The Unintentional Nonconformist: Habits Promote Resistance to Social influence
Abstract
This research tests a novel source of resistance to social influence—the automatic repetition of habit. In three experiments,
participants with strong habits failed to align their behavior with others. Specifically, participants with strong habits to drink
water in a dining hall or snack while working did not mimic others’ drinking or eating, whereas those with weak habits
conformed. Similarly, participants with strong habits did not shift expectations that they would act in line with descriptive
norms, whereas those with weak habits reported more normative behavioral expectations. This habit resistance was not
due to a failure to perceive influence: Both strong and weak habit participants’ recalled others’ behavior accurately, and it
was readily accessible. Furthermore, strong habit participants shifted their normative beliefs but not behavior in line with
descriptive norms. Thus, habits create behavioral resistance despite people’s recognition and acceptance of social influence.
More than Merely Positive: The Immediate Affective and Motivational Consequences of Gratitude
Lisa C. Walsh, Christina N. Armenta, Guy Itzchakov, Megan M. Fritz and Sonja Lyubomirsky
Organizational Behavior and Social Psychology
Although gratitude is typically conceptualized as a positive emotion, it may also induce
socially oriented negative feelings, such as indebtedness and guilt. Given its mixed emotional
experience, we argue that gratitude motivates people to improve themselves in important life
domains. Two single-timepoint studies tested the immediate emotional and motivational effects
of expressing gratitude. We recruited employees (n = 224) from French companies in Study 1 and
students (n = 1026) from U.S. high schools in Study 2. Participants in both studies were randomly
assigned to either write gratitude letters to benefactors or outline their weekly activities (control
condition). Expressing gratitude led to mixed emotional experiences (e.g., greater elevation and
indebtedness) for employees and students as compared with the control group. Students also felt
more motivated and capable of improving themselves, as well as conveyed stronger intentions to
muster effort towards self-improvement endeavors.
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Don't let the facts ruin a good story: The effect of vivid reviews on attitude ambivalence and its coping mechanisms
Guy Itzchakov, Moty Amar, Frenk Van Harreveld
Attitudes
Purchasing decisions are increasingly based on reviews by fellow consumers which often consist of positive and negative evaluations about the product (i.e. valence-
inconsistency). We tested how the vividness of these reviews affects individuals' attitude ambivalence towards the product and their strategies to cope with this ambivalence. We hypothesized that reading vivid and valence-inconsistent reviews would lead to increased awareness of opposing features of attitudes towards the
product (i.e. increased simultaneous accessibility) as compared to reading less vivid valence-inconsistent reviews. If this is indeed the case, individuals should feel
more conflicted towards the attitude object (i.e. increased subjective ambivalence) and should be motivated to reduce it by using ambivalence-coping strategies,
specifically (a) processing additional information that is congruent with their initial attitude and (b) delaying their decision. These hypotheses were mostly supported across five experiments. The experiments included manipulations of valence-inconsistent information between reviews and within a review including three pre-
registered studies (Ns = 247, 396, 701, 433, 313, respectively).
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