When is it good to feel bad? How sadness and fear differ in their effects on routine development.

Introduction: This study follows recent calls to explore the emotional foundations of routine development. Routine development forms a nexus between stability and change and is thus crucial for studying organizational decision-making and organizational change. Individuals and teams going through organizational change often experience sadness and fear. Methods: We conducted a laboratory experiment with 84 teams to study the effect of sadness and fear on routine development. Results and discussion: In the sadness condition, we observed positive effects on repetitiveness, speed, reliability, and attentiveness in action. Teams experiencing fear reacted better to 'performance traps' in which pre-established routines are ineffective. Our findings show how the behaviors elicited by sadness and fear might ultimately affect team behavior, and therefore managerial practices.

I do not want to set my own price! Indirect effects of emotions and moderation effects of skepticism explain reduced use intentions towards participative pricing models.

Participative pricing models (i.e., auction, reverse auction, pay-what-you-want) have grown in importance compared to classical, non-participative pricing models (i.e., fixed price, discount). This study examined (1) relative use intentions regarding different (non-) participative pricing models, (2) the emotional responses triggered by the pricing models and influencing consumers' use intentions, and (3) the moderating role of individual skepticism in this context. A between-subjects experiment (N = 505) with five groups, manipulating participative (auction, reverse auction, and pay-what-you-want) and non-participative (fixed price and discount) pricing models, detected reduced use intentions towards participative compared to non-participative pricing models. Even though participative pricing models induced higher levels of positive as well as negative emotions, the effects via positive emotions (promoting use intentions) were weaker than the effects via negative emotions (mitigating use intentions). Skepticism towards participative pricing models enhanced negative emotions and decreased positive emotions. Practical applications should rely on enhancing positive emotions while simultaneously reducing negative emotions, as they exert independent effects. Skepticism of potential users should be mitigated in the early stages of the customer relationship, e.g., via trustworthiness triggers.

Expressing pride: Effects on perceived agency, communality, and stereotype-based gender disparities.

Two experimental studies were conducted to investigate how the expression of pride shapes agency-related and communality-related judgments, and how those judgments differ when the pride expresser is a man or a woman. Results indicated that the expression of pride (as compared to the expression of happiness) had positive effects on perceptions of agency and inferences about task-oriented leadership competence, and negative effects on perceptions of communality and inferences about people-oriented leadership competence. Pride expression also elevated ascriptions of interpersonal hostility. For agency-related judgments and ascriptions of interpersonal hostility, these effects were consistently stronger when the pride expresser was a woman than a man. Moreover, the expression of pride was found to affect disparities in judgments about men and women, eliminating the stereotype-consistent differences that were evident when happiness was expressed. With a display of pride women were not seen as any more deficient in agency-related attributes and competencies, nor were they seen as any more exceptional in communality-related attributes and competencies, than were men. (PsycINFO Database Record

Meta-analytic guidelines for evaluating single-item reliabilities of personality instruments.

Personality is an important predictor of various outcomes in many social science disciplines. However, when personality traits are not the principal focus of research, for example, in global comparative surveys, it is often not possible to assess them extensively. In this article, we first provide an overview of the advantages and challenges of single-item measures of personality, a rationale for their construction, and a summary of alternative ways of assessing their reliability. Second, using seven diverse samples (Ntotal = 4,263) we develop the SIMP-G, the German adaptation of the Single-Item Measures of Personality, an instrument assessing the Big Five with one item per trait, and evaluate its validity and reliability. Third, we integrate previous research and our data into a first meta-analysis of single-item reliabilities of personality measures, and provide researchers with guidelines and recommendations for the evaluation of single-item reliabilities.

When romance and rivalry awaken : attractiveness-based social judgment biases emerge at adolescence.

Previous research indicates positive effects of a person's attractiveness on evaluations of opposite-sex persons, but less positive or even negative effects of attractiveness on same-sex evaluations. These biases are consistent with social motives linked to mate search and intrasexual rivalry. In line with the hypothesis that such motives should not become operative until after puberty, 6- to 12-year-old participants (i.e., children) displayed no evidence for biased social evaluations based on other people's attractiveness. In contrast, 13- to 19-year-old participants (i.e., adolescents) displayed positive and negative attractiveness biases toward opposite- and same-sex targets, respectively. Moreover, these biases increased with the age-and thus the reproductive relevance-of the targets being evaluated. Findings corroborate the relevance of mating-related motives for social judgment and illustrate how such biases can grow during human development. At a broader conceptual level, this research demonstrates the utility of investigating proximate social judgment processes through the lens of adaptationist thinking.

Does being attractive always help? Positive and negative effects of attractiveness on social decision making.

Previous studies of organizational decision making demonstrate an abundance of positive biases directed toward highly attractive individuals. The current research, in contrast, suggests that when the person being evaluated is of the same sex as the evaluator, attractiveness hurts, rather than helps. Three experiments assessing evaluations of potential job candidates (Studies 1 and 3) and university applicants (Study 2) demonstrated positive biases toward highly attractive other-sex targets but negative biases toward highly attractive same-sex targets. This pattern was mediated by variability in participants' desire to interact with versus avoid the target individual (Studies 1 and 2) and was moderated by participants' level of self-esteem (Study 3); the derogation of attractive same-sex targets was not observed among people with high self-esteem. Findings demonstrate an important exception to the positive effects of attractiveness in organizational settings and suggest that negative responses to attractive same-sex targets stem from perceptions of self-threat.

Be yourself, believe in yourself, and be happy: self-efficacy as a mediator between personality factors and subjective well-being.

Research has shown close connections between personality and subjective well-being (SWB), suggesting that personality traits predispose individuals to experience different levels of SWB. Moreover, numerous studies have shown that self-efficacy is related to both personality factors and SWB. Extending previous research, we show that general self-efficacy functionally connects personality factors and two components of SWB (life satisfaction and subjective happiness). Our results demonstrate the mediating role of self-efficacy in linking personality factors and SWB. Consistent with our expectations, the influence of neuroticism, extraversion, openness, and conscientiousness on life satisfaction was mediated by self-efficacy. Furthermore, self-efficacy mediated the influence of openness and conscientiousness, but not that of neuroticism and extraversion, on subjective happiness. Results highlight the importance of cognitive beliefs in functionally linking personality traits and SWB.

On the incremental validity of irrational beliefs to predict subjective well-being while controlling for personality factors.

This research examines the incremental validity of irrational thinking as conceptualized by Albert Ellis to predict diverse aspects of subjective well-being while controlling for the influence of personality factors. Rational-emotive behavior therapy (REBT) argues that irrational beliefs result in maladaptive emotions leading to reduced well-being. Although there is some early scientific evidence for this relation, it has never been investigated whether this connection would still persist when statistically controlling for the Big Five personality factors, which were consistently found to be important determinants of well-being. Regression analyses revealed significant incremental validity of irrationality over personality factors when predicting life satisfaction, but not when predicting subjective happiness. Results are discussed with respect to conceptual differences between these two aspects of subjective well-being.

Sleeping in safe places: an experimental investigation of human sleeping place preferences from an evolutionary perspective.

Although humans spend a third of their life asleep, their choice of sleeping places has so far been little investigated both theoretically and empirically. We address this issue from the perspective of evolutionary psychology. Our basic assumption is that humans have an evolved preference for safe sleeping places, that is, those that promise protection against potential aggressors and nighttime predation. Several testable predictions were derived from this assumption concerning the preferred location of the bed in a sleeping room. Specifically, we predicted that people prefer sleeping places that allow them to view the entrances to the sleeping room (doors and windows) from a distance while remaining concealed from the entrances themselves. To test these hypotheses, 138 participants were asked to arrange a bed and other pieces of furniture on floor plans that were experimentally manipulated with respect to the direction in which the door opened and the presence of a window. In agreement with predictions, participants predominantly positioned the bed in a way that (a) allowed them to see the door, (b) was as distant as possible from the door, and (c) was on the side of the room toward which the door opened. In addition, the positioning of the bed was influenced as predicted by the presence of a window.

On the incremental validity of irrational beliefs to predict subjective well-being while controlling for personality factors / Sobre la creciente validez de las creencias irracionales a la hora de predecir el bienestar subjetivo a la vez que se controlan los factores de personalidad

This research examines the incremental validity of irrational thinking as conceptualized by Albert Ellis to predict diverse aspects of subjective well-being while controlling for the influence of personality factors. Rational-emotive behavior therapy (REBT) argues that irrational beliefs result in maladaptive emotions leading to reduced well-being. Although there is some early scientific evidence for this relation, it has never been investigated whether this connection would still persist when statistically controlling for the Big Five personality factors, which were consistently found to be important determinants of well-being. Regression analyses revealed significant incremental validity of irrationality over personality factors when predicting life satisfaction, but not when predicting subjective happiness. Results are discussed with respect to conceptual differences between these two aspects of subjective well-being (AU)

Este estudio examina la creciente validez del pensamiento irracional tal y como lo describió Albert Ellis a la hora de predecir los distintos aspectos del bienestar subjetivo a la vez que se controla la influencia de los factores de personalidad. La terapia racional-emotiva conductual (TREC) se basa en que las creencias irracionales tienen como resultado emociones de inadaptabilidad que llevan a un menor bienestar. A pesar de que hay algunas primeras pruebas científicas indicando esta relación, nunca se ha investigado si esta conexión persistiría si a la vez se controlan estadísticamente los «Big Five personality factors», que se descubrió que eran determinantes para el bienestar. Los análisis de regresión han revelado un incremento significativo en la validez de la irracionalidad por encima de los factores a la hora de predecir la satisfacción en la vida, pero no a la hora de predecir la felicidad subjetiva. Los desacuerdos respecto a estos resultados se basan en las diferencias conceptuales entre estos dos aspectos del bienestar subjetivo (AU)

Success attributions and more: multidimensional extensions of the sexual attribution bias to failure attributions, social emotions, and the desire for social interaction.

According to the recently discovered sexual attribution bias (SAB), young adults attribute the success of same-aged, same-sex attractive stimulus persons in a more derogative way than the success of less attractive same-sex persons, whereas this pattern is reversed for members of the opposite sex. Because this bias has so far only been investigated with respect to attributions in success scenarios, two studies examined its potential transferability to other psychological variables and settings: Study 1 (N = 419) demonstrated analogous biases for emotions and the desire for social interaction, and Study 2 (N = 509) revealed that the SAB can also be extended to failure scenarios.

Which thoughts can kill a boxer? naive theories about cognitive and emotional antecedents of suicide.

OBJECTIVES: We investigated naive theories regarding the association among beliefs, emotions and behaviours to test Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy's (REBT) assumption that rational cognitions and adaptive emotions lead to functional behaviours whereas irrational cognitions and maladaptive emotions trigger dysfunctional reactions. DESIGN: We applied an experimental between-subjects design. METHODS: Participants read newspaper articles about the defeat of a boxer. In one condition, the authentic article informed participants that he committed suicide and in the other, a fictitious article about the same defeat described the athlete as successfully continuing his career. Different question formats were employed to assess participants' assumptions about the stimulus person's defeat-related cognitions and emotions: rating scales, sentence completion and free responses. RESULTS: Participants assumed significantly more irrational beliefs (e.g. I absolutely have to win) on the side of the boxer in the suicide scenario than in the non-suicide version. This finding was obtained by directive and non-directive assessment methods. Additionally, participants expected the suicidal stimulus person to be experiencing maladaptive emotions (e.g. depression, guilt) whereas a successful resumption of his career lead to expectations of adaptive affects (e.g. sadness, concern). Ratings of the functionality revealed that sadness, fear, annoyance and concern were expected to be more functional than depression, anxiety, rage and guilt. CONCLUSIONS: The results show that naive psychological theories about the antecedents of dysfunctional behaviour are in accordance with theoretical assumptions of REBT: Irrational beliefs are viewed to be connected with maladaptive emotions and to result in dysfunctional behaviour, and adaptive emotions are thought to be of higher functional value than their maladaptive counterparts. The use of different question formats and a between-subject design excluded that results are due to methodological artifacts or contrast effects.

Cognitions as determinants of (mal)adaptive emotions and emotionally intelligent behavior in an organizational context / Las cogniciones como determinantes de las emociones (mal) adaptativas y del comportamiento emocionalmente inteligente en el contexto organizacional

This study applies the theoretical concepts of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT; Ellis, 1962, 1994) to the analysis of functional and dysfunctional behaviour and emotions in the workplace and tests central assumptions of REBT in an organizational setting. We argue that Ellis' appraisal theory of emotion sheds light on some of the cognitive and emotional antecedents of emotional intelligence and emotionally intelligent behaviour. In an extension of REBT, we posit that adaptive emotions resulting from rational cognitions reflect more emotional intelligence than maladaptive emotions which result from irrational cognitions, because the former lead to functional behaviour. We hypothesize that semantically similar emotions (e.g. annoyance and rage) lead to different behavioural reactions and have a different functionality in an organizational context. The results of scenario experiments using organizational vignettes confirm the central assumptions of Ellis' appraisal theory and support our hypotheses of a correspondence between adaptive emotions and emotionally intelligent behaviour. Additionally, we find evidence that irrational job-related attitudes result in reduced work (but not life) satisfaction

Este estudio aplica los conceptos teóricos de la Terapia Racional Emotiva Conductual (TREC; Ellis, 1962, 1994) al análisis del comportamiento y las emociones funcionales y disfuncionales en el lugar de trabajo y pone a prueba las asunciones centrales de la TREC en un escenario organizacional. Proponemos que la teoría de valoración de la emoción de Ellis arroja luz sobre algunos de los antecedentes cognitivos y emocionales de la inteligencia emocional y del comportamiento emocionalmente inteligente. Como extensión de la TREC, postulamos que las emociones adaptativas producto de las cogniciones racionales reflejan más la inteligencia emocional que las emociones mal adaptativas (no adaptativas) que son producto de las cogniciones irracionales, porque las primeras llevan al comportamiento funcional. Hipotetizamos que emociones semánticamente similares (e. g., enojo y rabia) llevan a reacciones comportamentales diferentes y tienen una funcionalidad distinta en un contexto organizacional. Los resultados de experimentos con escenarios utilizando viñetas organizacionales confirman las asunciones centrales de la teoría de evaluación de Ellis y apoyan nuestras hipótesis de correspondencia entre emociones adaptativas y comportamiento emocionalmente inteligente. Además, encontramos evidencias de que las actitudes irracionales relacionadas con el trabajo reducen la satisfacción con el trabajo (pero no con la vida)

Cognitions as determinants of (mal)adaptive emotions and emotionally intelligent behavior in an organizational context.

This study applies the theoretical concepts of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT; Ellis, 1962, 1994) to the analysis of functional and dysfunctional behaviour and emotions in the workplace and tests central assumptions of REBT in an organizational setting. We argue that Ellis' appraisal theory of emotion sheds light on some of the cognitive and emotional antecedents of emotional intelligence and emotionally intelligent behaviour. In an extension of REBT, we posit that adaptive emotions resulting from rational cognitions reflect more emotional intelligence than maladaptive emotions which result from irrational cognitions, because the former lead to functional behaviour. We hypothesize that semantically similar emotions (e.g. annoyance and rage) lead to different behavioural reactions and have a different functionality in an organizational context. The results of scenario experiments using organizational vignettes confirm the central assumptions of Ellis' appraisal theory and support our hypotheses of a correspondence between adaptive emotions and emotionally intelligent behaviour. Additionally, we find evidence that irrational job-related attitudes result in reduced work (but not life) satisfaction.