Advanced theory of mind and children's prosocial lie-telling in middle childhood: A training study.

Children's advanced theory of mind (AToM) is concurrently associated with their prosocial lie-telling. However, the causal link between AToM and prosocial lie-telling has not yet been demonstrated. To address this gap, the current study adopted a training paradigm and investigated the role of AToM in children's prosocial lie-telling in middle childhood. A total of 66 9- and 10-year-old children who did not demonstrate any prosocial lie-telling in a disappointment gift paradigm at the baseline were recruited and randomly assigned to either the experimental group (n = 32) or an active control group (n = 34). The experimental group underwent a conversation-based training program of four sessions. The results showed significantly greater gains in AToM at the posttest for the experimental group children compared with the control group children, controlling for family socioeconomic status, children's literacy score, working memory, and inhibition. More important, the experimental group children were more likely to tell prosocial lies than the control group, even after controlling for the pretest AToM and other covariates. However, the training effects faded at the 6-month follow-up test after the training's completion. These findings provide the first evidence for the causal role of AToM in the development of prosocial lie-telling in middle childhood. The fade-out effect is discussed in the context of educational interventions.

Leaders and the punishment of misconduct: Examining the roles of leader moral identity and cognitive load.

Moral identity, a construct that captures how individuals view themselves relative to moral attributes, has received widespread attention in the organizational sciences. This article builds on the existing moral identity literature by examining the mechanisms and boundary conditions of leader moral identity's impact on the punishment of misconduct. Drawing on multiple literatures, we specifically argue that leader moral identity is positively related to the punishment of misconduct under the condition of higher cognitive load. Furthermore, we identify moral anger as a key mechanism. The theorized model was tested across three studies: a study of civil judges' court rulings (Study 1), a study of managers' tendencies to punish their employees' misconduct (Study 2), and an experiment that manipulated cognitive load while testing the intermediary role of moral anger (Study 3). Results offered convergent support for our model, shedding new light on the impact of moral identity on leaders in the workplace. Implications for theory and practice are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Weight Bias 2.0: The Effect of Perceived Weight Change on Performance Evaluation and the Moderating Role of Anti-fat Bias.

Overweight employees are viewed as lazy, slow, inactive, and even incapable. Even if such attributes are false, this perspective can seriously undermine others' evaluation of their work performance. The current study explores a broader phenomenon of weight bias that has an effect on weight change. In a longitudinal study with a time lag of 6 months, we surveyed 226 supervisor-employee dyads. We found supervisor perceptions of employee weight change notably altered their evaluation of the employee performance from Time 1, especially following low vs. high Time-1 performance evaluation. Meanwhile, the moderating effects among different levels of supervisor anti-fat bias functioned as boundary conditions for such performance evaluation alteration. In particular, the interaction between the Time-1 performance evaluation and the impact of supervisor perception of employee weight change on the Time-2 performance evaluation was significant only if supervisors held a stronger anti-fat bias.