James M. Olson

Values as truisms:evidence and implications

Three experiments tested the general hypothesis that values are cultural truisms-that is, beliefs that are widely shared and rarely questioned. Experiment 1 examined specifically whether people lack cognitive support for their values. It was predicted and found that analyzing ones reasons for particular values caused the values to change, a finding that would be expected only if individuals lack cognitive support for their values. Experiment 2 verified that analyzing reasons caused value change only when participants were not provided with cognitive support for their values. Experiment 3 found that the effect of analyzing reasons generalized across a range of ind vidual-differences variables. Experiment 3 also showed that analyzing reasons resulted in value ratings that were less predictive of relevant attitudes than pre-reasons-analysis value ratings, but only for high self-monitors.

Counterfactual Thinking: The Intersection of Affect and Function

Publisher Summary This chapter reviews recent research relevant to two interlocking ideas: negative emotions are an important trigger of counterfactual thinking, and such thoughts may often contain inferential benefits for the individual. These ideas intersect to the extent that negative affect is viewed as an adaptive signal to the individual that something is wrong and corrective action is required. If counterfactual thinking is activated by negative affect, these thoughts will be produced selectively under those circumstances in which corrective thought and action are most beneficial. The chapter provides counterfactuals focus on the ways in which things could have been better and, by way of a contrast effect, could create more negative affect. Counterfactual thoughts influence a variety of social judgments—including causation, blame, hindsight bias, and expectancies. This chapter describes research that has provided evidence for counterfactual functionality in terms of the situational precursors and inferential benefits of such thought processes.

Better, Stronger, Faster: Self-Serving Judgment, Affect Regulation, and the Optimal Vigilance Hypothesis.

Self-serving judgments, in which the self is viewed more favorably than other people, are ubiquitous. Their dynamic variation within individuals may be explained in terms of the regulation of affect. Self-serving judgments produce positive emotions, and threat increases self-serving judgments (a compensatory pattern that restores affect to a set point or baseline). Perceived mutability is a key moderator of these judgments; low mutability (i.e., the circumstance is closed to modification) triggers a cognitive response aimed at affect regulation, whereas high mutability (i.e., the circumstance is open to further modification) activates direct behavioral remediation. Threats often require immediate response, whereas positive events do not. Because of this brief temporal window, an active mechanism is needed to restore negative (but not positive) affective shifts back to a set point. Without this active reset, an earlier threat would make the individual less vigilant toward a new threat. Thus, when people are sad, they aim to return their mood to baseline, often via self-serving judgments. We argue that asymmetric homeostasis enables optimal vigilance, which establishes a coherent theoretical account of the role of self-serving judgments in affect regulation.

Beliefs in a Just World, Discontent, and Assertive Actions by Working Women

Seventy working women completed a questionnaire that assessed their dissatisfaction with their own job situation (personal discontent), their dissatisfaction with the job situations of women as a group (group discontent), and the strength of their beliefs in a just world (BJW). One month later, they completed a questionnaire that measured behaviors potentially related to discontent, some involving self-improvement (self-directed behaviors) and others relating to collective action (group-directed behaviors). Strong believers in a just world reported less group discontent than weak believers. BJW predicted both self-directed and group-directed behaviors; strong believers reported fewer behaviors of both kinds than weak believers. Taken together, BJW, group discontent, and personal discontent accounted for 23% of the variance in self-directed behaviors (R = .48) and 26% of the variance in group-directed behaviors (R = .50). These data constitute the first evidence linking BJW to assertive actions.

Jeer Pressure: The Behavioral Effects of Observing Ridicule of Others:

Two experiments examined “jeer pressure,” which is a hypothesized inhibiting effect of observing another person being ridiculed. Jeer pressure was expected to induce conformity to others’ opinions; concern about failing or standing out; and conventional, uncreative thinking. In both experiments, participants observed videotapes containing either other-ridiculing humor, self-ridiculing humor, or nonridiculing or no humor. Participants then completed tasks that assessed conformity, fear of failure, and creativity. Results of both experiments showed that participants who viewed ridicule of others were more conforming and more afraid of failing than were those who viewed self-ridicule or no ridicule. Creativity was not influenced by the humor manipulation. Experiment 2 also included a lexical decision task to assess whether salience of potential rejection mediated the obtained behavioral effects. Salience of rejection mediated the effects of humor on fear of failure but not the effects of humor on conformity.

A new look at selective exposure

Abstract The relevance of the personality dimension “repression-sensitization” ( D. Byrne in B. A. Maher (Ed.), Progress in experimental personality research, Vol. 1, NY: Academic Press, 1964 , pp. 169–219) to selective exposure processes was investigated. Experimental repressors (who typically employ “avoidance” strategies in dealing with threatening stimuli) and experimental sensitizers (who generally “approach” threatening stimuli) were allowed to choose and keep one of two pairs of painting reproductions, each pair containing one positively and one negatively valued painting. After the decision, which experimental subjects believed terminated the experiment, subjects were allowed to inspect the alternatives ad libitum for 75 sec. Eye gaze during this period was unobtrusively videotaped. Compared to their matched controls, who were simply asked to inspect the paintings in order to decide which ones they liked best, experimental repressors inspected paintings that were consonant with their choices and avoided looking at paintings that were dissonant with their decisions. Experimental sensitizers did not manifest such postdecisional selective exposure. The implications of these results for past and future research on dissonance-produced selective exposure were discussed.

An Analysis of Empirical Research on the Scope of Justice

The scope of justice has been defined as the boundary within which justice is perceived to be relevant. The empirical literature on this topic is primarily aimed at predicting when a target will be excluded from the scope of justice and at examining potential consequences of exclusion, from accepting a targets suffering to active harm-doing such as mass internment and genocide. The concept of the scope of justice is interesting and heuristically useful, but there are several problems with the empirical literature that impede its progress. For example, the proposed mediator often has not been measured, or operationalizations of the scope of justice have been confounded with other constructs. Also, although the scope of justice remains one possible explanation for results obtained in various experiments, there are equally compelling alternatives that do not implicate exclusion from the scope of justice. We offer suggestions about how to study scope of justice issues in the future and identify points that need to be clarified regarding the conceptualization of the scope of justice.

The Vulnerability of Values to Attack: Inoculation of Values and Value-Relevant Attitudes

Based on the values-as-truisms hypothesis and inoculation theory, two experiments tested whether providing cognitive defenses for the value of equality induces resistance against a message attacking this value. Experiment 1 found that participants who generated cognitive support in an active-supportive or an active-refutational defense were less persuaded by a subsequent message attacking equality than were participants who engaged in no prior defense. Experiment 2 examined the effects of an active-refutational defense and a passive-refutational defense, which simply asked participants to read reasons supporting or opposing equality. Results indicated additive effects of the active and passive defenses, such that participants were most resistant to the anti-equality message when they were given both defenses. Mediational analysis across both experiments revealed that the defenses increased counterargumentation of the anti-equality message, which led to increased post-attack importance of equality and predicted more favorable equality-relevant attitudes and values.

Testing the Generality of the Name Letter Effect: Name Initials and Everyday Attitudes

The name letter effect is the tendency to evaluate alphabetical letters in one’s name, especially initials, particularly favorably. Recent evidence suggests that name initials may even predict career choices. The authors investigated whether people possess favorable attitudes toward basic attitude objects beginning with name initials, both between individuals (e.g., does Judy like jam more than does Doug?) and within individuals (e.g., does Judy like jam more than honey?). Ratings of animals, foods, leisure activities (Studies 1-4) and national groups (Studies 2-4) revealed no object preference as a function of matching name initials. However, the name letter effect emerged (Studies 3-4), as did a clear preference for brand names starting with one’s name initials (Study 4). Self-esteem, narcissism, and stimuli characteristics did not reliably influence these effects. Implications for extending name letter effects to basic attitude processes are discussed.

The Personal/Group Discrimination Discrepancy: The Role of Informational Complexity

The personal/group discrimination discrepancy (PGDD) refers to the tendency of disadvantaged group members to report higher levels of discrimination against their group in general than against themselves personally as members of that group. In two studies, the authors examined the cognitive mechanisms that underlie the PGDD. In Experiment 1, the authors demonstrated that the PGDD emerges from a divergence in the comparison standards on which personal and group judgments are made and that specifying that the same standards be used for both types of judgments eliminates or reduces the PGDD. In Experiment 2, the authors demonstrated that the magnitude of the PGDD was a function of the degree of informational complexity in the comparison targets. Implications for conceptualizations of the PGDD are discussed.