When and Why Antiegalitarianism Affects Resistance to Supporting Black-Owned Businesses.

Understanding how initiatives to support Black-owned businesses are received, and why, has important social and economic implications. To address this, we designed three experiments to investigate the role of antiegalitarian versus egalitarian ideologies among White American adults. In Study 1 (N = 199), antiegalitarianism (vs. egalitarianism) predicted viewing initiatives supporting a Black-owned business as less fair, but only when the business was competing with other (presumably White-owned) businesses. In Study 2 (N = 801), antiegalitarianism predicted applying survival-of-the-fittest market beliefs, particularly to Black-owned businesses. Antiegalitarianism also predicted viewing initiatives supporting Black-owned businesses as less fair than initiatives that targeted other (presumably White-owned) businesses, especially for tangible (vs. symbolic) support that directly impacts the success of a business. In Study 3 (N = 590), antiegalitarianism predicted rejecting a program investing in Black-owned businesses. These insights demonstrate how antiegalitarian ideology can have the effect of maintaining race-based inequality, hindering programs designed to reduce that inequality.

Predictors of adherence to public health behaviors for fighting COVID-19 derived from longitudinal data.

The present paper examines longitudinally how subjective perceptions about COVID-19, one's community, and the government predict adherence to public health measures to reduce the spread of the virus. Using an international survey (N = 3040), we test how infection risk perception, trust in the governmental response and communications about COVID-19, conspiracy beliefs, social norms on distancing, tightness of culture, and community punishment predict various containment-related attitudes and behavior. Autoregressive analyses indicate that, at the personal level, personal hygiene behavior was predicted by personal infection risk perception. At social level, social distancing behaviors such as abstaining from face-to-face contact were predicted by perceived social norms. Support for behavioral mandates was predicted by confidence in the government and cultural tightness, whereas support for anti-lockdown protests was predicted by (lower) perceived clarity of communication about the virus. Results are discussed in light of policy implications and creating effective interventions.

Using machine learning to identify important predictors of COVID-19 infection prevention behaviors during the early phase of the pandemic.

Before vaccines for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) became available, a set of infection-prevention behaviors constituted the primary means to mitigate the virus spread. Our study aimed to identify important predictors of this set of behaviors. Whereas social and health psychological theories suggest a limited set of predictors, machine-learning analyses can identify correlates from a larger pool of candidate predictors. We used random forests to rank 115 candidate correlates of infection-prevention behavior in 56,072 participants across 28 countries, administered in March to May 2020. The machine-learning model predicted 52% of the variance in infection-prevention behavior in a separate test sample-exceeding the performance of psychological models of health behavior. Results indicated the two most important predictors related to individual-level injunctive norms. Illustrating how data-driven methods can complement theory, some of the most important predictors were not derived from theories of health behavior-and some theoretically derived predictors were relatively unimportant.

Concern with COVID-19 pandemic threat and attitudes towards immigrants: The mediating effect of the desire for tightness.

Tightening social norms is thought to be adaptive for dealing with collective threat yet it may have negative consequences for increasing prejudice. The present research investigated the role of desire for cultural tightness, triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, in increasing negative attitudes towards immigrants. We used participant-level data from 41 countries (N = 55,015) collected as part of the PsyCorona project, a cross-national longitudinal study on responses to COVID-19. Our predictions were tested through multilevel and SEM models, treating participants as nested within countries. Results showed that people's concern with COVID-19 threat was related to greater desire for tightness which, in turn, was linked to more negative attitudes towards immigrants. These findings were followed up with a longitudinal model (N = 2,349) which also showed that people's heightened concern with COVID-19 in an earlier stage of the pandemic was associated with an increase in their desire for tightness and negative attitudes towards immigrants later in time. Our findings offer insight into the trade-offs that tightening social norms under collective threat has for human groups.

'We are all in the same boat': How societal discontent affects intention to help during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has caused a global health crisis. Consequently, many countries have adopted restrictive measures that caused a substantial change in society. Within this framework, it is reasonable to suppose that a sentiment of societal discontent, defined as generalized concern about the precarious state of society, has arisen. Literature shows that collectively experienced situations can motivate people to help each other. Since societal discontent is conceptualized as a collective phenomenon, we argue that it could influence intention to help others, particularly those who suffer from coronavirus. Thus, in the present study, we aimed (a) to explore the relationship between societal discontent and intention to help at the individual level and (b) to investigate a possible moderating effect of societal discontent at the country level on this relationship. To fulfil our purposes, we used data collected in 42 countries (N = 61,734) from the PsyCorona Survey, a cross-national longitudinal study. Results of multilevel analysis showed that, when societal discontent is experienced by the entire community, individuals dissatisfied with society are more prone to help others. Testing the model with longitudinal data (N = 3,817) confirmed our results. Implications for those findings are discussed in relation to crisis management. Please refer to the Supplementary Material section to find this article's Community and Social Impact Statement.

Internal states and interoception along a spectrum of eating disorder symptomology.

OBJECTIVE: Recent studies on atypical interoceptive capabilities have focused on clinical populations, including anorexia nervosa[1,2]. The present exploratory study aims to characterize the influence of disordered eating symptomology on interoceptive capabilities in college students, a population for which dangerous dieting behaviors may emerge. METHOD: Ninety-nine participants were randomized to consume a blinded high calorie or low calorie midday shake. Participants reported frequency of eating disorder cognitions and behaviors; indicated changes in satiety, happiness, and energy pre- and post-consumption; and guessed the calories in their shake. Outcomes (perceived satiety, changes in mood, and caloric guess) were regressed on eating disorder symptoms scores, the high/low calorie shake condition, and the interaction between these predictors. RESULTS: Those randomized to receive the high calorie shake reported feeling fuller, but only when endorsing lower levels of eating concern. Those randomized to the high calorie shake reported greater post-meal happiness, but only at greater levels of eating concerns. Lastly, those with lower levels of eating restraint reported an expected positive association between level of fullness and calorie guess, but those with higher levels of eating restraint did not exhibit any relationship between perceived fullness and calorie guess. DISCUSSION: Results of this exploratory suggest that irregular eating habits (e.g., not eating a sufficient amount for lunch) may have direct consequences on interoceptive capabilities. Further, these capacities may be impacted by individual differences in eating concern and restraint. Preliminary findings suggest that impairment in deciphering visceral signals may be associated with the degree of eating disorder symptomology; such impairment may occur at lower levels of symptomatology than normative data would indicate.

Meal skipping and cognition along a spectrum of restrictive eating.

OBJECTIVE: Inadequate nutrition adversely impacts brain development and cognitive functioning (Pollitt et al., 1983). Studies examining the acute impact of eating regular meals on cognition have reported inconsistent findings, necessitating the exploration of individual differences in samples contributing to equivocal results. The present study examines the impact of skipping lunch on cognitive ability in college-aged students by including eating restraint as a moderator. METHODS: Participants were 99 college-aged students (M = 19.7 years, SD = 1.5) randomized to a blinded 'lunch' or 'lunch-omission' condition, and assessed on memory, attention, processing speed, set shifting, and eating disorder symptomology. RESULTS: Regressing long and short-term memory on the lunch manipulation, eating restraint scores, and their interaction revealed significant interactions: those who had lunch had superior memory performance, but only for those reporting lower levels of eating restraint. Regressing set shifting speed on the manipulation, those who had lunch had slower set shifting speed than those who skipped, but only for those reporting lower levels of eating restraint. CONCLUSIONS: Results suggest that skipping lunch may have immediate consequences on cognition, however, cognitive enhancing effects may be diminished in the presence of even low levels of eating restraint. Findings highlight the significance of purported subclinical levels of eating restraint and may inform health education strategies.

Correction: Rhesus macaques form preferences for brand logos through sex and social status based advertising.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0193055.].

Indulgent Foods Can Paradoxically Promote Disciplined Dietary Choices.

As obesity rates continue to rise, interventions promoting healthful choices will become increasingly important. Here, participants ( N = 79) made binary choices between familiar foods; some trials contained a common consequence that had a constant probability of receipt regardless of the participant's choice. We theorized-on the basis of simulations using a value-normalization model-that indulgent common consequences potentiated disciplined choices by shaping other options' perceived healthfulness and tastiness. Our experimental results confirmed these predictions: An indulgent common consequence more than doubled the rate of disciplined choices. We used eye-gaze data to provide insights into the underlying mechanisms, finding that an indulgent common consequence biased eye gaze toward healthful foods. Furthermore, attention toward the common consequence predicted individual differences in behavioral bias. Results were replicated across two independent samples receiving distinct goal primes. These results demonstrate that introducing an irrelevant indulgent food can alter processing of healthier items-and thus promote disciplined choices.

Rhesus macaques form preferences for brand logos through sex and social status based advertising.

Like humans, monkeys value information about sex and status, inviting the hypothesis that our susceptibility to these factors in advertising arises from shared, ancestral biological mechanisms that prioritize social information. To test this idea, we asked whether rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) show choice behavior that is similar to humans in response to sex and social status in advertising. Our results show that monkeys form preferences for brand logos repeatedly paired with images of macaque genitals and high status monkeys. Moreover, monkeys sustain preferences for these brand logos even though choosing them provided no tangible rewards, a finding that cannot be explained by a decision mechanism operating solely on material outcomes. Together, our results endorse the hypothesis that the power of sex and status in advertising emerges from the spontaneous engagement of shared, ancestral neural circuits that prioritize information useful for navigating the social environment. Finally, our results show that simple associative conditioning is sufficient to explain the formation of preferences for brand logos paired with sexual or status-based images.

Is Freedom Contagious? A Self-Regulatory Model of Reactance and Sensitivity to Deviant Peers.

Psychological reactance is typically assumed to motivate resistance to controlling peer influences and societal prohibitions. However, some peer influences encourage behaviors prohibited by society. We consider whether reactant individuals are sensitive to such opportunities to enhance their autonomy. We specifically propose a self-regulatory perspective on reactance, wherein freedom/autonomy is the superordinate goal, and thus highly reactant individuals will be sensitive to peer influences that could enhance their behavioral freedoms. In two studies, we find that reactant individuals can be cooperative in response to autonomy-supportive peer influences. Participants read a scenario in which a peer's intentions to engage in substance use were manipulated to imply freedom of choice or not. Results indicated that highly reactant participants were sensitive to deviant peers whose own behavior towards alcohol (Study 1, N = 160) or marijuana (Study 2, N = 124) appeared to be motivated by autonomy and thus afforded free choice. Altogether, the results support a self-regulatory model of reactance, wherein deviant peer influence can be a means to pursue autonomy.

Finding brands and losing your religion?

Religion is a powerful force in many people's lives, impacting decisions about life, death, and everything in between. It may be difficult, then, to imagine that something as seemingly innocuous as the usage of brand name products might influence individuals' commitment to religion. However, we demonstrate across 6 studies that when brands are a highly salient tool for self-expression, individuals are less likely to report and demonstrate strong religious commitment. We suggest that a desire to maintain consistency among self-identities is one important driver of this relationship and find that the effect is mitigated when the perceived distance between brands and religious values is minimized.

Reactance versus rationalization: divergent responses to policies that constrain freedom.

How do people respond to government policies and work environments that place restrictions on their personal freedoms? The psychological literature offers two contradictory answers to this question. Here, we attempt to resolve this apparent discrepancy. Specifically, we identify the absoluteness of a restriction as one factor that determines how people respond to it. Across two studies, participants responded to absolute restrictions (i.e., restrictions that were sure to come into effect) with rationalization: They viewed the restrictions more favorably, and valued the restricted freedoms less, compared with control participants. Participants responded in the opposite way to identical restrictions that were described as nonabsolute (i.e., as having a small chance of not coming into effect): In this case, participants displayed reactance, viewing the restrictions less favorably, and valuing the restricted freedoms more, compared with control participants. We end by discussing future research directions.

Should we ask our Children about Sex, Drugs and Rock & Roll?: Potentially Harmful Effects of Asking Questions About Risky Behaviors.

Research shows that asking questions can fundamentally change behavior. We review literature on this question-behavior effect, which demonstrates that asking questions changes both normal and risky behaviors. We discuss potential explanations for the effect and review recent findings that reveal interesting moderators of the influence of questions on behavior. We then highlight the potential impact of the question-behavior effect in an important public health context: screening adolescents for risky behavior. While medical guidelines emphasize the importance of asking adolescents questions about substance (drug, alcohol) use and sexual behaviors, research on the question-behavior effect suggests that asking adolescents about risky behaviors has the potential to increase the frequency with which they engage in these behaviors. We argue that the act of screening or measuring risky behavior is potentially counterproductive. We emphasize the importance of interventions beyond screening, and suggest ways in which screening can be carried out to minimize its impact. In short, asking questions about behaviors can change behavior, and asking questions about risky behaviors may itself be a risky undertaking.

The effects of nonconsciously priming emotion concepts on behavior.

Current empirical evidence regarding nonconsciously priming emotion concepts is limited to positively versus negatively valenced affect. This article demonstrates that specific, equally valenced emotion concepts can be nonconsciously activated, remain inaccessible to conscious awareness, and still affect behavior in an emotion-specific fashion. In Experiment 1A, participants subliminally primed with guilty emotion adjectives showed lower indulgence than did participants subliminally primed with sad emotion adjectives; even after the addition of a 5-min time delay, these results were replicated in Experiment 1B. Participants in the different priming conditions showed no differences in their subjective emotion ratings and were unaware of the emotion prime or concept activation. Experiments 2A and 2B replicated these findings using a helping measure, demonstrating that individuals primed with guilt adjectives show more helping than do individuals primed with sadness adjectives. In all studies, effects were moderated by individuals' specific emotion-response habits and characteristics.

License to Sin: The Liberating Role of Reporting Expectations.

This research examines the impact of asking intention questions about "vice behaviors," or behaviors about which respondents simultaneously hold both negative explicit and positive implicit attitudes. Asking questions about the likelihood of engaging in behaviors for which respondents maintain conflicting attitude structures appears to give respondents a "license to sin," resulting in increased rates of behavior versus those of a control group not asked intention questions. However, when provided with defensive tools that highlight the negative explicit component of their attitudes toward the behaviors, respondents are able to dampen the increase in behavior caused by the act of prediction.

When questions change behavior: the role of ease of representation.

In three experiments, we examined the mere-measurement effect, wherein simply asking people about their intent to engage in a certain behavior increases the probability of their subsequently engaging in that behavior. The experiments demonstrate that manipulations that should affect the ease of mentally representing or simulating the behavior in question influence the extent of the mere-measurement phenomenon. Participants who were asked about their intention to engage in various behaviors were more likely to engage in those behaviors than participants not asked about their intentions in situations in which mentally simulating the behavior in the intention question was relatively easy. We tested this ease-of-representation hypothesis using both socially desirable and socially undesirable behaviors, and our dependent variables comprised both self-reports and actual behaviors. Our findings have implications for survey research in various social contexts, including assessments of risky behaviors by public health organizations.