Fredrik Bjorklund
Biographic Data
| ID | 3794594 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Fredrik Bjorklund |
| GIVEN NAMES | Fredrik |
| FAMILY NAME | Bjorklund |
| SIGNATURE | BJÖRKLUND F |
| AFFILIATIONS | Lund University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9970-6465 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 19 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 71 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 18 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2007 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
How Social Desirability Influences the Relationship between Measures of Personality and Key Constructs in Positive Psychology
Does socially desirable responding produce exaggerated correlations between self-ratings of personality and positive psychology constructs? We operationalized social desirability as the tendency to react to evaluative content in questionnaire items and related one standard measure and one evaluatively neutralized measure of the Big Five to measures of five key positive psychology constructs (optimism, purpose in life, satisfaction with life, well…
Why Forced-Choice and Likert Items Provide the Same Information on Personality, Including Social Desirability
The forced-choice response format is often considered superior to the standard Likert-type format for controlling social desirability in personality inventories. We performed simulations and found that the trait information based on the two formats converges when the number of items is high and forced-choice items are mixed with regard to positively and negatively keyed items. Given that forced-choice items extract the same personality informatio…
In the shoes of the other
We investigated whether empathy and identification with Jews as a group is affected by a Holocaust education trip to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Data was collected before and after the trip and compared with a control group. The mean level of both perspective taking and identification with Jews as a group increased in the educational-trip group. Increased closeness to Jews as a group was related to increased perspective taking. We discuss the role for Ho…
Fear and anxiety differ in construal level and scope
The fear-anxiety distinction has been extensively discussed and debated among emotion researchers. In this study, we tested this distinction from a social-cognitive perspective. Drawing on construal level theory and regulatory scope theory, we examined whether fear and anxiety differ in their underlying level of construal and scope. Results from a preregistered autobiographical recall study (N = 200) that concerned either a fear situation or an a…
Tech-Savvy Men and Caring Women
The labor market is strongly gender segregated with few women working in the tech sector (e.g., IT) and few men working in the care sector (e.g., nursing). We tested the hypothesis that middle school students strongly associate technology with men and caregiving with women in a Swedish context (i.e., a country that scores high in gender equality indices), and that these gender stereotypes for tech relate to girls’ lower interest in tech-focused e…
Sure I can code (but do I want to?). Why boys' and girls’ programming beliefs differ and the effects of mandatory programming education
In our increasingly digitalized society, it is important to have a grasp of basic programming and therefore, programming was recently made mandatory in Swedish schools. We investigated how the mandatory programming education affects self-efficacy and interest in programming in a sample of 12-year-old children (N = 373). Data was collected at the start of the school year, directly after the education (mainly consisting of block programming), and t…
Why are our political rivals so blind to the problems facing society? Evidence that political leftists and rightists in Israel mentally construe collective threats differently
The present research examines the hypothesis that political leftists and rightists mentally construe collective threats differently, such that each political side views the threats that are meaningful to them as close and concrete, whereas other threats are underemphasized and perceived as distant and abstract. In two studies (total N = 796) we show that Israeli-Jewish political leftists perceive threats against democracy and tolerance as psychol…
Accounting for the evaluative factor in self-ratings provides a more accurate estimate of the relationship between personality traits and well-being
Social desirability may cause spurious relations in self-rating measures. The present study sought to disentangle socially desirable responding and content in the relation between measures of personality traits and well-being. Social desirability was operationalized as the evaluative factor (the tendency to react to evaluative content in questionnaire items). We collected self- and peer-ratings of personality and self-ratings of well-being from 2…
Dissonance and abstraction
This study investigated the effects of cognitive conflict on abstract thinking. According to action‐identification theory, an ambiguous and unfamiliar situation might propel an individual to a more abstract mindset. Based on this premise, cognitive conflict was hypothesized to put people in an abstract mindset. The induced compliance paradigm, in which participants are asked to write a counter‐attitudinal essay under either low choice (producing …
Judging those closest from afar
The purpose of the present research was to examine the effect of psychological distance and abstraction on judgment of ingroup moral transgressions. Based on Construal Level Theory (Trope & Liberman, 2010), we hypothesized that psychological distance and high level construal increases the degree to which moral value preference determines judgment (value-judgment correspondence) in response to ingroup moral transgressions. This hypothesis was supp…
Will I Fit in and Do Well? The Importance of Social Belongingness and Self-Efficacy for Explaining Gender Differences in Interest in STEM and Heed Majors
Throughout the world, the labor market is clearly gender segregated. More research is needed to explain women's lower interest in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) majors and particularly to explain men's lower interest in HEED (Health care, Elementary Education, and the Domestic spheres) majors. We tested self-efficacy (competence beliefs) and social belongingness expectations (fitting in socially) as mediators of gender di…
Motivational internalism
Perceived Utility (not Sympathy) Mediates the Proportion Dominance Effect in Helping Decisions
The proportion dominance effect (PDE) refers to a higher motivation to help when the victims are part of a small (you can help 56 out of 60) rather than a large (you can help 56 out of 560) reference group. In two studies using different experimental paradigms, we investigated possible mediators of the PDE. Study 1 ( N = 168) was conducted in three separate steps in order to test each link of the mediator model independently. Students read six vi…
Look at Yourself
Previous research ( Libby, Shaeffer, & Eibach, 2009 ) has established that a third-person (external) visual perspective elicits more abstract processing than a first-person (inner) perspective. Because many moral principles constitute abstract psychological constructs, we predicted that they should weigh more heavily when people adopt a third-person visual perspective. In two experiments we show that a third- (vs. first-) person visual perspectiv…
Mixed Discriminatory Judgments of Individuals’ Warmth and Competence-Related Abilities
Although several studies have demonstrated that stereotypes can be mixed in terms of warmth and competence (e.g., cold but competent), the possibility of mixed discrimination has received very little attention so far. To this end, the present study investigated mixed discriminatory judgments of individuals. In two studies, the participants judged the empathic (warmth) and the cognitive (competence) ability of individuals who differed only in whet…
Implicit Stereotype Content
The stereotype content model (SCM) postulates that stereotype content can be mixed in terms of diverging evaluations on the warmth and competence dimensions. The present study is the first to demonstrate this with implicit measures. Two Implicit Associations Tests (IATs) were developed, one capturing the warmth dimension and the other the competence dimension. Both IATs compared preschool teachers (stereotypically warm and incompetent) with lawye…
Five-factor inventories have a major general factor related to social desirability which can be reduced by framing items neutrally
Confirming the Three-Factor Structure of the Disgust Scale-Revised in Eight Countries
The current study evaluates the factor structure of the Disgust Scale-Revised (DS-R) in eight countries: Australia, Brazil, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United States ( N = 2,606). Confirmatory factor analysis is used to compare two different models of the DS-R and to investigate the invariance of the factor structure of the DS-R across countries and gender. A three-factor solution consisting of three different but inte…
Structural Modeling of Generalized Prejudice
Structural equation modeling on questionnaire data showed that prejudice toward different target groups can be represented in terms of a general prejudice factor. Distinction of classical and modern prejudice only increased model fit marginally. In two separate samples (paper and pencil vs. Internet) several structural models of the relationship between key individual difference variables and prejudice were tested, revealing highly similar result…
Will I Fit in and Do Well? The Importance of Social Belongingness and Self-Efficacy for Explaining Gender Differences in Interest in STEM and Heed Majors
Throughout the world, the labor market is clearly gender segregated. More research is needed to explain women's lower interest in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) majors and particularly to explain men's lower interest in HEED (Health care, Elementary Education, and the Domestic spheres) majors. We tested self-efficacy (competence beliefs) and social belongingness expectations (fitting in socially) as mediators of gender di…
Five-factor inventories have a major general factor related to social desirability which can be reduced by framing items neutrally
Confirming the Three-Factor Structure of the Disgust Scale-Revised in Eight Countries
The current study evaluates the factor structure of the Disgust Scale-Revised (DS-R) in eight countries: Australia, Brazil, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United States ( N = 2,606). Confirmatory factor analysis is used to compare two different models of the DS-R and to investigate the invariance of the factor structure of the DS-R across countries and gender. A three-factor solution consisting of three different but inte…
Implicit Stereotype Content
The stereotype content model (SCM) postulates that stereotype content can be mixed in terms of diverging evaluations on the warmth and competence dimensions. The present study is the first to demonstrate this with implicit measures. Two Implicit Associations Tests (IATs) were developed, one capturing the warmth dimension and the other the competence dimension. Both IATs compared preschool teachers (stereotypically warm and incompetent) with lawye…
Tech-Savvy Men and Caring Women
The labor market is strongly gender segregated with few women working in the tech sector (e.g., IT) and few men working in the care sector (e.g., nursing). We tested the hypothesis that middle school students strongly associate technology with men and caregiving with women in a Swedish context (i.e., a country that scores high in gender equality indices), and that these gender stereotypes for tech relate to girls’ lower interest in tech-focused e…
Perceived Utility (not Sympathy) Mediates the Proportion Dominance Effect in Helping Decisions
The proportion dominance effect (PDE) refers to a higher motivation to help when the victims are part of a small (you can help 56 out of 60) rather than a large (you can help 56 out of 560) reference group. In two studies using different experimental paradigms, we investigated possible mediators of the PDE. Study 1 ( N = 168) was conducted in three separate steps in order to test each link of the mediator model independently. Students read six vi…
Judging those closest from afar
The purpose of the present research was to examine the effect of psychological distance and abstraction on judgment of ingroup moral transgressions. Based on Construal Level Theory (Trope & Liberman, 2010), we hypothesized that psychological distance and high level construal increases the degree to which moral value preference determines judgment (value-judgment correspondence) in response to ingroup moral transgressions. This hypothesis was supp…
In the shoes of the other
We investigated whether empathy and identification with Jews as a group is affected by a Holocaust education trip to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Data was collected before and after the trip and compared with a control group. The mean level of both perspective taking and identification with Jews as a group increased in the educational-trip group. Increased closeness to Jews as a group was related to increased perspective taking. We discuss the role for Ho…
Why are our political rivals so blind to the problems facing society? Evidence that political leftists and rightists in Israel mentally construe collective threats differently
The present research examines the hypothesis that political leftists and rightists mentally construe collective threats differently, such that each political side views the threats that are meaningful to them as close and concrete, whereas other threats are underemphasized and perceived as distant and abstract. In two studies (total N = 796) we show that Israeli-Jewish political leftists perceive threats against democracy and tolerance as psychol…
Look at Yourself
Previous research ( Libby, Shaeffer, & Eibach, 2009 ) has established that a third-person (external) visual perspective elicits more abstract processing than a first-person (inner) perspective. Because many moral principles constitute abstract psychological constructs, we predicted that they should weigh more heavily when people adopt a third-person visual perspective. In two experiments we show that a third- (vs. first-) person visual perspectiv…
Structural Modeling of Generalized Prejudice
Structural equation modeling on questionnaire data showed that prejudice toward different target groups can be represented in terms of a general prejudice factor. Distinction of classical and modern prejudice only increased model fit marginally. In two separate samples (paper and pencil vs. Internet) several structural models of the relationship between key individual difference variables and prejudice were tested, revealing highly similar result…
Five-factor inventories have a major general factor related to social desirability which can be reduced by framing items neutrally
Confirming the Three-Factor Structure of the Disgust Scale-Revised in Eight Countries
The current study evaluates the factor structure of the Disgust Scale-Revised (DS-R) in eight countries: Australia, Brazil, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United States ( N = 2,606). Confirmatory factor analysis is used to compare two different models of the DS-R and to investigate the invariance of the factor structure of the DS-R across countries and gender. A three-factor solution consisting of three different but inte…
Implicit Stereotype Content
The stereotype content model (SCM) postulates that stereotype content can be mixed in terms of diverging evaluations on the warmth and competence dimensions. The present study is the first to demonstrate this with implicit measures. Two Implicit Associations Tests (IATs) were developed, one capturing the warmth dimension and the other the competence dimension. Both IATs compared preschool teachers (stereotypically warm and incompetent) with lawye…
Mixed Discriminatory Judgments of Individuals’ Warmth and Competence-Related Abilities
Although several studies have demonstrated that stereotypes can be mixed in terms of warmth and competence (e.g., cold but competent), the possibility of mixed discrimination has received very little attention so far. To this end, the present study investigated mixed discriminatory judgments of individuals. In two studies, the participants judged the empathic (warmth) and the cognitive (competence) ability of individuals who differed only in whet…
Perceived Utility (not Sympathy) Mediates the Proportion Dominance Effect in Helping Decisions
The proportion dominance effect (PDE) refers to a higher motivation to help when the victims are part of a small (you can help 56 out of 60) rather than a large (you can help 56 out of 560) reference group. In two studies using different experimental paradigms, we investigated possible mediators of the PDE. Study 1 ( N = 168) was conducted in three separate steps in order to test each link of the mediator model independently. Students read six vi…
Look at Yourself
Previous research ( Libby, Shaeffer, & Eibach, 2009 ) has established that a third-person (external) visual perspective elicits more abstract processing than a first-person (inner) perspective. Because many moral principles constitute abstract psychological constructs, we predicted that they should weigh more heavily when people adopt a third-person visual perspective. In two experiments we show that a third- (vs. first-) person visual perspectiv…
Motivational internalism
Will I Fit in and Do Well? The Importance of Social Belongingness and Self-Efficacy for Explaining Gender Differences in Interest in STEM and Heed Majors
Throughout the world, the labor market is clearly gender segregated. More research is needed to explain women's lower interest in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) majors and particularly to explain men's lower interest in HEED (Health care, Elementary Education, and the Domestic spheres) majors. We tested self-efficacy (competence beliefs) and social belongingness expectations (fitting in socially) as mediators of gender di…
Judging those closest from afar
The purpose of the present research was to examine the effect of psychological distance and abstraction on judgment of ingroup moral transgressions. Based on Construal Level Theory (Trope & Liberman, 2010), we hypothesized that psychological distance and high level construal increases the degree to which moral value preference determines judgment (value-judgment correspondence) in response to ingroup moral transgressions. This hypothesis was supp…
Dissonance and abstraction
This study investigated the effects of cognitive conflict on abstract thinking. According to action‐identification theory, an ambiguous and unfamiliar situation might propel an individual to a more abstract mindset. Based on this premise, cognitive conflict was hypothesized to put people in an abstract mindset. The induced compliance paradigm, in which participants are asked to write a counter‐attitudinal essay under either low choice (producing …
Why are our political rivals so blind to the problems facing society? Evidence that political leftists and rightists in Israel mentally construe collective threats differently
The present research examines the hypothesis that political leftists and rightists mentally construe collective threats differently, such that each political side views the threats that are meaningful to them as close and concrete, whereas other threats are underemphasized and perceived as distant and abstract. In two studies (total N = 796) we show that Israeli-Jewish political leftists perceive threats against democracy and tolerance as psychol…
Accounting for the evaluative factor in self-ratings provides a more accurate estimate of the relationship between personality traits and well-being
Social desirability may cause spurious relations in self-rating measures. The present study sought to disentangle socially desirable responding and content in the relation between measures of personality traits and well-being. Social desirability was operationalized as the evaluative factor (the tendency to react to evaluative content in questionnaire items). We collected self- and peer-ratings of personality and self-ratings of well-being from 2…
Sure I can code (but do I want to?). Why boys' and girls’ programming beliefs differ and the effects of mandatory programming education
In our increasingly digitalized society, it is important to have a grasp of basic programming and therefore, programming was recently made mandatory in Swedish schools. We investigated how the mandatory programming education affects self-efficacy and interest in programming in a sample of 12-year-old children (N = 373). Data was collected at the start of the school year, directly after the education (mainly consisting of block programming), and t…
Fear and anxiety differ in construal level and scope
The fear-anxiety distinction has been extensively discussed and debated among emotion researchers. In this study, we tested this distinction from a social-cognitive perspective. Drawing on construal level theory and regulatory scope theory, we examined whether fear and anxiety differ in their underlying level of construal and scope. Results from a preregistered autobiographical recall study (N = 200) that concerned either a fear situation or an a…
Tech-Savvy Men and Caring Women
The labor market is strongly gender segregated with few women working in the tech sector (e.g., IT) and few men working in the care sector (e.g., nursing). We tested the hypothesis that middle school students strongly associate technology with men and caregiving with women in a Swedish context (i.e., a country that scores high in gender equality indices), and that these gender stereotypes for tech relate to girls’ lower interest in tech-focused e…
Why Forced-Choice and Likert Items Provide the Same Information on Personality, Including Social Desirability
The forced-choice response format is often considered superior to the standard Likert-type format for controlling social desirability in personality inventories. We performed simulations and found that the trait information based on the two formats converges when the number of items is high and forced-choice items are mixed with regard to positively and negatively keyed items. Given that forced-choice items extract the same personality informatio…
In the shoes of the other
We investigated whether empathy and identification with Jews as a group is affected by a Holocaust education trip to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Data was collected before and after the trip and compared with a control group. The mean level of both perspective taking and identification with Jews as a group increased in the educational-trip group. Increased closeness to Jews as a group was related to increased perspective taking. We discuss the role for Ho…
How Social Desirability Influences the Relationship between Measures of Personality and Key Constructs in Positive Psychology
Does socially desirable responding produce exaggerated correlations between self-ratings of personality and positive psychology constructs? We operationalized social desirability as the tendency to react to evaluative content in questionnaire items and related one standard measure and one evaluatively neutralized measure of the Big Five to measures of five key positive psychology constructs (optimism, purpose in life, satisfaction with life, well…
Psychology (18 works) · Social Psychology (16 works) · Social and Intergroup Psychology (14 works) · Cultural Differences and Values (9 works) · Social Psychology (7 works) · Developmental psychology (6 works) · Construal level theory (4 works) · Personality (4 works) · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment (4 works) · Social desirability (4 works)