Paul G Bain
Biographic Data
| ID | 140298 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Paul G Bain |
| GIVEN NAMES | Paul G |
| FAMILY NAME | Bain |
| SIGNATURE | BAIN P G |
| AFFILIATIONS | Queensland University of Technology |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5521-2738 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 27 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 310 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 26 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2005 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
Collective future thinking in Cultural Dynamics
Humans think about the future to act in the present, not only personally, but also collectively. Collective future thinking (CFT) is an act of imagining a future on behalf of a collective. This article presents a theoretical analysis of the role of CFT in cultural dynamics. CFT includes collective prospection about probable futures and imaginations about utopian and dystopian possible worlds as the best- and worst-case scenarios. CFT motivates co…
Worldviews about change: Their structure and their implications for understanding responses to sustainability, technology, and political change
People hold different perspectives about how they think the world is changing or should change. We examined five of these “worldviews” about change: Progress, Golden Age, Endless Cycle, Maintenance, and Balance. In Studies 1–4 (total N = 2733) we established reliable measures of each change worldview, and showed how these help explain when people will support or oppose social change in contexts spanning sustainability, technological innovations, …
Evidence from 33 countries challenges the assumption of unlimited wants
Public views of the Sustainable Development Goals across countries
It's not too late to do the right thing: Moral motivations for climate change action
While it is too late to avert some dangerous consequences of climate change, it is not “all‐or‐nothing” and our actions can still make a difference. Building on social psychology research showing the importance of seeing one's group as moral, one reason people act on climate change is to help create a more moral and caring society. Considering climate change action through this lens gives rise to several challenges, including how people respond t…
Why Women Are Blamed for Being Sexually Harassed: The Effects of Empathy for Female Victims and Male Perpetrators
The #MeToo movement has highlighted the widespread problem of men’s sexual harassment of women. Women are typically reluctant to make a sexual-harassment complaint and often encounter victim-blaming attitudes when they do, especially from men. Informed by the social identity perspective, two experiments examined the influence of empathy—both for women who are sexually harassed and for male harassers—on men’s and women’s propensity to blame victim…
On the Relation Between Social Dominance Orientation and Environmentalism: A 25-Nation Study
Approval of hierarchy and inequality in society indexed by social dominance orientation (SDO) extends to support for human dominance over the natural world. We tested this negative association between SDO and environmentalism and the validity of the new Short Social Dominance Orientation Scale in two cross-cultural samples of students ( N = 4,163, k = 25) and the general population ( N = 1,237, k = 10). As expected, the higher people were on SDO,…
The Contribution of Religiosity to Ideology: Empirical Evidences From Five Continents
The current study examines the extent to which religiosity account for ideological orientations in 16 countries from five continents (Australia, Brazil, Chile, Germany, Greece, Finland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Poland, Slovakia, Spain, Turkey, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, and the United States). Results showed that religiosity was consistently related to right and conservative ideologies in all countries, except Australia. This relation held across …
Conservatives Are More Reluctant to Give and Receive Apologies Than Liberals
This article examines the proposition that conservatives will be less willing than liberals to apologize and less likely to forgive after receiving an apology. In Study 1, we found evidence for both relationships in a nine-nation survey. In Study 2, participants wrote an open-ended response to a victim of a hypothetical transgression they had committed. More conservative participants were less likely to include apologetic elements in their respon…
Basic Values, Ideological Self-Placement, and Voting: A Cross-Cultural Study
The current study examines the contribution of left–right (or liberal–conservative) ideology to voting, as well as the extent to which basic values account for ideological orientation. Analyses were conducted in 16 countries from five continents (Europe, North America, South America, Asia, and Oceania), most of which have been neglected by previous studies. Results showed that left–right (or liberal–conservative) ideology predicted voting in all …
Meta-analyses of the determinants and outcomes of belief in climate change
Not “just words”: Exposure to homophobic epithets leads to dehumanizing and physical distancing from gay men
We examined whether homophobic epithets (e.g., faggot ) function as labels of deviance for homosexuals that contribute to their dehumanization and physical distance. Across two studies, participants were supraliminally (Study 1) and subliminally (Study 2) exposed to a homophobic epithet, a category label, or a generic insult. Participants were then asked to associate human‐related and animal‐related words to homosexuals and heterosexuals. Results…
Moral expansiveness: Examining variability in the extension of the moral world
The nature of our moral judgments-and the extent to which we treat others with care-depend in part on the distinctions we make between entities deemed worthy or unworthy of moral consideration-our moral boundaries. Philosophers, historians, and social scientists have noted that people's moral boundaries have expanded over the last few centuries, but the notion of moral expansiveness has received limited empirical attention in psychology. This res…
Co-benefits of addressing climate change can motivate action around the world
Nuclear Power and Japan's Collective Future: Understanding Beliefs About How Nuclear Policies Will Affect Society
Despite ongoing controversies regarding possible directions for the nuclear plants program throughout Japan since the Fukushima disaster, little has been researched about people's belief structure about future society and what may affect their attitudes toward different policy options. Beyond policy debates, the present study focused on how people see a future society according to the assumptions of different policy options. A total of 125 studen…
Personal values and political activism: A cross-national study
Using data from 28 countries in four continents, the present research addresses the question of how basic values may account for political activism. Study 1 (N = 35,116) analyses data from representative samples in 20 countries that responded to the 21-item version of the Portrait Values Questionnaire (PVQ-21) in the European Social Survey. Study 2 (N = 7,773) analyses data from adult samples in six of the same countries (Finland, Germany, Greece…
Are Individualism and "Masculinity" Related When Controlling for Regional Proximity? A Reappraisal of Barry (2015)
Barry recently attributed the non-significant relationship between the cultural dimensions of Individualism (IND) and Masculinity (MASC) to a suppression effect of regional differences. Pairing countries on regional proximity, he showed that a strong correlation between these cultural dimensions emerged. However, we point to significant issues with this analysis, including how countries were paired, ordered, and included/excluded, as well as in t…
Cultural Beliefs About Societal Change: A Three-Mode Principal Component Analysis in China, Australia, and Japan
People's beliefs about where society has come from and where it is going have personal and political consequences. Here, we conduct a detailed investigation of these beliefs through re-analyzing Kashima, Shi, et al.'s (Study 2, n = 320) data from China, Australia, and Japan. Kashima, Shi, et al. identified a "folk theory of social change" (FTSC) belief that people in society become more competent over time, but less warm and moral. Using three-mo…
Basic Personal Values Underlie and Give Coherence to Political Values: A Cross National Study in 15 Countries
Humanness and Dehumanization
Humans have no experience being nonhuman animals or objects. It is perhaps not surprising then that humans have a propensity to conceive that nonhuman entities, such as objects, animals, and God(s), have human traits (Epley, Waytz, & Cacioppo, 2007; Gray, Gray, & Wegner, 2007). What is perhaps more surprising is that humans conceive of other humans, and themselves, in nonhuman terms (Harris & Fiske, 2006; Haslam, 2006; Leyens et al., 2000). But h…
Promoting pro-environmental action in climate change deniers
Folk Conceptions of Humanness: Beliefs About Distinctive and Core Human Characteristics in Australia, Italy, and China
The present research explores cultural understandings of what it means to be human. We used open-ended responses to examine whether the most culturally salient aspects of humanness are captured by two theoretical dimensions: human uniqueness (HU) and human nature (HN). Australians, Italians, and Chinese ( N = 315) showed differences in the characteristics considered human and in the emphasis placed on HU and HN. These findings contribute to devel…
Attributing Human Uniqueness and Human Nature to Cultural Groups: Distinct Forms of Subtle Dehumanization
Research on subtle dehumanization has focused on the attribution of human uniqueness to groups (infrahumanization), but has not examined another sense of humanness, human nature. Additionally, research has not extended far beyond Western cultures to examine the universality of these forms of dehumanization. Hence, the attribution of both forms of humanness was examined in three cross-cultural studies. Anglo-Australian and ethnic Chinese attribute…
Attributing and denying humanness to others
We review a programme of research on the attribution of humanness to people, and the ways in which lesser humanness is attributed to some compared to others. We first present evidence that humanness has two distinct senses, one representing properties that are unique to our species, and the other—human nature—those properties that are essential or fundamental to the human category. An integrative model of dehumanisation is then laid out, in which…
Psychological Essentialism, Implicit Theories, and Intergroup Relations
Research on implicit person theories shows that beliefs about the malleability of human attributes have important implications for social cognition, interpersonal behavior, and intergroup relations. We argue that these implications can be understood within the framework of psychological essentialism, which extends work on implicit theories in promising directions. We review evidence that immutability beliefs covary with a broader set of essential…
Basic Personal Values Underlie and Give Coherence to Political Values: A Cross National Study in 15 Countries
More human than you: Attributing humanness to self and others
People typically evaluate their in-groups more favorably than out-groups and themselves more favorably than others. Research on infrahumanization also suggests a preferential attribution of the "human essence" to in-groups, independent of in-group favoritism. The authors propose a corresponding phenomenon in interpersonal comparisons: People attribute greater humanness to themselves than to others, independent of self-enhancement. Study 1 and a p…
Psychological Essentialism, Implicit Theories, and Intergroup Relations
Research on implicit person theories shows that beliefs about the malleability of human attributes have important implications for social cognition, interpersonal behavior, and intergroup relations. We argue that these implications can be understood within the framework of psychological essentialism, which extends work on implicit theories in promising directions. We review evidence that immutability beliefs covary with a broader set of essential…
Basic Values, Ideological Self-Placement, and Voting: A Cross-Cultural Study
The current study examines the contribution of left–right (or liberal–conservative) ideology to voting, as well as the extent to which basic values account for ideological orientation. Analyses were conducted in 16 countries from five continents (Europe, North America, South America, Asia, and Oceania), most of which have been neglected by previous studies. Results showed that left–right (or liberal–conservative) ideology predicted voting in all …
Attributing Human Uniqueness and Human Nature to Cultural Groups: Distinct Forms of Subtle Dehumanization
Research on subtle dehumanization has focused on the attribution of human uniqueness to groups (infrahumanization), but has not examined another sense of humanness, human nature. Additionally, research has not extended far beyond Western cultures to examine the universality of these forms of dehumanization. Hence, the attribution of both forms of humanness was examined in three cross-cultural studies. Anglo-Australian and ethnic Chinese attribute…
Why Women Are Blamed for Being Sexually Harassed: The Effects of Empathy for Female Victims and Male Perpetrators
The #MeToo movement has highlighted the widespread problem of men’s sexual harassment of women. Women are typically reluctant to make a sexual-harassment complaint and often encounter victim-blaming attitudes when they do, especially from men. Informed by the social identity perspective, two experiments examined the influence of empathy—both for women who are sexually harassed and for male harassers—on men’s and women’s propensity to blame victim…
Moral expansiveness: Examining variability in the extension of the moral world
The nature of our moral judgments-and the extent to which we treat others with care-depend in part on the distinctions we make between entities deemed worthy or unworthy of moral consideration-our moral boundaries. Philosophers, historians, and social scientists have noted that people's moral boundaries have expanded over the last few centuries, but the notion of moral expansiveness has received limited empirical attention in psychology. This res…
Not “just words”: Exposure to homophobic epithets leads to dehumanizing and physical distancing from gay men
We examined whether homophobic epithets (e.g., faggot ) function as labels of deviance for homosexuals that contribute to their dehumanization and physical distance. Across two studies, participants were supraliminally (Study 1) and subliminally (Study 2) exposed to a homophobic epithet, a category label, or a generic insult. Participants were then asked to associate human‐related and animal‐related words to homosexuals and heterosexuals. Results…
Personal values and political activism: A cross-national study
Using data from 28 countries in four continents, the present research addresses the question of how basic values may account for political activism. Study 1 (N = 35,116) analyses data from representative samples in 20 countries that responded to the 21-item version of the Portrait Values Questionnaire (PVQ-21) in the European Social Survey. Study 2 (N = 7,773) analyses data from adult samples in six of the same countries (Finland, Germany, Greece…
The Contribution of Religiosity to Ideology: Empirical Evidences From Five Continents
The current study examines the extent to which religiosity account for ideological orientations in 16 countries from five continents (Australia, Brazil, Chile, Germany, Greece, Finland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Poland, Slovakia, Spain, Turkey, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, and the United States). Results showed that religiosity was consistently related to right and conservative ideologies in all countries, except Australia. This relation held across …
It's not too late to do the right thing: Moral motivations for climate change action
While it is too late to avert some dangerous consequences of climate change, it is not “all‐or‐nothing” and our actions can still make a difference. Building on social psychology research showing the importance of seeing one's group as moral, one reason people act on climate change is to help create a more moral and caring society. Considering climate change action through this lens gives rise to several challenges, including how people respond t…
Conceptual beliefs about human values and their implications: Human nature beliefs predict value importance, value trade-offs, and responses to value-laden rhetoric
Beliefs that may underlie the importance of human values were investigated in 4 studies, drawing on research that distinguishes natural-kind (natural), nominal-kind (conventional), and artifact (functional) beliefs. Values were best characterized by artifact and nominal-kind beliefs, as well as a natural-kind belief specific to the social domain, "human nature" (Studies 1 and 2). The extent to which values were considered central to human nature …
Folk Conceptions of Humanness: Beliefs About Distinctive and Core Human Characteristics in Australia, Italy, and China
The present research explores cultural understandings of what it means to be human. We used open-ended responses to examine whether the most culturally salient aspects of humanness are captured by two theoretical dimensions: human uniqueness (HU) and human nature (HN). Australians, Italians, and Chinese ( N = 315) showed differences in the characteristics considered human and in the emphasis placed on HU and HN. These findings contribute to devel…
Cultural Beliefs About Societal Change: A Three-Mode Principal Component Analysis in China, Australia, and Japan
People's beliefs about where society has come from and where it is going have personal and political consequences. Here, we conduct a detailed investigation of these beliefs through re-analyzing Kashima, Shi, et al.'s (Study 2, n = 320) data from China, Australia, and Japan. Kashima, Shi, et al. identified a "folk theory of social change" (FTSC) belief that people in society become more competent over time, but less warm and moral. Using three-mo…
Evidence from 33 countries challenges the assumption of unlimited wants
Public views of the Sustainable Development Goals across countries
More human than you: Attributing humanness to self and others
People typically evaluate their in-groups more favorably than out-groups and themselves more favorably than others. Research on infrahumanization also suggests a preferential attribution of the "human essence" to in-groups, independent of in-group favoritism. The authors propose a corresponding phenomenon in interpersonal comparisons: People attribute greater humanness to themselves than to others, independent of self-enhancement. Study 1 and a p…
Psychological Essentialism, Implicit Theories, and Intergroup Relations
Research on implicit person theories shows that beliefs about the malleability of human attributes have important implications for social cognition, interpersonal behavior, and intergroup relations. We argue that these implications can be understood within the framework of psychological essentialism, which extends work on implicit theories in promising directions. We review evidence that immutability beliefs covary with a broader set of essential…
Conceptual beliefs about human values and their implications: Human nature beliefs predict value importance, value trade-offs, and responses to value-laden rhetoric
Beliefs that may underlie the importance of human values were investigated in 4 studies, drawing on research that distinguishes natural-kind (natural), nominal-kind (conventional), and artifact (functional) beliefs. Values were best characterized by artifact and nominal-kind beliefs, as well as a natural-kind belief specific to the social domain, "human nature" (Studies 1 and 2). The extent to which values were considered central to human nature …
Attributing and denying humanness to others
We review a programme of research on the attribution of humanness to people, and the ways in which lesser humanness is attributed to some compared to others. We first present evidence that humanness has two distinct senses, one representing properties that are unique to our species, and the other—human nature—those properties that are essential or fundamental to the human category. An integrative model of dehumanisation is then laid out, in which…
Attributing Human Uniqueness and Human Nature to Cultural Groups: Distinct Forms of Subtle Dehumanization
Research on subtle dehumanization has focused on the attribution of human uniqueness to groups (infrahumanization), but has not examined another sense of humanness, human nature. Additionally, research has not extended far beyond Western cultures to examine the universality of these forms of dehumanization. Hence, the attribution of both forms of humanness was examined in three cross-cultural studies. Anglo-Australian and ethnic Chinese attribute…
Promoting pro-environmental action in climate change deniers
Folk Conceptions of Humanness: Beliefs About Distinctive and Core Human Characteristics in Australia, Italy, and China
The present research explores cultural understandings of what it means to be human. We used open-ended responses to examine whether the most culturally salient aspects of humanness are captured by two theoretical dimensions: human uniqueness (HU) and human nature (HN). Australians, Italians, and Chinese ( N = 315) showed differences in the characteristics considered human and in the emphasis placed on HU and HN. These findings contribute to devel…
Humanness and Dehumanization
Humans have no experience being nonhuman animals or objects. It is perhaps not surprising then that humans have a propensity to conceive that nonhuman entities, such as objects, animals, and God(s), have human traits (Epley, Waytz, & Cacioppo, 2007; Gray, Gray, & Wegner, 2007). What is perhaps more surprising is that humans conceive of other humans, and themselves, in nonhuman terms (Harris & Fiske, 2006; Haslam, 2006; Leyens et al., 2000). But h…
Basic Personal Values Underlie and Give Coherence to Political Values: A Cross National Study in 15 Countries
Co-benefits of addressing climate change can motivate action around the world
Nuclear Power and Japan's Collective Future: Understanding Beliefs About How Nuclear Policies Will Affect Society
Despite ongoing controversies regarding possible directions for the nuclear plants program throughout Japan since the Fukushima disaster, little has been researched about people's belief structure about future society and what may affect their attitudes toward different policy options. Beyond policy debates, the present study focused on how people see a future society according to the assumptions of different policy options. A total of 125 studen…
Personal values and political activism: A cross-national study
Using data from 28 countries in four continents, the present research addresses the question of how basic values may account for political activism. Study 1 (N = 35,116) analyses data from representative samples in 20 countries that responded to the 21-item version of the Portrait Values Questionnaire (PVQ-21) in the European Social Survey. Study 2 (N = 7,773) analyses data from adult samples in six of the same countries (Finland, Germany, Greece…
Are Individualism and "Masculinity" Related When Controlling for Regional Proximity? A Reappraisal of Barry (2015)
Barry recently attributed the non-significant relationship between the cultural dimensions of Individualism (IND) and Masculinity (MASC) to a suppression effect of regional differences. Pairing countries on regional proximity, he showed that a strong correlation between these cultural dimensions emerged. However, we point to significant issues with this analysis, including how countries were paired, ordered, and included/excluded, as well as in t…
Cultural Beliefs About Societal Change: A Three-Mode Principal Component Analysis in China, Australia, and Japan
People's beliefs about where society has come from and where it is going have personal and political consequences. Here, we conduct a detailed investigation of these beliefs through re-analyzing Kashima, Shi, et al.'s (Study 2, n = 320) data from China, Australia, and Japan. Kashima, Shi, et al. identified a "folk theory of social change" (FTSC) belief that people in society become more competent over time, but less warm and moral. Using three-mo…
Meta-analyses of the determinants and outcomes of belief in climate change
Not “just words”: Exposure to homophobic epithets leads to dehumanizing and physical distancing from gay men
We examined whether homophobic epithets (e.g., faggot ) function as labels of deviance for homosexuals that contribute to their dehumanization and physical distance. Across two studies, participants were supraliminally (Study 1) and subliminally (Study 2) exposed to a homophobic epithet, a category label, or a generic insult. Participants were then asked to associate human‐related and animal‐related words to homosexuals and heterosexuals. Results…
Moral expansiveness: Examining variability in the extension of the moral world
The nature of our moral judgments-and the extent to which we treat others with care-depend in part on the distinctions we make between entities deemed worthy or unworthy of moral consideration-our moral boundaries. Philosophers, historians, and social scientists have noted that people's moral boundaries have expanded over the last few centuries, but the notion of moral expansiveness has received limited empirical attention in psychology. This res…
Conservatives Are More Reluctant to Give and Receive Apologies Than Liberals
This article examines the proposition that conservatives will be less willing than liberals to apologize and less likely to forgive after receiving an apology. In Study 1, we found evidence for both relationships in a nine-nation survey. In Study 2, participants wrote an open-ended response to a victim of a hypothetical transgression they had committed. More conservative participants were less likely to include apologetic elements in their respon…
Basic Values, Ideological Self-Placement, and Voting: A Cross-Cultural Study
The current study examines the contribution of left–right (or liberal–conservative) ideology to voting, as well as the extent to which basic values account for ideological orientation. Analyses were conducted in 16 countries from five continents (Europe, North America, South America, Asia, and Oceania), most of which have been neglected by previous studies. Results showed that left–right (or liberal–conservative) ideology predicted voting in all …
On the Relation Between Social Dominance Orientation and Environmentalism: A 25-Nation Study
Approval of hierarchy and inequality in society indexed by social dominance orientation (SDO) extends to support for human dominance over the natural world. We tested this negative association between SDO and environmentalism and the validity of the new Short Social Dominance Orientation Scale in two cross-cultural samples of students ( N = 4,163, k = 25) and the general population ( N = 1,237, k = 10). As expected, the higher people were on SDO,…
The Contribution of Religiosity to Ideology: Empirical Evidences From Five Continents
The current study examines the extent to which religiosity account for ideological orientations in 16 countries from five continents (Australia, Brazil, Chile, Germany, Greece, Finland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Poland, Slovakia, Spain, Turkey, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, and the United States). Results showed that religiosity was consistently related to right and conservative ideologies in all countries, except Australia. This relation held across …
Public views of the Sustainable Development Goals across countries
It's not too late to do the right thing: Moral motivations for climate change action
While it is too late to avert some dangerous consequences of climate change, it is not “all‐or‐nothing” and our actions can still make a difference. Building on social psychology research showing the importance of seeing one's group as moral, one reason people act on climate change is to help create a more moral and caring society. Considering climate change action through this lens gives rise to several challenges, including how people respond t…
Why Women Are Blamed for Being Sexually Harassed: The Effects of Empathy for Female Victims and Male Perpetrators
The #MeToo movement has highlighted the widespread problem of men’s sexual harassment of women. Women are typically reluctant to make a sexual-harassment complaint and often encounter victim-blaming attitudes when they do, especially from men. Informed by the social identity perspective, two experiments examined the influence of empathy—both for women who are sexually harassed and for male harassers—on men’s and women’s propensity to blame victim…
Evidence from 33 countries challenges the assumption of unlimited wants
Psychology (22 works) · Social Psychology (20 works) · Social and Intergroup Psychology (19 works) · Cultural Differences and Values (16 works) · Political science (16 works) · Sociology (13 works) · Law (11 works) · Epistemology (10 works) · Politics (10 works) · Social Psychology (9 works)