The Status Importance Scale: Development and validation of a self-report questionnaire for measuring how much people care about status

Although substantial research indicates that considerations about status can lead to anxiety and other negative outcomes, a valid measure of the importance individuals attribute to status is lacking. This paper introduces the Status Importance Scale (SIS), a mono-factorial 10-item self-report questionnaire that quantifies how important a person deems status to be. Five studies validate the scale showing that it has excellent internal reliability and acceptable test-retest reliability, it correlates with several related measures (supporting convergent validity), it shows little correlation with theoretically unrelated constructs (supporting discriminant validity), it is the best predictor of conspicuous consumption compared with other potential candidates (supporting concurrent validity), and it can help predicting which activities one gives importance to (further supporting concurrent validity). Finally, as hypothesized by previous literature, the last study reveals that the SIS can predict status anxiety. The SIS can contribute to research regarding important phenomena such as the detrimental psychological effects of income inequality.

The Biased Enforcement of Rarely Followed Rules

We examined whether the enforcement of phantom rules-frequently broken and rarely enforced codified rules-varies by the race of the rule breaker. First, we analyzed whether race affects when 311 calls, a nonemergency service, end in arrest in New York City. Across 10 years, we found that calls from census blocks of neighborhoods consisting of mostly White individuals were 65% less likely to escalate to arrest than those where White people were the numerical minority. Next, we experimentally manipulated transgressor race and found that participants (N = 393) who were high in social dominance orientation were more likely to route 311 calls to 911 when the transgressor was Black (vs. White). We also explored the subjective experience of phantom rule enforcement; People of color report they are more likely to be punished for violating phantom rules compared to White people. Overall, we find evidence of racism in the enforcement of phantom rules.

The genetic underpinnings of right-wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation explain political attitudes beyond Big Five personality

OBJECTIVE

Political attitudes are predicted by the key ideological variables of right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) and social dominance orientation (SDO), as well as some of the Big Five personality traits. Past research indicates that personality and ideological traits are correlated for genetic reasons. A question that has yet to be tested concerns whether the genetic variation underlying the ideological traits of RWA and SDO has distinct contributions to political attitudes, or if genetic variation in political attitudes is subsumed under the genetic variation underlying standard Big Five personality traits.

METHOD

We use data from a sample of 1987 Norwegian twins to assess the genetic and environmental relationships between the Big Five personality traits, RWA, SDO, and their separate contributions to political policy attitudes.

RESULTS

RWA and SDO exhibit very high genetic correlation (r = 0.78) with each other and some genetic overlap with the personality traits of openness and agreeableness. Importantly, they share a larger genetic substrate with political attitudes (e.g., deporting an ethnic minority) than do Big Five personality traits, a relationship that persists even when controlling for the genetic foundations underlying personality traits.

CONCLUSION

Our results suggest that the genetic foundations of ideological traits and political attitudes are largely non-overlapping with the genetic foundations of Big Five personality traits.

Palliative and hegemonic dimensions of conservatism: the mitigating role of institutional trust in shaping attitudes toward migrants and migration policy preferences

The study explores the links between palliative and hegemonic dimensions of conservatism, attitudes toward migrants and restrictive migration policy preferences. Participants reported on their palliative dimension (social conservatism, traditionalism) and hegemonic dimension (social dominance orientation, collective narcissism) of conservatism, trust in government, attitudes toward migrants, and restrictive migration policy preferences. The results show that both dimensions of conservatism are indirectly linked to more restrictive migration policy preferences through negative attitudes toward migrants. Moreover, the present study indicates that increasing institutional trust may be an effective mechanism mitigating negative attitudes toward migrants for individuals high in the palliative dimension of conservatism.

Nonjudgmental Regard of Others: Investigating the Links Between Other-Directed Trait Mindfulness and Prejudice

Although researchers predict that experiencing greater trait mindfulness should be related to less prejudiced attitudes towards others, the evidence has been inconsistent. We suggest that this is due to the narrow operationalizations of mindfulness that have been utilized thus far. Specifically, research to date has relied solely on mindfulness as it pertains to the self. We therefore examined an expanded definition of mindfulness to study the role of nonjudgmental attitudes towards others and its relation with prejudice. Using a new measure of Nonjudgmental Regard towards Others (NRO), the current study found that Ideological Acceptance, or judgments of another's actions, ideas, and personality, and Emotion Acceptance, or acceptance of another's emotions and emotional expressions, were independently associated with prejudiced attitudes towards numerous different outgroups such as drug users, people who are overweight, homosexuals, and people with disabilities. Furthermore, they were able to explain variance over and above the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire, Social Dominance Orientation and Right-Wing Authoritarianism. Having a nonjudgmental regard towards others, not just the self, may be an important component of mindfulness that has not yet been explored.

State Resident Handedness, Ideology, and Political Party Preference: U.S. Presidential Election Outcomes Over the Past 60 Years

Pearson correlation, partial correlation, and multiple regression strategies determined the degree to which estimates of the level of left-handedness in each of the 48 contiguous American states related to citizen political ideology and to Democratic-Republican presidential popular vote over the past 60 years. Higher state levels of left-handedness were associated significantly with liberal ideology in each of the presidential election years from 1964 to 2016. Comparable ideology data were not available for 2020. Higher state levels of left-handedness also were associated with a greater degree of Democratic candidate popular vote support in each of the presidential election years from 1964 to 2020 except for 1976. The mean size of these 28 significant Pearson correlations involving the two political criteria was .62 (SD = .12) with a range of .38-.80, indicating handedness alone could account for a mean of 40.1% (SD = 14.9) of the variance in the two political preference variables. Corresponding multiple regressions showed that when state-level Big Five personality, White population percent, urbanization, and income variables were given the opportunity to enter the equations, handedness still emerged with a significant regression coefficient in 26 of the 28 equations. The two exceptions occurred for 1968 with either political preference criterion. It is speculated that such relations are grounded in hypothesized but poorly understood genetic links between handedness, personality, and political beliefs and attitudes, and, that a foundational genetic predisposition to left-handedness in a population may have much greater impact on correlates than overt levels of left-handedness.

Himpathy and status: Attitudes to social hierarchy predict reactions to sexual harassment

In three studies, we tested whether hierarchical preferences could explain differences in punishment recommendations for sexual harassment. Building on research that suggests punishment is used to regulate social hierarchies, we argue that individuals who are motivated to maintain existing hierarchies will treat male perpetrators of sexual harassment with greater leniency, especially when judging perpetrators of high social status. Conversely, we predict that egalitarians-who are motivated to reduce group-based hierarchies-will judge male perpetrators more harshly, especially those of high social status. Given competing theories in the existing literature, we make no predictions about how perpetrator status will affect punishment recommendations overall. Supporting our hypotheses, we found that individuals high on gender system justification and social dominance orientation recommended more lenient punishments to perpetrators. Moreover, an integrative data analysis uncovered an interaction between social dominance orientation and perpetrator status. This interaction was primarily driven by egalitarians, who provided more lenient punishment recommendations to low status perpetrators when compared to high status perpetrators. Contrary to our predictions, we did not find strong evidence that individuals high on social dominance orientation provided harsher judgements to low status perpetrators. Nor did we find strong evidence for a main effect of perpetrator status on punishment recommendations. Taken together, these findings suggest that people punish sexual harassment to bolster or attenuate power structures. This is particularly true of egalitarians, whose emphasis on social equality leads them to judge high status perpetrators of sexual harassment with particular severity.

Dress is a Fundamental Component of Person Perception

ACADEMIC ABSTRACT

Clothing, hairstyle, makeup, and accessories influence first impressions. However, target dress is notably absent from current theories and models of person perception. We discuss three reasons for this minimal attention to dress in person perception: high theoretical complexity, incompatibility with traditional methodology, and underappreciation by the groups who have historically guided research in person perception. We propose a working model of person perception that incorporates target dress alongside target face, target body, context, and perceiver characteristics. Then, we identify four types of inferences for which perceivers rely on target dress: social categories, cognitive states, status, and aesthetics. For each of these, we review relevant work in social cognition, integrate this work with existing dress research, and propose future directions. Finally, we identify and offer solutions to the theoretical and methodological challenges accompanying the psychological study of dress.

PUBLIC ABSTRACT

Why is it that people often agonize over what to wear for a job interview, a first date, or a party? The answer is simple: They understand that others' first impressions of them rely on their clothing, hairstyle, makeup, and accessories. Many people might be surprised, then, to learn that psychologists' theories about how people form first impressions of others have little to say about how people dress. This is true in part because the meaning of clothing is so complex and culturally dependent. We propose a working model of first impressions that identifies four types of information that people infer from dress: people's social identities, mental states, status, and aesthetic tastes. For each of these, we review existing research on clothing, integrate this research with related work from social psychology more broadly, and propose future directions for research.

Conspiracy thinking and the long historical shadow of Romanticism on authoritarian politics

Background

Similar effect sizes have been reported for the effects of conspiracy, pseudoscientific, and paranormal beliefs on authoritarian attitudes, which points to a conceptual problem at the heart of the conspiracy literature, namely lack of clarity as to what uniquely defines conspiracy beliefs and whether those unique elements contribute distinctly to authoritarian ideologies. To our knowledge, this is the first study to test empirically the predictive power of variance unique to each construct against covariance shared among these constructs when predicting authoritarian and anti-democratic attitudes.

Methods

Online survey was administered to 314 participants in 2021 that included a battery of demographic and psychological measures. Hierarchical factor models were used to isolate unique variance from shared covariance among responses to items representing conspiracy, paranormal and pseudoscientific beliefs. Structural equation models were used to test their unique and shared effects on authoritarian and anti-democratic attitudes.

Results

We found that our combined measurement model of paranormal thinking, conspiracism, and pseudoscience exhibited exceptional model fit, and that each construct was strongly predictive of both SDO and RWA (r = 0.73-0.86). Once the shared covariance was partitioned into a higher order factor, the residual uniqueness in each first order factors was either negatively related or unrelated to authoritarian and anti-democratic attitudes. Moreover, the higher order factor explained the gross majority of variance in conspiracy (R2 = 0.81) paranormal (R2 = 0.81) and pseudoscientific (R2 = 0.95) beliefs and was a far stronger predictor (β = 0.85, p < 0.01) of anti-democratic attitudes than political partisanship (β = 0.17, p < 0.01). Strong partisan identifiers of both parties showed much higher romanticism scores than party moderates.

Conclusion and limitations

When predicting authoritarian and anti-democratic attitudes, we found no empirically unique contributions of conspiracy beliefs. Instead, we found that a shared factor, representing a 'romantic' mindset was the main predictor of authoritarian and anti-democratic attitudes. This finding potentially explains failures of interventions in stopping the spread of misinformation and conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theory researchers should refocus on the shared features that conspiracy thinking has with other unwarranted epistemic beliefs to better understand how to halt the spread of misinformation, conspiracy thinking, anti-science attitudes, and even global authoritarianism.

Social dominance orientation, intergroup contact and belief in traditional school culture as predictors for parents' attitudes to school segregation in the Czech Republic

Background

The over-representation of Roma children in segregated schools is well documented as a prevalent form of institutional racism in the Czech Republic. In the paper, we examine the inclination of parents to support school segregation.

Objective

The paper looks at parents' preference for school segregation and explores its association to social dominance orientation, intergroup contacts, belief in traditional schooling and the absence of Roma children in school as proof of the school's good quality. The first hypothesis examines an association between parents' preference to withdraw their children from ethnically diverse schools and social dominance orientation (one's degree of preference for inequality among social groups). The second one tests the belief in traditional schooling as a factor contributing to a preference for ethnically motivated withdrawal. The third one studies the extent to which parents' preference to withdraw their children from ethnically diverse schools is affected by contact with Roma in their everyday life. The final hypothesis tests if parents who view Roma students as an indicator of poor education in a given school are more likely to oppose the presence of Roma students among their children's peers.

Methods

Quantitative data collection was carried out on a sample of 1,803 respondents. The target group were families with at least one child of primary school age (6-14 years). A binary logistic regression analysis was implemented to assess these relationships.

Results

The study confirmed that ethnically motivated school withdrawal is associated with social dominance orientation, belief in traditional school culture and education. On the other hand, the role of inter-group contact in a school environment was not proved. However, the final statistical model was rather weak explaining approximately 9% of variance in segregation endorsement. The model fit improved significantly when an additional variable - absence of Roma as a sign of a good school - was added. Approximately 15% of the variance in segregation endorsement was explained by the modified set of predictors.

Conclusion

The study argues that ethnically motivated school withdrawal is a result of individual attitudes and situational factors. This means that researchers interested in informal school segregation will need to consider both groups of factors.

Understanding Cyber-Racism Perpetration within the Broader Context of Cyberbullying Theory: A Theoretical Integration

The purpose of the current theoretical review is to argue for the theoretical integration of cyber-racism perpetration into the broader cyberbullying context-making note of the similarities between both types of nefarious online behavior that make this integration appropriate and the differences that make the integration less clear. Cyber-racism and cyberbullying victimization have been shown to be prevalent in youth and is related to poor psychological outcomes. Understanding both types of antisocial online behaviors have implications for the understanding and subsequent reduction of cyber-racism. Our review focuses on a cyber-racism model that proposes the importance of anonymity perceptions afforded to the online user to cause cyber-racism via several routes that focus on (a) online disinhibition, (b) deindividuation and group polarization, and (c) stereotypes. We discuss the tenets of this theory and the overlap with the Barlett Gentile Cyberbullying Model-a learning-based model that focuses on how anonymity eventually predicts cyberbullying via the development of positive cyberbullying attitudes. We believe that theoretical integration is necessary; however, future work needs to test several theoretical underpinnings of these models first. We end with a discussion of theoretical and intervention implications before discussing limitations and future work. Overall, we hope this review sparks interesting future research to understand cyber-racism and broaden the existing research on cyberbullying.

Avoiding Covid-19 risk information in the United States: The role of attitudes, norms, affect, social dominance orientations, and perceived trustworthiness of scientists

This study seeks guidance from the planned risk information avoidance model to explore drivers of risk information avoidance in the context of COVID-19. Data were collected early during the pandemic. Among our most notable results is that participants who are more oriented toward social dominance and are more skeptical of scientists' credibility have (1) more supportive attitudes toward risk information avoidance and (2) feel social pressure to avoid risk information. The findings of this study highlight how the role of skepticism in science and intergroup ideologies, such as social dominance, can have important implications for how people learn about health-related information, even in times of heightened crisis.

Are equitable physical performance tests perceived to be fair? Understanding officer cadets' perceptions of fitness standards

In the last few decades, the armed forces in Western countries such as Canada and the United States have accepted women into virtually all military occupations. Despite this, a growing body of research confirms that female service members face prejudiced treatment while conducting their work in these organizations that continue to be predominately masculine and male-dominated. In particular, women attending the Canadian Military Colleges (CMCs) experience gender-related conflicts arising from the dissimilar fitness test standards between male and female cadets. There have been, however, few studies that scrutinize the psychological mechanisms of these tensions. The aim of this study was to unpack the existing biased perceptions against women pertaining to physical fitness through ambivalent sexism, social dominance orientation, and right-wing authoritarianism. Officer and naval cadets (n = 167, 33.5% women) at the Royal Military College of Canada (RMC) completed survey measures. Indirect effect analyses showed that cadets who viewed the fitness standards to be unfair expressed more hostile rather than benevolent sexist outlooks against women, and these negative feelings were connected to greater levels of social dominance and right-wing authoritarianism. These results indicate that sexist beliefs, competitive worldviews, and authoritarianism are underlying attitudes that should be addressed by militaries striving to fully integrate women into their forces.

The costs of ideological prosociality: Analyses of the European Social Survey from 2002 to 2018 find negative relationships between endorsing universalistic values and well-being and social capital

Traditionally, prosociality has been conceptualized in terms of the interpersonal domain, for example, helping behavior. Nevertheless, people can be prosocial in terms of ideological domains, for example, social policies they support. The present study examined the utility of distinguishing interpersonal and ideological prosocial values as predictors of well-being and social capital. Data from nine European Social Surveys were combined. The Universalism and Benevolence values of Schwartz's basic human values were treated as measures of ideological and interpersonal prosocial values. Relationships between Universalism and Benevolence and well-being and social capital were examined with multilevel models, persons nested with rounds, rounds nested within countries. Respondent sex, age, and education were included as covariates. These analyses found that Benevolence was positively related to satisfaction with life and happiness, whereas Universalism was negatively related to satisfaction with life and happiness. Although endorsing both values was positively related to attitudinal measures of social capital (e.g., people can be trusted), Universalism was negatively related to self-reports of social activity, whereas Benevolence was either positively related or unrelated to self-reports of social activity. Being ideologically prosocial appears to be associated with reduced well-being. Future research is needed to explain the mechanisms responsible for this relationship.

The use of Latent Profile Analyses to examine social dominance orientation as a predictor of peer-to-peer aggression among adolescents

Peer-to-peer aggression and bullying is a social phenomenon and is related to social structures in the school. In-group membership as well as construction of the other and differentiation from other potential groups is an important predictor of one's social identity. Social Dominance Orientation is an important addition to social identity theory as it examines both issues of social dominance and social egalitarianism and is related to out-group denigration. In this study, we examined whether social dominance theory (both the dominance and egalitarian forms) will add to the prediction of physical and relational aggression among adolescents. Using a bias-corrected 3-step approach, we used Latent Profile Analyses to examine the responses of 1617 Israeli adolescents on measures of social dominance and egalitarian orientation, salience of their social groups and moral disengagement. Based on the analysis, we identified four classes of respondents, which can be broken down into two distinct categories: high social dominance and moral disengagement and high social egalitarianism. We compared male and female adolescent respondents and group salience. We then compared the four latent profiles on the two distal variables of physical and relational peer-to-peer aggression. Findings have theoretical and applied relevance to further investigating issues of group dynamics and construction of the other as potential predictive factors in understanding peer-to-peer aggression and bullying.

The Role of Needs in Maintaining Attitudes That Legitimize the Socio-Political Status Quo in Russia

In recent years, researchers have been focusing on a wide range of different constructs to study legitimizing grounds in socio-political relations. Political system justification, social dominance orientation (dominance and anti-egalitarianism) and political conservatism are considered as attitudes containing various grounds for legitimizing the currently existing socio-political relations (status quo). Maintaining these attitudes is associated with satisfying a number of psychological needs, including epistemic (e.g., the need for cognitive closure), existential (e.g., the need for security), and relational ones. The purpose of this research work was to study the contribution of needs in the maintenance of different attitudes legitimizing the socio-political status quo in the Russian context. With this in mind, we empirically examined the model, which considered needs as predictors, legitimizing attitudes as dependent variables, and sociodemographic characteristics associated with the maintenance of legitimizing attitudes (income, subjective social status, age, and gender) as control variables. The online study involved 387 Russian residents aged 18 to 73 who filled out questionnaires to assess the need for cognitive closure and fear of death as well as the relational need, social dominance orientation, political system justification and political conservatism. The data obtained were processed using structural equation modeling. The results of the study have shown that the most significant and consistent contribution in the maintenance of legitimizing attitudes is made by the epistemic needs (in particular, the need for cognitive closure). At the same time, the presence in everyday notions of a system of legitimizing attitudes makes it possible, depending on the context (e.g., the presence or absence of threats) or the socio-demographic characteristics of the individual (e.g., age and socio-economic status), to realize different needs, which ensures the flexibility of the process of social cognition.

The traditional vegetarians – improving attitudes toward vegetarians through emphasizing similarities between vegetarianism and traditional fasting

The modern choices of diet are often perceived at odds with the traditional worldviews. This study aimed to test the possibility of improving attitudes toward vegetarians by emphasizing the similarity between vegetarianism and religious fasting. We expected the effects of induction to be moderated by endorsement of right-wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation (SDO-D and SDO-E). Participants (N = 246) were randomly divided into three groups that all read a text about a traditional birthday celebration. The control group read a text about the celebration with meat-based meals, one experimental group read about a celebration with meatless dishes. In the second experimental group it was emphasized that the host became a vegetarian after years of religious fasting. Both inductions improved attitudes toward vegetarians. Only SDO-D proved to be a significant moderator, with induction exhibiting a significant effect at higher levels of SDO-D. The findings inform public communications about reducing meat consumption.

Islam and politics: A latent class analysis of Indonesian Muslims based on political attitudes and psychological determinants

This study explored the diversity of Muslim political attitudes by conducting a latent class analysis in the rarely investigated context of Indonesia—the largest Muslim country in the world. We surveyed a total of 1208 Indonesian Muslim participants from eight out of 33 Indonesian provinces. The latent class analysis revealed that there are six clusters of Muslim Individuals based on their political attitudes: Fundamentalist Muslim, Nationalist Muslim, Apolitical Muslim, Hijrah Muslim, Moderate Muslim, and Progressive Muslim. Moreover, we also found several meaningful differences in psychological correlates (right-wing authoritarianism, social dominance orientation, and need for cognitive closure) across the six clusters. Taken together, this study sheds some light upon the diversity of Muslim political attitudes and the psychological tendencies that correspond with such attitudes.

Ageism toward older adults during the COVID-19 pandemic: Intergenerational conflict and support

A cross-national representative survey in Canada and the U.S. examined ageism toward older individuals during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, including ageist consumption stereotypes and perceptions of older people's competence and warmth. We also investigated predictors of ageism, including economic and health threat, social dominance orientation, individualism and collectivism, social distancing beliefs, and demographics. In both countries, younger adults were more likely to hold ageist consumption stereotypes, demonstrating intergenerational conflict about the resources being used by older people. Similarly, young adults provided older people with the lowest competence and warmth scores, though adults of all ages rated older individuals as more warm than competent. Particularly among younger individuals, beliefs about group-based dominance hierarchies, the importance of competition, and the costs of social distancing predicted greater endorsement, whereas beliefs about interdependence and the importance of sacrificing for the collective good predicted lower endorsement of ageist consumption stereotypes. Support for group-based inequality predicted lower perceived competence and warmth of older individuals, whereas beliefs about interdependence and the importance of sacrificing for the collective good predicted higher perceived competence and warmth of older individuals. Implications for policies and practices to reduce intergenerational conflict and ageist perceptions of older individuals are discussed.

A prediction-focused approach to personality modeling

In the current study, we set out to examine the viability of a novel approach to modeling human personality. Research in psychology suggests that people's personalities can be effectively described using five broad dimensions (the Five-Factor Model; FFM); however, the FFM potentially leaves room for improved predictive accuracy. We propose a novel approach to modeling human personality that is based on the maximization of the model's predictive accuracy. Unlike the FFM, which performs unsupervised dimensionality reduction, we utilized a supervised machine learning technique for dimensionality reduction of questionnaire data, using numerous psychologically meaningful outcomes as data labels (e.g., intelligence, well-being, sociability). The results showed that our five-dimensional personality summary, which we term the "Predictive Five" (PF), provides predictive performance that is better than the FFM on two independent validation datasets, and on a new set of outcome variables selected by an independent group of psychologists. The approach described herein has the promise of eventually providing an interpretable, low-dimensional personality representation, which is also highly predictive of behavior.

Evidências de Validade da Escala de Orientação à Dominância Social no Brasil

Resumo O presente estudo buscou adaptar a Escala de Orientação à Dominância Social (SDO7) para o contexto brasileiro, propor uma versão reduzida do instrumento, avaliar sua estrutura fatorial e evidências de validade entre grupos. Para tanto, realizou-se coleta de dados on-line em que participaram 1.056 indivíduos de quatro diferentes amostras. Análises fatoriais confirmatórias indicaram os melhores índices de ajuste para a estrutura original de quatro fatores, sendo dois substanciais (Dominância e Anti-Igualitarismo) e dois de método (pró-traço e contra-traço). Os fatores substanciais, denominados “Dominância Social” e “Anti-Igualitarismo”, apresentaram alfa de Cronbach superior a 0,70 em todas as amostras. As versões longa e reduzida da escala apresentaram bons índices de validade de critério entre grupos com correlações altas entre os escores dos fatores substanciais e a autocategorização política. Portanto, o instrumento apresentou evidências de validade e fidedignidade e podem ser utilizados em estudos futuros.

Strategic Mindsets and Support for Social Change: Impact Mindset Explains Support for Black Lives Matter Across Racial Groups

How does the self-relevance of a social movement shape individuals' engagement with it? We examined the decision-making processes that underlie support for Black Lives Matter (BLM) among Black, Hispanic, Asian, and White Americans. We find significant between-group differences in levels of support for BLM, both in terms of past behavior (Study 1) and in terms of future intentions to support the movement (Study 2). These differences notwithstanding, thinking about how one's decisions impact others - which we label impact mindset - explains support for BLM across racial groups, cross-sectionally as well as longitudinally (over 8 months later). Our findings underscore the equivalence of the impact mindset construct across racial groups and its predictive power in the context of BLM. We conclude that, although the struggle for racial justice has different meanings for different racial groups, the same mindset underlies both in-group advocacy and allyship in the context of BLM.

Dominance motivated delusions: Whites with high social dominance orientation perceive equal amounts of institutional racism between Blacks and Whites

Whites display an asymmetry when detecting discrimination—disparate treatment from high-status groups directed toward low-status groups constitutes discrimination but not the opposite. Whites also believe they experience just as much racial discrimination as Blacks. This latter pattern could be especially true for Whites with higher social dominance orientation (SDO)—preference for intergroup dominance and inequality. Three studies (including one pilot study) investigated whether Whites with higher (vs. lower) SDO perceived examples of institutional and individual instances of racial discrimination as evidence of racism when happening to White (vs. Black) victims. Results revealed partial support for our prediction that the asymmetry in discrimination detection for Whites with higher (vs. lower) SDO would be opposite to the previously identified asymmetry, especially for examples of institutional (vs. individual) discrimination. Implications are discussed in the context of the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests and 2021 Capitol siege.

The effect on judgment of attributing religious affiliation to a terrorist suspect

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects and correlations of the perceived religious affiliation on a fictitious terrorism case. Participants were 402 French adults who completed a questionnaire after reading a scenario involving the arrest of a person (French vs. North African; man vs. woman) wearing an explosive belt. They indicated the level of the perpetrator's religious affiliation and judged her/him and the act. The participants' level of social dominance orientation (SDO) was measured and studied along in its two dimensions. The results showed an effect of ethnicity on perceived religious affiliation, which was correlated with judgment and mediated the effect of social dominance on judgment. The implications of this study are discussed in terms of intergroup interactions and religious prejudice.

RWA, SDO and race: A study of prejudice in South Africa

Right-wing authoritarianism is concerned with adhering to conventional norms, while social dominance orientation supports racial hierarchy. As such, if conventional norms are opposed to racial hierarchy, it is possible that RWA and SDO would function in opposite directions. In South Africa, a normative view regarding equal civil rights across races has been promoted since the fall of apartheid. Therefore, RWA and SDO might have opposite relationships regarding beliefs in equal civil rights. To test this, South African undergraduates completed scales measuring RWA, SDO and two types of prejudice: beliefs in inequality regarding civil rights and desires for racial separation. For Black participants, RWA was a negative predictor of inequality regarding civil rights but was a positive predictor of racial separation. For White participants, these relationships involving RWA were nonsignificant. On the other hand, SDO was a positive predictor of both prejudices for both Black and White participants. Overall, SDO was a consistent predictor of prejudice while RWA was more variable and even supported egalitarian views.

Justice sensitivity is undergirded by separate heritable motivations to be morally principled and opportunistic

Injustice typically involves some people benefitting at the expense of others. An opportunist might then be selectively motivated to amend only the injustice that is harmful to them, while someone more principled would respond consistently regardless of whether they stand to gain or lose. Here, we disentangle such principled and opportunistic motives towards injustice. With a sample of 312 monozygotic- and 298 dizygotic twin pairs (N = 1220), we measured people’s propensity to perceive injustice as victims, observers, beneficiaries, and perpetrators of injustice, using the Justice Sensitivity scale. With a biometric approach to factor analysis, that provides increased stringency in inferring latent psychological traits, we find evidence for two substantially heritable factors explaining correlations between Justice Sensitivity facets. We interpret these factors as principled justice sensitivity (h² = 0.45) leading to increased sensitivity to injustices of all categories, and opportunistic justice sensitivity (h² = 0.69) associated with increased sensitivity to being a victim and a decreased propensity to see oneself as a perpetrator. These novel latent constructs share genetic substrate with psychological characteristics that sustain broad coordination strategies that capture the dynamic tension between honest cooperation versus dominance and defection, namely altruism, interpersonal trust, agreeableness, Social Dominance Orientation and opposition to immigration and foreign aid.

Minority salience and the overestimation of individuals from minority groups in perception and memory

Our minds are tuned to the uncommon or unexpected in our environment. In most environments, members of minority groups are just that—uncommon. Therefore, the cognitive system is tuned to spotting their presence. Our results indicate that individuals from minority groups are salient in perception, memory, and visual awareness. As a result, we consistently overestimate their presence—leading to an illusion of diversity: the environment seems to be more diverse than it actually is, decreasing our support for diversity-promoting measures. As we try to make equitable decisions, it is important that private individuals and decision-makers alike become aware of this biased perception. While these sorts of biases can be counteracted, one must first be aware of the bias.

Our cognitive system is tuned toward spotting the uncommon and unexpected. We propose that individuals coming from minority groups are, by definition, just that—uncommon and often unexpected. Consequently, they are psychologically salient in perception, memory, and visual awareness. This minority salience creates a tendency to overestimate the prevalence of minorities, leading to an erroneous picture of our social environments—an illusion of diversity. In 12 experiments with 942 participants, we found evidence that the presence of minority group members is indeed overestimated in memory and perception and that masked images of minority group members are prioritized for visual awareness. These findings were consistent when participants were members of both the majority group and the minority group. Moreover, this overestimated prevalence of minorities led to decreased support for diversity-promoting policies. We discuss the theoretical implications of the illusion of diversity and how it may inform more equitable and inclusive decision-making.

Ingroup favoritism overrides fairness when resources are limited

Ingroup favoritism and fairness are two potentially competing motives guiding intergroup behaviors in human. Here, we investigate if and how limited resources can modulate the way these two motives affect individuals’ decisions in intergroup situation. In the present study, participants (N = 58) were asked to accept or reject three types of resource allocation proposals generated by a computer: the ingroup advantageous condition, outgroup advantageous condition, and neutral condition. In general, participants were more willing to accept the proposals in the ingroup advantageous condition than the outgroup advantageous or the neutral conditions, and also in the moderate inequality than the extreme inequality condition. This may indicate that people sought a careful balance between ingroup favoritism and fairness, although we also found marked individual differences in their preferences for ingroup favoritism or fairness. Importantly, as predicted, participants were more likely to show ingroup favoritism only when limited resources affect the well-being of ingroup members. The present study provides novel insights into the situational and personality factors affecting human intergroup behaviors, shedding light on motives underlying intergroup conflicts prevalent in human societies.

Feminist identification, social dominance orientation, and weight bias in men

Weight bias has deleterious consequences on individuals considered overweight and has similarities with forms of prejudice linked to social dominance orientation (SDO). Feminism can counter oppression that women are subject to notably through weight bias and SDO, but no studies have focused directly on these variables among men, as feminist identity is linked to less endorsement of certain beliefs in SDO and weight bias. The purpose of the present study is to explore the associations between feminist identification and beliefs, SDO, and weight bias among men from Quebec. Participants were divided into four feminist identification groups. Results indicate that feminist identification in men is linked to lower levels of SDO and less dislike toward people considered overweight. Also, feminism seems to predict prejudice toward others, but not toward oneself whereas SDO-D seems to be a good predictor of the belief that weight is controllable.

Superposition strategies: How and why White people say contradictory things about race

Due to the centrality of race and racism in social, economic, and political life, coupled with the racially privileged position of White people, the assessment of White racial attitudes is an ongoing concern. There is a great deal of survey-based, quantitative work that demonstrates a compelling case of White attitudinal polarization-a grouping of authoritarian, racist attitudes versus another alliance of progressive, antiracist attitudes-an increasingly racialized culture war. However, other studies, largely qualitative and open-ended, demonstrate the heterogeneous, shifting, and hypocritical nature of White discourse about race. To resolve this paradox, I refrain from the assumption that White racial "attitudes" are essentially bifurcated, while I also refuse the contention that White people produce spontaneous narratives whole-cloth. Rather, I argue that with sustained attention to time, context, and triangulation, we can better understand how and why White people speak of People of Color in positive ways one moment and negative the next, marshaling both to defend, rationalize, or improve their racialized subject position. I argue that these contradictions are-à la Schrödinger's famous thought experiment-"superposition strategies." Both racist and antiracist attitudes are simultaneously alive and dead in the same individual or group. Contradictory White discourse helps maintain a sense of self-efficacy and coherent White racial identity within conflictual and politically supercharged social situations, as well as within racially unequal social structures.

Standpoints and Situatedness: Examining the Perception of Benevolent Sexism in Black and White Undergraduate Women and Men

Racial differences in benevolent sexism have been underexplored. To address this gap, we used standpoint theory as a framework to examine race-gender group differences in the endorsement of benevolent sexism and how cultural factors (i.e., egalitarianism, religiosity, and racial identity) and inequality factors (i.e., experiences with racial discrimination and support for social hierarchies) might mediate this relationship. Among 510 Black and white undergraduate women and men, we found racial differences, such that Black women and men had higher endorsement of benevolent sexism than white women and men. Further, there was a gender difference for only white participants, with white men endorsing these attitudes more than white women. For Black women, religiosity and racial identity mediated the relationship between their race-gender group and greater benevolent sexism compared to white women, but only religiosity mediated the relationship for Black men. Neither inequality mediator accounted for benevolent sexism differences; however, both were associated with white women’s lower benevolent sexism, as was egalitarianism. Given these findings, we discuss implications for benevolent sexism theory, the possibility that cultural factors may shape Black women and men’s standpoint by establishing group-based norms and expectations around benevolently sexist behavior, and suggest culturally appropriate methods to reduce sexism.

Exposure to authoritarian values leads to lower positive affect, higher negative affect, and higher meaning in life

Five studies tested the effect of exposure to authoritarian values on positive affect (PA), negative affect (NA), and meaning in life (MIL). Study 1 (N = 1,053) showed that simply completing a measure of right-wing authoritarianism (vs. not) prior to rating MIL led to higher MIL. Preregistered Study 2 (N = 1,904) showed that reading speeches by real-world authoritarians (e.g., Adolf Hitler) led to lower PA, higher NA, and higher MIL than a control passage. In preregistered Studies 3 (N = 1,573) and 4 (N = 1,512), Americans read authoritarian, egalitarian, or control messages and rated mood, MIL, and evaluated the passages. Both studies showed that egalitarian messages led to better mood and authoritarian messages led to higher MIL. Study 5 (N = 148) directly replicated these results with Canadians. Aggregating across studies (N = 3,401), moderational analyses showed that meaning in life, post manipulation, was associated with more favorable evaluations of the authoritarian passage. In addition, PA was a stronger predictor of MIL in the egalitarian and control conditions than in the authoritarian condition. Further results showed no evidence that negative mood (or disagreement) spurred the boost in MIL. Implications and future directions are discussed.

Toxic stress and burnout: John Henryism and social dominance in the laboratory and STEM workforce

Persons Excluded from science because of Ethnicity and Race (PEERs) face chronic exposure to interpersonal stressors, such as social discrimination, throughout their scientific careers, leading to a long-term decline in physical and mental health. Many PEERs exhibit John Henryism, a coping mechanism to prolonged stress where an individual expends higher levels of effort and energy at the cost of their physical and mental health. In this article, we discuss how social dominance may increase John Henryism within the STEM community; the causes, effects and costs of John Henryism; and highlight solutions to combat these social adversity stressors within the academic institution.

System Justification or Social Dominance? A Multilevel Test of the Ideological Motivators of Perceived Discrimination

Although system-justifying beliefs often mitigate perceptions of discrimination, status-based asymmetries in the ideological motivators of perceived discrimination are unknown. Because the content and societal implications of discrimination claims are status-dependant, social dominance orientation (SDO) should motivate perceptions of (reverse) discrimination among members of high-status groups, whereas system justification should motivate the minimization of perceived discrimination among the disadvantaged. We tested these hypotheses using multilevel regressions among a nationwide random sample of New Zealand Europeans (n = 29,169) and ethnic minorities (n = 5,118). As hypothesized, group-based dominance correlated positively with perceived (reverse) discrimination among ethnic-majority group members, whereas system justification correlated negatively with perceived discrimination among the disadvantaged. Furthermore, the proportion of minorities within the region strengthened the victimizing effects of SDO-Dominance, but not SDO-Egalitarianism, among the advantaged. Together, these results reveal status-based asymmetries in the motives underlying perceptions of discrimination and identify a key contextual moderator of this association.

Support for group-based inequality among members of low-status groups as an ingroup status-enhancement strategy

We discuss the idea that competition-based motives boost low-status group members’ support for group-based hierarchy and inequality. Specifically, the more low-status group members feel motivated to compete with a relevant high-status outgroup, based on the belief that existing status positions may be reversed, the more they will defend status differentials (i.e., high social dominance orientation; SDO). Using minimal groups (N = 113), we manipulated ingroup (low vs. high) status, and primed unstable status positions to all participants. As expected, we found that SDO positively mediates the relation between ingroup identification and collective action, when ingroup’s status is perceived to be low and status positions are perceived as highly unstable. We discuss the implications of considering situational and contextual factors to better understand individuals’ support for group-based hierarchies and inequality, and the advantages of considering ideological processes in predicting collective action.

Effects of rectors’ narcissism on academics’ silence and commitment in the context of public universities

Purpose

This paper aims to focus on academics’ in four public universities located in Egypt to explore the effect of narcissistic leadership on affective, continuance and normative commitment approaches with and without the mediating effect of academics’ silence.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors used a convenience sampling in which academics were handed a questionnaire form to fill. In total, the authors distributed 280 forms and collected 214 completed questionnaire forms. A structural equation was used to determine the effect of narcissistic leadership on the organizational commitment (affective, continuance and normative) of academics. The same measure was later used to assess the mediating role of the academics’ silence on the aforementioned relationship.

Findings

The authors of this paper found that narcissistic leadership positively associates with academics’ silence. Moreover, their perceptions of the narcissism of their leaders alleviate academics’ emotional attachments (affective commitment) and moral obligations (normative commitment) toward their universities, whereas the same perceptions of the narcissism of their leaders have no effect on their continuance commitment. Finally, the authors discovered a significant role for academics’ silence in mediating the negative relationship between narcissistic leadership and their affective and normative commitments.

Originality/value

This paper contributes by filling a gap in leadership, HR management and organization literature in the higher education sector, in which empirical studies on the relationship between narcissistic leadership, academics’ silence and organizational commitment have been limited until now.