Correction to: Dyduch-Hazar, K., & Gollwitzer, M. (2024). Feeling Bad About Feeling Good? How Avengers and Observers Evaluate the Hedonic Pleasure of Taking Revenge. Social Psychological Bulletin, 19, Article e12477. https://doi.org/10.32872/spb.12477

Socially mobile minority members (i.e., those who acquire a higher status membership) adjust their social identities, and eventually show negative attitudes towards minorities, as compared to non-mobile members. We examined whether these changes could be understood as the result of individual mobility achievements, or if they already occur at an earlier stage of the mobility process, when individuals are motivated and thus psychologically anticipate achieving mobility. In two studies, we looked at Portuguese immigrants in Switzerland (Ns = 180 and 241) at three mobility stages, that is, (1) Swiss naturalized Portuguese immigrants (socially mobile), (2) non-naturalized Portuguese who strongly wished to be naturalized (high anticipators), and (3) those who wished it less (low anticipators). First, we hypothesized a progressive assimilation to (distancing from) the Swiss (Portuguese) identity and culture (from the low anticipators to the high anticipators to the mobile). As expected, increasing levels of individual mobility were associated with stronger identification with Swiss identity and adoption of the Swiss culture. Conversely, increasing levels of individual mobility were associated with gradual distancing from the Portuguese culture, but against expectations, not with disidentification from the Portuguese identity. Second, we investigated how individual mobility stages were associated with a progressive deterioration of inter-minority relations. Results showed that increasing levels of individual mobility were not associated with more negative attitudes toward immigration (Study 1) but with less collective action intentions (Study 2). We discuss the consequences of anticipated and achieved individual mobility on asymmetric intergroup relations and support for social change.

Four pre-registered experiments (N total = 2,039) investigated how people morally evaluate avengers who experience hedonic pleasure (vs. displeasure) after taking revenge and whether avengers themselves pick up on these moral evaluations by third parties. Victims who took revenge were judged as more immoral than victims who did not take revenge, especially when they felt pleasure from doing so (Study 1). Conversely, participants anticipated that others would perceive them as more competent (but not less moral) when imagining them showing visible signs of pleasure (vs. displeasure) about taking revenge (Study 2). Furthermore, showing signs of pleasure from taking revenge was attributed to greater competence than showing signs of displeasure from taking revenge (Study 3). On the other hand, feeling good about revenge was attributed to lower morality than feeling bad about taking revenge (Study 4).

Guilt, on the one hand, can be unpleasant and exhausting. On the other hand, it can also motivate individuals to, for example, make amends and repair broken social relationships. To understand this dual nature of guilt, this research turns to the concept of mimicry. Mimicry is defined as the unconscious imitation of behaviors and is widely recognized as a 'social glue' that plays a crucial role in forming and maintaining social relationships. A key question is whether mimicry could serve as an appliance for the sake of guilt release. A series of six studies (N = 414) reveals the opposite pattern: participants who were mimicked (compared to non-mimicked) felt more guilty. This outcome suggests that while mimicry generally fosters social connections, its interplay with emotions like guilt can be complex.

People tend to be more resistant to criticism of their own group when it is given by outgroup members as opposed to ingroup members because they view the criticism as less constructive and legitimate when delivered by an outsider—a phenomenon known as the intergroup sensitivity effect, or ISE. The present study (N = 827) examines the effectiveness of two rhetorical techniques—balanced criticism (delivering criticism of one’s own group in addition to the target group) and buttering up (delivering praise alongside criticism) in reducing the ISE among European Americans, African Americans, and Latino Americans. The impact of criticism on intentions to engage in corrective behavior was also explored. Participants read a fictitious interview excerpt containing criticism of their racial group delivered by a racial ingroup or outgroup member and then rated the critic and their statement on several dimensions. We found buttering up reduces the ISE among European Americans and Latino Americans, but not African Americans, while critiquing one’s own racial group alongside the target group is ineffective in reducing the ISE for the three examined groups. Additionally, we found African Americans were more willing to engage in corrective behavior to address criticism directed toward their racial group than their European American or Latino American counterparts. However, contrary to previous research, the group membership of the critic did not affect participants’ willingness to engage in corrective action. These findings contribute to our understanding of interracial dynamics in the United States and illuminate how to facilitate interracial criticism.

What is the relation between morality and politics? If morality is a collection of cooperative rules, and politics is conflict over which cooperative projects to pursue, then they should be correlated. We examined the relation between moral values and political orientation in samples of participants from the USA (N = 518), Denmark (N = 552), the Netherlands (N = 353), and an international online population (N = 1,337). Political conservatism was consistently related to deference values. We also found some support for the hypotheses that political orientation has distinct relations with family values and group values, and has distinct relations with fairness values and reciprocity values. However, for most hypotheses the results showed no support, largely due to poor model fit or measurement error associated with the political scales. The results suggest that improved measurement of political preferences will help understand the relation between morality and politics.

In recent years, the reliability and validity of psychology measurement practices has been called into question, as part of an ongoing reappraisal of the robustness, reproducibility, and transparency of psychological research. While useful progress has been made, to date, the majority of discussions surrounding psychology’s measurement crisis have involved technical, quantitative investigations into the validity, reliability, and statistical robustness of psychological measures. This registered report offers a seldom-heard qualitative perspective on these ongoing debates, critically exploring members of the general public’s (i.e., non-experts) lay perceptions of widely used measures in psychology. Using a combination of cognitive interviews and a think aloud study protocol, participants (n = 23) completed one of three popular psychology measures. Participants reflected on each of the measures, discussed the contents, and provided perceptions of what the measures are designed to test. Coding of the think aloud protocols showed that participants across the measures had issues in interpreting and responding to items. Thematic analysis of the cognitive interviews identified three dominant themes that each relate to lay perceptions of psychology measurements. These were: (1) participants’ grappling with attempting to ‘capture their multiple selves’ in the questionnaires, (2) participants perceiving the questionnaire method as generally ‘missing nuance and richness’ and (3) exposing the ‘hidden labour of questionnaires’. These findings are discussed in the context of psychology’s measurement reform.

In the wake of the replication crisis, there have been calls to increase the clarity and precision of theory in the social sciences. Here, we argue that the effects of these calls may be limited due to incentives favoring ambiguous theory. Intentionally or not, scientists can exploit theoretical ambiguities to make support for a claim appear stronger than it is. Practices include theory stretching, interpreting an ambiguous claim more expansively to absorb data outside of the scope of the original claim, and post-hoc precision, interpreting an ambiguous claim more narrowly so it appears more precisely aligned with the data. These practices lead to the overestimation of evidence for the original claim and create the appearance of consistent support and progressive research programs, which may in turn be rewarded by journals, funding agencies, and hiring committees. Selection for ambiguous research can occur even when scientists act in good faith. Although ambiguity might be inevitable or even useful in the early stages of theory construction, scientists should aim for increased clarity as knowledge advances. Science benefits from transparently communicating about known ambiguities. To attain transparency about ambiguity, we provide a set of recommendations for authors, reviewers, and journals. We conclude with suggestions for research on how scientists use strategic ambiguity to advance their careers and the ways in which norms, incentives, and practices favor strategic ambiguity. Our paper ends with a simple mathematical model exploring the conditions in which high-ambiguity theories are favored over low-ambiguity theories, providing a basis for future analyses.

The success of Open Science in addressing the replication crisis and restoring credibility in psychology can be understood more completely by examining the successes and challenges of adapting the recommended best practices by researchers at different types of institutions, different career stages, and from different subfields within social and personality psychology. In this article, we offer personal reflections about the impact and future of the Open Science movement in a conversational form between three researchers at varying career stages who focus on different subdisciplines (relationship science, diversity science, and social neuroscience and social cognition) and work at universities that place a different emphasis on research (relative to teaching and service). We see many successes of the open science movement, but we also note that implementation has trailed behind its full potential because (a) the incentive structures of our existing rigid system remain misaligned with some open-science goals, and (b) some open science solutions were designed by researchers with certain types of scientific practices in mind. We all feel encouraged by the focus on larger samples, greater data sharing, and pre-registration both for experimental design and analytical decisions. However, there are areas that need attention. Our perspective is that the open science movement has not been as strong of an ally as it could be to another goal of psychological science: increasing diversity, equity, and inclusion. Additionally, more careful consideration of how to facilitate data sharing and pre-registration is needed and may necessitate a shift in the incentive structure of our field.