A 32-society investigation of the influence of perceived economic inequality on social class stereotyping

International audienceThere is a growing body of work suggesting that social class stereotypes are amplified when people perceive higher levels of economic inequality-that is, the wealthy are perceived as more competent and assertive and the poor as more incompetent and unassertive. The present study tested this prediction in 32 societies and also examines the role of wealth-based categorization in explaining this relationship. We found that people who perceived higher economic inequality were indeed more likely to consider wealth as a meaningful basis for categorization. Unexpectedly, however, higher levels of perceived inequality were associated with perceiving the wealthy as less competent and assertive and the poor as more competent and assertive. Unpacking this further, exploratory analyses showed that the observed tendency to stereotype the wealthy negatively only emerged in societies with lower social mobility and democracy and higher corruption. This points to the importance of understanding how socio-structural features that co-occur with economic inequality may shape perceptions of the wealthy and the poor

Social mindfulness predicts concern for nature and immigrants across 36 nations

People cooperate every day in ways that range from largescale contributions that mitigate climate change 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. Prior work has found that countries with individuals who made more socially mindful choices were linked to a higher country environmental performance – a proxy for complex cooperation. Here we replicated this initial finding in 41 samples around the world, demonstrating the robustness of the association between social mindfulness and environmental performance, and substantially built on it to show this relationship extended to a wide range of complex cooperative indices, tied closely to many current societal issues. We found that greater social mindfulness expressed by an individual was related to living in countries with more social capital, more community participation and reduced prejudice towards immigrants. Our findings speak to the symbiotic relationship between simple and more complex forms of cooperation in societies

Moral expansiveness around the world:The role of societal factors across 36 countries

International audienceWhat are the things that we think matter morally, and how do societal factors influence this? To date, research has explored several individual-level and historical factors that influence the size of our ‘moral circles.' There has, however, been less attention focused on which societal factors play a role. We present the first multi-national exploration of moral expansiveness—that is, the size of people’s moral circles across countries. We found low generalized trust, greater perceptions of a breakdown in the social fabric of society, and greater perceived economic inequality were associated with smaller moral circles. Generalized trust also helped explain the effects of perceived inequality on lower levels of moral inclusiveness. Other inequality indicators (i.e., Gini coefficients) were, however, unrelated to moral expansiveness. These findings suggest that societal factors, especially those associated with generalized trust, may influence the size of our moral circles

Interpersonal synchrony affects performers’ sense of agency

We investigated if interpersonal synchrony can lead to a sense of agency over another’s movement (extended self-agency). In Experiment 1, we found that extended self-agency was greater during synchrony than asynchrony. However, we also found that synchrony boosted participants’ sense that the other performer had agency over their actions (extended other-agency). This finding may have been because synchrony created a sense of distributed agency. If so, then manipulating the degree of influence participants have over their partner’s behavior should boost extended self-agency when leading and extended other-agency when following. Experiment 2 confirmed these predictions. We also found synchrony created a sense of joint-agency. These results show how interpersonal synchrony can modulate a core aspect of the self

The prosocial impact of God concept priming on God believers

The present research examined the effects of an activation of God on prosociality in the presence or absence of a belief in God. In 3 studies, participants were primed with either the word GOD or the nonword GUB. Their intention to volunteer for community work (Study 1), donate their organs upon their death (Study 2), and the length of time in which they immersed their hands in ice-cold water (cold-pressor task) for the sake of charity (Study 3) were measured. In all 3 studies, participants who professed to believe in God showed higher prosocial responses when exposed to the God prime as compared with the non-God prime. However, this effect was not found among participants who professed to be nonbelievers. Furthermore, the results were constant across several different religions (i.e., Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, & Theism). Hence, results suggest that a personal belief in God moderates the priming effect of God on prosociality. Moreover, the importance of increasing specificity of the constructs examined and engaging in replications of priming studies are also discussed

Self-transcendence through self-inhibition?: God primes reduce self-accessibility

This article reports 7 studies showing that God primes inhibit self-concept accessibility. Study 1A provided the first supportive evidence using undergraduate samples. Study 1B replicated the findings using working adult participants. Study 2A to 2C showed that the inhibitory effect of the God concept on implicit self-concepts was not due to concepts related to love, power, hope, religion, devil, and father. Study 3 found the same inhibitory effect when the God prime was subliminally presented. Study 4 showed that God concept priming influenced implicit self-representations, but not other types of implicit representations. Finally, a meta-analysis of our findings reveal a large effect of priming. In addition, the effect was consistent across different religious affiliations. These findings provide evidence at the social–cognitive level that activation of God concepts can induce lower self-orientation: a possible mechanism for religious self-transcendence

Anger, stress, coping, social support and health: Modelling the relationships

10.1080/0887044040512331333960Psychology and Health204467-49