Background: Because of high mutation rates, new drugresistant viruses are rapidly evolving, thus making the necessary control of influenza virus infection difficult.Methods: We screened a constrained cysteine-rich peptide library mimicking m-conotoxins from Conus geographus and a proline-rich peptide library mimicking lebocin 1 and 2 from Bombyx mori by using influenza virus RNA polymerase (…
Abstract. The present research tested whether the Big Five personality dimensions—extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience—moderate the effects of income on life satisfaction. The authors analyzed data from three large-sample, nationally representative, longitudinal studies: the British Household Panel Survey, the German Socio-Economic Panel S…
Abstract. Four studies explored whether perspective-taking and empathy would be differentially effective in mixed-motive competitions depending on whether the critical skills for success were more cognitively or emotionally based. Study 1 demonstrated that individual differences in perspective-taking, but not empathy, predicted increased distributive and integrative performance in a multiple-r…
Abstract. Traditional models of emotion–health interactions have emphasized the deleterious effects of negative emotions on physical health. More recently, researchers have turned to potential benefits of positive emotions on physical health as well. Both lines of research, though, neglect the complex interplay between positive and negative emotions and how this interplay affects physical we…
Abstract. Ostracism is a common, yet painful social experience. Given the harmful consequences of ostracism, why would groups ostracize their members? Previous research suggests that ostracism is a form of social control used to influence those group members perceived as burdensome. The authors propose that individuals will ostracize a group member only when it is justified (i.e., the member s…
Abstract. Previous studies showed that washing one’s hand not only removes dirt from the body, it also weakens one’s guilt after immoral behavior, makes moral judgment of others’ misdeeds less severe, reduces post-decisional dissonance effects, and can help wash off bad luck. The present study broadens this scope by investigating the psychological impact of physical cleansing in a perfor…
Abstract. The current study investigated the effect of distance on medium preferences in interpersonal communication. Five experiments showed that people’s preference for using pictures (vs. words) is increasingly higher when communicating with temporally, socially, or geographically proximal (vs. distal) others. In contrast, preference for words is increasingly higher when communicating wit…
Abstract. According to the resource-depletion model, self-control is a limited resource that is depleted after a period of exertion. Evidence consistent with this model indicates that self-control relies on glucose metabolism and glucose supplementation to depleted individuals replenishes self-control resources. In five experiments, we tested an alternative hypothesis that glucose in the oral …
Abstract. Life satisfaction (LS) is prospectively associated with the occurrence of several major events in work and family life. Analyzing longitudinal data from three nationally representative panel studies (Ns between 2,321 and 18,692), the authors found that higher LS is associated with a higher likelihood of marriage and childbirth, and with a lower likelihood of marital separation, job l…
Abstract. In the study presented here, we examined factors that shape women’s employability and their impact on women’s subjective health and well-being in four British Columbian communities. Although the economic contexts of the urban, rural, remote, and reserve communities were diverse, they intersected with gender roles and cultural norms to provide a picture of women’s employabil…
Abstract. Two studies examine the relationship between naturally occurring levels of circulating testosterone and empathic accuracy. In Study 1, the authors find that higher endogenous levels of testosterone are negatively related to the accuracy with which people infer the thoughts and feelings of others. In Study 2, the authors use 360 data collected in the field to show that individuals wit…
Abstract. Two experiments examined Engagement Regulation, the systematic increase or decrease of self-esteem engagement in a domain following positive or negative outcomes, respectively. We hypothesized that, under threat, more positive outcomes increase engagement, and greater engagement augments the influence of subsequent outcomes on self-esteem and performance. Female participants complete…
Abstract. While church and state are officially separated in many Western nations, there is nonetheless a great deal of overlap between the religious beliefs and political orientations of individual citizens. Religious individuals tend to be more conservative, placing a greater emphasis on order, obedience, and tradition. While many religious movements emphasize conservative values, there also…
Abstract. Three experiments were conducted to test the robustness and explanations of the Nonselective Superiority Bias (NSSB), whereby any randomly selected item from a positive category is rated more favorably when compared with a cohesive group of other exemplars from the same category. Having participants rank order all exemplars prior to making a direct comparative rating did not reduce t…
Abstract. Individuals differ in their orientation toward the people and things in their environment. This has consequences for important life choices. The authors review 15 studies on Person and Thing Orientations (PO-TO) using data from 7,450 participants to establish the nature of the constructs, their external correlates, and their predictive utility. These findings suggest that these two o…
Abstract. Racial disparities are a major public health concern in the United States. The authors examined whether Black and Latina community members’ perceptions of stigmatization and personal feelings about their group relate to immune and endocrine markers associated with health risk, including the cytokine interleukin-6 (IL-6), which coordinates the immune response to infection, the anabo…
Abstract. People’s explanations for social events powerfully affect their socioemotional responses. We examine why explanations affect emotions, with a specific focus on how external explanations for negative aspects of an outgroup can create compassion for the outgroup. The dominant model of these processes suggests that external explanations can reduce perceived control and that compassion…
Abstract. A body of research has demonstrated that people adopt a more interpersonally positive orientation as they age. The current study extends this line of research by examining how mate preferences shift as a function of age. Our worldwide sample rated their attraction to various photographs and completed self-report measures of attraction. Based on a revealed preference measure, the auth…
Abstract. The individually importance-weighted average (IIWA) model posits that the contribution of specific areas of self-concept to global self-esteem varies systematically with the individual importance placed on each specific component. Although intuitively appealing, this model has weak empirical support; thus, within the framework of a substantive-methodological synergy, we propose a mul…
Abstract. Research has shown that Asians/Asian Americans are less likely to seek social support to deal with stressful situations than European Americans. Two studies examined the effectiveness of two types of social support: support that is sought directly (solicited support) and support received without prompting from the recipient (unsolicited support). It was theorized that receiving unsol…
Abstract. Consensus is building that stereotype threat interferes with working memory, but how so? Grounded in the dual-process framework of Kane and Engle, the authors examined the extent to which stereotype threat interferes with one’s ability to maintain task goals in working memory and one’s ability to choose between conflicting responses. One hundred eighty-seven Montana State Univers…
Abstract. Norms have a pervasive influence on behavior, yet previous research has not addressed that people often face conflicting norms from multiple ingroups. The current research addresses this gap in the context of proenvironmental behavior and demonstrates two effects predicted by the novel theoretical position we offer: People can be de-motivated by norm-conflict, or conversely, norm-con…
Abstract. The CAD model posits a mapping of contempt, anger, and disgust onto the moral codes of community, autonomy, and divinity, respectively. A recent study by Hutcherson and Gross posited moral disgust as the dominant other-condemning emotion across all three moral codes. However, the methodology used may have incidentally increased the relevance of disgust. In the current experiment, one…
Abstract. Four studies investigate how perceptions that one’s social group has been victimized in society—that is, perceived group victimhood (PGV)—influence intergroup trust. Jewish and politically conservative participants played an economic trust game ostensibly with “partners” from their ingroup and/or a salient outgroup. Across studies, participants dispositionally or primed to …
This study tested a theoretical model of hope mediating the relationship between differentiation of self and social justice commitment among graduate students (N = 202) in the helping professions. The theory was based primarily on the social justice philosophies of Martin Luther King Jr., Cornel West, and Paulo Freire using a cultural psychology approach. Results generally supported the theore…
It has been suggested that higher in-group identifiers primed with an outgroup stereotype show contrastive behavioral responses because they activate the in-group, social-self. However, priming the personal-self can lead to contrastive judgments. We investigated whether personal self-activation was also evident for higher identifiers primed with an out-group. An experiment demonstrated that hig…
Two experiments examined the effect of metastereotype valence on high and low identifiers’ judgments of an outgroup. As high identifiers are strongly emotionally invested in the ingroup, we expected that such group members would feel angry when they activate negative metastereotypes which would correspondingly lead to less favourable evaluation of the outgroup. We further expected this patter…
Two experiments examined the effect of metastereotype valence on high and low identifiers’ judgments of an outgroup. As high identifiers are strongly emotionally invested in the ingroup, we expected that such group members would feel angry when they activate negative metastereotypes which would correspondingly lead to less favourable evaluation of the outgroup. We further expected this patter…
Beck’s (1979) cognitive triad postulates that depressed and dysphoric individuals hold negative, automatic thoughts about the self, the world and the future. Despite the central role of this hypothesis in the cognitive theory for depression, this prediction has rarely been studied outside of the Western world. This study examined the relationship between dysphoria and a number of inventories …
Child protection in general and psyehosocial support activities in particular for orphans, separated children, and youth (OSCY) in Aceh had started long before the area was hit by the double catastrophes: the earthquake and the giant waves of tsunami that took place on December 26. 2004. Organizations such as UNICEF and Save the Children have been operating in the area since 1976 to help reduce…
Exposure to media violence, including violent video gaming, can have a cognitive desensitization effect, loweringempathic concern for others in need. Since emerging adulthood offers increased opportunities to volunteer, strengthen relationships, and initiate new relationships, decreases in empathic concern and prosocial behavior may prove inhibitive to optimal development during this time. For …
Objectives. We examined the contribution of perceived racial/ethnic discrimination to disparities in problem behaviors among preadolescent Black, Latino, and White youths. Methods.Weused cross-sectional data from Healthy Passages, a 3-community study of 5119 fifth graders and their parents from August 2004 through September 2006 in Birmingham, Alabama; Los Angeles County, California; and Houst…
This study was designed to examine the process of attachment transfer from parents to peers, as well as factors related to this transfer process among Mainland Chinese. A total of 147 Chinese college students (with a mean age of 21.44) completed questionnaires that measured attachment style, attachment transfer, attachment support from various figures, loneliness, positive/negative affects, and…
Recent studies on the malleability of gender stereotypes show that they are flexible, dynamic structures that change with the passage of time. In a study, we examined perceptions about men and women of the past, present, and future in Spain and focused on the influence of an important demographic variable on these perceptions: the population size of people’s location of residence. Results sho…
Self-stereotyping is a process by which people belonging to a stigmatized social group tend to describe themselves more with stereotypical traits as compared with traits irrelevant to the ingroup stereotype. The present work analyzes why especially members of low-status groups are more inclined to self-stereotype compared to members of high-status groups. We tested the hypothesis that belonging…
Previous studies using Western samples have found that introducing uncertainty to an intertemporal choice decreases the degree of discounting future rewards. The authors of this article examined the effect of risk on intertemporal choice using Chinese participants and found that respondents preferred the smaller but sooner (SS) outcome to the larger but later (LL) one in the presence of risk, w…
Social desirability responding (SDR) was affected by situation and age. However, most research is only concerned with overall SDR without considering the separation of impression management and self-deception. The purpose of this article is to explore the possible different effects of age and situation on the different components of SDR. A total of 158 teachers completed the BIDR at a 2 (high v…
In a given domain, low-skill individuals typically evaluate the ability level of other people more favorably than high-skill individuals. The current study tests whether this tendency continues to occur even when people have unambiguous distributional information available through which to judge others. Students received distributional information detailing their percentile rank in a statistics…
Participant sex and a theorized correlate of biological sex, relational interdependence, were tested as relative predictors of the extent to which daters 1) missed and 2) used emotional support to cope when geographically separated from their dating partners. One hundred twenty-four daters completed multiple measures of missing and coping during their colleges’ winter breaks. Results from reg…
In an Italian sample (N = 483, 78.23% women, mean age = 27.61 years old), we used structural equation modeling with latent variables and interactions to analyze the direct, indirect, and interactive effects exerted on right-wing authoritarianism by the Big Five factors of personality and by dangerous world beliefs. Openness, Neuroticism, and Conscientiousness exerted direct effects on right-win…
Past research has provided abundant evidence that playing violent video games increases aggressive tendencies. In contrast, evidence on possible positive effects of video game exposure on prosocial tendencies has been relatively sparse. The present research tested and found support for the hypothesis that exposure to prosocial video games increases the accessibility of prosocial thoughts. These…
Although some research suggests that the reladonship between Child Protective Services workers and their clients may influence client outcomes, litde is known about the funcdon of the reladonship between welfare or Temporary Assistance for Needy Families caseworkers and their clients. BuOding on previous research, the authors use 1999 survey data from the Welfare, ChOdren, and Families Project�…
The present study focused on the motivational predictors of coping with academic examination through the test of the contribution of self-determination for academic studies and achievement goals. Coping strategies, academic motivation and achievement goals were assessed among 199 undergraduate students. Regression analysis revealed that problem-focused coping is positively predicted by identifi…
Previous research does not inform us if exposure to positive outgroup exemplars is sufficient to explain the observed prejudice reduction effect of extended contact or if interaction with ingroup members is necessary. An experiment (N = 108) in which Romanian students read identical stories about the friendship between a Roma and a Romanian/Bulgarian found that, while information about close ou…
We conducted a study to test the hypothesis that inferences about intentionality are biased toward an intentional interpretation. Contrary to previous research, participants were no more likely to judge ambiguous actions as intentional in a speeded compared to an unspeeded condition. Further, articipants were faster to respond and more consistent in responding to unintentional rather than inten…
In three experiments, participants rated how well a number of adjectives described their in-group (e.g. kind-hearted, helpful, intelligent, efficient, etc.). In Experiment 1, females were found to rate their ingroup (females) more favorably when reporting verbally to female (rather than male) experimenters. This finding was further explored in two subsequent experiments where response format (w…
In the current study, we examined the effects of women’s suppressing negative gender stereotypes while interacting with a male confederate. Compared with control participants, those who suppressed negative thoughts about women’s ability experienced less self-confidence, lower self-esteem, and were more nonverbally submissive during the interaction, particularly if they were high in stigma c…
Does mimicking affect the way you think about yourself in relation to other people? In the present study, we instructed participants to either mimic or not mimic the expressions of their interaction partner. After a 3-minute interaction, participants’ self-view in relation to others was measured. Results revealed that mimickers defined themselves more in relation to others than nonmimickers. …
Ostracism can lead to strong behavioral responses, including diminished prosocial behavior. To date, experimental research examining this effect has only been conducted with adults. The current study consisted of 40 adolescents, half of whom were experimentally ostracized using the Cyberball paradigm. Participants’ subsequent levels of pronounced prosocial behavior were measured, and personal…
Sexual economics theory assumes that heterosexual communities can be analyzed as marketplaces in which men offer women resources such as love, respect, money, and commitment in exchange for sex. In response to economic, political, and other disadvantages, women collectively restrict their sexuality to maintain a low supply relative to male demand, thereby ensuring a high price. Hence, we tested…