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In theory, it can be strategically advantageous for competitors to make themselves unpredictable to their opponents, for example, by variably mixing hostility and friendliness. Empirically, it remains open whether and how competitors make themselves unpredictable, why they do so, and how this conditions conflict dynamics and outcomes. We examine these questions in interactive attacker–defender contests, in which attackers invest to capture resources held and defended by their opponent. Study 1, a reanalysis of nine (un)published experiments (total N = 650), reveals significant cross-trial variability especially in proactive attacks and less in reactive defense. Study 2 (N = 200) shows that greater variability makes both attacker's and defender's next move more difficult to predict, especially when variability is due to occasional rather than (in)frequent extreme investments in conflict. Studies 3 (N = 27) and 4 (N = 106) show that precontest testosterone, a hormone associated with risk-taking and status competition, drives variability during attack which, in turn, increases sympathetic arousal in defenders and defender variability (Study 4). Rather than being motivated by wealth maximization, being unpredictable in conflict and competition emerges in function of the attacker's desire to win "no matter what" and comes with significant welfare cost to both victor and victim. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Feeling loved (loved, cared for, accepted, valued, understood) is inherently dyadic, yet most prior theoretical perspectives and investigations have focused on how actors feeling (un)loved shapes actors' outcomes. Adopting a dyadic perspective, the present research tested whether the established links between actors feeling unloved and destructive (critical, hostile) behavior depended on partners' feelings of being loved. Does feeling loved need to be mutual to reduce destructive behavior, or can partners feeling loved compensate for actors feeling unloved? In five dyadic observational studies, couples were recorded discussing conflicts, diverging preferences or relationship strengths, or interacting with their child (total N = 842 couples; 1,965 interactions). Participants reported how much they felt loved during each interaction and independent coders rated how much each person exhibited destructive behavior. Significant Actors' × Partners' Felt-Loved interactions revealed a strong-link/mutual felt-unloved pattern: partners' high felt-loved buffered the damaging effect of actors' low felt-loved on destructive behavior, resulting in actors' destructive behavior mostly occurring when both actors' and partners' felt-loved was low. This dyadic pattern also emerged in three supplemental daily sampling studies. Providing directional support for the strong-link/mutual felt-unloved pattern, in Studies 4 and 5 involving two or more sequential interactions, Actors' × Partners' Felt-Loved in one interaction predicted actors' destructive behavior within couples' subsequent conflict interactions. The results illustrate the dyadic nature of feeling loved: Partners feeling loved can protect against actors feeling unloved in challenging interactions. Assessing Actor × Partner effects should be equally valuable for advancing understanding of other fundamentally dyadic relationship processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current investigation tested if people's basic belief in the notion that human beings have developed from other animals (i.e., belief in evolution) can predict human-to-human prejudice and intergroup hostility. Using data from the American General Social Survey and Pew Research Center (Studies 1–4), and from three online samples (Studies 5, 7, 8) we tested this hypothesis across 45 countries, in diverse populations and religious settings, across time, in nationally representative data (N = 60,703), and with more comprehensive measures in online crowdsourced data (N = 2,846). Supporting the hypothesis, low belief in human evolution was associated with higher levels of prejudice, racist attitudes, and support for discriminatory behaviors against Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ), Blacks, and immigrants in the United States (Study 1), with higher ingroup biases, prejudicial attitudes toward outgroups, and less support for conflict resolution in samples collected from 19 Eastern European countries (Study 2), 25 Muslim countries (Study 3), and Israel (Study 4). Further, among Americans, lower belief in evolution was associated with greater prejudice and militaristic attitudes toward political outgroups (Study 5). Finally, perceived similarity to animals (a construct distinct from belief in evolution, Study 6) partially mediated the link between belief in evolution and prejudice (Studies 7 and 8), even when controlling for religious beliefs, political views, and other demographic variables, and were also observed for nondominant groups (i.e., religious and racial minorities). Overall, these findings highlight the importance of belief in human evolution as a potentially key individual-difference variable predicting racism and prejudice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Protecting men’s power is fundamental to understanding the origin, expression, and targets of hostile sexism, yet no prior theoretical or empirical work has specified how hostile sexism is related to experiences of power. In the current studies, we propose that the interdependence inherent in heterosexual relationships will lead men who more strongly endorse hostile sexism to perceive they have lower power in their relationship, and that these perceptions will be biased. We also predicted that lower perceptions of power would in turn promote aggression toward intimate partners. Across 4 studies, men who more strongly endorsed hostile sexism perceived lower power in their relationships. Comparisons across partners supported that these lower perceptions of power were biased; men who more strongly endorsed hostile sexism underestimated the power they had compared with their partners’ reports of that power (Studies 1 and 2). These lower perceptions of power, in turn, predicted greater aggression toward female partners during couples’ daily interactions (Study 1), observed during couples’ video-recorded conflict discussions (Study 2), and reported over the last year (Studies 3 and 4). Moreover, the associations between hostile sexism, power, and aggression were specific to men perceiving lower relationship power rather than desiring greater power in their relationships (Studies 3 and 4), and they were not the result of generally being more dominant and aggressive (Studies 3 and 4), or more negative relationship evaluations from either partner (Studies 1–4). The findings demonstrate the importance of an interdependence perspective in understanding the experiences, aggressive expressions, and broader consequences associated with hostile sexism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the existing literature on worldview beliefs, cynical hostility, and Machiavellian cynicism, we suggest that holding cynical beliefs about human nature can be detrimental for individuals' income. Cynical individuals are more likely to avoid cooperation and trust or to overinvest in monitoring, control, and other means of protection from potential exploitation. As a result, they are more likely to forgo valuable opportunities for cooperation and consequently less likely to reap the benefits of joint efforts and mutual help compared with their less cynical counterparts. Studies 1 and 2, using nationally representative longitudinal surveys of the American population, show that individuals who endorsed cynical beliefs about human nature at baseline earned comparatively lower incomes 9 (Study 1) and 2 (Study 2) years later. In Study 3, applying a multilevel model of change to a nationally representative panel study of the German population, we show that cynical beliefs at baseline undermined an income increase in the course of the following 9 years. In Study 4, the negative effect of cynical beliefs on income proved to be independent of individual differences in the Big Five personality dimensions. Study 5 provided the first tentative evidence of the hypothesized mechanism underlying this effect. Using survey data from 41 countries, it revealed that the negative effect of cynical beliefs on income is alleviated in sociocultural contexts with low levels of prosocial behavior, high homicide rates and high overall societal cynicism levels. Holding cynical beliefs about others has negative economic outcomes unless such beliefs hold true. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present research tested the hypothesis that many people's ambient religious beliefs are non-hostile and magnanimous by assessing whether reminding people of their religious belief systems would reduce hostility after threat. Across religious affiliations, participants reported that their religious belief systems encourage magnanimous behavior. In addition, priming their religious belief systems caused them to act more magnanimously, but only when motivated to adhere to salient ideals (i.e., after threats; see Gailliot, Stillman, Schmeichel, Maner, & Plant, 2008; Jonas et al., 2008). Specifically, in Studies 1-5, we found that a general religious belief system prime ("Which religious belief system do you identify with?") reduced the hostility of people's thoughts, behaviors, and judgments following threat. In Studies 6 and 7, we found that the religious belief system prime only reduced hostile reactions to threat among participants who held religious beliefs that oriented them toward magnanimous ideals (Study 6) and who were dispositionally inclined to adhere to their ideals (Study 7). In Study 8, we found support for the role of magnanimous ideals by demonstrating that directly priming these ideals yielded effects similar to those produced by a religious belief system prime. These studies provide consistent evidence that, by invoking magnanimous ideals, a religious belief system prime promotes less hostile responses to threat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Results of 4 experiments demonstrated that under in-group image threat collective narcissism predicts retaliatory intergroup hostility. Under in-group criticism (vs. praise) collective narcissists expressed Intention to harm the offending out-group but not other, nonoffending out-groups. This effect was specific to collective narcissism and was replicated in studies that accounted for the overlap between collective narcissism and individual narcissism, in-group positivity (in-group identification, blind and constructive patriotism), social dominance orientation, and right wing authoritarianism. The link between collective narcissism and retaliatory intergroup hostility under in-group image threat was found in the context of national identity and international relations and in the context of a social identity defined by university affiliation. Study 4 demonstrated that the relationship between collective narcissism and intergroup hostility was mediated by the perception of in-group criticism as personally threatening. The results advance our understanding of the mechanism driving the link between collective narcissism and intergroup hostility. They indicate that threatened egotism theory can be extended into the intergroup domain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this longitudinal study was to examine the relationship specificity of aggressogenic thought-behavior processes and to investigate the role of self-esteem in translating or inhibiting aggressogenic thought into aggression toward personally liked and disliked targets. Participants (186 Finnish boys and girls; 11-12 years old at Time 1) completed measures twice over a 1-year interval. We assessed children's attributions of hostility, relational goals, expectations of anger, and self-efficacy at Time 1 as well as aggression, at both time points, toward their previously identified liked and disliked peers. Our results mostly supported our hypothesis that cognitions guide behavior mainly within the relationship context. Moreover, high self-esteem potentiated cognition-behavior links toward children's own liked peer but inhibited the actualization of aggressogenic thought toward children's disliked peer. These findings highlight the importance of taking a Person X Situation approach when studying cognition-behavior processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three studies demonstrated that a salient multicultural ideology increases hostile treatment of threatening outgroup interaction partners. The effect of multiculturalism on hostile behavior was evident regardless of whether threat was operationalized in terms of disagreement with an outgroup partner on important social issues (Studies 1 and 3) or rejection by the partner (Study 2). Moreover, the results clearly point to the learning orientation fostered by multiculturalism—as opposed to other factors such as enhanced other-focus, group-level attributions, or focus on differences—as the critical mediator of its effect on hostile behavior under threat. Thus, it appears that multiculturalism enhances the expression of hostility because it prompts individuals to really engage with and attach meaning and importance to threatening behaviors exhibited by outgroup members. The effects of multiculturalism were distinct from those of anti-racism and color-blindness, which set in motion processes that in many respects are directly opposite to those instantiated by multiculturalism. The findings highlight that the behavioral implications of multiculturalism may be quite different in conflictual interactions than they have previously been demonstrated to be in less threatening exchanges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current research tests a model for understanding how benevolent sexism undermines, whereas hostile sexism promotes, social change. Study 1 (N = 99) and Study 2 (N = 92) demonstrate that exposing women to benevolent sexism decreases their engagement in collective action, whereas exposure to hostile sexism increases it. Both effects were mediated by gender-specific system justification and perceived advantages of being a woman. In Study 2, positive and negative affect also mediated these relationships. Results from Studies 3 and 4 (N = 68 and N = 37) support the causal chain described in the mediational models tested in Studies 1 and 2. Manipulations that increased gender-specific systemjustification (Study 3) and perceived advantages of being a woman (Study 4) reduced intentions to participate in collective action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 4 studies, the authors examined the hypothesis that relative to primed autonomy motivation, primed control would increase enjoyment of hostile (compared with nonhostile) humor as assessed by self-reported enjoyment and aversiveness and by nonverbal behavior. Results confirmed the hypothesis. Furthermore, initial state hostility moderated the effect such that high-hostility participants who were primed with control motivation especially enjoyed hostile humor. The 2 final studies showed that the effect was mediated by implicit aggression such that me combination of high initial state hostility and control priming led to implicit aggression, which in turn resulted in hostile humor enjoyment. Results are interpreted in terms of the effects of autonomy versus control motivation on intrapersonal self-regulatory processes, which influence interpersonal functioning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relation between perceived racial discrimination and substance use was examined in 2 studies that were based on the prototype-willingness model (Gibbons, Gerrard, & Lane, 2003). Study 1, using structural equation modeling, revealed prospective relations between discrimination and use 5 years later in a panel of African American adolescents (M age 10.5 years at Time 1 [T1]) and their parents. For both groups, the relation was mediated by anger and/or hostility. For the adolescents, it was also mediated by behavioral willingness, and it was moderated by supportive parenting. Study 2 was a lab experiment in which a subset of the Study 1 adolescents (M age = 18.5 years) was asked to imagine a discriminatory experience, and then their affect and drug willingness were assessed. As in the survey study. discrimination was associated with more drug willingness, and that relation was again mediated by anger and moderated by supportive parenting. Implications of the results for research and interventions involving reactions to racial discrimination are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Terror management theory posits that people tend to respond defensively to reminders of death, including worldview defense, self-esteem striving, and suppression of death thoughts. Seven experiments examined whether trait mindfulness—a disposition characterized by receptive attention to present experience—reduced defensive responses to mortality salience (MS). Under MS, less mindful individuals showed higher worldview defense (Studies 1-3) and self-esteem striving (Study 5), yet more mindful individuals did not defend a constellation of values theoretically associated with mindfulness (Study 4). To explain these findings through proximal defense processes, Study 6 showed that more mindful individuals wrote about their death for a longer period of time, which partially mediated the inverse association between trait mindfulness and worldview defense. Study 7 demonstrated that trait mindfulness predicted less suppression of death thoughts immediately following MS. The discussion highlights the relevance of mindfulness to theories that emphasize the nature of conscious processing in understanding responses to threat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces the concept of collective narcissism—an emotional investment in an unrealistic belief about the in group's greatness—aiming to explain how feelings about an ingroup shape a tendency to aggress against outgroups. The results of 5 studies indicate that collective, but not individual, narcissism predicts intergroup aggressiveness. Collective narcissism is related to high private and low public collective self-esteem and low implicit group esteem. It predicts perceived threat from outgroups, unwillingness to forgive outgroups, preference for military aggression over and above social dominance orientation, right-wing authoritarianism, and blind patriotism. The relationship between collective narcissism and aggressiveness is mediated by perceived threat from outgroups and perceived insult to the ingroup. In sum, the results indicate that collective narcissism is a form of high but ambivalent group esteem related to sensitivity to threats to the ingroup's image and retaliatory aggression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anti-Semitism is resurgent throughout much of the world. A new theoretical model of anti-Semitism is presented and tested in 3 experiments. The model proposes that mortality salience increases anti- Semitism and that anti-Semitism often manifests as hostility toward Israel. Study I showed that mortality salience led to greater levels of anti-Semitism and lowered support for Israel. This effect occurred only in a bogus pipeline condition, indicating that social desirability masks hostility toward Jews and Israel. Study 2 showed that mortality salience caused Israel, but no other country, to perceptually loom large. Study 3 showed that mortality salience increased punitiveness toward Israel's human rights violations more than it increased hostility toward the identical human rights violations committed by Russia or India. Collectively, results suggest that Jews constitute a unique cultural threat to many people's worldviews, that anti-Semitism causes hostility to Israel, and that hostility to Israel may feed back to increase anti-Semitism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the high costs of aggression, why have people evolved to act aggressively? Comparative biologists have frequently observed links between aggression, status, and mating in nonhuman animals. In this series of experiments, the authors examined the effects of status, competition, and mating motives on men's and women's aggression. For men, status motives increased direct aggression (face-to-face confrontation). Men's aggression was also boosted by mating motives, but only when observers were other men. For women, both status and mating motives increased indirect aggression (e.g., socially excluding the perpetrator). Although neither status nor mating motives increased women's direct aggression, women did become more directly aggressive when motivated to compete for scarce resources. These context- and sex-specific effects on human aggression contribute to a broader understanding of the functional nature of aggressive behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior research has confirmed a casual path between social rejection and aggression, but there has been no clear explanation of why social rejection causes aggression. A series of experiments tested the hypothesis that social exclusion increases the inclination to perceive neutral information as hostile, which has implications for aggression. Compared to accepted and control participants, socially excluded participants were more likely to rate aggressive and ambiguous words as similar (Experiment 1a), to complete word fragments with aggressive words (Experiment 1b), and to rate the ambiguous actions of another person as hostile (Experiments 2-4). This hostile cognitive bias among excluded people was related to their aggressive treatment of others who were not involved in the exclusion experience (Experiments 2 and 3) and others with whom participants had no previous contact (Experiment 4). These findings provide a first step in resolving the mystery of why social exclusion produces aggression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Four experiments found benevolent sexism to be worse than hostile sexism for women's cognitive performance. Experiments 1-2 showed effects of paternalist benevolent sexism and ruled out explanations of perceived sexism, context pleasantness, and performance motivation. Experiment 3 showed effects of both paternalist and complementary gender differentiation components of benevolent sexism. Benevolent sexism per se (rather than the provision of unsolicited help involved in paternalism) worsened performance. Experiment 4 showed that impaired performance due to benevolent sexism was fully mediated by the mental intrusions women experienced about their sense of competence. Additionally, Experiment 4 showed that gender identification protected against hostile but not benevolent sexism. Despite the apparently positive and inoffensive tone of benevolent sexism, our research emphasizes its insidious dangers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ethnonyms (M. G. Levin & L. P. Potapov. 1964; from the Greek roots meaning "a national group" and "name") are the names an in-group uses to distinguish itself from out-groups. There has been no social psychological research to date exploring the effects of ethnonyms. The authors report the results of 3 studies examining the potential effects of various features of ethnonyms on intergroup behavior. Analyses of archival data indicate that among indigenous African cultures (Study 1), indigenous Native American cultures (Study 2), and African Americans (Study 3), intergroup hostility was greater among in-groups characterized by less complex ethnonyms. Discussion considers the implications of these results and suggests new directions for research in the social psychological study of ethnonyms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Five experiments examined effects of songs with violent lyrics on aggressive thoughts and hostile feelings. Experiments 1, 3, 4 and 5 demonstrated that college students who heard a violent song felt more hostile than those who heard a similar but nonviolent song. Experiments 2-5 demonstrated a similar increase in aggressive thoughts. These effects replicated across songs and song types (e.g., rock, humorous, nonhumorous). Experiments 3-5 also demonstrated that trait hostility was positively related to state hostility but did not moderate the song lyric effects. Discussion centers on the potential role of lyric content on aggression in short-term settings, relation to catharsis and other media violence domains, development of aggressive personality, differences between long-term and short-term effects, and possible mitigating factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this test of interpersonal theory (R. C. Carson, 1969; D.J. Kiesler, 1983; T. Leary, 1957; J. S. Wiggins, 1982), complementarity and interpersonal rigidity were examined in relation to positive regard for others and group integration among 206 members of 54 musical bands. Complementarity was associated with more positive regard and more group integration in bands consisting of musicians who were high in interpersonal rigidity (as indexed by vector length on the interpersonal circle), whereas the effect was less strong in bands consisting of musicians who were lower in rigidity. The meager support for personality compatibility in groups and dyads observed in previous research could thus be due to a neglect of interpersonal rigidity-flexibility. There was also evidence that hostile complementarity was beneficial to the relationships of hostile individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory- (MMPI-) based Cook-Medley Hostility scale (Cook & Medley, 1954) historically has been used to investigate links between personality factors and health outcomes. We assessed the dimensionality of 27 Cook-Medley items previously found to predict mortality using full-information maximum likelihood factor analysis. The factor analyses revealed that these items serve as indicators for several constructs, with some factors apparently reflecting word usage rather than a meaningful psychological dimension. Our analyses indicate that the psychological meaning of these (sub)scales is ambiguous and differs according to the respondent's gender. The findings are discussed in the context of evidence to support the construct validity of the scale and the implications of dimensionality for making inferences concerning the link among scale scores, personality factors, and health outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scenario-based, self-report measures were developed to assess how people characteristically experience and manage anger from middle childhood through adulthood. The Anger Response Inventories (ARIs) for children, adolescents, and adults each assess (a) anger arousal, (b) intentions, (c) cognitive and behavioral responses, and (d) long-term consequences. Several independent studies provide support for the reliability and validity of the ARIs. Theoretically consistent patterns of correlations were observed with (a) global self-report measures of hostility, aggression, and anger-management strategies (adult version); (b) teacher reports of behavioral and emotional adjustment (child and adolescent versions); and (c) self- and family-member reports of behaviors in specific anger episodes (adolescent and adult versions). Findings from additional personality and developmental studies are summarized, further supporting construct validity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

M. R. Burt (1980) concluded that acceptance of rape myths was strongly related to adversarial sexual beliefs, tolerance of interpersonal violence, and gender role stereotyping. However, the scales designed to assess these variables appear to share an emphasis on hostile attitudes toward women. Using alternative measures and 3 samples of undergraduates (N = 429; 199 men and 230 women), the authors demonstrated that hostility toward women can partially account for the relation of the various Butt constructs with rape myth acceptance. In addition, a direct measure of hostility toward women exhibits considerably more predictive power among men than women, suggesting that rape myths may function differently for men and women and that there is significant utility in exploring a more broadly defined construct of misogyny for understanding the acceptance of sexual violence toward women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors tested three explanations of findings that sexually aggressive men perceive women's communications differently than less aggressive men. The first suggests that aggressors are incompetent in decoding women's negative emotions. The second posits that they fail to make subtle distinctions between women's friendliness and seductiveness and between assertiveness and hostility. The third explanation contends that sexual aggressors use a suspicious schema and therefore discount the veridicality of women's communications. These explanations were tested using videotaped scenarios in which a woman's responses to a man's advances were systematically varied. The data were most supportive of the suspicious schema explanation. These findings are integrated with other research on the characteristics of sexual aggressors and on the perceptions of aggressive children and of maritally violent men. Implications for interventions are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Changes in and stability of hostility characteristics and their relationship to age, sex, and family support were examined among 108 10-18-year-olds in a 4-year longitudinal study. Clinical ratings of Structured Interview potential for hostility, self-reported Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-derived hostile attitudes, and perceptions of family support were obtained at study entry and at follow-up when subjects were ages 15-21. Results showed relative stability of hostility rankings across 4 years, with males being more hostile than females. Both sexes increased in hostility over time, with the greatest increase in Ss who perceived low family support at follow-up and whose parents perceived high family support at study entry. Results are consistent with notions that early signs of hostility are risk factors for later development of coronary disease and that family environment influences development of hostility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relation of shame and guilt to anger and aggression has been the focus of considerable theoretical discussion, but empirical findings have been inconsistent. Two recently developed measures of affective style were used to examine whether shame-proneness and guilt-proneness are differentially related to anger, hostility, and aggression. In 2 studies, 243 and 252 undergraduates completed the Self-Conscious Affect and Attribution Inventory, the Symptom Checklist 90, and the Spielberger Trait Anger Scale. Study 2 also included the Test of Self-Conscious Affect and the Buss-Durkee Hostility Inventory Shame-proneness was consistently correlated with anger arousal, suspiciousness, resentment, irritability, a tendency to blame others for negative events, and indirect (but not direct) expressions of hostility Proneness to "shame-free" guilt was inversely related to externalization of blame and some indices of anger, hostility, and resentment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the relationships among hostility, grandiosity, dominance, narcissism, and self-esteem in samples of 84, 57, and 300 Ss. The intercorrelations among various self-report and observer ratings of these constructs suggest that (a) hostility, grandiosity, dominance, and narcissism are substantially intercorrelated and form a coherent system of constructs and (b) the common variance in this system of constructs significantly predicts variations in Ss' self-esteem. The notion that some people use grandiosity, dominance, and a more generalized narcissistic personality style to manage their hostility and maintain a sense of positive regard was evaluated using hierarchical analyses. The results of these analyses were consistent with this model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]