Dale T Miller
Biographic Data
| ID | 157306 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Dale T Miller |
| GIVEN NAMES | Dale T |
| FAMILY NAME | Miller |
| SIGNATURE | MILLER D T |
| AFFILIATIONS | Princeton University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 72 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 1238 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 71 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1973 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 17 |
Psychology of Personal Political Engagement in Russia: Unpacking Perceived Community Culture, Pluralistic Ignorance, and System Justification
This study explores the relationship between Russian citizens' self-reported political engagement and their system justification beliefs, perceptions of the system justification beliefs of other citizens, and perceptions of their community culture. We assessed personal political engagement through self-reported past behavior of 1,143 participants. The results revealed a negative relationship between individual personal system justification scores…
Being “good” or “good enough: Prosocial risk and the structure of moral self-regard
This model predicts that people are primarily concerned with whether their prosocial behavior legitimates the claim that they have acted morally, a claim that often diverges from whether their behavior is in the best interests of the recipient. Specifically, it predicts that for people to feel moral following a prosocial decision, that decision need not have promised the greatest benefit for the recipient but only one larger than at least one oth…
Changing Norms to Change Behavior
Providing people with information about the behavior and attitudes of their peers is a strategy commonly employed by those seeking to reduce behavior deemed harmful either to individuals (e.g., high alcohol consumption) or the collective (e.g., high energy consumption). We review norm-based interventions, detailing the logic behind them and the various forms they can take. We give special attention to interventions designed to decrease college st…
Moral traps: When self-serving attributions backfire in prosocial behavior
Compensatory nonconformity: Self-uncertainty and low implicit self-esteem increase adoption and expression of minority opinions
The unhealthy road not taken: Licensing indulgence by exaggerating counterfactual sins
The Association of Religiosity and Political Conservatism: The Role of Political Engagement
Some argue that there is an organic connection between being religious and being politically conservative. We evaluate an alternative thesis that the relation between religiosity and political conservatism largely results from engagement with political discourse that indicates that these characteristics go together. In a combined sample of national survey respondents from 1996 to 2008, religiosity was associated with conservative positions on a w…
Inventing racist roads not taken: The licensing effect of immoral counterfactual behaviors
Six experiments examined how people strategically use thoughts of foregone misdeeds to regulate their moral behavior. We tested 2 hypotheses: 1st, that people will feel licensed to act in morally dubious ways when they can point to immoral alternatives to their prior behavior, and 2nd, that people made to feel insecure about their morality will exaggerate the extent to which such alternatives existed. Supporting the 1st hypothesis, when White par…
Religiosity and Social Welfare: Competing Influences of Cultural Conservatism and Prosocial Value Orientation
This research examines the hypothesis that religiosity has two competing psychological influences on the social welfare attitudes of contemporary Americans. On the one hand, religiosity promotes a culturally based conservative identity, which in turn promotes opposition to federal social welfare provision. On the other hand, religiosity promotes a prosocial value orientation, which in turn promotes support of federal social welfare provision. Acr…
Psychological License
Religiosity and Social Welfare: Competing Influences of Cultural Conservatism and Prosocial Value Orientation
This research examines the hypothesis that religiosity has two competing psychological influences on the social welfare attitudes of contemporary Americans. On the one hand, religiosity promotes a culturally based conservative identity, which in turn promotes opposition to federal social welfare provision. On the other hand, religiosity promotes a prosocial value orientation, which in turn promotes support of federal social welfare provision. Acr…
Diffusion of entitlement: An inhibitory effect of scarcity on consumption
Expressing deviant opinions: Believing you are in the majority helps
Distinguishing between silent and vocal minorities: Not all deviants feel marginal
People's opinions can deviate from that of the average group member in two ways. Descriptive deviants diverge from the average group attitude in a direction consistent with the desirable group attitude; prescriptive deviants diverge from the average group attitude in a direction inconsistent with the desirable group attitude. Three studies tested the hypothesis that descriptive deviants are more willing to express their opinions than either nonde…
Psychological Essentialism of Human Categories
Psychological essentialism is an ordinary mode of category representation that has powerful social-psychological consequences. This article reviews those consequences, with a focus on the distinctive ways people perceive, evaluate, and interact with members of human categories they essentialize. Why and when people engage in this mode of thinking remain open questions. Variability in essentialism across cultures, categories, and contexts suggests…
Political‐Economic Values and the Relationship Between Socioeconomic Status and Self‐Esteem
Values concerning the distribution of wealth are an important aspect of identity for many Americans, and such values may therefore influence how Americans experience their own socioeconomic status (SES). Based on this proposition, the present research examines political‐economic values as a moderator of the relationship between SES and self‐esteem. Results supported the hypothesis that there is a stronger relationship between SES and self‐esteem …
Social Categories and Group Preference Disputes: The Aversion to Winner-Take-All Solutions
Six studies explored the hypothesis that third parties are averse to resolving preference disputes with winner-take-all solutions when disputing factions belong to different social categories (e.g. gender, nationality, firms, etc.) versus the same social category. Studies 1—3 showed that third parties' aversion to winner-take-all solutions, even when they are based on the unbiased toss of a coin, is greater when the disputed preferences correlate…
Inferring the popularity of an opinion from its familiarity: A repetitive voice can sound like a chorus
Despite the importance of doing so, people do not always correctly estimate the distribution of opinions within their group. One important mechanism underlying such misjudgments is people's tendency to infer that a familiar opinion is a prevalent one, even when its familiarity derives solely from the repeated expression of 1 group member. Six experiments demonstrate this effect and show that it holds even when perceivers are consciously aware tha…
Essentializing Differences Between Women and Men
People represent many social categories, including gender categories, in essentialist terms: They see category members as sharing deep, nonobvious properties that make them the kinds of things they are. The present research explored the consequences of this mode of representation for social inferences. In two sets of studies, participants learned (a) that they were similar to a member of the other gender on a novel attribute, (b) that they were d…
Profit maximization versus disadvantageous inequality: The impact of self-categorization
Choice behavior researchers (e.g., Bazerman, Loewenstein, & White, 1992) have found that individuals tend to choose a more lucrative but disadvantageously unequal payoff (e.g., self—$600/other—$800) over a less profitable but equal one (e.g., self—$500/other—$500); greater profit trumps interpersonal social comparison concerns in the choice setting. We suggest, however, that self-categorization (e.g., Hogg, 2000) can shift interpersonal social co…
Counterfactual Thinking and the First Instinct Fallacy
Most people believe that they should avoid changing their answer when taking multiple-choice tests. Virtually all research on this topic, however, has suggested that this strategy is ill-founded: Most answer changes are from incorrect to correct, and people who change their answers usually improve their test scores. Why do people believe in this strategy if the data so strongly refute it? The authors argue that the belief is in part a product of …
How Surveillance Begets Perceptions of Dishonesty: The Case of the Counterfactual Sinner
Three studies support the hypothesis that observers' impressions of actors reflect not only what actors do but also what they can easily be imagined doing. Participants in Studies 1 and 2 observed a 10-year-old boy take a math test in a context in which the incentive to cheat and the constraints against cheating varied. When the incentive to cheat was high but the likelihood of getting caught was also high, observers perceived a target who resist…
The Justice Motive in Everyday Life
This book contains essays in honour of Melvin J. Lerner, a pioneer in the psychological study of justice. The contributors to this volume are internationally renowned scholars from psychology, business, and law. They examine the role of justice motivation in a wide variety of contexts, including workplace violence, affirmative action programs, helping or harming innocent victims and how people react to their own fate. Contributors explore fundame…
The emergence of homegrown stereotypes
Homegrown stereotypes are generalizations that groups develop about their own typical characteristics. They are a distinct class of in-group stereotypes in the contexts and processes that give rise to them, as well as in their consequences for individual group members. The authors develop the concept of homegrown stereotypes and locate the origins of these stereotypes in self-presentation processes. They discuss the accuracy of these stereotypes …
The emergence of homegrown stereotypes
Self-serving biases in the attribution of causality: Fact or fiction
A review of the evidence for and against the proposition that self-serving biases affect attributions of causality indicated that there is little empirical support for the proposition in its most general form. The literature provides some support for the contention that individuals engage in self-enhancin g attributions under conditions of success, but only minimal evidence was found to suggest that individuals engage in self-protecti ve attribut…
Just world research and the attribution process: Looking back and ahead
Moral credentials and the expression of prejudice
Three experiments supported the hypothesis that people are more willing to express attitudes that could be viewed as prejudiced when their past behavior has established their credentials as nonprejudiced persons. In Study 1, participants given the opportunity to disagree with blatantly sexist statements were later more willing to favor a man for a stereotypically male job. In Study 2, participants who first had the opportunity to select a member …
Pluralistic ignorance and alcohol use on campus: Some consequences of misperceiving the social norm
When small effects are impressive
Effect size is becoming an increasingly popular measure of the importance of an effect, both in individual studies and in meta-analyses. However, a large effect size is not the only way to demonstrate that an effect is important. This article describes 2 alternative methodological strategies, in which importance is a function of how minimal a manipulation of the independent variable or how difficult-to-influence a dependent variable will still pr…
The disparity between the actual and assumed power of self-interest
Five studies examined the hypothesis that people overestimate the influence of self-interest on attitudes and behaviors. The results strongly supported the hypothesis. In Study 1, participants overestimated the impact that financial reward exerted on their peers' willingness to donate blood. In 4 subsequent studies, participants overestimated the impact that group membership had on their peers' attitudes (Studies 2, 3, and 4) and behaviors (Study…
Socialpsychological Processes Underlying Attitudes Toward Legal Punishment
This paper develops a theoretical framework for investigating the socialpsychological dynamics of punishment reactions to criminal offenders. Two basic types of punishment motives are delineated: behavior control and retribution. The target, or focus, of these motives may be the offender or a broader social audience. Within each of the four cells defined by this classification, we review the literature describing how punishment responses are infl…
Pluralistic ignorance: When similarity is interpreted as dissimilarity
The Effects of In-Group versus Out-Group Social Comparison on Self-Esteem in the Context of a Negative Stereotype
The Association of Religiosity and Political Conservatism: The Role of Political Engagement
Some argue that there is an organic connection between being religious and being politically conservative. We evaluate an alternative thesis that the relation between religiosity and political conservatism largely results from engagement with political discourse that indicates that these characteristics go together. In a combined sample of national survey respondents from 1996 to 2008, religiosity was associated with conservative positions on a w…
The norm of self-interest and its effects on social action
Four studies investigated whether people feel inhibited from engaging in social action incongruent with their apparent self-interest. Participants in Study 1 predicted that they would be evaluated negatively were they to take action on behalf of a cause in which they had no stake or in which they had a stake but held stake-incongruent attitudes. Participants in Study 2 reported both surprise and anger when a target person took action on behalf of…
Ego involvement and attributions for success and failure
Suspicion of ulterior motivation and the correspondence bias
Three studies examined the hypothesis that when perceivers learn of the existence of multiple, plausibly rival motives for an actor's behavior, they are less likely to fall prey to the correspondence bias than when they learn of the existence of situational factors that may have constrained the actor's behavior. In the first 2 studies, Ss who learned that an actor was instructed to behave as he did drew inferences that corresponded to his behavio…
Committing Altruism under the Cloak of Self-Interest: The Exchange Fiction
Gender gaps: Who needs to be explained
The hypothesis that explanations for differences between prototypical and nonprototypical members of categories would focus more on attributes of the latter than on those of the former was examined. Explanations for alleged gender differences in the behavior of voters, elementary school teachers, and college professors were elicited. As predicted, explanations for gender differences within the 3 categories emphasized the qualities of the "deviant…
Inferring the popularity of an opinion from its familiarity: A repetitive voice can sound like a chorus
Despite the importance of doing so, people do not always correctly estimate the distribution of opinions within their group. One important mechanism underlying such misjudgments is people's tendency to infer that a familiar opinion is a prevalent one, even when its familiarity derives solely from the repeated expression of 1 group member. Six experiments demonstrate this effect and show that it holds even when perceivers are consciously aware tha…
Temporal order and the perceived mutability of events: Implications for blame assignment
Distortion in person perception as a consequence of the need for effective control
Self‐Blame in Victims of Violence
This article focuses on self‐blame in victims of violence. Various types of victim self‐blame are delineated (e.g., blame for causing the violence, blame for not being able to modify the violence and blame for tolerating the violence) and speculations are offered as to how each of these might be related to the affective state and coping ability of victims. Additional distinctions are made between the acts of: 1) blaming oneself for being a cause …
Altruism and threat to a belief in a just world
Particularistic and universalistic evaluation in the social comparison process
The role of situational restrictiveness on self-fulfilling prophecies: A theoretical and empirical extension of Kelley and Stahelski's triangle hypothesis
The unhealthy road not taken: Licensing indulgence by exaggerating counterfactual sins
What constitutes a self-serving attributional bias? A reply to Bradley
Expressing deviant opinions: Believing you are in the majority helps
The Effect of Regional Similarity-Dissimilarity on Communicator Credibility
Using English Canadian university students as subjects, an experiment was conducted to examine the effects of regional identification in responses to written communications relevant and irrelevant to regional norms. For a communication advocating separatism for Quebec, an English Canadian communicator was judged to be both more trustworthy and more competent than a French Canadian communicator. For the other communication, advocating obligatory f…
The role of situational restrictiveness on self-fulfilling prophecies: A theoretical and empirical extension of Kelley and Stahelski's triangle hypothesis
Actor-observer differences in perceptions of effective control
Self-serving biases in the attribution of causality: Fact or fiction
A review of the evidence for and against the proposition that self-serving biases affect attributions of causality indicated that there is little empirical support for the proposition in its most general form. The literature provides some support for the contention that individuals engage in self-enhancin g attributions under conditions of success, but only minimal evidence was found to suggest that individuals engage in self-protecti ve attribut…
The role of rewards in externally and self-imposed delay of gratification
Ego involvement and attributions for success and failure
Coping strategies and attentional mechanisms in self-imposed and externally imposed delay situations
Personal deserving versus justice for others: An exploration of the justice motive
Altruism and threat to a belief in a just world
What constitutes a self-serving attributional bias? A reply to Bradley
What constitutes a self-serving attributional bias? A reply to Bradley
Locus of control and the ability to tolerate gratification delay: When it is better to be an external
Effects of age and self-verbalization on children's ability to delay gratification
Distortion in person perception as a consequence of the need for effective control
Just world research and the attribution process: Looking back and ahead
Effects of temporal perspective on the attribution process
Socialpsychological Processes Underlying Attitudes Toward Legal Punishment
This paper develops a theoretical framework for investigating the socialpsychological dynamics of punishment reactions to criminal offenders. Two basic types of punishment motives are delineated: behavior control and retribution. The target, or focus, of these motives may be the offender or a broader social audience. Within each of the four cells defined by this classification, we review the literature describing how punishment responses are infl…
Morality and the Development of Conceptions of Justice
Self‐Blame in Victims of Violence
This article focuses on self‐blame in victims of violence. Various types of victim self‐blame are delineated (e.g., blame for causing the violence, blame for not being able to modify the violence and blame for tolerating the violence) and speculations are offered as to how each of these might be related to the affective state and coping ability of victims. Additional distinctions are made between the acts of: 1) blaming oneself for being a cause …
Why not wait: A cognitive model of self-imposed delay termination
Social Stigma: The Psychology of Marked Relationships
Norm theory: Comparing reality to its alternatives.
A theory of norms and normality is presented and applied to some phenomena of emotional responses, social judgment, and conversations about causes. Norms are assumed to be constructed ad hoc by recruiting specific representations. Category norms are derived by recruiting exemplars. Specific objects or events generate their own norms by retrieval of similar experiences stored in memory or by construction of counterfactual alternatives. The normali…
Pluralistic ignorance: When similarity is interpreted as dissimilarity
Particularistic and universalistic evaluation in the social comparison process
When a coincidence is suspicious: The role of mental simulation
Psychology (70 works) · Social Psychology (66 works) · Social and Intergroup Psychology (40 works) · Social Psychology (39 works) · Political science (20 works) · Cultural Differences and Values (18 works) · Law (17 works) · Cognitive psychology (16 works) · Epistemology (16 works) · Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics (13 works)