Smells Like National Spirit
Attitudes About The American Dream
Sandra Hanson & John Zogby
Public Opinion Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
Results from a number of U.S. public opinion polls collected in the past two decades are used to examine trends in attitudes about the American Dream. Trends are examined in the following areas: "What is the American Dream?" "Is the American Dream achievable?" and "What is the role of government and politics in the American Dream?" Findings suggest that a majority of Americans consistently reported that the American Dream (for themselves and their family) is more about spiritual happiness than material goods. However, the size of this majority is decreasing. Most Americans continued to believe that working hard is the most important element for getting ahead in the United States. However, in some surveys, an increasing minority of Americans reported that this hard work and determination does not guarantee success. A majority of respondents believe that achieving the American Dream will be more difficult for future generations, although this majority is becoming smaller. Americans are increasingly pessimistic about the opportunity for the working class to get ahead and increasingly optimistic about the opportunity for the poor and immigrants to get ahead in the United States. Although trends show consistency in Americans blaming Blacks for their condition (not discrimination), a majority of Americans consistently support programs that make special efforts to help minorities get ahead.
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Birth Cohort Increases in Narcissistic Personality Traits Among American College Students, 1982-2009
Jean Twenge & Joshua Foster
Social Psychological and Personality Science, January 2010, Pages 99-106
Abstract:
Previous research produced conflicting results on whether narcissistic personality traits have increased among American college students over the generations. Confounding by campus may explain the discrepancy. Study 1 updates a nationwide meta-analysis of college students' scores on the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) and controls for campus (k = 107; N = 49,818). In Study 2, the authors examine NPI scores among the students on one university campus, the University of South Alabama, between 1994 and 2009 (N = 4,152). Both studies demonstrate significant increases in narcissism over time (Study 1 d = .37, 1982-2008, when campus is controlled; Study 2 d = .37, 1994-2009). These results support a generational differences model of individual personality traits reflecting changes in culture.
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The Success of Failure: The Paradox of Performance Pay
James Bowman
Review of Public Personnel Administration, March 2010, Pages 70-88
Abstract:
This normative article examines the contemporary record of pay-for-performance plans in the federal government. These programs, extending back nearly two generations, have consistently malfunctioned. Nonetheless, the state of the field today is one of continued attempts to use the technique despite agency history and research data that document its problematic nature. Based on scholarly literature, news media reports, and interview data, the analysis assesses the practical experience, policy findings, and political realities of this compensation method. The discussion raises questions about rational decision-making models and suggests that belief in performance pay is akin to an urban legend.
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Social Connectivity in America: Changes in Adult Friendship Network Size From 2002 to 2007
Hua Wang & Barry Wellman
American Behavioral Scientist, April 2010, Pages 1148-1169
Abstract:
There is some panic in the United States about a possible decline in social connectivity. The authors used two American national surveys to analyze how changes in the number of friends are related to changes in Internet use. The authors found that friendships continue to be abundant among adult Americans between the ages of 25 to 74 and that they grew from 2002 to 2007. This trend is similar among Internet nonusers, light users, moderate users, and heavy users and across communication contexts: offline, virtual only, and migratory from online to offline. Heavy users are particularly active, having the most friends both online and offline. Intracohort change consistently outweighs cohort replacement in explaining overall growth in friendship.
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Fitting In or Standing Out: Trends in American Parents' Choices for Children's Names, 1880-2007
Jean Twenge, Emodish Abebe & Keith Campbell
Social Psychological and Personality Science, January 2010, Pages 19-25
Abstract:
In an analysis of the first names of 325 million American babies born 1880 to 2007, parents have increasingly given their children less common names, suggesting a growing interest in uniqueness and individualism. The data are from the Social Security Administration's database of names, a complete survey of Americans with social security cards. Common names decreased in use from 1880 to 1919 and increased slightly from 1920 to 1949 before becoming steadily less popular from 1950 to 2007, with an unremitting decrease after 1983 and the greatest rate of change during the 1990s. The results are similar when controlled for immigration rate and when examined within the six U.S. states with the lowest population percentage of Hispanics. This behavioral evidence of growing individualism complements previous research finding generational increases in individualistic traits on self-report measures.
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Would you work if you won the lottery? Tracking changes in the American work ethic
Scott Highhouse, Michael Zickar & Maya Yankelevich
Journal of Applied Psychology, March 2010, Pages 349-357
Abstract:
Although many social scientists and political commentators have speculated that the American work ethic is in decline, the last longitudinal study of this issue was conducted by Vecchio (1980) on data collected over 30 years ago. Vecchio examined whether workers would wish to continue working even if it were not financially necessary (i.e., the so-called lottery question from the National Opinion Research Center survey) and concluded that there had been a significant decline in work ethic since the 1950s. In the current study, the authors used an updated data set that included data from 1980 through 2006 and found evidence for a declining trend since Vecchio's study, although the decline seems to be leveling out. Demographic characteristics do not account for this apparent decline in shared sentiments about the importance of work for a productive life. The authors caution against drawing definitive conclusions, given the limitations of the lottery item as a measure of work ethic.
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Personal Philosophy and Personnel Achievement: Belief in Free Will Predicts Better Job Performance
Tyler Stillman, Roy Baumeister, Kathleen Vohs, Nathaniel Lambert, Frank Fincham & Lauren Brewer
Social Psychological and Personality Science, January 2010, Pages 43-50
Abstract:
Do philosophic views affect job performance? The authors found that possessing a belief in free will predicted better career attitudes and actual job performance. The effect of free will beliefs on job performance indicators were over and above well-established predictors such as conscientiousness, locus of control, and Protestant work ethic. In Study 1, stronger belief in free will corresponded to more positive attitudes about expected career success. In Study 2, job performance was evaluated objectively and independently by a supervisor. Results indicated that employees who espoused free will beliefs were given better work performance evaluations than those who disbelieve in free will, presumably because belief in free will facilitates exerting control over one's actions.
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Work Attitudes and Intergenerational Mobility
Mark Gradstein
Journal of Human Capital, Fall 2009, Pages 268-288
Abstract:
The phenomenon of systemic changes in the fortunes of social groups is hard to reconcile with traditional macroeconomic models of intergenerational income mobility. This paper, therefore, proposes a theory of intergenerational mobility whereby instilling strict work attitudes is an instrument to address moral hazard in poor families more so than in rich families, which is consistent with empirical regularities pertaining to work attitudes. The mechanism implies that hard‐working children of the poor converge to and may eventually overtake leisure‐prone children of the rich.
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An Assessment of Moral and Character Education in Initial Entry Training (IET)
Kenneth Williams
Journal of Military Ethics, March 2010, Pages 41-56
Abstract:
The US Army conducts extensive training on its core values beginning with Initial Entry Training (commonly referred to as basic training) in order to shape soldiers' behavior and decision making in combat and non-combat situations. This paper addresses the apparent limited empirical research on the effect of US Army Initial Entry Training on soldier's moral development. The study which is the subject of this paper employed a mixed methods quantitative/qualitative model. The Defining Issues Test was administered at the beginning and conclusion of Military Police (MP) Initial Entry Training to determine change in soldiers' moral judgment. This study also used focus groups of MP Initial Entry Training soldiers to identify key factors that soldiers said influenced changes in their moral development. Data analysis of Defining Issues Test scores revealed no significant changes in scores in scores of the overall sample or within the categories of age and educational level. Gender tests revealed a decline in personal interest scores among females, females having higher postconventional scores than males, and no change in scores among males. Focus group results revealed the relationship with drill sergeants as having a significant impact on moral development. This study provides feedback to trainers and commanders that can be used to design effective moral and character education and thereby prepare soldiers for decision making and morally consistent behavior in combat and non-combat situations.
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Altruism towards strangers in need: Costly signaling in an industrial society
Tamas Bereczkei, Bela Birkas & Zsuzsanna Kerekes
Evolution and Human Behavior, March 2010, Pages 95-103
Abstract:
In the present study, the costly signaling theory (CST) is used to examine the effect of an offer of charity on social recognition. On behalf of a charitable organization, 186 students enrolled in 16 different courses were asked to offer support to unfamiliar persons in need. In accordance with our predictions, the results show that significantly more subjects are willing to give assistance if they make charity offers in the presence of their group members than when the offers are made in secret. In accordance with CST - but not with the prevailing explanations in social psychology - the likelihood of charity service was strongly influenced by the expected cost of altruistic behavior. Publicly demonstrated altruistic intentions yielded long-term benefits: Subjects who were willing to participate in a particular charity activity gained significantly higher sociometry scores (as a sign of social recognition) than did others. The cost of volunteerism correlated with social recognition in the case of a charity act judged as the most expensive (giving assistance to mentally retarded children), but not for the other categories of charity offer. Our results suggest that public generosity towards strangers as a costly signal may convey reliable information about subjects' personality traits, such as cooperativeness, but our data do not support the hypothesis that the signaling mechanism is related to sexual selection and mate choice.
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Gratitude and well-being: A review and theoretical integration
Alex Wood, Jeffrey Froh & Adam Geraghty
Clinical Psychology Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper presents a new model of gratitude as a "life orientation towards noticing and appreciating the positive in life", incorporating not only the gratitude that arises following help from others, but also a habitual focusing on and appreciating the positive aspects of life. Research into individual differences in gratitude and well-being is reviewed, including gratitude and psychopathology, personality, relationships, health, subjective and eudemonic well-being, and humanistically orientated functioning. Gratitude is strongly related to well-being, however defined, and this link may be unique and causal. Interventions to clinically increase gratitude are critically reviewed, and concluded to be promising, although the positive psychology literature may have neglected current limitations, and a distinct research strategy is suggested. Finally, mechanisms whereby gratitude may relate to well-being are discussed, including schematic biases, coping, positive affect, and broaden-and-build principles. Gratitude is relevant to clinical psychology due to (a) strong explanatory power in understanding well-being, and (b) the potential of improving well-being through fostering gratitude with simple exercises.
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Competition between collective and individual dynamics
Sébastian Grauwin, Eric Bertin, Rémi Lemoy & Pablo Jensen
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 8 December 2009, Pages 20622-20626
Abstract:
Linking microscopic and macroscopic behavior is at the heart of many natural and social sciences. This apparent similarity conceals essential differences across disciplines: Although physical particles are assumed to optimize the global energy, economic agents maximize their own utility. Here, we solve exactly a Schelling-like segregation model, which interpolates continuously between cooperative and individual dynamics. We show that increasing the degree of cooperativity induces a qualitative transition from a segregated phase of low utility toward a mixed phase of high utility. By introducing a simple function that links the individual and global levels, we pave the way to a rigorous approach of a wide class of systems, where dynamics are governed by individual strategies.
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Socio-political context and accounts of national identity in adolescence
Clifford Stevenson & Orla Muldoon
British Journal of Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Psychological research into national identity has considered both the banal quality of nationalism alongside the active, strategic construction of national categories and boundaries. Less attention has been paid to the conflict between these processes for those whose claims to national identity may be problematic. In the present study, focus groups were conducted with 36 Roman Catholic adolescents living in border regions of Ireland, in which participants were asked to talk about their own and others' Irish national identity. Discursive analysis of the data revealed that those in the Republic of Ireland strategically displayed their national identity as obvious and ‘banal', while those in Northern Ireland proactively claimed their Irishness. Moreover, those in Northern Ireland displayed an assumption that their fellow Irish in the Republic shared their imperative to assert national identity, while those in the Republic actively distanced themselves from this version of Irishness. These results suggest that for dominant ethnic groups, ‘banality' may itself provide a marker of national identity while paradoxically the proactive display of national identity undermines minority groups claims to national identity.