This is In-Mind Magazine, the first free internet social psychology magazine. Check our Submission Guidelines to know how our peer-review process ensures quality.
Check the introduction to the articles below. Like what you read? Click the star to show it was worth the read! To comment, use the blue cloud. Web 2.0 users: buttons have been provided to show you love the article. For site updates, you can sign up to our newsletter on the right or subscribe to our RSS Feed.
"Self-efficacy is the belief in one's capabilities to organize and execute the sources of action required to manage prospective situations." - Albert Bandura
The song "Some Enchanted Evening" from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific warns us that, when it comes to explaining love at first sight, "Fools give you reasons. Wise men never try." Notwithstanding this lyrical warning, more and more psychologists are trying to solve this age-old mystery.
According to a recent survey, almost two out of three Americans believe in love at first sight (Naumann, 2001). The survey reported that over half of them have actually experienced it, and over half of those went on to marry the person they had instantly fallen in love with.
The Illustrative Case of Individuals` Moral Conviction
Have you ever thought about where your strong moral convictions (if any) come from? For example, let`s assume you feel strongly about the sacredness of the Qur’an, and feel outraged when someone mocks your Holy Book. Or, alternatively, you feel strongly about freedom of speech, and hence feel outraged when those mocking a holy book are threatened and attacked by those who perceive this as a transgression of their sacred values. Is it, in these cases, a strictly personal part of who you are that reacts so strongly, or is your conviction perhaps derived from important groups you are a member of? Although strong moral conviction may, from an outside perspective, appear to be very much of an individual thing, I suggest in this article that we should consider the possibility that, in reality, this is not always the case. By proposing that moral convictions can also stem from the multitude of groups that individuals are members of, I will illustrate the larger point that individualism, which I define loosely here as a line of thought that attributes individuals` behavior to their personality characteristics, is complemented with the so-called social identity approach.
"Whoever loves becomes humble. Those who love have, so to speak, pawned a part of their narcissism."
-Sigmund Freud
"How does it feel when it's love?
It's just something you feel together."
-Van Halen
I score that: Psychologists 1, rock stars 0.
In May of 2000 a virus spread around the world. It infected 1200 computers within three hours, and was rattling around machines at the CIA, FBI, and Pentagon within a day. It shut down servers at The British House of Commons while the American Department of State was forced to temporarily disconnect its computers from the internet (BBC, 2000). Did some malevolent genius unravel the inner secrets of network crypto architecture? Was it a terrorist plot? No, actually, just a small virus tossed off by a Indonesian student disgruntled at having being kicked out of his computer science program.
We humans devote much time and energy to helping others. We send money to famine victims halfway around the world—or to save whales. We stay up all night to comfort a friend with a broken relationship. We stop on a busy highway to help a stranded motorist change a flat tire. Why do we do these things? What is our motive?
The dominant answer in Western thought is well expressed by the wise and witty Duke de la Rouchefoucauld, 2001: “The most disinterested love is, after all, but a kind of bargain, in which the dear love of our own selves always proposes to be the gainer some way or other” (Maxim 82, 1691).
Kaitlyn works Monday through Friday, 9-5. Sitting at her desk on Friday afternoon, Kaitlyn glances at the clock. It is 4:30 pm. The end of the workweek is a mere 30 minutes away. Visions of a relaxing weekend begin to creep in. And then, the phone rings. A distraught coworker is calling to ask for a big favor. His kids are really sick, he feels there’s no way he’s going to be able to prepare for an upcoming meeting on Monday, and he’s wondering if Kaitlyn might be able to run it for him. She’s not up-to-date on the agenda, so it is going to take a fair amount of time to prepare. If she agrees to help out, she can kiss her weekend goodbye. And no, there isn’t any direct reward for running the meeting. A thank you, maybe. A complimentary latte, perhaps. But she shouldn’t expect a big bonus in her next check. Kaitlyn is simply being asked to step up to the plate, be a good sport, and take one for the team. Will she agree? How might her answer change if she knew, for sure, that she had another job lined up and was about to leave the organization? In the present article, I address these questions by first introducing the concept of organizational citizenship behaviors and then summarizing a series of recent studies my colleagues Dishan Kamdar, Denise Daniels, Jane George-Falvy and Blythe Duell and I conducted on this topic.
Are African Americans really better at basketball than Caucasians? Are blonds really dumber than brunettes? Are women really worse at math than men? The short answer is yes. The longer answer is no. Let me explain by focusing on the stereotype that women can’t do math. At first glance, this stereotype seems to be true. For instance, men continue to outperform women on the math sections of the SAT and GRE, and men outnumber women in college math courses and math-related jobs. Surely this is evidence that women are not as good at math as men. But as this article will explain stereotypes are self-perpetuating and not only reflect but also cause performance differences between groups.
What is all the commotion about creativity? Whatever definition this vogue expression is dressed in, it has apparently captured the awareness of countless authorities for educational, economical, governmental and last but not least, scientific issues. Moreover, the media is filled with references to creativity or its synonyms. Ochse (1990), the author of a renowned book on the determinants of creative genius, contested that "our quality of life, perhaps our very survival as a species, depends on promoting creativity" (p. 33).
Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion. [John Welch, American businessman, former head of General Electric]
Vision is the key to understanding leadership, and real leaders have never lost the childlike ability to dream dreams… Vision is the blazing campfire around which people with gather. It provides light, energy, warmth and unity. [Bill Newman, Australian broadcaster]
The very essence of leadership is that you have to have a vision. It’s got to be a vision you articulate clearly and forcefully on every occasion. [Theodore Hesburgh, former President of the University of Notre Dame].
Because power is something we often avoid discussing openly, its nonverbal communication is fascinating to lay people and psychologists alike. When directly asked, people interpret many different nonverbal signs as indicating high or low power – unfortunately, these ideas are often exaggerated and misguided. Likewise, social psychologists still have no good understanding of the nonverbal cues to power. This article sheds more light on what is actually underlying nonverbal communication of power. We identify two new insights: First, much of the nonverbal communication of power takes places unconsciously and is hard to control. Second, people use abstract schemas to judge power, and they not only apply these schemas to understanding body talk, but also elements of art, advertisement, and architecture.
The media play a critical role in modern society because they are the carriers of information about how people behave. And, the evidence from social science is clear that information about others’ behavior can have a contagious effect—leading observers to behave similarly, which can lead still more and more observers to conform (Cialdini, 2001). In the economic arena, marketing professionals understand how to harness this power. Television commercials depict crowds rushing into stores and hands depleting shelves of the product. Advertisers proclaim their products as the “largest selling” or “fastest growing” in the market. Restaurant owners designate certain menu items as “our most popular,” which immediately makes them even more popular. Consider the advice offered more than 350 years ago by the Spaniard Balthazar Gracian (1649/1945) to those wishing to sell goods:
Their intrinsic worth is not enough, for not all turn the goods over and
look deep. Most run where the crowd is—because the others run. (p. 124)
The Media: Carriers of Contagious Information – In-Mind.org
For some people, looking at one or more of the numbers in the image will be an aesthetically unpleasant experience. “But zero is black!” they will think to themselves. Those with black (or red, or upper left, or shy, or any other type of additional sensation) zeroes are synaesthetes – for them, the perception of a stimulus (the inducer) in one sense will activate a sensation (the concurrent) in a second sense, or a different aspect of the same sense.
We humans devote much time and energy to helping others. We send money to famine victims halfway around the world—or to save whales. We stay up all night to comfort a friend with a broken relationship. We stop on a busy highway to help a stranded motorist change a flat tire. Why do we do these things? What is our motive? 
Are African Americans really better at basketball than Caucasians? Are blonds really dumber than brunettes? Are women really worse at math than men? The short answer is yes. The longer answer is no. Let me explain by focusing on the stereotype that women can’t do math. At first glance, this stereotype seems to be true. For instance, men continue to outperform women on the math sections of the SAT and GRE, and men outnumber women in college math courses and math-related jobs. Surely this is evidence that women are not as good at math as men. But as this article will explain stereotypes are self-perpetuating and not only reflect but also cause performance differences between groups.
Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion. [John Welch, American businessman, former head of General Electric] 
Because power is something we often avoid discussing openly, its nonverbal communication is fascinating to lay people and psychologists alike. When directly asked, people interpret many different nonverbal signs as indicating high or low power – unfortunately, these ideas are often exaggerated and misguided. Likewise, social psychologists still have no good understanding of the nonverbal cues to power. This article sheds more light on what is actually underlying nonverbal communication of power. We identify two new insights: First, much of the nonverbal communication of power takes places unconsciously and is hard to control. Second, people use abstract schemas to judge power, and they not only apply these schemas to understanding body talk, but also elements of art, advertisement, and architecture.
The media play a critical role in modern society because they are the carriers of information about how people behave. And, the evidence from social science is clear that information about others’ behavior can have a contagious effect—leading observers to behave similarly, which can lead still more and more observers to conform (
For some people, looking at one or more of the numbers in the image will be an aesthetically unpleasant experience. “But zero is black!” they will think to themselves. Those with black (or red, or upper left, or shy, or any other type of additional sensation) zeroes are synaesthetes – for them, the perception of a stimulus (the inducer) in one sense will activate a sensation (the concurrent) in a second sense, or a different aspect of the same sense.