Suchergebnisse

In industrialized nations, patterns of behavior such as attending work or school are strongly predicted by the seven-day weekly calendar. The weekly cycle can be disrupted by unexpected events (e.g. familial death) or planned days off (e.g. vacation). Because the weekly cycle typically begins on Monday, people should expect others who experience disruption to re-enter the weekly cycle on Mondays in order to synchronize with the conventional weekly pattern. Study 1 examined expectations for returning to work after the death of a spouse, Study 2 examined expectations for returning to university classes after the death of a parent, and Study 3 examined preferences for Monday versus Friday holidays from work and from classes. All three studies showed an overwhelming expectation for returning to work or class on Mondays, and people explained this expectation by referencing time (e.g. it's time to get back to routine). Expectations of return times other than Monday were explained by referencing emotion (e.g. she's upset and can't think straight). Conceivably, expectations to synchronize behavior to the beginning phases of a cycle hold across daily, weekly, and annual cycles.

Two distinct spatial metaphors for the passage of time can produce disparate judgments about grieving. Under the object-moving metaphor, time seems to move past stationary people, like objects floating past people along a riverbank. Under the people-moving metaphor, time is stationary; people move through time as though they journey on a one-way street, past stationary objects. The people-moving metaphor should encourage the forecast of shorter grieving periods relative to the object-moving metaphor. In the present study, participants either received an object-moving or people-moving prime, then read a brief vignette about a mother whose young son died. Participants made affective forecasts about the mother's grief intensity and duration, and provided open-ended inferences regarding a return to relative normalcy. Findings support predictions, and are discussed with respect to interpersonal communication and everyday life.

Public spaces that are named for or commemorate prejudiced historical figures may harm targets of prejudice. They can signal what a community believes or values and, consequently, may exacerbate targets' perceptions of hostility, reduced safety, and low belongingness. Across six studies ( n = 505 BIPOC [Black, Indigenous, and people of color]; n = 1,230 White U.S. university students), we examined: the effect of space names on target versus nontarget harms of hostility, safety, and belonging (Study 1), whether space names signal community beliefs (Studies 2a and 2b), whether perceptions of space names as community belief signals mediate BIPOC targets' exacerbated harms in spaces with prejudiced namesakes (Study 3) as well as in response to a prejudiced space being renamed or having a name retained (Study 4). Finally, we examined White versus BIPOC perceptions of space renaming with respect to sincerity and mitigated harms (Study 5). Relative to nontargets, targets reported greater harms in spaces named for prejudiced figures, and some of these exacerbated harms were driven by perceived community belief signals. White individuals reported somewhat greater optimism than BIPOC individuals about harm mitigation as consequence of renaming. Results have implications for understanding the harms of symbolic prejudice, and considerations for organizations to foster genuine, beneficial renaming initiatives.

AbstractThe present study investigated preference for linguistically biased characterization of events attributed to Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump during the 2016 Presidential election cycle. The linguistic intergroup bias (LIB) reflects abstract characterization of positive events attributed to ingroup members and negative events attributed to outgroup members; conversely, it also reflects concrete characterization of negative events attributed to outgroup members and positive events attributed to outgroup members. University students (N = 117) who preferred Hillary Clinton completed on‐line measures before and after the 2016 Presidential election, including liberal‐conservative ideology and measures of LIB. Participants showed clear preference for characterizations consistent with LIB (e.g., Clinton is intelligent; Trump is quick‐tempered). This pattern was more pronounced as strength of liberal ideology increased; it also was more pronounced immediately following the election than after time had passed. A smaller sample of Trump supporters also showed LIB favoring Trump. This study is the first to demonstrate that members of the electorate gravitate towards linguistic characterizations that favor their preferred political candidates and that this tendency is exacerbated by a relevant individual difference. Findings have implications for the continued polarization of the American electorate.

This study investigated how feelings of closeness at initial acquaintance encourage the development of shared stereotypic impressions of others through conversation. At least early in a relationship, closer dyads may be especially inclined to get along with one another. In order to satisfy this goal, they should focus their conversations around easily agreed upon stereotypic attributes and spontaneously express agreement about those attributes. As a consequence, the shared impressions that they form should be relatively stereotypic. In this study, closeness was manipulated in previously unacquainted college-age dyads, who then discussed their impressions of an elderly woman. Closer dyads allocated more discussion time to stereotypic attributes, expressed agreement about those attributes, invoked stereotypic exemplars, and ultimately formed more stereotypic shared impressions. The discussion considers study limitations and possible boundary conditions of the effects, as well as implications for the transmission of outgroup stereotypes during socialization to a new ingroup.

This study investigated how feelings of closeness at initial acquaintance encourage the development of shared stereotypic impressions of others through conversation. At least early in a relationship, closer dyads may be especially inclined to get along with one another. In order to satisfy this goal, they should focus their conversations around easily agreed upon stereotypic attributes and spontaneously express agreement about those attributes. As a consequence, the shared impressions that they form should be relatively stereotypic. In this study, closeness was manipulated in previously unacquainted college-age dyads, who then discussed their impressions of an elderly woman. Closer dyads allocated more discussion time to stereotypic attributes, expressed agreement about those attributes, invoked stereotypic exemplars, and ultimately formed more stereotypic shared impressions. The discussion considers study limitations and possible boundary conditions of the effects, as well as implications for the transmission of outgroup stereotypes during socialization to a new ingroup.

AbstractWe investigated whether people can determine which partners are best able to confirm their self‐views. Results suggest that people are able to determine the valence of a potential romantic partner's model of other (i.e., they are meta‐accurate). Previous research indicates that people expect to have their specific negative and positive self‐views confirmed by partners whose model of other matches the valence of their self‐view. In the present study, participants generally sought feedback that was congruent with a partner's model of other. However, men who held positive self‐views were not meta‐accurate; rather, they sought positive or negative feedback from partners regardless of the valence of the partner's model of other. These gender differences are discussed in terms of differential socialization patterns. Results suggest that people may choose relationship partners who are able to confirm their self‐views.

In two experiments, White college students provided a local high-school student with feedback on her substandard college admissions essay, via electronic mail. Motivation to provide appropriate feedback was manipulated by alleging comparison to experts or novices. Experiment 1 compared feedback to White versus Black recipients, with the expectation that accountability would attenuate previously observed positivity biases in cross-race feedback. Experiment 2 manipulated concern about being prejudiced by providing false scores on an Implicit Associations Task (IAT)-type task; this experiment examined whether accountability plus attenuated concern about prejudice could encourage feedback to Blacks that was objectively helpful. Feedback characteristics included evaluative connotation, communication style, subjective feedback helpfulness and objective feedback quality. Findings generally supported these hypotheses. We discuss the implications of our findings for intergroup contact situations, including the potential pitfalls that face feedback-givers responding to superior performance.