Do not prime hawks with doves: The interplay of construct activation and consistency of social value orientation on cooperative behavior.

Abstract

Low and high consistent pro-socials and pro-selfs were primed with neutral, morality, or might concepts in mixed-motive situations. The authors expected participants' social value orientation to influence cooperative behavior among (a) high consistent individuals in all prime conditions and (b) low consistent individuals in the neutral prime condition only. The authors also expected the primes to influence cooperative behavior more among low than high consistent individuals. Four experiments using supra-liminal (Experiments 1, 2, and 4) or subliminal (Experiment 3) priming and 2-person (Experiments 1-3) or N-person (Experiment 4) social dilemmas partially supported these initial predictions. One intriguing exception was that morality primes reduced cooperation among high consistent pro-selfs. Experiments 2-4 allowed testing for the potential role of expectations in shaping participants' cooperative behavior.

Power reduces the press of the situation: Implications for creativity, conformity, and dissonance.

“…Consistent with previous research, competitive and individualistic participants were classified as proself (e.g., Olekalns & Smith, 1999;Van Lange & Liebrand, 1991). On this basis, 35 participants were classified as proself, 25 participants were prosocial, and 12 participants could not be classified, a ratio similar to previous research (Parks, Sanna, & Posey, 2003;Smeesters, Warlop, Van Avermaet, Corneille, & Yzerbyt, 2003;Van Lange, 1999).…”

Being “in Control” May Make You Lose Control: The Role of Self-Regulation in Unethical Leadership Behavior

“…At the same time, it should be recognized that other research shows that situational manipulations of morality can lead to compensatory, rather than consistent, moral behavior. In other words, priming morality can also reduce the display of moral behaviors (Jordan, Mullen, & Murnighan, 2011;Sachdeva, Iliev, & Medin, 2009;Smeesters, Warlop, Van Avermaet, Corneille, & Yzerbyt, 2003;Zhong, Liljenquist, & Cain, 2009). Rather than trying to resolve this inconsistency in the literature, we relied on a dispositional measure of moral identity, which has proven to be a consistent predictor of moral behavior (for an overview, see Shao et al, 2008).…”

The egocentric nature of procedural justice: Social value orientation as moderator of reactions to decision-making procedures

“…A total of 15 participants were not classifiable and were excluded from further analyses. In correspondence with previous research, and because both individualists and competitors have an egocentric focus in their outcome choices, the individualists and competitors were combined to form one group of proselfs 3 (e.g., De Cremer & Van Lange, 2001;Parks, 1994;Smeesters et al, 2003).…”

“…A total of 8 participants could not be classified and were excluded from further analyses. In correspondence with Study 1, we combined individualists and competitors into a general category of proselfs (e.g., Smeesters et al, 2003).…”