European Journal of Social Psychology

van Koningsbruggen, Guido M.; Stroebe, Wolfgang; Papies, Esther K.; Aarts, Henk

doi: 10.1002/ejsp.799pmid: N/A

People often forget their long‐term strivings because their environment confronts them with attractive temptations. Previous research suggests that self‐control failures can be prevented by reminding people of their higher‐order goal. Therefore, we hypothesized that using implementation intentions as a tool to directly re‐activate people's higher‐order goal in tempting situations would effectively enhance self‐control. We tested this in the domain of dieting behavior. Results demonstrated that this specific planning strategy activated the dieting goal for unsuccessful dieters when exposed to tempting food cues (Study 1) and reduced their consumption of calorically dense food across 2 weeks (Study 2) compared to those in control conditions. This suggests that preparing people to think of their higher‐order goal when tempted can be used to protect ongoing goal striving. Appealing to higher‐order goals potentially makes implementation intentions flexible instruments of self‐regulation as this should trigger motivated behavior to reach goals and initiate various goal‐instrumental actions. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Young, Steven G.; Sacco, Donald F.; Hugenberg, Kurt

doi: 10.1002/ejsp.800pmid: N/A

Two experiments tested the hypothesis that the accessibility of disease concerns would be associated with a preference for faces high in symmetry, a cue to good health and pathogen resistance. Disease concerns (perceived vulnerability to disease) were measured as an individual difference in Experiment 1 and were situationally primed in Experiment 2. Across both studies, heightened disease sensitivity predicted a preference for symmetrical faces. Importantly, this increased preference for symmetrical faces when disease threats were salient did not generalize to non‐face stimuli. These results suggest a domain‐specific preference for symmetry in human faces, an adaptive response due to the ability of faces to signal resistance to infectious diseases in individuals and situations where disease is a salient threat. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Ferriday, Chelsea; Vartanian, Oshin; Mandel, David R.

doi: 10.1002/ejsp.801pmid: N/A

One line of research indicates that people are more aggressive when they are insulted publicly rather than privately, whereas another indicates that subclinical narcissism predicts aggression. Drawing on these lines of research, we predicted that aggression would be increased among participants who scored higher on narcissism (as opposed to lower), received negative (as opposed to positive) self‐relevant feedback, and did so in public (as opposed to private). The findings supported that prediction and further confirmed that narcissism was only predictive of aggression in the negative‐public condition. The findings thus indicate that aggression is influenced by the interaction of situational and dispositional factors. Copyright © 2011 Crown in the right of Canada. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Greenaway, Katharine H.; Quinn, Emerald A.; Louis, Winnifred R.

doi: 10.1002/ejsp.802pmid: N/A

Appealing to common humanity is often suggested as a method of uniting victims and perpetrators of historical atrocities. In the present experiment (N = 109), we reveal that this strategy may actually work against victim groups' best interests. Appealing to common humanity (versus intergroup identity) increased forgiveness of perpetrators but independently also served to lower intentions to engage in collective action. Both effects were mediated but not moderated by reduced identification with the victim group. We, thus reveal an important feature of appeals to common humanity: That this strategy may reduce social change at the same time as helping to promote more positive intergroup attitudes. These novel findings extend research on the human identity to a new theoretically interesting and socially important domain. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Farley, Sally D.

doi: 10.1002/ejsp.821pmid: N/A

Despite widespread conjecture regarding the functions and consequences of gossip, little empirical attention has investigated how gossipers are perceived by others. In the present study, 128 individuals were asked to think about a person who either frequently or rarely discussed others while not in their presence. Gender of the target and valence of the gossip were also manipulated. High‐frequency gossipers were perceived as less powerful and were liked less than low‐frequency gossipers, and those who gossiped negatively were liked less than those who gossiped positively. High‐frequency negative gossipers emerged as the least powerful and least likable targets. These results are discussed in relation to the transfer of attitudes recursively effect. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Fennis, Bob M.

doi: 10.1002/ejsp.828pmid: N/A

Many studies attest to the beneficial and prosocial effects of perspective taking. The present research tests the notion that such perspective taking is a process involving active self‐regulation and, hence, that effects of perspective taking on prosocial behaviour are more pronounced when self‐control resources are high, rather than low. Results confirmed this hypothesis. Across two experiments using acts of compliance as a specific form of prosocial behaviour, perspective‐taking participants were more willing to comply with a request for help by the experimenter (experiment 1) and donated more time to a charitable cause (experiment 2) than participants who did not engage in perspective taking, but only when self‐regulatory resources were in sufficient supply. Under conditions of ego depletion, the impact of perspective taking on compliance was attenuated. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Badea, Constantina; Jetten, Jolanda; Iyer, Aarti; Er‐rafiy, Abdelatif

doi: 10.1002/ejsp.786pmid: N/A

We propose that to understand how rejection perceptions affect immigrants' acculturation orientations, we need to take account of perceptions of rejection and group identification with both the host society and the country of origin. In line with previous work, we found among Romanians and Moroccan immigrants in France that perceived French rejection directly affected French identification and acculturation orientations. In addition, perceived rejection by the country of origin (Romanians and Moroccans in the country of origin) negatively affected immigrants' identification with this group. In turn, identification with the country of origin positively predicted endorsement of integration and separation orientations, and negatively predicted endorsement of assimilation. Overall, results suggest that identification with the country of origin is an additional important factor in determining acculturation decisions. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Clark, Jason K.; Evans, Abigail T.; Wegener, Duane T.

doi: 10.1002/ejsp.787pmid: N/A

When communicators are perceived as likely to bring proposed outcomes to fruition, they have source efficacy. Although perceptions of source efficacy are common in persuasion settings, this construct has received little direct research attention. The present research explored how source efficacy may impact persuasion in different ways at different levels of motivation to process messages. Across three experiments, participants encountered message arguments of varying quality from a source manipulated to be relatively efficacious or inefficacious. When motivation to process the message was low, source efficacy served as a peripheral cue (Experiment 1). When motivation was high, efficacy information learned before the message biased processing of ambiguous messages (Experiment 2), but source efficacy learned after the message affected the amount of confidence people had in their message‐related thoughts (Experiment 3). These effects of source efficacy were distinct from effects of perceived source expertise/credibility. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Gillespie, Alex; Richardson, Beth

doi: 10.1002/ejsp.788pmid: N/A

When people occupy different social positions within a cooperative task they experience discrepant role and situation demands and thus have divergent perspectives. The reported research predicts that exchanging social positions within a cooperative task can overcome divergences of perspective. This prediction was tested in two experiments using the Communication Conflict Situation. The first experiment (n = 88) found that position exchange increased the ability of dyads to solve a communication conflict arising through discrepant perspectives. The second experiment (n = 120) found that the effect of position exchange exceeds that of purely cognitive perspective taking, thus suggesting that it cannot be reduced to a purely cognitive process. Exchanging social positions is a newly identified and powerful social mechanism through which perspective taking, within a cooperative task, can be enhanced. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Wojciszke, Bogdan; Baryla, Wieslaw; Parzuchowski, Michal; Szymkow, Aleksandra; Abele, Andrea E.

doi: 10.1002/ejsp.791pmid: N/A

We present a Double Perspective Model (DPM) explaining why agency (competence) and communion (warmth) constitute two basic content dimensions of social cognition. Every social action involves two perspectives: of the agent (a person who performs an action) and of the recipient (a person at whom the action is directed). Immediate cognitive goals of the agent and recipient differ, which results in heightened accessibility and weight of content referring either to agency (from the agent's perspective) or to communion (from the recipient's perspective). DPM explains why evaluations of other persons are dominated by communal over agentic considerations and allows a novel hypothesis that self‐esteem is dominated by agentic over communal information. We present several studies supporting this hypothesis. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.