We can work it out: Group decision‐making builds social identity and enhances the cognitive performance of care residents

Group‐based interventions have been argued to slow the cognitive decline of older people residing in care by building social identification and thereby increasing motivation and engagement. The present study explored the identity–cognition association further by investigating the impact of a group decision‐making intervention on cognition. Thirty‐six care home residents were assigned to one of three conditions: an Intervention in which they made decisions about lounge refurbishment as a group, a Comparison condition in which staff made these decisions, or a no‐treatment Control. Cognitive function, social identification, home satisfaction, and lounge use were measured before and after the intervention. Participants in the Intervention condition showed significant increases on all measures, and greater improvement than participants in both Comparison and Control conditions. Consistent with social identity theorizing, these findings point to the role of group activity and social identification in promoting cognitive integrity and well‐being among care residents.     

From prevention focus to adaptivity and creativity: the role of unfulfilled goals and work engagement

ABSTRACT

Whereas promotion focus is consistently linked to high adaptivity (i.e., adjustment to changes) and creativity (i.e., generation of useful and original ideas), prevention focus is commonly associated with low adaptivity and creativity. The present study uncovers the conditions under which prevention focus may also have positive effects on adaptivity and creativity. First, we hypothesize that trait-level promotion focus positively relates to day-level adaptivity as well as creativity. More importantly, we hypothesize that trait-level prevention focus positively relates to day-level adaptivity and creativity when day-level goal fulfilment is low (i.e., two-way interactions) and that these effects are stronger when day-level work engagement is high (i.e., three-way interactions). To test our hypotheses, we conducted a daily diary survey among 209 employees from different occupational sectors, over five working days. As expected, trait promotion focus was positively related to adaptivity and creativity. Furthermore, trait prevention focus positively related to both adaptivity and creativity when day-level goal fulfilment was low andday-level work engagement was high (3-way interactions). None of the two-way interaction effects of trait prevention focus and goal fulfilment was significant. Our findings suggest that prevention focus and unfulfilled goals jointly should not only be seen as threats, but also as opportunities for adaptation and creativity.     

Catching nonconscious goals in the act of decision making

Research has consistently found that goals triggered by environmental cues can influence decision making processes outside of conscious awareness. This lack of awareness led naturally to the presumption that decision makers could not report the activation level of nonconsciously primed goals. This paper shows that goal activation levels can be reported, so long as the report is made during the decision process on a continuous goal activation scale. These results indicate that default lack of awareness is less a limitation of the cognitive system and more a function of the method used to recover goals during a decision process.     

Output order reflects the cognitive accessibility of goals

Goal accessibility--the ease or speed with which a goal is activated--increases the likelihood that it will be acted on. The present studies validate output order as a measure of goal accessibility that can be applied to goal lists in both laboratory and naturalistic settings. In three studies, output order (the order in which goals are listed in a free-response format) was related to self-reported goal value but was not redundant with it. Furthermore, output order was affected by motivational priming whereas value was not, and order associated with typical student goals (e.g., achievement) compared with atypical goals (e.g., power). Output order is well suited to bring the study of accessibility to naturalistic studies of goals and goal pursuit.     

Toward a synthesis of cognitive biases: how noisy information processing can bias human decision making

A single coherent framework is proposed to synthesize long-standing research on 8 seemingly unrelated cognitive decision-making biases. During the past 6 decades, hundreds of empirical studies have resulted in a variety of rules of thumb that specify how humans systematically deviate from what is normatively expected from their decisions. Several complementary generative mechanisms have been proposed to explain those cognitive biases. Here it is suggested that (at least) 8 of these empirically detected decision-making biases can be produced by simply assuming noisy deviations in the memory-based information processes that convert objective evidence (observations) into subjective estimates (decisions). An integrative framework is presented to show how similar noise-based mechanisms can lead to conservatism, the Bayesian likelihood bias, illusory correlations, biased self-other placement, subadditivity, exaggerated expectation, the confidence bias, and the hard-easy effect. Analytical tools from information theory are used to explore the nature and limitations that characterize such information processes for binary and multiary decision-making exercises. The ensuing synthesis offers formal mathematical definitions of the biases and their underlying generative mechanism, which permits a consolidated analysis of how they are related. This synthesis contributes to the larger goal of creating a coherent picture that explains the relations among the myriad of seemingly unrelated biases and their potential psychological generative mechanisms. Limitations and research questions are discussed.     

EZ does it! Extensions of the EZ-diffusion model

In this rejoinder, we address two of Ratcliff’s main concerns with respect to the EZ-diffusion model (Ratcliff, 2008). First, we introduce “robust-EZ,” a mixture model approach to achieve robustness against the presence of response contaminants that might otherwise distort parameter estimates. Second, we discuss an extension of the EZ model that allows the estimation of starting point as an additional parameter. Together with recently developed, user-friendly software programs for fitting the full diffusion model (Vandekerckhove & Tuerlinckx, 2007; Voss & Voss, 2007), the development of the EZ model and its extensions is part of a larger effort to make diffusion model analyses accessible to a broader audience, an effort that is long overdue.     

The effects of open vs. specific goals on flow and clutch states in a cognitive task

ObjectivesRecent qualitative evidence suggests that two optimal psychological states (flow and clutch) underlie excellent performance in sport. That research further suggests that the type of goal pursued influences which state is experienced. This study aimed to examine the effects of goal types (i.e., open, specific, and do-your-best goals) on flow and clutch states during performance in a cognitive task, which was developed and has been used in sport. Secondary aims were to investigate the effects of goal types on objective and subjective performance, confidence, and perceived challenge.DesignThis study employed a repeated measure design (mixed model).MethodParticipants (N = 95; M_age = 24.89, SD = 9.27) were randomised to one of three goal conditions and asked to perform a Letter and Number Identification Task, which was repeated for six attempts.ResultsParticipants prescribed open or do-your-best goals experienced significantly higher levels of flow than those prescribed specific goals, who conversely experienced significantly higher levels of clutch states. Participants assigned specific goals performed significantly better than those prescribed open or do-your-best goals. Those assigned open or do-your-best-goals reported greater perceived performance, higher confidence, and feeling more optimally challenged.ConclusionsThese findings provide experimental support for the role of goal types in determining flow and clutch states, and further understanding of the psychological effects of these goal types. Implications are discussed, and recommendations are made for future research into the role of goals in experiencing flow and clutch states in sport and exercise.     

Perception of novel faces: the parts have it!

It has been suggested that, as a result of expertise, configural information plays a predominant role in face processing. We investigated this idea using novel and learned faces. In experiment 1, sixteen participants matched two subsequently presented blurred or scrambled faces, which could be either upright or inverted, in a sequential same -different matching task. By means of blurring, featural information is hampered, whilst scrambling disrupts configural information. Each face was unfamiliar to the participants and was presented for 1000 ms. An ANOVA on the d' values revealed a significant advantage for scrambled faces. In experiment 2, fourteen participants were tested with the same design, except that the second face was always intact. Again, the ANOVA on the d' values revealed a significant advantage for scrambled faces. In experiment 3 half of the faces were learned in a familiarisation block prior to the experiment. The ANOVA of these d' values revealed a significant interaction of familiarity and condition, showing that blurred stimuli were better recognised when the faces were familiar. These results suggest that recognition of novel faces, compared to learned faces, relies relatively more on the processing of featural information. In the course of familiarisation the importance of configural information increases.     

The cognitive effects of jury aids on decision‐making in complex civil litigation

Two hundred seventy nine individuals served as mock jury members in a civil trial that involved multiple plaintiffs and several expert witnesses. Juries were or were not provided with written summary statements of the testimony of expert scientific witnesses, and were either permitted or not permitted to take notes. The results showed that the combination of summary statements and note‐taking had a synergistic effect on the quality of decision‐making. Mock juries enabled by both cognitive aids provided significantly higher awards, as compared to mock juries aided by one or none of the jury‐aids, to the most severely injured plaintiffs without increasing compensation for those less worthy. Aided mock juries also recalled more probative evidence than non‐aided jurors, and were more satisfied with the efficacy of their deliberations. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Chewing on it can chew you up: effects of rumination on triggered displaced aggression

Ruminating about a provocation increases the likelihood of displaced aggression following a minor annoyance (trigger). In Study 1, provoked participants who ruminated for 25 min were more aggressive toward a fumbling confederate than were distracted participants. Provocation-induced negative affect was positively related to aggression but only among those who ruminated. Study 2 conceptually replicated Study 1 and also found that the more negatively people reacted to the trigger, the more likely the trigger was to increase displaced aggression. Study 3 replicated the findings of Studies 1 and 2 by using an 8-hr rumination period. All 3 studies suggest that ruminating about a provocation increases the likelihood that a minor triggering annoyance will increase displaced aggression.     

You can do it if you really try: The effects of motivation on thinking for pleasure

People find it difficult to enjoy their own thoughts when asked to do so, but what happens when they are asked to think about whatever they want? Do they find thinking more or less enjoyable? In the present studies, we show that people are more successful in enjoying their thoughts when instructed to do so. We present evidence in support of four reasons why this is: without instructions people do not realize how enjoyable it will be to think for pleasure, they do not realize how personally meaningful it will be to do so, they believe that thinking for pleasure will be effortful, and they believe it would be more worthwhile to engage in planning than to try to enjoy their thoughts. We discuss the practical implications of thinking for pleasure for promoting alternatives to the use of technology.     

Social cognitive career theory and the prediction of interests and choice goals in the computing disciplines

We tested the fit of the social cognitive choice model [Lent, R.W., Brown, S.D., & Hackett, G. (1994). Toward a unifying social cognitive theory of career and academic interest, choice, and performance [Monograph]. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 45, 79-122] to the data across gender, educational level, and type of university among students in a variety of computing disciplines. Participants were 1208 students at 21 historically Black and 21 predominantly White universities. They completed measures of self-efficacy, outcome expectations, interests, goals, and social supports and barriers with respect to computing majors. The SCCT model yielded adequate fit to the data across each of the grouping variables. Implications for future research on SCCT’s choice hypotheses in the context of science and engineering-related fields are discussed.     

Adult age differences in the effects of goals on self-regulated sentence processing

The authors examined age differences in adults' allocation of effort when reading text for either high levels of recall accuracy or high levels of efficiency. Participants read a series of sentences, making judgments of learning before recall. Older adults showed less sensitivity than the young to the accuracy goal in both reading time allocation and memory performance. Memory accuracy and differential allocation of effort to unlearned items were age equivalent, so age differences in goal adherence were not attributable to metacognitive factors. However, comparison with data from a control reading task without monitoring showed that learning gains among older adults across trial were reduced relative to those of the young by memory monitoring, suggesting that monitoring may be resource consuming for older learners. Age differences in the responsiveness to (information-acquisition) goals could be accounted for, in part, by independent contributions from working memory and memory self-efficacy. Our data suggest that both processing capacity ("what you have") and beliefs ("knowing you can do it") can contribute to individual differences in engaging resources ("what you do") to effectively learn novel content from text.     

Just the thought of it!: Effects of anticipating computer-mediated communication on gender stereotyping

A study investigated how anticipated communication mode affects the use of stereotypes in forming impressions and making task assignments. Participants rated male or female targets with whom they envisioned working on a business project using computer-mediated or face-to-face modes of communication. Results indicated that both men and women were characterized more stereotypically when participants anticipated working with them electronically than when they anticipated working with them face-to-face. Furthermore, task assignments were more often gender stereotype consistent when the communication mode was computer-mediated than when it was face-to-face. These findings suggest that the mere anticipation of computer-mediated communication, without the actual the experience of it, is enough to promote stereotypes and biased decision-making.     

On the cognitive effects of learning computer programming

This paper critically examines current thinking about whether learning computer programming promotes the development of general higher mental functions. We show how the available evidence, and the underlying assumptions about the process of learning to program, fail to address this issue adequately. Our analysis is based on a developmental cognitive science perspective on learning to program, incorporating developmental and cognitive science considerations of the mental activities involved in programming. It highlights the importance for future research of investigating students' interactions with instructional and programming contexts, developmental transformations of their programming skills, and their background knowledge and reasoning abilities.     

The use of PowerPoint shareware for making Jeopardy!--type games in the teaching of psychology

We describe the use of readily available templates to create a Jeopardy!--type game using PowerPoint slides suitable for psychology courses. The templates can accommodate information from any psychology class and can easily be used to incorporate languages other than English. A major limitation of the templates is that they are only available as shareware on internet sites and the links to such sites can be unreliable. To avoid this problem we present our own template. Differences between the shareware and our own program are noted, as are ways to use the game to stimulate interest in psychology.     

Physiological markers of challenge and threat mediate the effects of performance-based goals on performance

We predicted that adopting a performance-approach vs. performance-avoidance goal would lead to physiological responses characteristic of psychological states of challenge vs. threat appraisals, respectively. Furthermore, we predicted that these states would mediate the effects of goals on performance. Twenty-seven undergraduate females performed a task described as identifying either exceptionally strong performers (performance-approach goal) or exceptionally weak performers (performance-avoidance goal). Participants’ cardiovascular reactivity (CVR) was recorded while they performed the task. As predicted, participants in the performance-approach goal condition performed better on the task than did those in the performance-avoidance goal condition. Also as predicted, those in the former condition exhibited a challenge pattern of CVR whereas those in the latter condition exhibited a threat pattern of CVR. Furthermore, physiological responses mediated the effects of performance-based goals on performance.