SPSP June 2012 Tipsheet

Story leads and experts this month for Father's Day, as well as about sexism and racism, death and the supernatural, personal will, and more...

Father's Day: A father's love is one of the greatest influences on personality development
Father's Day: Parenting by the social norm
Journals: When sexism increases racism
Journals: Using nonverbal expressions to define social status
Journals: Death and the supernatural
Journals: Role of will in past and future
Journals: A threat to a brand as a threat to the self
Recent press release: Fantasizing about your dream vacation could lead to poor decision-making

For Father's Day-
A father's love is one of the greatest influences on personality development

A father's love contributes as much — and sometimes more — to a child's development as does a mother's love. That is one of many findings in a new large-scale analysis of research about the power of parental rejection and acceptance in shaping our personalities as children and into adulthood.

"In our half-century of international research, we’ve not found any other class of experience that has as strong and consistent effect on personality and personality development as does the experience of rejection, especially by parents in childhood,” says Ronald Rohner (r.rohner[at]uconn.edu) of the University of Connecticut, co-author of the new study in Personality and Social Psychology Review. Read the full press release.

Parenting by the social norm

For parents, it is not only important to pass on to their children values that they personally endorse but also to teach values that they think are the societal norms, according to a new study. Particularly among immigrant parents, conforming to values that they perceive as norms is important. "Intersubjective Model of Value Transmission: Parents Using Perceived Norms as Reference When Socializing Children,” Kim-Pong Tam (kevintam[at]ust.hk) et al., Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, online April 26, 2012 – forthcoming, August 2012.

Also in the Journals-
When sexism increases racism

Perceived sexism negatively affects women’s attitudes toward racial minorities, according to a set of three studies. In one of the experiments, White women primed with sexism expressed more pro-White bias against Blacks and Latinos. The results suggest that perceived sexism triggers a threat to social identity, leading to bias against other stigmatized groups. "Do Unto Others as Others Have Done Unto You? Perceiving Sexism Influences Women's Evaluations of Stigmatized Racial Groups,” Maureen A. Craig (macraig[at]u.northwestern.edu) et al., Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, online May 8, 2012 – forthcoming September 2012.

Using nonverbal expressions to define social status

How do we decide who merits social status? We automatically judge people based on nonverbal expressions of emotion, for example body language showing pride or shame – and that information sometimes even overrides information about the situation, according to a new study. "(Implicitly) Judging a Book By Its Cover: The Power of Pride and Shame Expressions in Shaping Judgments of Social Status,” Azim F. Shariff (shariff[at]uoregon.edu) et al., Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, May 18, 2012 – forthcoming, September 2012.

Death and the supernatural

Being reminded of death increases belief in supernatural higher powers among Christians, Muslims, and Agnostics, but not among atheists, according to new research. "Exploring the existential function of religion and supernatural agent beliefs among Christians, Muslims, Atheists, and Agnostics,” Kenneth E. Vail III (vail.kenneth[at]gmail.com) et al., Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, forthcoming, October 2012.

Role of will in past and future

People tend to underweight their past failures when thinking about the prospect of future success. One reason for that, new study suggests, is that we consider our personal will to be more important in determining future events than past ones. "Whatever is Willed Will Be: A Temporal Asymmetry in Attributions to Will,” Thomas Gilovich (tdg1[at]cornell.edu) & Erik G. Helzer, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, online June 6, 2012 – forthcoming, October 2012.

A threat to a brand as a threat to the self

When we identify with a commercial brand, we perceive a threat to the brand as a threat to the self, according to new research. Across four studies and two brands (Starbucks and Facebook), researchers measured attitude changes in participants who read negative editorials about the brands. "When a Threat to the Brand is a Threat to the Self: The Importance of Brand Identification and Implicit Self-Esteem in Predicting Defensiveness,” Monika Lisjak (m-lisjak[at]kellogg.northwestern.edu) et al., Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, online May 18, 2012 – forthcoming, September 2012.

Recent press release-
Fantasizing about your dream vacation could lead to poor decision-making

Summer vacation time is upon us. If you have been saving up for your dream vacation for years, you may want to make sure your dream spot is still the best place to go. A new study has found that when we fantasize about such trips before they are possible, we tend to overlook the negatives – thus influencing our decision-making down the line. Read the full press release.

For members of the press:

To obtain full papers for any of these studies or to subscribe to the monthly tipsheets via email, please contact: spsp.publicaffairs[at]gmail.com