ABSTRACT In the post-pandemic era, the sense of uncertainty among Chinese college students has generally increased, further leading to the emergence of future anxiety. However, the discussion on the internal psychological mechanisms triggered by uncertainty and intervention strategies remains insufficient. In this study, two sub-studies were conducted among Chinese college students to explore the psychological mechanisms through which uncertainty triggers future anxiety and examine the role of letter-writing intervention in alleviating future anxiety caused by uncertainty. In Study 1, a questionnaire survey (N = 833) was administered to examine the mediating effect of future self-continuity on the link between uncertainty and future anxiety, utilizing a simple mediation model for analysis. In Study 2, a randomized controlled trial (N = 185) was conducted to confirm that improving future self-continuity through letter-writing can interrupt the emergence of future anxiety prompted by uncertainty. The findings of this research indicated that future self-continuity functions as a mediating factor in the relationship between uncertainty and future anxiety among college students. Additionally, engaging in letter-writing activities may act as an indirect means to alleviate future anxiety.

ABSTRACT Many parents lie to their children. Paradoxically, many also disapprove of lying to children, and teach that lying is unacceptable, suggesting discrepancies between parental lying attitudes, behaviors, and teaching. This study explored the alignment and discrepancies between parental attitudes, behaviors, and direct moral instruction across three lie types: other-oriented, self-oriented, and instrumental. Cross-sectional data were collected from parents in the Netherlands (N = 312, 79.8% mothers) and analyzed using correlational and latent profile analyses. Between-parent associations suggested general alignment between attitudes, behaviors, and direct moral instruction, with variations in strength depending on lie type. However, within-parent analyses showed many parents exhibited discrepancies between their lying attitudes, behaviors, and direct moral instruction. Prevalence and patterns of alignment and discrepancies differed by lie type. For instance, discrepant profiles were more prevalent for self-oriented and instrumental lying than for other-oriented lying. These findings suggest most parents do not fully practice what they believe or preach, nor consistently preach what they believe, reflecting internal moral conflicts within parents and inconsistencies in children’s moral socialization. This study expands understanding of parental alignment and discrepancies and proposes hypotheses about environmental, societal, and relational factors influencing how parents navigate moral beliefs, behaviors, and teaching in daily life.

ABSTRACT In order to study the outcomes of politically diverse friendship, there is a need for an individual difference measure that predicts friendship choices and political discussion in the context of friendship. We developed a measure of comfort with political disagreement (CPD) as a tool for researchers to examine individual differences in feelings, behavior, and relational goals associated with political disagreement among friends. The factor structure of the CPD was identified across two adult samples using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses (Study 1), and replicated in a third, preregistered adult sample (Study 2). Analyses supported a bifactor measurement model and a unidimensional structure; researchers should use the total scale score. The CPD demonstrated good internal and test-retest reliabilities. Construct validity was established with convergent and discriminant validity correlations with related measures (Studies 1 and 2). Study 3 established the concurrent validity of the CPD using participants’ self-reports of having politically diverse friends and responses in imagined scenarios of disagreement. Additionally, Study 3 found that the CPD is positively correlated with positive friendship qualities.

ABSTRACT Research suggests that crowds can be psychologically meaningful and present a pathway to social connection. Based on that research and research on relational selves, we propose that there are “crowd selves” (self-concepts that are activated when in a crowd; Hypothesis 1); that the crowd self is more likely to occur when a crowd is psychologically meaningful (Hypothesis 2); and that the crowd self transfers to similar crowds (Hypothesis 3). In Studies 1, 2a, and 2b we found that the self-concept shifts when participants were primed with crowds (Hypothesis 1) and that this shift was larger when the crowd was psychologically meaningful (Hypothesis 2). Study 3 found that the crowd self transferred to a novel but similar crowd (Hypothesis 3). Thus, across four studies and three different measures of self-change, we found support for the existence of a crowd self. The implications for the flexibility of the self and the importance of crowds are discussed.

ABSTRACT Social identities play a crucial role in shaping how individuals interpret their position in society and navigate social interactions to serve both personal and ingroup interests. Existing social identity theorizing and research have offered only limited insights into how social identification operates among stigmatized group members, whose experiences may differ both in content and complexity from non-stigmatized group members. The present research addressed this gap by investigating the multicomponent ingroup identification model across 18 stigmatized groups in the U.S. (N = 3.969). Confirmatory factor analyses showed only an acceptable model fit for the overall sample and substantial variability in model fit and factor structure across subsamples – challenging assumptions of a universal social identification structure. Multilevel analyses revealed that between-group heterogeneity can be explained by group-level factors (socioeconomic status and group entitativity) and individual belief systems (permeability and legitimacy), aligning with core assumptions of Social Identity Theory. Our findings suggest important differences in social identification between stigmatized groups and point to both group- and individual-level determinants of social identification. We discuss the implications for existing measurement models and highlight the need for further theorizing and empirical work on social identification in the context of stigmatized identities.

ABSTRACT Three experiments (N = 977) provide evidence that reflecting on a personal success increases people’s perceptions of their own free will. In Experiment 1, participants who wrote about a workplace success endorsed higher free will beliefs than participants who wrote about a workplace failure. In Experiment 2, participants who wrote about an effortful success attributed more free will to themselves in the situation they wrote about, and endorsed higher beliefs in their own free will, than participants who wrote about a lucky success or participants who wrote about a failure. In Experiment 3, participants who wrote about an important success attributed more free will to themselves in the situation they wrote about than participants who wrote about an unimportant success or participants who wrote about an important failure. Experiments 2 and 3 also found that the effects of effortful success and important success on participants’ attributions of free will to themselves were mediated by their attributions of responsibility to themselves. The present research suggests that people increase their perceptions of their own free will to assume responsibility for success, primarily when that success is effortful or important.

ABSTRACT Why do some people become stuck in self-condemnation? We explore the lived experiences of people (N = 80) who describe being unable to forgive themselves following a perceived failure or wrongdoing (N = 41), with those who have been able to forgive themselves (N = 39). Applying Thematic Analysis we identified four main themes: (1) past as present vs. future-focused, (2) concerns about agency, (3) concerns about social-moral identity, and (4) coping as reducing negative emotions vs. working through. In addition, we describe two subthemes: (a) a heightened sense of responsibility due to a caregiving role and (b) forgiving oneself after being victimized. The findings of this study contribute to our theoretical understanding of the complexity of self-forgiveness and self-condemnation.

ABSTRACT Based in theory that attitudes can be used to strategically signal desired identities, we proposed that atheist prejudice may serve to signal religious identity. Five studies (N Total = 1734) showed that people expressing anti-atheist (vs. pro-atheist) statements are perceived as more religious (Studies 1–2); highly religious people convey more anti-atheist sentiment to reveal vs. conceal their religious identity to others (Study 3); and people strongly identifying as Christian experience greater identity-threat after simulated affiliation with an atheist (Study 4) and further alter reports of attitudes regarding atheists as a function of whether they are led to believe this prejudice signals a Christian identity (Study 5). This identity-signaling account of atheist prejudice may partly explain why atheist prejudice is greater among the more religious.

ABSTRACT This research investigated whether ideological attitudes (beliefs about religion, social justice) are central to the self-concept. Participants rated ideological attitudes as more self-defining than relevant attitudes (about family, hometown), even though were liked equally (Study 1). Ideological attitudes were as self-defining as attitudes that were personally meaningful, even though the latter were liked more and more psychologically valuable (Study 2). In Study 3, participants reported that if they changed their ideological attitudes or their moral traits (honesty, generosity), they would see themselves as a different person more than if they changed their attitudes about relevant attitudes and their perceptual abilities (hearing, pain tolerance). These studies underscore the important role of ideological attitudes to the self-concept.

ABSTRACT Objectives: Previous research has shown that living alone and being quarantined during the COVID-19 pandemic were associated with poorer mental health and well-being. The aim of this study was to examine whether self-compassion buffered these adverse effects. Methods: 435 German adults were surveyed in three waves over six weeks. In all three waves, participants were asked whether they lived alone and whether they were quarantined. Self-compassion, mental health, and well-being were also assessed in all three waves. Results: In linear structural equation models adjusted for age, gender, and the respective outcome measure at T1, higher self-compassion at T2 was associated with better mental health and well-being at T3. However, there was no evidence that living alone and quarantine at T1 were associated with mental health and well-being at T3, or that self-compassion moderated these effects. Conclusions: Our study spanned six weeks, and one possible explanation for our nonsignificant findings is that the mental health effects of living alone, quarantine, and self-compassion are rather short-lived. In addition, individuals living alone and individuals in quarantine may not necessarily have been socially isolated or felt lonely, which may explain why no associations with mental health were found.