Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin

Iedema, Jurjen; Poppe, Matthijs

doi: 10.1177/01461672992510001pmid: N/A

This research focuses on the relation between participants’ social orientations and their expectations of others’ orientations. Participants were 145 adolescents who were classified according to a prosocial, individualistic, or competitive orientation. Participants were asked for their expectations of the occurrence of prosocial, individualistic, and competitive people in four populations, varying from specific to general (friends, classmates, schoolmates, peers, respectively). The triangle hypothesis, the structured assumed similarity bias, and the selective exposure and availability model could only partly explain the results. The decrease in consensus expectations from specific to general populations that was displayed by prosocials and competitors, but not by individualists, was best explained by the slightly extended uniqueness bias: The tendency to underestimate the proportion of people who will perform socially desirable actions is stronger for general than for specific populations.

Rivkin, Inna D.; Taylor, Shelley E.

doi: 10.1177/01461672992510002pmid: N/A

Previous research has revealed that writing or talking about traumatic stressors can improve health and psychological well-being. The present study investigated whether similar benefits may be conferred by mental simulation and whether such simulations can improve coping and affective responses to ongoing stressful events. All participants designated an ongoing stressful event in their lives. One third of the participants visualized the event and the emotions they had experienced (event simulation), one third visualized having resolved the problem (outcome simulation), and one third were simply followed over time (control). Event simulation participants reported more positive affect, both immediately and 1 week later, and indicated higher levels of planned and reported active coping strategies, compared with the other two conditions. Discussion focuses on the potential of structured mental simulation to facilitate coping with stressful events.

Chun, Woo-Young; Lee, Hoon-Koo

doi: 10.1177/01461672992510003pmid: N/A

This article examined the effects of the difference between the amount of information preferential to Group A (A+ minus A-) and information preferential to Group B (B+ minus B-) on illusory correlation. In Experiment 1, participants rated Group A (majority) more positively and Group B (minority) more negatively in the condition in which the difference in the amount of preferential information between the groups was larger, even when the distinctiveness of the infrequent information of the minority group was the same. Furthermore, illusory correlation in the frequency estimation and cued-recall tasks was found to be more significant in the larger difference condition. In Experiment 2, greater cognitive load did not increase illusory correlation given that the difference in the amount of group preferential information was equal. In Experiment 3, even when the exact ratio of desirable to undesirable behaviors of both groups was completely made known through a summary table, participants made differential group evaluations based on the difference in the amount of group preferential information. Such results imply that the difference in the amount of group preferential information serves as the minimum requirement in the formation of differential impressions of groups in an illusory correlation paradigm.

Moreland, Richard L.; McMinn, Jamie G.

doi: 10.1177/01461672992510004pmid: N/A

Laboratory groups were formed, given an engaging task to perform, and then dissolved into new, smaller groups. Each of those groups produced an art poster. Every poster was then evaluated, first by the group itself and then by another group whose members came from the same source group (ingroup exchange) or from a different source group (outgroup exchange). Posters were evaluated more generously when ingroup rather than outgroup exchanges were made, especially when identification with the source group was strong. Every group later received the same negative evaluation of its poster, apparently from its exchange partner. This (bogus) criticism was more upsetting when in-group rather than outgroup exchanges were made, especially when identification with the source group was strong. These findings were discussed and several ideas for future studies of loyalty and betrayal were offered.

Tougas, Francine; Brown, Rupert; Beaton, Ann M.; St-Pierre, Line

doi: 10.1177/01461672992510005pmid: N/A

An extension of the neosexism model based on the assumption that neosexism derives from experiences of upward mobility within the broader social structure of male-female relations was proposed and evaluated in a sample of 335 secretaries employed in a Canadian federal agency. It posited that the more women attempted to access nontraditional fields of work, the more they experienced discrimination. Personally experienced discriminatory barriers were related to feelings of collective relative deprivation. Moreover, the more women felt deprived on behalf of their group, the less they endorsed neosexist beliefs. Finally, a reverse effect was predicted between neosexism, collective relative deprivation, and responses to affirmative action and a pro-male bias in the evaluation of the competence of male and female managers. Support for this model was obtained by a structural equation modeling technique (EQS).

Olson, Bradley D.; Evans, David L.

doi: 10.1177/01461672992510006pmid: N/A

The authors investigated the role of personality in everyday social comparisons. Participants were 133 students who completed the NEO Personality Inventory-Revised. For the following 2 weeks, they recorded their comparisons and positive and negative affect using the Rochester Social Comparison Record. Analysis using Hierarchical Linear Modeling showed that people high in Neuroticism reported a greater increase in positive affect after comparing downward than people low on the dimension. Furthermore, people high in Extraversion and low in Agreeableness compared downward more. People high in Openness compared upward more and reported less of a decrease in positive affect after making these comparisons. These findings are discussed in relation to downward comparison theory, the selective-priming model, and the attributes of the five personality dimensions.

Ryan, Richard M.; Chirkov, Valery I.; Little, Todd D.; Sheldon, Kennon M.; Timoshina, Elena; Deci, Edward L.

doi: 10.1177/01461672992510007pmid: N/A

Recent research in the United States suggests that individuals who strongly value extrinsic goals (e.g., fame, wealth, image) relative to intrinsic goals (e.g., personal growth, relatedness, community) experience less well-being. This study examines such goals in university samples from two cultures—the United States and Russia. Participants (N = 299) rated the importance, expectancies, and current attainment of 15 life goals, including 4 target intrinsic and 4 target extrinsic goals. Results confirmed the relevance of the intrinsic-extrinsic distinction for both samples and that stronger importance and expectancies regarding extrinsic goals were negatively related to well-being, although these effects were weaker for Russian women. Furthermore, for both men and women, perceived attainment of intrinsic goals was associated with greater well-being, whereas this was not the case for perceived attainment of extrinsic goals.