Assessing the Approximate Number System: no relation between numerical comparison and estimation tasks

Whether our general numerical skills and the mathematical knowledge that we acquire at school are entwined is a debated issue, which many researchers are still striving to investigate. The findings reported in the literature are actually inconsistent; some studies emphasized the existence of a relationship between the acuity of the Approximate Number System (ANS) and arithmetic competence, while some others did not observe any significant correlation. One potential explanation of the discrepancy might stem from the evaluation of the ANS itself. In the present study, we correlated two measures used to index ANS acuity with arithmetic performance. These measures were the Weber fraction (w), computed from a numerical comparison task and the coefficient of variation (CV), computed from a numerical estimation task. Arithmetic performance correlated with estimation CV but not with comparison w. We further investigated the meaning of this result by taking the relationship between w and CV into account. We expected a tight relation as both these measures are believed to assess ANS acuity. Crucially, however, w and CV did not correlate with each other. Moreover, the value of w was modulated by the congruity of the relation between numerical magnitude and non-numerical visual cues, potentially accounting for the lack of correlation between the measures. Our findings thus challenge the overuse of w to assess ANS acuity and more generally put into question the relevance of correlating this measure with arithmetic without any deeper understanding of what they are really indexing.     

The Impact of Decision Timing on the Effectiveness of Leaders’ Apologies to Repair Followers’ Trust in the Aftermath of Leader Failure

Purpose

The aim of the present research was to investigate how a negative decision outcome generated by a leader in a hasty, timely, or delayed manner impacts upon the need for, and the effectiveness of apologies to restore followers’ trust.

Design/Methodology/Approach

Data were collected using five studies in which the effects of timing of an incorrect decision on the trust repair process were investigated.

Findings

In the aftermath of a leader’s failure, followers experienced a delayed incorrect decision as a more severe transgression than a hasty or a timely incorrect decision. This effect was mediated by procedural fairness concerns (Study 1). The present findings also revealed an interesting paradox. Specifically, in the delayed condition followers expressed the highest need for an apology (Studies 2 and 3), but at the same time expected an apology to be less effective for enhancing trustworthiness than in the timely and the hasty condition (Study 3). Moreover, we also showed that the actual provision of an apology was effective for restoring both trustworthiness (Study 4) and trust (Studies 4 and 5) in the timely and the hasty condition, but ineffective in the delayed condition.

Implications

The present research shows that when the outcome of a decision is uncertain, it is better to make a decision (too) soon rather than (too) late.

Originality/Value

Despite the ubiquity of timing errors in daily life, our studies are the first to focus on the role of timeliness of decisions in the trust repair process.

     

Authoritarianism and Social Dominance in Western and Eastern Europe: The Importance of the Sociopolitical Context and of Political Interest and Involvement

The present study tests whether the magnitude of the relation between Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) and Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) is stable across and within cultures, whether their differential relations with value orientations and sociopolitical attitudes remain stable in spite of these possible differences, and whether their differential relations point to a different genesis. For these purposes, two student samples (total N = 684), three adult samples (total N = 553), and a political activist sample (N = 69) were gathered in Belgium, and one adult sample (N = 235) was collected in Poland. Both cross- and intracultural differences in the strength of the RWA-SDO relation emerged. These can be attributed to specificities in sociopolitical context and differences in political socialization, interest, and involvement. In spite of these fluctuations, in the strength of the RWA-SDO relation, regression analyses revealed high stability of the relation between RWA-SDO and sociopolitical attitudes, and mediation analyses supported the hypothesis of their different genesis.     

A four-country investigation of factors facilitating student internet use.

Education and national culture may influence Internet use. The present study explored factors that might facilitate college students' use of the Internet across samples in four countries: India, Mauritius, Reunion Island (an overseas Department of France), and the United States. Questionnaire data was collected on students' extent and frequency of Internet use. Also, structured items asked about the factors that would help them to use the Internet more. Data was analyzed using dummy-coded multiple regression so as to compare responses across the country groups. The U.S. sample was coded as the reference group so that the regression coefficients in the equation provided a comparison between the U.S. sample and each other country represented. Further country comparisons were made using t-tests for differences between the regression coefficients. Results suggested that there was more Internet use in the U.S. sample compared to the others. The Non-Western samples also reported greater desire for Internet access and non-English web sites. Training on how to use the Internet and course requirements for Internet use were reported as helpful by the India and Mauritius groups to a greater extent than by those in Reunion and the United States. Implications of the present exploratory results are discussed for applications of theoretical models across cultures.     

Explaining Conservative Beliefs and Political Preferences: A Comparison of Social Dominance Orientation and Authoritarianism

The present study compares the predictive validity of the Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) scale and various measures of authoritarianism, conservative beliefs, and political preferences. In accordance with previous studies, SDO and authoritarianism independently predicted conservative beliefs. Political preferences and extreme right-wing voting was best predicted by SDO. Unlike previous research, high positive correlations between SDO and the various authoritarianism scales were found. The relationship between SDO and authoritarianism is discussed.     

Inverted-U effects generalize to the judgment of subjective properties of faces

Researchers studying absolute identification have long known that it takes more time to identify a stimulus in the middle of a range than one at the extremes. That is, there is an inverted-U relation between mean response time and response position. In this task, an inverted-U relation also exists between response uncertainty and response position. Similarly, an inverted-U relation between mean response time and response position has been found for psychometric measures involving questions about the self. However, psychophysicists explain these inverted-U effects differently than do self-schema researchers. We propose an integrative framework in which task constraints explain these effects. To verify the generality of these inverted-U effects, we hypothesized that they would exist in three tasks having similar constraints--in this case, tasks involving the judgment of subjective properties of faces on a Likert-type scale. Our results are consistent with this hypothesis. We discuss the relevance of the results for other applications of Likert-type scales.     

Effects of context on auditory stream segregation

The authors examined the effect of preceding context on auditory stream segregation. Low tones (A), high tones (B), and silences (-) were presented in an ABA- pattern. Participants indicated whether they perceived 1 or 2 streams of tones. The A tone frequency was fixed, and the B tone was the same as the A tone or had 1 of 3 higher frequencies. Perception of 2 streams in the current trial increased with greater frequency separation between the A and B tones (Delta f). Larger Delta f in previous trials modified this pattern, causing less streaming in the current trial. This occurred even when listeners were asked to bias their perception toward hearing 1 stream or 2 streams. The effect of previous Delta f was not due to response bias because simply perceiving 2 streams in the previous trial did not cause less streaming in the current trial. Finally, the effect of previous ?f was diminished, though still present, when the silent duration between trials was increased to 5.76 s. The time course of this context effect on streaming implicates the involvement of auditory sensory memory or neural adaptation.     

The personality basis of justice: The five‐factor model as an integrative model of personality and procedural fairness effects on cooperation

Building upon the self‐based model of cooperation (De Cremer & Tyler, 2005 ), the present study investigates the relationship between the five‐factor model (FFM) and cooperation. Study 1 (N = 56), an experiment conducted in the laboratory, and Study 2 (N = 116), a field study conducted in an organisational context, yielded a moderator effect between neuroticism and procedural fairness in explaining cooperation. Study 3 (N = 177) showed that this moderator effect was mediated by the self‐uncertainty and relational variables proposed by the self‐based model of cooperation. It is concluded that the FFM is useful in explaining cooperation and contributes to a better understanding of (procedural) fairness effects. Moreover, the necessity to build integrative, multi‐level models that combine core and surface aspects of personality to explain the effects of fairness on cooperation is elaborated upon. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.