Message Framing,Normative Advocacy and Persuasive Success

In a recent article in Argumentation, O’Keefe (Argumentation 21:151–163, 2007) observed that the well-known ‘framing effects’ in the social psychological literature on persuasion are akin to traditional fallacies of argumentation and reasoning and could be exploited for persuasive success in a way that conflicts with principles of responsible advocacy. Positively framed messages (“if you take aspirin, your heart will be more healthy”) differ in persuasive effect from negative frames (“if you do not take aspirin, your heart will be less healthy”), despite containing ‘equivalent’ content. This poses a potential problem, because people might be unduly (and unsuspectingly) influenced by mere presentational differences. By drawing on recent cognitive psychological work on framing effects in choice and decision making paradigms, however, we show that establishing whether two arguments are substantively equivalent—and hence, whether there is any normative requirement for them to be equally persuasive—is a difficult task. Even arguments that are logically equivalent may not be information equivalent. The normative implications of this for both speakers and listeners are discussed.     

The influence of response grouping on free-choice decision making in a response selection task

Previous research has demonstrated an advantage for the preparation of fingers on one hand over the preparation of fingers on two hands, and for the preparation of homologous fingers over that of non-homologous fingers. In the present study, we extended the precuing effects observed with finger responses to response selection under free-choice conditions. Participants were required to choose from a range of possible responses following the presentation of a precue that indicated which response to prepare (go-to precue) or prevent (no-go-to precue). In Experiment 1 the choice was between homologous and non-homologous finger responses on the hand opposite to the precue while in Experiment 2 the choice was between finger responses on the same or different hand to the precue. In the go-to precue condition, the frequency of homologous finger choices was more frequent than non-homologous finger responses. Similarly, participants chose finger responses on the same hand as the precue regardless of whether they were instructed to prepare or prevent the precued response. The hand effect bias was stronger than the finger effect bias. These findings are consistent with the Grouping Model (Adam, Hommel, & Umilta, 2003).     

Random‐effects meta‐analysis of correlations: Monte Carlo evaluation of mean estimators

Several authors have cautioned against using Fisher's z‐transformation in random‐effects meta‐analysis of correlations, which seems to perform poorly in some situations, especially with substantial inter‐study heterogeneity. Attributing this performance largely to the direct z‐to‐r transformation (DZRT) of Fisher z results (e.g. point estimate of mean correlation), in a previous paper Hafdahl (2009) proposed point and interval estimators of the mean Pearson r correlation that instead use an integral z‐to‐r transformation (IZRT). The present Monte Carlo study of these IZRT Fisher z estimators includes comparisons with their DZRT counterparts and with estimators based on Pearson r correlations. The IZRT point estimator was usually more accurate and efficient than its DZRT counterpart and comparable to the two Pearson r point estimators – better in some conditions but worse in others. Coverage probability for the IZRT confidence intervals (CIs) was often near nominal, much better than for the DZRT CIs, and comparable to coverage for the Pearson r CIs; every approach's CI fell markedly below nominal in some conditions. The IZRT estimators contradict warnings about Fisher z estimators' poor performance. Recommendations for practising research synthesists are offered, and an Appendix provides computing code to implement the IZRT as in the real‐data example.     

Mating competitors increase religious beliefs

It has been presumed that religiosity has an influence on mating behavior, but here we experimentally investigate the possibility that mating behavior might also influence religiosity. In Experiment 1, people reported higher religiosity after looking at mating pools consisting of attractive people of their own sex compared to attractive opposite sex targets. Experiment 2 replicated the effect with an added control group, and suggested that both men and women become more religious when seeing same-sex competitors. We discuss several possible explanations for these effects. Most broadly, the findings contribute to an emerging literature on how cultural phenomena such as religiosity respond to ecological cues in potentially functional ways.     

Anterior insula activity predicts the influence of positively framed messages on decision making

The neural mechanisms underlying the influence of persuasive messages on decision making are largely unknown. We address this issue using event-related fMRI to investigate how informative messages alter risk appraisal during choice. Participants performed the Iowa Gambling Task while viewing a positively framed, negatively framed, or control message about the options. The right anterior insula correlated with improvement in choice behavior due to the positively framed but not the negatively framed message. With the positively framed message, there was increased activation proportional to message effectiveness when less-preferred options were chosen, consistent with a role in the prediction of adverse outcomes. In addition, the dorsomedial and the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex correlated with overall decision quality, regardless of message type. The dorsomedial region mediated the relationship between the right anterior insula and decision quality with the positively framed messages. These findings suggest a network of frontal brain regions that integrate informative messages into the evaluation of options during decision making. Supplemental procedures and results for this article may be downloaded from http://cabn.psychonomic-journals.org/content/supplemental.     

Public panics: Problematic bodies in social space

This paper emerged from a three year study investigating the experience and management of Britain's night-time economy. In focus groups and interviews respondents spoke of their concern about uncivil behaviours on the streets after dark. Using public urination as one example of late-night incivility, I explore what it means to research a topic that circulates such themes as disgust, intimacy, and civility. However, in this paper I am not so much interested in the rights and wrongs of urinating in public, as in the discursive tensions that frame this topic, tensions which act to separate us along axes of moral/immoral, clean/dirty, male/female. In reference to the work of photographer Ellen Jong, who has photographed herself publicly urinating across various landscapes, the discussion turns to the notion of interest and disgust as ways of figuring the connections and disconnections that urinating in public elicits.     

Clarifying Heterogeneity of Daytime and Nighttime Symptoms of Posttraumatic Stress in Combat Veterans With Insomnia

Daytime and nighttime symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are common among combat veterans and military service members. However, there is a great deal of heterogeneity in how symptoms are expressed. Clarifying the heterogeneity of daytime and nighttime PTSD symptoms through exploratory clustering may generate hypotheses regarding ways to optimally match evidence-based treatments to PTSD symptom profiles. We used mixture modeling to reveal clusters based on 6 daytime and nighttime symptoms of 154 combat veterans with insomnia and varying levels of PTSD symptoms. Three clusters with increasing symptom severity were identified (n1 = 50, n2 = 70, n3 = 34). These results suggest that, among veterans with insomnia, PTSD symptoms tend to exist on a continuum of severity, rather than as a categorical PTSD diagnosis. Hypotheses regarding possible targeted treatment strategies for veterans within each identified cluster, as well as ways to generalize these methods to other groups within the military, are discussed.