The bedside manner of homo economicus: How and why priming an economic schema reduces compassion

Do I care for you more when you really need help? An experimental test of the effect of clinical urgency on compassion in health care

OBJECTIVES

To experimentally investigate whether more urgent patient presentations elicit greater compassion from health care professionals than less urgent, facilitating future research and thinking to address systemic barriers to compassion in health care.

DESIGN

This is a pre-registered online study with an experimental, within-subjects repeated-measure study design. Two clinical vignettes that systematically varied the urgency of patient presentation were utilized. Both vignettes depicted a patient with difficult behaviours typically associated with lower compassion.

METHODS

Health care professionals (doctors, nurses and allied health practitioners) recruited from all 20 District Health Boards across Aotearoa/New Zealand completed two vignettes in a counterbalanced order. Paired-sample t-tests were used to test the effect of the presentation urgency on indices of compassion.

RESULTS

A total of 939 participants completed the vignettes (20% doctors, 47%, nurses and 33% allied health professionals). As expected, participants reported greater care and motivation to help the more urgent patient. However, the more urgent patient was also perceived as less difficult, and exploratory analyses showed that perceived patient difficulty was associated with lower caring and motivation to help, particularly in the less urgent patient.

CONCLUSIONS

This is the first work to experimentally test the relationship between the urgency of patient presentation and compassion in health care. Although the association between urgency and difficulty is complex, our findings are consonant with evolutionary views in which urgent distress elicits greater compassion. A system-wide orientation towards efficiency and urgency may exacerbate this 'bias' which must be addressed to ensure more equitable compassion in health care.

Priming congruence and COVID-19 vaccination intention: a mediation analysis

BACKGROUND

This study took place at the height of the fifth wave of COVID-19 in France, coinciding with stigmatizing communication toward the unvaccinated. We hypothesized that adherence to this communication would facilitate or inhibit the effects of priming on vaccination intention, depending on whether the priming included a dimension of connection to others.

PARTICIPANTS AND PROCEDURE

In a convenience online French sample (N = 1800, M age = 26.30), vaccination intention was asked after love priming, no love/prejudice priming, materialism priming, or a control condition. Participants also reported their adherence to restrictive measures, i.e., media control, vaccination pass, and mandatory vaccination.

RESULTS

Vaccination intention was higher in the no love/prejudice and materialism conditions than in the love and control conditions. Adherence to restrictive measures mediated the effect of prejudice or materialism priming on intention to get vaccinated.

CONCLUSIONS

Implications of these results are discussed in light of the socially situated cognition perspective and the congruence of (a) a societal context of communication toward the vaccine and the unvaccinated, (b) the participant's degree of adherence to that communication, (c) the theme of priming, whether or not related to feeling connected to others. Implications of materialism priming are discussed, and the effect of commitment on intention to get vaccinated.

Market mindset reduces endorsement of individualizing moral foundations, but not in liberals

People with a market mindset attend to ratios and rates, and allocate rewards adequately to costs but are less sensitive to feelings. In this project, we demonstrate that activating a market mindset also affects people’s acceptance of free-market principles and their endorsement of individualizing moral dimensions—care/harm and fairness/cheating. Experiment 1 documented that a market mindset positively impacted people’s endorsement of fair market ideology. Experiments 2 and 3 showed that the salience of such a market mindset hampered the importance of individualizing moral dimensions. Importantly, we found that political orientation moderated the negative effect of a market mindset on the endorsement of individualizing moral foundations—this effect held for participants who declared moderate and conservative political orientations, but not for liberals.

A Virtual Net Locks Me In: How and When Information and Communication Technology Use Intensity Leads to Knowledge Hiding

The research explores a novel phenomenon in which information and communication technology (ICT), which is originally designed for knowledge transferring, may result in employees' knowledge hiding due to increasing use intensity. Specifically, drawing upon the appraisal theory of empathy, we develop a moderated mediation model of empathy linking ICT use intensity and knowledge hiding. The hypothesized model is tested by conducting a scenario-based experimental study (Study 1, N = 194) and a multi-wave field study (Study 2, N = 350). Results show that ICT use intensity is positively related to employees' knowledge hiding through the mediating role of their empathy. Moreover, competitive goal interdependence strengthens the negative relationship between ICT use intensity and employees' empathy, and the indirect positive effect between ICT use intensity and employees' knowledge hiding. Overall, the research answers the questions of how and when ICT use intensity may influence employees' knowledge hiding. Finally, the theoretical and practical implications of the research findings are discussed.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10551-022-05245-4.

Profiles of GPs with high and low self-reported physician empathy—personal, professional, and antibiotic prescribing characteristics

Background

General Practitioners’ (GPs) professional empathy has been hypothesized to have substantial impact on their healthcare delivery and medication prescribing patterns. This study compares profiles of personal, professional, and antibiotic prescribing characteristics of GPs with high and low empathy.

Methods

We apply an extreme group approach to a unique combined set of survey and drug register data. The survey included questions about demographic, professional, and antibiotic prescribing characteristics, as well as the Jefferson Scale of Empathy for Health Professionals (JSE-HP) to assess self-reported physician empathy. It was sent to a stratified sample of 1,196 GPs comprising 30% of the Danish GP population of whom 464 (38.8%) GPs responded. GPs in the top and bottom decile of empathy levels were identified. All intra- and inter-profile descriptive statistics and differences were bootstrapped to estimate the variability and related confidence intervals. 

Results

61% of GPs in the top decile of the empathy score were female. GPs in this decile reported the following person-centered factors as more important for their job satisfaction than the bottom decile: The Patient-physician relationship, interaction with colleagues, and intellectual stimulation. High-empathy scoring GPs prescribed significantly less penicillin than the low-empathy GPs. This was true for most penicillin subcategories. There were no significant differences in age, practice setting (urban vs. rural), practice type (partnership vs. single-handed), overall job satisfaction, or GP’s value of prestige and economic profit for their job satisfaction. The intra profile variation index and confidence intervals show less prescribing uncertainty among GPs with high empathy.

Conclusions

This study reveals that high empathy GPs may have different personal, professional, and antibiotic prescribing characteristics than low empathy GPs and have less variable empathy levels as a group. Furthermore, person-centered high empathy GPs on average seem to prescribe less penicillins than low empathy GPs.

EXPRESS: Market mindset hinders interpersonal trust: The exposure to market relationships makes people trust less through elevated proportional thinking and reduced state empathy

In a series of five experiments, we provided evidence that evoking the market mindset negatively affects trust. We found that the market mindset reduces trust compared to the communal mindset (Experiment 1) and a neutral condition (Experiment 2). Next, we examined the psychological mechanisms behind the detrimental effect of the market mindset on trust and found that this effect was mediated by enhanced proportional thinking (Experiments 3 and 4) and reduced state empathy (Experiments 4 and 5). Finally, in a preregistered Experiment 5, we showed that these two psychological mechanisms are relatively independent.

Ethical leadership: Exploring bottom-line mentality and trust perceptions of employees on middle-level managers

With the increased competitiveness and significance of the workforce, the responsibility of organizational leaders has been increased to behave ethically and lead their followers in the best ethical way. This study aims to explore how the perception and trust of followers of their middle-level managers can shape the ethical behavior of middle managers and their bottom-line mentality. This qualitative study was conducted using semi-structured interviews from 10 employees of two Pakistani textile organizations-selecting five employees from each. Thematic analysis was used for data analysis. The findings reported that the bottom-line mentality demands are given priority. Thus, to achieve these demands, ethical values are being ignored while the nature of the task and attitude of the supervisor leads towards the social undermining of the employees. Furthermore, it has been found that leaders' behavior and personality are more important in building trust and perception of employees, and this perception does not entail that leader will be acting ethically in real, but they are perceived to be. This study can provide valuable implications for policymakers, especially HR personnel, to device policies by considering ethical leadership practices. The findings of this research recommend that better performance and profit maximization by employees can be enhanced by reducing the bottom-line mentality of top management. Few scholars have elaborated on ethical leadership, the complexity of the leader-follower relationship, and individual perceptions. Behavioral aspects, bottom-line mentality, and trust from employees' perspective in ethical leadership have received little attention. In addition, this research has taken a step forward by exploring the collectivist country of Pakistan.

Money: An Integrated Review and Synthesis From a Psychological Perspective

Many empirical studies have demonstrated the psychological effects of various aspects of money, including the aspiration for money, mere thoughts about money, possession of money, and placement of people in economic contexts. Although multiple aspects of money and varied methodologies have been focused on and implemented, the underlying mechanisms of the empirical findings from these seemingly isolated areas significantly overlap. In this article, we operationalize money as a broad concept and take a novel approach by providing an integrated review of the literature and identifying five major streams of mechanisms: (a) self-focused behavior; (b) inhibited other-oriented behavior; (c) favoring of a self–other distinction; (d) money’s relationship with self-esteem and self-efficacy; and (e) goal pursuit, objectification, outcome maximization, and unethicality. Moreover, we propose a unified psychological perspective for the future—money as an embodiment of social distinction—which could potentially account for past findings and generate future work.

Does Subjective SES Moderate the Effect of Money Priming on Socioeconomic System Support? A Replication of Schuler and Wänke (2016)

Findings that money priming increases socioeconomic system support have proven difficult to replicate. Schuler and Wänke found that subjective socioeconomic status (SES) moderates money priming effects on system justification and belief in a just world. We conducted three preregistered replications of this research, with sample sizes 3 times those of the original studies. Replication 1 was a conceptual replication that combined elements from the original two studies, and Replications 2 and 3 were close replications of Studies 1 and 2, respectively. None of the four subjective SES × Money Prime interaction effects tested were statistically significant, and only one of the four survived a “small telescopes” analysis. We discuss reasons for our general failure to replicate the original findings and implications for money priming effects.

The love of money results in objectification

Objectification, which refers to the treatment of others as objectlike things, has long been observed in capitalism. While the negative impact of money on interpersonal harmony has been well documented, the social cognitive processes that underlie them are relatively unknown. Across four studies, we explored whether the love of money leads to objectification, while controlling for social power and status. In Study 1, the love and importance attached to money positively predicted the tendency to construe social relationships based on instrumentality. In Study 2, the likelihood to favour a target of instrumental use was increased by momentarily activating an affective state of being rich. Temporarily heightening the motivation for money further resulted in deprivation of mental capacities of irrelevant others, including humans (Study 3) and animals (Study 4). This lack of perceived mental states partially mediated the effects of money on subsequent immoral behaviour (Study 4). The findings are the first to reveal the role of objectification as a potential social cognitive mechanism for explaining why money often harms interpersonal harmony.

Social Class and Social Worlds

Does access to money predict social behavior? Past work has shown that money fosters self-sufficiency and reduces interest in others. Building on this work, we tested whether income predicts the frequency and type of social interactions. Two studies using large, nationally representative samples of Americans ( N = 118,026) and different measures of social contact showed that higher household income was associated with less time spent socializing with others (Studies 1 and 2) and more time spent alone (Study 2). Income also predicted the nature of social contact. People with higher incomes spent less time with their families and neighbors and spent more time with their friends. These findings suggest that income is associated with how and with whom people spend their time.

A Multiple Pathway Model Linking Charismatic Leadership Attempts and Abusive Supervision

Researchers have theorized about a link between destructive and charismatic leadership but have left this link rather unspecified. This paper discusses charismatic leadership as an antecedent of abusive supervision. Based on the charismatic leadership process, it specifies five distinct pathways that may lead from charismatic leadership attempts to abusive supervision: Overdramatized charisma with abusive supervision as an unintended consequence, overambitious charisma with abusive supervision as a stress reaction, refused charisma with abusive supervision as a reaction to frustration and provocation, disappointed charisma with abusive supervision as a reaction to threatened self-esteem and negative affect, and abandoned charisma with abusive supervision as a volitional change of influence tactics. This paper aims to introduce these five pathways resulting in theoretical propositions that may inspire future empirical research.

(Un)ethical behavior in organizations

This review spotlights research related to ethical and unethical behavior in organizations. It builds on previous reviews and meta-analyses of the literature on (un)ethical behavior in organizations and discusses recent advances in the field. The review emphasizes how this research speaks to the influence of the organizational context on (un)ethical behavior, proceeding from a more macro to a more micro view on (un)ethical behavior and covering ethical infrastructures, interpersonal influences, individual differences, and cognitive and affective processes. The conclusion highlights opportunities for future research.