Toward a further understanding of the intuitive personologist: Some preliminary evidence for the dialectical quality of subjective personality impressions

Despite significant advances over the past three decades in our understanding of the implicit personality theorist, some important questions remain, particularly as regards the nature of the underlying reasoning process by which subjectively meaningful personality impressions are formulated and expressed. The present article seeks to address this issue, with particular attention being given to the distinction between demonstrative and dialectical reasoning. Preliminary empirical evidence is offered to suggest that, at least under certain conditions, lay persons formulate and express subjective personality impressions on the basis of a reasoning process that is essentially dialectical in nature. Some major implications of this point of view for the study of the intuitive personologist are discussed. The limitations of the evidence presented, and the need for further research are also noted.     

Cognitive-experiential self-theory and subjective probability: further evidence for two conceptual systems.

Three experiments (N = 1,331) demonstrated that research findings on suspiciousness about coincidences (Miller, Turnbull, & McFarland, 1989) can be accounted for in terms of subjective probability, as predicted by cognitive-experiential self-theory (CEST) but in contrast with the norm theory (NT) account offered by Miller et al. (1989). Ss participated in a hypothetical (Experiments 1 and 2) or real (Experiment 3) lottery game in which they chose between 2 bowls offering equivalent probabilities of winning or losing but differing with respect to absolute numbers (e.g., 1 in 10 vs. 10 in 100). Responses across 4 conditions (2 probability levels x 2 outcome types) and across the 3 experiments supported predictions derived from CEST but not those derived from NT. Results are discussed in terms of 2 conceptual systems, rational and experiential, that operate by different rules of inference.     

Forming subjective representations of subjective representations: evidence of a subjective status bias

In 3 studies and 2 pilot experiments, the author examined whether attending to the subjective status of mental representations would affect the ways humans view representational contents. The author found that simple drawing tasks were executed differently depending on whether or not the subject of the drawing was defined as a mental content (belief, imagination, perception). The results challenged particular lay epistemological concepts. They were partly accounted for by Gricean conversational rules (H. P. Grice, 1975), but the author postulated a subjective status bias to fully explain them. The discussion and recommendations for research center on the nature of this bias and relate it either to a tendency to conceive subjective representations as vague shadows of reality, or to an increased impact of the law of pregnance.     

Some effort for some: further evidence that scalar implicatures are effortful

Under the assumption of the principle of cooperation (Grice, 1989), a statement such as "some eels are fish" is thought to be false since it contains less information than is considered sufficient. However, the statement is logically sound since the meaning of "some" is compatible with "all". Currently, the primary interpretation of such underinformative statements remains subject to debate. According to Levinson (2000), the pragmatic "some but not all" interpretation is the default interpretation, while others (e.g., Sperber & Wilson, 1995) argue that this pragmatic interpretation only comes to the fore when relevant within the context and is thus considered secondary to the logical "some and perhaps all" interpretation. In this study, three factors that may influence the answer pattern are studied: task load, working memory capacity, and repetition of the statements. In Experiment 1, we used a secondary task paradigm to manipulate the cognitive load under which a number of underinformative statements had to be judged. We observed that for participants with a rather limited working memory span it is harder to reach a pragmatic interpretation under cognitive load. In Experiment 2, we manipulated the repetition of the statements. We observed that with a higher number of filler statements, participants produced fewer consistent answer patterns. This study provides further evidence against the automaticity of the pragmatic interpretation: It shows that the pragmatic interpretation requires more cognitive effort than the logical interpretation and that increasing the number of filler statements inhibits the development of a response strategy.     

Toward a causal realist account of causal understanding

Within a limited domain, humans can perceive causal relations directly. The term causal realism is used to denote this psychological hypothesis. The domain of causal realism is in actions upon objects and haptic perception of the effects of those actions: When we act upon an object we cannot be mistaken about the fact that we are acting upon it and perceive the causal relation directly through mechanoreceptors. Experiences of actions upon objects give rise to causal knowledge that can be used in the interpretation of perceptual input. Phenomenal causality, the occurrence of causal impressions in visual perception, is a product of the application of acquired causal knowledge in the automatic perceptual interpretation of appropriate stimuli. Causal realism could constitute the foundation on which all causal perception, judgment, inference, attribution, and knowledge develop.     

The influence of misattributions on reactions to inequity: Towards a further understanding of Inequity

An experiment was conducted to investigate the importance of inequity distress. In a 2 x 2 factorial design subjects were paid either in a high or low disadvantageous inequitable manner compared to a male confederate. One half of the subjects were led to believe that fictitious infrasonic sound would have arousing side effects, one half expected no side effects whatsoever. According to the hypotheses, (1) subjects in the misattribution condition restored equity less than subjects in the no side effects control group, (2) strongly inequitable treated subjects restored equity more than mildly inequitable treated ones, (3) the misattribution manipulation only had a significant effect on strongly inequitable treated subjects. Thus, the results show that distress is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the restoration of equity. Consequences of the results for future research are discussed.     

Toward an understanding of the obese person

Attitudes, feelings, and family backgrounds of seven very obese women were studied by means of a religious history questionnaire. Some comments are made about this research tool. Three very prominent characteristics of these women were feelings of helplessness and powerlessness, a craving for love, and strong guilt feelings. A possible psychogenic factor in morbid obestity was observed in the backgrounds of five women; pertinent information on the other two was lacking. This factor is a dual dynamic of harshness and indulgence. The onset of obesity seemed to occur when indulgence became the dominating influence over harshness.     

Interpersonal comparison of subjective probabilities: Toward translating linguistic probabilities

Interpersonal variability in understanding linguistic probabilities can adversely affect decision making. Using the fact that everyone judges canonical probability events similarly in a manner consistent with axiom systems that yield a probability measure, we developed and tested a method for comparing the meanings of probability phrases across individuals. An experiment demonstrated that despite extreme heterogeneity in participants' linguistic probability lexicons, interpersonal similarity in phrase meaning is well predicted by phrase rank order within the lexicons. Thus, equally ranked phrases have similar meanings, and individual differences in linguistic probabilities may simply be explained by the phrases people use at each rank.     

The Smart System 1: evidence for the intuitive nature of correct responding on the bat-and-ball problem

Influential work on reasoning and decision-making has popularised the idea that sound reasoning requires correction of fast, intuitive thought processes by slower and more demanding deliberation. We present seven studies that question this corrective view of human thinking. We focused on the very problem that has been widely featured as the paradigmatic illustration of the corrective view, the well-known bat-and-ball problem. A two-response paradigm in which people were required to give an initial response under time pressure and cognitive load allowed us to identify the presumed intuitive response that preceded the final response given after deliberation. Across our studies, we observe that correct final responses are often non-corrective in nature. Many reasoners who manage to answer the bat-and-ball problem correctly after deliberation already solved it correctly when they reasoned under conditions that minimised deliberation in the initial response phase. This suggests that sound bat-and-ball reasoners do not necessarily need to deliberate to correct their intuitions; their intuitions are often already correct. Pace the corrective view, findings suggest that in these cases, they deliberate to verify correct intuitive insights.     

Impact of responsibility for a misfortune on schadenfreude and sympathy: further evidence

The authors tested the hypothesis that the more individuals are responsible for their own misfortune, the more schadenfreude (i.e., pleasure derived from another's misfortune) and less sympathy the misfortune evokes in others. The results support the hypothesis, thereby providing further evidence for the role responsibility plays in emotional reactions to the misfortunes of others.     

Some Reflections on the Psychoanalytic Theory of Motivation: Toward a Theory of Entelechy

The psychoanalytic theory of motivation needs to be recast in a vitalistic holistic (holographic) language that liberates it from its constraints to the drives and expresses that it constitutes an indivisible function of being- and continuing to being-alive. In the development of his thesis the author retraces the history of Freud's acquaintance with the idea and points out that Freud required a theory of unconscious motivation or intentionality to account for the creation of unconscious phantasies–and ultimately for psychic determinism. Psychic determinism became the template for the concept of psychic responsibility.

The author attempts to place the concept of motivation into the more all-inclusive and more vitalistic notion of entelechy so as to express its more holographic and numinous nature. A discussion of the relationship between motivation and its associated entities is made. These include volition, will, intentionality, agency, and autochthony. It is pointed out that motivation can be considered to be holographic in so far as one can consider the whole individual to be motivated, but along side this consideration one sees motivation within each portion of the psychic apparatus and also with each internal object. A case history is presented which demonstrates abulia (absence of motivation).     

Toward an understanding of the determinants of anger

Research bearing on several popular conceptions of the major determinants of anger arousal indicates that the particular appraisals often identified as causes of anger frequently only serve to affect the intensity of the anger that is generated. Research into effects of physical pain or other physically unpleasant conditions or involving social stresses suggests that decidedly aversive conditions are a major spur to anger. Experiments are also reviewed showing that anger-related muscular movements can also lead to anger-related feelings, memories, cognitions, and autonomic responses. Alternative explanations for the findings are discussed. The authors urge emotion theorists to widen their methodology and analyses so that they give careful, detailed attention to the many different factors that can influence anger.     

Some Controversies in Suicidology: Toward a Mentalistic Discipline

The main assertion in this paper is that psychache (mental pain) has a life of its own and is separate from the study of the brain, the organ that cradles the processes of the mind. No amount of biologicizing or medicalizing suicide can gainsay the fact that the human impulse of self-destruction is a decision of mind to put an end to the flow of its own unbearable conscious contents, to stop the psychache. The explanations for suicidal actions lie in the Oxford English Dictionary, not in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Unless suicidology asserts and maintains the position that suicide is essentially psychachical, that the main focus of suicidal action is in the mind (as opposed to the mind's somatic abode, the brain), it will lose its identity and its usefulness. This is not just a quarrel over professional territory, money, or power; it is a philosophic war, a fight for the very soul of suicidology–and of the mind.     

Toward a theory of individual differences and leadership: understanding the motivation to lead.

A broad, integrative theoretical framework for understanding the relationship between individual differences and various leader behaviors is presented; it proposes a new individual-differences construct called the motivation to lead (MTL). A large-scale study using 3 samples in different occupational and cultural contexts shows 3 factors underlying MTL, namely, affective-identity, noncalculative, and social-normative MTL. A parsimonious model of antecedents to MTL is developed through hierarchical regression modeling and is cross-validated using confirmatory latent variable modeling. MTL is shown to provide incremental validity over other predictors such as general cognitive ability, values, personality, and attitudes in the prediction of 2 behavioral measures of leadership potential. Findings are discussed with reference to the theoretical framework proposed for understanding individual differences in leader behavior.