To buy or to sell: cultural differences in stock market decisions based on price trends

Four studies compared the stock market decisions of Canadians and Chinese. In two studies using simple stock market trends, compared with Chinese, Canadians were more willing to sell and less willing to buy falling stock. But when the stock price was rising, the opposite occurred: Canadians were more willing to buy and less willing to sell. A third study showed that for complex stock price trends, Canadians were strongly influenced by the most recent price trends: they tended to predict that recent trends would continue and made selling decisions without considering the rest of the trend patterns; whereas the Chinese made reversal predictions for the dominant trends and made decisions that took both recent and early trends into consideration. Study 4 replicated the finding with experienced individual investors. These findings are consistent with the previous literature on different lay theories of change held by Chinese and North Americans. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Attachment, attention, and cognitive control: Attachment style and performance on general attention tasks

Three studies examined the effects of attachment style on performance in non-attachment-related attention tasks; one study also assessed the effect of priming memories of experiences of attachment security or insecurity on attentional performance in a flanker task. In Study 1, participants performed a psychological refractory period (PRP) task assessing their ability to switch attention rapidly from one decision to another; in Studies 2 and 3 they performed a flanker task assessing their ability to resist distracters. Avoidant attachment predicted better performance on both tasks, and the effects remained even after controlling for neuroticism, general anxiety, and BIS/BAS scores. Study 3 showed that thinking in detail about a past experience of insecurity eliminated avoidant participants’ superior performance. In sum, avoidant people are generally skilled at regulating their attention, even on non-attachment-related tasks, but their performance is hampered by reminders of experiences of insecurity.     

The association of anxiety,depression, and worry symptoms on cognitive performance in older adults

Emerging research suggests that a relationship exists between the cognitive aspects of anxiety (e.g. worry) and cognitive decline in older adults. The current study examined the association between anxiety, depressive, and worry symptoms on cognitive performance. Participants were 156 older adults enrolled in the Nathan Kline Institute-Rockland Sample Study (NKI-RS). Hierarchical linear regression analysis was used to determine the unique associations of anxiety, depressive, and worry symptoms on cognitive performance as measured by the Penn Computerized Neurocognitive Battery (Penn CNB), the Delis-Kaplan Executive Function System (D-KEFS), and the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test (RAVLT). Worry symptoms were a significant predictor of Penn CNB social cognition, complex cognition, executive function, and episodic memory performance as well as RAVLT immediate and short-delay recall, but not of D-KEFS performance or RAVLT long-delay recall. In contrast, anxiety and depressive symptoms had few unique associations with cognitive performance. Given that worry symptoms have a negative impact on many aspects of neurocognitive performance, they may have utility in predicting and preventing cognitive decline in older adults.     

Rater agreement,accuracy, and experienced cognitive load: Comparison of distributional and traditional assessment approaches to rating performance

Error in performance ratings is typically believed to be due to the cognitive complexity of the rating task. Distributional assessment (DA) is proposed to improve rater accuracy by reducing cognitive load. In two laboratory studies, raters reported perceptions of cognitive effort and difficulty while assessing rating targets using DA or the traditional assessment approach. Across both studies, DA raters showed greater interrater agreement, and Study 2 findings provide some support for DA being associated with greater true score rating accuracy. However, DA raters also reported experiencing greater cognitive load during the rating task, and cognitive load did not mediate the relationship between rating format and rater accuracy. These findings have important implications regarding our understanding of cognitive load in the rating process.     

BIS, BAS, and bias: The role of personality and cognitive bias in social anxiety

The goal of the present research was to test the hypothesis that cognitive biases for negative and threatening social information mediate the effects of behavioral inhibition system (BIS) and behavioral approach system (BAS) sensitivity on social anxiety. Participants completed self-report measures of BIS and BAS and then underwent a social-threat induction procedure in which they were told they would have to perform a speech. A battery of cognitive bias measures was then administered, followed by a battery of state anxiety measures. Audience members also rated participants’ anxiety during the speech. Structural equation modeling was used to test the hypothesized model. As predicted, the fully-mediated model showed the best fit to the data, and higher BIS and lower BAS were found to have significant indirect effects on social anxiety via cognitive bias.     

Early indications of delayed cognitive development in preschool children born very preterm: evidence from domain‐general and domain‐specific tasks

Cognitive impairment often follows preterm birth but its early underlying nature is not well understood. We used a novel approach by investigating the development of colour cognition in 54 very preterm children born ?30 weeks gestational age without severe neurosensory impairment and 37 age‐matched term‐born controls, aged 2–5 years. Quantitative and qualitative differences in the development of colour cognition are well charted throughout the preschool years, enabling delayed from deviant development to be determined. Standardized domain‐general and experimental colour‐specific tests of language, attention, and memory were employed. Very preterm children showed significantly depressed language than term controls, with very preterm group girls significantly outperforming boys. Very preterm children also showed poorer attention and memory than term controls, but not significantly so. Importantly, colour‐specific tests showed qualitatively similar performance, but for naming and executive planning quantitatively poorer performance, across groups, indicating typical but delayed development. Hence, even before school entry, compared with term‐born peers, very preterm children show delayed development of cognitive processes that underpin later scholastic abilities, but the nature by which these processes operate appears to be typical of term children. If left untreated these early developmental delays may underpin later deviations from the typical developmental trajectory. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

See no lies,hear no lies: differences in discrimination accuracy and response bias when watching or listening to police suspect interviews

In the present experiment, police officers attempted to detect truths and lies told by suspects in their police interviews in three different ways: They either saw the suspects (visual condition), only heard the suspects (audio condition) or both saw and heard the suspects (control condition). Research has demonstrated that vocal and speech‐related cues are better diagnostic cues to deceit than visual cues. Therefore, we predicted that participants in the visual condition would perform worst in the lie detection task. Having access only to visual cues may encourage observers to be more reliant on stereotypical beliefs when attempting to detect truths and lies. Since these stereotypes are related to the behaviour of liars, rather than to the behaviour of truth tellers, we further predicted that being exposed only to visual cues may result in a lie bias. The findings supported these hypotheses, and the implications are discussed. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Current issues and new directions in Psychology and Health : Bringing basic and applied research together to address underlying mechanisms

Three different studies were conducted to examine the impact of heuristic reasoning in the perception of health-related events: lifetime risk of breast cancer (Study 1, n = 468), subjective life expectancy (Study 2, n = 449), and subjective age of onset of menopause (Study 3, n = 448). In each study, three experimental conditions were set up: control, anchoring heuristic and availability heuristic. Analyses of Covariance controlling for optimism, depressive mood, Locus of Control, hypochondriac tendencies and subjective health, indicated significant effect of experimental conditions on perceived breast-cancer risk (p = 0.000), subjective life expectancy (p = 0.000) and subjective onset of menopause (p = 0.000). Indeed, all findings revealed that availability and anchoring heuristics were being used to estimate personal health-related events. The results revealed that some covariates, hypochondriac tendencies in Study 1, optimism, depressive mood and subjective health in Study 2 and internal locus of control in Study 3 had significant impact on judgment of riskiness.     

Progesterone to ovariectomized mice enhances cognitive performance in the spontaneous alternation, object recognition, but not placement, water maze, and contextual and cued conditioned fear tasks

Research on how steroid hormones mediate mnemonic processes have focused on effects of 17β-estradiol (E₂); yet, progesterone (P₄) co-varies with E₂ across endogenous hormonal milieu, and itself may influence cognitive processes. We investigated the hypothesis that acute P₄ treatment enhances cognitive performance compared to vehicle. Ovariectomized (OVX) c57/BL6J mice were randomly assigned to be subcutaneously injected with oil vehicle or P₄ (10 mg/kg). Mice were trained in the spontaneous alternation, object recognition, object placement, water maze, or fear conditioning tasks, and injected with vehicle or P₄ before training or immediately post-training, and then were tested 1, 4, or 24 h later. The data obtained from these experiments supported our hypothesis. P₄ increased the percentage of spontaneous alterations made in a T-maze more so than did vehicle. P₄, compared to vehicle, increased the percentage of time spent exploring the novel object in the object recognition task, but did not alter performance in the object placement task. P₄, compared to vehicle, decreased latencies to reach the location in the water maze where the platform had been during training in a probe trial, but did not alter performance in the control, cued trial. Compared to vehicle, P₄ treatment increased freezing in contextual and cued fear testing. Thus, acute P₄ treatment to OVX mice can improve cognitive performance across a variety of tasks.     

Developmental changes in probabilistic reasoning: The role of cognitive capacity,instructions, thinking styles,and relevant knowledge

In three experiments we explored developmental changes in probabilistic reasoning, taking into account the effects of cognitive capacity, thinking styles, and instructions. Normative responding increased with grade levels and cognitive capacity in all experiments, and it showed a negative relationship with superstitious thinking. The effect of instructions (in Experiments 2 and 3) was moderated by level of education and cognitive capacity. Specifically, only higher-grade students with higher cognitive capacity benefited from instructions to reason on the basis of logic. The implications of these findings for research on the development of probabilistic reasoning are also discussed.     

The adjustment of social trust and Internet use on cognitive bias in social status: Perspective of performance perception

People in different social statuses have different perceptions due to differences in cognition. Combined with the characteristics of public behaviour and cognition, this study examined the impact of the widespread cognitive biases in social status on performance perception. This study used the ordinary least squares model to verify that the cognitive bias in social status has a significant positive impact on the perception of social governance performance. At the same time, a moderated mediation model was constructed to verify that social trust plays a partial mediating role in the influence mechanism of cognitive bias in social status on the perception of social governance performance. The use of the Internet significantly inhibited the influence of cognitive bias in social status on the perception of social governance performance. Although it also weakened the influence of cognitive bias in social status on social trust, the moderating effect on the mediating effect is not obvious. This study verifies and analyses the internal relationship and mechanism of social status cognition deviation and perception of social governance performance from multidisciplinary dimensions, which enriches the social cognition theory of social status, and expands the research on the perception of social governance performance.     

Perfectionism and efficiency: Accuracy,response bias,and invested time in proof-reading performance

Investigating problem-solving performance, Ishida, H. (2005). College students’ perfectionism and task-strategy inefficience: Why their efforts go unrewarded? Japanese Journal of Social Psychology, 20, 208–215. Found high levels of perfectionism were associated with lower efficiency. Aiming to replicate and further explore this finding, the present study investigated how two dimensions of perfectionism (high standards, discrepancy between expectations and performance) predicted efficiency in proof-reading performance. N = 96 students completed a proof-reading task involving the detection of spelling, grammar, and format errors. When error-detection performance was subjected to signal detection analysis, high standards correlated positively with the number of incorrectly detected errors (false alarms). Moreover, when task-completion time was taken into account, high standards were negatively correlated with efficiency (accuracy/time). In comparison, discrepancy correlated negatively with the number of correctly detected errors (hits) and positively with a conservative response bias. The findings show that perfectionistic standards are associated with reduced efficiency demonstrating the importance of considering invested time, errors, and response bias when investigating the relationship between perfectionism and performance.     

Estradiol or diarylpropionitrile administration to wild type, but not estrogen receptor beta knockout, mice enhances performance in the object recognition and object placement tasks

Cognitive processes mediated by the hippocampus and cortex are influenced by estradiol (E₂); however, the mechanisms by which E₂ has these effects are not entirely clear. As such, studies were conducted to begin to address the role of actions at the β form of the intracellular estrogen receptor (ERβ) for E₂’s cognitive effects in adult female mice. We investigated whether E₂ improved performance of wild type (WT) and ERβ knockout (βERKO) mice in tasks considered to be mediated by the cortex and hippocampus, the object recognition and object placement tasks. WT and βERKO mice were ovariectomized (ovx) and E₂ (0.1 mg/kg), an ERβ selective ER modulator (SERM), diarylpropionitrile (DPN; 0.1 mg/kg), or oil vehicle was administered to mice following training in these tasks. We hypothesized that if E₂ has mnemonic effects, in part, due to its actions at ERβ, then WT mice administered E₂ or DPN would have improved performance compared to vehicle WT controls, which would not be different from βERKO mice administered vehicle, E₂ or DPN. Alternatively, activation of ERα (with E₂, which is a ligand for both ERα and ERβ) may produce opposing effects on cognition and/or the activation of ERα and ERβ vs. either receptor isoform alone may produce a different pattern of effects. Results obtained supported the hypothesis that ERβ activation is important for mnemonic effects. Ovx WT, but not βERKO, mice administered E₂ or DPN had a greater percentage of time exploring a novel object in the object recognition task and a displaced object in the object placement task. Thus, actions at ERβ may be important for E₂ or SERMs to enhance cognitive performance of female mice in the object recognition and placement tasks.     

To Brexit or not to Brexit: The roles of Islamophobia,conspiracist beliefs,and integrated threat in voting intentions for the United Kingdom European Union membership referendum

We used an identities approach to examine voting intentions in the June 2016 UK referendum on membership of the European Union (EU). In April 2016, 303 British adults (58.7% women, age M = 34.73) indicated their voting intentions for the referendum and completed measures of identification with the national in-group, perceived threat from Muslim immigrants, belief in Islamophobic conspiracy narratives, Islamophobia, general conspiracist beliefs, ambiguity tolerance, and belief in a clash of civilizations. Path and mediation analyses indicated that greater belief in Islamophobic conspiracy theories mediated the link between Islamophobia and intention to vote to leave. Islamophobia and Islamophobic conspiracist beliefs also mediated the effects of perceived threat from Muslims on voting intentions. Other variables acted as antecedents of perceived threat or Islamophobic conspiracy narratives. These findings highlight the role that identity-based cognitions may have played in shaping voting intentions for the UK EU referendum.     

Positivity bias in employees' self-ratings of performance relative to supervisor ratings: The roles of performance type,performance-approach goal orientation,and perceived influence

As hypothesized, data from two field studies among employees and their supervisors showed that employees are more likely to positively bias their self-ratings relative to supervisor ratings when creative performance rather than inrole performance is being evaluated. In addition, employees' performance-approach goal orientation and perceived influence were found to enhance positivity bias in self-ratings of creative performance. Moreover, performance-approach goal orientation and perceived influence appeared to combine and interact in their effects, such that the impact of perceived influence on positivity bias in self-ratings was larger when performance-approach goal orientation was weaker rather than stronger.     

Comparing theories of consciousness: Object position,not probe modality,reliably influences experience and accuracy in object recognition tasks

People often claim seeing images completely despite performing poorly. This highlights an issue with conscious representations. We introduce an experimental manipulation aiming to disentangle two prevalent positions: Rich views posit that people virtually represent the external world with unlimited capacity; Sparse views state that representations are reconstructed from expectations and information. In two experiments using the object recognition task, we tested two probe types: Images, which should aid reconstruction more, and Words, which should aid it less. From a sparse view, one should expect that Images lead to greater accuracy and reported experience. We found no reliable differences in accuracy and reported experience across probe types; however, we observed that the object positions influenced both accuracy and reported experience, which is surprising from a Rich view as it seemingly requires assumptions of different access across the visual field. Both theoretical positions thus currently need further development to explain our results.     

Speaking, writing, and memory span in children: output modality affects cognitive performance

Low‐level processes of children's written language production are cognitively more costly than those involved in speaking. This has been shown by French authors who compared oral and written memory span performance. The observed difficulties of children's, but not of adults' low‐level processes in writing may stem from graphomotoric as well as from orthographic inadequacies. We report on five experiments designed to replicate and expand the original results. First, the French results were successfully replicated for German third‐graders, and for university students. Then, the developmental changes of the cognitive costs of writing were examined during primary school, comparing the performance of second‐ and fourth‐graders. Next, we show that unpractised writing modes, which were experimentally induced, also lead to a decrease of memory performance in adults, which supports the assumption that a lack of graphomotoric automation is responsible for the observed effects in children. However, unpractised handwriting yields clearer results than unpractised typing. Lastly, we try to separate the influences of graphomotoric as opposed to orthographic difficulties by having the words composed through pointing on a “spelling board”. This attempt, however, has not been successful, probably because the pointing to letters introduced other low‐level costs. In sum, throughout the four years of primary school, German children show worse memory span performance in writing compared to oral recall, with an overall increase in both modalities. Thus, writing had not fully caught up with speaking regarding the implied cognitive costs by the end of primary school. Therefore, conclusions relate to the question of how to assess properly any kind of knowledge and abilities through language production.     

Modeling parallelization and flexibility improvements in skill acquisition: from dual tasks to complex dynamic skills

Emerging parallel processing and increased flexibility during the acquisition of cognitive skills form a combination that is hard to reconcile with rule-based models that often produce brittle behavior. Rule-based models can exhibit these properties by adhering to 2 principles: that the model gradually learns task-specific rules from instructions and experience, and that bottom-up processing is used whenever possible. In a model of learning perfect time-sharing in dual tasks (Schumacher et al., 2001), speedup learning and bottom-up activation of instructions can explain parallel behavior. In a model of a complex dynamic task (Carnegie Mellon University Aegis Simulation Program [CMU-ASP], Anderson et al., 2004), parallel behavior is explained by the transition from serially organized instructions to rules that are activated by both top-down (goal-driven) and bottom-up (perceptually driven) factors. Parallelism lets the model opportunistically reorder instructions, leading to the gradual emergence of new task strategies.     

Boredom,motivation, and perceptions of pain: Mechanisms to explain the effects of self-control exertion on subsequent physical performance

ObjectivesPrior self-control exertion has been shown to have a detrimental effect on subsequent physical performance. However, some potential underpinning mechanisms of the effect have yet to be examined. The present study explored whether exerting self-control reduces subsequent physical performance; and also examines the role of boredom, motivation, perceptions of pain, and sustained attention as mechanisms to explain these performance effects.MethodsIn a within-subjects order-balanced crossover design, 63 participants completed a self-control exertion task (incongruent Stroop) and non-self-control exertion task (congruent Stroop) for 4 min. Immediately after, participants completed a wall-sit task until volitional exhaustion. Task-specific boredom was measured following the Stroop task and following the wall-sit task. Participants’ perceptions of pain and motivation were measured every 30 s during the wall sit task. Upon completion of the wall-sit, participants completed a test of sustained attention.ResultsFollowing the self-control exertion task, participant’s wall-sit performance time was reduced (136 ± 62 s), compared to when they completed the non-self-control exertion task (144 ± 57 s, p = 0.05, d = 0.14). Participant’s task related boredom was significantly higher during the non-self-control exertion task (4.30 ± 1.23), compared to the self-control exertion task (3.82 ± 1.22) (p < 0.001, d = 0.39); but boredom was not different during the wall-sit task (p = 0.79). Prior self-control exertion also led to increased overall perceptions of pain (p = 0.02) and reduced overall (p = 0.01) and initial (p = 0.02) motivation during the wall-sit task. However, no differences in initial perceptions of pain (p = 0.16) or sustained attention (response time, p = 0.99; response accuracy, p = 0.78) were observed. Additional within-subjects mediation analysis revealed that differences in wall-sit performance time could not be explained by differences in task related boredom during the Stroop task, overall perceptions of pain, or overall and initial motivation (all p > 0.05).ConclusionsThe prior exertion of self-control resulted in a decrement in subsequent physical performance. Furthermore, individuals’ perceptions of task related boredom were higher during the non-self-control exertion (congruent Stroop) task, whilst overall perceptions of pain were higher, and initial and overall motivation were lower, following the self-control exertion (incongruent Stroop) task. However, mediation analysis revealed that these mechanisms did not explain the difference in wall sit performance time between the conditions.     

与上司“心有灵犀”会让你的工作更出色吗?——追随原型一致性、工作投入与工作绩效

内隐追随作为一种关于追随角色的认知结构,包括追随原型和反原型两种。其中,追随原型表征了个体对追随角色的积极预期。本研究基于角色理论,考察了领导者-追随者的追随原型一致性对工作绩效的影响及工作投入的中介作用。采用跨层次多项式回归和响应面分析技术,对64个工作团队的数据进行分析,发现追随原型能否提升工作绩效主要取决于领导-追随双方的匹配情况。具体而言,(1)领导-追随双方的追随原型越一致,关系绩效越高。但上述结论并不适用于任务绩效。(2)在一致情况下,与"低-低"一致相比,任务绩效和关系绩效在双方追随原型的"高-高"一致时更高。(3)在不一致情况下,与"领导者的追随原型高-追随者的追随原型低"相比,任务绩效和关系绩效在"领导者的追随原型低-追随者的追随原型高"时相对更高。(4)追随原型一致性通过工作投入影响任务绩效和关系绩效。