Browsing by Author "Van Lange, Paul A. M."

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Citation - WoS: 11
Citation - Scopus: 12
Social Mindfulness Predicts Concern for Nature and Immigrants Across 36 Nations
(Nature Portfolio, 2022) Peker, Müjde; Van Lange, Paul A. M.; Acevedo-Triana, Cesar; Van Doesum, Niels J.; Kirkland, Kelly; Ausmees, Liisi; Amiot, Catherine E.
People cooperate every day in ways that range from largescale contributions that mitigate climate change to simple actions such as leaving another individual with choice - known as social mindfulness. It is not yet clear whether and how these complex and more simple forms of cooperation relate. Prior work has found that countries with individuals who made more socially mindful choices were linked to a higher country environmental performance - a proxy for complex cooperation. Here we replicated this initial finding in 41 samples around the world, demonstrating the robustness of the association between social mindfulness and environmental performance, and substantially built on it to show this relationship extended to a wide range of complex cooperative indices, tied closely to many current societal issues. We found that greater social mindfulness expressed by an individual was related to living in countries with more social capital, more community participation and reduced prejudice towards immigrants. Our findings speak to the symbiotic relationship between simple and more complex forms of cooperation in societies.
Citation - WoS: 37
Citation - Scopus: 44
Multinational Data Show That Conspiracy Beliefs Are Associated With the Perception (and Reality) of Poor National Economic Performance
(Wiley, 2022) Jetten, Jolanda; Peker Booth, Mujde; Van Lange, Paul A. M.; Sassenberg, Kai; Kang, Jemima; Pearson, Samuel; Hornsey, Matthew J.
While a great deal is known about the individual difference factors associated with conspiracy beliefs, much less is known about the country-level factors that shape people's willingness to believe conspiracy theories. In the current article we discuss the possibility that willingness to believe conspiracy theories might be shaped by the perception (and reality) of poor economic performance at the national level. To test this notion, we surveyed 6723 participants from 36 countries. In line with predictions, propensity to believe conspiracy theories was negatively associated with perceptions of current and future national economic vitality. Furthermore, countries with higher GDP per capita tended to have lower belief in conspiracy theories. The data suggest that conspiracy beliefs are not just caused by intrapsychic factors but are also shaped by difficult economic circumstances for which distrust might have a rational basis.