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The present research examines how psychological distance influences the weight given to individuating information about targets of justice judgments. Drawing on construal level theory, which links psychological distance to levels of construal, we hypot…

Discrimination is often used to increase public perceptions of group distinctiveness. The current research studied the effectiveness of third party helping as an alternative, more benign strategy to this end. Across four studies, we examined whether he…

Sharing an experience with another person can amplify that experience. Here, we propose for the first time that amplification is moderated by the psychological distance between co-experiencers. We predicted that experiences would be amplified for co-ex…

In the present research, we examined academic self-enhancement in students (N = 264) followed longitudinally through 4 years of college. We used social comparison (i.e., better-than-average ratings) and self-insight (i.e., criterion-based) approaches t…

Healthy eating is important for physical health. Using large probability samples of middle-aged adults in the United States and Japan, we show that fitting with the culturally normative way of being predicts healthy eating. In the United States, a cult…

Previous theoretical work has suggested that people can accurately perceive disease from others’ appearances and behaviors. However, much of that research has examined diseases with relatively obvious symptoms (e.g., scars, obesity, blemishes, sn…

Based on the “Knobe Effect,” Knobe has argued that moral evaluations can influence intentionality judgments. However, two methodological objections have been raised against this claim: first, that participants’ answers do not accurately reflect w…

Morality, sociability, and competence are distinct dimensions in person perception. We argue that a person’s morality informs us about their likely intentions, whereas their competence and sociability inform us about the likelihood that they will…

The search for the prosocial personality has been long and controversial. The current research explores the general patterns underlying prosocial decisions, linking personality, emotion, and overt prosocial behavior. Using a multimethod approach, we ex…

Day-to-day interactions often involve individuals interacting with groups, but little is known about the criteria that people use to decide which groups to approach or trust and which to avoid or distrust. Seven studies provide evidence for a “small = …