The Influence of Social Consensus Information on Intergroup Helping Behavior

Previous research demonstrates that social consensus information (information about other people's beliefs) has a powerful influence on intergroup attitudes. The present study examined the influence of consensus information on helping behavior. White participants were provided with favorable or no consensus information about African Americans, and then we assessed their racial attitudes and their willingness to help an African American versus a White person. Replicating previous findings, we found that individuals who received favorable, as compared to no, consensus information had more favorable attitudes toward African Americans. More importantly, our results demonstrated that participants who received favorable consensus information were more likely to help an African American individual than those who did not receive consensus information. Consensus information did not influence behavior toward a White person. In understanding when and why consensus information influences stereotypes and prejudice, we hope to create a useful method to reduce negative intergroup attitudes and behaviors.     

Beyond Words: Influence of Nonverbal Behavior of Female Job Applicants in the Employment Interview

Three experiments studied the influence on hiring decisions of the nonverbal communication of female job applicants. The first experiment found ratings of the applicants' subtle cues to be significant predictors of the hiring decisions made by college-student judges. Professional employment interviewers served as judges in the second study to cross-validate the first experiment. The third study measured the relative contributions of work histories and nonverbal behavior to hiring decisions. Regardless of the work history preceding the applicant, nonverbal style had a statistically significant effect on hiring decisions.     

The Employment Interview Context: Social and Situational Influences on Interviewer Decisions1

The employment interview context is broad and multifaceted, and it includes a number of social, situational, and affective influences which generate from the interviewee, interviewer, nature of the job in question, and interactions among these factors. The employment interview is proposed to be influenced by nonverbal and self-promotion behaviors of the applicant, interviewer training, and the requirements of the job. These variables then influence the intermediate variables of applicant similarity to the interviewer, perceived competence of the applicant, and interviewer affect toward the applicant. The intermediate variables then influence the perceived job suitability of the applicant. The present study tested and found support for modeling the employment interview context and how it affects interviewer decisions. The contributions and limitations of the present study are discussed, in addition to directions for future research.     

焦虑对社会决策行为的影响

焦虑是在人类日常生活中常见的一种负性情绪。探讨焦虑情绪在个人生活和工作中扮演的角色, 是生理学界和心理学界的一项重要课题。过往研究显示焦虑水平的提高会对社会能力和社交技巧造成显著的影响。在社会决策领域中, 这种影响的具体表现是高焦虑者比低焦虑者更倾向于采取回避风险的策略。但是, 过往研究主要关心包含经济因素的社会决策, 而对其他类型的社会行为的探索存在不足。以下问题值得未来研究者们关注：在个体层面上, 高焦虑者是否会更容易受到外界信息的影响, 表现出更强的从众行为和权威依从倾向, 与他人进行社会比较或社会竞争的动机是否会被削弱？在群体层面上, 高焦虑者是否更容易表现出人际信任, 以及是否会表现出更强的服从集体倾向？考察这些问题将会为针对焦虑情绪的认知研究和临床研究起到促进作用。     

工作记忆对时间加工的影响

非时间信息加工与时间加工的关系是复杂的, 存在双向干扰或单向干扰, 结果的不一致与任务所需的注意资源及工作记忆都有关。工作记忆的中央执行系统在时间加工中起主要作用, 同时进行的非时间任务对中央执行功能的需求越多, 两种任务之间的干扰程度越大。语言环和视空间模板对时间加工的影响与非时间信息的类型有关。工作记忆作为一个整体以工作记忆容量为指标, 计时成绩也表现出与工作记忆容量有关的年龄、智力等方面的差异。时间加工和工作记忆在额叶、顶叶、基底神经节等皮质存在共同的神经机制。未来应该丰富工作记忆的研究内容, 结合时间加工的分段性探讨工作记忆影响时间加工的具体进程及神经机制, 并力求在应用方面取得一定的成果。     

社会排斥对视觉工作记忆容量的影响

采用变化探测范式,考察社会排斥对非社会和社会性刺激视觉工作记忆容量的影响。发现社会排斥组的无意义图形视觉工作记忆容量显著小于社会接纳组,而对生物运动和面孔的记忆容量却显著大于社会接纳组。说明社会排斥对不同属性刺激的视觉工作记忆容量影响不同:社会排斥会损害与归属需要无关的非社会性刺激的记忆容量,而提高与归属需要有关的社会性刺激的记忆容量。     

The Effects of the Application on Processing of Information From the Employment Interview.1

Subjects observed and evaluated employment interviews after forming initial impressions of the applicants' paper credentials. Contrary to expectations, differential recognition of interview content was not found to mediate the effects of the application on perceptions of the interview. Instead, interviewers showed a biased interpretation of the interview performance. Applicants were perceived as doing a better job in answering the questions of the interviewer, displaying more sales-consistent traits, and making more favorable statements the more favorable their paper credentials. Note taking led to more accurate recognition of information from the interview but did not attenuate the biasing effects of the application.     

The Influence of Videoconference Technology and Interview Structure on the Recruiting Function of the Employment Interview: A Field Experiment

This field experiment examined whether interview medium and interview structure affects the attractiveness of organizations, interviewer friendliness and performance. Attractiveness ratings of 25 organizations were provided by 92 real job applicants, assigned to either a face–to–face (FTF) or a videoconference (VC) interview. An interview medium X structure interaction showed FTF applicants were attracted most to organizations who conducted their interviews with less structure, while VC applicants were more attracted to organizations using structured interviews. Interview structure had no effect on applicants’ perception of the interviewer’s performance; however, interviewers’ performance was rated higher for FTF than VC interviews. Applicants were more satisfied with their FTF performance in less structured interviews and more satisfied with their VC performance in highly structured interviews.     

Black-White Differences in Nonverbal Behavior in an Interview Setting

The majority of systematic research on nonverbal behavior has used white college students as subjects. The present investigation examined both white and black subjects'nonverbal behavior and also independently varied the race of the person with whom the subject interacted. The experimental setting was an actual employment interview. Twenty black and 20 white female undergraduates were individually interviewed by either a black or white male interviewer. White subjects tended to maintain more visual interaction with interviewers of both races than did black subjects. Moreover, black interviewers were visually interacted with less, and given shorter glances. Racial, in contrast to nonracial, questions elicited longer glances; and subjects hesitated longer before answering them.     

Protecting and Enhancing Eyewitness Memory: The Impact of an Initial Recall Attempt on Performance in an Investigative Interview

Evidence‐gathering begins at the scene of an incident. Available witnesses may be asked to provide an account of what happened, either in response to an open request for information or, in some regions, by completing a Self‐Administered Interview (SAI©). In both cases, an investigative interview may be conducted at some later date. This study sought to determine the impact of an initial retrieval attempt on a subsequent interview. After exposure to a mock crime, participants completed an SAI© or a free recall (FR), or did not engage in an initial retrieval (Control). One week later, participants were interviewed with a Cognitive Interview. SAI© participants reported more correct information and maintained higher accuracy than FR and Control participants. Consistency analyses revealed that the SAI© was effective because it preserved more of the originally recalled items (Time 1) than did an initial FR, and not because it yielded new recollections at Time 2. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Reduction of Adverse Impact in an Employment Setting Using a Short-Term Memory Test

Research suggests that less adverse impact should result from the use of employment tests assessing memory abilities than is obtained from tests assessing cognitive abilities. To test the application of this principle, a Short-Term Memory test and a Reading Comprehension test were administered as part of a selection battery for entry level police. Subjects were 1423 police officer applicants for a Midwestern city in the U.S. The results for the overall sample showed a smaller standardized difference between the scores of Blacks and Whites on the Short-Term Memory test than on the Reading Comprehension test, a difference which was further reduced when a subsample of Blacks and Whites was created which had been matched on gender, years of education and age.     

Dionysian Spirit as “The Social Self”: Alfred Schutz’s Insightful (Mis)use of Nietzsche

ABSTRACT

Recent publications on Alfred Schutz suggest the importance of his musical thought for understanding his general viewpoint on intersubjectivity. Developing this proposition further, my article focuses on one aspect of Schutz’s writings on music: his attempts to amalgamate the aesthetic oppositions of the Dionysian/Apollonian by Friedrich Nietzsche and inner duration/spatialized time by Henri Bergson. Despite the seeming distortion of the initial meaning of the Dionysian impulse, I suggest that Schutz’s employment remains faithful to the aesthetic and cognitive theory of early Nietzsche. To substantiate this, I draw a link between Nietzsche’s early theory of aesthetic cognition and the neurophysiology of the mid-nineteenth century. Furthermore, the way Schutz applied the Dionysian/Apollonian opposition to the problem of musical communication made his musical thought prefigure some neuro-scientifically inspired discussions of the present-day, like the one on joint attention. Schutz tackled the key paradox: why the experience of music can be shared but not directly communicated.     

The Employment Interview Workshop: A Focus on Communication Skills

The employment interview is essentially a communication situation in which skill in communication is the important determinant of success. In a workshop that focuses attention on those critical interview communication skills that often distinguish the successful applicant, the authors discuss what makes a competent communicator and describe possible workshop components and their integration into successful training workshops.     

The Influence of Music on Memory

Allan Paivio's dual-coding hypothesis of retention predicts that stimuli high in imagery value facilitate imaginal processing, while high meaningfulness stimuli facilitate verbal processing. When verbal and imaginal instructional sets have been used to test the predicted interactions, as mentioned above, the findings have almost always been negative, indicating a lack of support for a dual-process theory of coding in retention.

In the present study it was hypothesized that instructional sets offer inadequate tests of dual or multiple-process theories because the proactive history of the verbal and imaginal semantic properties of the word lists determine coding in retention. That hypothesis was tested in two studies, one with children and one with adults. Verbal and imaginal attributes were varied in instructional sets and in word lists. As hypothesized, the interaction predicted by a dual-process theory of coding occurred in both studies (p < .0001). The interaction involved verbal and imaginal word attributes, but not the instructional sets.

The findings are relevant to the testing of predictions from dual-process theories of retention and to reinterpretation of the results of earlier findings. In this study and in many related ones reviewed in the introduction, the “elusive” interaction predicted by a dual-process theory regularly does occur, and it seems to be determined by attributes of word lists.     

The Role of Applicant Nonverbal Communication in the Employment Interview

This research examined the effects that the nonverbal behavior of job applicants had on subsequent hiring evaluations. Interviewees (n = 32) were instructed to use one of four styles of nonverbal behavior during the recording of short job interviews with a standard content. The videotaped interviews were watched by behavior raters (n = 22), who assessed nonverbal-cue usage, and by judges (n = 50), who evaluated the applicants as prospective employees. The applicants were also rated by judges (n = 30) for physical attractiveness. Results supported the hypothesis that nonverbal behavior in the job interview operates as subtle reinforcement. Implications for job-counseling programs are discussed.     

The Validity of the Employment Interview: A Meta-Analysis

The interview is the most widely used personnel selection method, but has revealed low reliability and validity compared with other selection methods (Mayfield 1964; Ulrich and Trumbo 1965; Schmitt 1976; Arvey 1979). Thirty-one studies on the validity of the interview were meta-analyzed. The result was an average validity coefficient of .27. The estimated true validity of the interview was calculated to be .38. These values indicated that the interview has moderate validity as a personnel selection device. Six characteristics of the interview were also examined in relation to the validity of the interview: structure of the interview; number of interviewers; length of the interview; gender of the applicant pool; blue-collar/white-collar jobs; and use of college students versus job applicants. The six study characteristics accounted for 30.9% of the variance in the validity of the interview. Structure of the interview appeared to be the only characteristic that moderated the validity of the interview. The relationship of this study to other meta-analyses of the employment interview is discussed.     

攻击行为的社会信息加工模式研究述评

二十世纪五十、六十年代,实验心理学和认知科学对人类认知过程的研究取得巨大进展,以认知过程为基础解释人类行为的产生已成为心理学研究的重要方向。攻击行为这一人类最古老的侵犯行为也受到这一研究趋势的影响,其中尤以社会信息加工理论的研究最为突出,它提出了攻击行为的社会信息加工模式。本文试对该模式的研究状况作一简介,以期引起国内同行对此领域的关注。     

Candidate Personality as an Influence on Selection Interview Assessments

Les interviewers décrivent couramment leur travail comme une tâche ďévaluation de la personnalité. Pourtant, on recense peu de recherches sur la façon dont la personnalité des candidats influence les jugements de ľinterviewer. Dans cette étude, des demandeurs de formation ont rempli la self-monitoring scale de Snyder, ľE.P.I. et une mesure de ľanxiété comportementale; ces données ont été corrélées avec les appréciations des interviewers. Conformé-ment aux hypothèses, on a trouvé que les extravertis étaient jugés plus positivement. Le névrotisme, bien que corrélé avec plusieurs appréciations ďinterviewers, ne semblait pas liéà la décision finale. Contrairement aux prédictions, les scores ďautonomie n'étaient pas corrélés avec les appréciations des interviewers.
Interviewers frequently see their task as being one of personality assessment, yet there is little research on how candidate personality influences interviewer assessments. In this study, applicants for places on a course completed Snyder's self-monitoring scale, the E.P.I, and a measure of state anxiety, and their scores were correlated with interviewers' ratings. As had been hypothesised, there was some indication that extraverts were judged to be more acceptable. Neuroti-cism, despite being correlated with several interviewer ratings, did not seem to be related to final acceptance decision. Contrary to prediction, self-monitoring scores did not correlate with the interviewers' assessments.