Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin

Barrett, Lisa Feldman; Lane, Richard D.; Sechrest, Lee; Schwartz, Gary E.

2000 Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin

doi: 10.1177/01461672002611001

The present study examined sex differences in the complexity and differentiation of people’s representations of emotional experience. Female participants from seven different samples, ranging in age, scholastic performance, socioeconomic status, and culture, scored higher on a performance test of emotional awareness than did male participants. Women consistently displayed more complexity and dif ferentiation in their articulations of emotional experiences than did men, even when the effect of verbal intelligence was controlled. Together, the findings suggest that a sex difference in display of emotional awareness is a stable, highly generalizable effect. Implications of these findings are presented.

Bless, Herbert; Igou, Eric R.; Schwarz, Norbert; Wänke, Michaela

2000 Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin

doi: 10.1177/01461672002611002

This article investigates how the activation of a specific exemplar influences the direction and the size of context effects on evaluative judgments about other specific exemplars or about a superordinate category. The activation of an untrustworthy politician decreased judgments of trustworthiness of politicians in general but increased judgments of the trustworthiness of specific exemplars. The assimilation as well as the contrast effect were attenuated when additional judgment-relevant exemplars were activated. The results suggest that the impact of a specific context information depends on the amount of other judgment-relevant information that can be used in constructing a mental representation of the judgmental target or of a comparison standard. Implications for scandal management are discussed.

Sherman, David A. K.; Nelson, Leif D.; Steele, Claude M.

2000 Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin

doi: 10.1177/01461672002611003

Two studies demonstrate that self-image maintenance processes affect the acceptance of personally relevant health messages. Participants who completed a self-affirmation were less defensive and more accepting of health information. In Study 1, female participants (high vs. low relevance) read an article linking caffeine consumption to breast cancer. High-relevance women rejected the information more than did low-relevance women; however, affirmed high-relevance women accepted the information and intended to change their behavior accordingly. In Study 2, sexually active participants viewed an AIDS educational video; affirmed participants saw themselves at greater risk for HIV and purchased condoms more often than did nonaffirmed participants. Results suggest that health messages can threaten an individual’s self-image and that self-affirming techniques can increase the effectiveness of health information and lead to positive health behaviors.

Hafer, Carolyn L.

2000 Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin

doi: 10.1177/01461672002611004

The author hypothesized that the less one focuses on long-term goals, or the less one plans to achieve goals through just means, the less essential is the belief in a just world (BJW) and the less one will work at maintaining this belief when it is threatened. In Studies 1 and 2, participants’ focus on long-term investments was either manipulated or measured, and their reactions to a victim who presented a high or low threat to the BJW were assessed. In Study 2, the tendency to obtain goals through unjust means (delinquency) also was measured. As predicted, strong long-term focus and low-delinquency participants reacted more negatively toward the high-threat victim, presumably to maintain the BJW. Study 3 showed that the more one focuses on long-term investments and the less one uses unjust means, the stronger one’s BJW.

Klauer, Karl Christoph; Meiser, Thorsten

2000 Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin

doi: 10.1177/01461672002611005

Source monitoring refers to the discrimination of the origin of information. The source-monitoring methodology, applied to illusory correlations in the formation of stereotypes, allows one to disentangle memory for behaviors from memory for the behaviors’ group origin and from response bias. In three studies, illusory correlations are found, and they are shown to reflect differential response bias rather than differential item or group memory. In addition, illusory correlations are found only along an evaluative dimension, not for a gender classification of group members. The results challenge so-called cognitive accounts of illusory correlations, such as the account by distinctiveness, whereas they can be reconciled with an account in terms of evaluative differentiation.

Ford, Thomas E.

2000 Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin

doi: 10.1177/01461672002611006

The results of three experiments supported the hypothesis that exposure to sexist humor increases tolerance of sex discrimination among people high in hostile sexism. The results of Experiment 1 revealed that for participants high in hostile sexism, exposure to sexist jokes led to greater tolerance of a sexist event in comparison to exposure to neutral jokes or nonhumorous sexist communications. The results of Experiments 2 and 3 suggest that the activation of a noncritical mindset presumed to be a natural byproduct of humorous communication is critical for sexist humor to increase tolerance of sex discrimination. When sexist jokes were interpreted in a serious, critical manner, either as a result of explicit instructions (Experiment 2) or contextual cues such as the group membership of the joke teller (Experiment 3), the effects of sexist humor were nullified among participants high in hostile sexism.

Grube, Jean A.; Piliavin, Jane Allyn

2000 Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin

doi: 10.1177/01461672002611007

The central focus of this research is on the development and testing of a theoretical framework to understand performance and retention of volunteers. The framework is centered on identity theory and includes both general and specific role identity as well as organizational variables. Data were obtained from two samples of volunteers for the American Cancer Society (ACS). Specific role identity as an ACS volunteer is predicted from general role identity and several factors related to perceived experiences in the organization. Specific role identity explains significant amounts of variance in the number of hours worked for ACS and other organizations as well as intent to remain an ACS volunteer. Results also suggest that volunteers may experience conflicts between the demands of their general and specific role identities. Finally, the effects of ACS role identity on volunteer behavior are compared with those of organizational commitment.

Tucker, Joan S.; Mueller, Jennifer S.

2000 Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin

doi: 10.1177/01461672002611008

Forty-four couples described the strategies they used in attempting to prompt their partner to engage in particular health behaviors, strategies used by their partner that were effective and ineffective in prompting their own engagement in health behaviors, and their own psychological reactions to the partner’s use of social control. Strategies that were more frequently mentioned as effective rather than ineffective included the partner also engaging in the desired health behavior, modeling the health behavior, discussing health issues, and providing emotional support. Spouses reported feeling lower self-esteem, less positive affect, and more negative affect in response to their partner’s use of ineffective rather than effective strategies. In addition, both spouses rated their partners’ use of ineffective (compared to effective) strategies as less motivated by a concern for the participant’s welfare and more motivated by their partner’s own desire to exert control within the relationship.

Hirt, Edward R.; McCrea, Sean M.; Kimble, Charles E.

2000 Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin

doi: 10.1177/01461672002611009

The present study examined the effects of public self-focus and participants’ sex on self-handicapping behavior. Research in the area of self-handicapping has consistently shown that men alone tend to self-handicap behaviorally. Because conditions of public self-focus tend to make the evaluative implications of per formance more salient, the authors hypothesized that people would self-handicap more when they are self-focused (as opposed to other-focused). Men and women were presented with an important intellectual evaluation and were allowed to practice for the upcoming test as much as they wanted. Results showed that men self-handicap more when they are self-focused but women do not behaviorally self-handicap under self-or other-focused conditions. Heightened concern over possible failure in self-focused conditions appeared to be the critical mediator in encouraging self-handicapping behavior among men.

Mussweiler, Thomas; Strack, Fritz; Pfeiffer, Tim

2000 Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin

doi: 10.1177/01461672002611010

Anchoring effects—the assimilation of a numeric estimate to a previously considered standard—have proved to be remarkably robust. Results of two studies, however, demonstrate that anchoring can be reduced by applying a consider-the-opposite strategy. Based on the Selective Accessibility Model, which assumes that anchoring is mediated by the selectively increased accessibility of anchor-consistent knowledge, the authors hypothesized that increasing the accessibility of anchor-inconsistent knowledge mitigates the effect. Considering the opposite (i.e., generating reasons why an anchor is inappropriate) fulfills this objective and consequently proves to be a successful corrective strategy. In a real-world setting using experts as participants, Study 1 dem-onstrated that listing arguments that speak against a provided anchor value reduces the effect. Study 2 further revealed that the effects of anchoring and considering the opposite are additive.