The emotion awe is associated with numerous individual and social benefits, including increased physical and mental health, prosocial behavior, and humility (Stellar et al., 2017). Additionally, individuals can vary in their dispositional tendencies to awe. However, the emergent scientific literature on awe has not yet explored awe induced over time. Guided by intervention work on similar positive emotions (e.g., gratitude, compassion), I tested whether an awe intervention would a) increase daily reports of awe and individuals’ dispositional proneness to experiencing awe, and b) whether this proneness would be sustained after the end of the intervention. Participants (N = 237) were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 conditions (awe, pride, control) in which they were instructed to seek out and attune to emotional experiences pertaining to their condition over a 14-day intervention period. Participants in the awe condition reported greater daily awe across the 14-day intervention. Likewise, dispositional awe increased in only the awe condition between the beginning and end of the intervention period, and this increase was maintained two weeks after the end of the intervention. Results suggest that seeking out and attuning to awe for a prolonged period of time can increase daily and dispositional awe in a sustained way.

In recent years, the number of women in political office has increased to the highest level in American history. This dissertation examined how increases in women’s representation might impact females and males both psychologically and behaviorally. Study 1 demonstrated that among representative samples of American adults surveyed over the period from 1948 to 2016, observed levels of women’s representation in elected office were positively associated with perceptions that one can participate effectively in politics; beliefs that government is responsive to citizens’ needs; and levels of voting and broader self-reported political participation among both females and males. In Study 2, females and males who anticipated larger increases in the number of women in elected office reported greater intentions to vote and engage in other forms of political participation. Study 3 utilized experimental methods to induce beliefs that the number of women in office would either increase or remain stagnant over the next 10 years. Among both females and males, inducing expectations that women’s representation would increase resulted in elevated beliefs that government would be responsive to citizens’ needs; greater anticipated feelings of enthusiasm; and reductions in anticipated anxiety and anger. Inducing beliefs that representation would increase had no impact on intended political participation for females but decreased intended participation among males. Overall, the results suggested remarkable similarities in how females and males might respond to future increases in the number of women in elected office. The findings have important implications for how demographic shifts among elected officials might empower non-dominant groups and advance democratic ideals that embrace equitable opportunities for political participation.

People derive meaning from adverse experiences, ranging from distinct traumas (e.g., surviving a terrorist attack) to chronic hardships (e.g., financial insecurity). Building on prior work examining how disadvantaged groups process negative past experiences, we investigated whether the ways in which people make sense of, and draw meaning from, these perceived adversities in life depends on their social class backgrounds. In two correlational studies, we found inconsistent evidence for a relationship between perceived adversity and meaning in life as well as for the moderating role of social class. Using a sample of UCI students (N = 219), Study 1 found that perceived adversity was more strongly associated with meaning in life for lower- than higher-class individuals. Study 2 attempted to replicate this pattern of results using a sample from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk; N = 256), but did not find the same effects of perceived adversity and social class or their interaction. Possible explanations for these discrepant findings are explored, with recommendations for future research examining perceptions of adversity in relation to life meaning.

To avoid global disaster from impending climate change, experts agree that immediate preventative action is required. However, studies show that both belief in the dangers of climate change and concern about the consequences surprisingly do not reliably predict engaging in more proactive action. This critical disconnect between attitudes and behavior may be due to a lack of perceived control that accompanies the threat of climate change. We posit that climate change threat is associated with feeling unable to exert meaningful influence over climate outcomes—a loss in perceived control—which in turn hinders preventative action. On the other hand, compensatory control theory suggests that this decreased perceived control instills a motivation for control, which may present an opportunity to capitalize on the motivation to promote climate change action. Across five studies, we examine the relationship between climate change, perceived control, and behavior. In a nationally representative survey, we show that proximate climate change threat is associated with less perceived control, which in turn is associated with less self-reported pro-environmental behavior. In two online experiments, we make salient the threat of climate change and document the loss of control and the increased motivation for control relative to a comparable threat. To attempt to utilize this motivation for social gain, we then test message framing as a way of appealing to the motivation for control. In an online experiment we show that a control motivation is associated with greater preference for environmental advocacy ads framed in terms of control. As a test of this framing in the field, a big data field experiment on social media showed a preference for control framing over a common call to action message. Together, these findings indicate that the threat of climate change is associated with lower perceived control, but also a motivation that can be used for social gain. This research provides important insight into the compensatory control model and the features of climate change that present a distinct challenge to communication and mitigating action.

Social class, a multifaceted construct implicated in the formation of social values and interpersonal behavior, has long been debated as either a driver or inhibitor of racial prejudice. Here, I test the relationship between various components of social class and racial prejudice, predicting that prejudice will be positively correlated with social class when operationalized as income or subjective rank, and negatively correlated with social class when operationalized as educational attainment. An internal meta-analysis of 6 studies (N = 77,574) provided support for the first hypothesis, but not the second: income and subjective rank were found to be positively associated with racial prejudice, operationalized through a variety of survey measures of prejudice and the IAT. Educational attainment, in contrast, was not significantly associated with prejudice. Three hypothesized mechanism variables (power, SDO, and intergroup contact) provided inconsistent evidence of mediation of the relationship between income/subjective rank and racial prejudice. These findings contribute to the existing literature on social class and prejudice, suggesting that in certain social contexts, greater material wealth and subjective rank are associated with increased prejudice against racial minorities. These findings also illuminate the importance of studying the ways in which the various components of social class denote subtle differences in their downstream psychological effects. Implications of these findings for societies characterized by increasing racial socioeconomic stratification are discussed.

“We’re becoming vacation-phobic” (Lipman, 2018). According to research from the U.S. Travel Association, more than half of residents in the United States did not use all of their vacation days, amounting to 768 million unused vacation days in 2017 (U.S. Travel Association, 2018). A more recent survey showed that only about a quarter (27%) of employees in the United States used all of their paid vacation time last year, and nearly half of them (49%) responded that they worked at least an hour a day during their vacation (Qualtrics, 2022). People are hesitant to take their time off and many report feeling worried and bad about themselves during vacation and have trouble fully ‘unplugging’ themselves from work (Wong, 2020). It would seem that for many, time away from work is distressing, even stressful. Why? Across five studies, I propose and test the psychological sequelae of a novel psychological construct: leisure guilt, defined as an experience or state of feeling guilty, distressed, or bad about spending time leisurely over productively. I focus my examination on how leisure guilt may shape everyday leisure experiences and time use. First, in Studies 1a and 1b, I used Natural Language Processing techniques and examined what leisure activities make people feel happy and guilty, respectively. Unexpectedly, there was a significant overlap between activities that make people happy and guilty (e.g., watching TV, playing games), suggesting that activities that people enjoy may also be their source of guilt for wasting time. In addition, findings show that people with high tendencies to feel leisure guilt were more likely to report an overlap between happy and guilty leisure activities––indicating that when people with high leisure guilt engage in enjoyable, pleasant activities, they tend to feel guilt more. Next, in Study 2a, I developed a Leisure Guilt Scale to assess individual propensities to experience guilt, distress, or anxiety when engaging in leisure. Results indicate that people high in leisure guilt were willing to spend more time on work and less time on leisure than they currently do. With the Leisure Guilt scale, in Study 2b, I further tested and found that people who show high levels of leisure guilt reported less enjoyment from their last leisure activities and greater tendencies to avoid having leisure time. These results did not substantially change controlling for theoretically relevant variables, such as guilt-proneness, leisure ethic, or protestant work ethic––confirming the discriminant validity and predictive power of leisure guilt. Furthermore, I investigated potential antecedents and consequences of leisure guilt. Findings reveal that people who are anxious about their socioeconomic standing in society report greater leisure guilt, which in turn was associated with various adverse psychological and health outcomes (i.e., subjective well-being, stress, anxiety, self-rated health). Lastly, in Study 3, I used an Experience Sampling Method to investigate how leisure guilt plays out in everyday life. Replicating findings from Studies 2a and 2b, experiencing guilt when engaged in leisure was linked to lower enjoyment of leisurely moments, greater negative emotions about oneself and current time use, and more willingness to subsequently spend time productively. Furthermore, confirming Studies 2a and 2b results, people who are high in leisure guilt (trait) spent less time leisurely and more time productively. When people high in leisure guilt were spending time leisurely, they were more likely to feel leisure guilt, feel worse about themselves and their current time use, and greater willingness to spend subsequent time productively. In light of these findings, I then tested whether spending time productively would make individuals high in leisure guilt feel better about themselves and the current time use. Findings indicated that when people high in leisure guilt were engaging in productive activities, they still reported negative feelings about the current time use––effects that held significant when controlling for relevant covariates. This pattern did not differ whether the current productive time was by “working” or other productive activities (e.g., household work). Interestingly, however, currently spending time productively was not associated with willingness and the actual likelihood of spending subsequent time productively, suggesting that being productive at the moment seems to assuage the preoccupations that they should spend time productively next. According to a recent survey, while Americans’ commitment to various traditional values is in decline (e.g., patriotism, religion), “hard work” remains among the utmost cherished values (Waldman, 2023). The findings from the current investigation suggest that this cultural ideology of moralizing hard work may actually create a psychological obstacle to a good life by making people feel guilty about their everyday leisurely moments.