Study 1b Research Articles

Can't see the forest for the trees: Time poverty influences construal level and the moderating role of autonomous versus controlled motivation.

In today's fast-paced world, increasing numbers of individuals face time poverty, i.e., having too much to do and not enough time. The current research conducted six studies (total valid N = 1307) examining whether time poverty influences individuals' construal levels and the moderating role of individuals' motivations towards what they do. The results consistently suggest that time poverty leads individuals to adopt more concrete construal regardless of whether time poverty was measured (Study 1) or manipulated either by a scenario (Studies 2a, 3-5) or by a recall task (Study 2b). Concrete construal prioritizes the "how" over the "why" aspect of actions (Studies 1 and 2a) and emphasizes secondary rather than primary features of options (Studies 2b, 3-5). Meanwhile, the results supported the moderating role of motivations (Studies 3-5). Specifically, compared with those experiencing time poverty due to too many things they "have-to" do (controlled motivation), those experiencing time poverty because of too many things they "want-to" do (autonomous motivation) demonstrated weaker tendencies towards adopting concrete construal. Taken together, our findings contribute to the growing literature on how the chronic perception of time poverty shapes the way people feel, think and do.

Creating a psychosocial intervention combining growth mindset and implementation intentions (GMII) to reduce alcohol consumption: A mixed method approach.

This work aimed at creating a psychosocial intervention based on growth mindset theory and implementation intention strategies, in order to reduce alcohol consumption among users in the general population, and the clinical population of individuals with alcohol use disorder. A mixed method approach was used, combining qualitative and quantitative research methods among both populations. Four focus groups were first conducted to extract arguments in favor of a malleable view of alcohol consumption (study 1A), situations that trigger the desire to drink alcohol, as well as strategies used by people to counteract this need (study 1B). Data were analyzed using reflective thematic analysis in line with the scientific literature on alcohol consumption. The results were used to create a questionnaire scoring the relevance of each argument, situation and strategy (study 2). The 20 best scored arguments, situations and strategies were selected to create the intervention. The created intervention consisted in a popularized scientific article describing alcohol consumption as malleable, including the selected arguments and followed by two internalization exercises. Then, a volitional help sheet included the selected situations and solutions was presented, allowing forming up to three plans. The discussion focused on the added value of the created material compared to pre-existing tools in the literature, and presents plans to test the intervention in a future study.

Show me the destination or show me the tourist? Effect of image-based user-generated advertisement type on tourists’ destination interest

ABSTRACT This study investigated how image-based user-generated advertising (UGA) affects a tourist’s interest in travel destinations using self-referencing and mental imagery theories. Two studies with four experiments were conducted in this research. Study 1a and Study 1b aimed to explore the interaction effect of image type and public self-consciousness on tourist destination interest through the mediating role of mental imagery using different versions of UGA advertising stimuli. Study 2a and Study 2b further explored the moderating role of destination type on the interaction effect. Results found that a match between image type and public self-consciousness led to increased tourists’ interest in a destination. A three-way interaction was also observed: when the UGA is marketing a hedonic destination, participants with high public self-consciousness are more likely to respond to an image that includes a tourist, and when marketing a utilitarian destination, participants with low public self-consciousness are more inclined to respond favourably to an image only portraying a destination. Mental imagery plays a mediating role in the above mechanisms. The theoretical and managerial ramifications of these findings are presented for destination managers and tourism marketers.

Winter is coming: An investigation of vigilant leadership, antecedents, and outcomes.

Within the hierarchical taxonomy of effective leadership, change-oriented leadership stands as a distinct and meaningful metacategory, primarily focusing on promoting change by communicating a compelling vision for the future. However, we consider whether there might be room to broaden the scope of change-oriented leadership by examining more negative-focused leadership behaviors. In this article, we explore the concept of vigilant leadership, which we suggest could be a change-oriented and negative-focused leadership style, and investigate its usefulness as a new leadership construct. In Study 1, we take preliminary steps toward developing a measure of vigilant leadership, employing content adequacy assessment and item response theory analysis. Drawing on the integrative trait-behavioral model of leadership effectiveness (DeRue et al., 2011), we further explore how vigilant leadership is associated with an array of antecedents (i.e., leader characteristics) and leadership outcomes. In Studies 2a and 2b, we present initial findings that leaders high on consideration of future consequences, prevention focus, general self-efficacy, and emotional intelligence might be more inclined to exhibit vigilant leadership. In Study 3, our results suggest that, even after controlling for the effect of visionary leadership (a type of positive-focused change-oriented leadership), vigilant leadership is positively related to follower felt responsibility for change, proactivity, specific proactive work behaviors (taking charge, voice, and problem prevention), teamwork proactivity, and teamwork proficiency. However, it does not seem to relate to follower proficiency, follower adaptivity, teamwork adaptivity, organizational citizenship behavior, positive affect toward the leader, leader-member exchange, or relational identification with the leader. With these preliminary findings, we encourage further discussion and investigation into the potential implications of this emerging construct. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Does competitive action intensity influence team performance via leader bottom-line mentality? A social information processing perspective.

Leader bottom-line mentality (LBLM) exists when leaders solely focus on securing bottom-line outcomes to the exclusion of alternative considerations. Our research examines why leaders adopt LBLMs and the implications of this focused leadership strategy on team sales performance and pro-environmental behavior. Utilizing social information processing theory, we examine LBLM as a mediator and contend that competitive action intensity in the work environment provokes LBLM, which then signals to teams the importance of raising sales performance and reducing pro-environmental behavior. We also suggest that leader performance reward expectancy (i.e., perceptions that rewards are directly tied to high performance) serves as a first-stage moderator and team performance reward expectancy serves as a second-stage moderator, with higher (vs. lower) levels of each strengthening the indirect effects of competitive action intensity, through LBLM, onto team sales performance and pro-environmental behavior. Utilizing field data from a large pharmaceutical company (Study 1) as well as an experimental causal chain design (Studies 2a and 2b), we found support for our theoretical model. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

The Transformative power of friendships: Examining the relationships among friendship quality, self‐change, and well‐being

AbstractFriendships are beneficial to a person's growth and well‐being. People in close relationships may experience four types of self‐change: self‐expansion, self‐pruning, self‐contraction, and self‐adulteration. The current cross‐sectional research sought to investigate whether these relational self‐change processes explain the links between friendship quality and well‐being in same‐sex best friendships. Study 1A (N = 187) adapted the Turkish Relational Self‐Change Scale to the friendship context and confirmed its psychometric adequacy in addressing friendship‐based self‐changes in Türkiye. Study 1B (N = 306) examined the links between different friendship functions and relational self‐changes, as well as whether relational self‐changes explain the link between friendship quality and ontological well‐being. Among the specific friendship functions, stimulating companionship and self‐validation were related to self‐expansion and self‐pruning, whereas reliable alliance was related to self‐contraction and self‐adulteration. Self‐adulteration also indirectly explained the relationship between friendship quality and ontological well‐being. Study 2 (N = 204) revealed that only self‐pruning explained the link between perceived friend responsiveness and overall well‐being. The contributions of friendships to self‐change and personal well‐being were discussed in light of the findings.

The more attention you get, the better you feel? A study on the influence of being envied on inconspicuous consumption

PurposeFrom a relational maintenance perspective, this study explores the impact of being envied (benignly vs maliciously) on consumers' feelings of social anxiety and its influence on their tendencies toward inconspicuous consumption, based on the resource conservation theory and the model of “Sensitivity about Being the Target of a Threatening Upward Comparison.” (STTUC)Design/methodology/approachFour studies were conducted in this paper. Studies 1a and 1b tested the main hypothesis that being maliciously envied (vs benignly) can increase consumers' inconspicuous consumption of luxury products and luxury hotel experiences. Study 2 replicated this finding and examined the mediating role of social anxiety. Study 3 investigated the moderating effect of ideal self-congruity (low vs high).FindingsThe findings reveal that being maliciously envied (vs benignly) is associated with higher levels of inconspicuous consumption and social anxiety acts as a mediating role. Moreover, when individuals have a strong sense of ideal self-congruity, the positive impact of being maliciously envied (vs benignly) on inconspicuous consumption is further amplified, confirming the moderating role of ideal self-congruity.Originality/valueThis study sheds light on a novel mechanism that elucidates how different types of being envied influence consumers' inconspicuous consumption and the conditions under which this impact is heightened.

What do we manipulate when reminding people of (not) having control? In search of construct validity

The construct of personal control is crucial for understanding a variety of human behaviors. Perceived lack of control affects performance and psychological well-being in diverse contexts – educational, organizational, clinical, and social. Thus, it is important to know to what extent we can rely on the established experimental manipulations of (lack of) control. In this article, we examine the construct validity of recall-based manipulations of control (or lack thereof). Using existing datasets (Study 1a and 1b: N = 627 and N = 454, respectively) we performed content-based analyses of control experiences induced by two different procedures (free recall and positive events recall). The results indicate low comparability between high and low control conditions in terms of the emotionality of a recalled event, the domain and sphere of control, amongst other differences. In an experimental study that included three types of recall-based control manipulations (Study 2: N = 506), we found that the conditions differed not only in emotionality but also in a generalized sense of control. This suggests that different aspects of personal control can be activated, and other constructs evoked, depending on the experimental procedure. We discuss potential sources of variability between control manipulation procedures and propose improvements in practices when using experimental manipulations of sense of control and other psychological constructs.

The role of recommendation sources and attribute framing in online product recommendations

As artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly incorporated into online product recommendations (OPRs), investigating how an AI recommendation source influences consumer behavior has attracted widespread attention among scholars. Across five studies, this paper empirically examines the effect of the AI (vs. human) recommendation source on consumer responses from the perspective of vice and virtue frame products. The results show that when OPRs frame products as vice (vs. virtue), the AI (vs. human) recommendation source has negative effects on perceived warmth and competence (Study 2a) and eventually negatively influences purchase intention (Studies 1a and 2a), willingness to pay (Study 1b), and product attitude (Study 2b). However, humanized AI and AI-human hybrid improve the acceptance intention of vice frame product recommendations through different improvement paths (Study 3). This paper extends the research stream on the comparison of AI and humans and contributes to the literature on social perception, humanized intelligence, and augmented intelligence.

Sexuality and Morality: How Sexual Experiences Affect Self-Humanity Perceptions

The present research explored the relationship between sexual experiences and self-humanity perceptions. We investigated and found that the immoral perceptions of a sexual experience negatively predict self-humanity perceptions (Study 1), and that the recalling of a perceived moral sexual experience predicts higher self-humanity perceptions as compared to the recalling of an everyday social interaction (control group; Study 2b) and of a perceived immoral sexual experience (Studies 2a and 2b). Contrary to expectations, no meaningful difference emerged between the perceived immoral sexual experience and the control conditions (Study 2b). Furthermore, mediation analysis revealed that recalling a perceived moral sexual experience positively predicts self-humanity perceptions through the effect of increased social connection. The discussion considered the implications of these findings for morality.

Children Value Animals More Than Adults Do: A Conceptual Replication and Extension.

Recent psychological research finds that U.S. American children have a weaker tendency than U.S. American adults to value humans more than animals. We aimed to conceptually replicate and extend this finding in a preregistered study (N = 412). We investigated whether 6- to 9-year-old Polish children (Study 1a) are less likely to prioritize humans over animals than Polish adults are (Studies 1b and 1c). We presented participants with moral dilemmas where they had to prioritize either humans or animals (dogs or chimpanzees) in situations that involved harming (i.e., a trolley problem) or benefiting (i.e., giving a snack). We found that Polish children prioritized humans over animals less than Polish adults did. This was the case both in dilemmas that involved preventing harm and in dilemmas that involved providing snacks. Both children and adults prioritized humans over chimpanzees more than humans over dogs.

I like it because it hurts you: On the association of everyday sadism, sadistic pleasure, and victim blaming.

Past research on determinants of victim blaming mainly concentrated on individuals' just-world beliefs as motivational process underlying this harsh reaction to others' suffering. The present work provides novel insights regarding underlying affective processes by showing how individuals prone to derive pleasure from others' suffering-individuals high in everyday sadism-engage in victim blaming due to increased sadistic pleasure and reduced empathic concern they experience. Results of three cross-sectional studies and one ambulatory assessment study applying online experience sampling method (ESM; overall N = 2,653) document this association. Importantly, the relation emerged over and above the honesty-humility, emotionality, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness personality model (Study 1a), and other so-called dark traits (Study 1b), across different cultural backgrounds (Study 1c), and also when sampling from a population of individuals frequently confronted with victim-perpetrator constellations: police officers (Study 1d). Studies 2 and 3 highlight a significant behavioral correlate of victim blaming. Everyday sadism is related to reduced willingness to engage in effortful cognitive activity as individuals high (vs. low) in everyday sadism recall less information regarding victim-perpetrator constellations of sexual assault. Results obtained in the ESM study (Study 4) indicate that the relation of everyday sadism, sadistic pleasure, and victim blaming holds in everyday life and is not significantly moderated by interpersonal closeness to the blamed victim or impactfulness of the incident. Overall, the present article extends our understanding of what determines innocent victims' derogation and highlights emotional mechanisms, societal relevance, and generalizability of the observed associations beyond the laboratory. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Metacognitive effects of instructional visuals: the role of cue use and judgment type

Prior research suggests most students do not glean valid cues from provided visuals, resulting in reduced metacomprehension accuracy. Across 4 experiments, we explored how the presence of instructional visuals affects students’ metacomprehension accuracy and cue-use for different types of metacognitive judgments. Undergraduates read texts on biology (Study 1a and b) or chemistry (Study 2 and 3) topics, made various judgments (test, explain, and draw) for each text, and completed comprehension tests. Students were randomly assigned to receive only texts (text-only condition) or texts with instructional visualizations (text-and-image condition). In Studies 1b, 2 and 3, students also reported the cues they used to make each judgment. Across the set of studies, instructional visualizations harmed relative metacomprehension accuracy. In Studies 1a and 2, this was especially the case when students were asked to judge how well they felt they could draw the processes described in the text. But in Study 3, this was especially the case when students were asked to judge how well they would do on a set of comprehension tests. In Studies 2 and 3, students who reported basing their judgments on representation-based cues demonstrated more accurate relative accuracy than students who reported using heuristic based cues. Further, across these studies, students reported using visual cues to make their draw judgments, but not their test or explain judgments. Taken together, these results indicate that instructional visualizations can hinder metacognitive judgment accuracy, particularly by influencing the types of cues students use to make judgments of their ability to draw key concepts.

Do reconciliation events serve as a conciliatory signal?

AbstractA set of four vignette studies (total N = 1600) examined whether voluntariness, novelty, vulnerability and irrevocability of reconciliation events serve as conciliatory signals that communicate serious intentions for improved relations. Studies 1 and 2 manipulated the presence of the four factors in the reconciliation event initiated by the political leader of a country in a relatively disadvantageous (Study 1) or advantageous (Study 2) position. Studies 1 and 2 revealed that the presence of substantial concession (‘public announcement of abandonment of disputed region’ in Study 1 and ‘demolition of a military facility in the disputed region’ in Study 2) enhanced signal effectiveness (participants perceived these concessions reflecting the political leader's serious conciliatory intention). Follow‐up studies (Studies 3A and 3B), which manipulated the level of concession (high vs. intermediate vs. low), confirmed the main result: High and intermediate levels of concession enhanced signal effectiveness compared to low concession.

Empathy Trends in American Youth Between 1979 and 2018: An Update

Previous research has found declining dispositional empathy among American youth from 1979 to 2009. We update these trends until 2018, using three datasets. Study 1 presents a cross-temporal meta-analysis of undergraduates’ empathy (Interpersonal Reactivity Index), finding significant cubic trends over time: perspective taking (PT) and empathic concern (EC) both increased since 2009. Study 2 conceptually replicated these findings using nationally representative datasets, also showing increasing PT (Study 2a: American Freshman Survey) and EC (Study 2b: Monitoring the Future Survey) since 2009. We include economic, interpersonal, and worldview covariates to test for potential explanations, finding evidence that empathy trends may be related to recent changes in interpersonal dynamics.

Ostracism of a highly neurotic target by individuals with different levels of agreeableness: The roles of empathy and personal cost

Ostracism is a common and psychologically damaging phenomenon. Based on the general aggression model, this study explored the role of ostracisers' agreeableness on their intention to ostracise highly neurotic targets and the underlying mechanisms in five studies. Studies 1a and 1b examined the relationship between ostracisers' agreeableness and ostracism intention when confronted with highly neurotic targets using questionnaires and experimental methods, respectively. The results showed that individuals with high agreeableness had significantly lower ostracism intentions towards highly neurotic targets than those with low agreeableness. Studies 2a and 2b verified the mediating role of empathy between agreeableness and ostracism. Study 3 verified the moderating role of personal costs between empathy for highly neurotic targets and ostracism. Empathy reduced ostracism intention when the cost of accepting highly neurotic targets was low, but failed to act as an intermediary when the cost was high. Ultimately, this study investigated the causes of ostracism from the perspective of ostracisers, which is conducive to a more comprehensive understanding of the generation of ostracism and reducing the harm caused by ostracism at its source.

Disadvantaged group members are prouder of their group when using the language of the dominant group compared to their native language.

In ethnically and linguistically diverse societies, disadvantaged groups often face pressures to acquire and speak the advantaged group's language to achieve social inclusion and economic mobility. This work investigates how using the advantaged group's language affects disadvantaged group members' in-group pride and collective self-esteem, relative to using their native language. Across six experimental studies involving Palestinian citizens of Israel (total N = 1,348), we test two competing hypotheses: Disadvantaged group members may experience greater in-group pride when using a) their native language, due to its emotional significance (the nativity hypothesis), or b) the language of the advantaged group, due to activation of habituated compensatory responses to dominance relations (the identity enhancement hypothesis). We found that respondents reported significantly higher in-group pride when responding to a Hebrew survey when compared to performing the same activity in Arabic (Studies 1a and 1b), regardless of whether the researchers administering the survey were identified as Jewish or Arab (Studies 2a and 2b). Study 3 replicated this effect while employing the "bogus pipeline" technique, suggesting the pride expression was authentic, not merely driven by social desirability. Finally, Study 4 (pre-registered) examined additional measures of positive regard for the in-group, finding that participants described their group more positively in an attribute selection task, and reported greater collective self-esteem, when surveyed in Hebrew, rather than in Arabic. Taken together, these findings suggest that language use influences disadvantaged group members' perceptions and feelings concerning their group when those languages are associated with relative position in an intergroup hierarchy.

Effect of downward line extension on consumers’ purchase intentions: power distance belief as a moderator

Purpose Downward line extension is a valuable growth strategy that enables multiple products and services to meet diverse customer needs. However, downward extended products launched by high-status brands may be challenged by horizontal extended products launched by relatively low-status brands when these two types of products target similar consumers. This study aims to examine the impact of product type (horizontal extended versus downward extended) on consumers’ purchase intentions, the underlying mechanism and the moderating role of power distance belief. Design/methodology/approach Four scenario-based experiments were conducted to probe the research questions. Findings Consumers develop lower purchase intentions for downward (versus horizontal) extended products due to the reduction of perceived fit and self-congruity (Study 1). Beyond that, power distance belief moderates the impact of product type on consumers’ purchase intentions, as a low power distance belief reduces the negative effect of downward line extension (Studies 2a, 2b and 2c). Perceived fit and self-congruity mediate the interaction effect between product type and power distance belief on consumers’ purchase intentions (Study 2c). Practical implications This study provides marketing practitioners with guidance on implementing the strategy of downward line extension. Originality/value This study serves as a preliminary effort to compare consumers’ responses between downward and horizontal extended products, which deepens the understanding of downward line extension. It also contributes to the body of knowledge about line extension and power distance belief by demonstrating the moderating role of power distance belief in a line extension context.

Chatbots and mental health: Insights into the safety of generativeAI

AbstractChatbots are now able to engage in sophisticated conversations with consumers. Due to the “black box” nature of the algorithms, it is impossible to predict in advance how these conversations will unfold. Behavioral research provides little insight into potential safety issues emerging from the current rapid deployment of this technology at scale. We begin to address this urgent question by focusing on the context of mental health and “companion AI”: Applications designed to provide consumers with synthetic interaction partners. Studies 1a and 1b present field evidence: Actual consumer interactions with two different companion AIs. Study 2 reports an extensive performance test of several commercially available companion AIs. Study 3 is an experiment testing consumer reaction to risky and unhelpful chatbot responses. The findings show that (1) mental health crises are apparent in a nonnegligible minority of conversations with users; (2) companion AIs are often unable to recognize, and respond appropriately to, signs of distress; and (3) consumers display negative reactions to unhelpful and risky chatbot responses, highlighting emerging reputational risks for generative AI companies.

Dispositional compassion shifts social preferences in systematic ways.

How people attach value to the outcomes of self and other-social preferences-is central to social behavior. Recently, how dispositional and state emotion shape such social preferences has received researchers' attention. The present investigation asked whether and to what extent dispositional and state compassion predict shifts in social preferences across 4 samples: two correlational samples (final ns 153 & 368, study 1a and 1b) and two experimental samples (final ns: 430 & 530, studies 2 and 3). In keeping with recent accounts of compassion, dispositional compassion predicted general preference for equality, expressed as dispreference for both monetary advantage over another (interaction βs = -0.36, -0.33, -0.25, -0.22; all p < 0.001) and monetary disadvantage relative to others (βs: 0.26, 0.27, 0.28, 0.17; all p < 0.01; positive coefficients imply dispreference). This dispositional effect persisted when controlling for prosociality, positivity, agreeableness, and respectfulness. Furthermore, these dispositional compassion effects were relatively unchanged by experimental emotion inductions in studies 3 and 4. The experimental inductions of state compassion and state pride showed little evidence of systematic effects on social preferences relative to each other or a neutral condition. Discussion focused on individual differences in emotion and social preferences.