Publications de recherche

Based on the “Knobe Effect,” Knobe has argued that moral evaluations can influence intentionality judgments. However, two methodological objections have been raised against this claim: first, that participants’ answers do not accurately reflect what they think and, second, that the Knobe Effect can be fully explained by non-moral factors, such as the agent’s desires or beliefs. In this article, we discuss these two methodological objections to the existence of the Knobe Effect and provide new evidence that moral evaluations can shape intentionality judgments. First, Study 1 shows that standard measures of intentionality do not overestimate participants’ intentionality judgments. Second, Studies 2 and 3 suggest that participants’ moral evaluations still mediate the impact of positive versus negative side-effects on judgments about intentional action, even when taking into account a whole range of non-moral factors. Results suggest that moral evaluations play an irreducible role in shaping our judgments about intentional action.

We sought to distinguish mastery goals (i.e., desire to learn) from performance goals (i.e., desire to achieve more positive evaluations than others) in the light of social judgment research. In a pilot study, we made a conceptual distinction between three types of traits (agency, competence, and effort) that are often undifferentiated. We then tested the relevance of this distinction for understanding how people pursuing either mastery or performance goals are judged. On self-perception, results revealed that effort was predicted by the adoption of mastery goals and agency by performance goals (Study 1). On judgments, results showed that (a) the target pursuing mastery goals was perceived as oriented toward effort, and (b) the target pursuing performance goals was oriented toward agency (Study 2). Finally, these links were shown again by participants who inferred a target’s goals from his traits (Study 3). Results are discussed in terms of the social value of achievement goals at school.

Based on the Social Representation Theory, the purpose of this article is to explore how lay-people consider both the economic crisis and risk, and to link these social representations to behavior. The article offers an original approach with the articulation of two studies about the social construction of risk and crises. It also contributes to the development of research methods for studying the connections between representations and practical implications. Based on this, the impact of the social representation of the crisis on the perceived ability to act is approached. The first study focuses on free-association tasks, with two distinct target terms: ‘risk’ and ‘crisis’. The structural approach, with a prototypical analysis, allowed the identification of two different representations: (1) for risk, ‘danger’ is the central element; (2) for crisis, ‘economy’ and ‘money’ constitute the main components of the representation. The second study investigates the links between the two previously detected structures and their relations with the perceived ability to act in a financial crisis context. Some aspects of social knowledge were found to have an impact on perceived ability to act.

Muscle dysmorphia has been described as a special form of body dissatisfaction, specific of males, associated with intense physical activity. If some studies explored its relations with other variables, its psychological predictors still remain to be determined. According to the findings which showed that specific body-related-beliefs (i.e. considering the body as malleable) are related to high levels of involvement in body activities, this research aims at testing the relations between body image, body malleability and muscle dysmorphia. In this study, these three factors were assessed using self-evaluation questionnaires among a 137 male sportsmen sample. When predicting muscle dysmorphia, regression analysis indicates a significant negative interaction between body image and body malleability: a negative body perception predicts muscle dysmorphia only when sportsmen have high scores in body malleability beliefs. This result is discussed in order to improve the understanding of muscle dysmorphia and its prevention.

Many health campaigns are designed to reduce dangerous binge drinking by challenging the drinking perceived norm. Both information about health risks and statements that only a few people binge drink (descriptive norm) threaten self-integrity for individuals targeted. So, to combat this self-threat and preserve their positive self-integrity, drinkers discredit the message as a coping strategy. An alternative to the coping strategy is a procedure of self-affirmation to protect self-integrity. Across three experiments, we found that self-affirmation does indeed reduce (Experiment 1) or delete (Experiments 2 and 3) discrediting, but only provided that there is no normative information in the health message. Individuals continued to use the discrediting strategy despite the fact that the participants were self-affirmed when they are told that few people binge drink among their age group. The theoretical implications for self-affirmation are discussed.

This study examined the five-factor structure, reliability and validity of the Big Five Questionnaire for Children (BFQ-C) on a French sample of children from 8 to 14 years old. This questionnaire is a self-report measure for assessing the basic personality dimensions of Extraversion/Energy, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness,Neuroticism/Emotional instability, and Openness/Intellect (Barbaranelli, Caprara, Rabasca, & Pastorelli, 2003). A sample of 386 children completed the BFQ-C and the HiPIC, as did their parents (for BFQ-C only). Results showed that the BFQ-C had a clear five-factor structure, good internal consistency, and good validity.