Papers by Katrina Fincher
Improving Predictions of Geopolitical Events: Should Forecasters Act Independently, Competitively, or Collaboratively to Maximize Accuracy?
PsycEXTRA Dataset, 2012
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Mar 10, 2015
Psychologists have long suspected that public policy preferences are shaped by factors that peopl... more Psychologists have long suspected that public policy preferences are shaped by factors that people are either unaware of or unwilling to acknowledge. One of the earliest political psychologists, Harold Lasswell (1930/1986), advanced a pithy version of this view: "The distinctive mark of the homo politicus is the rationalization of the displacement of private motives in terms of public interests," (p. 262). This programmatic statement encouraged psychologists to adopt the working hypothesis that the reasons people offer for their policy preferences are often not the true drivers of those preferences-encouragement that no longer seems necessary given the widespread skepticism of introspective reports in con
The role of metadehumanization in explaining sacred conflict
Group Processes & Intergroup Relations
Four studies examine the social cognitive mechanisms through which sacred values produce social s... more Four studies examine the social cognitive mechanisms through which sacred values produce social schisms, focusing on the role of metadehumanization. Using hypothetical scenarios, Studies 1 and 2 demonstrate that violators of sacred values feel dehumanized by value holders and reciprocate this dehumanization. Using real sacred values, Studies 3 and 4 show similar effects. Study 3 further controls for the effects of mere disagreement and finds participants felt more dehumanized when family members disagreed with them in discussions of sacred values compared to preferences. Study 4 examined the sacralization of mask-wearing during the COVID-19 pandemic, finding that the inflammatory effect of sacralization on hostility was in part explained by metadehumanization, leading to greater reciprocal dehumanization, thus fueling conflict. In conclusion, results suggest metadehumanization may underlie the often explosive nature of sacred conflict.
Judgment and Decision Making
We provide systematic evidence for the range and importance of hedonic reversals as a major sourc... more We provide systematic evidence for the range and importance of hedonic reversals as a major source of pleasure, and incorporate these findings into the theory of benign masochism. Twenty-nine different initially aversive activities are shown to produce pleasure (hedonic reversals) in substantial numbers of individuals from both college student and Mechanical Turk samples. Hedonic reversals group, by factor analysis, into sadness, oral irritation, fear, physical activity/exhaustion, pain, strong alcohol-related tastes, bitter tastes, and disgust. Liking for sad experiences (music, novels, movies, paintings) forms a coherent entity, and is related to enjoyment of crying in response to sad movies. For fear and oral irritation, individuals also enjoy the body’s defensive reactions. Enjoyment of sadness is higher in females across domains. We explain these findings in terms of benign masochism, enjoyment of negative bodily reactions and feelings in the context of feeling safe, or pleasur...
We demonstrate how psychological scientists can curate rich-yet-accessible media to intervene on ... more We demonstrate how psychological scientists can curate rich-yet-accessible media to intervene on conflict-escalating attitudes during the earliest stages of violent conflicts. Although wartime atrocities all-too-often ignite destructive cycles of tit-for-tat war crimes, powerful third parties can de-escalate the bloodshed. Therefore, following Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, we aimed to reduce Americans’ support for committing retributive war crimes against Russian soldiers. To intervene during the earliest stages of the invasion, we drew on theories of dehumanization and “parasocial” intergroup contact to curate publicly available media expected to humanize Russian soldiers. We then identified the most effective materials by simultaneously evaluating all of them with an intervention tournament. This allowed us to quickly implement a psychological intervention that reliably reduced support for war crimes during the first days of a momentous land war. Our work provides a practi...
Sacredness of Routines and Rituals
In this project, we are interested in determining if there is a link between rituals and sacredne... more In this project, we are interested in determining if there is a link between rituals and sacredness, such that rituals are viewed as sacred. We test this relationship in two separate domains, using supreme court rituals and religious rituals separately.
Sacredness and Contamination
In two separate studies, we explore the link between sacred figures and sacred values and how the... more In two separate studies, we explore the link between sacred figures and sacred values and how the violation of these values relates to contamination and magical thinking.
Disgust and Dehumanization (Study 2)
Our first study found targets that elicited greater disgust also tended to be dehumanized. This s... more Our first study found targets that elicited greater disgust also tended to be dehumanized. This study holds the behavior of the target constant and varies only whether they are disgusting or not
Uploads
Papers by Katrina Fincher