People automatically imitate each other, which is known to elicit feelings of affiliation. Previous research on mimicry has mainly studied dyadic interactions and thereby neglected that many social interactions are often observed by others. This raises the question of how observers perceive individuals who mimic or are mimicked. Based on previous research, we formulated two competing hypotheses about how third-party observers perceive people who initiate actions and people who mimic the actions along the Big Two dimensions (i.e., agency vs. communion). We tested these hypotheses against each other in eight experiments. The results strongly support the “Agency Hypothesis” according to which people who initiate actions are perceived as more agentic than people who mimic the actions. Our experiments also find some support for the “Communion Hypothesis” indicating that people who mimic actions are perceived as more communal than people who initiate the actions. Interestingly, support for the Agency Hypothesis was very robust, whereas the effect on perceived communion was more variable and dependent on the stimuli used. When investigating downstream consequences of the link between observed mimicry and ascriptions along the Big Two dimensions, we find that both ascribed agency and communion predict donation behavior.
Climate change is a serious threat to people and ecosystems worldwide, making it increasingly important to understand what drives pro-environmental behavior (PEB). Emotions are recognized as key drivers of PEB, with underlying appraisals that seem to shape behavioral outcomes. We conducted a preregistered study on the influence of anger, compassion, and hope on PEB. Participants (N = 1029 in Poland, N = 1010 in Norway) read emotional stories designed to elicit a specific set of climate-related appraisals or neutral stories. Subsequently, they completed two tasks designed to measure different types of PEB: an effort task (Work for Environmental Protection Task; WEPT) and a monetary donation task. We hypothesized that reading emotional (as compared to neutral) stories would increase PEB and that distinct appraisal patterns would promote different behavioral intentions. We also predicted that demographic and personal factors would moderate the relationship between emotions and PEB. Contrary to expectations, results showed no effects of emotion manipulation on either measure. Older age, however, consistently predicted higher effort and donations. We discuss potential areas for further research, including the use of validated naturalistic and immersive stimuli, prolonged exposure to interventions, momentary assessment of behaviors, and matching behavioral tasks to emotional manipulation.
Prosocial collective action has been abundantly theorized across political and social science. Related scholarship tends to focus mostly on attitudes or intentions, and less often on actual behaviors. Moreover, emphasis is placed on individual prosocial acts and their aggregation rather than on conceptions of collective, nonreducible phenomena. In this study, we invoke metatheoretical systems thinking to examine more closely the emergence of political assemblages. Drawing on collective action and cultural psychology literature, we argue that in the aftermath of the Russian invasion, a unique climate (assemblage) of solidarity was created in Poland, one conducive to helping, constitutive of affective, discursive, axiological, ideological, and cultural components. The results of latent SEM provide evidence for excellent fit (robust CFI = .986) of the non-recursive model (hypothesizing a reciprocal relationship between helping and affect) to the data from a nationwide sample of participants (N = 1034). The model tested as invariant across three groups of participant-helpers: (1) housing refugees, (2) volunteers, and (3) those helping indirectly. However, differences were found among these groups suggesting that the motivations for helping and the mechanisms involved were varied. Overall, the research highlights the centrality and reciprocity of affect in collective prosociality, as well as its axiological directionality through humanism, with political orientation serving a complementary mediating role.
Pozostałe osiągnięcia naukoweArtykuły (zamknięty dostęp)Journal article
Background: Savoring, the ability to focus on and appreciate the positive aspects of experience, is an important aspect of well-being. To provide a measure to study savoring among speakers of Polish, we created a Polish-language version of Bryant’s Savoring Beliefs Inventory (SBI), which is in English. This new scale measures the same three constructs as the original scale: anticipating, savoring the moment, and reminiscing.
Participants and procedure: Participants were 574 Polish adults (mean age = 37.7 years, SD = 14.4; 77% women) who were recruited by a professional survey company. Participants completed a Polish-language version of the SBI we developed, and for validation purposes, they completed measures of anxiety, depression, self-esteem, satisfaction with life, meaning in life, authenticity, and well-being.
Results: Confirmatory factor analyses demonstrated that our Polish-language version of the SBI reflected the same three factors as the original measure, and scores on these three subscales were reliable. We found significant positive correlations between the subscales of the new measure and self-esteem, satisfaction with life, meaning in life, authenticity, and well-being. We found significant negative correlations between savoring and anxiety and depression. These relationships were comparable to those found in research using the original measure.
Conclusions: The present results suggest that our proposed Polish-language version of Bryant’s SBI assesses the same constructs as those measured by the original scale, and we believe that our new measure will be useful for researchers interested in studying savoring among Polish language speakers.
Background: There is considerable interest among personality psychologists in authenticity. To provide researchers with a tool to study dispositional authenticity among speakers of Polish, we created a Polish language version of Wood et al.’s multidimension-al measure of authenticity. Wood et al.’s measure has 12 items and measures three constructs: four items for selfalienation; authentic living; and accepting external influence.
Participants and procedure: Participants were 825 Polish adults (Mage = 42.7, SD = 15.4; 50% women) who were recruited by a professional survey com-pany. Participants completed the newly developed measure of authenticity, and for validation purposes, they completed measures of Ryff’s model of well-being, self-esteem, satisfaction with life, and stress, the same measures used by Wood et al.
Results: A confirmatory factor analysis found that the Polish version of the scale had the same three factors as the original meas-ure developed by Wood et al., and the loadings of the items on the factors were consistent with those presented by Wood et al. The three scales of the new measure were reliable. Moreover, relationships between the authenticity scales and the validation measures were similar to those reported by Wood et al.
Conclusions: The present results suggest that our proposed Polish language version of Wood et al.’s multidimensional authenticity scale measures a similar set of constructs to those measured by the original English language scale. Therefore, we believe our new measure should be useful for researchers interested in studying dispositional authenticity among Polish language speakers.
