Under the Influence: How Viewing Extreme Partying and Drinking on Social Media Shapes Group Perceptions.

Social media use is omnipresent among college students. The current study investigated how exposure to student risk-taking forms of alcohol use on social media shapes the perceptions of the prototypical student and drinking norms among students. A 2020, three time-point experiment was conducted that measured 208 (M age = 18.85, SD = 1.94; 160 female) participant's partying/drinking prototypes along with their perceived normative support of alcohol consumption. At Time 2, participants were randomly assigned to one of the four conditions, three video conditions and one non-video condition, with one video condition displaying risk-taking drinking behavior. A Mixed ANOVA revealed that within the risk-taking drinking condition, participants used more pro-alcohol words to describe the typical ingroup member and perceived an increase in normative support of alcohol consumption. Implications of this study suggest that risk-taking content from social media may pose barriers to developing social norms interventions to address problematic college student drinking.

Cultural Differences in Fear of Negative Evaluation After Social Norm Transgressions and the Impact on Mental Health.

Social norm transgressions are assumed to be at the root of numerous substantial negative outcomes for transgressors. There is a prevailing notion among lay people and scholars that transgressing social norms can negatively impact one's mental health. The present research aimed to examine this assumption, focusing on clinically relevant outcomes such as anxiety and depression. The present research further aimed to examine a social cognitive process for these outcomes in the form of fear of negative evaluations as a result of one's norm transgressing behavior. Specifically, it examined whether it is negative evaluations about ourselves or about those close to us that mediates the effect of social norm transgressions, and whether those may vary as a function of culture. Results of the present research, including a study with a community sample (N = 410), suggest a positive association between social norm transgressions and psychological distress. Results also suggest that increased fear of negative evaluation mediates that association but does so differently for people from more collectivistic cultures and people from less collectivistic cultures. For people from more collectivistic cultures increased fear of negative evaluation of close others may mediate the association between social norm transgressions and psychological distress. However, for people from less collectivistic cultures that association may be mediated by increased fear of negative evaluation of oneself. Implications for research on consequences of social norm transgressions and cross-cultural differences in perceptions of such consequences are discussed as are practical implications for motivating social norm adherence and the maintenance of constructive social norms.

Can cultural identity clarity protect the well-being of Latino/a Canadians from the negative impact of race-based rejection sensitivity?

OBJECTIVES: The aim of the present study was to examine the understudied immigration and acculturation experience of the growing Latino/a community in Canada. Specifically, we explored the impact of race-based rejection sensitivity on well-being, and whether cultural identity clarity could help curtail any negative effects. Hypothesis 1 was that race-based rejection sensitivity would be negatively associated with well-being. Hypothesis 2 was that cultural identity clarity would moderate the association between race-based rejection sensitivity and well-being such that Latino/a immigrants lower in cultural identity clarity would experience poorer well-being than those higher in cultural identity clarity. METHOD: A community sample of Latino/a immigrants (N = 136; Mage = 38.21; 51.47% female) completed a survey including measures of race-based rejection sensitivity, cultural identity clarity, bicultural stress, self-esteem, and life satisfaction. RESULTS: Correlation and regression analyses revealed that race-based rejection sensitivity was negatively associated with well-being. Additionally, high cultural identity clarity attenuated the negative association between race-based rejection sensitivity and well-being. CONCLUSION: Results of the present study suggest maintaining clarity over their heritage cultures postimmigration can be beneficial to Latino/a immigrants in Canada, in particular when they are sensitive to cues of racial discrimination. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Giving in when feeling less good: Procrastination, action control, and social temptations.

Emotion-regulation perspectives on procrastination highlighting the primacy of short-term mood regulation focus mainly on negative affect. Positive affect, however, has received much less attention and has not been considered with respect to social temptations. To address this issue, we examined how trait procrastination was linked to positive and negative affect in the context of social temptations across two prospective studies. Action Control Theory, Personality Systems Interactions Theory, and a mood regulation theory of procrastination served as guiding conceptual frameworks. In Study 1, moderated mediation analyses revealed that low positive affect explained the link between trait procrastination and time spent procrastinating on academic tasks over a 48-hr period in a student sample (N = 142), and this effect was moderated by the presence of social temptations. Parallel results for goal enjoyment assessed at Time 2 were found in Study 2 with a community sample (N = 94) attempting to make intended health behaviour changes over a 6-month period. Our findings indicate that procrastinators are at risk for disengaging from intended tasks when social temptations are present and positive task-related affect is low.

Drinking too much and feeling bad about it? How group identification moderates experiences of guilt and shame following norm transgression.

The role of reference group norms in self-regulation was examined from the perspective of transgressions. Results from four studies suggest that following the transgression of a reference group's norms, individuals who strongly identify with their group report more intense feelings of guilt, an emotion reflecting an inference that "bad" behaviors are perceived as the cause of the transgression. Conversely, weakly identified individuals reported more intense feelings of shame, an emotion reflecting an inference that "bad" characteristics of the person are perceived as the cause of the transgression. The studies also explored the differential relevance of the reference groups when assessing transgressive behaviors, the counterfactual thoughts individuals have about possible causes for the transgressions, and the motivational outcomes of guilt and shame using behavioral data. Results of the studies offer insights into self-regulation, maintenance of group norms, and offer implications for alcohol consumption interventions, such as social marketing campaigns.