Social mindfulness

Lange, P.A.M. van [Promotor]Prooijen, J.W. van [Copromotor]Tybur, J.M. [Copromotor

Aesthetics and logistics in urban parks: can moving waste receptacles to park exits decrease littering?

In this paper we test two approaches to reduce littering in urban parks that potentially reinforce each other: Relocating waste receptacles and the presence of watching eyes. Moving waste receptacles from the interior to the exits of a park makes waste collection more efficient, but can have opposing effects: Decreased littering because of greater care inspired by the perception of natural beauty in a park without artifacts like waste receptacles, or increased littering because of the greater distance to waste receptacles. Preceded by an online study (N = 153), three successive field studies showed mixed evidence for increased littering when moving waste receptacles to the exits (Study 2 and 3). However, when additionally attaching pictures of watching animal eyes to trees in the park (Study 4), litter levels seemed to decrease. We conclude that littering is best countered with a combination of persuasive communication and physical measures.Social decision makin

Social mindfulness and prosociality vary across the globe

Humans are social animals, but not everyone will be mindful of others to the same extent. Individual differences have been found, but would social mindfulness also be shaped by one’s location in the world? Expecting cross-national differences to exist, we examined if and how social mindfulness differs across countries. At little to no material cost, social mindfulness typically entails small acts of attention or kindness. Even though fairly common, such low-cost cooperation has received little empirical attention. Measuring social mindfulness across 31 samples from industrialized countries and regions (n = 8,354), we found considerable variation. Among selected country-level variables, greater social mindfulness was most strongly associated with countries’ better general performance on environmental protection. Together, our findings contribute to the literature on prosociality by targeting the kind of everyday cooperation that is more focused on communicating benevolence than on providing material benefits

Social mindfulness predicts concern for nature and immigrants across 36 nations

People cooperate every day in ways that range from largescale contributions that mitigate climatechange to simple actions such as leaving another individual with choice – known as social mindfulness.It is not yet clear whether and how these complex and more simple forms of cooperation relate. Priorwork has found that countries with individuals who made more socially mindful choices were linked toa higher country environmental performance – a proxy for complex cooperation. Here we replicatedthis initial finding in 41 samples around the world, demonstrating the robustness of the associationbetween social mindfulness and environmental performance, and substantially built on it to show thisrelationship extended to a wide range of complex cooperative indices, tied closely to many currentsocietal issues. We found that greater social mindfulness expressed by an individual was related toliving in countries with more social capital, more community participation and reduced prejudicetowards immigrants. Our findings speak to the symbiotic relationship between simple and morecomplex forms of cooperation in societies.Social decision makin

Reply to Komatsu et al.: from local social mindfulness to global sustainability efforts?

Komatsu et al. (1) argue that Van Doesum et al. (2) may have overlooked the role of GDP in reporting a positive association between social mindfulness (SoMi) and the Environmental Performance Index (EPI) at country level. Although the relationship between EPI and SoMi is relatively weaker for countries with higher GDP, that does not imply that the overall observed relationship is a statistical artifact. Rather, it implies that GDP may be a moderator of the relationship between EPI and SoMi. The observed correlation is a valid result on average across countries, and the actual effect size would, at least to some degree, depend on GDP.Social decision makin

Reply to Nielsen et al.: social mindfulness is associated with countries’ environmental performance and individual environmental concern

Nielsen et al. (1) argue that Van Doesum et al. (2) need to consider three points for their interpretation of a positive association between individual-level social mindfulness (SoMi) and environmental performance (EPI) at the country level (3). The association is weaker when 1) it is controlled for GDP and 2) when the data of three countries are removed; also, 3) the data do not address the association between SoMi and individual-level environmental concern. We discuss these points in turn.Social decision makin

Playing with the enemy: investigating the impact of musical peacebuilding

Musical performances are frequently used in peacebuilding initiatives. Can performing music together indeed change interpersonal and intergroup perceptions of the other as the enemy? Using contact theory for our theoretical framework, we hypothesize that the specific mechanism of listening during active music-making helps to establish the positive effects of intergroup contact. Additionally, we explore to what extent participants become peace facilitators when returning to their home environments. In two small-scale studies, we find preliminary support for active listening as a mechanism of trust-enhancing contact. However, this effect mainly surfaces in unstructured encounters within the larger organized structure, like late-night chamber music jam sessions. Repeated participation builds the necessary trust for a new common ingroup. Because participation is mostly driven by career and performance motivations, we argue that peacebuilding through musical performances may help overcome the common selection bias in research on contact theory. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).Social decision makin

Trash cans, eyes, and littering

Parks are used by many people for many different purposes ranging from weekly tai-chi or other sports to daily dog walking, the yearly spring barbecue, or a simple breath of fresh air in a busy working day. Little green oases in the city, parks have many benefits at the psychological and environmental level. One of the requirements to reap these benefits is a clean park. But keeping a park clean often seems to be less of a shared habit. Littering is a big and resilient issue in many societies, not in the least in public places like urban parks.Social decision makin

A wide array research model for providing evidence in person-centered psychotherapies, or what we can learn from LOFAR

Recently, the World Association for Person-Centered and Experiential Psychotherapy and Counseling (WAPCEPC) has installed a Scientific Committee to promote empirical research to support the person-centered and experiential (PCE) approach. For this endeavor to be successful, traditional methods may not suffice. Because the majority of PCE psychotherapies intrinsically do not meet the requirements of standardization and generalization, they cannot (correctly) be included in Randomized Clinical Trials (RCTs). However, RCTs are still considered highly desirable for PCE therapies to qualify as Empirically Supported Treatment (EST), which in turn is decisive for being fully accepted (and covered) in mental health care. After briefly summarizing the ongoing discussion on the inherent limitations of RCTs in psychotherapy research, we describe some existing alternative approaches. Next, we advance a new large-scale and integrative research model that lets methodological pluralism take an essential place in providing robust evidence on both treatment outcome and the process of psychological change, which could be beneficial for PCE therapies. The essence of this suggested Wide Array Research Model (WARM) is a bottom-up strategy in which data are collected in a multitude of small, manageable, and low-cost modules. © 2013 World Association for Person-Centered & Experiential Psychotherapy & Counseling