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In this dissertation, I examine cultural differences in perceptions of time looking at intertemporal decisions, social norms, policy preferences, and behaviors in the environmental domain. Looking closely at the environmental domain allows for a unique opportunity to examine whether or not cultural worldviews or social norms are motivating environmental behaviors (e.g. energy conservation). It is also possible to test whether the uncertain nature of climate change and its impacts over time results in different temporal discounting rates compared to other intertemporal choice domains (e.g. financial gains or financial losses). I draw upon theories of the self to argue that culture affects intertemporal decisions. I describe research supporting culture's effect on how individuals evaluate gains and losses, or benefits and risks, over different temporal horizons. I test whether culture affects temporal orientations, such that cultures that encourage holistic thinking are more likely to view the self and environment as continuous over long time horizons, while those cultures that encourage focused thinking are less likely to see such continuity over time. I next draw on theoretical and empirical evidence from cross-cultural psychology to argue that these country differences in temporal orientations have an effect on intertemporal decisions, examining in particular decisions about environmental policy and energy conservation behaviors. In Study 1, I compare Anglo-Saxon countries with Latin-American countries to look at the role that cultural worldviews (i.e. egalitarian, individualistic, hierarchic, and fatalistic) play in influencing environmental policy preferences and pro-environmental behavioral intentions. In Study 2, I test whether different construals of the self (either independent or interdependent) have an influence, above and beyond worldview effects, on environmental decisions. Finally, in Study 3, I compare Americans and Japanese to look at the effect of psychological connectedness above and beyond its effect on discounting. I also test whether there is cross-cultural variation in expectations in the types of green behaviors (e.g. easy versus hard) to engage in. With the three studies that I summarize in the chapters that ensue, I hope to identify some of the processes by which culture influences environmental decisions.

This study tests the construct validity of the Experienced Self and Other Scale (E-SOS), which is a self report measure that assesses the experience of one's self in relation to others. Statistical analyses were conducted using Exploratory factor analysis with an orthogonal rotation, and Confirmatory factor Analysis. The internal consistency was determined using Cronbach's alpha coefficient for each subscale from the factor analysis. Bivariate correlations, as well as multiple linear regression analyses, were used to assess the relationship between the E-SOS and other measures. Three hundred and twenty-seven subjects completed the E-SOS. The factor analysis resulted in a five-factor structure explaining 49.02% of the total variance and with a high internal reliability. While results indicated no relationship between the E-SOS and Psychological Mindedness Scale, the E-SOS subscales were significantly correlated with the corresponded NEO-FFI factors, as well as with the RSQ factors. Preliminary analyses suggest a promising future for the E-SOS as an approach to measuring one experience of self.

This dissertation is about prejudice. In particular, it examines the theoretical and ethical questions raised by research on implicit social biases. Social biases are termed "implicit" when they are not reported, though they lie just beneath the surface of consciousness. Such biases are easy to adopt but very difficult to introspect and control. Despite this difficulty, I argue that we are personally responsible for our biases and obligated to overcome them if they can bring harm to ourselves or to others. My dissertation addresses the terms of their removal. It is grounded in a comprehensive examination of empirical research and, as such, is a contribution to social psychology. Although implicit social biases significantly influence our judgment and action, they are not reducible to beliefs or desires. Rather, they constitute a class of their own. Understanding their particular character is vital to determining how to replace them with more preferable habits of mind. I argue for a model of interpersonal fluency, a kind of ethical expertise that requires transforming our underlying dispositions of thought, feeling, and action.

The dissertation develops and tests a new theory to explain intergroup cooperation and outgroup discrimination. The theoretical part specifies under what conditions ethnic differences undermine public goods provision and exacerbate ethnic discrimination. It posits that people cooperate more with and discriminate less against the groups expected to reciprocate cooperative behavior. Conditional cooperators rationally update their group stereotypes based on their experience with the groups' individual members. This change in turn reduces prejudice and discrimination. I tested observable implications of the model on a representative sample of more than 400 slum-dwellers in Mumbai. The field research in India combined laboratory experiments, an original survey, and interviews. Once I manipulated expectations of reciprocity, ethnically heterogeneous groups produced as much public goods as the homogeneous ones. The experimental treatment also radically increased trust and reduced ethnic discrimination of the generally mistrusted Muslim minority. The survey analysis compared the real-life effect of reciprocity with prominent alternative explanations from the literature. Compared to other factors, positive reciprocity provides a powerful explanation of why people choose to discriminate against some, but not other ethnic groups. The cross-national chapter of the dissertation extends the analysis beyond India. Using surveys from 87 countries, it shows that generalized trust moderates the negative effect of ethnic diversity on people's willingness to contribute to public goods.

This dissertation examines how and when, both powerfulness and powerlessness, can each lead to corrupt behavior. The first half of this dissertation (Chapters 2 to 5) focuses on the link between power and corrupt behavior. Building on previous work that expansive posture induces a state of power, four studies tested whether expansive posture incidentally imposed by our environment lead to increases in dishonest behavior. Chapters 2 to 4 present three experiments, which found that powerful individuals were more likely to steal money, cheat on a test, and commit traffic violations in a driving simulation. Results suggested that participants' self-reported sense of power mediated the link between postural expansiveness and dishonesty. In an observational field study, Chapter 5 revealed that automobiles with more expansive driver's seats were more likely to be illegally parked on New York City streets. The second part of the dissertation examines if powerlessness can lead to corrupt behavior. Chapters 6 to 10 present a new theoretical model that comprehensively integrates theories on power and regulatory focus. This model reveals that both powerfulness and powerlessness can each lead to corrupt behavior, but through different routes. Three experiments in Chapters 7 to 9 found that prevention-powerlessness and promotion-powerfulness produce more corrupt behavior than promotion-powerlessness and prevention-powerfulness, as evident in individuals' tendency to exploit others, aggression, and dishonest behavior. I also found evidence for the affective manifestations that accompany these effects. Indeed, a meta-analysis on the data suggests that prevention-powerlessness and promotion-powerfulness significantly produced more corrupt behavior than prevention-powerfulness and promotion-powerlessness. These findings have important theoretical implications for power and regulatory focus, and explicate how powerlessness can lead to taking action and even corruption.

Can high self-control have drawbacks? Extensive research has shown the lifelong benefits of self-control for important outcomes such as education, health, income, and happiness. Far less work has been done on its potential negative impacts, where an overwhelmingly positive trait can end up having a less than positive effect on behavior. Recent research suggests that one such side effect may be an increased susceptibility to illusory control (IOC): in situations where actual control is limited but the potential for illusory control is high, high self-controllers may end up being more prone to overconfidence than low self-controllers, and this susceptibility may play out in suboptimal risk-taking behavior. Here, a series of five studies tests this causal chain, exploring the links between self-control and illusory control and the resulting impact of the relationship on risky decisions in the financial domain. In studies 1 and 2, high self-controllers consistently underperformed low self-controllers on two tasks of risk-taking, the Columbia Card Task and the Lottery Gambling Task. These effects persisted both under stress and in normal conditions. Individuals high in self-control failed to learn as well from negative feedback and were more prone to overconfidence, leading us to posit a causal mechanism rooted in the illusion of control, and specifically, in the positive affect that accompanies it. Studies 3 through 5 proceeded to test this relationship directly, on a decision-making task that looked specifically at financial risk-taking, the Behavioral Investment Allocation Strategy (BIAS). Across the three studies, we validated our findings from Studies 1 and 2 in the new risk-taking task, by showing that individuals low in self-control consistently outperformed those in high self-control by making more optimal choices and fewer errors throughout the game. We next tested the precise causal mechanism of the observed decision making patterns by manipulating IOC (Study 3), positive affect (Study 4), and perceived self-control (Study 5). We found that inducing IOC increased the number of errors committed by both high and low self-controllers across the board: individuals in the IOC condition made fewer optimal choices and performed worse overall, confirming our suspicion that IOC can be responsible for sub-optimal choices on financial risk-taking in stochastic environments. However, because the effect was non-selective, the precise causal mechanism and its relations to self-control still remained to be determined. In Studies 4 and 5, we were able to disambiguate the mechanism behind the underperformance caused by IOC. Specifically, we demonstrated that inducing positive affect (Study 4) reduced the number of optimal choices for low self-controllers on the BIAS task, making them look more like high self-controllers in their decisions. Surprisingly, the induction actually improved performance by high self-controllers. The perceived self-control induction (Study 5) also had a differential effect on high and low self-controllers. It decreased the number of optimal choices made by low self-controllers, again making them look more like high-self-controllers--but, just as with the positive affect induction, it increased the number of optimal choices made by high self-controllers. The increase in positive affect that accompanied the self-control induction was a significant mediator of the effect, a mediation that held when we pooled data from all three studies into a single affective mediation analysis. The induction results for low self-controllers confirm our hypothesis that the positive affect that usually accompanies both the illusion of control and high self-control can be an Achilles heel of high self-control in certain environments with limited actual control, creating a feeling of overconfidence that translates into suboptimal decision making. We explain the surprising improvement in performance of high self-controllers under induction conditions, as compared to baseline, by the higher self-reflection ability that accompanies high self-control. Specifically, a situation that is normally "hot" for high self-controllers is cooled through an induction that draws their attention to their high baseline self-control and accompanying positive affect. As a result, they reflect on their choices to a greater extent and act more in line with their usual optimal decision making ability. We thus both identify a specific environment where high self-control can prove to be a limiting factor for optimal decision making, and suggest a possible way to remedy that limitation, by providing a cooling period and drawing the attention of high self-controllers to the reasons for their sub-optimal strategy (namely, their positive feelings and high opinion of their own self-control). Together, the findings provide tantalizing implications for the sub-optimal market choices that even the most intelligent and successful individuals will make under the right conditions--and equally tantalizing ways to make those choices more sound.

This study proposed a moderated mediation model where social identity complexity was hypothesized to predict endorsement of identity safety behaviors intended to mitigate social identity threat for women in a male-dominated work context. Male awareness of systemic social identity threats for women was examined as a potential mediator of the proposed relationship between social identity complexity and identity safety endorsement. Finally, psychosocial safety climate was hypothesized to moderate the relationship between sensitivity to women's identity threat and identity safety endorsement. More than 400 STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) male professors completed an online questionnaire measuring the study constructs. Ordinary least squares regression and bootstrapping methods were used to test the study hypotheses. Results showed that certain dimensions of social identity complexity predicted identity safety endorsement. While male sensitivity to women's identity threat predicted a particular type of identity safety endorsement, there was no support for the construct as a mediator. There was also no support found for psychosocial safety climate as a moderator in this study. Supplemental findings revealed that having academic tenure and increased contact with women colleagues positively predicted endorsement of identity safety. Theoretical implications, directions for future research, and practical implications are discussed.

In Chapter 1, I provide a general theoretical framework for the dissertation. In Chapter 2, I examine the association between cultural metacognition and intercultural effectiveness. In Chapter 3, I examine the conditions and cognitive mechanisms that facilitate application and updating of cultural knowledge among individuals high on cultural metacognition. I further test whether related individual difference factors can explain the hypotheses I proposed in Chapter 3. Multiple methods were employed to test my hypotheses using quasi-field surveys with executives, 360 degree multi-rater surveys with MBA students as well as experimental designs with lab and crowdsourcing participants.

Native Hawaiians are the indigenous people of Hawai'i or those living descendants from the original inhabitants of the Hawaiian Islands. Despite the preponderance of evidence of health disparities within this community there is a scarcity of research on the mental health and psychological well-being of this population. Native Hawaiians and other indigenous peoples share a common history of devastating losses from the fallout of imposed colonialism including the decline of their cultural identity. Some research suggests that identifying with one's ethnic minority group may act as a psychological buffer and insulate the potential negative impact of some of the historical injustices, marginalization and disparities found within these groups (Outten, Schmitt, Garcia, & Branscombe, 2009; Smith & Silva; 2011). The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between the cultural variables of Hawaiian cultural affiliation, campus cultural congruence, and anxiety, depression, and psychological well-being among a sample of Native Hawaiian college participants (N =184). It was hypothesized that higher levels of cultural affiliation and cultural congruity would be inversely related to anxiety and depression. Additionally, it was hypothesized that higher cultural affiliation and cultural congruity would result in higher levels of psychological well-being and lower levels of psychological distress. A mediation model was used to further explore these relationships. Finally, the study explored how cultural congruity moderates the relationship between cultural affiliation and psychological well-being and psychological distress. Correlational analyses and multiple regression analyses were used to evaluate the relationships among these variables. The results confirmed that higher levels of cultural affiliation and cultural congruity were inversely related to anxiety and depression. Moreover, the findings indicated that cultural affiliation explained variance in psychological well-being over and above that accounted for by anxiety and depression, suggesting a direct effect between cultural affiliation and psychological well-being. Finally, it was found that Native Hawaiian students who reported both higher cultural affiliation and higher cultural congruity also reported greater psychological well-being, suggesting that the strength of campus cultural congruity moderates the impact of cultural affiliation on the psychological well-being of Native Hawaiian students. The limitations and implications for future research and counseling are discussed.