Social Psychological Bulletin

They Have a Point: Testing Strategies to Improve Receptivity to Interracial Criticism and Promote Behavioral Change

Fri, 19 Jan 2024 00:00:00 -0800

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.

Morality as Cooperation, Politics as Conflict

Fri, 19 Jan 2024 00:00:00 -0800

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.

The Impact of Mimicry Behavior on Guilt

Paweł Muniak, Wojciech Kulesza — Tue, 12 Mar 2024 00:00:00 -0700

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.

Anticipated and Achieved Individual Mobility Amongst Portuguese Immigrants in Switzerland: Social Identity Adjustment and Inter-Minority Relations

Wed, 20 Mar 2024 00:00:00 -0700

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.

Feeling Bad About Feeling Good? How Avengers and Observers Evaluate the Hedonic Pleasure of Taking Revenge

Karolina Dyduch-Hazar, Mario Gollwitzer — Wed, 20 Mar 2024 00:00:00 -0700

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).