Are the rich more unethical than the poor? To answer this question, the current research introduces a key conceptual distinction between selfish and unethical behavior. Based on this distinction, the ...current article offers 2 novel findings that illuminate the relationship between social class and unethical behavior. First, the effects of social class on unethical behavior are not invariant; rather, the effects of social class are moderated by whether unethical behavior benefits the self or others. Replicating past work, social class positively predicted unethical behavior; however, this relationship was only observed when that behavior was self-beneficial. When unethical behavior was performed to benefit others, social class negatively predicted unethical behavior; lower class individuals were more likely than upper class individuals to engage in unethical behavior. Overall, social class predicts people's tendency to behave selfishly, rather than predicting unethical behavior per se. Second, individuals' sense of power drove the effects of social class on unethical behavior. Evidence for this relationship was provided in three forms. First, income, but not education level, predicted unethical behavior. Second, feelings of power mediated the effect of social class on unethical behavior, but feelings of status did not. Third, two distinct manipulations of power produced the same moderation by self-versus-other beneficiary as was found with social class. The current theoretical framework and data both synthesize and help to explain a range of findings in the social class and power literatures.
► We examine the effect of psychological closeness on vicarious selfishness and dishonesty. ► We examine both mediating and moderating factors of this relationship. ► Psychological closeness ...influences judgments of the wrongdoers’ behavior. ► Psychological closeness produces stronger effects on vicarious selfishness than on vicarious generosity. ► Psychological closeness leads to distance from one’s own moral compass.
In four studies employing multiple manipulations of psychological closeness, we found that feeling connected to another individual who engages in selfish or dishonest behavior leads people to behave more selfishly and less ethically themselves. In addition, psychologically connecting with a scoundrel led to greater moral disengagement. We also establish that vicarious justification is the mechanism explaining this effect: When participants felt psychologically close to someone who had behaved selfishly, they were more likely to consider the behavior to be less shame-worthy and less unethical; it was these lenient judgments that then led them to act more unethically themselves. These vicarious effects were moderated by whether the miscreant was identified with a photograph and by the type of behavior. Importantly, we establish a general process of vicariousness: psychological closeness produced both vicarious generosity and selfishness depending on the behavior of the person one feels psychologically connected to. These findings suggest an irony of psychological closeness: it can create distance from one’s own moral compass.
The five experiments reported here demonstrate that authenticity is directly linked to morality. We found that experiencing inauthenticity, compared with authenticity, consistently led participants ...to feel more immoral and impure. This link from inauthenticity to feeling immoral produced an increased desire among participants to cleanse themselves and to engage in moral compensation by behaving prosocially. We established the role that impurity played in these effects through mediation and moderation. We found that inauthenticity-induced cleansing and compensatory helping were driven by heightened feelings of impurity rather than by the psychological discomfort of dissonance. Similarly, physically cleansing oneself eliminated the relationship between inauthenticity and prosocial compensation. Finally, we obtained additional evidence for discriminant validity: The observed effects on desire for cleansing were not driven by general negative experiences (i.e., failing a test) but were unique to experiences of inauthenticity. Our results establish that authenticity is a moral state—that being true to thine own self is experienced as a form of virtue.
We present six experiments that tested whether lacking control increases illusory pattern perception, which we define as the identification of a coherent and meaningful interrelationship among a set ...of random or unrelated stimuli. Participants who lacked control were more likely to perceive a variety of illusory patterns, including seeing images in noise, forming illusory correlations in stock market information, perceiving conspiracies, and developing superstitions. Additionally, we demonstrated that increased pattern perception has a motivational basis by measuring the need for structure directly and showing that the causal link between lack of control and illusory pattern perception is reduced by affirming the self. Although these many disparate forms of pattern perception are typically discussed as separate phenomena, the current results suggest that there is a common motive underlying them.
Three experiments examine how power affects consumers’ spending propensities. By integrating literatures suggesting that (a) powerlessness is aversive, (b) status is one basis of power, and (c) ...products can signal status, the authors argue that low power fosters a desire to acquire products associated with status to compensate for lacking power. Supporting this compensatory hypothesis, results show that low power increased consumers’ willingness to pay for auction items and consumers’ reservation prices in negotiations but only when products were status related. The link between powerlessness and compensatory consumption has broad implications both for consumers' health and well‐being and for understanding the psychological state of power.
Enclothed cognition Adam, Hajo; Galinsky, Adam D.
Journal of experimental social psychology,
July 2012, 2012-7-00, 20120701, Volume:
48, Issue:
4
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
We introduce the term “enclothed cognition” to describe the systematic influence that clothes have on the wearer's psychological processes. We offer a potentially unifying framework to integrate past ...findings and capture the diverse impact that clothes can have on the wearer by proposing that enclothed cognition involves the co-occurrence of two independent factors—the symbolic meaning of the clothes and the physical experience of wearing them. As a first test of our enclothed cognition perspective, the current research explored the effects of wearing a lab coat. A pretest found that a lab coat is generally associated with attentiveness and carefulness. We therefore predicted that wearing a lab coat would increase performance on attention-related tasks. In Experiment 1, physically wearing a lab coat increased selective attention compared to not wearing a lab coat. In Experiments 2 and 3, wearing a lab coat described as a doctor's coat increased sustained attention compared to wearing a lab coat described as a painter's coat, and compared to simply seeing or even identifying with a lab coat described as a doctor's coat. Thus, the current research suggests a basic principle of enclothed cognition—it depends on both the symbolic meaning and the physical experience of wearing the clothes.
► We show how clothes systematically influence wearers' psychological processes. ► Three experiments demonstrate that wearing a lab coat increases attention. ► Attention did not increase when the coat was not worn or associated with a painter. ► Attention only increased when the coat was a) worn and b) associated with a doctor. ► The influence of clothes thus depends on wearing them and their symbolic meaning.
Consumer goods and services have psychological value that can equal or exceed their functional value. A burgeoning literature demonstrates that one source of value emerges from the capacity for ...products to serve as a psychological salve that reduces various forms of distress across numerous domains. This review systematically organizes and integrates the literature on the use of consumer behavior as a means to regulate self-discrepancies, or the incongruities between how one currently perceives oneself and how one desires to view oneself (Higgins, 1987). We introduce a Compensatory Consumer Behavior Model to explain the psychological consequences of self-discrepancies on consumer behavior. This model delineates five distinct strategies by which consumers cope with self-discrepancies: direct resolution, symbolic self-completion, dissociation, escapism, and fluid compensation. Finally, the authors raise critical questions to guide future research endeavors. Overall, the present review provides both a primer on compensatory consumer behavior and sets an agenda for future research.
Dynamics of Communicator and Audience Power DUBOIS, DAVID; RUCKER, DEREK D.; GALINSKY, ADAM D.
The Journal of consumer research,
06/2016, Volume:
43, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
The current research offers a new theoretical perspective on the relationship between power and persuasion. An agentic-communal model of power is presented that proposes power affects both the ...messages generated by communicators and the messages that persuade audiences. Compared to low-power states, high-power states produce a greater emphasis on information that conveys competence. As a consequence, high-power communicators generate messages with greater competence information, and high-power audiences are persuaded more by competence information. In contrast to high-power states, low-power states produce a greater emphasis on information that conveys warmth. As a result, low-power communicators generate messages with greater warmth information, and low-power audiences are persuaded more by warmth information. Because of these two outcomes, a power-matching effect occurs between communicator and audience power: high-power communicators are more effective in persuading high-power audience members, whereas low-power communicators are more effective in persuading low-power audience members. Four experiments find support for these effects in oral and written contexts with three distinct manipulations of power. Overall, these experiments demonstrate that the persuasiveness of messages can be affected by the alignment between the psychological sense of power of the communicator and the audience.
Dozens of studies in different nations have revealed that socioeconomic status only weakly predicts an individual's subjective well-being (SWB). These results imply that although the pursuit of ...social status is a fundamental human motivation, achieving high status has little impact on one's SWB. However, we propose that sociometric status—the respect and admiration one has in face-to-face groups (e.g., among friends or coworkers)—has a stronger effect on SWB than does socioeconomic status. Using correlational, experimental, and longitudinal methodologies, four studies found consistent evidence for a local-ladder effect: Sociometric status significantly predicted satisfaction with life and the experience of positive and negative emotions. Longitudinally, as sociometric status rose or fell, SWB rose or fell accordingly. Furthermore, these effects were driven by feelings of power and social acceptance. Overall, individuals' sociometric status matters more to their SWB than does their socioeconomic status.
Power, optimism, and risk-taking Anderson, Cameron; Galinsky, Adam D.
European journal of social psychology,
07/2006, Volume:
36, Issue:
4
Journal Article
PDF
