Immo Fritsche
Biographic Data
| ID | 210203 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Immo Fritsche |
| GIVEN NAMES | Immo |
| FAMILY NAME | Fritsche |
| SIGNATURE | FRITSCHE I |
| AFFILIATIONS | Leipzig University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6022-8021 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 45 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 359 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 45 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2000 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 11 |
The Control Motivation Function of Populist Attitudes: Causal Evidence that Populist Reasoning Raises Perceptions of Control
The present studies investigate how populist attitudes influence perceptions of personal control. Populist reasoning is proposed to enhance personal control by promoting a sense of belonging to an agentic group (“the people”) that opposes a perceived antagonistic “corrupt elite.” Across three experiments ( N = 733), participants were asked to adopt either a populist or a pluralistic reasoning style. In Study 3, the salience of high versus low per…
Citizen Science Goes to School: Intervention Effects on Biodiversity Knowledge, Nature Relatedness, and Biodiversity Action in Secondary School Students
Few studies have investigated the effects of citizen science (CS) in formal environmental education. Using a three-wave quasi-experimental design to survey students from three secondary schools ( N Total = 126), we tested the effects of two different education treatments (instruction treatment and CS treatment) on personal and collective outcomes related to biodiversity protection. Both treatments included teaching units on urban biodiversity, bu…
How we empowers me: The availability of agentic ingroups elevates group-based control perceptions following threat
Let’s take back control: Disentangling and integrating group-based and certainty-based social responses to threatened personal control
Threat to personal control affects people’s attitudes towards groups and society. We compare a certainty-striving account, proposing threatened individuals to justify non-self agents and existing structures (compensatory control theory), with a group-based control explanation, assuming them to support ingroups. We suggest an integrated stage model of extended and secondary control (INSMESC). It holds that striving for control through the social s…
Change, yes ‘we’ can: Protesting for (ingroup) and against (outgroup) change under conditions of threatened personal control
Muslims and Non‐Muslims: In Conflict or Harmony With Each Other? Conflict‐Related Ingroup Norms Shape Threat Effects on Intergroup Behavioural Intentions
Threat increases ethnocentric motivation and can thus trigger hostile intergroup behaviour. However, ingroup norms–whether promoting conflict or positive intergroup relations–should moderate these effects, with positive (vs. conflict) norms reducing, eliminating, or even reversing intergroup hostility following threat. We tested this hypothesis in a series of survey studies and experiments with Muslim and non‐Muslim samples in Germany (total N = …
Psychologie der Rechtsradikalisierung: Theorien, Perspektiven, Prävention
Wie radikalisieren sich Menschen und warum ist die Empfänglichkeit für rechte Radikalisierungsdynamiken aktuell besonders hoch? Dieses Buch bietet Einblicke in die psychologische Forschung zu diesen Fragen. Wissenschaftlerinnen und Wissenschaftler stellen in prägnanter und verständlicher Weise Erkenntnisse und Forschungslücken dar. Die Beiträge diskutieren insbesondere die motivationale Bedeutung von Verlust- und Benachteiligungserfahrungen, das …
Citizen science promotes knowledge, skills and collective action to monitor and protect freshwater streams
Citizen science has great potential to foster ecological knowledge, skills and collective action for biodiversity conservation. To date, however, there are few experimental studies of behaviour change outcomes induced by citizen science. We assessed the effects of citizen science in ecological stream monitoring on participants' individual and collective behaviour and action intentions to protect streams beyond the immediate scope of the citizen s…
To change, but not to preserve! Norm conformity following control threat only emerges for change norms but not for status quo norms
Collectively pursuing social change may help people experience a sense of agency through their group when personal control is threatened, thereby restoring their sense of control. Accordingly, we proposed and found in two studies ( N = 177 & 178) that following an experimentally manipulated threat to personal control, group members conform only to ingroup norms (vs. non-norms) framed as proposing social change, but not to those framed as preservi…
The effect of climate change threat on public attitudes towards ethnic and religious minorities and climate refugees
How does climate change threat affect attitudes towards ethnic and religious minorities and climate change refugees? We show that threatening climate change can have deep psychological effects even among social majority groups in relatively prosperous and peaceful societies. Using three survey experiments with self-identified White British participants ( N = 616, N = 587, and N = 535), we demonstrate that social majority members who are exposed t…
An interdisciplinary understanding of energy citizenship: Integrating psychological, legal, and economic perspectives on a citizen-centred sustainable energy transition
Energy citizenship is an emerging concept in policy and practice. Yet scientific theorising around energy citizenship is scarce, and rarely bundled in interdisciplinary discourse. In this article, we present an interdisciplinary definition of energy citizenship as people's rights to and responsibilities for a just and sustainable energy transition. Energy citizenship contains multiple aspects and allows for various approaches, of which we zoom in…
Support for Pro-Climate and Ecofascist Extremism: Correlates and Intersections
Environmental issues have inspired violent action on both extremes of the political spectrum. Yet, there is a dearth of research on social psychology of environmental extremism. We provide the first empirical exploration of socio-demographic and psychological correlates of support for pro-climate and ecofascist extremism, drawing on two online surveys conducted in the UK in 2020/2021. We focus on the differences and commonalities in the profile o…
Agency through hierarchy? A group-based account of increased approval of social hierarchies under conditions of threatened control
Acting collectively against air pollution: When does control threat mobilize environmental activism? Registered report
Blaming immigrants to enhance control: Exploring the control‐bolstering functions of causal attribution, in‐group identification, and hierarchy enhancement
Blaming immigrants seems to be in part motivated by the need for control. However, three alternative explanations have been proposed as to why blaming bolsters feelings of control. First, blaming may restore a sense of an orderly world in which negative events can be attributed to a clear cause (causal attribution). Second, blaming others may strengthen in-group identities thereby facilitating group-based control (in-group identification). Finall…
Climate change action as a project of identity: Eight meta-analyses
Identity can improve our understanding of personal climate action, particularly when climate action becomes an expression of a person’s self. However, it is unclear which kind of self or identity is most relevant. Building on a comprehensive series of eight meta-analyses (using data from 188 published articles, N = 414,282 participants) this research systematically compares how strongly climate-friendly intentions and behaviors are associated wit…
Donations to renewable energy projects: The role of social norms and donor anonymity
This paper shows that interventions based on social norms and on increasing the visibility of people's decisions to others (“decision observability”) present promising pathways of generating public support for renewable energy development. In a laboratory experiment (n = 300), we show that social norms and decision observability increase support for renewable energy, even at a financial cost to oneself: When exposed to pro-environmental social no…
The interplay between individual and collective efforts in the age of global threats
Get together, feel together, act together: International personal contact increases identification with humanity and global collective action
Declining natural resources or climate change are examples of global challenges that characterize our globalized world. A sustainable human cohabitation depends on global intergroup cooperation and joint efforts to solve these crises. Intergroup contact tends to reduce intergroup prejudice and can facilitate such intergroup cooperation. Another line of research indicates that these improved attitudes may reduce the motivation to collective action…
Loyal peripherals? The interactive effects of identification and peripheral group membership on deviance from non‐beneficial ingroup norms
For ensuring the well‐being of groups, people are needed who deviate from ingroup norms that harm the group (“loyal deviance”). Qualifying previous results that loyal deviants have to be highly identified with the group, we hypothesize and show that this is only true when group members at the same time feel that they are highly prototypical for the group. No such effects occurred for peripheral members. In all three studies (N1 = 207, N2 = 115, N…
A Social Identity Model of Pro-Environmental Action (Simpea).
Large-scale environmental crises are genuinely collective phenomena: they usually result from collective, rather than personal, behavior and how they are cognitively represented and appraised is determined by collectively shared interpretations (e.g., differing across ideological groups) and based on concern for collectives (e.g., humankind, future generations) rather than for individuals. Nevertheless, pro-environmental action has been primarily…
Romantic love versus reproduction opportunities: Disentangling the contributions of different anxiety buffers under conditions of existential threat
Romantic relationships and offspring are discussed as anxiety buffers in terror management processes. We examined the relationship between these possible buffers and tested whether romantic relationships reduce existential threat due to reproduction opportunities or if they represent a distinct anxiety buffer. Contrary to our initial expectations, thinking about a positive romantic relationship without (vs. with) own children increased partner af…
Being oneself through time: Bases of self-continuity across 55 cultures
Self-continuity – the sense that one’s past, present, and future are meaningfully connected – is considered a defining feature of personal identity. However, bases of self-continuity may depend on cultural beliefs about personhood. In multilevel analyses of data from 7287 adults from 55 cultural groups in 33 nations, we tested a new tripartite theoretical model of bases of self-continuity. As expected, perceptions of stability, sense of narrative…
Closing ranks: Ingroup norm conformity as a subtle response to threatening climate change
We tested the hypothesis that climate change threat increases group-based cognition and action tendencies. As ingroups can provide extended primary control, we expected climate change threat to increase conformity with ingroup norms and group protective behavior. In three studies ( N = 404), we experimentally manipulated climate change threat (Studies 1–3) and group norm content (Studies 2 and 3). We found that participants under climate change t…
Self‐transcendence as a psychological parenthood motive: When mortality salience increases the desire for non‐biological children
Reminders of existential threat increase people's desire for offspring. In line with terror management theory, we explain these effects by the motivation to transcend the self via offspring that complements biological accounts of reproduction motivation under threat. Accordingly, Study 1 shows that mortality salience increases self‐transcendence motivation but not other parenthood motivations. Furthermore, mortality salience increased willingness…
The power of we: Evidence for group-based control
The role of control motivation in mortality salience effects on ingroup support and defense
Terror management research has shown that mortality salience (MS) leads to increased support and defense of cultural ingroups and their norms (i.e., worldview defense, WD). The authors investigated whether these effects can be understood as efforts to restore a generalized sense of control by strengthening one's social ingroup. In Studies 1-3, the authors found that WD was only increased following pure death salience, compared with both dental pa…
Collective Reactions to Threat: Implications for Intergroup Conflict and for Solving Societal Crises
Personal and collective threat can breed ethnocentrism and intergroup conflict. We present a model of group‐based control to elucidate motivational underpinnings of these effects from a social psychological perspective. Reviewed empirical evidence illustrates the effects of personal threat on ethnocentric attitudes. Moreover, evidence reveals that perceived lack of personal control of important aspects of one's life induces people to support and …
Mortality salience and the desire for offspring
Focus theory of normative conduct and terror-management theory: The interactive impact of mortality salience and norm salience on social judgment
Research on terror-management theory has shown that after mortality salience (MS) people attempt to live up to cultural values. But cultures often value very different and sometimes even contradictory standards, leading to difficulties in predicting behavior as a consequence of terror-management needs. The authors report 4 studies to demonstrate that the effect of MS on people's social judgments depends on the salience of norms. In Study 1, makin…
Predicting Deviant Behavior by Neutralization: Myths and Findings
Neutralization theory states that deviant behavior is determined by the use of accounts rather than by an individual's acceptance of a social norm. A critical review of neutralization theory shows that (a) neutralization is only a weak predictor of norm-contradictive behavior, (b) high norm-acceptance seems to amplify the neutralization-behavior effect but might not be a prerequisite, and (c) in contrast to Minor's hardening process assumption, p…
Account Strategies for the Violation of Social Norms: Integration and Extension of Sociological and Social Psychological Typologies
Social norms supply people with standards of behaviour. They influence the decisions we make about how to dress for dinner parties, about how we solve conflicts or even about whether or not we should give up our seat on the bus for an elderly lady. If we decide to commit a normcontradicting behaviour, we feel the force of social sanctions, exercised either directly against us by social agents who disapprove of our behaviour, or indirectly through…
Climate change action as a project of identity: Eight meta-analyses
Identity can improve our understanding of personal climate action, particularly when climate action becomes an expression of a person’s self. However, it is unclear which kind of self or identity is most relevant. Building on a comprehensive series of eight meta-analyses (using data from 188 published articles, N = 414,282 participants) this research systematically compares how strongly climate-friendly intentions and behaviors are associated wit…
The Great Recession and Group‐Based Control: Converting Personal Helplessness into Social Class In‐Group Trust and Collective Action
Economic crises can threaten individuals’ sense of control. At the same time, these crises often result in collective responses, such as class‐based protest (e.g., the 99%), but also nationalism or xenophobia. We investigated how personal consequences of economic crises lead to both intragroup and intergroup responses and the role of control for these effects. Studies 1 and 2 show that personal income and fear of economic descent reduce people's …
The prevalence of sexual aggression and victimization among homosexual men
This study examined the prevalence of unwanted sexual contacts among a sample of 310 homosexual men with an average age of 21.8 years recruited in Berlin, Germany. A modified version of the Sexual Experiences Survey was developed to record unwanted contacts involving different means of coercion, sexual acts, and victim‐perpetrator relationships. Reports were elicited about (a) sexual victimization and (b) perpetration of sexually aggressive acts.…
An interdisciplinary understanding of energy citizenship: Integrating psychological, legal, and economic perspectives on a citizen-centred sustainable energy transition
Energy citizenship is an emerging concept in policy and practice. Yet scientific theorising around energy citizenship is scarce, and rarely bundled in interdisciplinary discourse. In this article, we present an interdisciplinary definition of energy citizenship as people's rights to and responsibilities for a just and sustainable energy transition. Energy citizenship contains multiple aspects and allows for various approaches, of which we zoom in…
Absolute moral standards and global identity as independent predictors of collective action against global injustice
Today's global challenges necessitate the cooperation of the international community. In two studies, this paper investigates global identity and absolute moral standards as two important predictors of solidarity and collective action intentions. In Study 1 ( N = 450), we found evidence for parallel direct effects of global identity and absolute standards on intergroup solidarity and indirectly on collective action intentions. Similar, albeit wea…
Contextualism as an Important Facet of Individualism-Collectivism: Personhood Beliefs Across 37 National Groups
Beliefs about personhood are understood to be a defining feature of individualism-collectivism (I-C), but they have been insufficiently explored, given the emphasis of research on values and self-construals. We propose the construct of contextualism, referring to beliefs about the importance of context in understanding people, as a facet of cultural collectivism. A brief measure was developed and refined across 19 nations (Study 1: N = 5,241), sh…
Mortality Salience and Its Effects on Peace Processes: A Review
The present paper offers a review of the relationship between existential individual threats and peace-hampering as well as peace-facilitating factors. An overwhelming bulk of literature on terror management theory (TMT) demonstrates negative effects of mortality salience such as derogation of outgroup members, prejudice, stereotyping, aggression, and racism. These negative reactions may be detrimental in peace-processes and critical in explainin…
Donations to renewable energy projects: The role of social norms and donor anonymity
This paper shows that interventions based on social norms and on increasing the visibility of people's decisions to others (“decision observability”) present promising pathways of generating public support for renewable energy development. In a laboratory experiment (n = 300), we show that social norms and decision observability increase support for renewable energy, even at a financial cost to oneself: When exposed to pro-environmental social no…
Closing ranks: Ingroup norm conformity as a subtle response to threatening climate change
We tested the hypothesis that climate change threat increases group-based cognition and action tendencies. As ingroups can provide extended primary control, we expected climate change threat to increase conformity with ingroup norms and group protective behavior. In three studies ( N = 404), we experimentally manipulated climate change threat (Studies 1–3) and group norm content (Studies 2 and 3). We found that participants under climate change t…
Adherence to climate change‐related ingroup norms: Do dimensions of group identification matter
Recent research provides evidence that group norms influence intentions to engage in pro‐climate behaviour and that identification with the group moderates the norm effects. However, past studies have neglected to examine if the effects on norm adherence vary among different identification aspects. The present studies close this gap by investigating group‐level self‐investment (i.e. the importance of and satisfaction with the group) and self‐defi…
Currencies as cultural symbols – an existential psychological perspective on reactions of Germans toward the Euro
Minimal and maximal goal orientation and reactions to norm violations
Violations of social norms can either be evaluated in an absolute or in a gradual fashion depending on whether group goals are represented as minimal or maximal goals. Recent research has shown that absolute versus gradual deviations lead to increased levels of demanded punishment and inclination to exclude the deviant from the respective moral community. In this article, we investigate whether individual differences in orientation towards settin…
Follow the Norm: Terror Management Theory and the Influence of Descriptive Norms
Terror management research shows that mortality salience (MS) increases people's attempts to live up to cultural standards. However, as cultures value very different and sometimes even contradictory standards, it is often difficult to derive specific predictions. Previous research identified the salience of injunctive norms (norms based on moral prescriptions) as an important moderator. We tested whether the influence of MS also depended on the s…
The effect of climate change threat on public attitudes towards ethnic and religious minorities and climate refugees
How does climate change threat affect attitudes towards ethnic and religious minorities and climate change refugees? We show that threatening climate change can have deep psychological effects even among social majority groups in relatively prosperous and peaceful societies. Using three survey experiments with self-identified White British participants ( N = 616, N = 587, and N = 535), we demonstrate that social majority members who are exposed t…
Support for Pro-Climate and Ecofascist Extremism: Correlates and Intersections
Environmental issues have inspired violent action on both extremes of the political spectrum. Yet, there is a dearth of research on social psychology of environmental extremism. We provide the first empirical exploration of socio-demographic and psychological correlates of support for pro-climate and ecofascist extremism, drawing on two online surveys conducted in the UK in 2020/2021. We focus on the differences and commonalities in the profile o…
Agency through hierarchy? A group-based account of increased approval of social hierarchies under conditions of threatened control
Acting collectively against air pollution: When does control threat mobilize environmental activism? Registered report
Inspired by the outgroup: A social identity analysis of intergroup admiration
Drawing upon a social identity approach, three studies focus on the elicitors of intergroup admiration by investigating the relationship between admiration for an outgroup and this outgroup’s prototypicality for a superordinate category. In Study 1 ( N = 314), we find empirical support for a positive association between prototypicality and admiration in cross-national survey data. In Study 2 ( N = 52), we provide experimental evidence for the rel…
The prevalence of sexual aggression and victimization among homosexual men
This study examined the prevalence of unwanted sexual contacts among a sample of 310 homosexual men with an average age of 21.8 years recruited in Berlin, Germany. A modified version of the Sexual Experiences Survey was developed to record unwanted contacts involving different means of coercion, sexual acts, and victim‐perpetrator relationships. Reports were elicited about (a) sexual victimization and (b) perpetration of sexually aggressive acts.…
Account Strategies for the Violation of Social Norms: Integration and Extension of Sociological and Social Psychological Typologies
Social norms supply people with standards of behaviour. They influence the decisions we make about how to dress for dinner parties, about how we solve conflicts or even about whether or not we should give up our seat on the bus for an elderly lady. If we decide to commit a normcontradicting behaviour, we feel the force of social sanctions, exercised either directly against us by social agents who disapprove of our behaviour, or indirectly through…
Currencies as cultural symbols – an existential psychological perspective on reactions of Germans toward the Euro
Predicting Deviant Behavior by Neutralization: Myths and Findings
Neutralization theory states that deviant behavior is determined by the use of accounts rather than by an individual's acceptance of a social norm. A critical review of neutralization theory shows that (a) neutralization is only a weak predictor of norm-contradictive behavior, (b) high norm-acceptance seems to amplify the neutralization-behavior effect but might not be a prerequisite, and (c) in contrast to Minor's hardening process assumption, p…
Mortality salience and the desire for offspring
Focus theory of normative conduct and terror-management theory: The interactive impact of mortality salience and norm salience on social judgment
Research on terror-management theory has shown that after mortality salience (MS) people attempt to live up to cultural values. But cultures often value very different and sometimes even contradictory standards, leading to difficulties in predicting behavior as a consequence of terror-management needs. The authors report 4 studies to demonstrate that the effect of MS on people's social judgments depends on the salience of norms. In Study 1, makin…
The role of control motivation in mortality salience effects on ingroup support and defense
Terror management research has shown that mortality salience (MS) leads to increased support and defense of cultural ingroups and their norms (i.e., worldview defense, WD). The authors investigated whether these effects can be understood as efforts to restore a generalized sense of control by strengthening one's social ingroup. In Studies 1-3, the authors found that WD was only increased following pure death salience, compared with both dental pa…
Mortality Salience and Its Effects on Peace Processes: A Review
The present paper offers a review of the relationship between existential individual threats and peace-hampering as well as peace-facilitating factors. An overwhelming bulk of literature on terror management theory (TMT) demonstrates negative effects of mortality salience such as derogation of outgroup members, prejudice, stereotyping, aggression, and racism. These negative reactions may be detrimental in peace-processes and critical in explainin…
Minimal and maximal goal orientation and reactions to norm violations
Violations of social norms can either be evaluated in an absolute or in a gradual fashion depending on whether group goals are represented as minimal or maximal goals. Recent research has shown that absolute versus gradual deviations lead to increased levels of demanded punishment and inclination to exclude the deviant from the respective moral community. In this article, we investigate whether individual differences in orientation towards settin…
Collective Reactions to Threat: Implications for Intergroup Conflict and for Solving Societal Crises
Personal and collective threat can breed ethnocentrism and intergroup conflict. We present a model of group‐based control to elucidate motivational underpinnings of these effects from a social psychological perspective. Reviewed empirical evidence illustrates the effects of personal threat on ethnocentric attitudes. Moreover, evidence reveals that perceived lack of personal control of important aspects of one's life induces people to support and …
The power of we: Evidence for group-based control
Follow the Norm: Terror Management Theory and the Influence of Descriptive Norms
Terror management research shows that mortality salience (MS) increases people's attempts to live up to cultural standards. However, as cultures value very different and sometimes even contradictory standards, it is often difficult to derive specific predictions. Previous research identified the salience of injunctive norms (norms based on moral prescriptions) as an important moderator. We tested whether the influence of MS also depended on the s…
Contextualism as an Important Facet of Individualism-Collectivism: Personhood Beliefs Across 37 National Groups
Beliefs about personhood are understood to be a defining feature of individualism-collectivism (I-C), but they have been insufficiently explored, given the emphasis of research on values and self-construals. We propose the construct of contextualism, referring to beliefs about the importance of context in understanding people, as a facet of cultural collectivism. A brief measure was developed and refined across 19 nations (Study 1: N = 5,241), sh…
Threat and Defense
Adherence to climate change‐related ingroup norms: Do dimensions of group identification matter
Recent research provides evidence that group norms influence intentions to engage in pro‐climate behaviour and that identification with the group moderates the norm effects. However, past studies have neglected to examine if the effects on norm adherence vary among different identification aspects. The present studies close this gap by investigating group‐level self‐investment (i.e. the importance of and satisfaction with the group) and self‐defi…
Absolute moral standards and global identity as independent predictors of collective action against global injustice
Today's global challenges necessitate the cooperation of the international community. In two studies, this paper investigates global identity and absolute moral standards as two important predictors of solidarity and collective action intentions. In Study 1 ( N = 450), we found evidence for parallel direct effects of global identity and absolute standards on intergroup solidarity and indirectly on collective action intentions. Similar, albeit wea…
Collective efficacy increases pro-environmental intentions through increasing self-efficacy
Beyond the ‘east–west’ dichotomy: Global variation in cultural models of selfhood.
Markus and Kitayama's (1991) theory of independent and interdependent self-construals had a major influence on social, personality, and developmental psychology by highlighting the role of culture in psychological processes. However, research has relied excessively on contrasts between North American and East Asian samples, and commonly used self-report measures of independence and interdependence frequently fail to show predicted cultural differ…
Inspired by the outgroup: A social identity analysis of intergroup admiration
Drawing upon a social identity approach, three studies focus on the elicitors of intergroup admiration by investigating the relationship between admiration for an outgroup and this outgroup’s prototypicality for a superordinate category. In Study 1 ( N = 314), we find empirical support for a positive association between prototypicality and admiration in cross-national survey data. In Study 2 ( N = 52), we provide experimental evidence for the rel…
Being oneself through time: Bases of self-continuity across 55 cultures
Self-continuity – the sense that one’s past, present, and future are meaningfully connected – is considered a defining feature of personal identity. However, bases of self-continuity may depend on cultural beliefs about personhood. In multilevel analyses of data from 7287 adults from 55 cultural groups in 33 nations, we tested a new tripartite theoretical model of bases of self-continuity. As expected, perceptions of stability, sense of narrative…
Closing ranks: Ingroup norm conformity as a subtle response to threatening climate change
We tested the hypothesis that climate change threat increases group-based cognition and action tendencies. As ingroups can provide extended primary control, we expected climate change threat to increase conformity with ingroup norms and group protective behavior. In three studies ( N = 404), we experimentally manipulated climate change threat (Studies 1–3) and group norm content (Studies 2 and 3). We found that participants under climate change t…
Self‐transcendence as a psychological parenthood motive: When mortality salience increases the desire for non‐biological children
Reminders of existential threat increase people's desire for offspring. In line with terror management theory, we explain these effects by the motivation to transcend the self via offspring that complements biological accounts of reproduction motivation under threat. Accordingly, Study 1 shows that mortality salience increases self‐transcendence motivation but not other parenthood motivations. Furthermore, mortality salience increased willingness…
The Great Recession and Group‐Based Control: Converting Personal Helplessness into Social Class In‐Group Trust and Collective Action
Economic crises can threaten individuals’ sense of control. At the same time, these crises often result in collective responses, such as class‐based protest (e.g., the 99%), but also nationalism or xenophobia. We investigated how personal consequences of economic crises lead to both intragroup and intergroup responses and the role of control for these effects. Studies 1 and 2 show that personal income and fear of economic descent reduce people's …
A Social Identity Model of Pro-Environmental Action (Simpea).
Large-scale environmental crises are genuinely collective phenomena: they usually result from collective, rather than personal, behavior and how they are cognitively represented and appraised is determined by collectively shared interpretations (e.g., differing across ideological groups) and based on concern for collectives (e.g., humankind, future generations) rather than for individuals. Nevertheless, pro-environmental action has been primarily…
Romantic love versus reproduction opportunities: Disentangling the contributions of different anxiety buffers under conditions of existential threat
Romantic relationships and offspring are discussed as anxiety buffers in terror management processes. We examined the relationship between these possible buffers and tested whether romantic relationships reduce existential threat due to reproduction opportunities or if they represent a distinct anxiety buffer. Contrary to our initial expectations, thinking about a positive romantic relationship without (vs. with) own children increased partner af…
Psychology (40 works) · Social Psychology (38 works) · Social and Intergroup Psychology (32 works) · Political science (23 works) · Social Psychology (21 works) · Cultural Differences and Values (14 works) · Ingroups and outgroups (14 works) · Death Anxiety and Social Exclusion (13 works) · Law (13 works) · Cognitive psychology (12 works)