Direct and indirect directives: What do young children understand?

This study deals with the comprehension of direct and nonconventional indirect directives by children 3 to 6 years old. It refers to both the philosophies of language and the psychological theories that favor the social and cognitive factors of language acquisition. Twenty-four 3- and 4-year-old children and twenty-four 5- and 6-year-old children performed a story completion task presented in the form of comic strips. The variables studied were children's age. linguistic nature of the utterance (direct or nonconventional indirect directives), and strength of the production context (strong or weak context). The results were (a) in contrast to most other studies, direct directives were better understood than indirect directives: (b) the comprehension of both indirect and direct directives depended on the production context of utterance; (c) 5- and 6-year-old children performed better than 3- and 4-year-old children. The detailed results are discussed in terms of types of comprchension of directives linked to comprehension of the speaker's intention.     

Can We Be Self‐Deceived about What We Believe? Self‐Knowledge,Self‐Deception,and Rational Agency

Abstract: This paper considers the question of whether it is possible to be mistaken about the content of our first‐order intentional states. For proponents of the rational agency model of self‐knowledge, such failures might seem very difficult to explain. On this model, the authority of self‐knowledge is not based on inference from evidence, but rather originates in our capacity, as rational agents, to shape our beliefs and other intentional states. To believe that one believes that p, on this view, constitutes one's belief that p and so self‐knowledge involves a constitutive relation between first‐ and second‐order beliefs. If this is true, it is hard to see how those second‐order beliefs could ever be false. I develop two counter‐examples which show that despite the constitutive relation between first‐ and second‐order beliefs in standard cases of self‐knowledge, it is possible to be mistaken, and even self‐deceived, about the content of one's own beliefs. These counter‐examples do not show that the rational agency model is mistaken—rather, they show that the possibility of estrangement from one's own mental life means that, even within the rational agency model, it is possible to have false second‐order beliefs about the content of one's first‐order beliefs. The authority of self‐knowledge does not entail that to believe that one believes that p suffices to make it the case that one believes that p.     

How do symbols affect 3‐ to 4‐year‐olds' executive function? Evidence from a reverse‐contingency task

In two experiments, 330 3‐ to 4‐year‐olds competed for stickers in a game in which the optimal response strategy was to point to an empty box that their opponent would receive in order to obtain a baited box for themselves. When the baited box contained stickers, children showed a strong tendency to point at the baited box and therefore lose the stickers to their opponent. In Experiment 1 children performed better when the number of stickers to be won was represented with one of five different types of symbol: numerals, number words, dots, a photograph or sweets. In Experiment 2 children transferred their improved performance in symbolic conditions to non‐symbolic conditions. These findings suggest that symbols enable children to formulate an efficient response strategy, and that this effect may be qualitatively different in children from the effect of symbols in non‐human primates.     

False consensus in situational judgment tests: What would others do?

We introduce an alternative response instruction to reduce the fakability of situational judgment tests. This novel instruction is based on the false consensus effect, a robust social psychological bias whereby people infer that the majority of other people’s thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors are aligned with their own. In four studies, including both field and laboratory data (total N = 882), we demonstrate that participants show a false consensus bias when asked what others would do in situational judgment tests. Furthermore, the situational judgment test based on the false consensus effect turned out to relatively difficult to be fake, and produced scores that were meaningfully correlated with conceptually related traits, as well as both self-reported and behavioral outcomes.     

Attentional difficulties in children: Weakness in executive function or problems in coping with difficult tasks?

Two groups of children, one with good attention and one with poor attention, as rated by teachers, carried out a computerized visual search task. There were no differences between groups on an easy search for a single target, but when the task was made more difficult by including foils very similar to the targets or requiring alternating search for two different targets, the poor attention group made significantly more errors than the good attention group. The nature of these increases in errors was examined to discover whether they were due to errors specifically on the foils similar to the targets and errors due to failure to alternate. It was found that as well as making more errors of these types, the children with poor attention also showed a greater increase in other types of error (shape confusions, repetitions etc.) from the simple task to the more difficult ones. It is concluded that these findings do not support an explanation of poor attention solely in terms of weaknesses in specific executive functions, but suggest that supplementary or alternative explanations are needed, for example reduced processing capacity or problems in motivation or arousal when coping with difficult tasks.     

How is Self‐Forgiveness Possible?

The idea of self‐forgiveness poses a serious challenge to any philosopher interested in giving a general account of forgiveness. On the one hand, it is an uncontroversial part of our common psychological and moral discourse. On the other, any account of self‐forgiveness is inconsistent with any general account of forgiveness which implies that only the victim of an offense can forgive. To avoid this conclusion, one must either challenge the particular claims that preclude self‐forgiveness or offer an independently plausible account of self‐forgiveness. I deploy both strategies in this article, explaining what self‐forgiveness is and how it is possible.     

Does Acquisitive Self‐Presentation in Personality Self‐Ratings Enhance Validity? Evidence from two experimental field studies

The aim of the present research was to demonstrate that acquisitive self‐presentation in personality scales is not a barrier to their criterion‐related validities in human resource contexts, but rather a means to improve them. A pilot study (Study 1) with 96 job incumbents provided preliminary positive evidence. In Study 2, in the experimental group (n=99), the instructions asked job incumbents to work on a Big‐Five personality inventory (BFI‐K) as if they took part in a personnel selection procedure for a personally very attractive position. In the control group (n=93) of Study 2, job incumbents were asked to answer the inventory items honestly. As expected, the correlation between the self‐ratings of the motive to get along (i.e., which comprises emotional stability, conscientiousness, and agreeableness) and contextual performance assessments was significantly higher in the experimental group than in the control group in Study 2. Additionally, the correlation between the self‐ratings of the motive to get ahead (i.e., which comprises extraversion and openness to experience) and task performance and leadership assessments was significantly higher in the experimental group than in the control group in Study 2. It is proposed that responding to a personality inventory in a human resource decision situation should be conceptualized as a workplace simulation.     

Avoiding Anxiety,Being in Denial,or Simply Stroking Self‐Esteem: Why Self‐Positivity?

This article studies the presence, resilience, and direction of the self‐positivity bias under various conditions to examine the role of self‐esteem maintenance as an important antecedent for the bias. Experiment 1 manipulates the perceptions of the uncontrollability of cancer and presence of base‐rate information as independent variables that together eliminate the self‐positivity bias in perceptions of the risk of cancer. Experiment 2 shows the same effects using 4 life events that differ in terms of valence and perceived controllability; that is, base‐rate information affects self‐estimates for uncontrollable life events, reducing the self‐positivity bias, but does not affect self‐estimates for controllable events. Experiment 3 shows that these effects only apply to optimistic individuals who fail to incorporate base‐rate information into their self‐perceptions for controllable events. In contrast, pessimists use base rates to update their self‐estimates irrespective of the controllability of the event. Overall, the pattern suggests that self‐positivity is attenuated in conditions that implicate self‐esteem. Implications for health care marketing are discussed.     

Commentary on Pareto‐Optimality as a Rationale for Adverse Impact Reduction: What would organizations do?

This paper offers an organizational perspective about the Pareto‐optimality of trade‐offs between selection quality and adverse impact reduction described by De Corte, Lievens and Sackett. Based on considerations of culture and human resource strategy, the need to understand the impact of any trade‐off, and a desire to compare this approach to alternatives, it is concluded that organizations may be strategically disinclined to implement such trade‐offs and, if interested, organizations would desire more information than is available from the accumulated research in this domain. In particular, validity differences between Pareto‐optimal composites are not likely to be good indicators of selection quality differences and the comparative effectiveness of alternative approaches is not clear.     

Self‐service – a contradiction in terms or customer‐led choice?

This paper explores the reality of self‐service today from the customer perspective and identifies what organisations need to do to maximise their contribution to improving customer service in the future. It is based on the findings of an extensive study, including original consumer research and analysis, undertaken by the Future Foundation that was sponsored by a consortium of companies consisting of Broadsystem, BT, mmO2, BUPA and GIMRA (General Insurance Market Research Association). It is structured around a series of questions that the research was designed to answer, with clear recommendations for businesses coming out of each section. Copyright © 2003 Henry Stewart Publications.     

Why do interracial interactions impair executive function? A resource depletion account

Three studies investigated the veracity of a resource depletion account of the impairment of inhibitory task performance after interracial contact. White individuals engaged in either an interracial or same-race interaction, then completed an ostensibly unrelated Stroop color-naming test. In each study, the self-regulatory demands of the interaction were either increased (Study 1) or decreased (Studies 2 and 3). Results revealed that increasing the self-regulatory demands of an interracial interaction led to greater Stroop interference compared with control, whereas reducing self-regulatory demands led to less Stroop interference. Manipulating self-regulatory demands did not affect Stroop performance after same-race interactions. Taken together, the present studies point to resource depletion as the likely mechanism underlying the impairment of cognitive functioning after interracial dyadic interactions.     

Self‐esteem and culture: Differences in cognitive self‐evaluations or affective self‐regard?

Although people from East Asian countries consistently report lower self-esteem than do those from Western countries, the origins of this difference are unclear. We conducted two studies to illuminate this issue. Study 1 found that Chinese participants appraised themselves less positively than American participants on a cognitive measure of self-evaluations, but cultural differences were absent on a measure of affective self-regard. Moreover, cultural differences in global self-esteem were eliminated once cognitive self-evaluations were statistically controlled. Study 2 found that cultural differences in modesty underlie cultural differences in cognitive self-evaluations. These findings suggest that Chinese feel as positively toward themselves as Americans do, but are less inclined to evaluate themselves in an excessively positive manner.     

What did you say? Self‐regulatory depletion impairs interpretation of vocal cues

Evidence indicates that people are motivated to interpret environmental cues to belongingness, but doing so can be challenging. Prior evidence shows that the self's regulatory resources are consumed when interpreting complex facial displays; with this study, we examined how the depletion of such resources may impact the ability to interpret vocal tones. Results showed that depletion decreased accuracy in identifying complex (vs. simple) vocal cues, which extends prior work and offers a more comprehensive understanding of the relationship between self‐regulatory resources and the ability to effectively interpret one's social environment.     

How do young children determine location? Evidence from disorientation tasks

Previous studies show that following disorientation children use the geometry of an enclosed space to locate an object hidden in one of the corners [e.g. (Hermer, L., & Spelke, E. (1996). Modularity and development: A case of spatial reorientation. Cognition, 61, 195-232)]. These studies have used a disorientation procedure that involves rotating the viewer (with eyes closed). Here, we examine 18- to 25-month-olds' spatial coding in two disorientation tasks--involving either viewer or space rotation. Importantly, the rotational movements in both tasks could not be visually tracked. Children were tested in either task (viewer- or space-movement) from either inside or outside a triangular (isosceles) space (with one unique and two equivalent corners). In the viewer-movement task, performance was above chance, regardless of which corner contained the object. In the space-movement task, performance was above chance at only the unique corner. On both tasks, performance was better from inside the space than from outside. The implications for how children determine location are discussed.     

Acute Alcohol Co‐Ingestion and Hospital‐Treated Deliberate Self‐Poisoning: Is There an Effect on Subsequent Self‐Harm?

The aim of this study was to determine the relationship between alcohol co‐ingestion in an index deliberate self‐poisoning (DSP) episode with repeated DSP and subsequent suicide. A retrospective cohort study was conducted involving 5,669 consecutive index presentations to a toxicology service following DSP between January 1, 1996, and October 31, 2010. Records were probabilistically matched to National Coronial Information System data to identify subsequent suicide. Index DSPs were categorized on co‐ingestion of alcohol, and primary outcomes analyzed were repetition of any DSP, rates of repeated DSP, time to first repeat DSP, and subsequent suicide. Co‐ingestion of alcohol occurred in 35.9% of index admissions. There was no difference between those who co‐ingested alcohol (ALC+) and those who did not co‐ingest alcohol (ALC?) in terms of proportion of repeat DSP, number of DSP events, or time to first repeat DSP event. Forty‐one (1.0%) cases were probabilistically matched to a suicide death; there was no difference in the proportion of suicide between ALC+ and ALC? at 1 or 3 years. There was no significant relationship between the co‐ingestion of alcohol in an index DSP and subsequent repeated DSP or suicide. Clinically, this highlights the importance of mental health assessment of patients that present after DSP, irrespective of alcohol co‐ingestion at the time of event.     

What causes scale errors in children?

A recent article by DeLoache et al. has documented an intriguing phenomenon in the development of action planning in young children. When children act on toy replicas of larger objects they make scale errors that are consistent with the full-sized object. Although the actions selected are inappropriate, their execution accurately takes into account the true size of the target. This phenomenon permits tests of the predictions of the perception-action and planning-control models of vision for action.