Both the belief in a just world (BJW) and conspiracy theory (CT) endorsement assist people to make sense of their world when they encounter ambiguous situations. When one endorses BJW as a generalised framework for understanding their world, however, they may be less motivated to endorse more contextualised CTs. The present study tests this theoretical assertion and explores the extent to which ambiguity tolerance—a preference for black-and-white thinking—and scientific reasoning skills might modify the association. Findings indicate that people with low ambiguity tolerance and higher BJW were less likely to endorse CTs. However, when ambiguity tolerance is high, there was no such association. Scientific reasoning did not moderate the association between BJW and CT endorsement. This research provides support for the buffering effect of BJW against the endorsement of conspiracy theories when ambiguity tolerance is low and regardless of people's scientific reasoning abilities. We discuss the benefits of endorsing adaptive worldviews as a protective factor against engaging in more detrimental beliefs.

The present study examined for the first time the possibility that personal Belief in a Just World (BJW) is a personal resource for healthcare professionals, irrespective of the demands they face in their everyday work life, and/or a coping resource for facing demands due to the higher perceived suffering of their patients. A total of 497 healthcare professionals (physicians and nurses) voluntarily consented to answer an anonymous online survey. Self-reported measures of personal BJW, of the perception of patients' suffering, and of healthcare professionals' exhaustion were collected. We found a positive association between the perception of patients' suffering and healthcare workers' exhaustion, and a negative association between personal BJW and healthcare workers' exhaustion. Furthermore, a significant interaction between personal BJW and the perception of suffering on exhaustion showed that at lower levels of personal BJW, the higher the perception of patients' suffering the higher the exhaustion. In contrast, at higher levels of personal BJW the perception of patients' suffering was not associated with exhaustion. Our results supported the hypotheses of personal BJW operating both as a personal resource and a coping resource for healthcare professionals, underscoring the relevance of promoting workplace conditions that healthcare workers experience as just.

Although researchers posit that creativity leads to more unethical behavior, findings have been mixed. The inconsistency may stem from previous studies prioritizing novelty over appropriateness. The goal of this study was to investigate the potential associations between novelty and appropriateness in creativity and children's inclinations towards implicit and explicit unethical behavior. Primary school children (N = 263, Mage = 11.25; 44.5 % girls) completed the alternative uses task (AUT) measuring their creativity and questionnaires measuring their unethical behavior tendency. Results showed that novelty was positively correlated with unethical behavior, while appropriateness was negatively correlated with unethical behavior. Most importantly, appropriateness moderated the relationship between novelty and children's unethical behavior. The current findings improve the understanding of the association between creativity and unethical behavior and its underlying mechanism. It demonstrates that novelty and appropriateness play different roles in unethical behavior. Further, these results can inspire methods to cultivate creativity in educational environments and daily life.

The high school stage is a critical period for students to develop their perspectives on life and to form healthy relationships with others. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between social comparison orientation and malicious envy among high school students, as well as the mediating effects of avoidance goal orientation and negative rumination. A survey was conducted with 643 high school students, employing the Iowa-Netherlands Comparison Orientation Measure, the Avoidance Goal Orientation Scale, the Negative Rumination Scale, and the Malicious Envy Scale. The findings indicated that: (1) there is a significant positive association between social comparison orientation, avoidance goal orientation, negative rumination, and malicious envy; (2) social comparison orientation does not directly and significantly predict malicious envy among high school students when avoidance goal orientation and negative rumination are considered as mediating factors; (3) social comparison orientation indirectly affects the negative rumination of high school students through the independent and chain mediating effects of avoidance goal orientation and negative rumination. This research sheds light on the underlying mechanisms by which social comparison orientation influences malicious envy.

Life satisfaction is adaptive, yet the antecedents of its adaptability require further exploration. Drawing from evolutionary psychology, this study aimed to investigate the adaptive mechanisms underlying happiness among adolescents, considering that adaptation involves subjective evaluation, including both first-order and second-order evaluations. Through a cross-sectional study (Study 1) and a longitudinal study (Study 2), this research examined the impact of subjective socioeconomic status on life satisfaction and the mediating roles of general and personal belief in a just world. Findings from both studies indicated that subjective socioeconomic status positively predicts life satisfaction. Moreover, it was the general belief in a just world, rather than the personal belief in a just world, that mediated this relationship. This study examined how evolutionary theory and second-order evaluation theory explain the impact of subjective socioeconomic status on life satisfaction, emphasizing the belief in a just world as a crucial adaptive belief mediating this relationship. We should emphasize the belief in a just world among adolescents with low subjective socioeconomic status, as a strategy to boost their long-term happiness. By fostering a sense of fairness and acceptance in adolescents' evaluations of their socioeconomic status, we can better promote their mental health and overall happiness.

The COVID-19 pandemic posed a significant impact on employees' work outcomes worldwide. However, it remains unclear whether some employees fared worse than others when facing work-related health threats and what role individual differences in vulnerability to disease played in shaping their work experiences. Integrating the evolutionary psychology perspective of the behavioral immune system with Job Demands-Resources Theory, we argue that a fundamental factor in how employees dealt with these threats was the extent to which they perceived themselves as vulnerable to infectious diseases. Employees with higher susceptibility to infectious diseases were predicted to experience heightened workplace safety concerns and engage less with their work. In addition, a health-oriented leadership style was expected to decrease employees' safety concerns and increase their work engagement, especially for the more vulnerable employees. To test hypotheses, we conducted a three-wave field survey and two vignette-based experiments on working adults in the United Kingdom at different stages of the pandemic. Results largely supported our predictions, revealing that employees who felt more vulnerable to infectious diseases were more concerned about their workplace safety, inhibiting their work engagement. We discuss these findings' theoretical and practical implications for promoting a safe and healthy post-pandemic workplace, especially for vulnerable employees.

Conscientiousness can be an important personality predictor of sales performance. However, it has been suggested that Conscientiousness may have two faces in the job performance context: the highly functioning worker and the nervous low performer driven by angst. Based on the moderated expression model of Conscientiousness in job performance and the apparel store sales context, we tested whether the Fearless Happiness trait, a compound trait of Emotional Stability and Extraversion, positively moderated the relation between salespersons' (N = 251) Conscientiousness and objective individual sales performance over one year in a large nationwide chain of apparel stores (N = 174 units). We found that individuals who possessed elevated trait levels of Conscientiousness and Fearless Happiness were the high-functioning salespersons, individually improving sales performance by more than €20,500 per year above beyond Customer Service Orientation. We discuss implications for the two faces of Conscientiousness in sales performance.

Personality is the essence of individuality in animals, affecting individual behaviours, perceptions and lived experiences. Being able to reliably assess personality in animals holds the key to understanding individual differences, and application of this knowledge is paramount in the provision of individual-level management of animals to optimise welfare. A key aspect of the definition of animal personality is ‘consistency over time’. Yet, despite the range of studies assessing elephant personality, there is a lack of consistency within methodologies and personality is usually assessed at a single point in time. Here, we examine personality data from adult members of the Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) herd at Chester Zoo at five separate time points, across a ten-year period (2013−2023). Data were analysed in terms of the instruments used to measure personality (differences in questions/items across assessments, presentation of the personality assessments, raters), and changes over time in elephant personality assessment scores. Select personality traits were consistent over multiple time points. Inter-rater reliability across personality adjectives is highest when keepers are involved in scale development, reinforcing the importance of collaboration between scientists and animal caregivers in building tools for evidence-based management decisions over the lifetime of animals.