Decades of research have demonstrated that we like people who are more similar to us. The present research tested a potential mechanism for this similarity-liking effect in the domain of politics: the stereotype that people’s political orientation reflects their morals. People believe that Democrats are more likely to endorse individualizing morals like fairness and Republicans are more likely to endorse binding morals like obedience to authority. Prior to the 2016 election, American participants (N = 314) viewed an ostensible Facebook profile that shared an article endorsing conservative ideals (pro-Trump or pro-Republican), or liberal ideals (pro-Clinton or pro-Democrat). Participants rated the favorability of the profile-owner, and completed the Moral Foundations Questionnaire for the profile-owner and themselves. As predicted, participants liked the profile-owner more when they shared political beliefs, and used political stereotypes to infer the moral foundations of the profile-owner. Additionally, the perceived moral foundation endorsement of the profile owner differentially mediated the relationship between the ideology and evaluations of the profile owner based on the party affiliation of the participant: perceived individualizing foundations mediated the relationship for Democratic participants and perceived binding foundations mediated the relationship for Republican participants. In other words, people liked their in-group members more because they thought that the profile-owner endorsed a specific type of morals. In Study 2 (N = 486), we ruled out the potential explanation that any political stereotype can account for the similarity-liking effect, replicating the results of Study 1 even when controlling for perceptions of other personality differences. Taken together, these studies highlight that there may be something unique about the perceived type of morality of political in-group and out-group members that may be contributing to the similarity-liking effect in politics.

Single-use plastic consumption is at an all-time high and threatens environmental and human health. College campuses in particular serve as a hub for single-use plastics due to their convenience for students on the go. The present research tests whether social comparison information can influence self-perceptions of single-use plastic consumption and motivate behavior change within the college campus environment. In a controlled experiment, we measured college students' existing plastic water bottle usage and gave them false feedback about their behaviors and relative standing to their classmates: participants in comparison conditions learned they were either above or below average in their plastic water bottle sustainability behaviors. Results indicated that (relative to a no-comparison control), being above average at water bottle sustainability led students to be more satisfied with their sustainability efforts. However, either kind of comparison information (i.e., being above or below average) led to greater behavioral intentions to reduce single-use plastic water bottle consumption in the future. This study highlights how comparison information can be used to motivate sustainable behavior change with regards to single-use plastics.

Two experiments demonstrate the importance of control groups in social comparison research. When comparing to downward targets leads to more favorable self-evaluations than comparing to upward targets, results are often interpreted as demonstrating bidirectional contrast effects. However, without a no-comparison control group, these claims cannot be supported. The present experiments provided participants with performance feedback; some participants received information about an upward target, a downward target, or a bidirectional target (one upward, one downward). Results suggest that social comparison effects are not always bidirectional: Downward and bidirectional comparisons led to contrast whereas upward comparisons were not different from the control. Experiment 2 assessed the role of lateral targets. Overall, results suggest that existing interpretations of contrast effects should be reexamined.

In the United States, the COVID-19 pandemic has become highly politicized and highly moralized. The current study explored whether participants’ (N = 118) endorsements of binding (promoting group cohesion) versus individualizing (promoting care for individuals) moral foundations explained partisan differences in views and behaviors regarding COVID-19. Participants completed the Moral Foundations Questionnaire before they indicated how morally permissible they thought it was to violate COVID-19 mandates, report others’ violations, or not get vaccinated. Additionally, they indicated their own prevention behaviors. Results show that endorsement of both individualizing and binding foundations explain partisan differences in moral permissibility ratings. Political conservatism predicted greater endorsement of binding foundations which in turn predicted seeing COVID-19 violations and not getting vaccinated as more morally permissible, and predicted fewer self-reported prevention behaviors. Endorsement of individualizing foundations predicted seeing violations as less morally permissible and reporting others’ violations as more morally permissible.

American compassionate responses (i.e., sending sympathy cards) focus more on the positive (e.g., comforting memories) and less on the negative (e.g., the pain of someone's death) than German compassionate responses, partly because of cultural differences in how much people want to avoid feeling negative (i.e., avoided negative affect [ANA]). However, are these culture-specific compassionate responses considered more comforting and compassionate within their respective cultural context? We predicted that Americans would find responses that focus on the negative less and those that focus on the positive more comforting and compassionate than Germans will and that ANA would mediate these differences. In Study 1, 152 Americans and 315 Germans reported their ANA and rated how comforting they considered receiving different sympathy cards. As predicted, Americans found sympathy cards that contained negative content less and cards that contained positive content more comforting than Germans did. In Studies 2a and 2b, to examine whether these culture-specific conceptualizations of a comforting response would generalize to how people conceptualize a compassionate face, 118 Americans and 80 Germans selected stimuli that most resembled a compassionate (or happy) face using a reverse correlation task. As predicted, people's mental representation of a compassionate face contained more happiness/less sadness in an American than German context. Across studies, ANA partially mediated the cultural differences. This research demonstrates that responses that are intended to be compassionate might not be considered equally compassionate and comforting across cultures, which has implications for relief efforts, which are often organized internationally. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).