Working Memory Benefits Creative Insight, Musical Improvisation, and Original Ideation Through Maintained Task-Focused Attention.
Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2012 Feb 2;
Authors: De Dreu CK, Nijstad BA, Baas M, Wolsink I, Roskes M
Abstract
Anecdotes from creative eminences suggest that executive control plays an important role in creativity, but scientific evidence is sparse. Invoking the Dual Pathway to Creativity Model, the authors hypothesize that working memory capacity (WMC) relates to creative performance because it enables persistent, focused, and systematic combining of elements and possibilities (persistence). Study 1 indeed showed that under cognitive load, participants performed worse on a creative insight task. Study 2 revealed positive associations between time-on-task and creativity among individuals high but not low in WMC, even after controlling for general intelligence. Study 3 revealed that across trials, semiprofessional cellists performed increasingly more creative improvisations when they had high rather than low WMC. Study 4 showed that WMC predicts original ideation because it allows persistent (rather than flexible) processing. The authors conclude that WMC benefits creativity because it enables the individual to maintain attention focused on the task and prevents undesirable mind wandering.
PMID: 22301457 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
The Impact of Social Roles on Trait Judgments: A Critical Reexamination.
Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2011 Dec 27;
Authors: Bosak J, Sczesny S, Eagly AH
Abstract
Consistent with social role theory’s assumption that the role behavior of men and women shapes gender stereotypes, earlier experiments have found that men’s and women’s occupancy of the same role eliminated gender-stereotypical judgments of greater agency and lower communion in men than women. The shifting standards model raises the question of whether a shift to within-sex standards in judgments of men and women in roles could have masked underlying gender stereotypes. To examine this possibility, two experiments obtained judgments of men and women using measures that do or do not restrain shifts to within-sex standards. This measure variation did not affect the social role pattern of smaller perceived sex differences in the presence of role information. These findings thus support the social role theory claim that designations of identical roles for subgroups of men and women eliminate or reduce perceived sex differences.
PMID: 22201645 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
Understanding the Better Than Average Effect: Motives (Still) Matter.
Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2011 Dec 28;
Authors: Brown JD
Abstract
People evaluate themselves more positively than they evaluate most other people. Although this better than average (BTA) effect was originally thought to represent a motivated bias, several cognitively oriented theorists have questioned whether this is the case. In support of a motivational model, the author reports five studies showing that the BTA effect is stronger for important attributes than unimportant ones (all five studies) and that once attribute important is taken into account, the effect occurs when self-evaluations are compared with a single peer (Study 2) and when self is specified as the referent rather than the target (Study 4). Finally, Study 5 shows that the BTA effect increases in magnitude after participants experience a threat to their feelings of self-worth. Collectively, these findings establish that motivational processes underlie the BTA effect.
PMID: 22205623 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
Hanging in the Balance: The Role of Self-Construal Abstractness in Navigating Self-Relevant Uncertainty.
Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2011 Dec 28;
Authors: Cavanaugh AG, Sweeny KM
Abstract
People inevitably face moments of uncertainty as they await feedback regarding self-relevant life outcomes, but they react to this uncertainty with varying amounts of anxiety. Self-construal abstractness (SCA) may be one key predictor of anxiety in the face of uncertain outcomes. SCA refers to a broad self-concept based on generalizations rather than a detailed, low-level self-concept that is based on specific behaviors or events. The current studies examined SCA and anxiety over self-relevant uncertainty. Studies 1 and 2 measured naturally occurring levels of SCA and found that reflecting on an abstract self-construal buffered people from anxiety when upcoming evaluative feedback was highly self-relevant (Study 1) and immediate (Study 2). Study 3 revealed that SCA is equally effective as a buffer against anxiety when manipulated with a subtle prime. The potential for SCA to serve as the target for anxiety-reduction interventions in uncertain situations is discussed.
PMID: 22205624 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
When Do Counterstereotypic Ingroup Members Inspire Versus Deflate? The Effect of Successful Professional Women on Young Women’s Leadership Self-Concept.
Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2011 Dec 28;
Authors: Asgari S, Dasgupta N, Stout JG
Abstract
Three experiments tested whether and when exposure to counterstereotypic ingroup members enhances women’s implicit leadership self-concept. Participants read about professional women leaders framed as similar to versus different from most women (Experiment 1) or having the same versus different collegiate background as participants (Experiment 3). Experiment 2 manipulated similarity by giving false feedback about participants’ similarity to women leaders. In all cases, seeing women leaders reduced implicit self-stereotyping relative to controls but only when they were portrayed as similar to one’s ingroup (Experiment 1) and oneself (Experiments 2-3). Leaders portrayed as dissimilar either had no effect on self-beliefs (Experiment 1 and 3) or increased implicit self-stereotyping (Experiment 2). Dissimilar leaders also deflated participants’ career goals and explicit leadership beliefs (Experiment 3). Finally, implicit self-beliefs became less stereotypic regardless of whether women believed the similarity feedback, but explicit self-beliefs changed only when they believed the feedback to be true (Experiment 2).
PMID: 22205625 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
The Gender Role Motivation Model of Women’s Sexually Submissive Behavior and Satisfaction in Heterosexual Couples.
Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2011 Dec 29;
Authors: Sanchez DT, Phelan JE, Moss-Racusin CA, Good JJ
Abstract
Previous findings suggest that women are more likely than men to take on the submissive role during sexual activities(e.g., waiting for their partner to initiate and orchestrate sexual activities), often to the detriment of their sexual satisfaction. Extending previous research on gender role motivation, the authors recruited 181 heterosexual couples to examine scripted sexual behavior, motivation for such behavior, and relationship outcomes (sexual satisfaction, perceptions of closeness, and relationship satisfaction) for both women and their partners. Using the actor-partner interdependence model, path analyses revealed that women’s submissive behavior had negative links to personal sexual satisfaction and their partner’s sexual satisfaction but only when their submission was inconsistent with their sexual preferences. Moreover, the authors show there are negative downstream consequences of diminished sexual satisfaction on perceptions of closeness and overall relationship satisfaction for both partners in the relationship.
PMID: 22207631 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
Culture and social support provision: who gives what and why.
Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2012 Jan;38(1):3-13
Authors: Chen JM, Kim HS, Mojaverian T, Morling B
Abstract
The present research examined cultural differences in the type and frequency of support provided as well as the motivations underlying these behaviors. Study 1, an open-ended survey, asked participants about their social interactions in the past 24 hours and found that European Americans reported providing emotion-focused support more frequently than problem-focused support, whereas Japanese exhibited the opposite pattern. Study 2, a closed-ended questionnaire study, found that, in response to the close other’s big stressor, European Americans provided more emotion-focused support whereas Japanese provided equivalent amounts of emotion-focused and problem-focused support. In addition, Study 2 examined motivational explanations for these differences. Social support provision was motivated by the goal of closeness and increasing recipient self-esteem among European Americans, but only associated with the motive for closeness among Japanese. These studies illustrate the importance of considering cultural context and its role in determining the meaning and function of various support behaviors.
Benefiting from misfortune: when harmless actions are judged to be morally blameworthy.
Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2012 Jan;38(1):52-62
Authors: Inbar Y, Pizarro DA, Cushman F
Abstract
Dominant theories of moral blame require an individual to have caused or intended harm. However, the current four studies demonstrate cases where no harm is caused or intended, yet individuals are nonetheless deemed worthy of blame. Specifically, individuals are judged to be blameworthy when they engage in actions that enable them to benefit from another’s misfortune (e.g., betting that a company’s stock will decline or that a natural disaster will occur). Evidence is presented suggesting that perceptions of the actor’s wicked desires are responsible for this phenomenon. It is argued that these results are consistent with a growing literature demonstrating that moral judgments are often the product of evaluations of character in addition to evaluations of acts.
Social Dominance Orientation: Revisiting the Structure and Function of a Variable Predicting Social and Political Attitudes.
Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2012 Jan 3;
Authors: Ho AK, Sidanius J, Pratto F, Levin S, Thomsen L, Kteily N, Sheehy-Skeffington J
Abstract
Social dominance orientation (SDO) is one of the most powerful predictors of intergroup attitudes and behavior. Although SDO works well as a unitary construct, some analyses suggest it might consist of two complementary dimensions-SDO-Dominance (SDO-D), or the preference for some groups to dominate others, and SDO-Egalitarianism (SDO-E), a preference for nonegalitarian intergroup relations. Using seven samples from the United States and Israel, the authors confirm factor-analytic evidence and show predictive validity for both dimensions. In the United States, SDO-D was theorized and found to be more related to old-fashioned racism, zero-sum competition, and aggressive intergroup phenomena than SDO-E; SDO-E better predicted more subtle legitimizing ideologies, conservatism, and opposition to redistributive social policies. In a contentious hierarchical intergroup context (the Israeli-Palestinian context), SDO-D better predicted both conservatism and aggressive intergroup attitudes. Fundamentally, these analyses begin to establish the existence of complementary psychological orientations underlying the preference for group-based dominance and inequality.
PMID: 22215697 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
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