Social Psychological Bulletin
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Profit Motives, Environmental Motives, and Perceived Corporate Greenwashing Revisited: A Replication and Extension of de Vries et al. (2015)
No full textAs the climate change crisis has become more evident, a growing number of businesses and organizations have gotten involved in sustainability efforts. But not all corporate sustainability efforts are applauded: sometimes the public accuses companies of greenwashing, i.e., overstating the extent to which the company is environmentally friendly. There is little research on the factors that influence perceived greenwashing amongst the public. Here, we report a replication and extension of one of the few studies of this topic, Experiment 2 in de Vries et al. (2015, https://doi.org/10.1002/csr.1327). The original study found that people perceived more greenwashing when an oil company communicated an environmental motive for a sustainability investment (carbon capture and storage), as opposed to a profit motive, d = 0.98 [0.37, 1.59]. The present pre-registered replication (n = 516) did not find support for this effect, with very little difference in perceived greenwashing depending on communicated motive, d = -0.09 [-0.38, 0.21]. As extensions, we included a condition where a mixed motive (both environment and profits) was communicated, tested the effect using a different type of company than the original, included a measure of general attitudes to the company in addition to perceived greenwashing, and included measures of individual differences in attitudes towards corporate social responsibility and belief in climate change. The most noteworthy exploratory finding was that attitudes were more positive when an environmental or a mixed motive was communicated rather than a profit motive
Is the Role Attributed to Value Congruence in Transformational Leadership Theory a Case of Missing the Forest for the Trees? An Exploratory Study
No full textValue congruence between followers and leaders is considered to be a keystone of transformational leadership. However, we do not know whether congruence is important regardless of the content of values, of the leadership behavior assessed, and whether the patterns are stable across leaders. To address these gaps, we recruited a sample of 300 participants, representative of the U.S. population in terms of age, sex, and race, five days before the 2020 U.S. presidential elections. Participants assessed their own values as well as the values and transformational leadership of two presidential candidates. We explored the relationships between variables through multiple specifications of polynomial regressions and lasso regressions. Our results do not suggest that value congruence is particularly importantly related to transformational leadership; however, they do point to an important contribution by perceived leader benevolence. Based on these results, we conclude that the focus on value congruence in the leadership literature might be a case of missing the forest for the trees
Morality as Cooperation, Politics as Conflict
No full textWhat is the relation between morality and politics? If morality is a collection of cooperative rules, and politics is conflict over which cooperative projects to pursue, then they should be correlated. We examined the relation between moral values and political orientation in samples of participants from the USA (N = 518), Denmark (N = 552), the Netherlands (N = 353), and an international online population (N = 1,337). Political conservatism was consistently related to deference values. We also found some support for the hypotheses that political orientation has distinct relations with family values and group values, and has distinct relations with fairness values and reciprocity values. However, for most hypotheses the results showed no support, largely due to poor model fit or measurement error associated with the political scales. The results suggest that improved measurement of political preferences will help understand the relation between morality and politics
Tweeting About a Revolution? A Cross-National Analysis of Tweets on Climate Change During the Rise of “Fridays for Future”
No full textIn 2018, thanks to the use of social media, the Fridays for Future (FFF) movement brought global attention to climate change. However, in the post-Covid era, the rhetoric of a return to normality seems to have marginalized those issues from the media debate. Looking at the emergence of FFF, the paper applies topic detection to analyze 19,112 tweets on climate change. The emerging contents of social representations are examined in relation to sociocultural (power distance; individualism; uncertainty avoidance; long-term orientation) and structural (level of pollution) factors associated with the country of origin of the tweets. The primary topic among those identified focuses on calls to action, particularly related to the FFF movement. When this topic is absent, others address efforts to mitigate global warming or strategies for adapting to climate change impacts. The main results indicate that tweets from the most polluted countries and from countries high in short-term orientation are more centered on topics concerning a posteriori response to climate change, also denying it as a defense mechanism. This could prevent imagining alternative futures and the projection of concrete means of countering climate change. The study suggests the importance of transcending the on-line and off-line distinction, not only for mobilization but also to form an arena for debate toward social change
Are Replications Mainstream now? A Comparison of Support for Replications Expressed in the Policies of Social Psychology Journals in 2015 and 2022
No full textA decade ago, replications were typically not conducted and appreciated in social psychology, although replications play a central role in ensuring trust in scientific fields. Without systematic replication efforts, it is not clear whether findings are trustworthy. As journals can function as gatekeepers for publications, they can influence whether researchers conduct (and publish) replications. Yet, the scholarly culture in social psychology might have changed over the last decade because numerous highly visible studies did not replicate past findings. In light of these insights and the resulting learning opportunities for the field, we predicted an increase in the expressed support for replications in the policies of social psychology journals from 2015 (i.e., the year the replication problem became widely known) to 2022. We coded whether and how replications were mentioned in the author guidelines on the websites of social psychology journals (N = 51). As expected, replications were welcomed more often in 2022 (25%) than they were in 2015 (12%), but they were not mentioned on the websites of most journals (71% in 2022 vs. 82% in 2015). An exploratory analysis suggested that journals that expressed support for replications on their websites were also more likely to publish articles about replication. Further, exploratory analyses of the journals’ TOP factors indicated similar rates of support for replications as for other rigor and transparency promoting policies. In sum, our findings suggest that appreciation for replication has increased, but is not yet part of mainstream culture in social psychology
Evading Open Science: The Black Box of Student Data Collection
No full textWhile Open Science has arguably initiated positive changes at some stages of the research process (e.g., increasing transparency through preregistration), problematic behaviors during data collection are still almost impossible to detect and pose a great risk to the validity and integrity of psychological research—especially, when researchers use data collected by others (e.g., students). Exploring students’ and supervisors’ perspectives, the present registered report enlightens this “black box” of student data collection, focusing on questionable research practices and research misconduct (QRP/M). The majority of students did not report having engaged in any problematic behaviors during data collection, but some QRP/M—ranging from somewhat questionable to highly fraudulent—seem quite common (e.g., telling participants the hypothesis beforehand, participating in one’s own survey). We provide an overview of students’ reported and supervisors’ suspected data collection QRP/M, explore potential drivers for these behaviors based on the fraud triangle model (including pressures, opportunities, and rationalizations), and report how students and supervisors perceive the eligibility of student data for further uses (e.g., scientific publications). Moreover, we explore the role of the student-supervisor relationship (e.g., communication and expectations) and Open Science practices in student projects. In summary, our findings suggest the potential scientific value of data from student projects. Fostering transparent communication regarding expectations, experiences, and intentions between supervisors and students might further contribute to strengthening this prospect
Introduction to Special Topic “Is Psychology Self-Correcting? Reflections on the Credibility Revolution in Social and Personality Psychology”
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Do Environmental Messages Emphasising Binding Morals Promote Conservatives’ Pro-Environmentalism? A Pre-Registered Replication
No full textPast studies indicated that environmental messages incorporating binding morals (i.e., loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion, purity/degradation) were effective in reducing the negative association between political conservatism and pro-environmentalism. We conceptually replicated and extended this finding through open science practices. In a pilot study, we constructed three environmental messages incorporating each binding moral based on previous relevant studies, and confirmed their validity (96 U.S. adults, 50% woman). We then investigated the independent effects of these binding moral messages on pro-environmentalism across the political spectrum (705 U.S. adults, 56.6% woman). Contrasting with our expectations and previous findings, we found no evidence that these environmental messages emphasising distinct binding morals were more effective than a control environmental message in attenuating the political polarisation on conservation intentions and willingness to receive more information about environmental protection. Simply adding binding morals content in environmental messaging may not be useful in promoting conservatives’ pro-environmental engagement. We further discuss future research as well as the limitations of this research
The “Replication Crisis” and Trust in Psychological Science: How Reforms Shape Public Trust in Psychology
No full textFailed replications can jeopardize public trust in psychological science and recent findings cast doubt on the idea that self-corrections and reforms can rebuild this trust. These findings are in contrast to trust repair research that proposes changes in transparency, norms, and policies as trust repair mechanisms. This raises the question of whether the used experimental material is one reason behind these unexpected findings. Previous studies used short texts that may give too little information on the replication crisis and initiated reforms in the field. In a pre-registered experiment (N = 390), we, therefore, tested whether comprehensive information about the replication crisis and reforms increases public trust in psychology, compared to a control condition that only informs about the replication crisis. To give comprehensive information, we created an animated video for each experimental condition. After watching the video, participants indicated their trust in researchers, trust in past research findings, and trust in current research findings. As expected and in line with trust repair research, information about reforms increased trust in researchers and in current (vs. past) research, compared with information about the replication crisis and its causes only. We discuss the generalizability of our results and implications for communicating the replication crisis to the public
Race-Ethnicity and the Big-Fish-Little-Pond Effect in the United States
No full textAccording to research on the big-fish-little-pond effect, students with a high rank in a low rank school have more favorable self-evaluations than students with a low rank in a high rank school. We examined whether this effect extends to a racial-ethnic context. Black and White adults in the United States completed a social perception test and were told that they had a high rank in a racial group that performed poorly or a low rank in a racial group that performed well. Black participants identified more strongly with their racial group than White participants. However, the big-fish-little-pond effect occurred and was similar in size across Black and White participants. These results suggest that the big-fish-little-pond effect generalizes to a racial-ethnic context and replicates across majority and minority group members