Nice or smart? Task relevance of self-characteristics moderates interpersonal projection

Two studies investigated the impact of trait relevance to a specific task on people's projection of their characteristics onto a cooperative partner. We either measured (Study 1) or manipulated (Study 2) the relevance of a trait to a specific cooperative task. In both studies, participants first rated themselves on a list of traits. Then they imagined completing a cooperative task with an unknown partner. Finally, they rated the partner on the same list of traits. In Study 1, we found partner ratings to be positively influenced by self ratings and the idiosyncratic measure of trait relevance. In Study 2, participants rated the self and the partner on competence and warmth traits while completing an intellectual or a social task. We found partner ratings to be positively influenced by self ratings more on competence than on warmth in the intellectual task, but more on warmth than on competence in the social task. These results suggest that people project onto others in a way that maximizes their chances to succeed in cooperation.     

Self-esteem and clarity of the self-concept

This article examines the association between evaluative and knowledge components of the self. Four studies tested the hypothesis that the self-concepts of low-self-esteem (LSE) people are characterized by less clarity or certainty than those of high-self-esteem (HSE) people. LSE Ss exhibited less extremity and self-reported confidence when rating themselves on bipolar trait adjectives (Study 1), less temporal stability in their trait ratings over a 2-month interval (Study 2), less congruence between their self-concepts and their subsequent perceptions of situation-specific behavior and memory for prior behavior (Study 3), and less internal consistency, lower self-rated confidence, and longer reaction times when making me/not me responses to pairs of opposite traits (Study 4). Alternative accounts of the results and the implications of self-concept clarity for understanding the pervasive impact of self-esteem on behavior are discussed.     

Can one pay attention to a particular color?

In an array of elements whose colors vary can we selectively choose to process all the items of a particular color preferentially in relation to those of another color? We addressed this question by presenting subjects with arrays containing many elements, and recording reaction times to a luminance change of one of the elements. Half the elements had one color and the other half another color--the spatial distribution being random. In two tasks--a simple detection of this change or a choice reaction time to the polarity of the change--we found that reaction times were independent of the number of items in the array. Cuing the subjects as to the color of the target item had no significant influence on the detection task, but subjects were faster if cued for the discrimination task. A further experiment replicated these findings and examined possible costs and benefits. Our final experiment separated the roles of attentional guidance and postattentional processes by having subjects judge the orientation of the target element and varying the magnitude of the target flash that defined which element was the target. We found that this judgment was also affected by color cuing, and that the size of the effect interacted with the flash strength, suggesting that color cuing has its influence at the stage of attentional guidance. We conclude that subjects can selectively attend to items on the basis of color given the appropriate task and stimulus dynamics.     

Well‐being and the accessibility of pleasant and unpleasant concepts

The trait–congruency hypothesis predicts that persons high in positive or negative trait affect more readily process pleasant or unpleasant stimuli, respectively. In two studies, participants were administered measures of personality and affect. Moreover, a yes/no lexical decision task with pleasant, unpleasant and neutral words was administered in Study 1, whereas a go/no‐go task was used in Study 2. Several methods to increase reliabilities of differences in reaction times are explored. Correlations of measures of personality and trait affect with decision times were mostly consistent with the trait–congruency hypothesis, particularly for decision times in the go/no‐go task that measured individual differences in valence‐specific decision times more reliably. The findings suggest that trait‐related concept accessibility is one source of trait congruity. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

人格特质对选择性加工偏向的影响

采用词性辨别和注意探测任务,考察了神经质和外倾性对选择性加工偏向的影响。结果表明：（1）放试在选择信息时存在特质一致性倾向;（2）在单一刺激条件下,当刺激词呈现时间为0．5s时,高神经质对所有效价词的RT均快于低神经质;而当呈现时间为1．0s时,外倾者比内倾者的反应潜伏期更短4（3）双重刺激条件下的选择性加工偏向比单一刺激条件更明显;（4）在词性辨别任务中．刺激词呈现时间只影响了神经质被试对情绪词的RT;在注意探测任务中,呈现时间对内外倾被试的加工偏向影响不显著。     

Desensitization to media violence: links with habitual media violence exposure, aggressive cognitions, and aggressive behavior

This study examined the links between desensitization to violent media stimuli and habitual media violence exposure as a predictor and aggressive cognitions and behavior as outcome variables. Two weeks after completing measures of habitual media violence exposure, trait aggression, trait arousability, and normative beliefs about aggression, undergraduates (N = 303) saw a violent film clip and a sad or a funny comparison clip. Skin conductance level (SCL) was measured continuously, and ratings of anxious and pleasant arousal were obtained after each clip. Following the clips, participants completed a lexical decision task to measure accessibility of aggressive cognitions and a competitive reaction time task to measure aggressive behavior. Habitual media violence exposure correlated negatively with SCL during violent clips and positively with pleasant arousal, response times for aggressive words, and trait aggression, but it was unrelated to anxious arousal and aggressive responding during the reaction time task. In path analyses controlling for trait aggression, normative beliefs, and trait arousability, habitual media violence exposure predicted faster accessibility of aggressive cognitions, partly mediated by higher pleasant arousal. Unprovoked aggression during the reaction time task was predicted by lower anxious arousal. Neither habitual media violence usage nor anxious or pleasant arousal predicted provoked aggression during the laboratory task, and SCL was unrelated to aggressive cognitions and behavior. No relations were found between habitual media violence viewing and arousal in response to the sad and funny film clips, and arousal in response to the sad and funny clips did not predict aggressive cognitions or aggressive behavior on the laboratory task. This suggests that the observed desensitization effects are specific to violent content.     

The role of loudness in auditory imagery

Four experiments studied characteristics of auditory images initiated by named but unheard sounds. The sounds varied in their loudness ratings. As the difference between the loudness ratings of the two sound phrases increased, the times to mentally equate the loudness of the two images increased, whereas the times to identify the louder (or softer) of the images decreased. Moreover, congruity effects were found in the comparative judgment task: Times were faster to identify the louder of two loud-rated stimuli than to judge the softer of the same two stimuli, and times were faster to identify the softer of the two soft-rated than two loud-rated stimuli. The loudness ratings did not always influence performance, however, for neither an image generation nor a reading task showed response times that varied with loudness ratings. These results suggest that sensory/perceptual components are optionally represented in auditory images. These components are included when appropriate to a given task. A control experiment showed that the results cannot be considered epiphenomenal.