Threat, Authoritarianism, and Selective Exposure to Information

We examined the hypothesis that threat alters the cognitive strategies used by high authoritarians in seeking out new political information from the environment. In a laboratory experiment, threat was manipulated through a "mortality salience" manipulation used in research on terror management theory ( Pyszczynski, Solomon & Greenberg, 2003 ). Subjects (N = 92) were then invited to read one of three editorial articles on the topic of capital punishment. We found that in the absence of threat, both low and high authoritarians were responsive to salient norms of evenhandedness in information selection, preferring exposure to a two-sided article that presents the merits of both sides of an issue to an article that selectively touts the benefits of the pro or con side of the issue. However, in the presence of threat, high but not low authoritarians became significantly more interested in exposure to an article containing uniformly pro-attitudinal arguments, and significantly less interested in a balanced, two-sided article. Finally, a path analysis indicated that selective exposure to attitude-congruent information led to more internally consistent policy attitudes and inhibited attitude change. Discussion focuses on the role of threat in conditioning the cognitive and attitudinal effects of authoritarianism.     

The Müller-Lyer contrast illusion: A computational approach

When a temporal delay is interposed between the contextual elements (wings) and the focal element (central axis) of the Müller-Lyer figures, the usual assimilation illusion changes to an illusion of contrast; that is, judged axis length is contrasted away from rather than assimilated toward the context provided by parallel extents between wings. Presentation time for the preceding contextual wings on the order of 1 sec or more was needed to produce contrast effects in judgments of the following focal axis (Experiment 3) and, given sufficient presentation time, these contrast effects were largely unaffected by the length of the temporal delay between contextual and focal elements, appearing equally strong for delays between 0 and 2 sec (Experiments 1 and 2). These results are consistent with a representational basis for these contrast effects that is high-level and long-lived. The Müller-Lyer contrast illusion may reflect the inadvertent error arising from basing judgments about particular objects on information about attribute differences among objects. Such judgmental errors may be the natural consequence of constrained computations that make explicit information required for certain common tasks, but at the expense of obscuring information required for less common tasks.     

Authoritarianism,Threat, and Prejudice: An Analysis of Mediation and Moderation

Right-wing authoritarianism is a central construct in individual differences approaches to prejudice. Its power to predict prejudice is often attributed to perceived threat. However, the exact moderating and mediating processes involved are little understood. In two studies (Ns = 53, 84), exposure to threatening versus nonthreatening information about an ethnic out-group had reliable indirect effects on prejudice in authoritarians, but not in nonauthoritarians, largely because authoritarians were more likely to perceive actual threat when they interpreted the information received to represent a threatening argument. Additionally, in Study 2, authoritarians reacted more strongly with negative emotions when they perceived actual threat.     

How bad is a 10% chance of losing a toe? Judgments of probabilistic conditions by doctors and laypeople

We presented a Web questionnaire to 139 physicians and medical researchers and 109 laypeople. The subjects made judgments of badness and importance of prevention for eight medical conditions at each of seven different probability levels. By assuming that the response to each of the 56 risks was monotonically related to transformations of the probability and of the disutility of the condition, we could assess the relative effect of probability and disutility on each subject's judgments. Physicians' judgments were more sensitive than laypeople's judgments to changes in probability. Older and female laypeople were less sensitive to probability (and correspondingly, more responsive to differences in severity among medical conditions). Laypeople varied more than physicians in their responsiveness to probability. These results point to general individual differences in the effect of probability on evaluations of medical risks. They may also provide insight into causes and noncauses of physician-patient miscommunication.     

The Effects of Self‐Diagnostic Information on Risk Perception of Internet Addiction Disorder: Self‐Positivity Bias and Online Social Support1

This article demonstrates how self‐diagnostic information (presence of symptoms on an inventory) influences the risk perception of Internet addiction disorder (IAD). The authors also highlight 2 tendencies—self‐positivity bias and online social support—that are characteristics of risk perception of IAD. In 3 studies, it was found that if no contextual information was provided, respondents estimated their risk of IAD as higher than when contextual information (symptoms) was provided. They were also less prone to self‐positivity (i.e., the disposition for people to estimate their risk as lower than others). Finally, our research provides evidence that online social support moderates these effects.     

Perceptions of absolute versus relative differences between personal and comparison health risk.

OBJECTIVE: To explain inconsistent results in previous attempts to determine whether, when presented with health risk information, people focus primarily on information about their own risk status or on a comparison with others. DESIGN: A randomized between-groups experiment in which participants were presented with hypothetical cardiac risk information. We examined whether affective responses were primarily sensitive to the relative difference between personal and comparison risk, rather than the absolute difference. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Participants' negative affective response to the risk information. RESULTS: When relative differences were held constant, participants' responses were independently influenced by both personal risk and comparative standing, effects that were greatly attenuated when absolute differences were held constant. When maintaining constant absolute differences, personal and comparison risk information appeared to interact. CONCLUSION: Previous studies tended to maintain constant absolute risk differences and so may have underestimated the impact of personal risk information. Participants' responses were sensitive to the way the risk difference was constructed. Basing experimental design decisions on assumptions about the information participants will respond to can lead to misinterpretations of the basis of risk judgments.     

Context Sensitivity in Canadian and Japanese Children’s Judgments of Emotion

Previous studies showed that East Asians are more sensitive than North Americans to contextual information, and that the cultural differences in context sensitivity emerge in preschool children. Yet, little is known about whether this generalizes to children’s emotional judgments. The present study tested Canadian and Japanese preschool children and examined cross-culturally the extent to which facial expressions of surrounding people influence judgments of a target person’s emotion. Japanese children were more likely than Canadian children to judge an emotionally-neutral target as more negative (positive) when the background emotion was negative (positive), demonstrating an assimilation effect. Canadian children, however, showed a contrast effect: judging the target person’s neutral emotion as more negative when the background emotion was positive. These data extend extant understanding of emotion recognition by illuminating nuances in perceptual processes across developmental and cultural lines.     

The influence of prematurity,maternal anxiety,and infants' neurobiological risk on mother–infant interactions

In this study, we investigated how the birth of a very low birth weight preterm (VLBW) infant influences the mother–infant interaction at 3 months. We also focused on the impact of the infant's neurobiological risk and maternal anxiety, and their interaction. The comparison of the VLBW preterm sample (n = 79) with an external full‐term sample (n = 35) showed mother–infant interactions of the families with the preterm infant to be more vocally responsive during the interaction, but less facially responsive during the interaction. Additionally, higher levels of maternal anxiety were associated with preterm infants being less facially responsive in interaction with their mother. While neurobiological risk of the infant played a part in this association, with higher risk infants also being less facially responsive, the relationship with maternal anxiety and the mother–child interaction was stronger. How these findings may influence therapeutic interventions is discussed.     

Implicit contributions of context to recognition

Studies of the impact of context on remembering have not focused on the influence of contextual contingency on subsequent recognition in the condition in which the contingency cannot be verbalized. In two experiments, we analyzed the effect of an implicitly encoded position contingency involving location and semantic category on both hit and false alarm recognition judgments after 1 day and 1 week delays. We vigorously probed for what participants could say about the contingency. We found context effects for both hits and false alarms, whether or not participants could verbalize any knowledge they might have of contingency. These results suggest that people may use contextual information when making a recognition judgment even if they are not aware of this information.     

Authoritarianism and Political Impoverishment: Deficits in Knowledge and Civic Disinterest

Past research shows that authoritarian individuals hold strong opinions about a variety of political and social issues, such as race relations and military conflict. What has not been established, though, is the amount of general political knowledge that authoritarians possess. In this study, three groups of college students were administered Altemeyer's Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) scale; most of them also received items assessing general political knowledge and specific knowledge about the 2000 presidential election, as well as items assessing interest in politics. Relative to students with low RWA scores, those with high scores possessed less political knowledge; moreover, they expressed less interest in learning about politics. In general, authoritarianism was unrelated to how individuals got their political information or how credible they found their sources. The implication that authoritarians hold strong attitudinal beliefs with weak political knowledge is discussed.     

Investigations of Hypesthesia: Using Anesthetics to Explore Relationships between Consciousness, Learning, and Memory

This paper discusses the ways in which anesthetic agents can be used to investigate the role of awareness in learning and memory. It reviews research into learning during light, subclinical anesthesia, termedhypesthesia.This research suggests that the effects of anesthetics on implicit and explicit memory are roughly comparable, although implicit memory for simple stimuli may resist the effects of very low doses of anesthetic. In addition, this paper reports experimental data demonstrating that long-term retention of information is prevented by doses of anesthetic that are low enough to permit awareness and even short-term memory of auditory stimuli. Overall, these findings are consistent with the hypothesis (e.g., Caseley-Rondi, 1996) that frontal lobe function is particularly sensitive to anesthetics. They raise theoretical and practical questions about the necessity of consciousness for learning and about interpretation of the evidence for learning during surgery under general anesthesia.     

Developmental effects of acute, chronic, and withdrawal from chronic nicotine on fear conditioning

Pre-adolescence and adolescence are developmental periods associated with increased vulnerability for tobacco addiction, and exposure to tobacco during these periods may lead to long-lasting changes in behavioral and neuronal plasticity. The present study examined the short- and long-term effects of nicotine and nicotine withdrawal on fear conditioning in pre-adolescent, adolescent, and adult mice, and potential underlying substrates that may mediate the developmental effects of nicotine, such as changes in nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR) binding, CREB expression, and nicotine metabolism. Age-related differences existed in sensitivity to the effects of acute nicotine, chronic nicotine and nicotine withdrawal on contextual fear conditioning (no changes in cued fear conditioning were seen); younger mice were more sensitive to the acute effects and less sensitive to the effects of nicotine withdrawal 24 h post treatment cessation. Developmental differences in nAChR binding were associated with the effects of nicotine withdrawal on contextual learning. Developmental differences in nicotine metabolism and CREB expression were also observed, but were not related to the effects of nicotine withdrawal on contextual learning 24 h post treatment. Chronic nicotine exposure during pre-adolescence or adolescence, however, produced long-lasting impairments in contextual learning that were observed during adulthood, whereas adult chronic nicotine exposure did not. These developmental effects could be related to changes in CREB. Overall, there is a developmental shift in the effects of nicotine on hippocampus-dependent learning and developmental exposure to nicotine results in adult cognitive deficits; these changes in cognition may play an important role in the development and maintenance of nicotine addiction.     

Meet Your Neighbours. Authoritarians Engage in Intergroup Contact When They have the Opportunity

Research indicates that authoritarians tend to avoid intergroup contact. This study tested the hypothesis that living in a neighbourhood with a higher proportion of Asian peoples increases the likelihood of contact with them for the majority (New Zealand Europeans), and that this effect should increase intergroup contact for authoritarians. Multi‐level Random Coefficient Modelling of data from the New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study (N = 3903) indicated that New Zealand Europeans high in authoritarianism in neighbourhoods with a high proportion of Asian peoples have more contact with Asian friends, relative to authoritarians in less ethnically diverse areas. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Independent benefits of contact and friendship on attitudes toward homosexuals among authoritarians and highly identified heterosexuals

Although intergroup contact is generally associated with positive intergroup attitudes, little is known about whether individual differences moderate these relations, or how contact might operate among prejudice‐prone individuals. The present investigation explores Person × Contact and Person × Friendship interaction patterns among heterosexual university students. As expected, the positive relations of right‐wing authoritarianism (RWA) and heterosexual identification with prejudice against homosexuals were weakened when participants reported increased contact, more positive contact, direct (personal) friendships, or indirect friendships (i.e., ingroup friends with outgroup friends) with homosexuals. These patterns held after controlling statistically for each person or situation variable. Contact and friendship exerted smaller or negligible effects among low authoritarians or low identifiers. Tests of indirect effects revealed that among high authoritarians or high identifiers, contact and friendship exerted influence on attitudes through group‐level perceptions that homosexuals promote societal values and through increased self–other overlap with gay friends, each otherwise resisted by these individuals. Overall these results suggest that: (a) intergroup contact and intergroup friendship are related but distinct constructs; and (b) past findings underestimate contact effects by collapsing across levels of personal biases. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Rejected children's processing of interpersonal information

This research examined differences in the interpersonal information processing of socially rejected and average children. Rejected and average fifth-graders were presented with two pieces of videotaped information about peers, making judgments of the peers after each. Two judgment tasks, differing in the extent to which they were self-relevant, were used. The judgments were liking judgments for peers (low self-relevance) and predictions of how the peers would behave toward the self (high self-relevance). Rejected children used the available behavioral information differently than average children to make their predictions of how peers would behave toward them, but did not differ in their liking judgments. These findings were consistent with the hypothesis that rejected children's capabilities to process interpersonal information comparably to better adjusted children break down in highly self-relevant judgments.I thank John Coie and Gina Krehbiel, who helped identify subjects for this study. Also, my appreciation to Daniel Wegner, Linda Anooshian, and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. This paper was presented at the biennial meetings of the Society for Research in Child Development, Baltimore, April 1987.     

Predicting infant attachment classification from multiple, contemporaneous measures of maternal care

This investigation was designed to test whether stylistic differences in maternal caregiving were associated with both secure and insecure mother-infant attachment classifications in a low-income sample. Multiple measures of maternal interactive behavior and care were collected from a sample of 95 urban, low-income mothers and their 12-month-old infants. Contemporaneous relations to attachment were found only at the broad level of composite scores of caregiving. Scores derived from different measures were aggregated to create composites reflecting three caregiver styles—sensitive, controlling, and unresponsive. Mothers of infants with secure attachment classifications showed greater sensitivity and less controlling behavior than mothers of infants with resistant and avoidant attachments, respectively. Mothers of infants with resistant attachments appeared less responsive to their infants' signals than those of infants with avoidant attachments. Group differences were significant, but modest. These results contribute to the growing body of studies relating parental care with infant attachment patterns and indirectly support the more recent conceptual work on intergenerational transmission of attachment. They also raise methodological issues that need to be considered in future work on caregiving and infant-mother attachment.     

Judgments about collision in younger and older drivers

To travel safely, drivers must detect imminent collisions. Older drivers have more accidents per miles driven than younger drivers, potentially reflecting age differences in judgments about collision. Prior studies measured age differences in judgments about when a collision would occur (time to contact). Older adults made greater underestimations, but this would lower their risk for accidents. Judgments about when a collision would occur must be preceded by judgments about whether a collision would occur (Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (2001) Minneapolis). Results of the present study indicated that judgments about potential collision were less accurate for older drivers compared with younger drivers. This would increase their risk for accidents. Age differences in driver performance may be associated more with age differences in judgments about whether a collision would occur than with age differences in judgments about when a collision would occur. Age differences in judgments about potential collision suggest a new avenue to pursue in an account of differential accident rates in older and younger drivers.     

Handedness differences in information framing

Previous research has shown that strength of handedness predicts differences in sensory illusions, Stroop interference, episodic memory, and beliefs about body image. Recent evidence also suggests handedness differences in the susceptibility to common decision biases such as anchoring and sunk cost. The present paper extends this line of work to attribute framing effects. Sixty-three undergraduates were asked to advise a friend concerning the use of a safe allergy medication during pregnancy. A third of the participants received negatively-framed information concerning the fetal risk of the drug (1–3% chance of having a malformed child); another third received positively-framed information (97–99% chance of having a normal child); and the final third received no counseling information and served as the control. Results indicated that, as predicted, inconsistent (mixed)-handers were more responsive than consistent (strong)-handers to information changes and readily update their beliefs. Although not significant, the data also suggested that only inconsistent handers were affected by information framing. Theoretical implications as well as ongoing work in holistic versus analytic processing, contextual sensitivity, and brain asymmetry will be discussed.