The effects of nonverbal pride and skill on judgements of victory and social influence: a boxing study.

Displaying nonverbal pride after a boxing match leads to judgements of success. However, it is not clear the extent to which this effect generalises nor whether it can override competing information. An experimental design had 214 participants watch two boxing clips that were manipulated so that one was evenly matched and the other had a fighter with an advantage (i.e. demonstrating more skill). Nonverbal behaviour at the completion of the fight varied between fighters (pride versus neutral). When the fight was evenly matched, the fighters displaying nonverbal pride were judged as winning the fight, but the fighter did not garner increased social influence. In contrast, when fighters demonstrated superior skill, the more skilled fighters who displayed neutral postures rather than the less-skilled ones displaying pride were judged as winning the fight, and the skilled fighters garnered increased social influence. These results suggest that in a boxing context, a pride bias works in evenly matched scenarios, but when differences in skill are more clearly present, a skill bias is more pronounced and leads to more social influence. Furthermore, perceptions of skill were associated with judgments of victory across stimuli, suggesting the importance of skill perceptions in such judgments.

Meaning and blame: Meaning threats increase victim blaming, but profession and art can diminish it.

Previous work suggests that people have a need for meaning, and that when meaning is threatened, efforts are undertaken to restore a sense of meaning. We hypothesized that a meaning threat (i.e., reminders of death) would increase victim blaming of a domestic violence victim since doing so can restore a sense of meaning-that people get what they deserve-but for those with advanced knowledge of victimology, such as trained counsellors, this effect would be diminished since victim blaming runs counter to their meaning framework that bad things can happen to good people. In addition, because art can provide a sense of meaning, we hypothesized that either creating meaningful art or observing art and finding meaning within it would diminish blaming a domestic violence victim since having a sense of meaning should diminish the need to restore meaning via victim blaming. Over five studies with undergraduate and trained counsellors, we found support for the hypotheses, and a meta-analysis on the victim blaming effect suggested a small, though significant, effect size of d = .28. These findings enhance our understanding of various factors that affect victim blaming, and they point towards relatively easy to administer interventions to diminish it.

Communism's Lasting Effect? Former Communist States and COVID-19 Vaccinations.

Historical cultural practices that no longer exist can have modern day effects. Because communism has been linked with distrust of government, it was hypothesized that (a) historical communism would be negatively associated with COVID-19 vaccination rates, and (b) trust in government would mediate the association. Two studies assessed these hypotheses. Study 1 tested the hypotheses among European, Asian, and African countries, while Study 2 focused on East and West Germany within Europe. All samples except Africa found support for an association between historical communism and lower COVID-19 vaccination rates. However, trust in government did not mediate the association in Study 1, though a significant indirect effect did emerge within Germany in Study 2. Associations held controlling for GDP and age of population. Together, the studies suggest that historical communism in Europe and Asia is associated with real-world behavior today, and that trust in government might be partly responsible for the effect within Germany but less likely within Europe as a whole.

Spirituality and religiosity contribute to ongoing COVID-19 vaccination rates: Comparing 195 regions around the world.

Vaccine hesitancy has taken global prominence with the rapid spread of COVID-19, but what factors are related to this considerable variation in vaccination rates globally? Three studies that encompass 195 unique regions from around the world found that the relative spirituality and religiosity of a region predict ongoing COVID-19 vaccination rates, such that those regions higher in spirituality and/or religiosity are regions with lower COVID-19 vaccination rates. In Study 1, data from 23 regions globally were obtained, and both spirituality and religiosity were negatively associated with vaccination rates. These effects held when applying two methods to account for vaccine supply issues. In Study 2, data from 144 regions globally were obtained, and once again religiosity negatively predicted COVID-19 vaccination rates. It remained a significant predictor of vaccination rates when controlling for GDP, population age, collectivism, general skepticism towards vaccinations, and previous inoculation history. In Study 3, data from all USA states and the District of Columbia were obtained, and religiosity and spirituality once again were negatively associated with COVID-19 vaccination rates. Effects held controlling for other factors. Across studies, spirituality and religiosity account for a large amount of the variance in vaccination rates. These results suggest that real-world behavior can be predicted by the relative spirituality and religiosity of a region.

Searching for answers in an uncertain world: Meaning threats lead to increased working memory capacity.

The Meaning Maintenance Model posits that individuals seek to resolve uncertainty by searching for patterns in the environment, yet little is known about how this is accomplished. Four studies investigated whether uncertainty has an effect on people's cognitive functioning. In particular, we investigated whether meaning threats lead to increased working memory capacity. In each study, we exposed participants to either an uncertain stimulus used to threaten meaning in past studies, or a control stimulus. Participants then completed a working memory measure, where they either had to recall lists of words (Studies 1, 2), or strings of digits (Studies 3, 4). We used both a frequentist approach and Bayesian analysis to evaluate our findings. Across the four studies, we find a small but consistent effect, where participants in the meaning threat condition show improved performance on the working memory tasks. Overall, our findings were consistent with the hypothesis that working memory capacity increases when people experience a meaning threat, which may help to explain improved pattern recognition. Additionally, our results highlight the value of using a Bayesian analytic approach, particularly when studying phenomena with high variance.

Status signals: adaptive benefits of displaying and observing the nonverbal expressions of pride and shame.

A growing body of research suggests that pride and shame are associated with distinct, cross-culturally recognised nonverbal expressions, which are spontaneously displayed in situations of success and failure, respectively. Here, we review these findings, then offer a theoretical account of the adaptive benefits of these displays. We argue that both pride and shame expressions function as social signals that benefit both observers and expressers. Specifically, pride displays function to signal high status, which benefits displayers by according them deference from others, and benefits observers by affording them valuable information about social-learning opportunities. Shame displays function to appease others after a social transgression, which benefits displayers by allowing them to avoid punishment and negative appraisals, and observers by easing their identification of committed group members and followers.

Death and science: the existential underpinnings of belief in intelligent design and discomfort with evolution.

The present research examined the psychological motives underlying widespread support for intelligent design theory (IDT), a purportedly scientific theory that lacks any scientific evidence; and antagonism toward evolutionary theory (ET), a theory supported by a large body of scientific evidence. We tested whether these attitudes are influenced by IDT's provision of an explanation of life's origins that better addresses existential concerns than ET. In four studies, existential threat (induced via reminders of participants' own mortality) increased acceptance of IDT and/or rejection of ET, regardless of participants' religion, religiosity, educational background, or preexisting attitude toward evolution. Effects were reversed by teaching participants that naturalism can be a source of existential meaning (Study 4), and among natural-science students for whom ET may already provide existential meaning (Study 5). These reversals suggest that the effect of heightened mortality awareness on attitudes toward ET and IDT is due to a desire to find greater meaning and purpose in science when existential threats are activated.