While recent research shows how time constraints exacerbate the influence of contextual (dis)incentives on information prioritization and subsequent choice during prosocial decision-making, this emerging perspective is silent on how pervasive individual differences in dispositional social preferences might interact with these contextual factors to shape these processes. To bridge this gap, we demonstrated in a preregistered study ( = 200 adults from the United States and Canada; Prolific Academic) that people calibrate their information priorities based on both their dispositional social preferences and contextual (dis)incentives, and that time constraints further exacerbated information prioritization that aligned with their own social preferences, in addition to information incentivized by the broader social context. Furthermore, these information priorities subsequently biased prosocial choices, extremifying people's selfish/prosocial choice patterns under time constraints. These findings suggest that flexible information prioritization underpins people's capacity to navigate different social interactions while balancing their own preferences against external incentives and constraints.

The experience of singles has been largely overlooked in relationship science, garnering a need for understanding correlates of singles' well-being. Gender is an important focus of well-being research, and qualitative work on singlehood has suggested that men and women may have experiences of singlehood that differ in important ways. In this study ( = 5941; 50% men; = 31.74), we provide the first comprehensive, descriptive profile of gender differences on a suite of variables with important ties to well-being in singlehood; satisfaction with relationship status, life satisfaction, sexual satisfaction, and desire for a partner. Our results suggest that single women, on average, report higher levels of satisfaction with relationship status, life satisfaction, sexual satisfaction, and lower desire for a partner. Exploratory analyses showed significant gender interactions with age and ethnicity. Overall, these findings suggest that women are, on average, happier in singlehood than men.

Perceivers recognize pain less readily on Black (vs. White) faces in the United States. The present work investigated whether this perceptual bias is moderated by target weight and gender across three experiments. Anti-Black bias in pain perception was mitigated within heavier-weight (vs. average-weight) male-appearing targets (Experiment 1) but was independent of female-appearing targets' weight (Experiment 2). A well-powered, pre-registered Experiment 3 replicated these findings, confirming that target weight and gender interactively shaped anti-Black bias in pain perception: target weight moderated perceptual bias within male-appearing (but not female-appearing) faces. These findings help illuminate factors that interact to shape racial bias in pain perception and demonstrate the importance of intersectionality when studying social perceptual biases.

Sexual frequency in relationships is associated with satisfaction. Beyond objective reports, the subjective time since sex might also be associated with relationship evaluations. When sex feels further away, do people feel less satisfied? Do they desire sex more? In a cross-sectional study (Study 1), when one's last sexual experience felt further away, people reported lower sexual satisfaction and desire. In an experimental study (Study 2), women (but not men) who were made to feel that the last sex was further (vs. closer) reported lower desire, but overall, there was limited evidence of causal effects. However, in a 21-day daily experience study (Study 3), within-person lagged models revealed that sex feeling further away was associated with lower sexual satisfaction, but higher desire, tomorrow, and higher desire and satisfaction were associated with sex feeling further away tomorrow. Subjective time since sex has nuanced associations in relationships, especially with desire and satisfaction in daily life.

The present research examined cultural differences in interpersonal memories and forecasts, situated in a currently salient positive or negative interpersonal context. We found that a negative focal event, compared to a positive one, led to more negative memories and forecasts of interpersonal encounters. The effect was stronger among Euro-Canadians than among Chinese. This was true regardless of whether the salient focal event was imagined or a real-life experience. Furthermore, focal thinking-the extent to which individuals think about the salient focal event-mediated cultural differences in interpersonal memories and forecasts as moderated by the focal event valence. Relational memories and forecasts positively predicted perceived relationship quality, willingness to help, and forgiveness. The findings highlight both cultural similarities and differences in interpersonal memories and forecasts, which contribute significantly to the literature on culture and relationships.

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is harmful and prevalent, but leaving abusive partners is often challenging due to investments (e.g., children, shared memories). Identifying warning signs of abuse early on is one prevention strategy to help people avoid abusive long-term relationships. Using university and online samples, the present studies identified warning signs and protective factors that predicted overall, physical, psychological, and sexual abuse cross-sectionally (Study 1) and prospectively over 6 months (Study 2). These studies demonstrated that the number of warning signs a person experienced and the frequency with which they experienced those warning signs predicted overall abuse. Seven warning signs emerged as predictors in both studies (e.g., "My partner acted arrogant or entitled"), suggesting that they are particularly important for identifying potentially abusive relationships. This is the first research to identify warning signs that prospectively predict abuse; findings have implications for IPV prevention efforts in academic and public contexts.

Students from low-socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds such as first-generation or low-income students are often portrayed as deficient, lacking in skills and potential to succeed at university. We hypothesized that such representations lead low-SES students to see their SES-identity as a barrier to success and impair achievement. If so, reframing low-SES students' identity as a source of strength may help them succeed. Testing this hypothesis in a highly scalable form, we developed an online low-SES-identity-reframing exercise. In Experiment 1 ( = 214), this exercise helped low-SES students to see their SES-identity more as a source of success and boosted their performance on an academic task by 13%. In Experiment 2, a large randomized-controlled intervention field experiment ( = 786), we implemented the identity-reframing intervention in a university's online learning program. This improved low-SES students' grades over the semester. Recognizing the strengths low-SES students bring to university can help students access these strengths and apply them to schooling.

Although people often engage in prosocial behavior when witnessing prosocial others, little is known about whether and how prosociality spreads across different positions within a social hierarchy. One field study involving 79 U.S. counties found a positive association between the prosociality of community members and their authorities, providing preliminary evidence of similarity in willingness to improve community well-being across levels of a social hierarchy. A follow-up experiment testing the relative magnitude of downward and upward prosocial influence showed that participants playing the role of authorities were more responsive to the prosociality of community members. Findings further showed that the greater response to prosocial influence among authorities was due to their greater optimism. The article ends with a discussion of the theoretical and practical implications of these findings and directions for future research.

In two experiments, we examined the potential impact of demand characteristics in violent video game (VVG) research. Study 1 ( = 788) measured behavioral aggression, while Study 2 ( = 1,182) measured trait aggression. Participants were informed either that researchers wanted to confirm that VVGs increase aggression ("Positive Hypothesis") or that VVGs have no effect ("Null Hypothesis"). Study 2 included a third condition where participants were given no information. In both studies, the interaction between VVG exposure and experimental conditions was significant. Whereas VVG exposure was significantly positively associated with aggression in the "Null Hypothesis" condition, it was not in the "Positive Hypothesis" condition. These effects were driven by habitual players responding differently based on the presented hypothesis, appearing less aggressive in the "Positive Hypothesis" condition than in the other two conditions. These findings highlight the importance of addressing demand characteristics in VVG studies.

Four experiments investigated the perceived virtue of curiosity about religion. Adults from the United States made moral judgments regarding targets who exhibited curiosity, possessed relevant knowledge, or lacked both curiosity and knowledge about religion and comparison topics (e.g., science). Participants attributed greater moral goodness to targets who displayed curiosity compared with targets who were ignorant or knowledgeable about the domain. This preference was consistent across Jewish, Protestant, Catholic, and other Christian participants but was absent when atheists evaluated religious curiosity. Perceptions of effort partially mediated judgments: Participants viewed curious characters as exerting more effort and consequently rated them as more moral. To test causality, we manipulated perceptions of effort and showed that participants viewed curious characters who exerted effort as particularly moral. This work fosters novel insights into the perceived virtue of curiosity and further illuminates similarities and differences between religious and scientific cognition.

Individuals' endorsement of standards of civic honesty is necessary for democracies to flourish. A critical driver of civic honesty is the relationship of trust between individuals and institutions. Research has yet to systematically assess the contextual factors that may moderate this relationship. In this study, we examined the societal influence of organized criminal groups. Criminal groups operate as alternative systems of authority that erode the reliability of institutions' moral standards. We employed a new indicator that quantifies their societal influence to test the hypothesis that the association between individuals' political trust and civic honesty would weaken in countries more strongly affected by criminal groups. Multilevel evidence across 83 representative national samples ( = 128,839) supported this hypothesis. Moreover, the association between political trust and civic honesty was negative in contexts where criminal groups' influence was more extreme. We discuss the implications of the findings and future research directions.

Using data from Midlife in the United States (=3,767), this study investigates how believing having money or occupational prestige is important for a good life is associated with different aspects of well-being. Actual income was positively associated with sense of purpose, personal growth, self-acceptance, environmental mastery, and life satisfaction, negatively associated with negative affect, and was not associated with autonomy, positive relations with others, or positive affect. Meanwhile, perceiving having enough money or extra money as important for a good life predicted well-being across all nine well-being indicators. Occupational prestige was positively associated with sense of purpose, autonomy, personal growth, self-acceptance, environmental mastery, and life satisfaction, while perceiving having occupational prestige as important was negatively associated with autonomy, personal growth, self-acceptance, positive relations with others, and positively with negative affect. The discussion focuses on how desiring money or prestige can influence well-being beyond having-or not having-those desires.

Social relationships influence physical health, yet questions remain regarding the nature of this association. For instance, when it comes to predicting health-relevant processes in daily life, few studies have examined (a) the relative importance of both positive negative relational experiences, and (b) in relational experiences (in addition to mean levels). To address these gaps, we conducted a daily study ( = 4,005; ~ 30,000 observations) examining relationships, stress, and physiology in daily life. Heart rate and blood pressure were assessed using an optic sensor and integrated with an app-based study. Results demonstrated that higher mean levels of positive and lower mean levels of negative relational experiences predicted lower stress, better coping, and better physiological functioning in daily life, such as lower systolic blood pressure reactivity. Greater variability in negative (but not positive) relational experiences predicted stress, coping, and systolic blood pressure reactivity.

Perceiving a partner's gratitude has several benefits for romantic relationships. We aimed to better understand these associations by decomposing perceptions into accuracy and bias. Specifically, we examined whether accuracy and bias in perceiving a partner's experience (Study 1: 205) and expression (Study 2: 309) of gratitude were associated with romantic relationship satisfaction. Using the Truth and Bias Model of Judgment, we found that perceivers generally underestimated their partner's gratitude, and lower perceptions of gratitude were related to lower perceiver satisfaction. Perceivers reported greater satisfaction when they assumed their partner's gratitude was similar to their own. Partners reported greater satisfaction when perceivers accurately gauged their partners' gratitude experience (but not expression) and lower satisfaction when perceivers underestimated their gratitude expression (but not experience). Overall, by decomposing gratitude perceptions into accuracy and bias, we provide insight into how these components differentially relate to relationship satisfaction.

Incivility is prevalent in society suggesting a potential benefit. Within politics, theorists and strategists often claim incivility grabs attention and stokes interest in what a politician has to say. In contrast, we propose incivility diminishes overall interest in what a politician has to say because people find the incivility morally distasteful. Studies 1a and 1b examined the relationship between uncivil language and followership in the Twitter feeds of Presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden, finding incivility reduced their following on the platform. In Studies 2-3, we manipulated how uncivil a number of politicians were and found that incivility consistently depressed interest in what they had to say. These effects of incivility are generalized to both political allies and opponents. Observers' moral disapproval of the incivility mediated the diminished interest, suppressing the attention-grabbing nature of incivility. Altogether, our findings indicate that the public reacts more negatively to political incivility than previously thought.

Social connection plays a central role in people's everyday lives. Although researchers have traditionally focused on the benefits of experiencing an enduring sense of social connection, recent research has also begun to explore the contextual factors that shape momentary feeling of social connection. To date, however, no psychological scales have been developed to measure state social connection. To address this gap, we developed the 10-item UBC State Social Connection Scale (UBC-SSCS). In Study 1, we generated and refined our initial pool of items and confirmed our hypothesized factor structure in a large university sample. In Studies 2 to 3, we established several forms of validity. We provide foundational evidence that the UBC-SSCS is a reliable and valid instrument for assessing momentary feelings of social connection. Our exploratory findings also suggest that researchers can substantially increase their statistical power using state (vs. trait) measures to capture fluctuations in feelings of social connection.

It is unknown how co-rumination, or perseverating on problems or feelings another person, unfolds in the daily lives of romantic couples. Using a variance decomposition procedure on data from a 14-day dyadic diary, we assessed how much variance in co-rumination was attributable to temporally stable and varying factors, as well as whether co-rumination is better measured as a couple-level or individual-level process. Within-person, within-couple fluctuations in co-rumination contributed most (~33%) to the total variance and summary scores based on these fluctuations were reliable. Stable between-couple differences accounted for ~14% of the total variance and could also be reliably assessed. However, within-couple agreement in co-rumination was low, such that the reliability at the level of within-couple change was inadequate. Research is needed to understand these divergent perceptions of co-rumination and potential downstream consequences. We conclude by considering how these results inform theory and can be applied to similar dyadic constructs.

This study investigated whether misalignment between an individual and their community in partisan identity predicted psychological and behavioral distancing from local COVID-19 norms. A nationally representative sample of Republicans and Democrats provided longitudinal data in April ( = 3,492) and June 2020 ( = 2,649). Democrats in Republican communities reported especially heightened , perceiving themselves as more adherent to and approving of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI; e.g., mask wearing) than their community. Democrats' reflected high approval and behavior in Republican communities and substantial norm underestimation. Republicans in Democratic communities did not evidence . In longitudinal models, injunctive norms only predicted NPI behavior when individual and community partisan identity were aligned. The strong personal approval-behavior association did not depend on misalignment; there were no effects of descriptive norms. Normative messages may have limited efficacy for a sizable subpopulation in politically polarized contexts, such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

COVID-19 has drastically changed human behaviors and posed a threat to globalism by spurring a resurgence of nationalism. Promoting prosocial behavior within and across borders is of paramount importance for global cooperation to combat pandemics. To examine both self-report and actual prosocial behavior, we conducted the first empirical test of global consciousness theory in a multinational study of 35 cultures ( = 18,171 community adults stratified by age, gender, and region of residence). Global consciousness encompassed cosmopolitan orientation, identification with all humanity, and multicultural acquisition, whereas national consciousness reflected ethnic protection. Both global consciousness and national consciousness positively predicted perceived risk of coronavirus and concern about coronavirus, after controlling for interdependent self-construal. While global consciousness positively predicted prosocial behavior in response to COVID-19, national consciousness positively predicted defensive behavior. These findings shed light on overcoming national parochialism and provide a theoretical framework for the study of global unity and cooperation.

According to the and of human behavioral immune system (BIS), the exposure to COVID-19 cues could motivate vaccine uptake. Using the tool of Google Trends, we tested that coronavirus-related searches-which assessed natural exposure to COVID-19 cues-would positively predict actual vaccination rates. As expected, coronavirus-related searches positively and significantly predicted vaccination rates in the United States (Study 1a) and across the globe (Study 2a) after accounting for a range of covariates. The stationary time series analyses with covariates and autocorrelation structure of the dependent variable confirmed that more coronavirus-related searches compared with last week indicated increases in vaccination rates compared with last week in the United States (Study 1b) and across the globe (Study 2b). With real-time web search data, psychological scientists could test their research questions in real-life settings and at a large scale to expand the ecological validity and generalizability of the findings.

Educational institutions are imbued with an institutional meritocratic discourse: only merit counts for academic success. In this article, we study whether this institutional belief has an impact beyond its primary function of encouraging students to study. We propose that belief in school meritocracy has broader societal impact by legitimizing the social class hierarchy it produces and encouraging the maintenance of inequalities. The results of four studies (one correlational study, = 198; one experiment, = 198; and two international data surveys, = 88,421 in 40+countries) indicate that belief in school meritocracy reduces the perceived unfairness of social class inequality in society, support for affirmative action policies at university and support for policies aimed at reducing income inequality. Together, these studies show that the belief that schools are meritocratic carries consequences beyond the school context as it is associated with attitudes that maintain social class and economic inequality.