1,721,054 research outputs found
Do religious people self-enhance?
No full textWe ask if and when religious individuals self-enhance more than non-believers. First, religious individuals self-enhance on domains central to their self-concept. Specifically, they exhibit the Better-Than-Average Effect: They rate themselves as superior on attributes painting them as good Christians (e.g., traits like “loving” or “forgiving,” Biblical commandments) than on control attributes. Likewise, they exhibit the Overclaiming Effect: They assert superior, but false, knowledge on domains highly relevant to religiosity (e.g., international health charities, humanitarian aid organizations) than on control domains. Second, religious individuals self-enhance strongly in religious (than secular) cultures, which elevate religion to a social value. Finally, Christians may self-enhance in general, perhaps due to their conviction that they have a special relationship with Go
Cultural religiosity: a neglected but powerful dimension of culture
No full textCultural religiosity has received little attention in psychology. This is an oversight, as cultural religiosity is an impactful cross-cultural dimension. We proceed to demonstrate that cultural religiosity shapes human psychology through three paths. First, cultural religiosity influences personal religiosity, which has many personal consequences. Second, cultural religiosity engenders personal consequences, independent of personal religiosity. Finally, cultural religiosity qualifies many of the effects of personal religiosity on personal consequences. The three paths are not unique to cultural religiosity; equivalent paths exist for virtually all cross-cultural dimensions. Yet, the three paths are particularly impactful in the domain of cultural religiosity.</p
Religiosity as self-enhancement: a meta-analysis of the relation between socially desirable responding and religiosity
No full textIn a meta-analysis, the authors test the theoretical formulation that religiosity is a means for self-enhancement. The authors operationalized self-enhancement as socially desirable responding (SDR) and focused on three facets of religiosity: intrinsic,extrinsic, and religion-as-quest. Importantly, they assessed two moderators of the relation between SDR and religiosity. Macrolevel culture reflected countries that varied in degree of religiosity (from high to low: United States, Canada, United Kingdom). Micro-level culture reflected U.S. universities high (christian) versus low (secular) on religiosity. The results were generally consistent with the theoretical formulation. Both macro-level and micro-level culture moderated the relation between SDR and religiosity: This relation was more positive in samples that placed higher value on religiosity (United States > Canada >United Kingdom; christian universities > secular universities). The evidence suggests that religiosity is partly in the service of self-enhancement
Agency-communion and interest in prosocial behavior: social motives for conformity and deviance explain socio-contextual inconsistencies
No full textIdentifying the “prosocial personality” is a classic project in personality psychology. However, personality traits have been elusive predictors of prosocial behavior, with personality-prosociality relations varying widely across sociocultural contexts. We propose the social motives perspective to account for such sociocultural inconsistencies. According to this perspective, a focal quality of agency (e.g., competence, independence, openness) is the motive to swim against the social tide—agentic social contrast. Conversely, a focal quality of communion (e.g., warmth, interdependence, agreeableness) is the motive to swim with the social tide—communal social assimilation. We report two cross-sectional studies. Study 1 (N = 131,562) defined social context at the country level (11 European countries), whereas Study 2 (N = 56,395) defined it at the country level (11 European countries) and the city level (296 cities within these countries). Communion predicted interest in prosocial behavior comparatively strongly in sociocultural contexts where such interest was common and comparatively weakly where such interest was uncommon. Agency predicted interest in prosocial behavior comparatively strongly in sociocultural contexts where such interest was uncommon and comparatively weakly where such interest was common. The results supported the social motives perspective. Also, the findings help to reestablish the importance of personality for understanding prosociality
Individual self > relational self > collective self – But why? Processes driving the self-hierarchy in self- and person-perception.
No full textObjective:
The self has three parts: individual, relational, and collective. Typically, people personally value their individual self most, their relational self less, and their collective self least. This self‐hierarchy is consequential, but underlying processes have remained unknown. Here, we propose two process accounts. The content account draws upon selves' agentic–communal content, explaining why the individual self is preferred most. The teleology account draws upon selves' instrumentality for becoming one's personal ideal, explaining why the collective self is preferred least.
Method:
In Study 1 (N = 200, 45% female, Mage = 32.9 years, 79% Caucasian), participants listed characteristics of their three selves (individual, relational, collective) and evaluated those characteristics in seven preference tasks. Additionally, we analyzed the characteristics' agentic–communal content, and participants rated their characteristics' teleological instrumentality. Study 2 (N = 396, 55% female, Mage = 34.5 years, 76% Caucasian) used identical methodology and featured an additional condition, where participants evaluated the selves of a friend.
Results:
Study 1 reconfirmed the self‐hierarchy and supported both process accounts. Study 2 replicated and extended findings. As hypothesized, when people evaluate others' selves, a different self‐hierarchy emerges (relational > individual > collective).
Conclusions:
This research pioneers process‐driven explanations for the self‐hierarchy, establishing why people prefer different self‐parts in themselves than in others
Religiosity, social self-esteem, and psychological adjustment: on the cross-cultural specificity of the psychological benefits of religiosity
No full textStudies have found that religious believers have higher social self-esteem (Aydin, Fischer, & Frey, 2010; Rivadeneyra, Ward, & Gordon, 2007) and are better psychologically adjusted (Koenig, McCullough, & Larson, 2001; Smith, McCullough, & Poll, 2003) than nonbelievers. Is this relation true across cultures—which would attest to the robustness of religiosity as a wellspring of psychological benefits—or is it found only in specific cultures—which would attest to the relativism of religiosity and its embeddedness within a larger culturalframework? The religiosity-as-social-value hypothesis sideswith the latter possibility.The religiosity-as-social-value hypothesis posits that religiosity receives high social valuation in most societies(Sedikides, 2010) and that, consequently, religious believers are highly valued members of most societies (Sedikides & Gebauer, 2010). Being socially valued is associated with psychological benefits (e.g., social self-esteem, psychological adjustment; Rokeach, 1973; Sedikides & Strube, 1997). The hypothesis predicts, then, that believers will enjoy more psychological benefits in cultures that tend to value religiosity more; alternatively, the less a culture values religiosity, the more likely it is that believers and nonbelievers will enjoy equivalent psychological benefits. Here, we report a study in which we tested this hypothesis
Basic human values: Inter-value structure in memory
No full textThree experiments examined the latent structure of values. Participants rated the importance of values clustered in pairs. Based on [Schwartz, S. H. (1992). Universals in the content and structure of values: Theoretical advances and empirical tests in 20 countries. In M. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (Vol. 25, pp. 1–65). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.] circular model, we predicted and found that the time to rate the second value in each pair was shorter when the two values were motivationally congruent or opposing than when the two values were unrelated (Experiment 1). As expected, this was not the case when participants had to compare the importance of values within each pair (Experiment 2). Finally, semantic relatedness between values failed to explain the effects of motivational compatibility (Experiment 3). Taken together, these results reveal a coherent pattern of value relations driven by motivational compatibilities, over and above perceived semantic relatedness
- …
