Journal of personality and social psychology
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As we estimate here, 68% of human beings--4.6 billion people--would say that religion is important in their daily lives. Past studies have found that the religious, on average, have higher subjective well-being (SWB). Yet, people are rapidly leaving organized religion in economically developed nations where religious freedom is high. ⋯ In societies with more favorable circumstances, religiosity is less prevalent and religious and nonreligious individuals experience similar levels of SWB. There was also a person-culture fit effect such that religious people had higher SWB in religious nations but not in nonreligious nations. Thus, it appears that the benefits of religion for social relationships and SWB depend on the characteristics of the society.
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Comparative Study
Seeking security or growth: a regulatory focus perspective on motivations in romantic relationships.
Using a multimethod approach, we examined how regulatory focus shapes people's perceptual, behavioral, and emotional responses in different situations in romantic relationships. We first examined how chronic regulatory focus affects romantic partners' support perceptions and problem-solving behaviors while they were engaged in a conflict resolution discussion (Study 1). Next, we experimentally manipulated regulatory focus and tested its effects on partner perceptions when individuals recalled a prior conflict resolution discussion (Study 2). ⋯ Strongly promotion-focused people perceived their partners as more supportive and less distancing (Studies 1 and 2), displayed more creative conflict resolution behavior (Study 1), and experienced a negative relationship outcome with more sadness and a favorable outcome with more positive emotions (Study 3). In Study 4, recalling irresponsible and responsible partner behaviors was associated with experiencing more prevention-focused emotions, whereas recalling affectionate and neglectful partner behaviors was associated with more promotion-focused emotions. The findings show that regulatory focus and approach-avoidance motivations influence certain interpersonal processes in similar ways, but regulatory focus theory also generates novel predictions on which approach-avoidance models are silent.
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This research examines the possibility that people's choices in the service of an explicit focal goal may also reflect their tendency to fulfill implicit background goals and in that sense are multifinal. We carried out 5 experimental studies to investigate this notion. In Experiment 1, a primed implicit goal affected individuals' choices even when those avowedly served an explicit "focal" goal. ⋯ Experiment 4 found that a primed implicit goal served by a multifinal option does not privilege it over a unifinal option if that goal had been already attained by a different means. Finally, Experiment 5, via 3 types of control groups, showed that choices were affected by both the explicit and implicit goals in isolation, and they shifted toward multifinality when these goals were conjointly present. The discussion considers the integrative potential of the multifinality framework and its implications for a variety of phenomena in the domain of motivated cognition.
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Social dominance theory (Sidanius & Pratto, 1999) contends that institutional-level mechanisms exist that reinforce and perpetuate existing group-based inequalities, but very few such mechanisms have been empirically demonstrated. We propose that gendered wording (i.e., masculine- and feminine-themed words, such as those associated with gender stereotypes) may be a heretofore unacknowledged, institutional-level mechanism of inequality maintenance. Employing both archival and experimental analyses, the present research demonstrates that gendered wording commonly employed in job recruitment materials can maintain gender inequality in traditionally male-dominated occupations. ⋯ When job advertisements were constructed to include more masculine than feminine wording, participants perceived more men within these occupations (Study 3), and importantly, women found these jobs less appealing (Studies 4 and 5). Results confirmed that perceptions of belongingness (but not perceived skills) mediated the effect of gendered wording on job appeal (Study 5). The function of gendered wording in maintaining traditional gender divisions, implications for gender parity, and theoretical models of inequality are discussed.
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Should intimates respond to their interpersonal mistakes with self-criticism or with self-compassion? Although it is reasonable to expect self-compassion to benefit relationships by promoting self-esteem, it is also reasonable to expect self-compassion to hurt relationships by removing intimates' motivation to correct their interpersonal mistakes. Two correlational studies, 1 experiment, and 1 longitudinal study demonstrated that whether self-compassion helps or hurts relationships depends on the presence versus absence of dispositional sources of the motivation to correct interpersonal mistakes. Among men, the implications of self-compassion were moderated by conscientiousness. ⋯ Among women, in contrast, likely because women are inherently more motivated than men to preserve their relationships for cultural and/or biological reasons, self-compassion was never harmful to the relationship. Instead, women's self-compassion was positively associated with the motivation to correct their interpersonal mistakes (Study 1) and changes in relationship satisfaction (Study 4), regardless of conscientiousness. Accordingly, theoretical descriptions of the implications of self-promoting thoughts for relationships may be most complete to the extent that they consider the presence versus absence of other sources of the motivation to correct interpersonal mistakes.