Jonathan E. Ramsay

Rethinking Value Violation: Priming Religion Increases Prejudice in Singaporean Christians and Buddhists

Ingroup religious priming has been shown to increase prejudice in American Christians, but it is currently unknown whether this effect can be generalized to other religions and cultures. The present research assessed the effects of religious priming on attitudes toward religious and cultural outgroups in Christian and Buddhist students at a Singapore university. Both Christians and Buddhists primed with religious ingroup words demonstrated more negative pretest to posttest attitude change toward homosexuals than those primed with neutral words. This effect remained even when statistically controlling for levels of right-wing authoritarianism and spirituality. These results indicate that religious priming affects Christians and Buddhists in the same way, promoting bias towards culturally relevant outgroups even in the absence of religious value-violation. This suggests that religion may exert its prejudicial effects indirectly through activation of associated cultural value systems, such as traditionalism/conservatism.

A Puzzle Unsolved: Failure to Observe Different Effects of God and Religion Primes on Intergroup Attitudes.

Religious priming has been found to have both positive and negative consequences, and recent research suggests that the activation of God-related and community-related religious cognitions may cause outgroup prosociality and outgroup derogation respectively. The present research sought to examine whether reminders of God and religion have different effects on attitudes towards ingroup and outgroup members. Over two studies, little evidence was found for different effects of these two types of religious primes. In study 1, individuals primed with the words “religion”, “God” and a neutral control word evaluated both ingroup and outgroup members similarly, although a marginal tendency towards more negative evaluations of outgroup members by females exposed to religion primes was observed. In study 2, no significant differences in attitudes towards an outgroup member were observed between the God, religion, and neutral priming conditions. Furthermore, the gender effect observed in study 1 did not replicate in this second study. Possible explanations for these null effects are discussed.

Need for achievement moderates the effect of motive-relevant challenge on salivary cortisol changes.

The hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis plays a key role in the physiological response to stress, preparing the organism for appropriate action. While some research has examined universally relevant threats, other research has suggested that individual differences may moderate the relationship between stress and cortisol release, such that some individuals exhibit modified reactivity to personally relevant stressors or challenges. In the present study we investigated whether one individual difference—the implicit need for achievement—moderates the effect of motive-relevant challenge on salivary cortisol. Participants’ salivary cortisol and felt affect were measured before and after engagement in an achievement task. In the positive- and no-feedback conditions, individuals high in implicit achievement motivation demonstrated increased cortisol response to the task, whereas in the negative feedback condition, individuals high in implicit achievement motivation demonstrated a dampened cortisol response. Furthermore, changes in cortisol were accompanied by changes in felt affect in the same direction, specifically hedonic tone. These results suggest that the HPA axis also responds to non-social-evaluative challenge in a personality-contingent manner.

Divergent pathways to influence: Cognition and behavior differentially mediate the effects of optimism on physical and mental quality of life in Chinese university students

Previous research has indicated that both cognitive and behavioral variables mediate the positive effect of optimism on quality of life; yet few attempts have been made to accommodate these constructs into a single explanatory framework. Adopting Fredrickson’s broaden-and-build perspective, we examined the relationships between optimism, self-rated health, resilience, exercise, and quality of life in 365 Chinese university students using path analysis. For physical quality of life, a two-stage model, in which the effects of optimism were sequentially mediated by cognitive and behavioral variables, provided the best fit. A one-stage model, with full mediation by cognitive variables, provided the best fit for mental quality of life. This suggests that optimism influences physical and mental quality of life via different pathways.

Personality expression in Chinese language use

To date, little research has investigated personality expressions in languages other than English. Given that the Chinese language has the largest number of native speakers in the world, it is vitally important to examine the associations between personality and Chinese language use. In this research, we analysed Chinese microblogs and identified word categories and factorial structures associated with personality traits. We also compared our results with previous findings in English and showed that linguistic expression of personality has both universal- and language-specific aspects. Expression of personality via content words is more likely to be consistent across languages than expression via function words. This makes an important step towards uncovering universal patterns of personality expression in language.

Need for Power Predicts Career Intent in University Students

Previous research has indicated robust relationships between implicit motives and various indices of career preference and performance, with the implicit need for power (nPow) and the implicit need for achievement (nAch) found to associate with leadership and entrepreneurship, respectively. However, relatively little work has examined the relationships between implicit motivation and career intention. In the present study, 149 university students completed questionnaires assessing their intention to embark on entrepreneurial, professional, or leadership careers, while implicit motivation was measured using the picture story exercise. nPow was found to positively predict entrepreneurial intent and to negatively predict professional intent, while higher nPow was positively associated with both entrepreneurial and leadership career choice. nAch did not associate significantly with any of the intent or choice measures. These results tentatively suggest a previously undocumented relationship between nPow and entrepreneurial ambition, and possible differences in the motivational profiles of aspiring and actual entrepreneurs.

Teleological explanation and positive emotion serially mediate the effect of religion on well-being

OBJECTIVE Previous research has demonstrated a robust relationship between religion and well-being, and it has been proposed that positive emotions are important mediators of this effect. Yet the mechanism via which religion promotes positive emotions has not been widely studied. We sought to examine whether teleological explanations of daily events and resulting positive emotions serially mediated the effects of religion on well-being. METHOD These hypotheses were tested over three studies involving full-time and part-time university students in Singapore. In Study 1, participants completed measures of religiousness and well-being, and explained and described three recent personally significant events and their resulting emotions. Studies 2 and 3 adopted an ecological momentary assessment approach to measure teleological explanations, resulting emotions, and well-being in almost real time. RESULTS In Study 1, teleological explanations and positive emotions serially mediated the effects of religiousness on well-being. In Study 2, momentary teleological explanations of daily events mediated the positive relationship between religiousness and momentary positive emotions. In Study 3, serial mediation of the relationship between religiousness and momentary well-being by momentary teleological explanations and positive emotions was observed. CONCLUSIONS These results provide evidence of the importance of teleological explanations of daily events in religious enhancement of well-being.