Feeling wronged leads to entitlement and selfishness

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Abstract/Contents

Abstract
Five studies demonstrate that feeling wronged leads to a sense of entitlement and to selfish behavior. In Study 1, participants who were instructed to recall a time when their lives were unfair were more likely to refuse to help the experimenter with a supplementary task than were participants who recalled a time when they were bored. In Study 2, the same manipulation increased intentions to engage in a number of selfish behaviors, and this effect was mediated by self-reported entitlement to obtain positive (and avoid negative) outcomes. In Study 3, participants who lost a computer game for an unfair reason (a glitch in the program) requested a more selfish money allocation for a future task than did participants who lost the game for a fair reason, and this effect was again mediated by entitlement. In Studies 4 and 5, bad luck from a fair, random system led to the same kinds of effects for men. In Study 4, students (especially men) who received bad numbers in a housing lottery expressed less intention to behave charitably. In Study 5, men who were assigned to bad outcomes by the roll of a die were less willing to help out by signing up for an additional experiment than were men in the control condition, and self-reported entitlement again mediated the effect.

Description

Type of resource text
Form electronic; electronic resource; remote
Extent 1 online resource.
Publication date 2010
Issuance monographic
Language English

Creators/Contributors

Associated with Zitek, Emily Maria
Associated with Stanford University, Department of Psychology
Primary advisor Monin, Benoît, 1972-
Thesis advisor Monin, Benoît, 1972-
Thesis advisor Dweck, Carol S, 1946-
Thesis advisor Mullen, Elizabeth
Advisor Dweck, Carol S, 1946-
Advisor Mullen, Elizabeth

Subjects

Genre Theses

Bibliographic information

Statement of responsibility Emily Maria Zitek.
Note Submitted to the Department of Psychology.
Thesis Thesis (Ph. D.)--Stanford University, 2010.
Location electronic resource

Access conditions

Copyright
© 2010 by Emily Maria Zitek
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).

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