Social Psychological Bulletin

Strona główna
Polska
Warsaw
Social Psychological Bulletin

Wskazówki dojazdu Strona internetowa Kontakt: firmę

SPB is an peer-reviewed journal of the Polish Social Psychological Society, published by . It is free for readers and authors.

03/08/2026

⭐ 1-star reviews don’t scare us as much as we think? 🛒

In a paper published in SPB earlier this year, Alice Ranucci, Wijnand A. P. van Tilburg, and Nikhila Mahadevan looked into what actually happens when we scroll through online reviews. They ran an experiment testing how rating dispersion (the spread) and volume change our choices—even when the average score is identical:

• When looking for a good product, our eyes naturally lock onto glowing 5-star reviews, while we tend to brush off the bad ones.
• Products with a wider range of ratings actually won over the safe, middle-of-the-road options.
• Having a higher volume of reviews consistently pushed products to the top.

A really interesting read if you want to understand consumer psychology or how online marketplaces shape our choices.

📖 Catch up on the Open Access paper: https://doi.org/10.32872/spb.16541

20/07/2026

We are thrilled to share that SPB has reached new heights in the latest metrics! Thanks to the incredible work of our authors, reviewers, and editors, our journal continues to grow in impact and visibility:

📈 Impact Factor (JCR 2025): Increased to 2.3 (up from 2.0), firmly placing SPB in the Q2 category! 📊 Scopus CiteScore: Risen to 2.7 (up from 2.6)!

As the saying goes: “Journal impact factors don’t matter unless it’s our journal, in which case they matter a lot” 😉.

A massive thank you to our entire editorial team and the psychological community for your dedication to moving SPB forward. We couldn't have done it without you! 👏

👉 Read our open-access papers and submit your work here: https://spb.psychopen.eu/index.php/spb

02/07/2026

Ever wonder how conspiracy theories actually shape the way people react to real-world political conflicts?

A fascinating new study by Mashuri and Zaduqisti (2026) digs into exactly that. They looked at what happens when the public starts believing that domestic independence or separatist movements are secretly being masterminded by a foreign plot.

Here is what they found across four empirical studies:

🏷️ Believing that foreign countries are clandestinely backing a local movement makes people significantly more likely to delegitimize the group and brand them as terrorists.

🌊 This hostility doesn't stay confined to the actual political group—it spills over into generalized symbolic racism against the entire civilian society associated with them.

🌉 The psychological bridge here is outgroup blame, which essentially takes an abstract conspiracy theory and turns it into concrete prejudice and moral exclusion.

🎖️ This entire negative cycle is heavily amplified among people who have an uncritical, defensive allegiance to their nation's superiority.

Ultimately, the researchers show that these international conspiracy narratives give people an easy way to mask cultural prejudices under the guise of national security. When we look at domestic grievances as foreign setups, it reduces local agency and makes peaceful, dialogue-based solutions much harder to reach.

Check out the full open-access study here:https://spb.psychopen.eu/index.php/spb/article/view/17341/17341.pdf

15/05/2026

A fascinating study by Curry et al. (2026) reveals that our decisions to help others aren't random—they are regulated by a psychological cost-benefit variable called a Welfare Trade-off Ratio (WTR). This ratio represents the specific weight an individual attaches to their own welfare relative to the welfare of others when deciding whether to act.

Researchers demonstrated that people apply the same psychological logic to both explicit monetary allocations and the "imprecise" costs and benefits of real-world kind acts.

The study introduces and validates a new tool—the KQ—to measure WTRs for everyday acts of kindness, such as helping carry heavy bags or leaving a note after a minor accident.

Across two large U.S. samples, decisions regarding family, friends, colleagues, neighbors, and strangers were found to be highly consistent with an underlying WTR (~89-92%).

The study confirmed that while kindness levels are generally high, the weight given to others' welfare in monetary tasks declines as social distance increases (e.g., from family to strangers).

The new Kindness Questionnaire showed superior incremental validity, proving to be a better predictor of general prosocial behavior than traditional money-allocation tasks alone.

This research offers a promising and more accessible way to assess human kindness across diverse social contexts.

📖 Read the full open-access article here: https://doi.org/10.32872/spb.14583

12/05/2026

🤯 Young (2026) revisits a surprising finding: that partisans might like their party less when they share more policy views with their peers. This contradicts a wealth of literature suggesting ideological similarity increases liking.

He argues that these counter-intuitive results are likely a statistical artifact caused by conditioning on a collider—specifically, only analyzing people who already support the party in question.

Using proof-of-concept simulations and a re-analysis of the original data, he demonstrates how a true positive correlation can appear null or negative in a sub-sample.

During his work, Young identified coding errors in the original study's scripts, which prompted a formal correction of the results.

He concludes that no reassessment of the existing literature on affective polarization is needed, as the original "optimal distinctiveness" explanation was likely unnecessary.

🔬 Read the full open-access commentary here: https://doi.org/10.32872/spb.15869

11/03/2026

🧠 Nguyen et al. (2026) examined the profound impact that COVID-19-related discrimination has had on the identities and well-being of Asian Americans.

📢 Across three studies—including both correlational and experimental designs—the researchers uncovered a unique and troubling trend in how this community responds to prejudice:

A National Disconnection: Perceived discrimination was directly associated with a significant decrease in how much participants identified as "American".

No Ethnic Buffer: Unlike other minority groups that often turn toward their racial identity for support during times of rejection, Asian Americans in this study did not increase their identification as "Asian" or with their specific ethnicity.

Well-Being at Risk: The loss of a positive "American" identity—without a compensatory increase in another protective identity—was linked to higher levels of stress and anxiety.

📊 Overall, the project suggests that Asian Americans are experiencing a "net negative" impact on their well-being, losing an important national identity while remaining vulnerable to the harmful effects of discrimination.

🔗 Access the full article here:https://spb.psychopen.eu/index.php/spb/article/view/15377/15377.pdf

04/02/2026

🧠 Knöchelmann et al. (2026) investigated the best ways to measure intellectual humility (IH)—the recognition that our own knowledge and beliefs have limitations.

📢 To move research beyond primarily Anglophone contexts, the team validated and compared four established IH scales (CIHS, SIHS, LIHS, and IHS) using a sample representative of the German population (N = 698).

🔍 Here are the key takeaways from the paper:

Proven Tools: Three translated scales (CIHS, LIHS, and SIHS) proved to be as reliable as their original English versions, making them excellent choices for international research.

Cultural Nuance Matters: The Swiss-German IHS did not replicate perfectly in the German context, suggesting that even small cultural and linguistic differences can impact how we measure personality.

Bridging Political Divides: The topic-specific scale (SIHS) was the strongest predictor of lower affective polarization. People with higher intellectual humility were less likely to view political opponents with hostility.

🤝 Ultimately, the study suggests that recognizing our own intellectual blind spots could be a powerful tool for reducing societal conflict and improving intergroup relations.

🔗 Access the full article here:https://spb.psychopen.eu/index.php/spb/article/view/12465/12465.pdf

Adres

Stawki 7
Warsaw

Strona internetowa

https://spb.psychopen.eu/

Powiadomienia

Bądź na bieżąco: wyślemy Ci e-mail, gdy Social Psychological Bulletin opublikuje nowości i promocje. Twój adres e-mail nie zostanie wykorzystany do żadnego innego celu, a subskrypcję możesz anulować w dowolnym momencie.