Relationship status moderates sexual prejudice directed toward lesbian women but not gay men.

To determine whether relationship status moderates sexual prejudice, we compared heterosexual men and women's self-reported social distancing toward gay and lesbian targets who varied in relationship status (coupled, single, no information). Relationship status of gay male targets did not affect responses (Study 1): heterosexual men reported increased social distancing toward gay compared to heterosexual male targets, whereas women did not. Similarly, in Study 2, heterosexual men reported increased social distancing toward lesbian compared to heterosexual female targets, but women did not, and men reported decreased social distancing toward single lesbian women. Working from an affordance management approach, Study 3 replicated Studies 1 and 2, testing potential mediators of effects. In particular, heterosexual men reported increased social distancing toward gay male targets, compared to responses from heterosexual women. Moreover, heterosexual women reported increased social distancing toward single, compared to coupled, lesbian targets, mediated through perceptions of undesired sexual interest from the target. This work demonstrates the nuanced nature of sexual prejudice and provides further evidence of the role of perceptions of undesired sexual interest in prejudiced responses toward lesbian and gay individuals.

Social psychology and COVID-19: What the field can tell us about behavior in a pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc in the lives of people around the world. Pandemics are powerful situations that can be examined from a social psychological lens. In this special section, four articles present data collected before and during the pandemic, providing a type of quasi-experimental design that helped examine the impact of the pandemic on social behavior. A number of findings emerged: the pandemic potentially increased instances of cyberbullying; the pandemic may have increased reports that Black-White intergroup interactions are more competitive and discriminatory; the pandemic may have reduced negative attitudes and bias in domestic versus international students in the U.S; and the pandemic may have allowed feelings of helplessness to provide a fear-reducing mechanism. We expand upon these findings by discussing how social psychology can help us understand and modify behaviors related to health and social relations during major threats like a pandemic.

When thinking back can hold us back: How being a follower can affect women's loss-aversion.

Despite the persistent gender gap in many organizational leadership positions, researchers have not yet examined objective predictors of this gap. A fully crossed 3 (Role Prime: leader, follower, control) × 2 (Gender Prime: present, absent) × 2 (Sex: male, female) experimental design examined the effect of group role (i.e., leader or follower) and gender on loss-aversion. Participants (192 total; 96 female) were asked to name either their former or current leader ("superior") or follower ("subordinate"), compared with a no prime condition. Results suggest that women primed with a follower role were more loss-averse than men primed with a follower role, and were more loss-averse than women primed with the leader role or in the control condition. However, the role prime did not affect men's loss-aversion. The current research suggests that researchers and practitioners should consider the effects of group role on loss-aversion, as this may contribute to gender gaps in the workplace. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Prejudices and discrimination as goal activated and threat driven: The affordance management approach applied to sexual prejudice.

Stereotypes, prejudices, and discriminatory behaviors directed toward people based on their sexual orientation vary broadly. Existing perspectives on sexual prejudice argue for different underlying causes, sometimes provide disparate or conflicting evidence for its roots, and typically fail to account for variances observed across studies. We propose an affordance management approach to understanding sexual prejudice, which weds the fundamental motives theory with the sociofunctional threat-based approach to prejudice to provide a broader explanation for the causes and outcomes of sexual prejudice and to explain inter- and intragroup prejudices more broadly. Prejudices arise as specific emotions designed to engage functional behavioral responses to perceived threats and opportunities (i.e., affordances) posed by different sexual orientation groups, and interact with the perceiver's chronic or temporarily activated fundamental motives (e.g., parenting, mating), which determine the relevance of certain target affordances. Our perspective predicts what stereotype content is likely to direct specific affective and behavioral reactions (i.e., the stereotypes that relay threat- and opportunity-relevant information) and when the affordance-emotion-behavior link is likely to engage (i.e., when those threats and opportunities are directly relevant to the perceiver's current fundamental goal). This article synthesizes the extant sexual prejudice literature from an affordance management approach to demonstrate how fundamental goals interact with preexisting perceptions to drive perceptual, affective, and behavioral responses toward sexual orientation groups, and provides a degree of explanatory power heretofore missing from the prejudice literature. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Prior storm experience moderates water surge perception and risk.

BACKGROUND: How accurately do people perceive extreme water speeds and how does their perception affect perceived risk? Prior research has focused on the characteristics of moving water that can reduce human stability or balance. The current research presents the first experiment on people's perceptions of risk and moving water at different speeds and depths. METHODS: Using a randomized within-person 2 (water depth: 0.45, 0.90 m) ×3 (water speed: 0.4, 0.8, 1.2 m/s) experiment, we immersed 76 people in moving water and asked them to estimate water speed and the risk they felt. RESULTS: Multilevel modeling showed that people increasingly overestimated water speeds as actual water speeds increased or as water depth increased. Water speed perceptions mediated the direct positive relationship between actual water speeds and perceptions of risk; the faster the moving water, the greater the perceived risk. Participants' prior experience with rip currents and tropical cyclones moderated the strength of the actual-perceived water speed relationship; consequently, mediation was stronger for people who had experienced no rip currents or fewer storms. CONCLUSIONS: These findings provide a clearer understanding of water speed and risk perception, which may help communicate the risks associated with anticipated floods and tropical cyclones.