Social Learning Strategies in Networked Groups

When making decisions, humans can observe many kinds of information about others' activities, but their effects on performance are not well understood. We investigated social learning strategies using a simple problem‐solving task in which participants search a complex space, and each can view and imitate others' solutions. Results showed that participants combined multiple sources of information to guide learning, including payoffs of peers' solutions, popularity of solution elements among peers, similarity of peers' solutions to their own, and relative payoffs from individual exploration. Furthermore, performance was positively associated with imitation rates at both the individual and group levels. When peers' payoffs were hidden, popularity and similarity biases reversed, participants searched more broadly and randomly, and both quality and equity of exploration suffered. We conclude that when peers' solutions can be effectively compared, imitation does not simply permit scrounging, but it can also facilitate propagation of good solutions for further cumulative exploration.     

Contraries as an effective strategy in geometrical problem solving

A focused review of the literature on reasoning suggests that mechanisms based upon contraries are of fundamental importance in various abilities. At the same time, the importance of contraries in the human perceptual experience of space has been recently demonstrated in experimental studies. Solving geometry problems represents an interesting case as both reasoning abilities and the manipulation of perceptual–figural aspects are involved.

In this study we focus on perceptual changes in geometrical problem solving processes in order to understand whether a mental manipulation in terms of opposites might help. Four conditions were studied, two of which concerned the search for contraries as an implicit or explicit strategy.

Results demonstrated that contraries, when used explicitly in solution processes, constitute an effective heuristic: The number of correct solutions increased, less time was needed to find a solution and participants were oriented towards the use of perception-based solutions—not only were perceptual solutions more frequent, but also, more specifically, the number of correct perceptual solutions increased. These last results concerning perception-based solutions were found both when participants were advised about the usefulness of the strategy and when they were not advised. Differences concerning which aspects of a problem were focused on during the solution process also emerged.     

Working Wonders? Investigating insight with magic tricks

We propose a new approach to differentiate between insight and noninsight problem solving, by introducing magic tricks as problem solving domain. We argue that magic tricks are ideally suited to investigate representational change, the key mechanism that yields sudden insight into the solution of a problem, because in order to gain insight into the magicians’ secret method, observers must overcome implicit constraints and thus change their problem representation. In Experiment 1, 50 participants were exposed to 34 different magic tricks, asking them to find out how the trick was accomplished. Upon solving a trick, participants indicated if they had reached the solution either with or without insight. Insight was reported in 41.1% of solutions. The new task domain revealed differences in solution accuracy, time course and solution confidence with insight solutions being more likely to be true, reached earlier, and obtaining higher confidence ratings. In Experiment 2, we explored which role self-imposed constraints actually play in magic tricks. 62 participants were presented with 12 magic tricks. One group received verbal cues, providing solution relevant information without giving the solution away. The control group received no informative cue. Experiment 2 showed that participants’ constraints were suggestible to verbal cues, resulting in higher solution rates. Thus, magic tricks provide more detailed information about the differences between insightful and noninsightful problem solving, and the underlying mechanisms that are necessary to have an insight.     

Priming problem solving with conceptual processing of relevant objects

In the present study, the author explored the effect of processing relevant information on producing solutions to brief insight problems. She hypothesized that the conceptual processing of objects relevant to the target solution would facilitate that solution relative to unrelated objects or the shallow processing of words. The author also explored the effect of knowledge of the relationship between the initial object-processing task and the problem-solving task. The results showed that participants who conceptually processed objects related to the target solution (Experiment 1), but not those who shallowly processed words related to the target solution (Experiment 2), were more likely to produce the solution relative to the control; and knowledge of the relationship between objects and solutions made no difference in the frequency of target solutions produced. The results of Experiment 3 showed that conceptual processing of an object could prime a nondominant solution for an ambiguously worded problem. Taken together, the results of the studies supported the effect of conceptual processing on facilitating insight in problem solving.     

Good Versus Creative Solutions: A Comparison of Brainstorming,Hierarchical, and Perspective-Changing Heuristics

It is not clear what heuristics are best for generating solutions to ill-structured problems. This research examined 3 heuristics (brainstorming, the hierarchical technique, and changing perspectives) to determine which produced the most solutions, the best solutions, and the most creative solutions. Ninety-two participants generated as many solutions as they could to 1 ill-structured problem concerning a drug-dealing roommate. Participants were then randomly assigned to 1 kind of training. After training, participants returned to generate solutions to the roommate problem. Results indicate that the hierarchical method produced the most solutions and the highest proportion of participants who judged their best solution as occurring after training. Those trained in brainstorming were most likely to judge their most creative solution as occurring after training. The changing perspectives technique was found to be relatively less helpful in terms of best and most creative solutions.     

Emergent Leadership in Children's Cooperative Problem Solving Groups

Social skills involved in leadership were examined in a problem-solving activity in which 252 Chinese 5th-graders worked in small groups on a spatial-reasoning puzzle. Results showed that students who engaged in peer-managed small-group discussions of stories prior to problem solving produced significantly better solutions and initiated significantly more effective leadership than control students. A mediation analysis suggested that it was because of effective leadership that groups who had experienced discussions achieved better problem solutions.     

Spaced Out in Cyberspace? Evaluations of Computer‐Based Information1

This study draws on cognitive elaboration theory to examine when and why people evaluate computer‐based information more favorably than information from a less automated source. Half of participants received information from a computer, while half received the identical information from a less automated source. Moreover, participants were induced to be more vs. less involved in the information‐acquisition process. As predicted, participants in the low‐involvement condition evaluated the information more favorably when it came from a computer than from a less automated source. This difference was eliminated in the high‐involvement condition. Further supporting our reasoning, the interaction effect between information source and level of involvement was more pronounced for participants low, rather than high, in need for cognition.     

Giving advice or making decisions in someone else's place: the influence of impression, defense, and accuracy motivation on the search for new information

When making decisions, people have been found predominantly to seek information supporting their preferred choice and to neglect conflicting information. In this article, the authors investigate to what extent different types of advisors, who recommend a choice to someone or make a decision on behalf of someone, show the same confirmatory information search. In Experiment 1, the authors presented participants, in the role of advisors, with a client's decision problem and found that when making a recommendation, advisors conducted a more balanced information search than participants who were making a decision for themselves. However, advisors who had to make a decision on behalf of their clients revealed an increased preference for information supporting their position. Experiment 2 suggested that this confirmatory information search was caused by impression motivation: The advisors bolstered their decision to justify it to the client. The results are discussed within the multiple motive framework of the heuristic systematic model.     

Impersonal Sex Orientation and Multitasking Influence the Effect of Sexual Media Content on Involvement With a Sexual Character

The aim of the present study was to investigate whether responses to sexual media content depend on personal and situational factors. Specifically, we studied the role of the personal factor impersonal sex orientation (IS) and the situational factor multitasking in the effect of sexual media content on involvement with the character, a concept that has received increasing attention as an explanation of sexual media effects. College-aged women who were low or high in IS watched a neutral scene or a sex scene. Half of the participants in the neutral and sex condition had to multitask (a tone detection task) while viewing the scene. In the sex condition, participants high in IS were more involved with the character than participants low in IS. Multitasking resulted in opposite patterns of involvement with the character in the sex condition: Participants high in IS became less involved with the character, whereas participants low in IS became more involved with the character.     

On the nature of insight solutions: Evidence from skill differences in anagram solution

According to the Gestalt psychologists, problem solutions that pop into mind suddenly with no awareness of the process by which they were generated are objectively as well as subjectively sudden. Thus, such pop-out solutions are qualitatively different from search solutions, which are constructed incrementally. The authors tested this claim in the domain of anagram solution. Experiment 1 documented that anagrams yield pop-out solutions, especially among highly skilled solvers. The results of Experiment 2 indicated that both pop-out and search solutions depended on the gradual accumulation of partial information, contrary to the Gestalt view of problem solving. Nevertheless, some aspects of the Experiment 2 results, as well as new analyses of an anagram study reported elsewhere, suggest that there may in fact be a qualitative difference between pop-out and search solutions. In particular, pop-out solutions may result from parallel processing of the constraints on the rearranged order of the anagram letters, whereas search solutions may result from a serial hypothesis-testing procedure.     

Counselling in general practice: Clients' perceptions of significant events and outcome

An investigation of clients' perceptions of the change process and outcome of counselling in primary care is presented. Significant events were identified by 51 clients post-session for a mean of 4.7 counselling sessions. Outcome was assessed by clients, through their perceptions of goal attainment and change in quality of life from pre-to post-counselling. Four-hundred-and-nine events were categorized by use of the Therapeutic Impact Content Analysis System (TICAS) and a content analysis system was created to categorize clients' goals. Results showed that ‘reassurance’, ‘problem solution ’, ‘insight’ and ‘involvement’ impacts were reported most frequently by clients. No category of significant events was related to change in quality of life. For 11 clients who set goals in the ‘expression’ category, more ‘reassurance’ and fewer ‘problem solution’ impacts were related to attainment of ‘expression’. Some suggestions are made for the lack of significant relationships with overall measures of outcome and it was suggested that more qualitative analysis of the process of outcome is needed.     

No Role of Initial Problem Representation in Insight Problem Solving

The literature on insight problems—problems that supposedly can only be solved by rejection of an initial faulty problem representation and sudden comprehension of another, nonobvious representation (restructuring)—suggests that the size of initial representations affects the very process of problem solving. Large initial representations impose systematic, analytical search, whereas only small representations promote intuitive, associative processes assumed by some theorists to underpin insight. In a group of 353 young healthy participants, 6 previously validated insight problems were applied in either a small or large initial representation variant. Results demonstrated no reliable difference in performance between the problem variants with regard to (a) solution accuracy, (b) self-reported insight accompanying solutions, (c) effects of fatigue, (d) correlations with another 6 small representation-size problems, and (e) correlations with working memory capacity (which were notable). This outcome suggests that the size of initial faulty representation plays no role in insight problem solving process, supporting the account assuming its strong similarity to systematic, analytical problem solving.     

Self-Discrepancies and Involvement Moderate the Effects of Positive and Negative Message Framing in Persuasive Communication

One individual difference that is conceptually closely related to the positive and negative framing of outcomes in persuasive communications is the person's self-discrepancy. It was expected that a match between a person's self-discrepancy and framing will lead to more persuasion, under the condition that the information is processed centrally (high involvement). Two experiments were conducted to test this expectation, one through the Internet among obese people and one in the laboratory among students. Both experiments showed that only among those with high involvement—assessed as an individual difference—participants with an ideal-discrepancy were persuaded the most by the positively framed information, whereas participants with an ought-discrepancy were persuaded the most by the negatively framed information.     

Information search and presentation in advisor–client interactions

When making a decision, people often search for more information supporting than conflicting with their preferred alternative. This can be counterproductive because potential risks and liabilities of the intended decision may be overlooked. However, when confronted with a decision problem, people often turn to advisors for help. We examined what kind of information advisors search for when confronted with a client’s decision problem and what information they present to their clients. Experiment 1 suggested that advisors (participants in the role of travel agents or friends) conducted a more balanced information search than personal decision-makers. However, when presenting information to their client, mock travel agents passed on more information supporting their recommendation than conflicting with it, whereas friends presented information in a balanced way. Experiment 2 replicated the balanced information search of advisors and suggested that this effect was partly mediated by the advisors’ increased accuracy motivation. Practical and theoretical implications are discussed.     

A Cognitive Tool for Ethical Decision Making: A Case for ACED IT

The present study examined two forms of a cognitive tool (ACED IT map), which is designed to facilitate ethical decision making, along with expressive writing. Results demonstrated that participants completing the original ACED IT were more likely to identify (a) more steps to implementing a solution, (b) more barriers to solution implementation, and (c) more solutions to those barriers than participants who completed the modified ACED IT, those who engaged in expressive writing, and those in the control group. These findings suggest that cognitive tools such as ACED IT may be of considerable value for individuals who are presented with ethical dilemmas.     

Biased information processing in the escalation paradigm: information search and information evaluation as potential mediators of escalating commitment

Escalation of commitment denotes decision makers' increased reinvestment of resources in a losing course of action. Despite the relevance of this topic, little is known about how information is processed in escalation situations, that is, whether decision makers who receive negative outcome feedback on their initial decision search for and/or process information biasedly and whether these biases contribute to escalating commitment. Contrary to a widely cited study by E. J. Conlon and J. M. Parks (1987), in 3 experiments, the authors found that biases do not occur on the level of information search. Neither in a direct replication and extension of the original study with largely increased test power (Experiment 1) nor under methodologically improved conditions (Experiments 2 and 3) did decision makers responsible for failure differ from nonresponsible decision makers with regards to information search, and no selective search for information supporting the initial decision or voting for further reinvestment was observed. However, Experiments 3 and 4 show that the evaluation of the previously sought information is biased among participants who were responsible for initiating the course of action. Mediation analyses show that this evaluation bias in favor of reinvestment partially mediated the responsibility effect on escalation of commitment.     

Civic engagement patterns and transitions over 8 years: the AmeriCorps national study

Latent transition analysis was used to examine civic engagement transitions across 2 waves spanning 8 years in a sample of AmeriCorps participants and a comparison group (N = 1,344; 77% female). Latent indicators of civic engagement included volunteering, community participation, civic organizational involvement, local and national voting, civic consciousness, and perceptions of civic knowledge. Three latent statuses were identified; inactive, voting involved, and highly committed. Consistent with life cycle theories of political engagement, the inactive status was most prevalent at Wave 1 and the voting-involved status most prevalent at Wave 4. AmeriCorps members were less involved in voting at Wave 1 but, among voters, were more likely to become highly committed by Wave 4. Compared with those who did not attend college, those who did had higher levels of civic engagement initially and over time. Young participants and Asian youths demonstrated lower levels of involvement initially compared with older participants or White youths. Findings suggest that national service programs geared toward young people who are not in college may hold promise for addressing gaps in civic engagement.     

Having the memory of an elephant: long-term retrieval and the use of analogues in problem solving

The authors report 4 experiments exploring long-term analogical transfer from problem solutions in folk tales participants heard during childhood, many years before encountering the target problems. Substantial culture-specific analogical transfer was found when American and Chinese participants' performance was compared on isomorphs of problems solved in European versus Chinese folk tales. There was evidence of transfer even among participants who did not report being reminded of the source tale while solving the target problem. Comparisons of different versions of a target problem indicated that similarity of solution tool affected accessing, mapping, and executing components of problem solving, whereas similarity of goal object had only a moderate effect on accessing. High school students also evidenced greater transfer than did middle school students.     

The effects of culture and self-construal on responses to threatening health information

Objective: The current studies examined if cultural and self-construal differences in self-enhancement extended to defensive responses to health threats.

Design: Responses to fictitious medical diagnoses were compared between Asian-Americans and European-North Americans in Experiment 1 and between Canadians primed with an interdependent versus an independent self-construal in Experiment 3. In Experiment 2, the responses of Chinese and Canadians who were either heavy or light soft drink consumers were assessed after reading an article linking soft drink consumption to insulin resistance.

Main outcome measure: The primary-dependent measure reflected participants’ defensiveness about threatening versus nonthreatening health information.

Results: In Experiment 1, all participants responded more defensively to an unfavourable than a favourable diagnosis; however, Asian-Americans responded less defensively than did European-North Americans. In Experiment 2, all high soft drink consumers were less convinced by the threatening information than were low soft drink consumers; however, among high consumers, Chinese changed their self-reported consumption levels less than did European-Canadians. In Experiment 3, interdependence-primed participants responded less defensively to an unfavourable diagnosis than did independence-primed participants.

Conclusion: Defensive reactions to threatening health information were found consistently; however, self-enhancement was more pronounced in individuals with Western cultural backgrounds or independent self-construals.