风险认知中的信任机制：对称或不对称？

上世纪90年代研究者开始研究信任的“不对称性原则”,即失去信任比得到信任容易。十余年来,不同研究者从信息类型、灾害类型以及先前态度等方面对信任的“不对称性原则”展开了继续探索,认为信任的“不对称性原则”是有条件的。另有一部分研究者直接从信任的结构对“不对称性原则”进行了反驳,认为信任应该包括社会信任和信心,社会信任基于共享的价值观,是对称的;信心基于客观的行为标准,是不对称的。信任研究应该针对社会信任这一维度。之所以会出现“不对称”或“对称”的矛盾,主要是由于信任结构的不一致。前者将信任看成是一维的,而后者认为信任是二维的。这就推动了信任的理论结构探索和启发式研究。通过对信任机制的研究,风险管理者和专家能够在实际的风险管理中制定相应的提高公众信任的措施,推动科技发展,提高生活质量,提升风险管理。     

How Information Availability Interacts with Visual Attention during Judgment and Decision Tasks

Decisions in front of a supermarket shelf probably involve a mix of visually available information and associated memories—and interactions between those two. Several cognitive processes, such as decision making, search, and various judgments, are therefore likely to co‐occur, and each process will influence visual attention. We conducted two eye‐tracking experiments capturing parts of these features by having participants make either judgments or decisions concerning products that had been previously encoded. Half the time, participants made their choices with full information about the available products and half the time with crucial task‐relevant information removed. By comparing participants' use of visual attention during decisions and search‐based and memory‐based judgments, we can better understand how visual attention is differently employed between tasks and how it depends on the visual environment. We found that participants' visual attention during decisions is sensitive to evaluations already made during encoding and strongly characterized by preferential looking to the options later to be chosen. When the task environment is rich enough, participants engage in advanced integrative visual behavior and improve their decision quality. In contrast, visual attention during judgments made on the same products reflects a search‐like behavior when all information is available and a more focused type of visual behavior when information is removed. Our findings contribute not only to the literature on how visual attention is used during decision making but also to methodological questions concerning how to measure and identify task‐specific features of visual attention in ecologically valid ways. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Prior Attitudes,Salient Value Similarity,and Dimensionality: Toward an Integrative Model of Trust in Risk Regulation1

Although it is widely recognized that trust plays an important role in people's responses to various risks, there is still considerable conceptual disagreement about the different aspects of trust. There are at least 3 different approaches to trust: (a) dimensional, (b) salient value similarity, and (c) associationist. Three British datasets on genetically modified food were used to test the plausibility of a causal model that integrates these approaches. It appears that value similarity can be predicted by a combination of prior attitudes and perceived attitudes of the other, and that value similarity precedes other important trust judgments. The study suggests that various risk‐relevant judgments are expressions of a more general attitude toward genetically modified food, and raises questions about the usefulness of detailed modelling.     

It's not you,it's them: Social influences on trust propensity and trust dynamics

Scholars agree that trust primarily has two bases: trustworthiness—the extent to which a trustee is competent, honest, and has goodwill toward the trustor—and trust propensity—a stable trait reflecting the trustor's generalized belief that others can be trusted. Due to this trait characterization, the literature has largely reached a consensus that trust propensity is only an important base of trust in the earliest stage of a relationship—before information on trustworthiness has been gathered. Additionally, the trait conceptualization of trust propensity inhibits it from being modeled as an explanatory mechanism. Drawing on accessibility theory, a theory of trait activation, we argue that trust propensity has state‐like characteristics that are “activated” by the daily treatment an employee receives from coworkers. Our model highlights that the social context—predominantly ignored in prior trust research because of its lack of relevance to dyadic perceptions of trustworthiness—can have a substantial impact on dyadic trust. Across two multisource experience sampling methodology studies, we provide evidence that state trust propensity transmits the effects of citizenship and deviance received to trust in a focal coworker, whether that focal coworker is a source of that treatment or not. We also address how general levels of workplace unfairness—a between‐person construct—influence these dynamics. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these within‐person dynamics for fostering trust within organizations.     

The combined effect of ratee's bodyweight and past performance information on performance judgments

Few studies have examined how various biases operate in combination to influence performance judgments. Along these lines, the current study used experimental methods to test four competing models of the combined influence of ratee's bodyweight and past performance information on performance judgments. Results were consistent with an additive model, such that ratee's bodyweight and information about ratee's past performance combined independently to affect performance judgments. Consistent with a double disadvantage effect, the least favorable performance judgments were made for an overweight ratee with poor previous performance. Finally, mixed evidence was obtained for the interaction of ratee's bodyweight and perceptions of ratee's physical attractiveness, such that high‐perceived attractiveness buffered against the otherwise negative performance ratings associated with overweight status.     

Partisan Bias and Information Discounting in Economic Judgments

Research shows that partisanship biases people's views about the economy. Yet, there is little understanding of the factors, if any, that might mitigate the influence of partisanship on these judgments or the effect of partisanship on metacognitive judgments. This study uses an experimental design to show that partisanship continues to bias economic judgments even when subjects receive direct and neutral information about specific aspects of the economy. Moreover, it extends our understanding of partisan bias by showing it has a direct effect on people's metacognitive assessments of their own attitudes—particularly the degree of uncertainty people have in their own economic judgments. However, it appears that people are aware of the conflict between their partisan‐based judgment and economic information since we observe increases in economic uncertainty when information is counter to a subject's partisan predisposition. The results provide new insight into the extent of partisan bias and the difficulty of countering partisan‐based judgments.     

Incomplete Information, Inferences, and Individual Differences: The Case of Environmental Judgments

A model for inference of missing information is explicated and tested in two studies (Ns = 74, 76) of judgments about two environmental issues (endangered species reintroduction and the siting of a waste processing facility). Participants made judgments of scenarios in which information relevant to the judgment was varied orthogonally and, in some cases, relevant information was missing. The results showed individual differences-as well as intraindividual differences-in the assumptions participants made about missing information and in the tendency to infer missing cues. Reported assumptions about missing information predicted some aspects of the judgments. The data for only a small minority (15%) of the participants were consistent with the inferred values model. Participants may use different methods for dealing with missing information at different times or may not generally follow either an inference or averaging model in such contexts. Less favorable judgments were given for scenarios with incomplete information (the "penalty" effect), and this effect showed individual and intraindividual variation that was related to reported assumptions about missing information. We discuss the implications of these results for societal conflicts over controversial issues and for understanding the sources of individual differences in judgments. Copyright 2000 Academic Press.     

Availability of Information and the Aggregation of Confidence in Prior Decisions

Recent research on calibration has shown that judgments about aggregate performance are consistently lower in magnitude than confidence-judgments about single items (the “aggregation effect”). Three explanations of this effect have been proposed: Probabilistic Mental Models theory, the regression-to-the-mean hypothesis, and the dual-source hypothesis. In two studies, we tested predictions based on these explanations about the influence of availability of information on the aggregation effect. Study 1 showed that neither reducing the item set size for aggregate-item judgments nor delaying the single-item judgments eliminated the effect. Study 2 showed a persistent aggregation effect for different kinds of item lists and reminders. Further comparisons showed that discrimination (as distinguished from overconfidence) was (1) consistently better for single-item judgments than for aggregate-item judgments, and (2) improved when there is a delay between the choosing of an answer and the rating of confidence about that answer. The three proposed explanations of the aggregation effect are compared in light of these findings.     

Demonstrating and eliminating the aggregation effect in physical skill tasks

Confidence judgments can be elicited in multiple ways. One of these procedures is to provide confidence judgments regarding each of a number of cases (individual judgments). A second procedure is to provide confidence judgments about a set of items (an aggregate judgment). Much research has demonstrated an aggregation effect—that individual judgments are more confident than aggregate judgments—within the cognitive knowledge domain. However, this effect has not previously been investigated with physical performance skill tasks. In three experiments, participants gave individual and aggregate judgments regarding the number of successful tosses they would make in either a ring toss, ping‐pong toss, or basketball toss task. In keeping with the aggregation effect, individual judgments were more confident than were aggregate judgments of success. Additionally, we eliminated the aggregation effect in Experiments 2 and 3 by employing a case‐specific base rate manipulation. Consistent with previous research with cognitive tasks, these results suggest that individual confidence judgments for physical skill tasks are determined primarily by characteristics associated with the individual case to be judged, whereas aggregate confidence judgments are determined by a more general evaluation of one's ability in the domain. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Life-satisfaction is a momentary judgment and a stable personality characteristic: the use of chronically accessible and stable sources

Social cognition research indicates that life-satisfaction judgments are based on a selected set of relevant information that is accessible at the time of the life-satisfaction judgment. Personality research indicates that life-satisfaction judgments are quite stable over extended periods of time and predicted by personality traits. The present article integrates these two research traditions. We propose that people rely on the same sources to form repeated life-satisfaction judgments over time. Some of these sources (e.g., memories of emotional experiences, academic performance) provide stable information that explains the stability in life-satisfaction judgments. Second, we propose that the influence of personality traits on life satisfaction is mediated by the use of chronically accessible sources because traits produce stability of these sources. Most important, the influence of extraversion and neuroticism is mediated by use of memories of past emotional experiences. To test this model, participants repeatedly judged life-satisfaction over the course of a semester. After each assessment, participants reported sources that they used for these judgments. Changes in reported sources were related to changes in life-satisfaction judgments. A path model demonstrated that chronically accessible and stable sources are related to stable individual differences in life-satisfaction. Furthermore, the model supported the hypothesis that personality effects were mediated by chronically accessible and stable sources. In sum, the results are consistent with our theory that life-satisfaction judgments are based on chronically accessible sources.     

Morality in Groups: On the Social‐Regulatory Functions of Right and Wrong

Applying what we know about group‐based identities and concerns allows us to improve our understanding of the ways in which morality is relevant to social judgments of right and wrong. We distinguish between three different social functions of moral standards and moral judgments. The identity defining function of morality indicates where people want to belong, and how they are regarded by others. The group dynamic function indicates consensual definitions of what is right and wrong that guide individual behavioral choices. The intergroup relations function of group morality, speaks to the way people tend to communicate with and behave towards members of other groups that have different moral standards.     

Semantic Information and the Syntax of Propositional Attitude Verbs

Propositional attitude verbs, such as think and want, have long held interest for both theoretical linguists and language acquisitionists because their syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic properties display complex interactions that have proven difficult to fully capture from either perspective. This paper explores the granularity with which these verbs’ semantic and pragmatic properties are recoverable from their syntactic distributions, using three behavioral experiments aimed at explicitly quantifying the relationship between these two sets of properties. Experiment 1 gathers a measure of 30 propositional attitude verbs’ syntactic distributions using an acceptability judgment task. Experiments 2a and 2b gather measures of semantic similarity between those same verbs using a generalized semantic discrimination (triad or “odd man out”) task and an ordinal (Likert) scale task, respectively. Two kinds of analyses are conducted on the data from these experiments. The first compares both the acceptability judgments and the semantic similarity judgments to previous classifications derived from the syntax and semantics literature. The second kind compares the acceptability judgments to the semantic similarity judgments directly. Through these comparisons, we show that there is quite fine‐grained information about propositional attitude verbs’ semantics carried in their syntactic distributions—whether one considers the sorts of discrete qualitative classifications that linguists traditionally work with or the sorts of continuous quantitative classifications that can be derived experimentally.     

Information Processing and Exchange in Mediated Groups

This study examined whether features of mediated group discussion were related to participator judgments. Prior to discussion, participants (N = 138) were asked to memorize a list of qualifications for each of 3 hypothetical candidates for a faculty position. Each list contained shared (given to all members) and unique (given to just 1 member) information. Participants, working in 3‐person groups, then interacted via 1 of 2 computer text environments to choose the best candidate. Following discussion, participants rated each other on a set of participator assessment items. Discussions were coded for units that contained shared or unique information. The analysis revealed that shared contributions were related only to self‐assessment of participation. Unique contributions had a complex relation with self‐assessments—they were positively associated with such judgments only when partners infrequently provided unique information. Technology affected in a variety of ways the relation between the discussion variables and participator assessments. Discussion focuses on the relation between information pooling and interaction, as well as on the role of technology in group process.     

When Sociopolitical Events Strike Cultural Beliefs: Divergent Impact of Hurricane Katrina on African Americans' and European Americans' Endorsement of the Protestant Work Ethic

Three experiments address how people react to a sexual abuse victim compared to a nonvictim when a justification for negative evaluation is available or not available. A harm-doing victim was rated lower on expected job performance and higher on desired social distance than a harm-doing nonvictim. When subsequent harm-doing was absent, judgments of a victim and nonvictim did not differ on expected job performance or social distance. Experiment 2 replicated the results of Experiment 1 and revealed that the order in which victimization history and harm-doing information were presented had no effect. Experiment 3 showed that participants desired greater social distance from a harm-doing victim compared to a non-harm-doing victim to the extent they thought the target should have derived benefits from the childhood victimization. Implications for judgments of harm-doers—depending on whether their victimization history is known or not—are considered.     

Development and Testing of an Abbreviated Numeracy Scale: A Rasch Analysis Approach

Research has demonstrated that individual differences in numeracy may have important consequences for decision making. In the present paper, we develop a shorter, psychometrically improved measure of numeracy—the ability to understand, manipulate, and use numerical information, including probabilities. Across two large independent samples that varied widely in age and educational level, participants completed 18 items from existing numeracy measures. In Study 1, we conducted a Rasch analysis on the item pool and created an eight‐item numeracy scale that assesses a broader range of difficulty than previous scales. In Study 2, we replicated this eight‐item scale in a separate Rasch analysis using data from an independent sample. We also found that the new Rasch‐based numeracy scale, compared with previous measures, could predict decision‐making preferences obtained in past studies, supporting its predictive validity. In Study, 3, we further established the predictive validity of the Rasch‐based numeracy scale. Specifically, we examined the associations between numeracy and risk judgments, compared with previous scales. Overall, we found that the Rasch‐based scale was a better linear predictor of risk judgments than prior measures. Moreover, this study is the first to present the psychometric properties of several popular numeracy measures across a diverse sample of ages and educational level. We discuss the usefulness and the advantages of the new scale, which we feel can be used in a wide range of subject populations, allowing for a more clear understanding of how numeracy is associated with decision processes. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The conscious, the unconscious, and familiarity

This article examines the role of subjective familiarity in the implicit and explicit learning of artificial grammars. Experiment 1 found that objective measures of similarity (including fragment frequency and repetition structure) predicted ratings of familiarity, that familiarity ratings predicted grammaticality judgments, and that the extremity of familiarity ratings predicted confidence. Familiarity was further shown to predict judgments in the absence of confidence, hence contributing to above-chance guessing. Experiment 2 found that confidence developed as participants refined their knowledge of the distribution of familiarity and that differences in familiarity could be exploited prior to confidence developing. Experiment 3 found that familiarity was consciously exploited to make grammaticality judgments including those made without confidence and that familiarity could in some instances influence participants' grammaticality judgments apparently without their awareness. All 3 experiments found that knowledge distinct from familiarity was derived only under deliberate learning conditions. The results provide decisive evidence that familiarity is the essential source of knowledge in artificial grammar learning while also supporting a dual-process model of implicit and explicit learning.     

3～5岁幼儿基于面孔的信任判断的发展

本研究通过两个实验探讨了262名3~5岁幼儿基于面孔的信任判断能力及其年龄间差异。结果发现:(1)实验1中,当陌生面孔单张呈现时,3岁幼儿还不能正确地区分被成人评价为可信和不可信的面孔,而4、5岁幼儿已经能够基于面孔特征做出与成人基本一致的信任判断;(2)实验2中,当配对呈现可信vs.不可信两张面孔时,3~5岁幼儿都能够在日常交往情境中依据陌生交往者的面孔特征做出与成人基本一致的信任判断,并且随着年龄的增长,信任判断准确率逐步提高。这些结果表明幼儿从3岁开始已经能够基于面孔做出信任判断,随着年龄的增长,信任判断能力逐步发展。     

Case method strategies for teaching sexual ethics to relativists and skeptics

Many undergraduates are culturally shaped to avoid making ethical judgments. They spontaneously adopt relativist and skeptical strategies such as “It all depends,” or “Whose morality?” or “Who's to say?” as ways of fending off the challenge of making moral decisions. The current tsunami that is washing away traditional sexual norms is both a result and a cause of this cultural shift. Case studies can mitigate this decline and help students to grow in both confidence and ability to make good ethical judgments. The case method, used with a Socratic pedagogy, engages imagination and counters the deficits in empathy found in many contemporary students. It moves students toward understanding morality itself. Against skepticism, it assists students in exercising practical reason, culminating in decision. Five cases invite students to overcome extreme relativism, to look for and evaluate relevant differences, and to enter into ethical discussion with other students on the sexual issues they face in their college years.     

Humble Beginnings: Current Trends,State Perspectives,and Hallmarks of Humility

After decades of neglect, research in humility is finally turning a corner. Within the past few years, investigators have articulated two promising strategies to overcome methodological concerns – namely, using personality judgments and designing humility “stress tests” to elicit humility‐relevant behavior. We also highlight an alternative perspective of humility that has not yet gained much attention: the investigation of humility as a state, which helps to understand what humility actually is, how it functions, and its variability within individuals over time. To improve the observation of humility‐relevant behavior, we propose five intrapersonal and interpersonal hallmarks of humility that have strong theoretical support, can distinguish between humility's conceptual foils of narcissism and low self‐esteem, and provide broad theoretical ties between ongoing research endeavors: A secure, accepting identity, freedom from distortion, openness to new information, other‐focus, and egalitarian beliefs. Finally, to increase methodological rigor, we recommend using a combination of self‐reports and other‐reports and employing multiple raters with demonstrated inter‐rater reliability in validation studies.