Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

(when) do counterattitudinal exemplars shift implicit racial evaluations? Replications and extensions of Dasgupta and Greenwald (2001).
Dasgupta and Greenwald (2001) demonstrated that exposure to positive Black exemplars (e.g., Colin Powell) and negative White exemplars (e.g., Jeffrey Dahmer) can reduce implicit pro-White/anti-Black evaluations, as measured by an Implicit Association Test. Here, we report seven preregistered online experiments conducted with volunteer U.S. participants (N = 6,953) that sought to replicate and probe the boundary conditions of this finding. Contrary to expectations, we found no shift in implicit racial evaluations in two close replication attempts (Experiments 1–2). Experiments 3–4 ruled out the possibility of insufficiently strong exemplar valence and subtyping as explanations for the failures to replicate. In Experiment 5, implicit racial evaluations did exhibit malleability in response to two different procedures relying on repeated evaluative pairings and evaluative statements, suggesting that they are capable of change. With insight from these studies, Experiments 6–7 were mounted with modifications to the Dasgupta and Greenwald (2001) procedure. Significant reductions in implicit pro-White/anti-Black evaluations were now observed when race, valence, and the contingency between the two were highlighted. In addition, across all experiments, the magnitude of shift in implicit racial evaluations was significantly predicted by participants’ ability to recall the Black–positive and White–negative contingencies experienced during the exemplar exposure task. Together, these data suggest that exposure to counterattitudinal exemplars can shift implicit racial evaluations toward neutrality, but such malleability strongly depends on contingency awareness. We discuss implications for social cognitive theory, theoretically informed debiasing interventions, and different paths toward resolving initial replication failures. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
The allure of consensus: People (over)seek consensus in selecting group persuasion strategies.
How do people select targets when tasked with persuading a group of people? One approach would be to prioritize getting people in support of the persuader’s position to hold relatively extreme attitudes—an extremity strategy. An alternative approach would be to prioritize getting as many people as possible to support the persuader’s position, regardless of how extreme they are—a consensus strategy. Although some situations might allow persuaders to combine these strategies, the present work examines how people select targets and strategies when a natural trade-off exists between acquiring fewer people with more extreme attitudes versus more people with less extreme attitudes. Prior work suggests that potential advantages exist for both extremity and consensus strategies. However, the current research finds that people exhibit a strong preference for a consensus strategy when tasked with selecting targets in group persuasion contexts. Further, this preference prevails even when consensus strategies would backfire and cause one’s persuasive efforts to fail. This allure of consensus is demonstrated across eight primary experiments, which also reveal why people are drawn to a consensus strategy as well as explore potential boundary conditions for this preference. This work has implications for understanding how persuaders select targets and strategies in the context of group persuasion. In addition, the paradigms and results invite a host of new avenues for future research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Anger has benefits for attaining goals.
[Correction Notice: An Erratum for this article was reported in Vol 126(4) of Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (see record 2024-93961-001). In the article (https://doi.org/10.1037/pspa 0000350), the first paragraph in the Method section of Study 4 has been revised. All paragraphs in the Results section of Study 4 have been revised. Table 1 and Figure 5 have been updated. All versions of this article have been corrected.] Functional accounts of emotion have guided research for decades, with the core assumption that emotions are functional—they improve outcomes for people. Based on functional accounts of emotion, we theorized that anger should improve goal attainment in the presence of challenges. In seven studies, goal attainment was assessed in situations that involved varying levels of challenges to goal attainment. Across studies, anger compared to a neutral condition resulted in behavior that facilitated greater goal attainment on tasks that involved challenges. With a goal to solve difficult puzzles, anger resulted in more puzzles correctly solved (Study 1). With a goal to attain prizes, anger increased cheating rates and numbers of unearned prizes (Study 2). With a goal to do well in a video game, anger increased scores on a game with challenges to be avoided, but not other scores (Study 3). In two studies, examining the consequences of anger in response to the challenging task that was the focus of that anger, anger decreased reaction time with goals to win trials (Study 4), and predicted making the effort to vote in two contentious elections (Study 5). With a goal to protect financial resources, anger increased action taken to prevent loss compared to a physiological arousal condition (Study 6). (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Correction to “Anger has benefits for attaining goals” by Lench et al. (2023).
Reports an error in "Anger has benefits for attaining goals" by Heather C. Lench, Noah T. Reed, Tiffany George, Kaitlyn A. Kaiser and Sophia G. North (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Advanced Online Publication, Oct 30, 2023, np). In the article (https://doi.org/10.1037/pspa 0000350), the first paragraph in the Method section of Study 4 has been revised. All paragraphs in the Results section of Study 4 have been revised. Table 1 and Figure 5 have been updated. All versions of this article have been corrected. (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 2024-17814-001.) Functional accounts of emotion have guided research for decades, with the core assumption that emotions are functional—they improve outcomes for people. Based on functional accounts of emotion, we theorized that anger should improve goal attainment in the presence of challenges. In seven studies, goal attainment was assessed in situations that involved varying levels of challenges to goal attainment. Across studies, anger compared to a neutral condition resulted in behavior that facilitated greater goal attainment on tasks that involved challenges. With a goal to solve difficult puzzles, anger resulted in more puzzles correctly solved (Study 1). With a goal to attain prizes, anger increased cheating rates and numbers of unearned prizes (Study 2). With a goal to do well in a video game, anger increased scores on a game with challenges to be avoided, but not other scores (Study 3). In two studies, examining the consequences of anger in response to the challenging task that was the focus of that anger, anger decreased reaction time with goals to win trials (Study 4), and predicted making the effort to vote in two contentious elections (Study 5). With a goal to protect financial resources, anger increased action taken to prevent loss compared to a physiological arousal condition (Study 6). (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Dual-promotion: Bragging better by promoting peers.
To create favorable impressions and receive credit, individuals need to share information about their past accomplishments. Broadcasting one’s past accomplishments or claiming credit to demonstrate competence, however, can harm perceptions of warmth and likability. In fact, prior work has conceptualized self-promotion as a hydraulic challenge: tactics that boost perceptions along one dimension (e.g., competence) harm perceptions along other dimensions (e.g., warmth). In this work, we identify a novel approach to self-promotion: We show that by combining self-promotion with other-promotion (complimenting or giving credit to others), which we term “dual-promotion,” individuals can project both warmth and competence to make better impressions on observers than they do by only self-promoting. In seven preregistered studies, including analyses of annual reports from members of Congress and experiments using social network, workplace, and political contexts (total N = 1,448), we show that individuals who engage in dual-promotion create more favorable impressions of warmth and competence than those who only engage in self-promotion. The beneficial effects of dual-promotion are robust to both competitive and noncompetitive contexts and extend to behavioral intentions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
How perceived polarization predicts attitude moralization (and vice versa): A four-wave longitudinal study during the 2020 U.S. election.
Within structurally polarized and dynamic contexts, such as the U.S. 2020 presidential elections, the moralization of individuals’ attitudes on a specific topic (e.g., climate policy) can dangerously escalate disagreements between groups into zero-sum conflict. However, limited knowledge exists regarding the factors that influence individuals’ tendency to moralize their attitudes over time, and what the role of structural polarization is in this psychological process. Our objective is to test a theoretically integrative model of when and how perceived polarization is related to attitude moralization over time within the polarized context of the U.S. 2020 presidential elections and explore reciprocal feedback loops to understand the dynamic relationship between polarization and moralization over time. Our model predicts that, when repeatedly faced with outgroup expressions in the news, individuals’ perceptions of polarization will predict within-person attitude moralization over time via strengthening their value-protective responses to these expressions (i.e., perceiving dyadic harm and experiencing negative moral emotions toward the outgroup). To test our model, we conducted a four-wave, 4-month longitudinal study among Biden supporters (N = 1,236) and Trump supporters (N = 617). The results of the within-person analyses generally supported the model’s hypotheses across both samples and various attitude topics. Furthermore, cross-lagged structural equation models explored reciprocal influences, revealing positive feedback loops between structural polarization and attitude moralization over time. Our findings thus indicate that perceived polarization strengthens attitude moralization (and vice versa) over time—a dynamic process that helps to explain how nonmoralized conflict between groups can evolve into zero-sum conflict during periods of intense polarization. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Golden gazes: Gaze direction and emotional context promote prosocial behavior by increasing attributions of empathy and perspective-taking.
Prosocial behavior is fundamental to societies. But when and toward whom do humans act generously? We investigate the impact of a listeners’ gaze direction and the emotional context of the story heard on (a) perceptions of their social cognition skills and (b) prosocial decisions toward them. In three experiments (two preregistered, N = 486), human participants witnessed prerecorded video encounters between a listener (visible) and a speaker (audible, not visible). The listener either established eye contact, averted gaze, or showed a mixed gaze pattern (gaze direction), while the speaker told a neutral or negatively valenced autobiographic episode (emotional context). Participants rated the listeners’ empathy and perspective-taking after each video and played the trust game (Study 1) or the dictator game (Study 2) with the listener. Replicating previous findings, occasional gaze avoidance, especially during negative narrations, increased attributions of social understanding to the listener. Critically, mediation analyses revealed that listeners perceived as empathic and taking perspective were ultimately treated with more trust and generosity in strategic and nonstrategic economic games, suggesting that social signals and contextual cues can serve as an indication of another’s reputation, thereby promoting indirect reciprocity. Last, in Study 3, we show that emotional context, but not listeners’ gaze behavior, promoted the spread of generosity toward anonymous, previously unobserved individuals in a dictator game, driven by social cognition skills attributed to the listener. We conclude that social signals and contextual cues can be important drivers of cooperation in societies via mechanisms such as indirect reciprocity and social contagion of generosity. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Bridging temperament and the Big Five in children: A genetically informative study.
Early temperament precedes children’s emerging Big Five personality, but shared models of temperament and personality are scarce. We wanted to estimate the genetic factor structure underlying both temperament and the Big Five in children, employing a genetically informed study. Within the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study, we selected 26,354 twins, siblings, and cousins. Mothers rated their children’s temperament three times between the ages of 1.5 and 5 years, and the children’s Big Five personality at the age of 8. We analyzed the data using biometric modeling. The mean heritability of single-time temperamental traits and Big Five personality traits was .48 and .45, respectively. The mean genetic correlations of temperament across time were .80. The genetic correlations of temperament at 5 years and the Big Five at 8 years revealed two factors, the first comprising reversed Big Five Neuroticism, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and reversed EAS Emotionality, the second comprising Big Five Extraversion, Openness to Experience, EAS Activity, Sociability, and reversed Shyness. A confirmatory factor analysis estimated the two factors showing heritabilities of .96 and .72, respectively. The two factors mirrored the metatraits Stability and Plasticity by John M. Digman. Temperament and personality in childhood can be meaningfully bridged using just two metafactors. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Most people's life satisfaction matches their personality traits: True correlations in multitrait, multirater, multisample data.
Despite numerous meta-analyses, the true extent to which life satisfaction reflects personality traits has remained unclear due to overreliance on a single method to assess both and insufficient attention to construct overlaps. Using data from three samples tested in different languages (Estonian, N = 20,886; Russian, N = 768; English, N = 600), we combined self- and informant-reports to estimate personality domains’ and nuances’ true correlations (rtrue) with general life satisfaction (LS) and satisfactions with eight life domains (DSs), while controlling for single-method and occasion-specific biases and random error, and avoiding direct construct overlaps. The associations replicated well across samples. The Big Five domains and nuances allowed predicting LS with accuracies up to rtrue ≈ .80–.90 in independent (sub)samples. Emotional stability, extraversion, and conscientiousness correlated rtrue ≈ .30–.50 with LS, while its correlations with openness and agreeableness were small. At the nuances level, low LS was most strongly associated with feeling misunderstood, unexcited, indecisive, envious, bored, used, unable, and unrewarded (rtrue ≈ .40–.70). Supporting LS’s construct validity, DSs had similar personality correlates among themselves and with LS, and an aggregated DS correlated rtrue ≈ .90 with LS. LS’s approximately 10-year stability was rtrue = .70 and its longitudinal associations with personality traits mirrored cross-sectional ones. We conclude that without common measurement limitations, most people’s life satisfaction is highly consistent with their personality traits, even across many years. So, satisfaction is usually shaped by these same relatively stable factors that shape personality traits more broadly. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Getting under the skin? Influences of work–family experiences on personality trait adaptation and reciprocal relationships.
The literature on personality trait development has mainly focused on influences of life experiences in one single life domain (e.g., work or family) separate from one another and has primarily examined personality development in early life stages. Thus, less attention has been devoted to influences from interplays across different life domains and personality development in middle and late adulthood. Synthesizing the literature on personality science and organizational research, we built a theoretical model and investigated what, how, and why the interplay between two central life domains—work and family—may be related to personality trait development of people at their middle and late life stages, and more important, change-related reciprocal relationships between personality traits and work–family experiences. Generally, convergent findings with data from two longitudinal studies (National Survey of Midlife in the United States, maximum N = 3,192, three waves; and Health and Retirement Study, maximum N = 1,133, three waves except anxiety) revealed that work-to-family conflict, family-to-work conflict, work-to-family facilitation, and family-to-work facilitation mostly had lagged effects on changes of Conscientiousness, Extraversion, and Neuroticism, and the influences were generally channeled through changes of anxiety. Personality traits also had lagged influences on changes of work–family experiences, with some influences deteriorating over time. Change-related reciprocal relationships were recorded mainly between Neuroticism and Extraversion with work–family experiences. Some selection effects were larger than socialization effects. Our research contributes to the personality and the work–family literature and represents a useful example of cross-fertilization of research in different areas of psychology to advance personality research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology - Vol 126, Iss 4