The mediation of mothers' self-fulfilling effects on their children's alcohol use: self-verification, informational conformity, and modeling processes

This research examined whether self-fulfilling prophecy effects are mediated by self-verification, informational conformity, and modeling processes. The authors examined these mediational processes across multiple time frames with longitudinal data obtained from two samples of mother-child dyads (N-sub-1 = 486; N-sub-2 = 287), with children's alcohol use as the outcome variable. The results provided consistent support for the mediational process of self-verification. In both samples and across several years of adolescence, there was a significant indirect effect of mothers' beliefs on children's alcohol use through children's self-assessed likelihood of drinking alcohol in the future. Comparatively less support was found for informational conformity and modeling processes as mediators of mothers' self-fulfilling effects. The potential for self-fulfilling prophecies to produce long-lasting changes in targets' behavior via self-verification processes are discussed.     

Connecting the horizontal dimension of social comparison with self-worth and self-confidence

Multilevel modeling of undergraduates (N = 229) event-contingent records of naturalistic social comparison experiences revealed distinct correlates of the horizontal (similar-different) dimension and vertical (better-worse) dimension of comparisons. Complementing past studies showing associations between the horizontal dimension and communal dispositions and experiences, the current study showed that the horizontal dimension also is associated with agentic dispositions and experiences such as self-worth and self-confidence. For example, participants perceived more similarity when comparing with targets' desirable attributes than with targets' undesirable attributes and perceiving similarities with desirable target attributes (and dissimilarities with undesirable target attributes) enhanced their self-confidence. Participants higher in self-worth (high in self-esteem and low in depression) were more discriminating in their experiences of similarity and connection; specifically, they reported more similarity and connection when targets' attributes were desirable but less connection the more targets' attributes were inferior to their own.     

You Want to Know the Truth? Then Don't Mimic!

ABSTRACT— Mimicry facilitates the ability to understand what other people are feeling. The present research investigated whether this is also true when the expressions that are being mimicked do not reflect the other person's true emotions. In interactions, targets either lied or told the truth, while observers mimicked or did not mimic the targets' facial and behavioral movements. Detection of deception was measured directly by observers' judgments of the extent to which they thought the targets were telling the truth and indirectly by observers' assessment of targets' emotions. The results demonstrated that nonmimickers were more accurate than mimickers in their estimations of targets' truthfulness and of targets' experienced emotions. The results contradict the view that mimicry facilitates the understanding of people's felt emotions. In the case of deceptive messages, mimicry hinders this emotional understanding.     

It takes two: the interpersonal nature of empathic accuracy

Although current theories suggest that affective empathy (perceivers' experience of social targets' emotions) should contribute to empathic accuracy (perceivers' ability to accurately assess targets' emotions), extant research has failed to consistently demonstrate a correspondence between them. We reasoned that prior null findings may be attributable to a failure to account for the fundamentally interpersonal nature of empathy, and tested the prediction that empathic accuracy may depend on both targets' tendency to express emotion and perceivers' tendency to empathically share that emotion. Using a continuous affect-rating paradigm, we found that perceivers' trait affective empathy was unrelated to empathic accuracy unless targets' trait expressivity was taken into account: Perceivers' trait affective empathy predicted accuracy only for expressive targets. These data suggest that perceivers' self-reported affective empathy can indeed predict their empathic accuracy, but only when targets' expressivity allows their thoughts and feelings to be read.     

The role of intent and harm in judgments of prejudice and discrimination

Four experiments examined how an actor's intent and the harm experienced by a target influence judgments of prejudice and discrimination. The presence of intent increased the likelihood that participants judged an actor as prejudiced and the actor's behavior as discriminatory. When intent was uncertain, harm influenced judgments of the behavior, which in turn influenced judgments of the actor, and participants were more cautious in their judgments about an actor than an actor's behavior. Harm also played a stronger role in targets' than observers' judgments. Understanding the role of intent and harm on perceptions of prejudice can help explain variations in targets' versus observers', and possibly targets' versus actors', judgments of discrimination and prejudice.     

Leaders' anticipated and targets' self-reported resistance to task assignments: a replication

This is a follow up study of Barbuto's 2000 work in which leaders' ratings and targets' self-reported resistance to task assignments are compared. Scores on the Anticipated Resistance Indicator among 650 leader-member dyads measure resistance based on Barbuto's 1997 five concentric zones of Preference, Indifference, Legitimate, Influence, and Noninfluence, examined from both leaders' and targets' perspectives. Responses indicated that leaders tend to underestimate followers' willingness to perform assigned tasks. In addition, leaders tend to overestimate targets' unwillingness to perform undesirable, less enjoyable tasks.     

连绵词语音类似的启动效应

研究采用快速启动范型考察了视觉连绵词加工中语音的自动激活.两个实验发现,无论是首字同音还是尾字同音启动都可以促进对连绵词的命名反应,且基本不受目标词熟悉性(词频高低)及真假词的影响.可以推断,至少在连绵词--这种单词素词的词汇通达中存在语音的自动激活,这种语音的激活可以说是前词的装配与词水平上的改变.     

Facial Features as Personality Cues

Two studies examined the effects of the appearance of specific facial features on attributions of personality. In Study 1, photographs of men and women were computer-manipulated to have larger than average or smaller than average eye size, and wider than average or narrower than average eye spacing. In Study 2, eye size and mouth fullness were similarly altered. Although it was found that neither eye spacing nor mouth fullness had any effect on perceptions of the targets' personality or physical characteristics, eye size had strong effects in both studies. Analyses of covariance revealed that the personality trait ratings that varied with eye size were mediated primarily by perceived differences in the targets' masculinity-femininity and babyfacedness, and to a lesser extent by attractiveness.     

内插材料加工对内隐记忆的影响:干扰?还是促进?

针对Manens和WolterS(2002)关于内插材料加工对内隐记忆的影响的研究设计中没有考虑到内插材料与目标词语义特征匹配这一条件,通过实验证实了,与目标词有不同特征匹配的内插材料加工对目标词线索提取的内隐记忆有着不同影响：可能没有影响,可能干扰也可能促进。在不同学习加工类型和不同测验类型条件下,内插材料对内隐记忆的影响将可能表现出更加复杂的情况。     

Message in a ballad: the role of music preferences in interpersonal perception

How is information about people conveyed through their preferences for certain kinds of music? Here we show that individuals use their music preferences to communicate information about their personalities to observers, and that observers can use such information to form impressions of others. Study 1 revealed that music was the most common topic in conversations among strangers given the task of getting acquainted. Why was talk about music so prevalent? Study 2 showed that (a) observers were able to form consensual and accurate impressions on the basis of targets' music preferences, (b) music preferences were related to targets' personalities, (c) the specific cues that observers used tended to be the ones that were valid, and (d) music preferences reveal information that is different from that obtained in other zero-acquaintance contexts. Discussion focuses on the mechanisms that may underlie the links between personality and music preferences.     

Caution: fragile! Regulating the interpersonal security of chronically insecure partners

The authors present and test a model of interpersonal insecurity compensation. According to this model, perceivers detect targets' chronic insecurities about interpersonal acceptance, become vigilant about upsetting targets, and respond with affective exaggeration, which involves cautiously inflating positive thoughts and feelings about targets and concealing negative sentiments. Results of 3 studies support this model across a variety of relationship types. Perceivers who detected targets' chronic insecurities concealed negative sentiments when they believed their sentiments would be observed by targets (Study 1), converged with other perceivers in their self-reported affective exaggeration to insecure targets (Study 2), and reported vigilance about upsetting targets, which predicted perceivers' enhanced cognitive processing of targets' daily insecurity and intensified their tendencies to exaggerate affections in response to that insecurity (Study 3). Perceivers' affective exaggeration appeared to enhance chronically insecure targets' perceptions of being valued by perceivers, but it also predicted perceivers' reduced relationship satisfaction (Studies 2 and 3). Results underscore the active, but perhaps dissatisfying, regulation of relationships with chronically insecure relationship partners.     

Effects of Socioeconomic Status (SES) Information on Cognitive Ability Inferences: When Low-SES Students Make Use of a Self-Threatening Stereotype

Two studies tested whether students' socioeconomic status (SES) and academic achievement level moderate their use of the SES stereotype (i.e., the belief that the low-SES individuals are intellectually inferior to their high-SES counterparts). In Study 1, low versus high achievers with a low versus a high SES were given social class information (derived from a pilot study) about several targets and were then asked to infer these targets' memory ability. In Study 2, participants were given memory performance information about several targets and were then asked to infer these targets' possessions and cultural activities (i.e., SES indicators). In both studies, only the low-SES students generated stereotype-consistent inferences.     

Ambiguity in social categorization: The role of prejudice and facial affect in race categorization

Abstract— Two studies tested the hypothesis that perceivers' prejudice and targets' facial expressions bias race categorization in stereotypic directions. Specifically, we hypothesized that racial prejudice would be more strongly associated with a tendency to categorize hostile (but not happy) racially ambiguous faces as African American. We obtained support for this hypothesis using both a speeded dichotomous categorization task (Studies 1 and 2) and a rating-scale task (Study 2). Implicit prejudice (but not explicit prejudice) was related to increased sensitivity to the targets' facial expressions, regardless of whether prejudice was measured after (Study 1) or before (Study 2) the race categorizations were made.     

Perspectives on personality: the relative accuracy of self versus others for the prediction of emotion and behavior

This study compares the relative accuracy of targets' self-reports and other-reports of personality in predicting two criteria: (a) emotional experience in daily life and (b) behavior in the laboratory. Ratings of the targets' extraversion and neuroticism were obtained from two knowledgeable informants and the targets themselves. Target participants wore an electronic signaling device ("beeper") for eight days and rated positive and negative emotions at four randomly selected times each day. The participants also interacted with an opposite-sex stranger in a laboratory context and their behavior was coded from videotapes. Targets' self-reports of personality were consistently more accurate than other-reports in predicting daily emotional experience. Self-reports also outperformed other-reports in predicting extraversion-related laboratory behaviors, but not neuroticism-related behaviors. The relative accuracy of self- and other-reports of personality would seem to depend on the criterion employed; self-reports are clearly better for the prediction of emotional experience, while for behavior the picture is mixed.     

Distinguishing stereotype threat from priming effects: on the role of the social self and threat-based concerns

It has been argued that priming negative stereotypic traits is sufficient to cause stereotype threat. The present research challenges this assumption by highlighting the role of the social self and targets' concerns about confirming a negative group-based stereotype. Specifically, in 3 experiments the authors demonstrate that stereotype threat adversely affects the test performance and threat-based concerns of targets (but not nontargets) because only targets' social self is linked to the negative group stereotype. Trait priming, however, harms the test performance of both targets and nontargets but has no effect on their threat-based concerns because trait priming does not require such a link between the social self and the group stereotype. Moreover, the authors show that merely increasing the accessibility of the social self in nonthreatening situations leads to the underperformance of targets but has no meaningful effect on nontargets' test performance.     

I'm hot, so i'd say you're not: the influence of objective physical attractiveness on mate selection

Four studies investigated the importance of objective and subjective attributes to mate selection. This research tested whether perceivers' objective physical attractiveness influenced how they evaluated the physical attractiveness of others and, if considered, may provide a parsimonious account for matching in mate selection. Study 1 (N = 102) demonstrated that ratings of targets' attractiveness decreased as perceivers' objective physical attractiveness increased. Studies 2 (N = 89) and 3 (N = 68) revealed that as perceivers' objective physical attractiveness increased, reductions in expected satisfaction and rejection were mediated by perceivers' reduced assessments of targets' attractiveness. Study 4 (N = 114) produced patterns of matching by finding that attractive perceivers expected to date more attractive targets while unattractive perceivers expected to date less attractive targets. This research emphasizes the importance of objective physical attractiveness to target evaluations and describes how matching results from the combined influence of objective and subjective attributes.     

Face Recognition in Poor-Quality Video; Evidence From Security Surveillance

Security surveillance systems often produce poor-quality video, and this may be problematic in gathering forensic evidence. We examined the ability of subjects to identify target people captured by a commercially available video security device. In Experiment 1, subjects personally familiar with the targets performed very well at identifying them, but subjects unfamiliar with the targets performed very poorly. Police officers with experience in forensic identification performed as poorly as other subjects unfamiliar with the targets. In Experiment 2, we asked how familiar subjects can perform so well. Using the same video device, we edited clips to obscure the head, body, or gait of the targets. Obscuring body or gait produced a small decrement in recognition performance. Obscuring the targets' heads had a dramatic effect on subjects' ability to recognize the targets. These results imply that subjects recognized the targets' faces, even in these poor-quality images.     

Intimates as agents of social support: sources of consolation or despair?

We proposed that people's intimates may insulate them against self-discrepant feedback. Individuals who possessed low or high self-esteem (targets) reported to the laboratory accompanied by persons with whom they were involved in intimate relationships (intimates). Some intimates perceived targets in a manner that was congruent with targets' self-conceptions; others perceived targets in a manner that was incongruent with targets' self-conceptions. Targets received bogus feedback that was discrepant with their self-esteem and interacted with either their intimate or a stranger. Targets then completed a measure of self-esteem. As expected, targets changed their self-ratings in the direction of the discrepant feedback when they interacted with either an incongruent intimate or a stranger but not when they interacted with a congruent intimate. Moreover, congruent intimates were just as effective in insulating low self-esteem targets against positive feedback as they were in insulating high self-esteem individuals against negative feedback. Finally, the more targets discussed the feedback, the less self-rating change they experienced. Implications for social support processes and attempts to cope with traumatic events are discussed.     

Reading between the minds: the use of stereotypes in empathic accuracy

An ideal empathizer may attend to another person's behavior in order to understand that person, but it is also possible that accurately understanding other people involves top-down strategies. We hypothesized that perceivers draw on stereotypes to infer other people's thoughts and that stereotype use increases perceivers' accuracy. In this study, perceivers (N = 161) inferred the thoughts of multiple targets. Inferences consistent with stereotypes for the targets' group (new mothers) more accurately captured targets' thoughts, particularly when actual thought content was also stereotypic. We also decomposed variance in empathic accuracy into thought, target, and perceiver variance. Although past research has frequently focused on variance between perceivers or targets (which assumes individual differences in the ability to understand other people or be understood, respectively), the current study showed that the most substantial variance was found within targets because of differences among thoughts.