How can we explain the persuasiveness of populist messages, and who are most susceptible to their effects? These questions remain largely unanswered in extant research. This study argues that ...populist messages are characterized by assigning blame to elites in an emotionalized way. As previous research pointed at the guiding influence of blame attributions and emotions on political attitudes, these message characteristics may explain populism’s persuasiveness. An experiment using a national sample (N = 721) was conducted to provide insights into the effects of and mechanisms underlying populist blame attribution with regard to the European and national levels of governance. The results show that emotionalized blame attributions influence both blame perceptions and populist attitudes. Identity attachment moderates these effects: Emotionalized blame attributions have the strongest effects for citizens with weaker identity attachments. These insights allow us to understand how populist messages affect which citizens.
Extant research has uniformly demonstrated that leader humility is beneficial for subordinates, teams, and even organizations. Drawing upon attribution theory, we challenge this prevailing conclusion ...by identifying a potential dark side of leader humility and suggesting that leader humility can be a mixed blessing. We propose that the effects of leader humility hinge on subordinates' attributions of such humble behavior. On the one hand, when subordinates attribute leader humility in a self-serving way, leader humility is positively associated with subordinate psychological entitlement, which in turn increases workplace deviance. On the other hand, when subordinates do not attribute leader humility in a self-serving way, leader humility is positively associated with leader-member exchange, which in turn decreases workplace deviance. We found support for our hypotheses across a field study and an experiment. Taken together, our findings reveal the perils and benefits of leader humility and the importance of examining subordinate attributions in this unique leadership process.
Human aggression is highly prevalent and has a large impact on the lives of victims and society in general. Causes and mechanisms of aggression are manifold. One prominent component of aggression is ...the tendency to interpret ambiguous behavior of others as hostile, so called Hostile Attribution Bias (HAB). This systematic review investigated the association between HAB and aggression in adults. PsychInfo, Embase, PubMed and Web of Science databases were searched and 25 studies were included. These studies reported small to medium associations between HAB and aggression in adults. The association was present across different population samples, varying from students to forensic psychiatric patients. As most studies were cross-sectional and HAB measurements varied in quality, conclusions and implications for interventions are preliminary. This review provides an overview of existing research on HAB and aggression in adults, and highlights the importance of longitudinal studies and adequate HAB measurements for future research.
•25 studies investigated hostile attribution bias (HAB) and aggression in adults.•80% of studies reported a small/medium association between HAB and aggression.•HAB predicts both aggressive tendencies and aggressive behavior.•The HAB - aggression link is found in offenders, patients and general population.•Treatment should target HAB and other aspects of social information processing.
The last few years have seen an explosion of interest in extreme event attribution, the science of estimating the influence of human activities or other factors on the probability and other ...characteristics of an observed extreme weather or climate event. This is driven by public interest, but also has practical applications in decision-making after the event and for raising awareness of current and future climate change impacts. The World Weather Attribution (WWA) collaboration has over the last 5 years developed a methodology to answer these questions in a scientifically rigorous way in the immediate wake of the event when the information is most in demand. This methodology has been developed in the practice of investigating the role of climate change in two dozen extreme events world-wide. In this paper, we highlight the lessons learned through this experience. The methodology itself is documented in a more extensive companion paper. It covers all steps in the attribution process: the event choice and definition, collecting and assessing observations and estimating probability and trends from these, climate model evaluation, estimating modelled hazard trends and their significance, synthesis of the attribution of the hazard, assessment of trends in vulnerability and exposure, and communication. Here, we discuss how each of these steps entails choices that may affect the results, the common problems that can occur and how robust conclusions can (or cannot) be derived from the analysis. Some of these developments also apply to other attribution methodologies and indeed to other problems in climate science.
Established wisdom in cognitive science holds that the everyday folk psychological abilities of humans -- our capacity to understand intentional actions performed for reasons -- are inherited from ...our evolutionary forebears. In Folk Psychological Narratives, Daniel Hutto challenges this view (held in somewhat different forms by the two dominant approaches, "theory theory" and simulation theory) and argues for the sociocultural basis of this familiar ability. He makes a detailed case for the idea that the way we make sense of intentional actions essentially involves the construction of narratives about particular persons. Moreover he argues that children acquire this practical skill only by being exposed to and engaging in a distinctive kind of narrative practice. Hutto calls this developmental proposal the narrative practice hypothesis (NPH). Its core claim is that direct encounters with stories about persons who act for reasons (that is, folk psychological narratives) supply children with both the basic structure of folk psychology and the norm-governed possibilities for wielding it in practice. In making a strong case for the as yet underexamined idea that our understanding of reasons may be socioculturally grounded, Hutto not only advances and explicates the claims of the NPH, but he also challenges certain widely held assumptions. In this way, Folk Psychological Narratives both clears conceptual space around the dominant approaches for an alternative and offers a groundbreaking proposal.
This is the first meta-analysis to synthesize the literature on insecure attachment and negative attribution bias (NAB) from both developmental and social/personality attachment traditions. This ...meta-analysis is important because extant studies report inconsistent associations, making it difficult to draw conclusions about the nature of these associations. Based on 41 samples (N = 8,727) from 32 articles, we specify and compare the effect sizes of these associations across studies. Results confirmed positive associations between NAB and anxious and avoidant attachment dimensions and an insecure composite, with a medium effect size. Correlations were moderated by age group, type of attachment measurement, and cultural background. Our findings advance knowledge and build on attachment and attribution theories, reconcile mixed findings, and inform the development of NAB interventions. Important gaps in the literature are revealed that will inspire future research.
Although there have been studies in the past that have highlighted the important role of leadership in motivating employees to speak up, relational leadership has been scarcely investigated in this ...context. Therefore, the current research investigates the relationship between inclusive leadership, as a form of relational leadership, and employees' voice behavior directly and indirectly via psychological empowerment. Using the data collected from 252 employees and their respective supervisors working in cargo companies across the United Kingdom, this study finds a positive relationship between inclusive leadership and voice behavior. The results further confirm the mediating role of psychological empowerment in the relationship between inclusive leadership and voice behavior. We use causal attribution theory to support the findings and discuss implications for research and practice.
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