Perceptions of Brainstorming in Groups: The Quality Over Quantity Hypothesis

Our research focused on the implicit beliefs of potential brainstormers about the possible outcomes of brainstorming. We conducted four studies to assess the relative importance of quality and quantity as goals of brainstorming. In Study 1, we found evidence for a quality over quantity hypothesis: participants indicated that it was more important to produce creative, original, and high quality ideas than to generate a large number of ideas. In Studies 2 and 3, participants displayed support for the quality over quantity hypothesis by showing in group favoritism for a quality dimension but not a quantity dimension. Study 4 showed that participants believed brain-storming would enhance the quality of others' ideas more than one's own ideas, but they did not display a similar bias about idea quantity.     

延迟时间与预先信息对任务切换的作用

对切换代价的本质存在任务设置惯性和任务设置重构两种观点。为揭示二者在切换代价中的关系, 研究了不同延迟时间条件下预先信息对任务切换的作用, 结果发现：(1)延迟时间对切换代价有显著影响, 100 ms的切换代价显著高于1000 ms的切换代价, 而600 ms分别与100 ms、1000 ms之间的切换代价无显著差异; (2)预先信息对切换代价的影响显著, 全部信息的切换代价显著低于无信息和部分信息的切换代价, 而后二者之间无显著差异; (3)延迟时间与预先信息无交互作用。这表明, 延迟时间与预先信息分别作用于任务设置惯性和任务设置重构, 切换代价反映了这两种具有相加效应的加工过程。     

Persuasive Effects of Fictional Narratives Increase Over Time

Fact-related information contained in fictional narratives may induce substantial changes in readers' real-world beliefs. Current models of persuasion through fiction assume that these effects occur because readers are psychologically transported into the fictional world of the narrative. Contrary to general dual-process models of persuasion, models of persuasion through fiction also imply that persuasive effects of fictional narratives are persistent and even increase over time (absolute sleeper effect). In an experiment designed to test this prediction, 81 participants read either a fictional story that contained true as well as false assertions about real-world topics or a control story. There were large short-term persuasive effects of false information, and these effects were even larger for a group with a 2-week assessment delay. Belief certainty was weakened immediately after reading but returned to baseline level after 2 weeks, indicating that beliefs acquired by reading fictional narratives are integrated into real-world knowledge.     

Review Essay: The Fate of Romance Over Time

Can Love Last? The Fate of Romance Over Time by Stephen A. Mitchell (New York, NY: W.W. Norton, 2002, 224 pp.)

This review of Stephen Mitchell's posthumously published book details the intelligence, vitality, and emotional depth that so many found in Mitchell as writer, teacher, colleague, analyst, friend, and family member. The review also notes the loss that Mitchell's death brought to the lives of individuals and to the life of the psychoanalytic movement.     

Coping with Medical Diagnosis: The Effects of At-Risk Versus Disease Labels Over Time1

We randomly assigned college students to conditions in which they learned that they had gum disease, were at risk of having gum disease, or did not have gum disease. Then we examined their coping responses both immediately after the diagnosis and 2 days later. Students that told they had gum disease saw the disease as more prevalent than students in the other conditions; students identified as at risk saw the disease as more common than students who were told they had no disease. In addition, disease and at-risk diagnosis subjects believed that the disease was less serious but, during the 2-day interval between tests, they reported experiencing more bleeding–a symptom of gum disease. All of these responses to diagnosis were similar immediately after diagnosis and 2 days later. The data support a model of how persons react to illness signs (Ditto, Jemmott, & Darley, 1988) and have practical implications for dental professionals involved in diagnosing gum disease.     

When Manipulation Backfires: The Effects of Time Delay and Requester on the Foot-in-the-Door Technique

We examined the effects of 2 variables on compliance rates within the foot-in-the-door procedure. Participants who agreed to a small request were presented with a larger request either immediately after the first request or 2 days later. The second request was presented either by the same person or by a different requester. Compared to a control group receiving only the large request, participants were more likely to agree to the second request in all experimental conditions except one. When the same requester presented the second request without delay, participants were less likely than the control group to agree to the target request. This latter condition represents a situation in which typical foot-in-the-door procedures can backfire on the requester.     

Comparative Judgment Processes: The Effects of Task Objectives and Time Delay on Product Evaluations

Consumers who compare products may often ignore features that the choice alternatives have in common. As a result, they often evaluate products more favorably when the products have unique positive features but common negative features than when they have unique negative features but common positive ones. Two studies examined contingencies in the occurrence of these “cancellation” effects and explored their implications for people's evaluations of not only the products being compared but other products they encounter subsequently. Some participants were explicitly told to compare two products at the time they received information about them. They not only disregarded the products' common features when initially evaluating these products, but disregarded evaluatively similar features of a third product they encountered some time later. Other participants were initially told to describe each product separately. In this condition, they formed an overall impression of each product individually, and so cancellation effects were not apparent. Nevertheless, their preference for one product over the other was based on a comparison of the products' individual features that they could recall at the time of judgment rather than on the global impressions they had formed when the product information was first presented.     

Attributions for Presidential Elections: The Situational Shift Over Time

Two investigations examined attributions for the outcomes of presidential elections. The first experiment examined attributions made by editorial writers for presidential elections from 1964 to 1984. The writers tended to make personal attributions for the causes of the election outcome a few days after the election, but shifted to primarily situational attributions 2 to 3 years later. Subjects in the second experiment were surveyed through a random-digit dialing procedure either a few days after the 1988 presidential election or 1 year later and asked why the election turned out the way it did. A shift toward more situational explanations over time was found, but not among those who had voted for the winning candidate. This latter finding illustrates a limitation of the situational shift effect.     

The Effects of Cognitive Ability and Conscientiousness on Performance Over Time: A Censored Latent Growth Model

This study examined the extent to which cognitive ability and conscientiousness predicted initial academic performance (i.e., grade point average) and changes in performance over the course of college students' careers. A censored latent growth model that controlled for initial performance was used. Results showed positive effects of cognitive ability and conscientiousness on initial performance, but only positive effects of conscientiousness on performance change. However, because initial performance negatively affected performance change, cognitive ability and conscientiousness negatively indirectly affected performance change through initial performance. In addition, results revealed cognitive ability accounted for more variance in initial performance than conscientiousness, and conscientiousness accounted for more variance in performance change than cognitive ability. Finally, results show that, beyond the third semester, conscientiousness is a better predictor of student performance than cognitive ability.     

The Present of the Past: Dialogues With Memory Over Time

ABSTRACT This study analyzes the self-constructing meanings of an autobiographical episode in the life of one woman told at repeated intervals over 35 years. It demonstrates the ways in which the present constructs the past and shows how autobiographical memory may be used dialogically to create and contrast with current self-constructions, to disavow intolerable aspects of self, and to preserve disused but valued self-representations. Memories, in this sense, operate as texts whose meaning changes as the dialogue within self changes. The meanings of past memories, rather than their contents, are reshaped to hold aspects of a layered, multiple self.     

延迟满足：基于未来时间洞察力的自我调节

延迟满足是个体为获得更有价值的奖励结果,坚持目标行为而推迟即时性满足的倾向与行为。其产生机制在很大程度上基于未来取向的自我调节。未来时间洞察力对延迟满足的作用可由期望-价值理论、解释水平理论和自我调节周期模型等多种理论进行解释。除行为层面的机制,未来时间洞察力与延迟满足涉及腹侧额叶-纹状体环路等相似的脑机制。未来研究需深化和丰富延迟满足的理论机制,明确与时间洞察力各维度的复杂关系,探究与时间洞察力相同的生理神经机制,促进其应用于社会实践。     

Holocaust Survival Stories: Change Over Time

Those Holocaust survivors who have found it impossible to discuss their experiences often face a bleak old age (Krystal, 1990). Some of those who have reached an audience, however, have been changed by the experience of writing. This paper analyzes the differences between those writers whose stories remain static, like Jerzy Kosinski, and others like Elie Wiesel, Gerda Weissmann Klein, and Aharon Appelfeld, whose accounts have become more complex as they aged.     

短时间延迟条件下错误记忆的遗忘

两个实验中,使用DRM范式考察了短时间延迟条件下错误记忆的遗忘效应。实验一发现对两种关键项目的错误再认均随着时间延迟（即时、半小时和1个小时）的增加而提高,而在将时间变量由实验一中的被试内设计变为实验二中的被试间设计后,发现对两种关键项目的错误再认随着时间而发生不同的变化,表现为对关键诱饵的错误再认保持稳定而对中关联词的错误再认依然有所提高。说明错误记忆很顽固,一旦产生便很难衰退,当消除了其他干扰因素的潜在影响后,即使是在很短暂的测验时间延迟条件下,它至少是保持稳定的,不会随着时间而发生减弱。此外还发现了关联性和测验情境与测验时间延迟之间的交互影响,表现为对关键诱饵的错误再认受测验时间延迟的影响较小,受测验情境的影响较大;而对中关联词的错误再认则受测验时间延迟的影响较大,受测验情境的影响较小     

Parallelism Effects and Verb Activation: The Sustained Reactivation Hypothesis

This study investigated the processes underlying parallelism by evaluating the activation of a parallel element (i.e., a verb) throughout and-coordinated sentences. Four points were tested: (1) approximately 1,600ms after the verb in the first conjunct (PP1), (2) immediately following the conjunction (PP2), (3) approximately 1,100ms after the conjunction (PP3), (4) at the end of the second conjunct (PP4). The results revealed no activation at PP1, suggesting activation related to the initial presentation had decayed by this point; however, activation was observed at PP2, PP3, and PP4, suggesting the conjunction elicits reactivation that is sustained throughout the second conjunct. These findings support a specific hypothesis about parallelism, the sustained reactivation hypothesis. This hypothesis claims that, in conjoined structures, a cue that is associated with parallelism elicits the reactivation of material from the first conjunct and that this activation is sustained until integration with the second conjunct can be completed.     

Assessing the Burdens of Leadership: Effects of Formal Leadership Roles on Individual Performance Over Time

This study adopted a role-based perspective in examining whether changes in performance over time (i.e., dynamic criteria) were a function of changes in individual leadership role responsibilities. Longitudinal data from captains in the modern era of the National Hockey League ( N = 201) were used to test a dynamic criterion hypothesis using multilevel growth modeling. Time ( k = 10) was modeled as a random effect, whereas captain status (i.e., leadership role responsibility) was included as a time-varying covariate. Individual performance was measured as the adjusted points (goals scored plus assists adjusted for individual and historical effects). Results of a series of model building steps that included the examination of alternative complex error structures indicated an overall negative performance trend. Those seasons in which a player assumed formal leadership responsibilities (i.e., team captain) were associated with better performance compared to seasons in which the player had no leadership responsibilities. These results were found to be robust even after controlling for individual performance in the previous season. Results are discussed in terms of the possible positive implications for individual performance and the motivation to lead through developing a culture in which leadership positions are highly valued by the organization, visible to others on the team, and where leadership responsibilities do not interfere with task performance.     

Religious Involvement and Health Over Time: Predictive Effects in a National Sample of African Americans

In this study, two telephone interviews that assessed both religious involvement and health‐related quality of life were conducted approximately 2.5 years apart in a national sample of 290 African Americans. Religious involvement was assessed with an instrument that measured both personal religious beliefs (e.g., having a personal relationship with God) and more public religious behaviors (e.g., attending church services). Health‐related quality of life was measured with version 2 of the Medical Outcomes Study 12‐item short form (SF‐12v2). Structural equation models indicated that higher religious beliefs at baseline predicted better physical and mental health 2.5 years later. Higher religious behaviors at baseline contributed smaller, complementary suppression effects. Physical and mental health indicators from the SF‐12v2 at baseline did not predict changes in either religious beliefs or religious behaviors over time. These findings indicate that, for African Americans, personal religious beliefs lead to beneficial health effects over time, whereas individual differences in health do not appear to predict changes in religious involvement.     

Patterns of Career Choices Over Time

The patterns of career change observed in samples of subjects of varying ages and levels of educational attainment have been examined. The pattern of occupational distribution shows consistent gains in the business and education groups, whereas the numbers of students aspiring to careers in science and engineering decrease. These findings have been interpreted on the basis of the personal characteristics of students, their perception of occupations, and the societal determinants of occupational choice.     

The Effects of Media Bias

The current research investigated whether bias exists in newspapers that are considered liberal or conservative, and whether this bias influences public opinion of events. Participants were college students ( N  = 67) who were enrolled in a 4-year university ( n  = 33) or a community college ( n  = 34). Participants were shown photographs and short articles relating to a presidential debate between President George W. Bush and Senator John Kerry. Participants completed questionnaires relating to their opinions of the candidates. Results showed statistical significance within groups before and after exposure to the newspaper clippings.     

Choices Chance and Change: Luck Egalitarianism Over Time

The family of theories dubbed ‘luck egalitarianism’ represent an attempt to infuse egalitarian thinking with a concern for personal responsibility, arguing that inequalities are just when they result from, or the extent to which they result from, choice, but are unjust when they result from, or the extent to which they result from, luck. In this essay I argue that luck egalitarians should sometimes seek to limit inequalities, even when they have a fully choice-based pedigree (i.e., result only from the choices of agents). I grant that the broad approach is correct but argue that the temporal standpoint from which we judge whether the person can be held responsible, or the extent to which they can be held responsible, should be radically altered. Instead of asking, as Standard (or Static) Luck Egalitarianism seems to, whether or not, or to what extent, a person was responsible for the choice at the time of choosing, and asking the question of responsibility only once, we should ask whether, or to what extent, they are responsible for the choice at the point at which we are seeking to discover whether, or to what extent, the inequality is just, and so the question of responsibility is not settled but constantly under review. Such an approach will differ from Standard Luck Egalitarianism only if responsibility for a choice is not set in stone—if responsibility can weaken then we should not see the boundary between luck and responsibility within a particular action as static. Drawing on Derek Parfit’s illuminating discussions of personal identity, and contemporary literature on moral responsibility, I suggest there are good reasons to think that responsibility can weaken—that we are not necessarily fully responsible for a choice for ever, even if we were fully responsible at the time of choosing. I call the variant of luck egalitarianism that recognises this shift in temporal standpoint and that responsibility can weaken Dynamic Luck Egalitarianism (DLE). In conclusion I offer a preliminary discussion of what kind of policies DLE would support.