Papers by Robin Vallacher
Educational and Psychological Measurement, 1973
The failure to recognize the influence of two distinct forms of moral norms can lead to the misat... more The failure to recognize the influence of two distinct forms of moral norms can lead to the misattribution of moral behavior to egoistic motives. This is illustrated in the research of Batson and his colleagues (e.g., Batson, Kobrynowicz, Dinnerstein, Kampf, & Wilson, 1997). They reported the appearance of moral failure and hypocrisy motivation in several experiments employing essentially the same ''zero-sum " experimental situation. They cited as evidence the discrepancy between participants' apparently self-serving private acts and their subsequent public ratings of the morality of what they had done as well as their recognition of the ''most " moral way to behave. The research reported here supported an alternative explanation that located the experimenter's implicit and explicit instructions as the source of the discrepancy between the participants' private acts and their public ratings. The findings confirmed the hypothesis that Batson and his colleagues had not merely made moral norms ''salient ". They had actually presented their participants with contradictory ''demands " : explicitly inviting them to meet the norm of justified self-interest in private but then give public lip-service to the experimenter's instructions as to a supererogatory way to behave. When either of the demands was removed, the ''hypocrisy " no longer occurred.
Journal of experimental …, Jan 1, 2010
Personality and Social Psychology Review, 2002
Abstract We conceptualize self-concept as a self-organizing dynamical system and investigate impl... more Abstract We conceptualize self-concept as a self-organizing dynamical system and investigate implications of this perspective for the dynamic and fixed-point attractor tendencies of self-evaluative thought. Participants who differed in self-concept valence (self-esteem) and coherence (self-certainty, self-stability) engaged in verbal self-reflection for several minutes, then used a computer mouse to track the moment-to-moment self-evaluation expressed in their recorded narrative. Prior to self-reflection, participants ...
Personality and Social Psychology Review
Protracted ethnopolitical conflicts continue to undermine the security, stability and well being ... more Protracted ethnopolitical conflicts continue to undermine the security, stability and well being of societies worldwide. Today, there are over 30 wars and armed conflicts being waged around the globe, with approximately 40% of intra-state armed conflicts lasting for 10 years or more and 25% of wars lasting for more than 25 years. In these settings, generations of youth are socialized into conflict, a condition we know to perpetuate violence in many forms. In fact, scholars have linked the attacks of September 11 th to the sociopolitical conditions that were festering in hot zones of protracted conflict.
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Papers by Robin Vallacher