Group-based self-regulation: The effects of regulatory focus

We review a programme of research on responses to group-based feedback—specifically, on how the source, content, and context of feedback intersect to produce individual willingness to accept both criticism and praise and to change one’s actions accordingly. We first explore the conditions under which group-directed criticism is most effective in terms of stimulating willingness to amend group practices. This is followed by the investigation of the effectiveness of different types of group-based praise, and an analysis of the identity-verifying properties of positive feedback. Finally, we consider the effects of feedback delivered simultaneously at group and individual levels, and explore the reciprocal implications of feedback content for source categorisation. Throughout, we focus on the role of identity concerns and group image management in responses to feedback. We discuss how this approach fits with other areas of literature, including research on self-verification and strategic behaviour in intergroup contexts.     

Bias in self-evaluation: Signal probability effects

Two experiments examined apparent signal probability effects in simple verbal self-reports. After each trial of a delayed matching-to-sample task, young adults pressed either a “yes” or a “no” button to answer a computer-presented query about whether the most recent choice met a point contingency requiring both speed and accuracy. A successful matching-to-sample choice served as the “signal” in a signal-detection analysis of self-reports. Difficulty of matching to sample, and thus signal probability, was manipulated via the number of nonmatching sample and comparison stimuli. In Experiment 1, subjects exhibited a bias (log b) for reporting matching-to-sample success when success was frequent, and no bias or a bias for reporting failure when success was infrequent. Contingencies involving equal conditional probabilities of point consequences for “I succeeded” and “I failed” reports had no systematic effect on this pattern. Experiment 2 found signal probability effects to be evident regardless of whether referent-response difficulty was manipulated in different conditions or within sessions. These findings indicate that apparent signal probability effects in self-report bias that were observed in previous studies probably were not an artifact of contingencies intended to improve self-report accuracy or of the means of manipulating signal probability. The findings support an analogy between simple self-reports and psychophysical judgments and bolster the conclusion of Critchfield (1993) that signal probability effects can influence simple self-reports much as they do reports about external stimuli in psychophysical experiments.     

The effects of perspective-taking on prejudice: the moderating role of self-evaluation

Perspective-taking, by means of creating an overlap between self and other cognitive representations, has been found to effectively decrease stereotyping and ingroup favoritism. In the present investigation, the authors examined the potential moderating role of self-esteem on the effects of perspective-taking on prejudice. In two experiments, it was found that perspective-takers, but not control participants, with temporarily or chronically high self-esteem evaluated an outgroup more positively than perspective-takers with low self-esteem. This finding suggests an irony of perspective-taking: it builds off egocentric biases to improve outgroup evaluations. The discussion focuses on how debiasing intergroup thought is often best accomplished by working through the very processes that produced the bias in the first place.     

Personally relevant intrusions outside the laboratory: Long-term suppression increases intrusion

It has been suggested that the suppression of unwanted thoughts may increase their frequency and that this effect may contribute to some psychological problems. Previous studies have examined this over a period of minutes, in an artificial setting. Suppression over a four day period was evaluated in the present study. Each S was asked to identify a negative intrusive thought which he or she experienced and to record each occurrence of it in conditions designed to maximise the similarity to those experienced by obsessional patients. Ss were randomly allocated to one of three groups. One group was asked to suppress their thoughts whenever they occurred, another group was asked to think about their thoughts whenever they occurred and the third group just recorded the thoughts whenever they occurred. This design allowed experimental control of both attention to and manipulation of the target thoughts in contrast to attention and active suppression. It was found that Ss who suppressed their thoughts experienced more thoughts and found them more uncomfortable than Ss in the other two groups. This is consistent with the theory that suppression increases thought frequency and may be important in the development and maintenance of some disorders.     

The expression of uncertainty: Two contextual effects

Abstract

Since Foley (1959), the technique of evaluating common expressions of uncertainty on a numerical scale has often been used in an attempt to define such expressions more accurately. Two contextual factors - (1) the composition of the set of expressions and (2) the definition of the scale - were studied in the present experiment to determine their effect on bow such expressions are encoded. Psychophysical theories on series effects and, in particular, the range-frequency model (Parducci, 1983), predict that the composition of a set is one of the determining factors of contrast effects. The scale definition factor determines the lower limit of the rating scale, which represents either uncertainty or negative certainty. The effect of this factor is assumed to depend upon the reference universe outlined in the problem statement and, in particular, upon whether that universe is strictly limited or not. An experiment was conducted to contrast two sets of expressions, two scale definitions and two ways of presenting the problem (the doubt was applied either to a choice of two events or to the occurrence of an event in an unspecified universe). The results provide evidence of a set composition effect and an interaction between the scale definition and the presentation of the problem. This is consistent with the proposed model, which accounts for the specific effects of the judgement task while eliminating the need to consider the variability of the meanings themselves. Proposals for developing this line of research are presented in the discussion.     

Interpersonal betrayal and cooperation: effects on self-evaluation in depression

Despite numerous studies demonstrating that depressed people are generally self-critical, little is known about interpersonal stressors that may activate or increase this negative self-evaluation. In this study, the effect of interpersonal betrayal and cooperative social interaction on self-evaluation processes in depressed and nondepressed women was assessed. Depressed subjects who experienced interpersonal betrayal were more critical of their performance on a subsequent task than were nondepressed subjects or depressed subjects who had experienced a cooperative interaction. Depressed subjects in the betrayal condition also behaved more aggressively toward their betraying partner than did nondepressed betrayed subjects. Depressed subjects were more critical of their own personality characteristics than were nondepressed subjects, regardless of condition. Results suggest that some negative cognitive schema among depressed persons may be altered by interpersonal factors, although it is not clear whether such effects are secondary to increases in self-criticism after conflict or to decreases in self-critical tendencies after positive interaction. Given the variability in results with different measures of self-evaluation, researchers are urged to use multiple, diverse measures of self-evaluation in future efforts to study variability in self-appraisal.     

Causal capture: contextual effects on the perception of collision events

In addition to perceiving the colors, shapes, and motions of objects, observers can perceive higher–level properties of visual events. One such property is causation, as when an observer sees one object cause another object to move by colliding with it. We report a striking new type of contextual effect on the perception of such collision events. Consider an object (A) that moves toward a stationary object (B) until they are adjacent, at which point A stops and B starts moving along the same path. Such "launches" are perceived in terms beyond these kinematics: As noted in Michotte's classic studies, observers perceive A as being the cause of B's motion. When A and B fully overlap before B's motion, however, observers often see this test event as a completely noncausal "pass": One object remains stationary while another passes over it. When a distinct launch event occurs nearby, however, the test event is "captured": It too is now irresistibly seen as causal. For this causal capture to occur, the context event need be present for only 50 ms surrounding the "impact," but capture is destroyed by only 200 ms of temporal asynchrony between the two events. We report a study of such cases, and others, that help define the rules that the visual system uses to construct percepts of seemingly high–level properties like causation.     

Acquired flavour preferences: contextual control of adaptation-level effects

This experiment investigated the role of context in the expression of conditioned flavour preferences. Rats were trained on a mixture of almond and sucrose and were then given intermixed exposures to almond in one context (Context A) and to sucrose in a second context (Context S). Finally, choice tests were given in both contexts, with one group given almond-versus-water tests and the other almond + sucrose-versus-sucrose tests. Preference for almond over water was greater in Context A than in Context S. Conversely, preference for almond + sucrose over sucrose was greater in Context S than in Context A. These results suggest that the perceived sweetness of a flavour depends on the context in which it is presented and confirm that expression of a flavour preference depends on the type of test employed.     

Predictability and controllability: Differential effects upon contextual fear

The independence of action of controllability and predictability has recently been questioned by research demonstrating that the effects of control over shock termination can be mimicked by feedback stimuli when a contextual fear measure is used. This suggests that the varied effects of controllability, particularly controllability of shock termination, may result not from controllability per se but from predictability of shock absence. The present experiments address this issue by examining whether controllability and predictability similarly affect contextual fear under several parametric conditions. In Experiment 1, control over shock termination was found to reduce contextual fear at an earlier point in training than prediction of shock absence. Experiment 2 demonstrated an effect of controllability under conditions in which the feedback effect is precluded. Experiment 3 examined the possibility that the group differences observed in the above experiments could be due to a potential difference in the conditionability of the response-produced stimulation and the external feedback stimulus. The outcome of this study makes it unlikely that this is the case, since no evidence of overshadowing of the feedback stimulus was observed on a test of its associative strength. These experiments suggest that the effects of controllability may not be reducible to those of predictability. Furthermore, they have important implications for theoretical proposals concerning the effect of feedback on contextual fear.     

Narcissism and the self-evaluation maintenance model: effects of social comparison threats on relationship closeness

When threatened with an upward social comparison with a close other in a self-relevant domain, people may reduce either the self-relevance of the ability being compared or their perceived closeness to the other person (Tesser, 1988). Those high in the trait of narcissism may be more likely to push away others who outperform them. Participants and nominated close others completed online measures of narcissism, contingent self-worth, and relationship closeness. Subsequently, participants heard that their friend performed better (or equivalently) on a "competitive spirit" test. Participants higher in narcissism significantly reduced the closeness of their relationships after a threat but did not reduce the relevance of competitiveness to their self-worth.     

Minority influence: The effects of social status of an inclusive versus exclusive group

An experiment investigated the effects of source status (high versus low) and source's attitude towards the target (Inclusive versus éxclusive) on minority influence. It was predicted that an inclusive minority in the high-status source condition would primarily have a direct impact (compliance), while in the low-status source condition it would have little direct or indirect influence but would stimulate autonomous cognitive work (divergence) Moreover, exclusive minorities, irrespective of status, would have a mainly indirect impact (conversion) Results appear to confirm the hypotheses with two significant qualifications: First, minority status interacts with subjects' initial attitude, furthering or hindering indirect influence; second, an exclusive minority encourages the production of externally-generated thoughts, albeit only in low-status source condition. The study also provided some information on the relationship between indirect influence and divergence, and between the quantity and the quality of cognitive production.     

Memory for contextual details: effects of emotion and aging

When individuals are confronted with a complex visual scene that includes some emotional element, memory for the emotional component often is enhanced, whereas memory for peripheral (nonemotional) details is reduced. The present study examined the effects of age and encoding instructions on this effect. With incidental encoding instructions, young and older adults showed this pattern of results, indicating that both groups focused attention on the emotional aspects of the scene. With intentional encoding instructions, young adults no longer showed the effect: They were just as likely to remember peripheral details of negative images as of neutral images. The older adults, in contrast, did not overcome the attentional bias: They continued to show reduced memory for the peripheral elements of the emotional compared with the neutral scenes, even with the intentional encoding instructions.     

Cognitive and contextual factors in the emergence of diverse belief systems: creation versus evolution

The emergence and distribution of beliefs about the origins of species is investigated in Christian fundamentalist and nonfundamentalist school communities, with participants matched by age, educational level, and locale. Children (n = 185) and mothers (n = 92) were questioned about animate, inanimate, and artifact origins, and children were asked about their interests and natural-history knowledge. Preadolescents, like their mothers, embraced the dominant beliefs of their community, creationist or evolutionist; 8- to 10-year-olds were exclusively creationist, regardless of community of origin; 5- to 7-year-olds in fundamentalist schools endorsed creationism, whereas nonfundamentalists endorsed mixed creationist and spontaneous generationist beliefs. Children's natural-history knowledge and religious interest predicted their evolutionist and creationist beliefs, respectively, independently of parent beliefs. It is argued that this divergent developmental pattern is optimally explained with a model of constructive interactionism: Children generate intuitive beliefs about origins, both natural and intentional, while communities privilege certain beliefs and inhibit others, thus engendering diverse belief systems.     

Local and global contextual constraints on the identification of objects in scenes.

Objects likely to appear in a given real-world scene are frequently found to be easier to recognize. Two different sources of contextual information have been proposed as the basis for this effect: global scene background and individual companion objects. The present paper examines the relative importance of these two elements in explaining the context-sensitivity of object identification in full scenes. Specific sequences of object fixations were elicited during free scene exploration, while fixation times on designated target objects were recorded as a measure of ease of target identification. Episodic consistency between the target, the global scene background, and the object fixated just prior to the target (the prime), were manipulated orthogonally. Target fixation times were examined for effects of prime and background. Analyses show effects of both factors, which are modulated by the chronology and spatial extent of scene exploration. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for a model of visual object recognition in the context of real-world scenes.     

Direct and indirect measures of contextual information: Older versus young adult subjects

Abstract

Several reports in the literature suggest that older adults have impaired memory for contextual information. Support for this approach was derived from studies that tested different aspects of contextual information by direct measures of memory (i.e., recall or recognition). the purpose of the present study is twofold: first, to test the possibility that contextual information, although inaccessible via direct measures, may be evident via indirect measures of memory; and second, to evaluate the contribution of duration of exposure to direct and indirect memory measures of contextual information. Two groups of subjects participated in the present study, 35 younger and 30 older subjects. Duration of exposure was not found to have a differential effect on the groups, in either direct or indirect memory tasks. As predicted, age-related differences emerged when direct, but not indirect, measures of contextual memory were tested. These findings argue against the context-memory deficit hypothesis in elderly sbjects, and are interpreted in terms of the theoretical distinction between implicit and explicit memory, where the former is found to be preserved in older adult subjects.