More than fantasy: Prosocial daydreams relate to prosocial dispositions and behaviour.

The current studies examined the relationship between the penchant to daydream about helping others and prosocial traits and behaviour. We reasoned that fantasising about prosocial acts should be positively associated with a more prosocial disposition and real behaviour. Across both studies, the findings suggest that people who exhibit prosocial characteristics (e.g., empathic concern, fantasy/fictional empathy, moral reasoning) are more likely to fantasise about prosocial behaviour, and these characteristics are reliably associated with increased helping behaviours. From Study 1, the correlational results showed that people higher in agreeableness exhibited a stronger tendency to engage in prosocial fantasising, and empathy, in part, mediated the relationship. The experimental results from Study 2 conceptually support those from Study 1; when prompted to fantasise about prosocial behaviour, those higher in agreeableness and openness to experience engaged in more helping behaviour, whereas in a control condition, no helping differences emerged. Finding that empathic concern was most consistently related to daydreaming is consistent with the theory in that people are more intrinsically motivated to promote other's welfare at a personal cost when they feel empathy. Engaging in prosocial fantasising may increase empathy, which in turn, may enhance one's prosocial disposition and increase one's helping behaviour.

Regulatory focus and social reconnection following social exclusion.

Promotion- and prevention-focused people are differentially sensitive to situational gains and losses, thus we reasoned that people's state regulatory focus following social exclusion should influence whether a social reconnection opportunity is perceived as safe (i.e., will exclusion persist or abate). To create an exclusion condition, all participants believed that other ostensible participants read their personal essay and chose not to work with them (i.e., all participants were excluded). Following the exclusion, participants rated how much they wanted to work with a new partner whose personality was depicted as a safe or unsafe reconnection opportunity. We expected and found that participants who held a prevention focus were willing to work with the partner, but only when the opportunity was perceived as safe. By comparison, participants who held a promotion focus were willing to work with the partner regardless of the opportunity's safety. The relationship between social reconnection safety and regulatory focus and its effect on social reconnection efforts is discussed.

I'm up here! Sexual objectification leads to feeling ostracized.

Theory and research demonstrate that women are frequently the targets of sexually objectifying behavior, viewed and treated by others as mere objects for pleasure and use. When sexually objectified, attention is principally focused on scrutinizing and valuing their physical features, whereas their internal attributes (e.g., thoughts, feelings, personhood) may be largely ignored (Bartky, 1990). Although the processes and negative effects associated with sexual objectification have been examined extensively, no work has examined the "ignoring" component of sexual objectification. We reasoned that sexually objectifying a woman by ignoring and devaluing some of her personal attributes or features is akin to partial ostracism. Although sexual objectification and partial ostracism may seem to comprise opposite characteristics (i.e., attention vs. ignoring), we posit that sexually objectifying a woman, much like partial ostracism, involves ignoring some of her internal attributes (e.g., thoughts, feelings, voice). Across 4 studies, we expected and found evidence that a sexual objectification experience (vs. control conditions) resulted in women feeling sexually objectified, which led to increased feelings of ostracism, which, in turn, threatened and lowered women's fundamental need satisfaction (i.e., belonging, control, self-esteem, and meaningful existence). Our findings suggest that not only do women suffer the adverse consequences of being sexually objectified, but when they are objectified, they can also experience the added negative effects associated with being partially ostracized, a novel finding that contributes to both the sexual objectification and ostracism literature. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Exploring the relationship between appearance-contingent self-worth and self-esteem: The roles of self-objectification and appearance anxiety.

Previous work has shown that both an appearance-contingent self-worth (i.e., staking one's overall self-evaluation on one's physical appearance) and self-objectification are associated with higher appearance anxiety and lower self-esteem among women. Although prior evidence separately links both appearance-contingent self-worth and self-objectification to these negative outcomes, no work has examined the mediating processes that may underlie this relationship. With the current project, we examined the relationship between appearance-contingent self-worth and self-objectification, and the degree to which this relationship is associated with higher appearance anxiety and lower overall self-esteem. We hypothesized that appearance-contingent self-worth would be positively associated with self-objectification; in turn, we expected self-objectification to be related to higher appearance anxiety, and ultimately, lower self-esteem. Across two studies, one cross-sectional (N=208) and one short-term longitudinal (N=191), we found compelling support for this hypothesis. These findings have practical and theoretical significance for both the self-objectification and contingent self-worth literatures.

The influence of acceptance goals on self-presentational efforts.

The current work examined whether self-presentational efforts are influenced differently when people hold a goal to establish, maintain or repair an interpersonal connection. Results supported the counterintuitive prediction that participants with a repair goal would convey a less favourably oriented persona (e.g. less friendly, less similar and less genuine) compared to those with an establish or maintain goal. The efforts of repair goal participants were also perceived as less effective. The analysis also showed that certain self-presentation dimensions (i.e. friendliness, genuineness and similarity) mediated the relationship between acceptance goals and perceived effectiveness. The findings extend and contribute to the self-presentation and belongingness literatures.

Perpetuation of sexual objectification: The role of resource depletion.

Women are sexually objectified when viewed and treated by others as mere objects. Abundant research has examined the negative consequences of being the target of sexual objectification; however, limited attention has focused on the person doing the objectification. Our focus is on the agent and how self-regulatory resources influence sexual objectification. Consistent with prior evidence, we reasoned that people have a well-learned automatic response to objectify sexualized women, and as such, we expected objectifying a sexualized (vs. personalized) woman would deplete fewer regulatory resources than not objectifying her. Findings across three studies confirmed our expectations, demonstrating the extent to which people objectify a sexualized woman or not is influenced by the availability of regulatory resources, a case that heretofore has been absent from the literature. These patterns are discussed in the context of the sexual objectification and self-regulation literature.

What did you say? Self-regulatory depletion impairs interpretation of vocal cues.

Evidence indicates that people are motivated to interpret environmental cues to belongingness, but doing so can be challenging. Prior evidence shows that the self's regulatory resources are consumed when interpreting complex facial displays; with this study, we examined how the depletion of such resources may impact the ability to interpret vocal tones. Results showed that depletion decreased accuracy in identifying complex (vs. simple) vocal cues, which extends prior work and offers a more comprehensive understanding of the relationship between self-regulatory resources and the ability to effectively interpret one's social environment.

The Influence of Acceptance Goals on Relational Perceptions.

We examined whether relational perceptions (social involvement, relational value, interaction experience) differ depending on interaction acceptance goals (establish, maintain, or repair). Results indicated that relational perceptions were more positive in the maintain condition compared to the establish condition, which in turn was more positive than the repair condition. The data also supported a moderated mediation model: the indirect effects of social involvement and relational value on the relationship between acceptance goals and participant's interaction experience were contingent on self-esteem. These findings identify boundary conditions that influence the impact of acceptance goals on how much people experience an interaction positively. The findings provide an integrated framework outlining the potential relationship between acceptance goals, relational perceptions, interaction experience, and self-esteem.

High self-monitors' cognitive access to self-presentation-related information.

We examined whether high self-monitors cognitively process self-presentation-related information and concepts more readily than low self-monitors. Results across three studies indicate that compared to low self-monitors, high self-monitors have greater cognitive access to self-presentation-related information and concepts. High self-monitors produced more words related to self-presentation in a shorter amount of time (Study 1) and in a cognitive load condition (Study 2). In both studies, the number of words did not differ when participants took longer to create their list and when they were in a no cognitive load condition. In Study 3, high (vs. low) self-monitors showed faster reaction time to self-presentation-related concepts. In contrast, reaction time to non-self-presentation items did not differ. The findings contribute to both the theory and knowledge of self-monitoring by demonstrating that information processing related to self-presentational concepts is an important component of self-monitoring, in that such information is more cognitively accessible to high self-monitors.

Triggering self-presentation efforts outside of people's conscious awareness.

Three studies utilized priming techniques to examine whether self-presentations can be activated without conscious awareness. The results across all experiments consistently demonstrated nonconscious self-presentation effects, in that people were unaware that their self-presentations were triggered automatically and that their self-presentations were comparable to participants who were explicitly instructed to self-present. The findings are novel because they are the first to demonstrate that self-presentations can be triggered without conscious awareness in a manner similar to self-presentations that are strategically selected. In addition, the results help undermine the common misconception that self-presentation typically involves conscious deliberation, pretense, or outright deception.

Examining self-presentation as a motivational explanation for comparative optimism.

Five studies examined a self-presentation explanation for comparative optimism. Experiments 1 and 2 laid the foundation for such an account by first showing that people associate a favorable identity-image with the conveyance of an optimistic outlook and that people recognize that an individual may be perceived in a negative light if his or her optimistic estimates are disconfirmed, hence raising the issue of potential accountability demands. Following the issue of accountability, the results across Experiments 3, 4, and 5 provided consistent evidence that people employ comparative optimism in their self-presentation efforts but only if the circumstances involve little risk of being held potentially accountable. Specifically, when self-presentational situations involved greater accountability demands, comparative optimism decreased (less optimistic), whereas, when these situations involved reduced accountability demands, comparative optimism increased (more optimistic). In short, the current experiments present compelling evidence demonstrating that comparative optimism may reflect an individual's goal to self-present a favorable identity-image, with the provision that such efforts are constrained by accountability pressures.