Laypeople’s Belief of the Influence of Thank-You Gifts on Charitable Giving

Although offering gifts to encourage prosocial behaviors is a popular daily strategy, its underlying mechanism remains unknown. This study investigated the effect of thank-you gifts on charitable giving in laypeople’s beliefs ( N = 1,293). Study 1 showed that laypeople believe thank-you gifts increase charitable giving. Study 2 found that laypeople believe thank-you gifts increase both charitable giving and positive emotions of donors. Study 3 further showed that laypeople’s anticipation of donors’ emotional gain might play a mediating role in the effect of thank-you gifts on charitable giving. Study S1 found that participants’ donated amounts in the benefit-to-others thank-you gifts condition exceeded other conditions on actual donation behavior. These findings emphasize the emotional value of the gift in laypeople’s beliefs.

Need for Closure, Morality, and Prejudice

Several studies demonstrated that a high need for closure (NFC) is associated with higher prejudice toward the out-group. This study aims to investigate how this effect can be moderated by attributions of morality to the in-group and the out-group. A questionnaire was administered to 725 participants. The results showed a positive relationship between NFC and prejudice when the in-group was evaluated as more moral than the out-group. This relationship was weaker when the out-group was evaluated as more moral than the in-group. These findings implicated that it is possible to reduce prejudice in individuals with high NFC by manipulating perceptions of in-group and out-group morality.

Sensitivity to Injustice of Politicians and Voters

This explorative study compares the sensitivity to injustice of 116 Members of the German National Parliament and 998 German citizens eligible to vote, from the perspective of a victim, an observer, a beneficiary, and a perpetrator. Politicians were found to have a significantly higher observer, beneficiary, and perpetrator sensitivity and a significantly lower victim sensitivity than voters. These results fit with the findings that observer and perpetrator sensitivity usually correlates positively with political engagement and beneficiary sensitivity, whereas victim sensitivity correlates negatively with political commitment.

Ambivalence and Self-Reported Adherence to Recommendations to Reduce the Spread of COVID-19

Governments worldwide still, to some extent, rely on behavioral recommendations to reduce the spread of COVID-19. We examine the role of ambivalence toward both the specific recommendations (micro-ambivalence) and the pandemic as a whole (macro-ambivalence) about compliance. We predict that micro ambivalence relates negatively, whereas macro ambivalence relates positively to self-reported adherence to recommendations. We present two studies ( N = 691) supporting our hypotheses: the more ambivalent people are toward the behavioral recommendations (micro-level), the less they report following them. Conversely, the more ambivalent people are about the pandemic as a whole (macro-level), the more they report following recommendations. Our findings were replicated in a US sample and a representative German sample.

Mere Ownership Effect Is Equally Pronounced in Material and Immaterial Objects

The mere ownership effect is an increase in the subjective value of owned objects compared to identical but non-owned objects. We tested whether the effect differs in magnitude between material and immaterial objects (e.g., information). Three hundred participants played an incentivized detective game in which they had to connect clues to identify a murderer. Their task was to evaluate the usefulness of the clues they or their partners were endowed with. Despite the fact that the immaterial clues were rated as more useful than the material ones, we found the mere ownership effect to be similarly strong for the material and the immaterial clues.

Intersected Groups and Discriminatory Everyday Behavior

De-racialization research suggests that depicting members of ethnic minority groups as gay leads to less stereotypic perceptions of their ethnic group. However, whether the consequences of de-racialization translate into real-world behavior is unclear. In a large “lost letter” field experiment ( N = 6,654) where an email was ostensibly sent to the wrong recipient by mistake, we investigate whether the relative impact of signaling gayness (vs. heterosexuality) differs for Arab (minority) versus Swedish (majority) senders. The results show clear evidence of ethnic discrimination where Arab (minority) senders receive fewer replies (prosocial response) than Swedish (majority) senders. However, there is no evidence indicating that Arab senders would receive a lower penalty for revealing gayness. Implications for multiple categorization research are discussed.

The Link Between Income, Income Inequality, and Prosocial Behavior Around the World

The questions of whether high-income individuals are more prosocial than low-income individuals and whether income inequality moderates this effect have received extensive attention. We shed new light on this topic by analyzing a large-scale dataset with a representative sample of respondents from 133 countries ( N = 948,837). We conduct a multiverse analysis with 30 statistical models: 15 models predicting the likelihood of donating money to charity and 15 models predicting the likelihood of volunteering time to an organization. Across all model specifications, high-income individuals were more likely to donate their money and volunteer their time than low-income individuals. High-income individuals were more likely to engage in prosocial behavior under high (vs. low) income inequality. Avenues for future research and potential mechanisms are discussed.

Stigmatization of Voluntarily Childfree Women and Men in the UK

People who choose not to have children may face negative social judgment. Using a UK sample, Study 1 ( N = 199) successfully replicated Ashburn-Nardo’s (2017) finding that childfree targets are perceived as less psychologically fulfilled than targets with children. The effect, however, appeared limited to expected decision regret rather than general fulfillment, which was later confirmed in Study 2 ( N = 329). In contrast to Ashburn-Nardo , our results did not indicate that moral outrage mediates the effect (Study 1), but exploratory findings suggested that perceivers who intend to have children of their own perceive the childfree as morally inferior and less likable (Study 2). Participants’ endorsement of conservative values was not consistently related to negative perceptions of childfree targets.