Showing papers in "Social and Personality Psychology Compass in 2015"

Weighed down by stigma: How weight-based social identity threat contributes to weight gain and poor health.

Abstract: Weight stigma is pervasive, and a number of scholars argue that this profound stigma contributes to the negative effects of weight on psychological and physical health. Some lay individuals and health professionals assume that stigmatizing weight can actually motivate healthier behaviors and promote weight loss. However, as we review, weight stigma is consistently associated with poorer mental and physical health outcomes. In this article we propose a social identity threat model elucidating how weight stigma contributes to weight gain and poorer mental and physical health among overweight individuals. We propose that weight-based social identity threat increases physiological stress, undermines self-regulation, compromises psychological health, and increases the motivation to avoid stigmatizing domains (e.g., the gym) and escape the stigma by engaging in unhealthy weight loss behaviors. Given the prevalence of overweight and obesity in the US, weight stigma thus has the potential to undermine the health and wellbeing of millions of Americans.

Effortless Self-Control: A Novel Perspective on Response Conflict Strategies in Trait Self-Control

Abstract: Self-control is of invaluable importance for well-being. While previous research has focused on self-control failure, we introduce a new perspective on self-control, including the notion of effortless self-control, and a focus on self-control success rather than failure. We propose that effortless strategies of dealing with response conflict (i.e., competing behavioral tendencies) are what distinguishes successful self-controllers from less successful ones. While people with high trait self-control may recognize the potential for response conflict in self-control dilemmas, they do not seem to subjectively experience this conflict as much as people with low self-control. Two strategies may underlie this difference: avoidance of response conflict through adaptive, habitual behaviors, and the efficient downregulating of response conflict. These strategies as well as the role of response conflict are elaborated upon and discussed in the light of existing literature on self-control.

The Emerging Study of Positive Empathy

Abstract: Lay intuitions suggest that the ability toshare, celebrate,and enjoy others’positiveemotions– a phenomenon we term positive empathy – bolsters individual well-being and relationship strength. However, it is unclear from the current literature whether (i) positive empathy is distinct from highly related constructs and(ii)whetherpositiveempathyisassociatedwithsalutarysocialandpersonaloutcomes.Here,webegin by examining basic evidence suggesting that positive empathy is related to, but independent from, constructs such as general positivity and empathy for others’ distress. We then review evidence that positive empathy correlates with increased prosocial behavior, social closeness, and well-being. Lastly, we discuss open directions for the study of positive empathy, such as investigating the potential role of positive empathy (or its disruption) in psychiatric disorders.

The Problem of Behaviour Change: From Social Norms to an Ingroup Focus

Abstract: This research was supported by ANU internal funding in order to further develop theory andresearch on the social psychology of social and behaviour change, as well as funding from theAustralian Research Council (including an Australian Postdoctoral Fellowship awarded toEmina Subasic).

Six Questions for the Resource Model of Control (and Some Answers)

Abstract: The resource model of self-control casts self-control as a capacity that relies on some limited resource that exhausts with use. The model captured our imagination and brought much-needed attention on an important yet neglected psychological construct. Despite its success, basic issues with the model remain. Here, we ask six questions: (i) Does self-control really wane over time? (ii) Is ego depletion a form of mental fatigue? (iii) What is the resource that is depleted by ego depletion? (iv) How can changes in motivation, perception, and expectations replenish an exhausted resource? (v) Has the revised resource model unwittingly become a model about motivation? (vi) Do self-control exercises increase selfcontrol? By providing some answers to these questions – including conducting a meta-analysis of the self-control training literature – we highlight how the resource model needs to be revised if not supplanted altogether.

Being someone: The integrated self as a neuropsychological system.

Abstract: Fully functioning persons are characterized by a unity in thought, emotion, and action that amounts to "being someone" or having "an integrated self." Psychologists have typically treated the integrated self as merely a descriptive term that summarizes significant behavioral achievements. In the present article, the authors seek to place the integrated self on firmer theoretical grounds by relating the integrated self to a neurobiological system with distinct processing characteristics. Building on personality systems interactions theory (Kuhl, ), the authors suggest that the integrated self is supported by parallel-distributed processing in the right anterior cortex and can be distinguished from simpler self-related states of mind. From this neuropsychological model, the authors derive seven functions of the integrated self: emotional connectedness, broad vigilance, utilization of felt feedback, unconscious processing, integration of negative experiences, extended resilience, and extended trust. The authors discuss the seven functions and their mutual relations along with relevant behavioral and neurobiological evidence. Finally, the authors highlight the importance of positive relationships for optimal development of the integrated self and discuss how the integrated self might be further cultivated to improve self-regulation and health.

The Evolution and Social Dynamics of Compassion

Abstract: The inner processes that make compassion possible arose from the evolutionary advantage of caring for others, especially offspring, kin and in-group allies. This paper explores issues in defining compassion and its link to similar concepts such as altruism. It also explores compassion as a social motive and social mentality that choreographs social interactions and how the successful enactment of compassion is dependent on certain competencies such as sympathy, empathy, perspective taking, and distress tolerance (among others), as well as social contexts. As a motivational system, compassion has to compete with other socially choreographed motives, such as tribalism and individualistic competitiveness – much darker sides of the human psyche that have been harmful in human history. One of the challenges for compassion is to explore not only how it can promote personal well-being but also how it can counteract the destructive sides of our other motives and social mentalities.

Understanding Psychopathy Using the Basic Elements of Personality

Abstract: Psychopathy is a form of personality disorder characterized by arrogance, self-absorption, callousness, exploitation, and impulsivity that is also strongly associated with antisocial behavior. The present paper argues that psychopathy can and should be understood as a configuration of personality traits from a general model of personality functioning – the five-factor model (FFM). In this paper, we demonstrate that previous theoretical conceptualizations of psychopathy and current empirical ones converge on a general FFM profile characterized by very low scores on agreeableness and conscientiousness and mixed relations to aspects of neuroticism and extraversion. Further, we articulate the advantages to understanding psychopathy in this way. The FFM provides an assay of extant inventories, explains the factor structure of various inventories, accounts for the epidemiology of psychopathy, and makes sense of the litany of putative psychopathic deficits. Perhaps most importantly, the FFM provides a connection to basic research in personality.

A Big Tent of Dark Personality Traits

Abstract: Researchers have become very interested in socially aversive personality traits in recent years as reflected by the considerable number of publications concerning the Dark Triad of personality (i.e., Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy). The goal of the present article is to suggest that researchers broaden their view of potentially dark personality features. We provide overviews of two dark personality features that have been largely neglected by psychologists (i.e., spitefulness and greed) and point to the darker aspects of two personality features that have been studied extensively (i.e., perfectionism and dependency). We conclude the article by advocating that researchers consider a broader conceptualization of dark personality features that extends beyond the antagonistic and externalizing features captured by the Dark Triad traits.

American Indian health disparities: psychosocial influences

Abstract: The American Indian (AI) population suffers from significant health disparities. Death rates from diabetes, cancer, infant mortality, and other causes are higher among AIs. Numerous psychosocial influences, including a history of genocide and boarding school experiences, have led to unresolved historical trauma and its associated poor health outcomes. Adverse childhood experiences are also a strong predictor of risk for numerous chronic and behavioral health conditions. Food programs for impoverished populations historically have led to high rates of formula feeding of infants and intake of high-calorie, low nutritional value foods. Adverse adulthood experiences, including poverty, racism, and substance abuse, lead to depression, anxiety, and poor health outcomes. These social circumstances can have an impact on the quality of parenting skills for the next generation, leading to continued intergenerational health disparities. Additional research into the psychosocial influences and social determinants of health is needed to ensure improved policy and program development.

Capturing changes in social identities over time and how they become part of the self-concept

Abstract: How people come to develop a feeling of belongingness to a new social group and orchestrate this new group membership with pre-existing identities within the self-concept is a theoretically and socially relevant phenomenon that has received increased scientific attention in recent years. Models from different fields of psychology – including social, cultural, and organizational psychology – have proposed factors involved in this change and integration process along with consequences of this phenomenon. We present overview of this literature, including a recent model on the process of identity integration: the cognitive-developmental model of social identity integration. Specifically, this model highlights the fundamental cognitive and developmental processes involved as people develop new social identifications and integrate their different identities into their overall self-concept. We then present recent empirical evidence testing the model. Finally, we propose conceptual, methodological, and statistical avenues for future research on identity change and integration.

The Psychiatrization of Poverty: Rethinking the Mental Health–Poverty Nexus

Abstract: The positive association between ‘mental illness’ and poverty is one of the most well established in psychiatric epidemiology. Yet, there is little conclusive evidence about the nature of this relationship. Generally, explanations revolve around the idea of a vicious cycle, where poverty may cause mental ill health, and mental ill health may lead to poverty. Problematically, much of the literature overlooks the historical, social, political, and cultural trajectories of constructions of both poverty and ‘mental illness’. Laudable attempts to explore the social determinants of mental health sometimes take recourse to using and reifying psychiatric diagnostic categories that individualize distress and work to psychiatrically reconfigure ‘symptoms’ of oppression, poverty, and inequality as ‘symptoms’ of ‘mental illness’. This raises the paradoxical issue that the very tools that are used to research the relationship between poverty and mental health may prevent recognition of the complexity of that relationship. Looking at the mental health–poverty nexus through a lens of psychiatrization (intersecting with medicalization, pathologization, and psychologization), this paper recognizes the need for radically different tools to trace the messiness of the multiple relationships between poverty and distress. It also implies radically different interventions into mental health and poverty that recognize the landscapes in which lived realities of poverty are embedded, the political economy of psychiatric diagnostic and prescribing practices, and ultimately to address the systemic causes of poverty and inequality.

Trait Extraversion and Dopamine Function

Abstract: An influential theory within personality neuroscience suggests that trait extraversion is underpinned by individual differences in dopamine function. In a review of the relevant literature, we evaluate this theory in light of the evidence from molecular genetics, neuroimaging, and psychopharmacology. Evidence linking individual differences in extraversion with dopamine-relevant genes, structural volume of dopamine-rich brain regions (e.g., in striatal and ventral prefrontal areas), dopamine receptor availability, and frontal alpha asymmetry is mixed at best. Evidence concerning both scalp recorded (electroencephalogram) and hemodynamic (functional magnetic resonance imaging) neural responses to rewards appears somewhat more promising. Perhaps the best evidence concerns extraversion-dependent responses - both neural and behavioural - to dopaminergic drugs. Future research in this area must go beyond the demonstration of theoretically consistent associations and attempt to provide more specific causal evidence for the dopamine hypothesis of extraversion. A further challenge is to expand this hypothesis to incorporate other neurobiological processes that are likely to underlie this trait.

Group-based Differences in Perceptions of Racism: What Counts, to Whom, and Why?

Abstract: Belonging to a group fundamentally shapes the way we interpret and attribute the behavior of others. Similarly, perceptions of racism can be influenced by group membership. Experimental and survey research reveal disagreement between Whites and Blacks about the prevalence of racism in America. Several social cognitive factors contribute to this disagreement: discrepancies in Whites' and Blacks' lay intuitions about the attitudes and behaviors that count as racism, comparison standards when determining racial progress, and the salience of and meaning drawn from successful Black individuals in society. These perceptual discrepancies have consequences for policy attitudes, decisions about how best to combat racial inequality, and beliefs about whether inequality persists. Successful interventions that increase Whites' knowledge of structural racism and that attenuate self-image threat suggest that it is possible to converge Blacks' and Whites' perceptions of racism by expanding Whites' definition of racism.

How Emotions Shape Moral Behavior: Some Answers (and Questions) for the Field of Moral Psychology

Abstract: Within the past decade, the field of moral psychology has begun to disentangle the mechanics behind moral judgments, revealing the vital role that emotions play in driving these processes. However, given the well-documented dissociationbetweenattitudesand behaviors,we propose thatanequally important issue is how emotions inform actual moral behavior – a question that has been relatively ignored up until recently. By providing a review of recent studies that have begun to explore how emotions drive actual moral behavior, we propose that emotions are instrumental in fueling real-life moral actions. Because research examining the role of emotional processes on moral behavior is currently limited, we push for the use of behavioral measures in the field in the hopes of building a more complete theory of real-life moral behavior.

Play Behavior and Playfulness in Adulthood

Abstract: Although research has established play behavior and playfulness as important to the well-being of children and animals, researchers have not typically considered the importance or implications of play in human adults. This is surprising given that play behavior is a topic of high relevance to social psychology. Definitional issues, a lack of a theoretical framework, and a dearth of standardized measures have posed obstacles in the advancement of this interesting research area, which is ripe for investigation. In this review, we summarize the extant literature, identify strengths and weaknesses of this literature, propose definitions to guide future work in this area, identify relevant theories that may be expanded to provide a framework for programmatic research on play in adulthood, and elucidate avenues for future research. Our aim is to encourage the development of this research area within social psychology.

Giving and Summoning Autonomy Support in Hierarchical Relationships

Abstract: It is not easy to motivate and engage others in a way that is welcomed, effective, and relationship-enriching. In a hierarchical relationship, supervisors' motivating styles and supervisees' agentic engagement–disengagement are often in conflict, rather than in synch. Still, reciprocal causation appears to be a naturally occurring process within these relationships, as supervisors' motivating styles longitudinally transform supervisees' engagement–disengagement, just as supervisees' engagement–disengagement transforms and summons the supervisors' motivating styles. Recognizing this, the article highlights an intervention-based program of research designed to help infuse greater autonomy support and greater agentic engagement into the supervisor–supervisee relationship. When an experimentally based intervention helps supervisors learn how to become more autonomy supportive, interaction partners become more in synch, and this mutually supportive relationship dynamic yields numerous benefits for the supervisor, the supervisee, and the relationship. Future interventions are needed to understand what happens when supervisees learn how to become more agentically engaged. The conclusion is that relationships need and benefit from infusions of both the giving and the summoning of autonomy support.

Identity Fusion, Extreme Pro‐Group Behavior, and the Path to Defusion

Abstract: Identityfusionreferstoa visceralsense of onenesswithan ingroup. For fused individuals,group membership is not a means to an end (e.g.,a positive social identity). Rather, membership is an all-absorbing goal in itself; little other than the group matters. Group membership is also seen as enduring, sustained by chronically activated psychological structures as well as features of the context. Fellow group members are likewise seen as permanent members of the group, as they are members of the ingroup “family”. And just as family members are compelled to make extreme sacrifices for their family, so too are highly fused individuals – including even the ultimate sacrifice. These efforts to protect the ingroup can have negative consequences when, for example, people become strongly fused to groups that are devoted to extreme, anti-social behaviors. In such instances, it may be prudent to encourage “defusion” from the group, but the emotional investment associated with fusion may thwart such efforts. We discuss the implications of these and related considerations. During WWII, four members of a B-17 bomber crew formed a pact that they would never abandon one another no matter how dire the situation. Not long afterwards, their plane was shelled and went into a terminal dive. The pilot ordered everyone to parachute to safety. As the crewmen donned their parachutes, they discovered that one member of the pact (the ball-turret gunner) was trapped, and there was no time to release him. Realizing this, the other three pact members aborted their plans to parachute to safety, remaining on the plane to await their fiery deaths. (From S. Junger’s War) The deaths of the three crewmen seem inspiring, tragic, and unsettling. After all, their allegiance to the pact helped no one, not even the ball turret gunner (who was doomed no matter what the other pact members did). But if their joint decision defied rationality, it may nevertheless illustratea powerful and profoundly importantphenomenon, onewehave dubbed “identity fusion” (Swann & Buhrmester, 2015; Swann, Jetten, Gomez, Whitehouse, & Bastian, 2012). The defining quality of identity fusion is a visceral sense of oneness with a group. This sense of oneness is marked by a perception that the self and group members are kindred spirits who share deep essential qualities and work to strengthen one another. For strongly fused individuals, group membership tends to transcend competing considerations. Group membership is not a means to an end (e.g.,a positive social identity) but an end in itself. Furthermore, there is a conviction that membership in the group is lasting, not only for the self but for all members of the ingroup family. As such, it is challenging to imagine the self or other members being split off from the group. Similarly, it is difficult to imagine the self or other group members failing to make extreme sacrifices for their family, no matter what that sacrifice may be.

Agentic and Communal Social Motives

Abstract: Locke discusses that motives to approach communion (e.g., form partnerships), avoid communion (e.g., limit obligations), approach agency (e.g., enhance status), and avoid agency (e.g., sidestep conflicts) are universals because each has reliably – under certain circumstances – proven adaptive throughout our evolutionary history. Guided by upward, connective, downward, and contrastive social comparisons, people selectively invest in social goals that promise to be fulfilling (e.g., befriending likeminded others) and divest from goals that threaten to be frustrating (e.g., attacking stronger rivals). Individuals who can harness agency toward communal ends tend to experience better psychological, physical, and social outcomes; however, individuals differ in their inclinations towards agentic and communal motives due to factors such as life history (e.g., unpredictable rearing environments), life stage (e.g., parenthood), gender, and general sensitivities to costs/rewards. Variations in social motives across persons and situations are partly mediated by variations in oxytocin (which tends to amplify communal motives to protect and nurture close others and social bonds) and testosterone (which tends to amplify agentic motives to vigorously defend and enhance social rank).

When values and behavior conflict: Moral pluralism and intrapersonal moral hypocrisy.

Abstract: The authors review the various ways moral hypocrisy has been defined and operationalized by social psychologists, concentrating on three general types: moral duplicity, moral double standards, and moral weakness. While most approaches have treated moral hypocrisy as an interpersonal phenomenon, requiring public claims, preaching (versus practicing), or judgments of others (versus oneself), this paper also considers intrapersonal moral hypocrisy – that is, conflicts between values and behavior that may exist even in the absence of public pronouncements or judgments. Current attempts to understand and combat intrapersonal moral hypocrisy are aided by moral pluralism, the idea that there are many different moral values, which may come into conflict both between and within individuals. Examples are given to illustrate how taking into account individual differences in values can help to reduce moral hypocrisy. The authors close by considering the possibility that in a pluralistic world, reducing intrapersonal moral hypocrisy might not always be a normatively desired end goal.

Positive Psychological Functioning and the Biology of Health

Abstract: Most research considers both psychological and physical health with a disease perspective by focusing on poor psychological functioning or disease outcomes. However, identifying attributes that support adaptive functioning may inform approaches to achieving health beyond what we learn from studying risk factors that accelerate deterioration. Recent evidence suggests that positive psychological functioning contributes to attaining optimal physical health. We evaluate the current state of knowledge on the relationship between positive psychological functioning and physical health, defining health beyond solely the absence of disease. We further consider when positive psychological functioning begins to exert effects on health, whether it has direct effects on biological processes or serves primarily to buffer the effects of stress, and whether it is associated with health outcomes and biological processes beyond those that reflect the absence of deterioration and disease. We propose some key directions for future research including the assessment of positive psychological functioning, positive biological functioning, and optimal health, the value of multi-system measures, and the potential of “omics” to provide novel insights into biological mechanisms underlying associations between positive psychological functioning and physical health.

The Mechanics of Human Achievement

Abstract: Countless studies have addressed why some individuals achieve more than others. Nevertheless, the psychology of achievement lacks a unifying conceptual framework for synthesizing these empirical insights. We propose organizing achievement-related traits by two possible mechanisms of action: Traits that determine the rate at which an individual learns a skill are talent variables and can be distinguished conceptually from traits that determine the effort an individual puts forth. This approach takes inspiration from Newtonian mechanics: achievement is akin to distance traveled, effort to time, skill to speed, and talent to acceleration. A novel prediction from this model is that individual differences in effort (but not talent) influence achievement (but not skill) more substantially over longer (rather than shorter) time intervals. Conceptualizing skill as the multiplicative product of talent and effort, and achievement as the multiplicative product of skill and effort, advances similar, but less formal, propositions by several important earlier thinkers.

Emergent Research in Social Vision: An Integrated Approach to the Determinants and Consequences of Social Categorization

Abstract: Social categorization research has historically focused either on understanding how observers utilize visual cues in the face and body to make judgments of others or on understanding the downstream consequences that occur following social categorizations, but rarely both. Recently, however, research has evidenced a marked shift toward an integrated approach. Here, we provide a snapshot of social vision's contributions to the study of social categorization with a goal of illuminating the new and exciting directions afforded by an integrative approach. From this perspective, social categorizations are characterized not only as being informed by visual cues but also as being malleable, probabilistic, and contextualized. Moreover, the process of categorization itself can affect evaluative outcomes directly, independent of categorization. By exploring empirical evidence for this integrated approach to the determinants and consequences of social categorization, we show how the emerging field of social vision has revealed new insights into the nature of social categorization and by extension its implications for evaluations.

Got Pain? Racial Bias in Perceptions of Pain

Abstract: In the days of slavery, White people assumed that Black people felt less pain than did White people. This belief was used to justify slavery; it was also used to justify the inhumane treatment of Black men and women in medical research. Today, White Americans continue to believe that Black people feel less pain than do White people although this belief has changed from its historical, explicitly racist form. Racial attitudes do not moderate the bias, suggesting that racial bias in perceptions of others' pain is not rooted (solely) in racial prejudice. Moreover, Black Americans too believe that Black people feel less pain than do White people, suggesting that the bias is no longer grounded in intergroup dynamics. Rather, contemporary forms of this bias stem from assumptions that Black people face more hardship and “thus” can withstand more pain and assumptions that Black people's bodies are not only different but also superhuman. Although this new instantiation of the pain perception bias is decidedly more “benevolent”, it can nonetheless lead to negative outcomes. Here, we consider how racial bias in perceptions of others' pain may affect racial disparities in health care and intergroup relations more generally. We also discuss potential avenues for interventions aimed at preventing this bias among children and reducing this bias among adults.

How Self-Image and Compassionate Goals Shape Intrapsychic Experiences

Abstract: Self-image goals focus on constructing, maintaining, and defending desired public and private images of the self, whereas compassionate goals focus on being supportive and not harming others. We suggest that these goals shape construals of others in relation to the self, which in turn, shape affective experiences. We review research showing that when people have self-image goals, they construe others as competitors, which leads to feeling uneasy with others (i.e., conflicted, confused, and fearful), and that when they have compassionate goals, they construe others as collaborators and have more constructive approaches to interpersonal problems, which leads to feeling at ease with others (i.e., peaceful, clear, and loving) and less upset with them. Thus, interpersonal goals shape construals of others, which in turn shape intrapsychic experiences of the world and of the self.

Weight Loss Is Not the Answer: A Well-being Solution to the “Obesity Problem”

Abstract: Americans have been gaining weight in recent decades, prompting widespread concern about the health implications of this change. Governments, health practitioners, and the general public all want to know: What is the best way to reduce the health risks associated with higher body weight? The dominant weight-loss solution to this “obesity problem” encourages individuals to lose weight through behavior change. This solution rests on the assumptions that higher body weight causes health problems, that permanent weight loss is attainable, and that weight loss improves health. But comprehensive reviews of the scientific evidence find mixed, weak, and sometimes contradictory evidence for these premises. We suggest that a different solution to the “obesity problem” is needed – a solution that acknowledges both the multifaceted nature of health and the complex interaction between person and situation that characterizes the connection between weight and health. Thus, we use the lens of social psychological science to propose an alternative, well-being solution to the “obesity problem”. This solution has the potential to improve health by encouraging eating and exercising for optimal health rather than weight loss, by developing interventions to reduce weight stigma and discrimination, and by helping higher body-weight people cope with the stress of stigma and discrimination.

Embodied Methodologies, Participation, and the Art of Research

Abstract: In this article, I make the case for scholarship potential at the overlap of art and research. Using the case of the psychological study of adolescence, I show that in order to produce findings of meaning from a critical psychological perspective, it is imperative to consider methodology and epistemology. With a focus on artistic embodied methodologies within participatory action research projects on adolescence, I explore how creative approaches can be an analytic process for knowledge production in the critical social sciences. I argue that the artistic approaches employed using embodied methodologies can be considered as a way to make meaning and that especially within participatory research, these approaches can strengthen validity. In response to the epistemological violence (Teo, 2010) of some conventional social psychological studies, participatory artistic embodied methodologies contribute to building liberatory knowledge and rigorous science.

The Multifaceted Relationship Between Physical Activity and Affect

Abstract: The purpose of the present paper is to provide a summary of scientific findings on the relationship between physical activity (PA) and affect. We provide separate narrative reviews of (a) the association between PA and well-being in the general population; (b) PA as a prophylactic and/or treatment for clinical depression; and (c) immediate affective response to individual PA sessions and the implications for adherence to PA programs. Findings suggest an association between engaging in regular PA and more positive well-being, decreased risk of future depression, and reduction of depressed mood among those who are already depressed. However, despite the fairly strong evidence for these associations, there is less evidence for causal effects of PA on well-being and depression. Individual sessions of PA generally result in positive shifts in affective valence from pre-PA to post-PA, but during PA, affective response is intensity-dependent, with considerable variability for moderate intensity PA. In sum, despite the “physical activity feels good” narrative often portrayed in the popular media, the relationship between PA and affect is complex and multifaceted.

Social Categorization in Intergroup Contexts: Three Kinds of Self-Categorization

Abstract: In reviewing self-categorization theory and the literature upon which it is based, we conclude that individuals' attempts to form social categories could lead to three kinds of self-categorization. We label them intergroup categorization, ingroup categorization, and outgroup categorization. We review literature supporting these three types and argue that they can help to explain and organize the existing evidence. Moreover, we conclude that distinguishing these three kinds of self-categorization lead to novel predictions regarding social identity, social cognition, and groups. We offer some of those predictions by discussing their potential causes (building from optimal distinctiveness and security seeking literatures) and implications (on topics including prototype complexity, self-stereotyping, stereotype formation, intergroup behavior, dual identity, conformity, and the psychological implications of perceiving uncategorized collections of people). This paper offers a platform from which to build theoretical and empirical advances in social identity, social cognition, and intergroup relations.

Implicit Affect Primes Effort: Basic Processes, Moderators, and Boundary Conditions

Abstract: This article informs about the implicit-affect-primes-effort (IAPE) model – a theory on the impact of implicit affect on resource mobilization – and research testing this account. Beside basic influences of implicitly processed affective stimuli on behavior, this article highlights moderators and boundary conditions of this process. The IAPE model posits that affect primes implicitly activate mental representations of affective states containing information about performance ease and difficulty. This influences subjective task demand during performance, which determines effort. A series of experiments assessing implicit affect’s impact on effort-related cardiovascular response in cognitive tasks revealed replicated support for the IAPE model. Moreover, objective task difficulty and incentive moderated the effect of implicit affect on effort, and especially controlled processing of affect primes and activated concepts turned out to be boundary conditions.