The Name-Pronunciation Effect: Further Evidence from Chinese

This study examined the Chinese name-pronunciation effect. The easy-to-pronounce and difficult-to-pronounce Chinese names were created using the same characters in order to control for visual perceptual and conceptual fluency. In Experiment 1, participants rated each name in terms of liking, electability as a state leader, income level, and baby name preference. An additional rating of prevalence was used to estimate familiarity. In Experiment 2, participants did not read the name aloud before rating and performed intentional recall and recognition tests. In both experiments, the easy-to-pronounce names were rated higher than difficult-to-pronounce names on liking. This effect generalized to judgments of electability and baby name preference but not to prevalence and income level. There were no differences in memory performances between the two types of names. Results are discussed in terms of the boundary condition of the name-pronunciation effect and the advantage of using Chinese names to study this effect.     

The Psychology of Names: An Empirical Reexamination1

Four studies were conducted to examine how a first name might impact the way a person is perceived when varying amounts of information about the person are available. In Study 1, first names that are used more often today than in the past (young-generation names) were preferred to first names that have never been used often (not-common names), which in turn were liked more than first names that were used more often in the past than they are today (old-generation names). In Study 2, these names were evaluated in the context of résumés and personal ads. Old-generation names received the least favorable reactions, but inconsistencies were obtained between the other two classifications of names. Study 3 suggested that the results of the first 2 studies cannot be attributed to the use of a college-age sample. Study 4 demonstrated that people tend to infer a variety of characteristics from these three classifications of names. Results are discussed with respect to first-impression formation and ageism.     

性别化名字对个体印象评价及人际交往的影响

名字在个体印象评价和人际交往中发挥着重要作用。本研究结合刻板印象内容模型, 从刻板印象维护视角出发, 通过3个研究考察了性别化名字的热情能力感知, 基于此探究性别化名字对不同性别个体的印象评价及人际交往的影响。结果发现：(1)人们对男性化名字的能力评价高于女性化名字, 对女性化名字的热情评价高于男性化名字; (2)性别化名字影响男性的能力评价和女性的热情评价; (3)性别化名字影响人们对女性的交友偏好, 热情评价在其中起到完全中介作用; 性别化名字影响人们和男性的共事偏好, 能力评价起到完全中介作用。研究揭示了性别化名字影响印象评价的模式, 并为理解人际交往中名字的作用机制提供了新的研究思路。     

Center-of-inattention: Position biases in decision-making

This paper examines centrality of physical position as a cue that leads to systematic biases in people’s decisions to retain or eliminate a participant from a group. Termed the “center-stage” effect, we argue that people use their belief that “important people sit in the middle” as a schematic cue that they substitute for individuating performance information for individuals who occupy central positions when the goal is to eliminate all but one of the group members. This leads to the errors of those in center-positions being overlooked: or making them the “centers-of-inattention.” Study 1 examines people’s lay beliefs regarding positions using two stylized placement tasks (a group interview and classroom seating scenarios). These suggest that people believe that more attention is paid to those in the center than those on the extremes. Study 2 tests the center-stage effect using observational data from a real television show, The Weakest Link. Results show that players assigned at random to central positions are more likely to win the game than those in extreme positions. Study 3, a laboratory experiment manipulating attention paid to the game shows that observers overlook the errors of players in the center to a greater extent than the errors of players in extreme positions. Study 4 replicates the game in the laboratory with direct process measures to show that players playing the game make the same error. Study 5 shows that in a stylized group interview setting, participants who believe that “important people sit in the middle” find the performance of candidates in the extreme position easier to recall than the performance of those in the central position, and are more likely to choose them. Study 6 shows that the “center-stage” effects are weaker when the end-game rule allows for two (vs one) contestants to be retained. Overall results converge to show that the use of the “center-stage” heuristic substitutes for the effortful processing of individuating information, leading to a biased (favorable) assessment of people in the center. Implications for decision-making are discussed.     

The effect of information overlap on communication effectiveness

It makes sense that the more information people share, the better they communicate. To evaluate the effect of knowledge overlap on the effectiveness of communication, participants played a communication game where the "director" identified objects to the "addressee". Pairs either shared information about most objects' names (high overlap), or about the minority of objects' names (low overlap). We found that high-overlap directors tended to use more names than low overlap directors. High overlap directors also used more names with objects whose names only they knew, thereby confusing their addressees more often than low-overlap directors. We conclude that while sharing more knowledge can be beneficial to communication overall, it can cause communication to be locally ineffective. Sharing more information reduces communication effectiveness precisely when there is an opportunity to inform-when people communicate information only they themselves know.     

Meeting Mr Davis vs Mr Davin: effects of name frequency on learning proper names in young and older adults

Two theoretical frameworks relevant to proper name learning in ageing make competing predictions about the effects of name frequency. Under an inhibition model, common (high-frequency; HF) proper names will be harder to learn and remember than rare (low-frequency; LF) names, whereas under a transmission deficit model, HF names will have the advantage. Young adults (ages 18-31) and two groups of healthy older adults (ages 60-74 and 75-89) learned HF (e.g., Davis) and LF (e.g., Davin) surnames in association with new faces. Young adults recalled more names than older or oldest adults, and participants of all ages recalled more HF than LF names. There was no interaction between age and name frequency: The difference favouring HF names was similar in magnitude across age groups. All evidence runs contrary to the inhibitory model's prediction that interference makes learning HF names difficult.     

A processing fluency explanation of bias against migrants

This research investigated whether people are biased against migrants partly because they find migrants more difficult to cognitively process than nonmigrants. In Study 1, 181 undergraduate students evaluated migrant and nonmigrant members of two minimal groups and reported the difficulty that they experienced in thinking about each type of target. Participants rated migrants less positively than nonmigrants, and difficulty ratings partially mediated this effect. Study 2 (N = 191) replicated these findings and demonstrated similar findings for individuals who had been excluded from minimal groups. This evidence implies that migrant bias can be explained partly in terms of the difficulty that people have in processing information about migrants, and that it is related to migrants’ exclusion from their original group.     

Moniker maladies: when names sabotage success

In five studies, we found that people like their names enough to unconsciously pursue consciously avoided outcomes that resemble their names. Baseball players avoid strikeouts, but players whose names begin with the strikeout-signifying letter K strike out more than others (Study 1). All students want As, but students whose names begin with letters associated with poorer performance (C and D) achieve lower grade point averages (GPAs) than do students whose names begin with A and B (Study 2), especially if they like their initials (Study 3). Because lower GPAs lead to lesser graduate schools, students whose names begin with the letters C and D attend lower-ranked law schools than students whose names begin with A and B (Study 4). Finally, in an experimental study, we manipulated congruence between participants' initials and the labels of prizes and found that participants solve fewer anagrams when a consolation prize shares their first initial than when it does not (Study 5). These findings provide striking evidence that unconsciously desiring negative name-resembling performance outcomes can insidiously undermine the more conscious pursuit of positive outcomes.     

The turple effect is modulated by base word frequency: Implications for models of lexical and semantic access

People who are asked to classify whether words presented visually belong to the category of animals respond to nonwords derived from animal names more slowly than they do to nonwords derived from nonanimal names. This is known as the turple effect (Forster, 2006; Forster & Hector, 2002). In the present article, we show that the turple effect is modulated by the frequency of the animal names from which the nonwords are derived: In particular, we show that nonwords derived from high-frequency animal names are rejected faster than those derived from low-frequency animal names. We discuss the implications of this result for two approaches to lexical and semantic access modeling. 2008 Psychonomic Society, Inc.     

Characteristics attributed to individuals on the basis of their first names

Characteristics connoted by first names were explored in 7 studies. Four factors were identified: Ethical Caring, Popular Fun, Successful, and Masculine-Feminine (Study 1, N = 165). Men's names connoted more masculine characteristics, less ethical caring, and more successful characteristics than did women's names (Study 2, N = 274). Nicknames connoted less successful characteristics, more popular fun, and less ethical caring characteristics than did given names (Study 3, N = 289). Androgynous names connoted more popular fun and less masculine characteristics for men and more popular fun, less ethical caring, and more masculine characteristics for women than did gender-specific names (Study 4, N = 378). Less conventionally spelled names connoted uniformly less attractive characteristics (Study 5, N = 145). For men only, longer names connoted more ethical caring, less popular fun, more successful, and less masculine characteristics (Study 6, N = 620). More anxiety and neuroticism were attributed to those with less common names and more exuberance was attributed to those with more attractive names (Study 7, N = 137).     

Use of experienced retrieval ease in self and social judgments

People base judgments from memory on both the content of the information they retrieve and the ease they experience in retrieving it (Schwarz, N., Bless, H., Strack, F., Klumpp, G., Rittenauer-Schatka, H., & Simons, A. (1991). Ease of retrieval as information: another look at the availability heuristic. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 61, 195-202). Four studies demonstrate that people rely relatively more on the experienced ease of recall when making judgments about the self compared to judgments about others. This pattern was found for judgments of an “average” (Study 1a) or specific (Study 1b) other. Subjective retrieval ease was less informative when people were relatively less familiar with the specific other person. Providing an alternative explanation for the experienced difficulty of recall affected self, but not social, assessments (Study 2). In addition, the effect generalized to risk judgments about a state of the world; namely, the safety of one’s town (Study 3). A deeper appreciation of when and why people rely on different sources of accessible information when making judgments may help in understanding and reducing social conflict.     

叠音人名的婴儿图式效应及其对人际信任的影响

叠音人名是一种特有的人名形式,但鲜有研究考察其心理特征。本研究通过4个实验探讨叠音人名的婴儿图式效应及其对人际信任的作用机制。实验1采用特质推断指标,结果发现个体认为叠音人名的主人更像婴儿。实验2采用反应类别指标,结果表明叠音人名产生了更强烈的积极情绪。实验3表明叠音人名不影响人际信任。实验4表明在获得正性反馈后,个体不会增加对叠音人名个体的人际信任;在获得负性反馈后,个体则会减少对叠音人名个体的人际信任。上述结果表明,叠音人名可以引发婴儿图式效应,叠音人名与结果反馈类型共同影响人际信任。     

Strategy Selection in Risky Choice: The Impact of Numeracy,Affect, and Cross‐Cultural Differences

Real‐world decisions often involve options with outcomes that are uncertain and trigger strong affect (e.g., side effects of a drug). Previous work suggests that when choosing among affect‐rich risky prospects, people are rather insensitive to probability information, potentially compromising decision quality. We modeled the strategies of less and more numerate participants in the United States and in Germany when choosing between affect‐rich prospects and between monetarily equivalent affect‐poor prospects. Using large probabilistic national samples (n = 1047 from the United States and Germany), Study 1 showed that compared with more numerate participants, less numerate participants chose the normatively better option (i.e., the one with the higher expected value) less often, guessed more often, and relied more on a simple risk‐minimizing strategy. U.S. participants—although less numerate—selected the normatively better option more frequently and were more consistent across affect‐rich and affect‐poor problems than the German participants. Using a targeted quota sample (n = 118 from Germany), Study 2 indicated that although both more and less numerate participants paid less attention to probability information in affect‐rich than in affect‐poor problems, the two numeracy groups relied on different outcome‐based heuristics: More numerate participants often followed the minimax heuristic, and less numerate participants the affect heuristic. The observed strategy differences suggest that attempts to improve decision‐making need to take into account individual differences in numeracy as well as cultural‐specific experiences in making trade‐offs. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Preschool children's use of novel predicates to make inductive inferences about people

Preschool children's use of novel predicates to make inferences about people was examined in three studies. In a procedure adapted from Gelman and Markman [Cognition 23 (1986) 183.], participants (ages 3 years 5 months–4 years 11 months) saw line drawings of three different faces. In Study 1 (N=16), the drawings were described as depicting children, and participants were asked to predict whether one of the children would share properties with a child who has the same novel predicate (e.g., “is zav,” which is never defined for participants) but is dissimilar in appearance, or with a child who has a different novel predicate but is similar in appearance. Participants tended to use the novel predicates rather than superficial resemblance to guide their inferences about people. In Study 2 (N=16), in which the line drawings were described as depicting dolls rather than children, participants showed no such emphasis on the novel predicate information. Study 3 (N=38) replicated the results of the first two studies. The results suggest that children have a general assumption that unfamiliar words hold rich inductive potential when applied to people but not when applied to dolls.     

What’s In a Name? Marital Name Choice Revisited

In two studies we assessed the percentage of brides who chose nontraditional marital names and characteristics that were related to name choice. In Study 1 we analyzed wedding announcements from The New York Times, 1982–2002. In Study 2 we surveyed the name choices, reasons for them, and associated characteristics of a sample of 126 college-educated women who have been part of a longitudinal study since 1993. A substantial minority of brides (29%) chose nontraditional names in Study 1, whereas 46% did in Study 2; the difference reflects the higher proportion of Women of Color and the higher educational level of women in Study 2. Other characteristics associated with nontraditional naming were: older age at marriage, more feminist attitudes, higher career commitment, and less value of the role of mother.     

Biases in social comparisons: Optimism or pessimism?

Social comparisons typically lead to two kinds of biases: A comparative optimism bias (i.e., a tendency for people to view themselves as more likely than others to be the beneficiaries of positive outcomes) or a comparative pessimism bias (i.e., a tendency for people to view themselves as less likely than others to be such beneficiaries); rarely are people fully calibrated in terms of how they compare to others. However, there is little systematic research on the factors that determine when a comparative optimism versus pessimism bias will occur, how they can be attenuated and whether such attenuation is always desirable. In this paper, we report four studies which demonstrate the following key results: First, we show that perceived level of control over the outcome drives whether a comparative optimism or pessimism bias will occur (Study 1). Second, an increase in perceived similarity between self and a comparison target person attenuates the comparative optimism bias in domains that people view as highly controllable (Study 2a) and attenuates the comparative pessimism bias in domains that people view as less controllable (Study 2b). Finally, we show that people are willing to work harder when they experience more comparative optimism in higher control scenarios and when they experience less comparative pessimism in lower control scenarios, illustrating that motivating people to strive harder for positive outcomes can result from exacerbated or attenuated bias, depending on the context (Study 3).     

The processing difference between person names and common nouns in sentence contexts: an ERP study

Person names and common nouns differ in how they are stored in the mental lexicon. Using event-related potentials, this study compared the integration of names and nouns into sentence contexts. Both person names and common nouns were highly related in meaning and either congruent or incongruent within the previous contexts. Name incongruence elicited an N400 effect, suggesting that people were able to rapidly retrieve the semantic meaning of names from long-term memory even when this process was mediated by person identification. Conversely, participants showed a “good enough” processing of the nouns due to their low specificity level and, thus, rich semantic associations, leading to a P600 effect. These distinctive ERP effects provide clear evidence for the distinctive semantic representations of these word categories by showing that the activation of a name’s meaning is mediated by a single connection between identity-specific information and person identity, whereas multiple connections exist between nouns and their meanings.     

Direct comparison of two implicit memory tests: word fragment and word stem completion.

In 3 experiments, the implicit memory tests of word fragment and word stem completion showed comparable effects over several variables: Study of words produced more priming than did study of pictures, no levels-of-processing effect occurred for words, more priming was obtained from pictures when Ss imaged the pictures' names than when they rated them for pleasantness, and forgetting rates were generally similar for the tests. A different pattern of results for the first 3 variables occurred under explicit test conditions with the same word fragments or word stems as cues. We conclude that the 2 implicit tests are measuring a similar form of perceptual memory. Furthermore, we argue that both tests are truly implicit because they meet Schacter, Bowers, & Booker's (1989) retrieval intentionality criterion: Levels of processing of words have a powerful effect on explicit versions of the tests but no effect on implicit versions.     

Complementary justice: effects of "poor but happy" and "poor but honest" stereotype exemplars on system justification and implicit activation of the justice motive

It was hypothesized that exposure to complementary representations of the poor as happier and more honest than the rich would lead to increased support for the status quo. In Study 1, exposure to "poor but happy" and "rich but miserable" stereotype exemplars led people to score higher on a general measure of system justification, compared with people who were exposed to noncomplementary exemplars. Study 2 replicated this effect with "poor but honest" and "rich but dishonest" complementary stereotypes. In Studies 3 and 4, exposure to noncomplementary stereotype exemplars implicitly activated justice concerns, as indicated by faster reaction times to justice-related than neutral words in a lexical decision task. Evidence also suggested that the Protestant work ethic may moderate the effects of stereotype exposure on explicit system justification (but not implicit activation).     

Retrieval processes in distance cognition

Two studies were performed to evaluate the role of information retrieval in the cognition of traversed distance. In Study 1, subjects walked a pathway containing intersections that were labeled with either high-frequency or low-frequency proper names. The pathway with high-frequency names was estimated as longer than the pathway with low-frequency names. Subsequent tests of memory for names indicated that high- and low-frequency names were recognized equally well, but that the former were recalled more easily. Prompting subjects with intersection names eliminated the difference in distance estimation between highand low-frequency name conditions. A second study demonstrated that category prompts that increased information recall also increased estimated distance. Results were interpreted as suggesting a significant role of information retrieval in distance cognition.