An affective-experiential perspective on reactions to fair and unfair events: individual differences in affect intensity moderated by experiential mindsets

The present paper focuses on what psychological processes are driving people's reactions to fair and unfair events. Specifically, by extending on ideas that people's reactions to fair and unfair events consist at least partly of affect-related responses, and by adopting the assumption made in cognitive-experiential self-theory that the operation of experiential mindsets is intimately associated with affect-related experiences, we formulate the hypothesis that individual differences in affect intensity will moderate reactions to fair and unfair events. Introducing a novel manipulation of experiential and rationalistic mindsets to the research literature, the findings of two studies indeed reveal that especially for people in experiential (vs. rationalistic) mindsets negative affective reactions to fair and unfair events increase with high (vs. low) scores on affect intensity. Implications for the literature on social justice, experiential mindsets, and affect intensity are discussed

Not fair for me! The influence of personal relevance on social justice inferences

In this paper, we argue that the personal relevance of a situation primarily influences spontaneous inferences about social justice, and not necessarily affects explicit justice judgments. To test this hypothesis, two studies manipulated personal relevance and assessed justice inferences and judgments: Participants read descriptions of fair or unfair events happening to stimulus persons referred to with first-person versus third-person pronouns (Experiment 1) or as "a friend" versus "a stranger" (Experiment 2). We then measured spontaneous justice inferences (using the probe recognition paradigm) and explicit justice judgments (using rating scales). As predicted, both studies showed stronger spontaneous justice inferences for high personal relevance descriptions, of unjust events specifically, whereas explicit justice judgments were not significantly influenced by our personal relevance manipulations. These findings suggest that especially the spontaneous component of the justice judgment process is sensitive to personal relevance

Trust in social institutions: The role of informational and personal uncertainty

In this chapter, I focus on trust in social institutions such as government, law, and science. I propose that one of the reasons trust in these institutions is decreasing is that many people experience several personal uncertainties. Personal uncertainty can be an alarming experience, making people start responding in more distrusting ways toward those who have power over them and can exclude them from important goods or relationships. Providing good, reliable, and accessible information about how the institutions actually work can help mitigate this process. However, judgments about the working of social institutions are often formed under conditions of high levels of informational uncertainty. This analysis has implications for the science and practice of trust in institutions and the associated constructs of personal and informational uncertainty

On Mimicry and the Psychology of the Belief in a Just World:Imitating the Behaviors of Others Reduces the Blaming of Innocent Victims

Innocent victims of crime are often blamed for what happened to them. In this article, we examine the hypothesis that victim blaming can be significantly reduced when people mimic the behavior of the victim or even a person unrelated to the crime. Participants watched a person on a video after which we assessed the extent of their spontaneous mimicry reactions (Study 1) or participants were instructed to mimic or not to mimic the movements of this person (Study 2). Then, they were informed about a rape and criminal assault and judged the degree to which they thought the victims were responsible for the crime. One of the crimes happened to the same person as the person they previously did or did not mimic. The other crime happened to a person unrelated to the mimicry situation. Results of both studies revealed that previously mimicking the victim or an unrelated person reduced the degree to which victims were being blamed

Editorial: Radicalization and deradicalization: Processes and contexts

© 2022 Winter, Morrison and van den Bos. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Peer reviewe

Helping to overcome intervention inertia in Bystander’s dilemmas: behavioral disinhibition can improve the greater good

Conventional wisdom holds that behavioral disinhibition has negative effects on what humans do. Behavioral disinhibition may indeed frequently have negative effects, but in the present paper we reveal some positive consequences as well: The disinhibition hypothesis proposed here states that people may feel inhibited to intervene in situations in which non-intervening bystanders are present and that, therefore, behavioral disinhibition may help to overcome the bystander effect. Findings presented here provide evidence supporting this prediction both inside and outside the psychology laboratory: In both real-life and controlled bystander situations, people were more likely and faster to provide help when (unrelated to the bystander situations) they had (vs. had not) been reminded about having acted with no inhibitions. These findings suggest that, in contrast with what various theories and worldviews dictate, behavioral disinhibition may have positive effects on helping behavior and hence can be conducive for the greater good

Beyond procedure's content: Cognitive subjective experiences in procedural justice judgments

Procedural justice concerns play a critical role in economic settings, politics, and other domains of human life. Despite the vast evidence corroborating their relevance, considerably less is known about how procedural justice judgments are formed. Whereas earlier theorizing focused on the systematic integration of content information, the present contribution provides a new perspective on the formation of justice judgments by examining the influence of accessibility experiences. Specifically, we hypothesize that procedural justice judgments may be formed based on the ease or difficulty with which justice-relevant information comes to mind. Three experiments corroborate this prediction in that procedures were evaluated less positively when the retrieval of associated unfair aspects was easy compared to difficult. Presumably this is because when it feels easy (difficult) to retrieve unfair aspects, these are perceived as frequent (infrequent), and hence the procedure as unjust (just). In addition to demonstrating that ease-of-retrieval may influence justice judgments, the studies further revealed that reliance on accessibility experiences is high in conditions of personal certainty. We suggest that this is because personal uncertainty fosters systematic processing of content information, whereas personal certainty may invite less taxing judgmental strategies such as reliance on ease-of-retrieval

Social network site use and materialistic values: The roles of self-control and self-acceptance

Background While prior studies have established a close association between the use of social network sites (SNSs) and materialistic values, there is limited understanding of the mediating and moderating mechanisms related to important self-related processes, such as self-control and self-acceptance. This paper explores whether and how these factors play a role in comprehending online behavior. One could state that frequent SNS use may pose a risk of virtual addiction, may be related to decreased self-control capacity, and may increase attention to material information on SNS, thereby making it more likely that users affiliate with behaviors associated with materialistic values. In contrast, self-acceptance, as a stable self-process indicating a genuine alignment with one’s true self and the ability to make decisions based on inner needs, may be related with reduced engagement in complex information on SNSs. Consequently, this could serve as a buffer against excessive SNS use and its potential associations with issues of self-control and materialistic values. Methods A total of 706 Chinese college students were surveyed in a cross-sectional study. They completed self-report questionnaires including the WeChat use intensity scale, the Material Value Scale, the Trait Self-control Scale, and the Self-acceptance Questionnaire. A moderated mediation model was examined to test predictions. Results SNS use intensity was positively associated with materialistic values, and self-control partially mediated this association. That is, higher intensity SNS users are more likely lower in self-control, which relates to stronger materialistic values. In addition, the indirect effect through self-control was moderated by self-acceptance, such that this indirect effect was significant only for individuals with low levels of self-acceptance. Conclusions This study reveals that self-acceptance may be a protective factor that helps to mitigate excessive SNS use and its potential effects on self-control and materialistic values. It further suggests that psychological interventions targeting the enhancement of self-acceptance and self-control could hold promise in alleviating the negative association between SNS use and materialistic values