measured. As predicted, compliments increased compliance in both studies. Neither study found evidence for positive mood nor liking as a mediator of the compliment effect. However, reciprocity priming was found to moderate the compliment effect in both studies, suggesting that compliments are effective, at least in part, because they invoke the reciprocity norm.

In recent years, psychology has wrestled with the broader implications of disappointing rates of replication of previously demonstrated effects. This article proposes that many aspects of this pattern of results can be understood within the classic framework of four proposed forms of validity: statistical conclusion validity, internal validity, construct validity, and external validity. The article explains the conceptual logic for how differences in each type of validity across an original study and a subsequent replication attempt can lead to replication "failure." Existing themes in the replication literature related to each type of validity are also highlighted. Furthermore, empirical evidence is considered for the role of each type of validity in non-replication. The article concludes with a discussion of broader implications of this classic validity framework for improving replication rates in psychological research.