Biomedical subjects

Linda J Skitka

Publications and source records attributed to Linda J Skitka.

8 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

Exploring the psychological underpinnings of the moral mandate effect: motivated reasoning, group differentiation, or anger?

When people have strong moral convictions about outcomes, their judgments of both outcome and procedural fairness become driven more by whether outcomes support or oppose their moral mandates than by whether procedures are proper or improper (the moral mandate effect). Two studies tested 3 explanations for the moral mandate effect. In particular, people with moral mandates may (a) have a greater motivation to seek out procedural flaws when outcomes fail to support their moral point of view (the motivated reasoning hypothesis), (b) be influenced by in-group distributive biases as a result of identifying with parties that share rather than oppose their moral point of view (the group differentiation hypothesis), or (c) react with anger when outcomes are inconsistent with their moral point of view, which, in turn, colors perceptions of both outcomes and procedures (the anger hypothesis). Results support the anger hypothesis.

Abortion, Induced↗

PubMed2006

The internet as psychological laboratory.

This chapter reviews studies published in American Psychological Association (APA) journals from 2003-2004 and additional studies (received in response to listserv requests) that used the Internet to collect data (N=121 total studies). Specific examples of three kinds of Web-based research are reviewed: (a) translational (established methods and research questions are adapted to the Web), (b) phenomenological (behavior on the Web is the focus of study), and (c) novel (methodologically innovations unique to Web-based research). Among other findings, our review indicated that 21% of APA journals published at least one article that reported on Web-based research, most Web-based psychological research uses experimental methods, a surprising number use college student samples, and deception in Web-based research is not uncommon. Strengths and weaknesses of Web-based psychological research in general, and our sample of studies in particular, are reviewed with special attention to possible concerns about sampling and the use of deception.

Creativity↗

PubMed2005

Moral conviction: another contributor to attitude strength or something more?

Attitudes held with strong moral conviction (moral mandates) were predicted to have different interpersonal consequences than strong but nonmoral attitudes. After controlling for indices of attitude strength, the authors explored the unique effect of moral conviction on the degree that people preferred greater social (Studies 1 and 2) and physical (Study 3) distance from attitudinally dissimilar others and the effects of moral conviction on group interaction and decision making in attitudinally homogeneous versus heterogeneous groups (Study 4). Results supported the moral mandate hypothesis: Stronger moral conviction led to (a) greater preferred social and physical distance from attitudinally dissimilar others, (b) intolerance of attitudinally dissimilar others in both intimate (e.g., friend) and distant relationships (e.g., owner of a store one frequents), (c) lower levels of good will and cooperativeness in attitudinally heterogeneous groups, and (d) a greater inability to generate procedural solutions to resolve disagreements.

Abortion, Induced↗

PubMed2005

A snapshot of terror: acute posttraumatic responses to the September 11 attack.

This paper reports on acute posttraumatic reactions and forms of coping to the September 11 attack. We conducted a survey within three weeks of the attack on a nationwide, representative sample of individuals 13 years or older (N = 3,134). Measures included the Stanford Acute Stress Reaction Questionnaire (SASRQ), the brief version of the COPE, and questions about demographics and attitudes toward the attackers. Results show that residents of New York City--women, young adults (but not teens), and people recently immigrated into the country--experienced more distress about the attack. There was a positive linear association between hours of watching TV news related to the attack and distress, and a small positive association between hostility toward the perpetrators, TV watching, and distress. Income, religion, education, and ethnicity did not have an effect on distress. Maladaptive coping strategies and TV watching explained considerably more variance than did demographics. Reactions to acute trauma seem to depend on the lack of appropriate coping strategies. The curvilinear relationship between age and posttraumatic distress suggests caution when interpreting previous findings about age and posttraumatic reactions. The association between media exposure, coping styles, and acute distress among teens extends previous findings and deserves further investigation.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

PubMed2004

Political tolerance and coming to psychological closure following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks: an integrative approach.

This study tested hypotheses generated from an integrative model of political tolerance that derived hypotheses from a number of different social psychological theories (e.g., appraisal tendency theory, intergroup emotion theory, and value protection models) to explain political tolerance following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. A national field study (N = 550) found that immediate post attack anger and fear had different implications for political tolerance 4 months later. The effects of anger on political tolerance were mediated through moral outrage and outgroup derogation, whereas the effects of fear on political tolerance were mediated through personal threat, ingroup enhancement, and value affirmation. Value affirmation led to increased political tolerance, whereas moral outrage, outgroup derogation, ingroup enhancement, and personal threat led to decreased political tolerance. Value affirmation, moral outrage, and outgroup derogation also facilitated post-9/11 psychological closure and increased psychological closure led to greater political tolerance.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2003

Trends in the social psychological study of justice.

Justice is one of the most basic and potentially important social psychological areas of inquiry. The assumption that others will be fair is what makes social cooperation possible. This article provides a brief review of trends, both historical and current, in the social psychological study of justice, and provides an introduction for a special issue of Personality and Social Psychology Review devoted to social psychological theorizing and research on the role that justice plays in human affairs. This overview highlights some exciting new directions in justice theorizing and research, including new uses of identity's ties to justice reasoning, increased attention to negative justice and moral emotion, as well as a greater emphasis on integrative and contingent, rather than competing, social psychological models of justice.

Humans↗

PubMed2003

Of different minds: an accessible identity model of justice reasoning.

An accessible identity model (AIM) of justice reasoning is introduced to explain when people become concerned about justice and how they define what is fair or unfair once justice concerns are activated. This model has two core propositions: (a) People are most likely to think about justice and fairness when self-relevant values and goals are highly accessible or activated, and (b) how people define fairness depends on which aspect of the self (i.e., material, social, or personal and moral) dominates the working self-concept. A review of the literature indicates that this general model provides an integrative account for when and how people become concerned about both procedural and distributive justice, and provides a cogent explanation for known effects and results previously thought to be anomalies. Finally, the model generates novel hypotheses about how identity threat may lead to motivated perceptions of fairness or unfairness.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

PubMed2002

Dispositions, scripts, or motivated correction? Understanding ideological differences in explanations for social problems.

Research has consistently found that liberals and conservatives generate different attributions for the causes of social problems and respond differently to people who have internal-controllable causes for needing help. Five studies using a variety of methods (the "college bowl" paradigm, the attitude-attribution paradigm, 2 surveys with nationally representative samples, and an experiment that assessed attributional judgments under varying levels of cognitive load) explored whether these differences could be explained by (a) underlying dispositional differences in the tendency to see the causes of behavior as personally or situationally located, (b) ideological scripts, or (c) differences in the motivation to correct personal attributions. Results were most consistent with the motivated correction explanation. The findings shed further light on the cognitive strategies and motivational priorities of liberals and conservatives.

Analysis of Variance↗