Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences - Research Publications

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    Sensory Processing Sensitivity and Reactivity to Daily Events
    Van Reyn, C ; Koval, P ; Bastian, B (SAGE PUBLICATIONS INC, 2023-08)
    Sensory processing sensitivity is an individual difference that captures the extent to which people show heightened emotional reactivity to, and increased cognitive processing of, their environment. Although central to its definition, there has been no research examining whether highly sensitive individuals display stronger reactivity to naturally occurring negative and positive events in everyday life. We addressed this gap by carrying out a 21-day online diary study with 239 participants, varying in sensory processing sensitivity, who reported their daily life-satisfaction, affective experiences, and self-esteem along with appraisals of the most negative and positive events of the day. Multilevel analyses demonstrated that individuals higher in sensory processing sensitivity showed greater reactivity to more subjectively intense negative events, but no difference in their reactivity to positive events. These findings provide initial insights into how sensory processing sensitivity manifests in daily emotional reactivity with greater reactivity to negative events in our study.
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    Moral Expansiveness Around the World: The Role of Societal Factors Across 36 Countries
    Kirkland, K ; Crimston, CR ; Jetten, J ; Rudnev, M ; Acevedo-Triana, C ; Amiot, CE ; Ausmees, L ; Baguma, P ; Barry, O ; Becker, M ; Bilewicz, M ; Boonyasiriwat, W ; Castelain, T ; Costantini, G ; Dimdins, G ; Espinosa, A ; Finchilescu, G ; Fischer, R ; Friese, M ; Gastardo-Conaco, MC ; Gomez, A ; Gonzalez, R ; Goto, N ; Halama, P ; Jiga-Boy, GM ; Kuppens, P ; Loughnan, S ; Markovik, M ; Mastor, KA ; McLatchie, N ; Novak, LM ; Onyekachi, BN ; Peker, M ; Rizwan, M ; Schaller, M ; Suh, EM ; Talaifar, S ; Tong, EMW ; Torres, A ; Turner, RN ; Van Lange, PAM ; Vauclair, C-M ; Vinogradov, A ; Wang, Z ; Yeung, VWL ; Bastian, B (SAGE Publications, 2022)
    What are the things that we think matter morally, and how do societal factors influence this? To date, research has explored several individual-level and historical factors that influence the size of our ‘moral circles.' There has, however, been less attention focused on which societal factors play a role. We present the first multi-national exploration of moral expansiveness—that is, the size of people’s moral circles across countries. We found low generalized trust, greater perceptions of a breakdown in the social fabric of society, and greater perceived economic inequality were associated with smaller moral circles. Generalized trust also helped explain the effects of perceived inequality on lower levels of moral inclusiveness. Other inequality indicators (i.e., Gini coefficients) were, however, unrelated to moral expansiveness. These findings suggest that societal factors, especially those associated with generalized trust, may influence the size of our moral circles.
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    The moral significance of prosstecting environmental and cultural objects
    Bastian, B ; Crimston, CR ; Klebl, C ; van Lange, PAM ; Mahmoud, AB (PUBLIC LIBRARY SCIENCE, 2023-02-09)
    A powerful avenue through which to promote the preservation of the natural and cultural environment is to afford cultural and environmental objects moral significance. In this research, we examine a range of factors that may give rise to moral concern regarding the protection of culturel and environmental objects as ends in themselves. In this way, we also extend theorizing and evidence beyond a focus on sentience as a focal determinant of moral significance Across five studies we show that non-sentient objects can sometimes be viewed as possessing intrinsically valuable properties that afford them moral standing (independent of their extrinsic/means-end value or any perception of their capacity to think and feel). People judge it morally wrong to harm things that are beautiful, sacred, rare, or old, and this cannot be explained merely by their usefulness or economic value. Our findings provide new insight into ways to elevate the protection of natural and cultural objects to an issue of moral significance, and suggest avenues through which to motivate the preservation of a natural and cultural environments.
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    Social mindfulness predicts concern for nature and immigrants across 36 nations.
    Kirkland, K ; Van Lange, PAM ; Van Doesum, NJ ; Acevedo-Triana, C ; Amiot, CE ; Ausmees, L ; Baguma, P ; Barry, O ; Becker, M ; Bilewicz, M ; Boonyasiriwat, W ; Castelain, T ; Costantini, G ; Dimdins, G ; Espinosa, A ; Finchilescu, G ; Fischer, R ; Friese, M ; Gómez, Á ; González, R ; Goto, N ; Halama, P ; Ilustrisimo, RD ; Jiga-Boy, GM ; Kuppens, P ; Loughnan, S ; Markovik, M ; Mastor, KA ; McLatchie, N ; Novak, LM ; Onyishi, IE ; Peker, M ; Rizwan, M ; Schaller, M ; Suh, EM ; Swann, WB ; Tong, EMW ; Torres, A ; Turner, RN ; Vauclair, C-M ; Vinogradov, A ; Wang, Z ; Yeung, VWL ; Bastian, B (Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2022-12-21)
    People cooperate every day in ways that range from largescale contributions that mitigate climate change to simple actions such as leaving another individual with choice - known as social mindfulness. It is not yet clear whether and how these complex and more simple forms of cooperation relate. Prior work has found that countries with individuals who made more socially mindful choices were linked to a higher country environmental performance - a proxy for complex cooperation. Here we replicated this initial finding in 41 samples around the world, demonstrating the robustness of the association between social mindfulness and environmental performance, and substantially built on it to show this relationship extended to a wide range of complex cooperative indices, tied closely to many current societal issues. We found that greater social mindfulness expressed by an individual was related to living in countries with more social capital, more community participation and reduced prejudice towards immigrants. Our findings speak to the symbiotic relationship between simple and more complex forms of cooperation in societies.
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    Predicting attitudinal and behavioral responses to COVID-19 pandemic using machine learning.
    Pavlović, T ; Azevedo, F ; De, K ; Riaño-Moreno, JC ; Maglić, M ; Gkinopoulos, T ; Donnelly-Kehoe, PA ; Payán-Gómez, C ; Huang, G ; Kantorowicz, J ; Birtel, MD ; Schönegger, P ; Capraro, V ; Santamaría-García, H ; Yucel, M ; Ibanez, A ; Rathje, S ; Wetter, E ; Stanojević, D ; van Prooijen, J-W ; Hesse, E ; Elbaek, CT ; Franc, R ; Pavlović, Z ; Mitkidis, P ; Cichocka, A ; Gelfand, M ; Alfano, M ; Ross, RM ; Sjåstad, H ; Nezlek, JB ; Cislak, A ; Lockwood, P ; Abts, K ; Agadullina, E ; Amodio, DM ; Apps, MAJ ; Aruta, JJB ; Besharati, S ; Bor, A ; Choma, B ; Cunningham, W ; Ejaz, W ; Farmer, H ; Findor, A ; Gjoneska, B ; Gualda, E ; Huynh, TLD ; Imran, MA ; Israelashvili, J ; Kantorowicz-Reznichenko, E ; Krouwel, A ; Kutiyski, Y ; Laakasuo, M ; Lamm, C ; Levy, J ; Leygue, C ; Lin, M-J ; Mansoor, MS ; Marie, A ; Mayiwar, L ; Mazepus, H ; McHugh, C ; Olsson, A ; Otterbring, T ; Packer, D ; Palomäki, J ; Perry, A ; Petersen, MB ; Puthillam, A ; Rothmund, T ; Schmid, PC ; Stadelmann, D ; Stoica, A ; Stoyanov, D ; Stoyanova, K ; Tewari, S ; Todosijević, B ; Torgler, B ; Tsakiris, M ; Tung, HH ; Umbreș, RG ; Vanags, E ; Vlasceanu, M ; Vonasch, AJ ; Zhang, Y ; Abad, M ; Adler, E ; Mdarhri, HA ; Antazo, B ; Ay, FC ; Ba, MEH ; Barbosa, S ; Bastian, B ; Berg, A ; Białek, M ; Bilancini, E ; Bogatyreva, N ; Boncinelli, L ; Booth, JE ; Borau, S ; Buchel, O ; de Carvalho, CF ; Celadin, T ; Cerami, C ; Chalise, HN ; Cheng, X ; Cian, L ; Cockcroft, K ; Conway, J ; Córdoba-Delgado, MA ; Crespi, C ; Crouzevialle, M ; Cutler, J ; Cypryańska, M ; Dabrowska, J ; Davis, VH ; Minda, JP ; Dayley, PN ; Delouvée, S ; Denkovski, O ; Dezecache, G ; Dhaliwal, NA ; Diato, A ; Di Paolo, R ; Dulleck, U ; Ekmanis, J ; Etienne, TW ; Farhana, HH ; Farkhari, F ; Fidanovski, K ; Flew, T ; Fraser, S ; Frempong, RB ; Fugelsang, J ; Gale, J ; García-Navarro, EB ; Garladinne, P ; Gray, K ; Griffin, SM ; Gronfeldt, B ; Gruber, J ; Halperin, E ; Herzon, V ; Hruška, M ; Hudecek, MFC ; Isler, O ; Jangard, S ; Jørgensen, F ; Keudel, O ; Koppel, L ; Koverola, M ; Kunnari, A ; Leota, J ; Lermer, E ; Li, C ; Longoni, C ; McCashin, D ; Mikloušić, I ; Molina-Paredes, J ; Monroy-Fonseca, C ; Morales-Marente, E ; Moreau, D ; Muda, R ; Myer, A ; Nash, K ; Nitschke, JP ; Nurse, MS ; de Mello, VO ; Palacios-Galvez, MS ; Pan, Y ; Papp, Z ; Pärnamets, P ; Paruzel-Czachura, M ; Perander, S ; Pitman, M ; Raza, A ; Rêgo, GG ; Robertson, C ; Rodríguez-Pascual, I ; Saikkonen, T ; Salvador-Ginez, O ; Sampaio, WM ; Santi, GC ; Schultner, D ; Schutte, E ; Scott, A ; Skali, A ; Stefaniak, A ; Sternisko, A ; Strickland, B ; Thomas, JP ; Tinghög, G ; Traast, IJ ; Tucciarelli, R ; Tyrala, M ; Ungson, ND ; Uysal, MS ; Van Rooy, D ; Västfjäll, D ; Vieira, JB ; von Sikorski, C ; Walker, AC ; Watermeyer, J ; Willardt, R ; Wohl, MJA ; Wójcik, AD ; Wu, K ; Yamada, Y ; Yilmaz, O ; Yogeeswaran, K ; Ziemer, C-T ; Zwaan, RA ; Boggio, PS ; Whillans, A ; Van Lange, PAM ; Prasad, R ; Onderco, M ; O'Madagain, C ; Nesh-Nash, T ; Laguna, OM ; Kubin, E ; Gümren, M ; Fenwick, A ; Ertan, AS ; Bernstein, MJ ; Amara, H ; Van Bavel, JJ (Oxford University Press (OUP), 2022-07)
    At the beginning of 2020, COVID-19 became a global problem. Despite all the efforts to emphasize the relevance of preventive measures, not everyone adhered to them. Thus, learning more about the characteristics determining attitudinal and behavioral responses to the pandemic is crucial to improving future interventions. In this study, we applied machine learning on the multinational data collected by the International Collaboration on the Social and Moral Psychology of COVID-19 (N = 51,404) to test the predictive efficacy of constructs from social, moral, cognitive, and personality psychology, as well as socio-demographic factors, in the attitudinal and behavioral responses to the pandemic. The results point to several valuable insights. Internalized moral identity provided the most consistent predictive contribution-individuals perceiving moral traits as central to their self-concept reported higher adherence to preventive measures. Similar results were found for morality as cooperation, symbolized moral identity, self-control, open-mindedness, and collective narcissism, while the inverse relationship was evident for the endorsement of conspiracy theories. However, we also found a non-neglible variability in the explained variance and predictive contributions with respect to macro-level factors such as the pandemic stage or cultural region. Overall, the results underscore the importance of morality-related and contextual factors in understanding adherence to public health recommendations during the pandemic.
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    Morally excused but socially excluded: Denying agency through the defense of mental impairment.
    de Vel-Palumbo, M ; Ferguson, R ; Schein, C ; Chang, MX-L ; Bastian, B ; Sartori, G (Public Library of Science (PLoS), 2022)
    Defendants can deny they have agency, and thus responsibility, for a crime by using a defense of mental impairment. We argue that although this strategy may help defendants evade blame, it may carry longer-term social costs, as lay people's perceptions of a person's agency might determine some of the moral rights they grant them. Three randomized between-group experiments (N = 1601) used online vignettes to examine lay perceptions of a hypothetical defendant using a defense of mental impairment (versus a guilty plea). We find that using a defense of mental impairment significantly reduces responsibility, blame, and punitiveness relative to a guilty plea, and these judgments are mediated by perceptions of reduced moral agency. However, after serving their respective sentences, those using the defense are sometimes conferred fewer rights, as reduced agency corresponds to an increase in perceived dangerousness. Our findings were found to be robust across different types of mental impairment, offences/sentences, and using both manipulated and measured agency. The findings have implications for defendants claiming reduced agency through legal defenses, as well as for the broader study of moral rights and mind perception.
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    Who in the world is trying to change their personality traits? Volitional personality change among college students in six continents.
    Baranski, E ; Gardiner, G ; Lee, D ; Funder, DC ; Members of the International Situations Project, (American Psychological Association (APA), 2021-11)
    Recent research conducted largely in the United States suggests that most people would like to change one or more of their personality traits. Yet almost no research has investigated the degree to which and in what ways volitional personality change (VPC), or individuals' active efforts toward personality change, might be common around the world. Through a custom-built website, 13,278 college student participants from 55 countries and one of a larger country (Hong Kong, S.A.R.) using 42 different languages reported whether they were currently trying to change their personality and, if so, what they were trying to change. Around the world, 60.40% of participants reported that they are currently trying to change their personalities, with the highest percentage in Thailand (81.91%) and the lowest in Kenya (21.41%). Among those who provide open-ended responses to the aspect of personality they are trying to change, the most common goals were to increase emotional stability (29.73%), conscientiousness (19.71%), extraversion (15.94%), and agreeableness (13.53%). In line with previous research, students who are trying to change any personality trait tend to have relatively low levels of emotional stability and happiness. Moreover, those with relatively low levels of socially desirable traits reported attempting to increase what they lacked. These principal findings were generalizable around the world. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).
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    The Relation Between Positive and Negative Affect Becomes More Negative in Response to Personally Relevant Events
    Dejonckheere, E ; Mestdagh, M ; Verdonck, S ; Lafit, G ; Ceulemans, E ; Bastian, B ; Kalokerinos, EK (AMER PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOC, 2021-03)
    Can we experience positive (PA) and negative affect (NA) separately (i.e., affective independence), or do these emotional states represent the mutually exclusive ends of a single bipolar continuum (i.e., affective bipolarity)? Building on previous emotion theories, we propose that the relation between PA and NA is not invariable, but rather fluctuates in response to changing situational demands. Specifically, we argue that our affective system shifts from relative independence to stronger bipolarity when we encounter events or situations that activate personally relevant concerns. We test this idea in an experience sampling study, in which we tracked the positive and negative emotional trajectories of 101 first-year university students who received their exam results, an event that potentially triggers a personally significant concern. Using multilevel piecewise regression, we show that running PA-NA correlations become increasingly more negative in the anticipation of results release, indicating stronger affective bipolarity, and ease back toward greater independence as time after this event passes. Furthermore, we show that this dynamic trajectory is particularly apparent for event-related PA and NA, and not affect in general, and that such shifts are partly a function of the importance people attribute to that event. We suggest that such flexible changes in the affect relation may function as an emotional compass by signaling personally relevant information, and create a motivational push to respond to these meaningful events in an appropriate manner. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).
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    The Relationship Between Prosociality, Meaning, and Happiness in Everyday Life
    Dakin, BC ; Tan, NP ; Conner, TS ; Bastian, B (Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2022-08-01)
    Abstract Prosocial behaviors benefit others, but what benefits do they hold for those who enact them? Prosociality can enhance the actor’s well-being, yet whether it is one’s sense of happiness or meaning that is impacted, and how this plays out in everyday life, has received limited attention. We address this gap in knowledge by examining how prosociality is related to daily meaning and happiness across two large daily diary studies in two countries. Study 1 (N = 1140) revealed that changes in one’s subjective sense of prosociality was uniquely associated with both daily meaning and happiness. Study 2 (N = 217) found that self-reported prosocial behavior was also clearly linked to increases in daily meaning, and modestly associated with daily happiness. Altogether, our findings suggest that the subjective sense of prosociality is associated with meaning and happiness, and that performing prosocial acts may be particularly relevant to experiencing meaning.
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    Pet ownership and psychological well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic.
    Amiot, CE ; Gagné, C ; Bastian, B (Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2022-04-12)
    The question of pet ownership contributing to human well-being has received mixed empirical evidence. This contrasts with the lay intuition that pet ownership contributes positively to wellness. In a large representative sample, we investigate the differences that may exist between pet vs. non-pet owners in terms of their well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic, and examine among different sociodemographic strata, for whom pet ownership can be more vs. less beneficial. A cross-sectional questionnaire survey was conducted among Canadian adults (1220 pet owners, 1204 non-pet owners). Pet owners reported lower well-being than non-pet owners on a majority of well-being indicators; this general pet ownership effect held when accounting for pet species (dogs, cats, other species) and number of pets owned. Compared to owners of other pets, dog owners reported higher well-being. When examining the effect of pet ownership within different socioeconomic strata, being a pet owner was associated with lower well-being among: women; people who have 2 + children living at home; people who are unemployed. Our results offer a counterpoint to popular beliefs emphasising the benefits of pets to human wellness during the COVID-19 pandemic and confirm the importance of accounting for sociodemographic factors to further understand the experience of pet ownership.