Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin

Group members’ choice to work on individual or on group status improvement was examined as a function of degree of ingroup identification (low, high) and accountability of responses (anonymous, accountable to the ingroup). In Experiment 1 (N = 73), in line with the authors’ predictions, accountability elicited progroup behavior among low identifiers, whereas individualistic behavior was displayed when participants were anonymous. No similar effect of accountability was observed for high identifiers, who always chose for group status improvement. Experiment 2(N = 118) replicated and extended these findings. Degree of identification with the ingroup was shown to determine which contextual cues are likely to influence group members’ responses. The integration of traditionally separate models of social influence (self-presentation and social identity) is proposed. It is suggested that degree of identification with a group functions as a moderator of which type of influence the group is able to exert.

Two experiments assessed the impression-formation strategies used by asymmetrically dependent (powerless) people to form impressions of powerholders. The experiments contrast two types of asymmetrical dependency: task dependency (short-term, goal-oriented outcome contingency) and evaluation dependency (expecting evaluations of one’s performance or abilities). Experiment 1 hypothesized and found that asymmetrical task dependency increases accuracy-driven impression-formation processes: Task-dependent people attend to information that disconfirms initial expectancies about a powerholder and, if asymmetrical, do not discount trait information. Experiment 2 found that evaluation dependency increases motivated misperception to view the powerholder positively. Evaluation-dependent people attend to and then discount negative information, which is reflected in their ratings of a powerholder.

Interpersonal conflicts are an inevitable part of life and may be especially conspicuous in early adolescence. Recent research suggests, however, that structural aspects of relationships influence interpersonal conflicts. Specifically, closeness and openness of the relationships within which the conflicts occur moderate patterns of such conflicts. A total of 155 adolescents kept diary records of their in vivo, daily conflicts and interactions for 2 weeks using an adolescent-appropriate, conflict-oriented adaptation of the Rochester Interaction Record. On average, interactions without conflicts outnumbered conflicts 2 to 1; however, many reported diary records involved conflicts. Patterns of conflict were related to the kinds of relationships within which the conflicts occurred. Some results were consistent with predictions derived from a social exchange approach but other results were not. Outcomes are discussed in terms of interpersonal contributions to adolescent development.

Social comparison theory assumes that people rely on the multiple sufficient causes of attributional schema for ability assessment. When standing on performance-related attributes differs between two individuals, ability judgments should be low in confidence to the extent that performance differences are consistent with the attribute differences and high in confidence when the two are inconsistent. The authors argue that this holds true for standing on unstable attributes such as practice but not for stable attributes such as education. Stable attributes serve as cues to ability rather than as alternative interpretations of performance differences. In a series of three experiments, participants’ ability judgments were more confident when performance was consistent with their standing on stable attributes (education, occupation) but less confident when consistent with standing on an unstable attribute (practice).

Two studies examined the effects of perceptions of similarity on relations between subgroups (humanities and math-science students) that share an active superordinate category (University of Queensland student). Participants (N = 82) performed a non-interactive task during which perceptions of intersubgroup similarity (high or low) and level of categorization (at the superordinate level or at the superordinate and subgroup levels simultaneously) were manipulated ina2X2 between-groups design. Consistent with social identity theory, participants who had been categorized exclusively at the superordinate level discriminated more against a similar subgroup than a dissimilar one. However, when the subgroup and superordinate categories were activated simultaneously, a trend emerged that was consistent with the similarity-attraction hypothesis. A similar interaction emerged in Study 2 (N = 265), in which perceptions of similarity were measured rather than manipulated. The results were interpreted in terms of the motivation to retain ingroup distinctiveness.

How do partners in long-term relationships construct memories of the past? The current study examined 20 years of retrospective and longitudinal data from a sample of wives to evaluate two possible answers to this question. Findings indicate that wives invoke different theories of the past at different stages of life. At 10 years into the study, wives’ memories of the past were negatively biased, such that present ratings seemed a significant improvement. At 20 years into the study, wives’ memories of the past continued to be negatively biased; however, at this stage, recollections of the past resembled current perceptions. Across both intervals, concurrent ratings in fact declined significantly. Longitudinal analyses revealed that the degree of bias in wives’ memories at Time 2 predicted the course of their marital satisfaction over the subsequent 10 years. These results support the view that memory bias may be a mechanism of maintaining satisfaction in long-term relationships.

The present article applies Cobb’s original formulation of the social support construct and elaborates a theoretical and empirical framework employing the interpersonal circumplex model that has proved useful for elucidating concepts and measures from a variety of research traditions. In a series of studies, 1,040 undergraduate students completed self-report questionnaires indicating their likelihood of performing various support actions. A circumplex structure was obtained that was both substantively and structurally auspicious and that provided a taxonomic framework within which 12 extant social support subscales and 15 personality characteristics were clarified. The Support Actions Scale Circumplex (SAS-C) assesses a broad range of social support behavior, including both the potentially protective and deleterious effects of interpersonal transactions.

Past research has demonstrated that the psychological state of observers influences how they view others. This influence often has been termed “projection.” The current study explores projection in close relationships of cohabiting partners. In Study 1a, structural equation modeling revealed a significant component of projection when spouses reported on the depressive symptoms of their partners. In Study 1b, the same analysis was expanded to include spouses’ reports on a variety of affective states, attitudes, and behaviors of their partners. It was demonstrated that the degree of projection increases with the increase in the magnitude of the correlation between the self-views of the spouses. A cognitive process that accounts for this finding is proposed, along with a view of projection as a heuristic device rather than a bias.

In three experiments, respondents’ behavior conformed to the dictates of a relevant norm (the norm against littering) only under conditions of normative focus. This relationship held true across three types of procedures for producing normative focus (physiological arousal, modeling, and self-directed attention), across two types of settings (public and private), and across two types of norms (social and personal). Moreover, factors that would be expected to affect normative action were influential only when the norm was focal. These factors included the degree to which the action violated the relevant norm (Study 2) and the degree to which an individual subscribed to that norm (Study 3). Implications are discussed for developing campaigns to encourage prosocial behavior.

Studies of reasoning by majority and minority members show that group members in the majority think more about the trade-offs associated with alternative decision outcomes than do group members in the minority, who are more single-minded in support of their own position. However, prior work has not examined whether this holds when decision makers change the status quo. The authors compared the integrative complexity of U.S. Supreme Court justices writing on behalf of either a majority or a minority in decisions to either uphold or overturn legal precedent. As predicted, justices writing on behalf of decisions to uphold precedent exhibited greater integrative complexity than did justices writing on behalf of decisions to overturn precedent, but this effect was stronger for the authors of majority than minority opinions.