Rebutting accusations: When does it work,when does it fail?

Three studies address the question of how observers react to rebuttal statements and which variables are crucial in determining observers' evaluations of the initiator of the rebuttal. The first study showed that devaluation of the initiator of the rebuttal was higher when observers were confronted with the isolated rebuttal than when observers first learned about an existing accusation and then about the corresponding rebuttal. The second study qualified this finding by revealing that the devaluating effect of an isolated rebuttal was especially pronounced if the event in question was of high impact for observers. The third study included an additional variable, namely, the credibility of the source of the accusation. The drop in devaluation from rebuttal-only to accusation + rebuttal conditions was obtained only for high impact observers when the accusation came from a noncredible source. The findings are explained within a framework of attributional and belief perseverance notions. Implications are discussed.     

Happiness: When does it lead to self-indulgence and when does it lead to self-denial?

Previous research on self-gratification in children has found that happiness, compared to a neutral affective state, sometimes causes self-indulgence and sometimes causes self-denial. Review of this research led to the hypothesis that happiness leads to self-indulgence when children have no reason to believe that excessive self-gratification is morally wrong but that happiness promotes selfdenial when children fear that excessive self-gratification would violate a moral rule. In the present study, children were first placed in either a happy or neutral mood. They were then given an opportunity to help themselves freely to a reward supply, but half the children in each affect condition were warned that excessive self-gratification would violate a moral rule whereas the other half were not. In the absence of information that excessive self-gratification would violate a moral standard, happiness produced self-indulgence, but when children were told that excessive self-gratification would be wrong, happy children denied themselves significantly more than neutral-mood children. It was suggested that happiness motivates children to try to sustain their elevated mood; the behavioral route to maintaining positive mood, however, depends on how children perceive the moral implications of their actions.     

Power corrupts (or does it?): An examination of the boundary conditions of the antisocial effects of experienced power

One of the most common conclusions in the power literature is that when people feel powerful, they behave in selfish and antisocial ways. While this conclusion tends to permeate the literature, research also recognizes that there are factors that can mitigate the corrupting nature of power, and that the experience of power may also lead to more positive and prosocial outcomes. In this article, we review findings that illustrate how individual differences, the contexts in which people experience power, and their construal of power all help determine how powerful people will ultimately behave toward others. We then consider these findings in totality, and suggest that they may articulate a more complex conceptualization of power as it relates to social behaviors. Specifically, we suggest considering not only the amount of power one has but also focusing on the way individuals experience power may provide a way to reconcile the disparate findings in the social power literature. We argue that research should expand upon the possible dualistic nature of power, and how the existence of both positive and negative construals of power can influence behaviors.     

God knows (but does God believe?)

The standard view in epistemology is that propositional knowledge entails belief. Positive arguments are seldom given for this entailment thesis, however; instead, its truth is typically assumed. Against the entailment thesis, Myers-Schulz and Schwitzgebel (Noûs, forthcoming) report that a non-trivial percentage of people think that there can be propositional knowledge without belief. In this paper, we add further fuel to the fire, presenting the results of four new studies. Based on our results, we argue that the entailment thesis does not deserve the default status that it is typically granted. We conclude by considering the alternative account of knowledge that Myers-Schulz and Schwitzgebel propose to explain their results, arguing that it does not explain ours. In its place we offer a different explanation of both sets of findings—the conviction account, according to which belief, but not knowledge, requires mental assent.     

Intentional artificial grammar learning: When does it work?

Actively searching for the rules of an artificial grammar has often been shown to produce no more knowledge than memorising exemplars without knowing that they have been generated by a grammar. The present study investigated whether this ineffectiveness of intentional learning could be overcome by removing dual task demands and providing participants with more specific instructions. The results only showed a positive effect of learning intentionally for participants specifically instructed to find out which letters are allowed to follow each other. These participants were also unaffected by a salient feature. In contrast, for participants who did not know what kind of structure to expect, intentional learning was not more effective than incidental learning and knowledge acquisition was guided by salience.     

Complex semantic processing in old age: does it stay or does it go?

Old adults' (N = 24) and young adults' (N = 24) speed of producing exemplars of semantic categories (i.e., semantic fluency) varying in difficulty was assessed both in a standard condition and in a "set-switching" condition where exemplars had to be produced from 2 categories in an alternating manner. "Retrieval-position function" parameters were used to assess speed of semantic access independent of nonsemantic factors. Results suggested age effects in nonsemantic components but not in semantic retrieval per se. Also, age deficits in set switching were relatively subtle. Findings are discussed with relation to issues of domain specificity of age effects as well as of the role of executive control during semantic retrieval and age differences therein.     

Temporal isolation does not facilitate forward serial recall—or does it?

In numerous recent studies in short-term memory, it has been established that forward serial recall is unaffected by the temporal isolation of to-be-remembered items. These findings contradict the temporal distinctiveness view of memory, which expects items that are temporally isolated from their neighbors to be more distinct and hence remembered better. To date, isolation effects have only been found with tests that do not constrain output order, such as free recall. This article reports two experiments that, for the first time, report a temporal isolation effect with forward serial recall, using a running memory task in which the end of the list is unpredictable. The results suggest that people are able to encode and use temporal information in situations in which positional information is of little value. We conclude that the overall pattern of findings concerning temporal isolation supports models of short-term memory that postulate multidimensional representations of items.     

When does grouping happen?

Recent research on perceptual grouping is described with particular emphasis on identifying the level(s) at which grouping factors operate. Contrary to the classical view of grouping as an early, two-dimensional, image-based process, recent experimental results show that it is strongly influenced by phenomena related to perceptual constancy, such as binocular depth perception, lightness constancy, amodal completion, and illusory contours. These findings imply that at least some grouping processes operate at the level of phenomenal perception rather than at the level of the retinal image. Preliminary evidence is reported showing that grouping can affect perceptual constancy, suggesting that grouping processes must also operate at an early, preconstancy level. If so, grouping may be a ubiquitous, ongoing aspect of visual organization that occurs for each level of representation rather than as a single stage that can be definitively localized relative to other perceptual processes.     

Empathy is interpretation (and who ever said it wasn't?)

Whenever the subject is explicitly addressed, all analysts agree that empathic perception is an attitude one takes toward making observations, not a privileged means of perception. Furthermore, analysts seem to agree that observations made with an empathic intention are interpretations like any other observations. Empathy is not a conduit to the patient's inner life. But despite these points of consensus, it often seems to be implied in the psychoanalytic literature, usually unintentionally, that empathy is a privileged means of knowing another person. This undercurrent is sometimes present even in the work of theorists who simultaneously state their opposition to this very point of view. In this paper, after presenting an example from the literature of this kind of contradiction, I, basing my argument in hermeneutics, offer the view that all observation, inside and outside psychoanalysis, is interpretation. Then, turning to the three papers of the symposium individually, I take the perspective that in one way or another they all portray empathic perception as a privileged means of observation. These portrayals are examples of the unconscious politics of theory.     

Children’s resistance to misleading postevent information: When does it occur?

Whether or not misleading postevent information influences children’s memory has been hotly debated. The present experiment focused on the null effects of misinformation and was designed so as to partially replicate Zaragoza’s (1991) finding that preschoolers were unaffected by suggested information. Consistent with Zaragoza’s findings, no difference in recognition memory performance was observed between control and misled conditions. Item analyses were also indicative of the absence of a misinformation effect. Results are discussed in terms of event salience, interviewer credibility, and their psycholegal implications.     

When is Death Bad,When it is Bad?

Philosophia - On a view most secularists accept, the deceased individual goes out of existence. How, then, can death be a bad thing for, or harm, the deceased? I consider the doctrine of...     

When does being paid an hourly wage make it difficult to be a happy volunteer?

When people willingly volunteer their time, how does the salience of the opportunity costs of their time influence their experience of the activity? Study 1 uses the American Time Use Survey Well-Being module to examine whether the subjective experience of happiness while volunteering is influenced by how people are paid and the opportunity costs of their time spent volunteering. Among hourly paid workers for whom there is a salient heuristic for the opportunity costs of time, we found that higher opportunity costs of time as indicated by income and duration of the activity were associated with diminished happiness experienced during volunteering. No differences across income and duration emerged among non-hourly workers for whom there was not a salient heuristic for the opportunity costs of time. Using a student population who all volunteered for the same charity activity, Study 2 tested whether making the opportunity costs salient caused less happiness to be reported from the activity than those in the control condition. These studies contribute to our understanding of the psychological consequences of thinking about time in terms of money and how it may influence the hedonic experience of activities people choose to undertake in the applied context of volunteering.     

When does mimicry affect evaluative judgment?

We investigated the effect of subliminally presented happy or angry faces on evaluative judgments when the facial muscles of participants were free to mimic or blocked. We hypothesized and showed that subliminally presented happy expressions lead to more positive judgments of cartoons compared to angry expressions only when facial muscles were not blocked. These results reveal the influence of socially driven embodied processes on affective judgments and have also potential implications for phenomena such as emotional contagion. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved).     

When does algorithmic decomposition help? commentary

Algorithmic decomposition is a way of extending thinking. It will help when thinking is otherwise poor, and it may hinder when thinking is otherwise adequate. It may help decision making more than it helps numerical estimation.