Relationships between climate change distress, generalized anxiety, and climate-related symptoms of mental disorders.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: We examined the possibility that reactions to climate change take two forms: distress, which may be adaptive, and symptoms of mental disorders, which may not be. DESIGN AND METHOD: In a national sample of Polish adults (n = 1133), we measured climate change distress (experiencing unpleasant emotions and feelings due to climate change), climate-related symptoms of mental disorders (e.g., problems sleeping and problems working and planning), generalized anxiety, and depression. RESULTS: Zero-inflated Poisson regression analyses of the occurrence of climate-related symptoms of mental disorders found two latent classes: People who experienced symptoms of the disorder and those who did not. For all eight symptoms, climate change distress predicted membership in the latent class of people who experienced a symptom, whereas how often people in the non-zero latent class experienced each symptom was positively related to generalized anxiety but was not related to distress or depression. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that reactions to climate change take two forms. Some people do not experience climate change-related symptoms of mental disorders, and some do. People who experience symptoms have higher levels of climate change distress, and the frequency with which they experience these symptoms is determined by their dispositional, generalized anxiety.

Prosociality and Personality: Perceived Efficacy of Behaviors Mediates Relationships between Personality and Self-Reported Climate Change Mitigation Behavior.

The included studies examined the relationship between climate change mitigation behavior (CCB) and personality. In Study 1, 1089 US collegians completed a measure of the Big Five and indicated how often they engaged in five CCBs. Engaging in each CCB was regressed on the Big Five. These analyses found openness was positively related to all five CCBs, neuroticism was positively related to four of five CCBs, and extraversion was positively related to three CCBs. In Study 2, 1688 US collegians completed the same measures as in Study 1 with two additional CCBs. They also indicated how efficacious they thought each CCB was. Each CCB was regressed on the Big Five. These results largely replicated those of Study 1 and also found that conscientiousness was positively related to five of seven CCBs. Mediational analyses found that all relationships between personality factors and CCB were mediated by the perceived efficacy of the CCB. The present results suggest that efforts to increase climate change mitigation behavior need to take into account the perceived efficacy of such behaviors.

Differences among vegans, non-vegan vegetarians, pescatarians, and omnivores in perceived social disapproval and approval as a function of diet and source of treatment.

In studies conducted in the US and Poland, vegans, non-vegan vegetarians, pescatarians, and omnivores described how they perceived they were treated by others as a function of their diet. We found that vegans thought that others treated them more negatively because of their diets than vegetarians or pescatarians did, and pescatarians thought that others treated them less negatively than vegans and vegetarians did. In Study 1 (N = 96), we found that vegans, vegetarians, and pescatarians thought that others treated them more negatively because of their diet than omnivores did. Moreover, perceptions of negative treatment were positively related to how much participants' diets differed from an omnivorous diet. We replicated these findings in Study 2 (N = 1744), and we also found that vegans, vegetarians, and pescatarians thought that others treated them more positively in some ways compared to omnivores. In Study 3 (N = 1322), we found that differences in perceptions of negative treatment by strangers among vegans, vegetarians, and pescatarians were larger than differences in perceptions of treatment by friends and family members.

An (Un)Holy Trinity: Differences in Climate Change-Induced Distress Between Believers and Non-believers in God Disappear After Controlling for Left-Right Political Orientation.

We examined differences in reactions to climate change as a function of belief in God. We studied four samples, convenience samples of university students in the USA (n = 627) and in Poland (n = 628), a nationally representative sample of adults in Poland (n = 1154), and a nationally representative sample of adults in the USA (n = 1098). In each study we measured the distress people felt about climate change, belief in God, and left-right political orientation. These constructs were measured slightly differently across the studies. Regardless of how these constructs were measured, believers were less distressed by climate change than non-believers, and with only a few exceptions, these differences disappeared after covarying political orientation (left-right or liberal-conservative). Contrary to those who argue that there is something inherent in religious belief that predisposes people to deny or ignore climate change, the present results suggest that it is the (growing) confluence of faith and conservative political orientation that is responsible for the fact that some people of faith tend to deny climate change or actively oppose efforts to combat it.

Normative based beliefs as a basis for perceived changes in personality traits across the lifespan.

This article presents a new framework for understanding how people think personality changes across the life span. In two studies we examined the correspondence among how people thought their personalities would change, how people in general change, and changes found in a meta-analysis of changes in personality. We conceptualized and measured personality in terms of the Big Five model (FFM). In Study 1 participants rated either how they had changed from the past to the present or how they would change from the present to the future. We found that for openness to experience and social vitality participants thought these traits had increased from the past to the present, whereas participants did not think they would change from the present to the future. In contrast, participants thought that conscientiousness, agreeableness, and emotional stability would increase from the present to the future, although they did not report changes in most of these traits from the past to the present. The changes that occurred in Study 1 correspond to changes of personality found in previous research. In Study 2 participants rated themselves and other people on the FFM traits for each of nine intervals representing the lifespan. We found that people perceived changes in themselves to be similar to the changes found in meta-analyses, and perceptions of change in the self-corresponded to perception of changes for others. We believe these results can be explained by recognizing that people share normative based beliefs about how people change at certain age. Nevertheless, we also found that people perceived themselves as better than others, i.e., relatively greater increases in some positive traits and relatively smaller decreases in some negative traits, being first among equals. We discuss possible explanations for this phenomenon, which according to our knowledge, has not been discussed in this context previously.

Dietary similarity of friends and lovers: Vegetarianism, omnivorism, and personal relationships.

In a series of studies conducted in the USA and Poland, we found that vegetarianism can serve as a basis for the formation of personal relationships. Consistent with research on the similarity-attraction effect, we found that vegetarians were more likely than omnivores to have friends and lovers who were vegetarians. In study 1, vegetarians reported that their diets were a more important part of their identities than omnivores did. In studies 2, 3, and 4, we found that vegetarians were three to six times more likely to have vegetarian friends than omnivores were. In study 4, we found that vegetarians were 12 times more likely to have romantic partners who were vegetarians than omnivores were. These results suggest that following a vegetarian or an omnivorous diet is an important influence on an individual's choice of relational partners, possibly because dietary choice is part of an individual's social identity.

Anxiety as a mediator of relationships between perceptions of the threat of COVID-19 and coping behaviors during the onset of the pandemic in Poland.

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic (10-14 March, 2020) we conducted a survey (n = 1028) of a nationally representative sample (age, sex, and locale) in Poland. Respondents indicated how strong they thought the threat was to themselves, to Poland, and the world. They also described their emotional reactions to the pandemic, which we used to calculate three scores: Anxiety, Hopelessness, and Panic. Respondents also indicated how often they engaged in various coping behaviors and how much they supported different types of economic sacrifice. We used these responses to calculate measures that we labelled as Spread Prevention (e.g., social distancing), Self-preservation (food stockpiling), and Economic Sacrifice (e.g., fighting COVID-19 regardless of the cost). Multiple regression analyses found that perceived threat to self was the most reliable predictor (positive) of emotional reactions and of coping behaviors, and that Anxiety was the most reliable predictor (positive) of Spread prevention and Economic sacrifice. Panic predicted (positively) Self-preservation. A series of mediation analyses found that Anxiety mediated relationships between threat and coping behaviors, and that Panic mediated the relationship between perceived threats and Self-preservation. In addition, we found that scores on all measures, except Panic, increased following the announcement of the first COVID-19 related fatality in Poland, which occurred on the third (middle) day of the study. The mediational relationships we found did not vary as a function of whether the data were collected before or after this announcement. The present results suggest that emotional reactions to perceived threats can serve an instrumental function by providing the motivation to engage in coping behaviors. Such a mechanism complements much research on stress that has focused on how coping mediates threat-emotion relationships.

Low self-esteem predicts out-group derogation via collective narcissism, but this relationship is obscured by in-group satisfaction.

According to social identity theory, low self-esteem motivates group members to derogate out-groups, thus achieving positive in-group distinctiveness and boosting self-esteem. According to the Frankfurt School and status politics theorists, low self-esteem motivates collective narcissism (i.e., resentment for insufficient external recognition of the in-group's importance), which predicts out-group derogation. Empirical support for these propositions has been weak. We revisit them addressing whether (a) low self-esteem predicts out-group derogation via collective narcissism and (b) this indirect relationship is only observed after partialing out the positive overlap between collective narcissism and in-group satisfaction (i.e., belief that the in-group is of high value and a reason to be proud). Results based on cross-sectional (Study 1, N = 427) and longitudinal (Study 2, N = 853) designs indicated that self-esteem is uniquely, negatively linked to collective narcissism and uniquely, positively linked to in-group satisfaction. Results based on cross-sectional (Study 3, N = 506; Study 4, N = 1,059; Study 5, N = 471), longitudinal (Study 6, N = 410), and experimental (Study 7, N = 253) designs corroborated these inferences. Further, they revealed that the positive overlap between collective narcissism and in-group satisfaction obscures the link between self-esteem and out-group derogation. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

An international survey of perceptions of the 2014 FIFA World Cup: National levels of corruption as a context for perceptions of institutional corruption.

We conducted a survey about the 2014 FIFA World Cup that measured attitudes about FIFA, players, and officials in 18 languages with 4600 respondents from 29 countries. Sixty percent of respondents perceived FIFA officials as being dishonest, and people from countries with less institutional corruption and stronger rule of law perceived FIFA officials as being more corrupt and less competent running the tournament than people from countries with more corruption and weaker rule of law. In contrast, respondents evaluated players as skilled and honest and match officials as competent and honest. We discuss the implications of our findings for perceptions of corruption in general.

Self-presentational motives and public self-consciousness: Why do people dress a certain way?

OBJECTIVE: This study examines the self-presentational motives underlying people's selection of their daily dress and relationships between these motives and public self-consciousness. METHOD: Participants in this study, 61 working adults, described their motives for choosing what they wore each day for 2 weeks. They also provided trait-level measures of self-consciousness, social anxiety, and self-monitoring. RESULTS: Multilevel modeling analyses found positive relationships between public self-consciousness and the strength of various self-presentational motives for why people chose the clothes they wore each day. In contrast, there were few relationships between the strength of these motives and private self-consciousness, social anxiety, and self-monitoring. Participants felt better about themselves when they received compliments from others about their attire and when they were more (vs. less) satisfied with how they had dressed each day. CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest that dispositional public self-consciousness manifests itself in daily life in the form of motives for choosing daily attire, specifically for motives that involve self-presentation.

Within-Person Relationships Between Recreational Running and Psychological Well-Being.

Participants in the study were recreational runners (N = 244) who maintained online diaries. Once a week for approximately 3 months they indicated how far they had run each day that week, and at the end of the week, they provided measures of their psychological well-being. A series of multilevel modeling analyses (weeks nested within persons) found that well-being, measured in terms of self-esteem, life satisfaction, self-efficacy, meaning in life, and affect, was positively related to how many days people ran each week and how far they ran each week. Satisfaction with one's progress mediated relationships between well-being and the amount of running, suggesting that increases in running lead to increases in satisfaction with progress, which lead to increased well-being. These results complement and extend existing research on the psychological benefits of exercise.

Reconsidering research on self-humanizing: The importance of mean comparative judgments.

Self-humanization is defined as the tendency to view oneself as more essentially human than others. Researchers have claimed that people attribute human nature traits more strongly to themselves than to others, but not uniquely human traits. In this article we suggest that such claims are based on the misinterpretation of results. Most studies have not presented mean comparative judgments, making it impossible to determine whether people thought they possessed characteristics less strongly or more strongly than the average person. We found that people (N = 256) in Poland, Italy, and Korea perceived themselves as possessing desirable human nature and uniquely human characteristics more than others, as possessing undesirable uniquely human traits less than others, and as similar to others in terms of undesirable human nature characteristics. It seems that being more human than others means possessing some traits more than others and possessing some traits less than others.

Definitions need to be precise and consistent: A reply to Haslam with suggestions for the future.

In his reply to our critique of research on self-humanizing, Haslam claims that we used a narrow definition of self-humanizing that ignored the evidence from the correlational research he and his colleagues have done. We disagree. First, we relied upon a definition of self-humanizing based upon comparative judgments that Haslam and colleagues have consistently used. Second, we were well aware of the correlational research he and his colleagues have done. We simply did not think, and do not think, these correlations verified the existence of self-humanizing as defined. In his reply, Haslam offered a new definition of self-humanizing that defines self-humanizing in terms of correlations between comparative judgments and ratings of how much traits reflect human nature. Although we believe this change represents some progress, numerous issues in the study of self-humanizing remain to be resolved. We offer some suggestions for future research on this important topic.

An experimental study of the influence of limited time horizon on positivity effects among young adults using eye-tracking.

Compared to younger adults, older adults attend more to positive stimuli, a positivity effect. Older adults have limited time horizons, and they focus on maintaining positive affect, whereas younger adults have unlimited time horizons, and they focus on acquiring knowledge and developing skills. Time horizons were manipulated by asking participants (66 young adults, M age = 20.5 yr., SD = 1.2) to think that their lives would end in three years. Some participants focused on what they would do in these three years (life focus), whereas others focused on the fact that they would die in three years (death focus). Attentional biases to facial expressions of happiness, sadness, fear, anger, and disgust were measured. Participants viewed 20 slides including pairings of a happy face with each of the negative emotions. The dependent measure was the relative attention paid to the faces on each slide. Participants in the experimental conditions exhibited a positivity effect compared to participants in the control condition, although some results suggested that this effect was weaker in the death focus condition than in the life focus condition.

Orienting and maintenance of attention to threatening facial expressions in anxiety--an eye movement study.

Cognitive models posit that anxiety disorders stem in part from underlying attentional biases to threat. Consistent with this, studies have found that the attentional bias to threat-related stimuli is greater in high vs. low anxious individuals. Nevertheless, it is not clear if similar biases exist for different threatening emotions or for any facial emotional stimulus. In the present study, we used eye-tracking to measure orienting and maintenance of attention to faces displaying anger, fear and disgust as threats, and faces displaying happiness and sadness. Using a free viewing task, we examined differences between low and high trait anxious (HTA) individuals in the attention they paid to each of these emotional faces (paired with a neutral face). We found that initial orienting was faster for angry and happy faces, and high trait anxious participants were more vigilant to fearful and disgust faces. Our results for attentional maintenance were not consistent. The results of the present study suggest that attentional processes may be more emotion-specific than previously believed. Our results suggest that attentional processes for different threatening emotions may not be the same and that attentional processes for some negative and some positive emotions may be similar.

Reversed better-than-average effect in direct comparisons of nonsocial stimuli depends on the set size.

Studies on direct comparative judgments typically show that, for items that are positively evaluated, a single item randomly drawn from a larger set of similar items tends to be judged as better than average (the BTA effect). However, Windschitl, Conybeare, and Krizan (2008) demonstrated that, under timing conditions that do not favor focusing attention on the single item, the reversal of the BTA effect occurs. We report two experiments showing that the magnitude of the reversed BTA effect increases as a function of the size of a multiitem referent with which a single item target is compared. Specifically, in direct comparative judgments of the attractiveness of positively evaluated objects (nice-looking cloth buttons, attractive buildings, or cupcakes), underestimation of the attractiveness of singletons, as compared with a multiitem set (reversed BTA effect), increased with the increased set size. Analysis of absolute judgments obtained for singletons and for small and large multiitem sets suggests that, for attractive stimuli, both the reversed BTA effect in comparative judgments and its sensitivity to set size occur as a result of a positive relationship between set size and perceived attractiveness in absolute judgments.

The role of similarity and dissimilarity focus in sequential judgments of physical attractiveness.

The present results indicate that procedurally priming comparison focus can change the contrast effect in judgments of physical attractiveness (Kenrick & Gutierres, 1980). Participants were primed to search for similarities vs. differences between target and standard of comparison in a task using material irrelevant to the subsequent physical attractiveness judgment. Focusing participants on similarities testing produced the assimilation effect: evaluation of target and comparison standard as being similar. Focusing participants on dissimilarity testing produced the contrast effect: evaluating the target as different from the standard of comparison.