Perceived regard explains self- esteem differences in expressivity

Baumeister, Tice, and Hutton proposed that individuals with low self-esteem (LSEs) adopt a more cautious, self-protective self-presentational style than individuals with high self-esteem (HSEs). The authors predicted that LSEs' self-protectiveness leads them to be less expressive-less revealing of their thoughts and feelings-with others than HSEs, and that this self-esteem difference is mediated by their perceptions of the interaction partner's regard for them. Two correlational studies supported these predictions (Studies 1 and 2). Moreover, LSEs became more expressive when their perceived regard was experimentally heightened-when they imagined speaking to someone who was unconditionally accepting rather than judgmental (Study 3) and when their perceptions of regard were increased through Marigold, Holmes, and Ross's compliment-reframing task (Study 4). These findings suggest that LSEs' expressiveness can be heightened through interventions that reduce their concerns about social acceptance.     

Sex differences in self- and teachers' reports of self-esteem in preadolescents

The short form of the Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory was administered to 952 fourth- and fifth-grade children (482 males, 470 females) from 41 classes. The children's teachers completed Coopersmith's Behavior Rating Form, a measure of self-esteem-related behavior. In the self-ratings, girls were significantly lower than boys; in the teachers' ratings, girls were significantly higher. In 32 of the 41 classes, boys ranked higher in their self-ratings than in the teacher ratings; the reverse was true for girls — a highly significant difference. This pattern of findings did not occur in the 8 classes which had male teachers. Issues concerning the measurement and conceptualization of self-esteem are discussed.This research was supported by Lehigh University, using Institutional Grant funds from the National Science Foundation. The authors wish to express their appreciation to Patricia Horton for her assistance in the collection of the data.     

Cultural differences in self- and other-evaluations and well-being: a study of European and Asian Canadians

Anusic, Schimmack, Pinkus, and Lockwood (2009) developed the halo-alpha-beta (HAB) model to separate halo variance from variance due to valid personality traits and other sources of measurement error in self-ratings of personality. The authors used a twin-HAB model of self-ratings and ratings of a partner (friend or dating partner) to test several hypotheses about culture, evaluative biases in self- and other-perceptions, and well-being. Participants were friends or dating partners who reported on their own and their partner's personality and well-being (N = 906 students). European Canadians had higher general evaluative biases (GEB) than Asian Canadians. There were no cultural differences in self-enhancement or other-enhancement. GEB significantly predicted self-ratings of life satisfaction, but not informant ratings of well-being. GEB fully mediated the effect of culture on self-ratings of life satisfaction. The results suggest that North American culture encourages positive biases in self- and other-perceptions. These biases also influence self-ratings of life satisfaction but have a much weaker effect on informant ratings of life satisfaction. The implications of these findings for cultural differences in well-being are discussed.     

Familiarity is related to conceptual implicit memory: An examination of individual differences

Explicit memory is thought to be distinct from implicit memory. However, growing evidence has indicated that explicit familiarity-based recognition memory judgments rely on the same process that supports conceptual implicit memory. We tested this hypothesis by examining individual differences using a paradigm wherein we measured both familiarity and conceptual implicit memory within the same participants. In Experiments 1a and 1b, we examined recognition memory confidence ROCs and remember/know responses, respectively, to estimate recollection and familiarity, and used a free association task to measure conceptual implicit memory. The results demonstrated that, across participants, familiarity, but not recollection, was significantly correlated with conceptual priming. In contrast, in Experiment 2, utilizing a similar paradigm, a comparison of recognition memory ROCs and explicit associative cued-recall performance indicated that cued recall was related to both recollection and familiarity. These results are consistent with models assuming that familiarity-based recognition and conceptual implicit memory rely on similar underlying processes.     

Familiarity and word recognition

Word recognition was examined for physics and non-physics students after a single visual presentation of a series of sixty words. Physics words likely to be familiar only to physics subjects were used to vary the prior familiarity of the two groups with the inspection material and the ratio of physics to common words (salience) was varied for each of the three inspection series. Common words, which were expected to have greater salience than physics words in one of the inspection series, were not found to be recognized better than the control pairings of physics words by either group of subjects. The absence of differences between physics and non-physics students in the number of inspection list words (positive instances) correctly identified supports the view that prior familiarity is not a critical variable when all inspection items are presented in a recognition test. Physics students made fewer errors than non-physics students in identifying both physics and common words in the the recognition test which were not in an inspection series (negative instances). It is suggested that the correct identification of negative instances involves a scanning of a subject's “internal store” of previously experienced inspection items and that this is more efficient when the meaning of all the items in this “store” is known.     

Familiarity and free recall

Using stimulus material drawn from a single category, it is shown that formal recognition tests yield superior performance to recall when the category cannot be completely enumerated by the subjects, but not otherwise. Furthermore, within these categories recognition is superior only if unfamiliar items are selected as stimuli. These findings fit the theory that when recalling subjects attempt to scan the relevant category and “recognize” those items employed as stimuli.     

Familiarity and pop-out in visual search

In this paper, we report that when the low-level features of targets and distractors are held constant, visual search performance can be strongly influenced by familiarity. In the first condition, a was the target amid as distractors, and vice versa. The response time increased steeply as a function of number of distractors (82 msec/item). When the same stimuli were rotated by 90° (the second condition), however, they became familiar patterns— and —and gave rise to much shallower search functions (31 msec/item). In the third condition, when the search was for a familiar target, (or ), among unfamiliar distractors, (or ), the slope was about 46 msec/item. In the last condition, when the search was for an unfamiliar target, (or ), among familiar distractors, s (or s), parallel search functions were found with a slope of about 1.5 msec/item. These results show that familiarity speeds visual search and that it does so principally when the distractors, not the targets, are familiar.     

Familiarity and categorization in intergroup behavior

Several studies have shown that social categorization into groups, unaffected by other variables such as own interest, interpersonal relations, conflict of interests, previous hostility, etc., was a sufficient condition to induce discrimination against an outgroup. The purpose of the present study was to test the hypothesis that the subjects' uncertainty and insecurity in a novel situation was, at least in part, responsible for this phenomenon. Two groups of subjects were tested: one group was made familiar with the social and physical setting of the experiment in a situation closely resembling the actual experiment, and came back for a second session in which the actual experiment was conducted; the second group came only for the actual experimental session. The results clearly indicate that, contrary to the hypothesis, the “familiar” group engaged in more out-group discrimination than the “unfamiliar” one. The theoretical and methodological implications of this finding are discussed.     

Familiarity and categorization processes in memory search

A fundamental distinction in tasks of memory search is whether items receive varied mappings (targets and distractors switch roles across trials) or consistent mappings (targets and distractors never switch roles). The type of mapping often produces markedly different performance patterns, but formal memory-based models that account quantitatively for detailed aspects of the results have not yet been developed and evaluated. Experiments were conducted to test a modern exemplar-retrieval model on its ability to account for memory-search performance involving a wide range of memory-set sizes in both varied-mapping (VM) and consistent-mapping (CM) probe-recognition tasks. The model formalized the idea that both familiarity-based and categorization-based processes operate. The model was required to fit detailed response-time (RT) distributions of individual, highly practiced subjects. A key manipulation involved the repetition of negative probes across trials. This manipulation produced a dramatic dissociation: False-alarm rates increased and correct-rejection RTs got longer in VM, but not in CM. The qualitative pattern of results and modeling analyses provided evidence for a strong form of categorization-based processing in CM, in which observers made use of the membership of negative probes in the “new” category to make old–new recognition decisions.     

Familiarity and recollection in item and associative recognition

Recognition memory for item information (single words) and associative information (word pairs) was tested immediately and after retention intervals of 30 min and 1 day (Experiment 1) and 2 days and 7 days (Experiment 2) using Tulving's (1985) remember/know response procedure. Associative recognition decisions were accompanied by more "remember" responses and less "know" responses than item recognition decisions. Overall recognition performance and the proportion of remember responses declined at similar rates for item and associative information. The pattern of results for item recognition was consistent with Donaldson's (1996) single-factor signal detection model of remember/know responses, as comparisons based on A' between overall item recognition and remember item recognition showed no significant differences. For associative recognition, however, A' for remember responses was reliably greater than for overall recognition. The results show that recollection plays a significant role in associative recognition.     

Familiarity can increase stereotyping

Two experiments show that repeated exposure to information about a target person reduces individuation and thereby increases stereotyping of the target person based on social group memberships. The effect is not due to familiarity-induced liking (the mere exposure effect), nor is it mediated by increased accessibility of the target’s social category, nor by increases in perceived social judgeability. The results are most consistent with the use of feelings of familiarity as a regulator of processing mode, such that familiar objects receive less systematic or analytic processing. In everyday life, frequent exposure to another person ordinarily produces not only familiarity but also liking, individuated knowledge, and friendship, factors that may effectively limit stereotyping. But when previous exposure is unconfounded from these other factors, its effect can be to increase stereotyping.     

Familiarity impacts person perception

We investigated the effects of familiarity on person perception. We predicted that familiarity would increase non‐analytic processing, reducing attention to and the impact of individuating information, and increasing the impact of category labels on judgments about a target person. In two studies participants read either incriminating or exculpatory individuating information about a defendant in a criminal case and made judgments of guilt. In Study 1, participants were subliminally exposed to the defendant's photo, another matched photo, or no photo before seeing the evidence. Participants familiar with the defendant's photo both processed and used the individuating information less. In Study 2, participants were subtly made familiar or not with the incriminating and exculpatory information itself, and the defendant was described either as a priest or as a skinhead. Familiarity with the information reduced attention to its content and also tended to increase reliance on category information in guilt judgments. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Familiarity and recognition of faces in old age

Elderly persons exceed young adults in false recognitions of new faces. One account claims there are age-related deficits in memory for context of encounter with faces. Because of these deficits, elderly persons frequently recognize faces on the basis of perceived familiarity (i.e., resemblance to face representations in memory), which is high for some new faces. To test this context-recollection hypothesis, we had young adult and elderly subjects judge whether faces: (1) had been seen previously in a test (though no face was repeated), and (2) were subjectively familiar (though no face was famous). The elderly exceeded the young subjects in seen-before judgements (false recognitions), and only the elderly showed a positive correlation between false recognitions and subjective familiarity. In Experiment 2, this finding was extended from false recognitions to correct recognitions, supporting the view that elderly persons, compared to young adults, rely more on resemblance in recognizing faces.     

Familiarity and pronounceability of nouns and names

Ratings of familiarity and pronounceability were obtained from a random sample of 199 surnames (selected from over 80,000 entries in the Purdue University phone book) and 199 nouns (from the Ku?era-Francis, 1967, word database). The distributions of ratings for nouns versus names are substantially different: Nouns were rated as more familiar and easier to pronounce than surnames. Frequency and familiarity were more closely related in the proper name pool than the word pool, although both correlations were modest. Ratings of familiarity and pronounceability were highly related for both groups. A production experiment showed that rated pronounceability was highly related to the time taken to produce a name. These data confirm the common belief that there are differences in the statistical and distributional properties of words as compared to proper names. The value of using frequency and the ratings of familiarity and pronounceability for predicting variations in actual pronunciations of words and names are discussed.     

Remembering, Familiarity, and Source Monitoring

Two experiments investigated recollective experience in a source monitoring task. Subjects saw an array of objects and performed, watched, or imagined actions involving pairs of objects. In a subsequent recognition test, subjects indicated whether their recognition judgements were made on the basis of conscious recollective experience (“remember” responses), or on some other basis such as familiarity (“know” responses). The proportions of correct “remember” responses for both objects and actions decreased from performed, through watched, to imagined actions, whereas the proportions of correct “know” responses were uninfluenced by the source of the memories. In addition, the relationship between recollective experience and accuracy of source judgement varied across sources. Source accuracy for performed actions was obtained only in “remember” responses, whereas source accuracy for imagined actions was obtained only in “know” responses. Source accuracy for watched actions was obtained in both “remember” and “know” responses. The findings suggest that the types of memory attributes available at retrieval determine the quality of subsequent memory experience, and it is proposed that memories with strongly self-referential attributes (arising from performed actions) powerfully cue recollective experience during retrieval.     

Familiarity Bias and Belief Reversal in Relative Likelihood Judgment

People are often called on to make an assessment of the relative likelihood of events (e.g., which of two investments is more likely to outperform the market?) and their complements (which of the two investments is more likely to perform no better than the market?). Probability theory assumes that belief orderings over events and their complements should mirror each other (i.e., P(A) >/= P(B) iff P (not-A) 相似文献