Effectiveness of ex ante honesty oaths in reducing dishonesty depends on content.

Dishonest behaviours such as tax evasion impose significant societal costs. Ex ante honesty oaths-commitments to honesty before action-have been proposed as interventions to counteract dishonest behaviour, but the heterogeneity in findings across operationalizations calls their effectiveness into question. We tested 21 honesty oaths (including a baseline oath)-proposed, evaluated and selected by 44 expert researchers-and a no-oath condition in a megastudy involving 21,506 UK and US participants from Prolific.

Separating individual and group-level cooperation in the Public Goods Game.

Cooperation in the Public Goods Game (PGG) is determined by a mixture of individual differences (e.g. personality, social preferences) and group dynamics (e.

I like it because it hurts you: On the association of everyday sadism, sadistic pleasure, and victim blaming.

Past research on determinants of victim blaming mainly concentrated on individuals' just-world beliefs as motivational process underlying this harsh reaction to others' suffering. The present work provides novel insights regarding underlying processes by showing how individuals prone to derive pleasure from others' suffering-individuals high in everyday sadism-engage in victim blaming due to increased sadistic pleasure and reduced empathic concern they experience. Results of three cross-sectional studies and one ambulatory assessment study applying online experience sampling method (ESM; overall = 2,653) document this association.

I enjoy hurting my classmates: On the relation of boredom and sadism in schools.

Schools can be a place of both love and of cruelty. We examined one type of cruelty that occurs in the school context: sadism, that is, harming others for pleasure. Primarily, we proposed and tested whether boredom plays a crucial role in the emergence of sadistic actions at school.

Do Salient Social Norms Moderate Mortality Salience Effects? A (Challenging) Meta-Analysis of Terror Management Studies.

Terror management theory postulates that mortality salience (MS) increases the motivation to defend one's cultural worldviews. How that motivation is expressed may depend on the social norm that is momentarily salient. Meta-analyses were conducted on studies that manipulated MS and social norm salience.

Prosocial behavior and altruism: A review of concepts and definitions.

The field of prosociality is flourishing, yet researchers disagree about how to define prosocial behavior and often neglect defining it altogether. In this review, we provide an overview about the breadth of definitions of prosocial behavior and the related concept of altruism. Common to almost all definitions is an emphasis on the promotion of welfare in agents other than the actor.

Information about herd immunity through vaccination and empathy promote COVID-19 vaccination intentions.

Objective: An effective vaccine against COVID-19 is a desired solution to curb the spread of the disease. However, vaccine hesitancy might hinder high uptake rates and thus undermine efforts to eliminate COVID-19 once an effective vaccine became available. The present contribution addresses this issue by examining two ways of increasing the intention to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

Prosocial behavior toward machines.

Building on the computers are social actors framework, we provide an overview of research demonstrating that humans behave prosocially toward machines. In doing so, we outline that similar motivational and cognitive processes play a role when people act in prosocial ways toward humans and machines. These include perceiving the machine as somewhat human, applying social categories to the machine, being socially influenced by the machine, and experiencing social emotions toward the machine.

When it really counts: Investigating the relation between trait mindfulness and actual prosocial behavior.

Meta-analytical findings suggested a positive link between trait mindfulness and prosociality. However, most correlational studies on mindfulness and prosociality have relied on self-report measures. The present work aimed to address this serious limitation by investigating actual prosocial .

Perceived susceptibility to COVID-19 infection and narcissistic traits.

People's perceived susceptibility to illnesses plays a key role in determining whether or not to take protective measures. However, self-enhancing biases hinder accurate susceptibility perceptions, leaving some individuals to feel invulnerable in the face of acute health risks. Since such biases are prominent characteristics of individuals with narcissistic personality traits, this article empirically examined whether low perceived susceptibility of infection with COVID-19 is related to subclinical narcissism, as measured with the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI-16) and the Narcissism Admiration and Rivalry Questionnaire (NARQ).

Labelling affects agreement with political statements of right-wing populist parties.

In light of the recent rise of right-wing populist parties across Europe, it is an intriguing question under which conditions people agree with right-wing political statements. The present study investigates whether mere labelling of political statements as endorsed by a right-wing populist party influences people's agreement with such statements. In the study (pre-registered; N = 221 German voters), it is shown than that supporters of the right-wing populist party indicated higher agreement with the statements when they were labelled as being endorsed by the party (vs.

Intuitive decision-making promotes rewarding prosocial others independent of the personality trait Honesty-Humility.

Although past research has convincingly shown that rewarding prosocial individuals helps to establish high levels of cooperation, research investigating factors that promote rewarding others has been surprisingly rare. The present research addresses this gap and examines two factors that were shown in past research to play a role in prosocial behaviour. In a well-powered study (total N = 1003), we tested the impact of (a) a basic prosocial personality trait (the Honesty-Humility dimension from the HEXACO personality model) and (b) intuitive decision-making, as well as (c) their interaction, in rewarding prosocial individuals.

On the relation of boredom and sadistic aggression.

What gives rise to sadism? While sadistic behavior (i.e., harming others for pleasure) is well-documented, past empirical research is nearly silent regarding the psychological factors behind it.

The Emotional Path to Action: Empathy Promotes Physical Distancing and Wearing of Face Masks During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic presents a major challenge to societies all over the globe. Two measures implemented in many countries to curb the spread of the disease are (a) minimizing close contact between people ("physical distancing") and (b) wearing of face masks. In the present research, we tested the idea that physical distancing and wearing of face masks can be the result of a prosocial emotional process-empathy for people most vulnerable to the virus.

Collective choice fosters sustainable resource management in the presence of asymmetric opportunities.

Asymmetric distribution of opportunities among actors can reinforce the conflict between individual and collective interests in social dilemma situations. The present study investigates the interplay of asymmetric distribution of opportunities to consume resources and three choice systems: individual choice, median choice, and majority voting. Participants (N = 248) took part in a common resource game in groups of four under each of the three choice systems.

The role of intuition in vaccination attitudes.

This study tested the idea that faith in intuition (people's reliance on their intuition when making judgments or decisions) is negatively associated with vaccination attitudes in the U.S. populace.

The role of motivation in the association of political ideology with cognitive performance.

Previous research reports a negative association between individuals' tendency to endorse right- versus left-wing socio-cultural views and performance in cognitive tasks. We hypothesized that this association results to some extent from explicit epistemic preferences and low motivation to perform well in such tasks, rather than resulting from low ability only. In two studies we found support for this hypothesis.

On the Role of Habit in Self-Reported and Observed Hand Hygiene Behavior.

Background: The present contribution tests the main ideas that (a) hand hygiene behavior is associated with habit, and (b) this association is robust when deliberative constructs (i.e. knowledge and intention) are controlled for, indicating an automatic component in hand hygiene behavior.

Compassion magnifies third-party punishment.

The last decades of research have provided overwhelming evidence that compassion fosters a vast range of behaviors toward reducing suffering of others. In this regard, compassion has been described as a prosocial tendency par excellence, fostering helping behavior across a variety of social situations. With the present contribution, we apply a differentiated perspective on compassion.

An existential perspective on the psychological function of shamans.

Shamans deal with events that involve the threat of death. They help buffer death anxiety because, through their claimed supernatural abilities, they can provide both hope for averting death and evidence for existence of a spirit world offering continuance beyond death. Thus, managing the threat of mortality probably played a major role in the development and maintenance of shamanism.