Psychology Research Digest
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology - Vol 131, Iss 4
The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology publishes original papers in all areas of personality and social psychology. It emphasizes empirical reports but may include specialized theoretical, methodological, and review papers.
Unconscious mental content in implicit evaluation: Evidence from misprediction.
The tide is turning against a major idea in social psychology: that implicit evaluations reflect mental content that lies beyond conscious awareness. This view is being reconsidered in light of mounting evidence that people can predict their own implicit evaluations with high accuracy. However, there are reasons to question whether such predictive accuracy reflects introspective access. First, prior studies have relied almost exclusively on familiar targets (e.g., racial groups), allowing predictions to be informed by background knowledge (e.g., knowing that a group is stigmatized) rather than introspection. Second, implicit and explicit evaluations have been highly correlated in prior work, enabling accurate predictions simply by assuming that implicit evaluations mirror explicit ones. Here, we report eight experiments (five pre-registered; N = 6,794) designed to minimize these nonintrospective routes to predictive accuracy. We introduced participants to novel targets and shifted implicit and explicit evaluations of these targets in opposite directions, rendering explicit evaluations an unreliable cue. Under these conditions, predictive accuracy ranged from low to nonexistent; participants frequently anticipated shifts in their implicit evaluations in the opposite direction of the actual change. These results generalized across two learning paradigms (impression formation and attribute conditioning), two implicit evaluation measures (Implicit Association Test and evaluative priming task), and between-participant and within-participant designs. We consider multiple interpretations of these findings, including the possibility that implicit evaluations reflect mental content that is largely or even entirely inaccessible to conscious awareness. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Thu, 09 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>When having less elevates more: Benefactor income, moral elevation, and prosocial contagion among observers.
Across nine experiments featuring both hypothetical donations and incentive-compatible designs, we examine how benefactor income shapes observers’ emotional and behavioral responses to witnessing prosocial behavior. We show that identical acts of giving elicit different levels of moral elevation and downstream generosity depending on who gives. Specifically, generosity from low-income (vs. high-income) benefactors is perceived as more altruistically motivated, which elicits stronger feelings of moral elevation and, in turn, prosocial contagion. We theorize that these effects occur not because high-income benefactors are demotivating but because low-income benefactors reduce observers’ skepticism, consistent with a virtue discounting account. These effects are context dependent such that the presence of high-income benefactors attenuates moral elevation and generosity even when low-income benefactors are also present, whereas making altruistic motives salient attenuates income-based differences in moral elevation and subsequent giving. We further show that these effects are not fully explained by alternative mechanisms such as general positive affect, guilt, or self-reflection. By linking income-based motive inferences, virtue discounting, and moral elevation, this research advances understanding of how prosocial behavior spreads socially and why identical acts of generosity can inspire markedly different downstream responses. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Thu, 23 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>Extended artificial intelligence aversion: People deny humanness to artificial intelligence users.
Artificial intelligence (AI) tools are often perceived as lacking humanlike qualities, leading to a preference for human experts over AI assistance. Extending prior research on AI aversion, the current research explores the potential aversion toward those using AI to seek advice. Through eight preregistered studies (total N = 2,317) across multiple AI use scenarios, we found that people denied humanness, especially emotional capacity and human nature traits, to AI advice seekers in comparison to human advice seekers (Studies 1–5 and S1–S3). This is because people perceived less similarity between themselves and AI advice seekers (vs. human advice seekers), with a stronger mediating role of perceived similarity among individuals with greater aversion to AI (Studies 2 and S1). Dehumanization of AI advice seekers predicted less behavioral support for (Study 3) and helping intention toward (Studies S2 and S3) them and could be alleviated through anthropomorphism-related interventions, such as perceiving humanlike qualities in AI or utilizing generative AI (Studies 4 and 5). These findings represent an important theoretical step in advancing research on AI aversion and add to the ongoing discussion on the potential adverse outcomes of AI, focusing on AI users. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Mon, 11 Nov 2024 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>Unstable, indistinct, and cohesive? How group cognitions shape attitudes toward transgender and nonbinary people as a function of gender essentialism.
Knowledge of whether and how people think of transgender and nonbinary (TGNB) individuals as constituting gender groups is scarce, but these group cognitions may help explain well-documented prejudice toward these individuals. Given that TGNB individuals defy the traditional gender binary, cisgender perceivers may default to viewing TGNB people as not representing a distinct social group (unlike “men” and “women”), perceive their group membership as unstable, and perceive them as a cohesive (out)group. Across three preregistered studies, we examined these group cognitions and whether they partly explain the connection between strong gender essentialist thinking and negative attitudes toward TGNB people. Correlational and experimental evidence (Studies 1 and 2) demonstrates that perceivers report negative attitudes toward TGNB people in part because they view them as relatively unstable and indistinct gender groups, especially perceivers with strong gender essentialist beliefs. In Study 3, as hypothesized, strengthening the belief that transgender identity is stable reduced negative feelings toward transgender people in general, improved attitudes toward a specific transgender individual, and promoted more positive expectations for intergroup contact with transgender people. These effects were particularly strong among people who view gender in highly essentialist terms. These findings advance current understanding of prejudice toward TGNB people and the cognitive mechanisms that give rise to it. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Mon, 11 Aug 2025 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>Life satisfaction, loneliness, and depressivity in consistently single young adults in Germany and the United Kingdom.
Young adults increasingly abstain from committed romantic relationships. However, psychological theories of singlehood are lacking, and it remains unclear who selects into remaining single throughout emerging adulthood and how consistent singles’ well-being is affected over time. Here, we included 17,390 initially never partnered respondents from three panel studies from the United Kingdom and Germany providing 110,261 yearly observations from ages 16 to 29. First, we used survival analysis to predict who remained single. Young adults with lower well-being, male gender, higher education, and living alone or with parents stayed single longer. Second, we compared within-person age trajectories of life satisfaction, loneliness, and depressivity between consistent singles and eventually partnered respondents. Across emerging adulthood, consistent singles experienced comparatively stronger life satisfaction decreases and loneliness increases. Well-being deficits became more pronounced in the later 20s, when depressivity increases also diverged between groups. Evidence for moderation of these changes (e.g., by gender) was absent or inconsistent. Third, we examined how the first romantic relationship affected well-being aspects longitudinally. In both the short and long term, the first romantic relationship was associated with increases in life satisfaction and decreases in loneliness but not depressivity. Together, the findings indicate moderate average well-being risks when staying single in emerging adulthood. Well-being differences between consistent singles and eventually partnered respondents were minimal in adolescence but were exacerbated with prolonged singlehood. This highlights difficulties for first partnership formation in the later 20s because, concurrently, low well-being predicted remaining in singlehood longer. We discuss critical questions for singlehood theory development. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Mon, 12 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>Correction to “People in historically rice-farming areas are less happy and socially compare more than people in wheat-farming areas” by Lee et al. (2023).
Reports an error in "People in historically rice-farming areas are less happy and socially compare more than people in wheat-farming areas" by Cheol-Sung Lee, Thomas Talhelm and Xiawei Dong (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2023[May], Vol 124[5], 935-957; see record 2023-14674-001). In the article (https://doi.org/10.1037/pspa0000324), the tables report the range of values for urbanization. Tables 5 and 7 report a range of 16-88. The range should be 23–88. The analyses use the correct urbanization variable throughout. In Table 6 and Table S8, the word “log” should appear for the GDP variable. All analyses in the article (including these tables) use log GDP per capita. In the Happiness subsection of Study 3, the original article stated that the Supplemental Materials have the full wordings of the happiness items used in Study 3. However, the full questionnaire is available on the Open Science Framework (OSF) rather than in the Supplemental Materials: https://osf.io/7bnjm/?view_only=4211ec8265e84a6a88c9ec9ec6e1fb55. As a point of clarification, Studies 1 and 2 used income and occupational status as key predictor variables. Therefore, the analysis did not include respondents who were missing data for these variables. The article did not state this explicitly. To be clear, analyses in Studies 1 and 2 included respondents with positive income and valid occupational information: In the Samples subsection, 3,780 participants in Study 1 (World Values Survey) and 12,265 participants in Study 2 (China Family Panel Study). (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 2023-14674-001.) Using two nationally representative surveys, we find that people in China’s historically rice-farming areas are less happy than people in wheat areas. This is a puzzle because the rice area is more interdependent, and relationships are an important predictor of happiness. We explore how the interdependence of historical rice farming may have paradoxically undermined happiness by creating more social comparison than wheat farming. We build a framework in which rice farming leads to social comparison, which makes people unhappy (especially people who are worse off). If people in rice areas socially compare more, then people’s happiness in rice areas should be more closely related to markers of social status like income. In two studies, national survey data show that income, self-reported social status, and occupational status predict people’s happiness twice as strongly in rice areas than wheat areas. In Study 3, we use a unique natural experiment comparing two nearby state farms that effectively randomly assigned people to farm rice or wheat. The rice farmers socially compare more, and farmers who socially compare more are less happy. If interdependence breeds social comparison and erodes happiness, it could help explain the paradox of why the interdependent cultures of East Asia are less happy than similarly wealthy cultures. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Thu, 24 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>Does losing your job change your personality? Findings from a 16-year longitudinal study of Mexican-origin adults.
Prior research examining the impact of job loss on personality change has yielded inconsistent findings. The present preregistered study extends prior research by analyzing longitudinal data from Sample N = 1,110 predominantly first-generation Mexican-origin adults, who reported on their employment status and Big Five personality traits up to eight times over 16 years. We explored the influence of both individual and spousal unemployment on four forms of personality trait stability and change: rank-order stability, mean-level changes, within-person trait stability, and profile stability. Job loss was associated with a wide range of mean-level personality changes; collectively, the findings suggest that the experience of unemployment can disrupt the normative process of maturation, leading to decreases in conscientiousness and agreeableness and impeding the typical decline in neuroticism. Our study is the first to establish a spillover effect of spousal job loss on partners’ personality dynamics, demonstrating that personality changes can occur in response to a partner’s job loss. In some cases, these changes paralleled those found for one’s own job loss (specifically, gradual postevent declines in agreeableness and openness), whereas in other cases, we found evidence of a compensatory effect (where individuals whose partner lost their job showed an immediate increase in conscientiousness). On the contrary, job loss had no significant effects on rank-order stability, whether experienced by self or spousal, and was associated with higher extraversion within-person trait stability. Likewise, job loss was associated with lower profile stability; those who experienced unemployment showed lower stability in their personality profiles than those who remained employed. These findings highlight the importance of studying the effects of major life transitions on personality change in diverse samples. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Thu, 16 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>Virtue trade-offs in everyday life.
Is it usually possible to be virtuous in all ways, or do people experience ubiquitous trade-offs among moral virtues? Past work has examined a limited set of virtue pairs (e.g., honesty vs. compassion, fairness vs. loyalty) and focused on situations in which trade-offs are likely to occur. Across 2 day reconstruction method studies featuring representative U.S. samples, we investigate the frequency and experience of trade-offs among 12 virtues in everyday life. In Study 1 (N = 377), participants reported virtue conflicts during 12,385 episodes across 1 week. In Study 2 (N = 988), participants elaborated on one trade-off episode. Trade-offs most often involved honesty and courage, and coding of open-ended responses showed that many (but not all) trade-offs reflected a general tension between benevolence and integrity. Overall, however, prevalence estimates suggested that virtue enactments tend to be largely compatible in daily life. People felt less happy when they experienced a virtue trade-off, but it also mattered how they resolved them. People most often prioritized one virtue over the other (57%) but were most satisfied with their decision in the rare cases (12%) when they overcame the trade-off by showing high levels of both virtues. Finally, there was a general mismatch between people’s proclaimed virtue preferences and which virtues they prioritized when they experienced an everyday trade-off (e.g., people prioritized honesty the most in the abstract but the least in everyday decisions). These findings highlight the importance of studying moral decision-making in ecologically valid contexts and have implications for moral education. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Thu, 30 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>The predictive validity of vocational interests for life outcomes across adulthood.
Vocational interests predict relevant outcomes in individuals’ lives, but most evidence comes from youth. It remains unexplored whether interests continue to predict outcomes across mid and late adulthood, and whether their predictive power varies with age. Drawing on life course and motivational lifespan theories, we hypothesized that the relations of interests with life outcomes depend on structural opportunities and constraints that vary across age. We used large-scale, population-representative data (N = 3,596–8,904) to examine whether vocational interests predict work (e.g., income, unemployment, leadership), relationship (e.g., marriage, divorce), and communal (e.g., civic engagement, cultural participation) outcomes assessed 11 years later. Across adulthood (ages 25–67 at interest assessment), interests significantly contributed to all 12 outcomes, demonstrating that interests are predictive of life outcomes after adolescence and young adulthood. Age-moderation analyses using local structural equation modeling and age-group-specific analyses indicated that many interest–outcome links remained stable throughout adulthood but revealed some differentiated patterns consistent with age-graded opportunities and constraints. Specifically, links between interests and work outcomes were often strongest in mid-career and largely remained stable thereafter. For relationship outcomes, the predictive strength of interests peaked in early adulthood and weakened over midlife. For communal outcomes, most age variation in the predictive strength of interests occurred in later adulthood. Overall, results add a lifespan perspective to interest theory and suggest that age can provide a relevant context to realize interests through life choices, which should be considered in theory and practice. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Mon, 08 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>Associations of fear, anger, happiness, and hope with risk judgments: Revisiting appraisal-tendency framework with a replication and extensions registered report of Lerner and Keltner (2001).
The appraisal-tendency framework proposed that specific emotions predispose individuals to appraise future events corresponding to the core appraisal themes of the emotions. In a registered report with a U.S. American online Amazon Mechanical Turk CloudResearch sample (N = 780), we conducted an independent close replication of Experiments 1, 2, and 3 in Lerner and Keltner (2001). We found support for the appraisal-tendency framework for risk optimism in general, risk optimism for positive events, and risk optimism for ambiguous events, but not for risk preference and risk optimism for negative events. Extending the replication, we added hope as a positive-valence dispositional emotion with low certainty and control and failed to find support for the assumptions of the appraisal-tendency framework. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Mon, 15 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>