Moral value transfer from regulatory fit: what feels right is right and what feels wrong is wrong

People experience regulatory fit (E. T. Higgins, 2000) when the strategic manner of their goal pursuit suits their regulatory orientation, and this regulatory fit feels right. Fit violation feels wrong. Four studies tested the proposal that experiences of fit can transfer to moral evaluations. The authors examined transfer of feeling wrong from fit violation by having participants in a promotion or prevention focus recall transgressions of commission or omission (Studies 1 and 2). Both studies found that when the type of transgression was a fit violation, participants expressed more guilt. Studies 3 and 4 examined transfer of feeling right from regulatory fit. Participants evaluated conflict resolutions (Study 3) and public policies (Study 4) as more right when the means pursued had fit.     

What''s right and what''s wrong with transference theories

This paper examines the Transference Theory of causation, developed originally by Aronson (1971) and Fair (1979). Three difficulties for that theory are presented: firstly, problems associated with the direction of transference and causal asymmetry; secondly, the case of persistence as causation, for example where a body's own inertia is the cause of its motion; and thirdly the problematic notion of identity through time of physical quantities such as energy or momentum. Finally, the theory is compared with the Conserved Quantity Theory (Dowe 1992c), and it is shown that that account embodies the modifications that the transference theory needs to adopt.     

When groups are wrong and deviants are right

How do group members respond when their group wrongfully punishes a group member? In two experiments, participants were presented with an ingroup member who argued for group change on moral (Experiment 1, N = 73) or scientific grounds (Experiment 2, N = 94). Despite being right, the member was treated as deviant by the group. We manipulated whether the group retained its former opinion or adopted the deviant's position, and whether the deviant's punishment was ongoing or whether the deviant was reinstated. We tested opposing predictions about how these group actions would affect group members' negativity towards the deviant. Both studies showed that negativity towards the deviant was highest when the group opinion was unchanged and the deviant was not reinstated. Further, opinion change or reintegration defused negativity towards the deviant. Implications of groups rejecting or embracing change, and their effects on the evaluation of wrongfully accused deviants are discussed. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Hawking and the METI Hawks: right for the wrong reasons

Stephen Hawking is right to oppose messaging other worlds, not because of the level of risk this would involve, but because the risks such a message would impose must be explicitly accepted by all of humanity.     

The eyes are right when the mouth is wrong

When describing visual scenes, speakers typically gaze at objects while preparing their names. In a study of the relation between eye movements and speech, a corpus of self-corrected speech errors was analyzed. If errors result from rushed word preparation, insufficient visual information, or failure to check prepared names against objects, speakers should spend less time gazing at referents before uttering errors than before uttering correct names. Counter to predictions, gazes to referents before errors (e.g., gazes to an axe before saying "ham-" [hammer]) highly resembled gazes to referents before correct names (e.g., gazes to an axe before saying "axe"). However, speakers gazed at referents for more time after initiating erroneous compared with correct names, apparently while they prepared corrections. Assuming that gaze nonetheless reflects word preparation, errors were not associated with insufficient preparation. Nor were errors systematically associated with decreased inspection of objects. Like gesture, gaze may accurately reflect a speaker's intentions even when the accompanying speech does not.     

Why Leibniz thinks Descartes was wrong and the Scholastics were right

The bundle theory is a theory about the internal constitution of individuals. It asserts that individuals are entirely composed of universals. Typically, bundle theorists augment their theory with a constitutional approach to individuation entailing the thesis ‘identity of constituents is a sufficient ground for numerical identity’ (CIT). But then the bundle theory runs afoul of Black’s duplication case—a world containing two indiscernible spheres. Here I propose and defend a new version of the bundle theory that denies ‘CIT’, and which instead conjoins it with a structural diversity thesis, according to which being separated by distance is a sufficient ground for numerical diversity. This version accommodates Black’s world as well as the three-spheres world—a world containing three indiscernible spheres, arranged as the vertices of an equilateral triangle. In this paper, I also criticize Rodriguez-Pereyra’s alternative attempt to defend the bundle theory against Black’s case and the case of the three-spheres world.     

The artful dodger: answering the wrong question the right way

What happens when speakers try to "dodge" a question they would rather not answer by answering a different question? In 4 studies, we show that listeners can fail to detect dodges when speakers answer similar-but objectively incorrect-questions (the "artful dodge"), a detection failure that goes hand-in-hand with a failure to rate dodgers more negatively. We propose that dodges go undetected because listeners' attention is not usually directed toward a goal of dodge detection (i.e., Is this person answering the question?) but rather toward a goal of social evaluation (i.e., Do I like this person?). Listeners were not blind to all dodge attempts, however. Dodge detection increased when listeners' attention was diverted from social goals toward determining the relevance of the speaker's answers (Study 1), when speakers answered a question egregiously dissimilar to the one asked (Study 2), and when listeners' attention was directed to the question asked by keeping it visible during speakers' answers (Study 4). We also examined the interpersonal consequences of dodge attempts: When listeners were guided to detect dodges, they rated speakers more negatively (Study 2), and listeners rated speakers who answered a similar question in a fluent manner more positively than speakers who answered the actual question but disfluently (Study 3). These results add to the literatures on both Gricean conversational norms and goal-directed attention. We discuss the practical implications of our findings in the contexts of interpersonal communication and public debates.     

Receiving right/wrong feedback: Consequences for learning

Prior work suggests that receiving feedback that one's response was correct or incorrect (right/wrong feedback) does not help learners, as compared to not receiving any feedback at all (Pashler, Cepeda, Wixted, & Rohrer, 2005). In three experiments we examined the generality of this conclusion. Right/wrong feedback did not aid error correction, regardless of whether participants learned facts embedded in prose (Experiment 1) or translations of foreign vocabulary (Experiment 2). While right/wrong feedback did not improve the overall retention of correct answers (Experiments 1 and 2), it facilitated retention of low-confidence correct answers (Experiment 3). Reviewing the original materials was very useful to learners, but this benefit was similar after receiving either right/wrong feedback or no feedback (Experiments 1 and 2). Overall, right/wrong feedback conveys some information to the learner, but is not nearly as useful as being told the correct answer or having the chance to review the to-be-learned materials.     

Children do not follow the rule "ignorance means getting it wrong"

Two experiments tested whether 4- and 5-year-olds follow the rule “ignorance means you get it wrong.” Following this rule should lead children to infer that a character who is ignorant about some situation will also have a false belief about it. This rule should sometimes lead children into error because ignorance does not imply false belief. In Experiment 1, children and adults were told about a girl who is looking for her dog but does not know which of two boxes it is under. Most children predicted that the girl would look in the box with the dog and not in the empty box; adults chose both boxes equally. Experiment 2 used a similar story but varied whether the girl wants to approach or avoid her dog. Again, most children predicted that the girl would succeed. These findings suggest that children do not follow the rule “ignorance means you get it wrong.”