Behavioral Social Psychology Research Articles

How power distance belief, self-construal, and relationship norms impact conspicuous consumption

Building on the idea that luxury products can signal the owner's status to others, this research elucidates how fundamental and pervasive social factors—power distance belief (PDB), self-construal, and relationship norms—dynamically impact consumers' preferences for conspicuous consumption. Through three experiments, we found that (1) high-PDB consumers are more likely to prefer conspicuous consumption compared to low-PDB consumers, and this effect is mediated by their need for status; (2) the relationship between PDB and conspicuous consumption is enhanced under interdependent self-construal, attenuated under independent self-construal, and mediated by consumers' need for status; (3) these effects are moderated by relationship norms, such that the positive effect of PDB on conspicuous consumption under interdependent self-construal is attenuated when communal relationships (vs. exchange relationships) are salient. Our conceptualization and findings contribute to the literature on the dynamics of individuals' status-related behavior in social psychology and related fields, and provide important practical applications for luxury businesses.

WERYFIKACJA OSIĄGNIĘCIA PRZEDMIOTOWYCH EFEKTÓW KSZTAŁCENIA/UCZENIA SIĘ W RAMACH PRAKTYKI NAUCZYCIELSKIEJ – WYBRANE MODELE

Quality assessment of intended learning outcomes in teaching practice should reflect current directions in educating preservice teacher candidates. Moreover, it should correspond with recent studies on human behavior in social psychology. A trainee teacher applies the knowledge acquired at university only when confronted by all manner of problems in the complex pedagogical reality. Therefore, the intended learning outcome, which is a key factor in quality teacher education and which should undergo quality assessment (Journal of Laws, 2012), is pedagogical acuity. Pedagogical acuity, so-called “sensitivity to problems” (Kwiatkowska, 1988: 103, 105), is the ability on the part of trainee teachers to reflect-inaction and to reflect-on-action by identifying classroom and out-of-classroom problems and dealing with them in a creative way. The development of pedagogical acuity is not an automatic process and it depends on trainees’ readiness to take autonomous decisions. The aim of the article is twofold. Firstly, it compares three models of assessment, which apply alternative evaluation methods of intended learning outcomes in teaching practice, with regard to the development of autonomous behavior on the part of the trainee. They offer forms of alternative assessment in which narrative texts play a central role; these include discussions, dialogues, journals and/or diaries. Secondly, the article analyses teacher education programs at Polish universities, considering those available online, from the perspective of developing autonomous behavior during teaching practice. The findings reveal that roughly one third of teacher education programs apply alternative assessment in teaching practice. In concluding remarks the author reflects on the significant gap between the assessment preferences of academicians, and proven models applying alternative evaluation methods available in literature mainly in the form of one-off projects.

RETRACTED: Norms Across Cultures: A Cross-Cultural Meta-Analysis of Norms Effects in the Theory of Planned Behavior

Norms have emerged as a central concept across various fields of psychology. In social psychology, norms have been important to predict intentions and behavior in social psychology, but cultural va...

0544 A BRIEF SURVEY PREDICTING CONTINUOUS POSITIVE AIRWAY PRESSURE ADHERENCE

The CPAP non-adherence has been found that is a complex clinic problem associated with multiple factors. According to the theories of Reasoned Action and Interpersonal Behavior in social psychology, an individual’s past habitual behavior and behavior intention on a future behavior are the most important factors determining the future behavior. We hypothesized that a patient’s past sleep habit (PSH) and behavioral intention (BI) on CPAP therapy predict the patient’s CPAP adherence. We developed a brief PSH-BI survey to exam this hypothesis. 94 consecutive patients who were newly diagnosed OSA from October 2015 to May 2016 in our sleep center completed the brief survey before receiving their CPAP devices. 72 of 94 participants repeated the survey after they used their CPAP devices for 30 - 90 days. 94 data of CPAP adherence were downloaded from each participant’s CPAP device. Using the enter method of multiple regression analysis, we found from: (1) the survey of pre-CPAP therapy, the level of PSH-BI explained a significant amount of the variance in CPAP adherence, R2 = .066, R2 adjusted = .046, F(2, 91) = 3.27, ρ < .05. Although the level of PSB did not significantly predicted CPAP adherence (β = -.071, t(91) = -.688, ns), the level of BI significantly predicted CPAP adherence (β = .249, t(91) = 2.456, ρ < .05); (2) the survey of post-CPAP therapy, the level of PSH-BI explained a significant amount of the variance in CPAP adherence, R2 = .213, R2 adjusted = .190, F(2, 69) = 9.34, ρ < .01. Both levels of PSB and BI significantly predicted CPAP adherence (β = -.262, t(69) = -2.268, ρ < .05; β = .381, t(69) = 3.561, ρ < .01, respectively). A patient’s behavioral intention on CPAP therapy played a key role of predicting a short and long term CPAP adherence.

Moral typecasting underlies punitive responses to crime.

We examine the role of moral typecasting in lay individuals' punitive responses to crime. Individuals perceive criminal offenders and victims in ways that are biased by their perceptions of the actors' moral roles in prior simulated criminal incidents. We find that this psychological process of moral typecasting has important implications for punitive responses to criminal offenders, and these findings make 2 major contributions to the literature. First, we show that moral agency is distinct from moral deservingness, which is 1 of the dominant explanations for punitive behavior in social psychology. Second, the role of moral typecasting in punitive responses means that these responses can occur regardless of the valence of moral character. We argue that theories of lay punitive responding that do not take moral typecasting processes into account are incomplete. (PsycINFO Database Record

Exploring the effectiveness of social messages on promoting energy conservation behavior in buildings

Buildings could be transformed into interactive living spaces that communicate with their occupants and influence the way occupants behave in buildings. This paper focuses on investigating the effectiveness of incorporating social influence methods in the design of energy saving messages. Specifically, we examined the use of two classic compliance-gaining strategies that proved to have great influence on behavior in social psychology: foot-in-the-door and reciprocity and compared them to direct request. One hundred fifty participants were randomly assigned to one of the three experimental groups. Participants in three groups received text based messages that included the same simple energy saving tip. The only difference between the messages was the social influence methods used in framing the messages. Through the use of an immersive virtual environment, we observed the participants' compliance with the messages. Our analysis showed that reciprocity received significantly higher rates of compliance both in the virtual and physical environments. In addition, significant effects were found between the participants' personality traits and their compliance with the messages. We also found carryover effects between the behavior in the virtual part of the experiment and subsequent responses in the physical environment, suggesting participants acted in the same way in both environments.

Pro‐environmental behavior

The determinants of individual behaviors that provide shared environmental benefits are a longstanding theme in social science research. Alternative behavioral models yield markedly different predictions and policy recommendations. This paper reviews and compares the literatures from two disciplines that appear to be moving toward a degree of convergence. In social psychology, moral theories of pro-environmental behavior have focused on the influence of personal moral norms while recognizing that external factors, such as costs and incentives, ultimately limit the strength of the norm-behavior relationship. Rational choice models, such as the theory of planned behavior in social psychology and the theories of voluntary provision of public goods in economics, have sought to incorporate the effects of personal norms and to measure their importance in explaining behaviors, such as recycling and the demand for green products. This paper explores the relationship between these approaches and their implications for the theory and practice of ecological economics.

Attitude and Behavior in (Classic) Social Psychology and Rabbinic Thought: Implications for Psychology of Religion Research

Certainly attitudes influence behavior; however, less intuitively obvious is the empirical literature revealing that external behavior affects internal attitudes sometimes even more powerfully. This article explores the parallel literatures about the relationship between attitude and behavior in social psychology and the rabbinic tradition. Judaism, characterized by orthopraxy, has considerably more emphasis on legislated behavior than belief, doctrine, or attitude. Moreover, rabbinic text is replete with observations that complement the empirical demonstrations of social psychology. These relate to the causal influence of behavior on attitude, behavioral factors leading to internalization or externalization, and the relationship between effort and satisfaction.

The Analysis of Rule-Governed Behavior in Social Psychology

This article describes part of the common ground on which behavior analysts and social psychologists can meet for fruitful discussions to further their research: Both groups of investigators share an interest in rule-governed behavior. I describe four lively research areas of mainstream social psychology to illustrate that shared interest—time horizons, optimism and pessimism, attribution, and equity theory. Numerous experiments in each area are designed to (a) discover individuals’ self-rules and (b) analyze their implications for various activities in daily life.

The facial displays of leaders: Toward an ethology of human politics

Introduction Can human behavior be studied experimentally from the perspective of human ethology? This paper presents evidence which shows that socially important categories of nonverbal behavior can be defined in objective terms, integrating ethological research on primate social displays with studies of human expressive behavior in social psychology. Focusing on facial displays, we show that three categories of displays---called here 'happiness/reassurance', 'anger/threat', and 'fear/evasion'--have distinctive features that affect the emotions and attitudes of viewers. When presented with videotapes of a powerful leader exhibiting these different kinds of facial displays, viewers describe the leader's expressive behavior in ways consistent with the objective criteria used to select the stimuli. Further, the viewer's description of these displays was not influenced by their prior attitudes toward the leader, even though he is well known and controversial. We also find that the same dimensions of expressive behavior are communicated by facial cues, by the spoken message, by the combination of sound and image, by the image accompanied by filtered sound (so that paravocal cues are heard but the meaning is obscured), and even by the written text being read silently. While viewers describe expressive behavior in a way that is consistent with the objective classification of non-verbal behavior, their emotional responses are more complex. Verbal self-reports of emotion are the result of an interaction between previous attitudes toward the leader and the display that has been observed. Hence, even though all the viewers describe a particular display in the same way, supporters report emotional reactions to these displays which differ from those of critics. The results are particularly significant because, at the psychophysioiogical level, different kinds of expressive displays elicit distinct patterns of response that did not vary for both critics and supporters. These physiological reactions include both autonomic changes associated with arousal and changes in the tension of facial muscles known to

On the so‐called ‘superior conformity of the self’ behavior: Twenty experimental investigations

AbstractIn comparison processes between the self and others within a given social set, a marked tendency has been frequently observed for each person to present himself as more in conformity with the social norms prevailing in the set under consideration than others participating in this set generally are. This type of behavior has been designated here as ‘superior conformity of the self behavior’ (also called ‘PIP effect’). This article sets out to synthesize twenty experimental investigations in which it was attempted to delimit and explain this behavior.A first set of experiments deals with the observed scope of the superior conformity of the self behavior. For this purpose, variations are systematically introduced in the characteristics of comparative situations: Types of sets of individuals (for instance, real groups or abstract sets — social categories); types of norms under consideration (for instance, norms dealing with the concrete execution of a task, norms relating to forms of behavior — personality characteristics, etc.); manners of comparing oneself with others (for instance, a specifically defined other or generalized others; comparisons on past, present or future behavior, etc.).Having tested the scope of the superior conformity of the self behavior in various ways, we proceed to explain it theoretically and experimentally. Our explanation here is based on the existence of a fundamental conflict between two simultaneous processes that are both complementary and contradictory: The individual's need, on the one hand, for social conformity, which tends toward standardization and de‐individualization; on the other hand, his simultaneous search for social differentiation and individualization. This explanation is tested in a second set of experiments.Our final purpose is to show the practical and theoretical importance of the study of the superior conformity of the self behavior in social psychology. In this connection we have shown, in a third set of experiments, how such a behavior can play a role in many phenomena studied by social psychology.

On the Relation between Human Ecology and Behavioral Social Psychology

Human ecology and operant conditioning are compared in order to consider the feasibility and desirability of linking human ecology and behavioral social psychology. General similarities between human ecology and operant conditioning include a recognition of the interaction between behavior and environment, the necessity of longitudinal analyses, the view that change is externally determined, and quantitative analyses involving aggregated behaviors. Major differences include origins of general principles, methodology, and units of analysis. Many similarities also exist among general concepts and principles. Operant principles might be applied to provide complex psychological, social-psychological, sociological, and human-ecological analyses. The major barrier between human ecologists and behavioral social psychologists and sociologists now appears to be the discrepancy in the size of the social systems each studies.

On the Relation Between Human Ecology and Behavioral Social Psychology

Human ecology and operant conditioning are compared in order to consider the feasibility and desirability of linking human ecology and behavioral social psychology. General similarities between human ecology and operant conditioning include a recognition of the interaction between behavior and environment, the necessity of longitudinal analyses, the view that change is externally determined, and quantitative analyses involving aggregated behaviors. Major differences include origins of general principles, methodology, and units of analysis. Many similarities also exist among general concepts and principles. Operant principles might be applied to provide complex psychological, social-psychological, sociological, and human-ecological analyses. The major barrier between human ecologists and behavioral social psychologists and sociologists now appears to be the discrepancy in the size of the social systems each studies. The relation between human ecology and social psychology has been discussed on several occasions (e.g., Duncan and Schnore, 1959; Hawley, unpublished manuscript), and in most cases the conclusion has been that the relationship is one of mutual independence. In most cases, however, human ecology has been discussed in relation to the cognitive branch of social psychology. The relation between human ecology and the behavioral branch of social psychology has apparently not been considered in spite of the fact that the two approaches employ similar orienting strategies and have produced numerous strikingly parallel general concepts and propositions. This article calls attention to such parallels and discusses the feasibility and desirability of a symbiotic relationship between human ecologists and behavioral social psychologists and other sociologists who have begun applying the concepts and principles of operant conditioning to the analysis of social process and social organization. ORIENTING DESCRIPTIONS OF HUMAN ECOLOGY AND OPERANT CONDITIONING1 Human ecology can be generally defined as the study of the relationship between a human population and its environment. The bulk of human ecology falls within the branch of general ecology called synecology, the study of the relationships among groups of organisms engaged with a given environment. A second branch, autecology, is the study of the individual organism's interaction with its environment. The human ecologist, however, studies primarily a population's collective interaction with its environment. Such interactions with the environment are viewed as collectively adaptive and produce a recognizable form of organization seen in the relationships among the activities emitted by different functional units. The adaptive notion gives human ecology its characteristic equilibrium position. Duncan (1959) has distinguished four major interdependent variables constituting an ecosystem. These are population, organization, environment, and technology-any of which may constitute the major dependent variable for certain purposes. Operant conditioning, strictly speaking, is the conditioning of operants. An operant is any behavior which can be strengthened or weakened by the contingent events which follow the behavior. The behavior may be referred to as a response, and its strength may be indicated by several dimensions including its frequency * This article is a revision of a paper presented at the annual meeting of the Southern Sociological Society, 1971. I wish to acknowledge the useful comments and suggestions of Amos Hawley and James Wiggins. 1 The present description of human ecology is based largely on Hawley's (1968) elaborated description. The reader is referred to Reese (1966) and Reynolds (1968) for efficient introductions to operant conditioning.