The More You See It, the More You Know It: Memory Accessibility and Sexual Harassment Judgments

The influence of the availability of personally known and media known sexual harassment victims and harassers on perceptions of social sexual workplace conduct was examined. Male and female full-time workers evaluated two videotapes that depict sexual harassment in the workplace. Results indicated that perceived likelihood of harassment and discrimination increased as participants recalled more examples of harassment victims whom they personally knew. In some instances, recall of victims in the media had a similar influence. As predicted, the influence of availability was stronger for men than for women. Similar findings resulted from the analyses of the unwelcomeness, severity, and pervasiveness of the conduct; however, legal standard, gender, or case often moderated this relationship. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

The Other Accent Effect in Talker Recognition: Now You See It,Now You Don't

The existence of the Language Familiarity Effect (LFE), where talkers of a familiar language are easier to identify than talkers of an unfamiliar language, is well-documented and uncontroversial. However, a closely related phenomenon known as the Other Accent Effect (OAE), where accented talkers are more difficult to recognize, is less well understood. There are several possible explanations for why the OAE exists, but to date, little data exist to adjudicate differences between them. Here, we begin to address this issue by directly comparing listeners’ recognition of talkers who speak in different types of accents, and by examining both the LFE and OAE in the same set of listeners. Specifically, Canadian English listeners were tested on their ability to recognize talkers within four types of voice line-ups: Canadian English talkers, Australian English talkers, Mandarin-accented English talkers, and Mandarin talkers. We predicted that the OAE would be present for talkers of Mandarin-accented English but not for talkers of Australian English—which is precisely what we observed. We also observed a disconnect between listeners’ confidence and performance across different types of accents; that is, listeners performed equally poorly with Mandarin and Mandarin-accented talkers, but they were more confident with their performance with the latter group of talkers. The present findings set the stage for further investigation into the nature of the OAE by exploring a range of potential explanations for the effect, and introducing important implications for forensic scientists’ evaluation of ear witness testimony.     

Overconfidence: It Depends on How, What, and Whom You Ask

Many studies have reported that the confidence people have in their judgments exceeds their accuracy and that overconfidence increases with the difficulty of the task. However, some common analyses confound systematic psychological effects with statistical effects that are inevitable if judgments are imperfect. We present three experiments using new methods to separate systematic effects from the statistically inevitable. We still find systematic differences between confidence and accuracy, including an overall bias toward overconfidence. However, these effects vary greatly with the type of judgment. There is little general overconfidence with two-choice questions and pronounced overconfidence with subjective confidence intervals. Over- and underconfidence also vary systematically with the domain of questions asked, but not as a function of difficulty. We also find stable individual differences. Determining why some people, some domains, and some types of judgments are more prone to overconfidence will be important to understanding how confidence judgments are made.     

一挂鞭炮能防"非典"?

2003年5月7日晚上,河南省平顶山市忽听鞭炮声四起,持续多时,第二天早上问其故,众人日:“据说,人们在头一天的     

The Hubris Hypothesis: You Can Self-Enhance, But You'd Better Not Show It

We tested whether and why observers dislike individuals who convey self-superiority through blatant social comparison (the hubris hypothesis). Participants read self-superiority claims ("I am better than others"; Experiments 1-7), noncomparative positive claims ("I am good"; Experiments 1-2, 4), self-equality claims ("I am as good as others"; Experiments 3-4, 6), temporally comparative self-superiority claims ("I am better than I used to be"; Experiment 5), other-superiority claims ("S/he is better than others"; Experiment 6), and self-superiority claims accompanied by persistent disclaimers (Experiment 7). They judged the claim and the claimant (Experiments 1-7) and made inferences about the claimant's self-view and view of others (Experiments 4-7) as well as the claimant's probable view of them (Experiment 7). Self-superiority claims elicited unfavorable evaluations relative to all other claims. Evaluation unfavorability was accounted for by the perception that the claimant implied a negative view of others (Experiments 4-6) and particularly of the observer (Experiment 7). Supporting the hubris hypothesis, participants disliked individuals who communicated self-superiority beliefs in an explicitly comparative manner. Self-superiority beliefs may provoke undesirable interpersonal consequences when they are explicitly communicated to others but not when they are disguised as noncomparative positive self-claims or self-improvement claims.