The Dual Role of Morally Ambiguous Characters: Examining the Effect of Morality Salience on Narrative Responses

Using social comparison theory as a framework, 2 experiments examined the effects of a person's self‐perception on responses to characters who display varying levels of morality. Study 1 found that individuals whose vices were made salient felt more positive affect and enjoyment after reading a narrative featuring a morally ambiguous character (MAC) than one featuring a bad character. Study 2 found that individuals whose virtues were made salient felt more positive affect and enjoyment after reading a narrative featuring a good character than one featuring a MAC. Findings thus indicate that morality salience is an important factor determining responses to different character types. Avenues for future research and theoretical implications of the dual role of MACs are discussed.     

Salience of arousal as a mediator of misattribution of transferred excitation

An experiment was conducted to test Zillmann's hypothesis that misattribution of residual arousal in the excitation transfer paradigm is influenced by the salience of perceived arousal symptoms at the point of potential misattribution. Eighty subjects in a 2×2×2 design were either physiologically aroused or not aroused, and were subsequently subjected to a procedure designed to induce either positive mood (elation) or negative mood (depression). Simultaneously, they were either made self-aware or not. It was reasoned that self-focused attention would lead to heightened awareness of residual arousal and that, if the salience of arousal hypothesis is correct, this would prevent misattribution of arousal and the resultant intensification of experienced emotion from occurring. In accord with this reasoning, it was found that aroused and self-aware subjects experienced residual arousal significantly more intensely, were less prone to misattribute it, and did not show an excitation transfer effect. These results were, however, obtained only for subjects in the negative mood condition.     

Salience of the word as a unit in the perception of language

Seven interlocking experiments are reported in which both guessing and recognition thresholds for words are compared with those for other linguistic units both smaller than (nonword morphemes and trigrams) and larger than (nominal compounds, ordinary noun phrases, and nonsense compounds) the word. Thresholds were consistently lower for words than for morphemes or trigams (matched or even much higher in visual usage frequency) and lower for word-like nominal compounds (e.g.,stumbling block) than for ordinary noun phrases (copper block) or nonsense compounds (sympathy block). Prior exposure (through two correct recognitions) to ordinary noun phrases, nonsense compounds, and the constituent single words of nominal compounds significantly facilitated subsequent recognition of the single-word constituents, but prior exposure to nominal compounds had no effect whatsoever on subsequent recognition of their sin~e-word constituents. These results as a whole are interpreted as supporting the following conclusions: (1)that the word has special salience in the perception of language; (2)that the reason for this salience is the unique meaningfulness of the word (or the word-like nominal compound) as a whole; and (3) that the mechanism for this salience is the convergence of feedback from central mediational processes with feed-forward from peripheral sensory processes upon the integration of word-form percepts.     

Primacy of dimensions in vibrotactile perception: an evaluation of early holistic models.

Early holistic models of perception presume that stimuli composed of interacting dimensions can be experienced initially as undifferentiated. This view, formalized through recourse to a Euclidean geometry of perceptual space, predicts that the orientation of axes used to create stimulus sets is unimportant to performance in speeded classification. We tested this idea by using the interacting vibrotactile dimensions of pitch and loudness. Despite perceivers' relatively poor experience with these dimensions, we showed that the orientation corresponding to pitch and loudness was unique in vibrotactile perceptual space; subjects classified stimuli more efficiently at this orientation than at other orientations. Certain holistic models also claim that when stimulus differences are small, perceivers can recognize change without distinguishing the kind of change. We tested this idea by using a signal detection analysis of unspeeded same-different decisions. We found that subjects' ability to notice the kind of change equaled their ability to notice the change alone. In view of these results, which indicate that pitch and loudness are primary in vibrotactile perception, we detail a new conception of dimensional interaction.     

Value Satisfaction as a Function of Role Salience,Age, and Sex

This study explores the interactions of age, sex, and role salience toward predicting value satisfaction in career decision making among community college students. Suggestions of ways employment counselors can assess values in all aspects of an individual's life-style for use in career-life planning are offered.     

The Salience of Moral Character

In this essay I review an underappreciated strand of thought according to which the best Kantian moral theory has less in common with paradigmatically deontological theories and more in common with virtue theories than is standardly maintained. I then argue this program should be continued further, to provide not only a virtue‐based account of moral judgment but also a virtue‐based account of moral worth. I make a case that this fusion of Kantian theory with virtue theory provides the best account of moral rules, and I close by suggesting that it generates a promising new understanding of moral rights.     

Primacy effects in self-attribution of ability1

Primacy effects in self-attribution of ability were investigated in an experiment. Subjects' performance on a 30-item test was experimentally manipulated to reflect one of three patterns: ascending, descending, or random success. It was predicted that there would be a primacy effect in self-attribution of ability regarding the task when subjects had no previous expectation or anchor to which performance could be assimilated, but that the primacy effect would be attenuated when a previous anchor existed. The presence or absence of a prior anchor was manipulated by describing the task as either a test related to intelligence or a test of an unsual ability, unrelated to previous experience. Results supported the hypothesis that there is a primacy effect in self-attribution of ability, and that this effect occurs most strongly where an individual has no prior anchor or expectation regarding his ability.     

Examining the Role of Social Network Intervention as an Integral Component of Community-Based,Family-Focused Practice

Social network intervention aimed at bolstering the informal supports of high risk families is recognized as a common element of community-based, family-focused practice models, such as intensive family preservation services (IFPS), multisystemic therapy (MST), and the wraparound process. The empirical research basis for these practice models is examined, with an eye toward discerning the extent to which network intervention is identified as a critical component of comprehensive service. Results reveal that few studies make clear the degree to which treatment adhered to a focus on natural network enhancement or the development of informal resources. Those that did, suggest that relatively few families received this form of ecologically-oriented intervention. Consequently, this body of practice research offers insufficient evidence of the benefits or limitations associated with network facilitation with multi-need families. Explanations for these findings are explored and directions for future research are recommended.     

Maxine Sheets-Johnstone,The Primacy of Movement

Continental Philosophy Review -     

Overestimating the Salience of Racial Labels

Abstract

In the present study, a word at the end of one page was wrongly doubled at the top of the next page. The word was white, black, or some other label applied to men. Racial labels were no more likely to elicit the detection of doubling errors than other labels, according to a baseline experiment on 352 subjects divided into five treatment groups. In Experiment 2, 134 South Africans, most of whom were white, estimated what the percentage of error detectors had been for each doubled label. Detection of errors in racial labels was more likely to be overestimated than detection of errors in other labels. An assumption by the subjects that race is as salient in the cognitions of others as in their own cognitions may explain the over-estimation.     

Proverb Comprehension: The Primacy of Literal Meaning

According to the multistage model of figurative language understanding, literal meanings must be developed before figurative meanings. Although the model implies that figurative understanding should take longer than literal understanding, Kemper (1981) reported that figuratively biased proverbs were processed more quickly than literalized proverbs. By contrast, in the present study the results from six experiments yielded the opposite conclusion. These results support the multistage model and the conceptual base theory of proverb comprehension (Honeck, 1997; Honeck & Temple, 1994; Honeck, Voegtle, Dorfmueller, & Hoffman, 1980) which incorporates it. Discrepancies between studies that have examined the multistage model may crucially depend on methodological factors such as type of experimental design, materials, and, as apparent in the present case, the task and dependent measure used.     

Sheets-Johnstone,M. The Primacy of Movement

Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences -