Motivated Suspicion: Asymmetrical Attributions of the Behavior of Political Ingroup and Outgroup Members

Suspicious attributional thought was assessed in the context of the political behavior of ingroup and outgroup politicians. Strong Democrats and Republicans read a newspaper article describing a Democratic or Republican politician's support of a bill. Half the participants read that the politician may have been motivated by an ulterior motive, obtaining campaign support from companies that benefited from the bill. In two studies, interaction effects revealed that participants discounted the behavior of an outgroup politician when an ulterior motive was salient. In contrast, they failed to discount the behavior of an ingroup politician when an ulterior motive was salient or either politician when no ulterior motive was salient. Study 2 also revealed evidence that negative, other-directed affect mediated the bias in attributional judgments.     

Effects of orienting task,spacing of repetitions,and list context on judgments of frequency

Subjects were given an unexpected frequency judgment test following a list of words in which items were presented either two, three, and five times or three, five, and seven times, with a spacing of 0, 2, 16, or 32 items between repetitions. During list presentation, they either rated the imagery value of each word or made continuous frequency estimates. Postlist frequency judgments of words presented three and five times were higher for the list containing words of Frequency 7, and judgments were also higher following the imagery rating task. Continuous judgments were unaffected by the list context and showed different effects of spacing than postlist judgments. The results provide support for the operation of response bias factors in the frequency judgment task and are relevant to theoretical interpretations of the spacing effect.     

Relational Judgments in an Influence Context

We contend that communication episodes tend to focus interactants’attention on one or the other of two relational judgments: dominance or affiliation. Further, when one judgment is relatively more salient, individuals will use the salient judgment as the basis for inferring other aspects of the relationship. To test that notion, a judgment study was conducted in which participants viewed a set of influence messages that varied in degree of dominance and explicitness. The influence context was chosen because it naturally highlighted dominance. After viewing the messages, participants provided ratings of dominance, explicitness, and two aspects of affiliation: liking and involvement. When the resulting data were submitted to a structural equation analysis, it was found that judgments of liking depended on judgments of explicitness and dominance. Judgments of involvement depended on judgments of liking and dominance. Both findings support the claim that one relational judgment may provide the basis for another.     

Perception through a perspective-taking lens: Differential effects on judgment and behavior

In contrast to the view that social perception has symmetric effects on judgments and behavior, the current research explored whether perspective-taking leads stereotypes to differentially affect judgments and behavior. Across three studies, perspective-takers consistently used stereotypes more in their own behavior while simultaneously using them less in their judgments of others. After writing about an African-American, perspective-taking tendencies were positively correlated with aggressive behavior but negatively correlated with judging others as aggressive. Similarly, after writing about an elderly man, perspective-takers walked more slowly and became more conservative, but judged others as less dependent. These divergent effects of perspective-taking on judgment and behavior occurred regardless of whether perspective-taking was manipulated or measured, whether judgments were measured before or after behavior, the stereotype that was activated, and participants’ culture (American, Singaporean). These findings support theorizing that judgments and behavior can diverge when individuals’ social strategies are geared towards establishing and maintaining social bonds, as well as provide insight into how perspective-taking helps individuals manage diversity.     

Context and Prior Impression Effects on Attention, Judgment Standards, and Ratings: Contrast Effects Revisited

The present study extended research on contrast effects by (a) examining the effect of context performances on ratings of a target performance when a prior impression of the target performer already exists, and (b) clarifying the issue of whether contrast is caused by attention to context-discrepant behavior or shifts in judgment standards. The results demonstrated that the existence of a prior impression mitigates the influence of context performances on ratings. Judgment standards were found to be unstable and dependent on information provided to raters by the experimental manipulations. Regression analyses showed that both attention and standards of judgment mediate the relationship between context and ratings. Implications of these findings for contrast effects, performance ratings, and the importance of reliable judgment standards for real-world performance appraisals are discussed.     

Safety behaviors and judgmental biases in social anxiety disorder

Two experiments were conducted to examine the link between safety behaviors and social judgments in social anxiety disorder (SAD). Safety behaviors were manipulated in the context of a controlled laboratory-based social interaction, and subsequent effects of the manipulation on the social judgments of socially anxious participants (N = 50, Study 1) and individuals meeting diagnostic criteria for generalized SAD (N = 80, Study 2) were examined. Participants were randomly assigned to either a safety behavior reduction plus exposure condition (SB + EXP) or a graduated exposure (EXP) control condition, and then took part in a conversation with a trained experimental confederate. Results revealed across both studies that participants in the SB + EXP group were less negative and more accurate in judgments of their performance following safety behavior reduction relative to EXP participants. Study 2 also demonstrated that participants in the SB + EXP group displayed lower judgments about the likelihood of negative outcomes in a subsequent social event compared to controls. Moreover, reduction in safety behaviors mediated change in participant self-judgments and future social predictions. The current findings are consistent with cognitive theories of anxiety, and support the causal role of safety behaviors in the persistence of negative social judgments in SAD.     

Anchoring,Familiarity, and Confidence in the Detection of Deception

Anchoring in judgments is the tendency for the final judgment to be biased toward the initial estimate through insufficient adjustment. In the context of the detection of deception, it has been used to explain phenomena such as negative absolute leakage and the truthfulness bias. We examined the influence of order of judgment type on attitude ratings, accuracy, and the truthfulness bias. Receivers of communications should tend to anchor their judgments on the sender's attitudinal position if asked to make attitude judgments first and on the sender's behavior if asked to make truthfulness judgments first. The results partly support these predictions. Negative absolute leakage, accuracy, and the truthfulness bias were not significantly different for those who made attitude judgments before truthfulness judgments. However, results show that accuracy decreased as the session continued and there was no difference in the confidence with which truth and deception judgments were made, but there was a positive relation between confidence and truthfulness bias.     

相似性判断和差异性判断的不对称性及其机制探索

本文阐述了相似性判断和差异性判断不对称性的相关研究。首先介绍了不对称性的发展及理论解释。其次,根据事件相关电位的研究结果,阐述了图-词信息的双编码模型对相似性判断的影响。接着分析和介绍了相似性判断的双编码过程及其时间进程。最后,作者提出有待深入研究的几个问题：（1）差异性策略在分类和推理中的应用;（2）相似性双编码过程的实证研究及其应用;（3）从发展认知神经科学的角度探讨不对称的认知神经机制。     

Instrumental Bias in Motivated Reasoning: More When More Is Needed

Decision makers must often make judgments in an environment in which they have a strong motivation to reach a particular conclusion. While normative theory would indicate that they should use available information to make their most accurate judgment without being influenced by the conclusion or outcome it may imply, evidence from the social judgment literature suggests that motivation does bias the judgment process. Specifically, decision makers motivated to support a particular conclusion tend to adopt information processing strategies most likely to yield the desired conclusion. We propose and empirically demonstrate two extensions to the motivation literature. First, we argue that motivated reasoning isinstrumental,meaning motivated decision makers bias their judgments more or less as needed to support the desired conclusion, subject to “reasonableness” constraints. Second, we propose that motivated decision makers exhibitconfidence bolsteringand thereby remain at least as confident as non-motivated decision makers in their biased estimates. We illustrate that motivated subjects even report confidence in utilizing these estimates outside the original motivating context. We investigate motivational effects within a business context involving forecasting, strategic decision making, and new product introductions. We explore the impact of motivation on quantitative forecasts and estimates, rather than on social judgments and perceptions. In addition, we go a step beyond the judgment phase to demonstrate that motivation influences choice.     

The Use of Cues Depends on Goals: Store Reputation Affects Product Judgments When Social Identity Goals Are Salient

The role that a given cue plays in consumer judgments depends on the motive that is salient for the consumer. We focus on store reputation as a cue whose utilization can depend on salient goals. Research has suggested that store reputation does not influence product judgments when brand and price information are available. In 3 experiments, however, we show that when social identity goals are salient or are perceived as relevant to the product, store reputation (because it conveys image‐relevant information) is used in evaluations of product quality. Specifically, store reputation has an impact on product judgments when either (a) consumers’ social‐image goals are directly heightened or (b) an interdependent self‐construal, characterized by a greater concern with social identity, is salient. The role of product type in moderating these effects is also examined.     

Accuracy in Detecting Potential Underage Drinkers: The Role of Contextual Effects in Proofing1

Three studies investigated the prevalence and influence of contextual effects in social judgments of age as they concern the purchase of alcohol. In Experiment 1, prior to rating a target individual, college students rated a series of photographs of persons considerably older or younger than the legal drinking age. Contrary to previous research on contrast effects, a cognitive assimilation effect was obtained for perceptions of age. Subjects rated a target person older when the prior stimuli were older, and younger when exposed to youthful stimuli. In Experiment 2, subjects again were exposed to older or younger stimuli or control stimuli (pictures of a university campus) and asked to rate a target individual. In an attempt to make salient the relevant perceptual category, subjects were asked specifically to make age ratings of the priming stimuli. Results again indicated an assimilation effect for age and the decision to proof. Attraction and liking data tended to demonstrate a contrast effect. Experiment 3 replicated the assimilation effects found in Experiments 1 and 2 using actual store clerks. These data are considered in light of the social factors that affect judgments in policies that seek to restrict access to alcohol among minors.     

Effects of rank ordering stimuli on magnitude ratings of these and other stimuli

Five experiments investigated the effects of rank ordering stimuli on subsequent magnitude ratings of these and other stimuli. In Experiments 1 and 2, subjects first rank ordered environmental issues in terms of their importance. Ranking stimuli from “most” to “least” led to more extreme ratings than ranking them from “least” to “most,” regardless of whether the rating criterion was the same as or diametrically opposite to the ranking criterion. (For example, subjects who had previously ranked them beginning with the most important issue subsequently rated these issues not only as more important, but also as more trivial, than did subjects who had ranked them beginning with the least important.) These effects generalized to stimuli other than those that had previously been ranked, and generalized over stimulus domains. (For example, ratings of environmental issues were also affected by ranking the importance of attributes of a marriage partner.) Other experiments in the series circumscribed the conditions in which these effects occur. Results suggested that rank ordering stimuli leads subjects to adopt comparative standards, the use of which generalizes to subsequent magnitude rating tasks and produces an anchoring bias similar to that identified by A. Tversky and D. Kahneman (1974, Science (Washington, D.C.), 185, 1124–1131). Implications of these results for the cognitive processes that underlie social judgment are discussed.     

What do you want? How perceivers use cues to make goal inferences about others

Variables influencing inferences about a stranger's goal during an unsolicited social interaction were explored. Experiment 1 developed a procedure for identifying cues. Experiments 2 and 3 assessed the relative importance of various cues (space, time, characteristics of oneself, characteristics of the stranger, and the stranger's behavior) for goal judgments. Results indicated that situational context cues informed goal judgments in ways that were consistent with diagnosticity ratings and typicality ratings of those cues. Stranger characteristics and stranger behaviors affected goal judgments more than would be expected from these quantitative measures of their informativeness. Nonetheless, the results are consistent with a mental model view that assumes perceivers monitor situational cues present during interactions and that goal inferences are guided by the informativeness of these cues.     

Consumer recycling: An ethical decision‐making process

Although recycling is often experienced as a moral dilemma, studies that systematically approach this issue from an ethical perspective are scarce. Moreover, previous studies have explored recycling by mainly using single ethical constructs, such as moral norms, values or obligations, rarely approaching it as an ethical decision‐making process. Our study takes a more holistic approach and integrates the recycling literature with business ethics theory in order to develop a conceptual model of ethical decision making involved in recycling. The model is based on Jones' issue‐contingent model and its key concept, that is, moral intensity, which we extend by adding altruism as an important personality trait that influences pro‐social behaviour. The data were collected from a sample of 367 adult consumers, representative of the Slovenian population by gender and age. The hypotheses were tested using structural equation modelling. The results of our study confirmed the relationships between three key facets of ethical decision making: moral recognition, moral judgment and moral intention. Higher levels of moral recognition were found to lead to more positive moral judgments, which in turn positively influenced the formation of intentions to recycle. Moreover, moral intensity was found to be a significant predictor of moral recognition and moral judgment, while altruism was found to be a significant predictor of moral recognition. These findings hold important implications for public policy makers and social marketers who have to consider not only the consumer characteristics but also the issue characteristics in seeking to understand and influence consumer recycling. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Modularity in everyday life judgments of aggression and violent behavior

This review focuses on one aspect of moral judgment of aggression and violent behavior in the context of the psychodynamics of everyday life: Judgmental modularity. The central hypothesis asserts that, from the victim's perspective, the severity of judgments or the relative weight assigned to physical damage, when information on intent and damage is available, will be maximized, whereas inverse trends will typify the judgments of the same person from the assailant's perspective. This view resembles the spirit of the functional approach to moral judgment of violent behavior. In this light, related studies that were conducted within the framework of functional measurement are reviewed. Judgmental modularity was documented in the majority of the findings. However, in two studies, the same participants exhibited judgmental consistency in the first phase and judgmental modularity in a second phase, which manipulated other types of judgmental perspectives. Implications for the issue of judgmental modularity, for the issue of modularity in violent behavior and for a proposal to establish a functional definition of aggression are discussed.     

Is our absence as conspicuous as we think? Overestimating the salience and impact of one’s absence from a group

This research provides evidence that people overestimate the salience to others of their own absence from a group. Although individuals regard the removal of someone else from a group to be less salient than the addition of that person, they regard their own removal as every bit as salient as their addition (Study 1). Those absent from a group also expect their absence to be salient in the eyes of others, overestimating the extent to which their absence will be noticed by others (Study 2), and rating their absence as having had a larger impact on the group’s subsequent functioning than others do (Study 3). Discussion focuses on individuals’ assessments of their absence as an example of a broader egocentrism in social judgment.     

Socializing Attribution: Generalization to “Real” Social Environments1

Social status variables have been shown to influence attributional judgments, but their effects have been demonstrated almost entirely in experimental settings. The influence of such statuses in experimental settings may differ from their influence in natural settings. We examined the influence on attributional judgments of the status characteristics of both subjects and actors in conjunction with variations in the degree of “real world” characteristics of both subjects and social context. These comparisons were drawn through a partial replication of earlier research investigating the effects of a social status variable, victim sex, and a situational variable—type of assault—on attributions about an assault victim. The social status characteristic, victim sex, had less influence on attributions in an adult juror sample than in a student sample and testimony-related characteristics were more influential in the adult juror sample than in the student sample. Thus, the categories of variables that influence attributions appear to depend on the context of judgment and on the breadth of subjects' life experience. These findings are discussed and we conclude with the caution that careful identification of the differences produced by context and subject characteristics is necessary to support generalization of laboratory-based research.     

Temporal judgments and contextual change

Three experiments investigated effects of environmental context on temporal memory judgments. An equal number of items occurred within each of two equal durations (D1 and D2). Subjects subsequently were asked to judge the length of a given duration in comparison with the other, then to discriminate the correct list and serial position for each recognized item on a test. If environmental context was unchanged, D1 was remembered as being longer than D2; if the context was disrupted during the interval separating D1 and D2, this effect was reduced; and if the context prevailing during D2 also was changed, the effect was eliminated. List discrimination was improved only if the context was changed. Serial-position judgment was not affected by either manipulation. Changes in process context--the internal context produced by the performance of specific cognitive processes--lengthened remembered duration, but the effect did not simply add on to the effects of environmental context. Results are discussed in terms of a contextual-change hypothesis.     

Meta‐stereotypes,Social Image and Help Seeking: Dependency‐Related Meta‐stereotypes Reduce Help‐Seeking Behaviour

People who need help can be reluctant to seek it. This can be due to social image concerns. Here, we investigate if these concerns may be prompted by a salient negative meta‐stereotype: the belief that one's group is judged negatively by another group. Specifically, we researched group members' help‐seeking behaviour in the context of a dependency‐related meta‐stereotype. In a two‐condition study (N = 45), we manipulated participants' belief that their national group was judged dependent by a significant out‐group. We then examined their subsequent help‐seeking behaviour on a real‐world task. Participants whose social identity as a group member was salient showed greater reluctance to seek help when the meta‐stereotype was made prominent compared with when it was not. This suggests that, in a context where social image and social identity concerns are relevant, group members are willing to sacrifice the possibility of accessing needed help in order to avoid confirming a negative stereotype of their group. The implications of these results for helping transactions and community development are discussed. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.