Donald F Sacco
Biographic Data
| ID | 121700 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Donald F Sacco |
| GIVEN NAMES | Donald F |
| FAMILY NAME | Sacco |
| SIGNATURE | SACCO D F |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Southern Mississippi |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6017-5070 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 44 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 128 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 44 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2005 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Can an Expert Opinion Mitigate Racially Biased Diversion Decisions? An Empirical Examination in the Context of Re-Offense Risk Assessment
Using a vignette-based experimental design, this study tested whether the racial or ethnic identity of a justice-impacted person influences jury-eligible individuals’ perceptions of post-conviction risk, placement (incarceration vs. community supervision), and need for mandated treatment. Furthermore, we examined whether the inclusion of data from a reoffense risk tool could mitigate racial bias. Participants recruited through Amazon’s MTurk ( N …
Facial Formidability Uniquely Informs Perceptions of White and Asian Men: Evidence From Two Samples in the United States
Perceivers rely on men's facial width‐to‐height ratio (fWHR) as the basis of several stereotypes about men's proclivities as parents. High‐fWHR men are perceived as especially prone toward disciplining their offspring. Nonetheless, such ascriptions may vary across different racial categories based on concomitant parenting stereotypes for different cultures. One such stereotype could include a proclivity toward tough love, frequently described as …
Differences in Support for Retractions Based on Information Hazards Among Undergraduates and Federally Funded Scientists
Behavioral Misconduct as a Basis for Scientific Retractions
Interdisciplinary lessons and recommendations for the evaluation of replicability in behavioral sciences
As the scientific community becomes aware of low replicability rates in the extant literature, peer-reviewed journals have begun implementing initiatives with the goal of improving replicability. Such initiatives center around various rules to which authors must adhere to demonstrate their engagement in best practices. Preliminary evidence in the psychological science literature demonstrates a degree of efficacy in these initiatives. With such ef…
Does Convenience Come with a Price? The Impact of Remote Testimony on Perceptions of Expert Credibility
The purpose of the present study was to experimentally examine whether testimony modality leads to differences in perceptions of expert witnesses and their opinions. We hypothesized that simulated testimony delivered via phone would be perceived as less credible, efficacious, and assigned less weight than testimony delivered via videoconference or in-court. We recruited a sample of 275 U.S. men and women via Amazon Mechanical Turk. After viewing …
Perceptions of inferred parental ability through sexually dimorphic facial features
In addition to providing robust cues diagnostic of prospective mates' heritable fitness, various physical features could be similarly utilized in inferring individuals' parental abilities. This study sought to explore how variations in sexually dimorphic facial features inform perceptions of social targets as motivated to provide parental care. American undergraduates ( N = 244) viewed a series of 12 total male and female faces manipulated at var…
Contextual factors that heighten interest in coalitional alliances with men possessing formidable facial structures
Preliminary Evidence for an Association between Journal Submission Requirements and Reproducibility of Published Findings: A Pilot Study
Systemic efforts have been employed to improve the reproducibility of published findings in psychology. To date, little research has been conducted evaluating how well these efforts work. In an effort to bridge this gap, the current study looked at journal submission requirements intended to encourage authors to engage in best practices for facilitating reproducible science and offers preliminary evidence for their potential efficacy. We calculat…
Functional inferences of mating orientations through body fat and sex-typical body features
Identifying reproductive opportunities and intrasexual rivals has necessitated the evolution of sensitivity to features diagnostic of mate value. In determining the presence of good genes through physical features, individuals may additionally infer targets' short- and long-term mating orientations. This study tested how individuals perceive men's and women's orientations through physical features conducive to reproductive goals. Participants eva…
Competing motives in a pandemic: Interplays between fundamental social motives and technology use in predicting (Non)Compliance with social distancing guidelines
Demonstrate values: Behavioral displays of moral outrage as a cue to long-term mate potential
Recent findings suggest that moral outrage signals trustworthiness to others, and such perceptions play a uniquely important role in identifying social opportunities. We conducted four studies (N = 870) investigating how displays of moral outrage are perceived in the specific context of mating. Results indicated participants, particularly women, found prospective mates describing outrage-signaling activism to be more desirable for long-term matin…
The Effect of Workplace Gender Composition on Investment Interest in Hypothetical Companies
The current study extends previous work on gendered workplace attitudes by manipulating the workplace gender composition (CEO gender, employee gender) of traditional male and female employment sectors. Participants reported general financial investment interest in purported male-role congruent (science laboratory) and female-role congruent (daycare) start-up companies, where CEO gender and employee gender were orthogonally manipulated. Participan…
I hate to be a burden!”: Experiencing feelings associated with ostracism due to one's poor performance burdening the group
We examined if perceiving oneself as burdensome, due to performing poorly in a group, can lead to feelings associated with ostracism (being excluded and ignored), without actually being ostracized. Participants completed a typing game (Study 1) or solved Remote Associates Test (Study 2) items where they performed worse, equal, or better than the group. To isolate the influence of burdensomeness, participants were consistently selected by computer…
Cross-race responses to mental illness cues
Much research suggests mental health diagnoses elicit stigmatization of individuals. The current study builds upon this literature at the intersection of same- and cross-race perceptions. Black and White participants viewed Black and White targets paired with either a mental health diagnosis (e.g., depression), a physical health diagnosis (e.g., high blood pressure), or no health information (control) while indicating each target's favorability a…
No Evidence for Social Surrogacy in Fostering Intentions to Follow Social Distancing Guidelines
We tested whether temporary social needs satisfaction through social surrogacy would ensure greater willingness to adhere to social distancing recommendations elicited by the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants were randomly assigned to social exclusion or inclusion via Cyberball ( n = 534) followed by either a social surrogacy manipulation (imagine favorite TV show), or one of two control states. No restorative effects emerged following a social sur…
Functional perceptions of relational success and infidelity concerns for violators of gendered naming conventions in marriage
Replicating and extending previous findings, we report two high-powered studies exploring how heterosexual men and women's decisions to change or keep their surnames following marriage influence perceptions of various marital outcomes as a function of perceivers' sexist attitudes. Participants in Study 1 evaluated men and women who indicated keeping or changing their surname after marriage, along with an articulated reason for their decision, spe…
Personal Motivations and Systemic Incentives: Scientists on Questionable Research Practices
Relational insecurity heightens sensitivity to limbal rings in partnered women
Limbal rings augment perceived facial health and attractiveness. We thus expected sensitivity to their presence would depend on motives to seek alternative relationship partners among those feeling insecure about a current pairbond. Despite partnered women's relative insensitivity to good gene cues, partnered women feeling relationally dissatisfied might heighten acuity toward limbal rings. We primed single and partnered women with secure or inse…
Not Taking a Joke: The Influence of Target Status, Sex, and Age on Reactions to Workplace Humor
The current study tasked undergraduates with serving as hypothetical human resource workers to evaluate complaints of offensive and inoffensive humor used by male and female employees in a fictitious company who varied in employment status and age. Offensive humor was deemed more problematic in its usage, particularly among female perceivers. Contrary to hypotheses, its usage was more problematic for male and older employees than for female and y…
Skin in the Game: Personal Accountability and Journal Peer Review
Two preregistered studies explored the likelihood paper reviewers would request clarification from authors regarding potential questionable research practices (QRPs). Study 1 participants were instructed to imagine reviewing a journal manuscript as either a coauthor or peer reviewer and rate the extent to which they would request clarification from the author when encountering potential QRPs. Participants reported greater likelihood of requesting…
Political Orientation and Belief in Science in a U.S. College Sample
Lay skepticism toward empirically supported scientific research has increased significantly in recent years. Given that part of the social contract of science is the betterment of society, it is critical for the scientific community to identify factors underlying public dismissal versus support of scientific evidence. The current study explores how individual differences in political ideology influence acceptance of factual and nonfactual informa…
Ethical Consistency and Experience: An Attempt to Influence Researcher Attitudes Toward Questionable Research Practices Through Reading Prompts
Over the past couple of decades, the apparent widespread occurrence of Questionable Research Practices (QRPs) in scientific research has been widely discussed in the research ethics literature as a source of concern. Various ways of reducing their use have been proposed and implemented, ranging from improved training and incentives for adopting best practices to systematic reforms. This article reports on the results of two studies that investiga…
Assessing the Efficacy of a Training Intervention to Reduce Acceptance of Questionable Research Practices in Psychology Graduate Students
We designed and tested the efficacy of a 1-hr training session to mitigate endorsement of questionable research practices (QRPs), research practices that raise ethical concerns and are detrimental to reproducible science, in psychology graduate students. We assessed attitudes toward QRPs 1 week prior to the training, 1 week following the training, and at 2-month follow-up. Participants reported QRPs as less ethically defensible 1 week following t…
Is pulling the lever sexy? Deontology as a downstream cue to long-term mate quality
Deontological and utilitarian moral decisions have unique communicative functions within the context of group living. Deontology more strongly communicates prosocial intentions, fostering greater perceptions of trust and desirability in general affiliative contexts. This general trustworthiness may extend to perceptions of fidelity in romantic relationships, leading to perceptions of deontological persons as better long-term mates, relative to ut…
Many Labs 3: Evaluating participant pool quality across the academic semester via replication
A preference for genuine smiles following social exclusion
The world in black and white: Ostracism enhances the categorical perception of social information
Is pulling the lever sexy? Deontology as a downstream cue to long-term mate quality
Deontological and utilitarian moral decisions have unique communicative functions within the context of group living. Deontology more strongly communicates prosocial intentions, fostering greater perceptions of trust and desirability in general affiliative contexts. This general trustworthiness may extend to perceptions of fidelity in romantic relationships, leading to perceptions of deontological persons as better long-term mates, relative to ut…
Interracial contexts debilitate same-race face recognition
The Language of Lyrics: An Analysis of Popular Billboard Songs Across Conditions of Social and Economic Threat
The lyrical content of Billboard No. 1 songs for each year from 1955 to 2003 was investigated across changes in U.S. social and economic conditions. Consistent with the environmental security hypothesis, popular song lyrics were predicted to have more meaningful themes and content when social and economic conditions were threatening. Trends for more meaningful, comforting, and romantic lyric ratings were observed in more threatening social and ec…
Functional inferences of mating orientations through body fat and sex-typical body features
Identifying reproductive opportunities and intrasexual rivals has necessitated the evolution of sensitivity to features diagnostic of mate value. In determining the presence of good genes through physical features, individuals may additionally infer targets' short- and long-term mating orientations. This study tested how individuals perceive men's and women's orientations through physical features conducive to reproductive goals. Participants eva…
On Malleable and Immalleable Subtypes: Stereotype Malleability in One Subtype Does Not Spill Over to Other Prominent Subtypes
Although relatively brief encounters with counterstereotypic targets can change automatic stereotypes, the capacity to subtype such counterstereotypic targets can also protect stereotypes against change. In a novel combination of these findings, the current research hypothesized that malleability in one subtype of a category engendered by mental imagery ( Blair, Ma, & Lenton, 2001 ) would not bleed over easily into other prominent subtypes of a c…
Assessing the Efficacy of a Training Intervention to Reduce Acceptance of Questionable Research Practices in Psychology Graduate Students
We designed and tested the efficacy of a 1-hr training session to mitigate endorsement of questionable research practices (QRPs), research practices that raise ethical concerns and are detrimental to reproducible science, in psychology graduate students. We assessed attitudes toward QRPs 1 week prior to the training, 1 week following the training, and at 2-month follow-up. Participants reported QRPs as less ethically defensible 1 week following t…
Responses to exclusion are moderated by its perceived fairness
Experimental exclusion manipulations may induce exclusion in a way that participants perceive as unfair. Groups often use exclusion punitively to correct inappropriate behavior, however, which may lead to perceptions that it is potentially justified or fair. The current studies examined if individuals' perceptions of fairness with respect to an exclusion experience moderated their reactions. Participants wrote about or imagined a time in which th…
Functional perceptions of relational success and infidelity concerns for violators of gendered naming conventions in marriage
Replicating and extending previous findings, we report two high-powered studies exploring how heterosexual men and women's decisions to change or keep their surnames following marriage influence perceptions of various marital outcomes as a function of perceivers' sexist attitudes. Participants in Study 1 evaluated men and women who indicated keeping or changing their surname after marriage, along with an articulated reason for their decision, spe…
Vulnerability to disease is associated with a domain‐specific preference for symmetrical faces relative to symmetrical non‐face stimuli
Two experiments tested the hypothesis that the accessibility of disease concerns would be associated with a preference for faces high in symmetry, a cue to good health and pathogen resistance. Disease concerns (perceived vulnerability to disease) were measured as an individual difference in Experiment 1 and were situationally primed in Experiment 2. Across both studies, heightened disease sensitivity predicted a preference for symmetrical faces. …
Ethical Consistency and Experience: An Attempt to Influence Researcher Attitudes Toward Questionable Research Practices Through Reading Prompts
Over the past couple of decades, the apparent widespread occurrence of Questionable Research Practices (QRPs) in scientific research has been widely discussed in the research ethics literature as a source of concern. Various ways of reducing their use have been proposed and implemented, ranging from improved training and incentives for adopting best practices to systematic reforms. This article reports on the results of two studies that investiga…
Behavioral Misconduct as a Basis for Scientific Retractions
No Evidence for Social Surrogacy in Fostering Intentions to Follow Social Distancing Guidelines
We tested whether temporary social needs satisfaction through social surrogacy would ensure greater willingness to adhere to social distancing recommendations elicited by the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants were randomly assigned to social exclusion or inclusion via Cyberball ( n = 534) followed by either a social surrogacy manipulation (imagine favorite TV show), or one of two control states. No restorative effects emerged following a social sur…
In Defense of the Questionable: Defining the Basis of Research Scientists’ Engagement in Questionable Research Practices
National Institutes of Health principal investigators reported their perceptions of the ethical defensibility, prevalence in their field, and their personal willingness to engage in questionable research practices (QRPs). Using ethical defensibility ratings, an exploratory factor analysis yielded a two-factor solution: behaviors considered unambiguously ethically indefensible and behaviors whose ethical defensibility was more ambiguous. In additi…
A Locus of Control Measure as a Teaching Demonstration
268 students (M age = 20.0 yr., SD = 4.4; 68% women), randomly chosen from psychology classes, completed Rotter's I-E scale and Pettijohn's 1992 locus of control scale for class demonstration. The two sets of scores were similar but examination of reliability and validity indicated the latter was best used as a demonstration
Adaptive Responses to Social Exclusion: Social Rejection Improves Detection of Real and Fake Smiles
The look of fear and anger: Facial maturity modulates recognition of fearful and angry expressions
The current series of studies provide converging evidence that facial expressions of fear and anger may have co-evolved to mimic mature and babyish faces in order to enhance their communicative signal. In Studies 1 and 2, fearful and angry facial expressions were manipulated to have enhanced babyish features (larger eyes) or enhanced mature features (smaller eyes) and in the context of a speeded categorization task in Study 1 and a visual noise p…
Interracial contexts debilitate same-race face recognition
A preference for genuine smiles following social exclusion
The Language of Lyrics: An Analysis of Popular Billboard Songs Across Conditions of Social and Economic Threat
The lyrical content of Billboard No. 1 songs for each year from 1955 to 2003 was investigated across changes in U.S. social and economic conditions. Consistent with the environmental security hypothesis, popular song lyrics were predicted to have more meaningful themes and content when social and economic conditions were threatening. Trends for more meaningful, comforting, and romantic lyric ratings were observed in more threatening social and ec…
The categorization-individuation model: An integrative account of the other-race recognition deficit.
The other-race effect (ORE), or the finding that same-race faces are better recognized than other-race faces, is one of the best replicated phenomena in face recognition. The current article reviews existing evidence and theory and proposes a new theoretical framework for the ORE, which argues that the effect results from a confluence of social categorization, motivated individuation, and perceptual experience. This categorization-individuation m…
Eye Gaze as Relational Evaluation: Averted Eye Gaze Leads to Feelings of Ostracism and Relational Devaluation
Eye gaze is often a signal of interest and, when noticed by others, leads to mutual and directional gaze. However, averting one’s eye gaze toward an individual has the potential to convey a strong interpersonal evaluation. The averting of eye gaze is the most frequently used nonverbal cue to indicate the silent treatment, a form of ostracism. The authors argue that eye gaze can signal the relational value felt toward another person. In three stud…
On Malleable and Immalleable Subtypes: Stereotype Malleability in One Subtype Does Not Spill Over to Other Prominent Subtypes
Although relatively brief encounters with counterstereotypic targets can change automatic stereotypes, the capacity to subtype such counterstereotypic targets can also protect stereotypes against change. In a novel combination of these findings, the current research hypothesized that malleability in one subtype of a category engendered by mental imagery ( Blair, Ma, & Lenton, 2001 ) would not bleed over easily into other prominent subtypes of a c…
Vulnerability to disease is associated with a domain‐specific preference for symmetrical faces relative to symmetrical non‐face stimuli
Two experiments tested the hypothesis that the accessibility of disease concerns would be associated with a preference for faces high in symmetry, a cue to good health and pathogen resistance. Disease concerns (perceived vulnerability to disease) were measured as an individual difference in Experiment 1 and were situationally primed in Experiment 2. Across both studies, heightened disease sensitivity predicted a preference for symmetrical faces. …
The world in black and white: Ostracism enhances the categorical perception of social information
Facial Attractiveness and Helping Behavior Beliefs: Both Attractive and Unattractive Targets Are Believed to Be Unhelpful Relative to Moderately Attractive Targets
On a between-subjects (Experiment 1A) and within-subjects (Experiment 1B) basis, participants indicated a belief that attractive and unattractive targets engage in less actual helping behavior than moderately attractive targets. In Experiment 2, attractive and moderately attractive targets were seen as more capable of helping than unattractive targets; attractive and unattractive targets were seen as less willing to help than moderately attractiv…
Sensitivity to Perceived Facial Trustworthiness Is Increased by Activating Self-Protection Motives
Self-protection motives have been documented to influence a range of intergroup processes, including biased categorization of racially ambiguous targets as out-group members and a heightened ability to discriminate in-group from out-group members. In this work, the influence of self-protective states is extended to interpersonal processes. Specifically, in two experiments we demonstrate that activating self-protection motives (relative to a contr…
Financial Conflicts of Interest, Disclosure, and Academic Discipline
Peer assessments of researchers' financial conflicts of interest (FCOIs) are crucial to effective FCOI management. We sought to determine how academics perceive FCOI disclosure and whether their perceptions vary depending on discipline and educational backgrounds. Participants (faculty and staff members from a multi-disciplinary academic medical center) responded to a questionnaire involving 10 hypothetical scenarios in which researchers either d…
Responses to exclusion are moderated by its perceived fairness
Experimental exclusion manipulations may induce exclusion in a way that participants perceive as unfair. Groups often use exclusion punitively to correct inappropriate behavior, however, which may lead to perceptions that it is potentially justified or fair. The current studies examined if individuals' perceptions of fairness with respect to an exclusion experience moderated their reactions. Participants wrote about or imagined a time in which th…
Observe, hypothesize, test, repeat: Luttrell, Petty and Xu (2017) demonstrate good science
Many Labs 3: Evaluating participant pool quality across the academic semester via replication
In Defense of the Questionable: Defining the Basis of Research Scientists’ Engagement in Questionable Research Practices
National Institutes of Health principal investigators reported their perceptions of the ethical defensibility, prevalence in their field, and their personal willingness to engage in questionable research practices (QRPs). Using ethical defensibility ratings, an exploratory factor analysis yielded a two-factor solution: behaviors considered unambiguously ethically indefensible and behaviors whose ethical defensibility was more ambiguous. In additi…
Prevention of Infidelity
Political Orientation and Belief in Science in a U.S. College Sample
Lay skepticism toward empirically supported scientific research has increased significantly in recent years. Given that part of the social contract of science is the betterment of society, it is critical for the scientific community to identify factors underlying public dismissal versus support of scientific evidence. The current study explores how individual differences in political ideology influence acceptance of factual and nonfactual informa…
Ethical Consistency and Experience: An Attempt to Influence Researcher Attitudes Toward Questionable Research Practices Through Reading Prompts
Over the past couple of decades, the apparent widespread occurrence of Questionable Research Practices (QRPs) in scientific research has been widely discussed in the research ethics literature as a source of concern. Various ways of reducing their use have been proposed and implemented, ranging from improved training and incentives for adopting best practices to systematic reforms. This article reports on the results of two studies that investiga…
Assessing the Efficacy of a Training Intervention to Reduce Acceptance of Questionable Research Practices in Psychology Graduate Students
We designed and tested the efficacy of a 1-hr training session to mitigate endorsement of questionable research practices (QRPs), research practices that raise ethical concerns and are detrimental to reproducible science, in psychology graduate students. We assessed attitudes toward QRPs 1 week prior to the training, 1 week following the training, and at 2-month follow-up. Participants reported QRPs as less ethically defensible 1 week following t…
Is pulling the lever sexy? Deontology as a downstream cue to long-term mate quality
Deontological and utilitarian moral decisions have unique communicative functions within the context of group living. Deontology more strongly communicates prosocial intentions, fostering greater perceptions of trust and desirability in general affiliative contexts. This general trustworthiness may extend to perceptions of fidelity in romantic relationships, leading to perceptions of deontological persons as better long-term mates, relative to ut…
Personal Motivations and Systemic Incentives: Scientists on Questionable Research Practices
Relational insecurity heightens sensitivity to limbal rings in partnered women
Limbal rings augment perceived facial health and attractiveness. We thus expected sensitivity to their presence would depend on motives to seek alternative relationship partners among those feeling insecure about a current pairbond. Despite partnered women's relative insensitivity to good gene cues, partnered women feeling relationally dissatisfied might heighten acuity toward limbal rings. We primed single and partnered women with secure or inse…
Psychology (44 works) · Social Psychology (34 works) · Social Psychology (19 works) · Perception (18 works) · Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior (16 works) · Political science (14 works) · Developmental psychology (12 works) · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment (12 works) · Cognitive psychology (10 works) · Medicine (10 works)