French normative data and naming times for action pictures.

The aim of the present study was to provide French normative data for 112 action line drawings. The set of action pictures consisted of 71 drawings taken from Masterson and Druks (1998) and 41 additional drawings. It was standardized on six psycholinguistic variables--that is, name agreement, image agreement, image variability, visual complexity, conceptual familiarity, and age of acquisition (AoA). Naming latencies to the action pictures were collected, and a regression analysis was performed on the naming latencies, with the standardized variables, as well as with word frequency and length, taken as predictors. A reliable influence of AoA, name agreement, and image agreement on the naming latencies was observed. The findings are consistent with previous published studies in other languages. The full set of these norms may be downloaded from www.psychonomic.org/archive/.     

Keeping the vermin out: Perceived disease threat and ideological orientations as predictors of exclusionary immigration attitudes

Integrating evolutionary and social representations theories, the current study examines the relationship between perceived disease threat and exclusionary immigration attitudes in the context of a potential avian influenza pandemic. This large‐scale disease provides a realistic context for investigating the link between disease threat and immigration attitudes. The main aim of this cross‐sectional study (N = 412) was to explore mechanisms through which perceived chronic and contextual disease threats operate on immigration attitudes. Structural equation models show that the relationship between chronic disease threat (germ aversion) and exclusionary immigration attitudes (assimilationist immigration criteria, health‐based immigration criteria and desire to reduce the proportion of foreigners) was mediated by ideological and normative beliefs (social dominance orientation, belief in a dangerous world), but not by contextual disease threat (appraisal of avian influenza pandemic threat). Contextual disease threat only predicted support for health‐based immigration criteria. The conditions under which real‐life disease threats influence intergroup attitudes are scrutinized. Convergence and dissimilarity of evolutionary and social representational approaches in accounting for the link between disease threat and immigration attitudes are discussed. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Analyse interlocutoire d’une plainte exprimée par une équipe mobile de soins palliatifs

This article points out the merits of conducting an interlocutory analysis of a group meeting held between two administrations of a questionnaire. Here, the Company Climate Questionnaire was filled out individually by the members of the group before and after the meeting. Changed attitudes toward the supervisory staff were observed after the discussion. All participants were members of a mobile palliative care team at a university hospital. The verbal interaction analysis allowed us to identify the collaborative facet of the complaint that surfaced, and to determine what inter - subjective processes arising during the group discussion triggered the expressed changes of opinion.     

Une étude sur le rôle modérateur des traits de personnalité sur la relation entre les conditions de l’organisation du travail et la détresse psychologique

This study is about psychological distress lived by Canadian workers. Only a few studies considered personal traits in the comprehension of this phenomenon. This study aims to determine the moderator role of self-esteem, the sense of control and the sense of cohesion on the relation between the work organization conditions and psychological distress. Some longitudinal data (n=7338 workers) coming from five cycles (1994-2003) of the National Population Health Survey (NPHS) have been used to complete some multilevel analysis (n1=time and n2=individual). The results indicate that the sense of control and the sense of cohesion play a moderator role on the relation between some of the work organization conditions and the level of psychological distress.     

Consumer product evaluation based on tactile sensory information

• This paper presents the results of an experiment in which consumers were asked to examine visually and touch samples of fabric. The participants were either given or not given verbal information relevant to the product category, and provided answers to the dependent variables immediately or after a 4‐minute delay. The results showed that memory, confidence in memory, and confidence in product evaluation were positively influenced by the availability of verbal information and therefore support the proposition that relevant verbal information can improve the encoding, retention, and retrieval of consumer experiences that include sensory information and lead to preferences that are better defined.

Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

What can megastudies tell us about the orthographic structure of English words?

Although the majority of research in visual word recognition has targeted single-syllable words, most words are polysyllabic. These words engender special challenges, one of which concerns their analysis into smaller units. According to a recent hypothesis, the organization of letters into groups of successive consonants (C) and vowels (V) constrains the orthographic structure of printed words. So far, evidence has been reported only in French with factorial studies of relatively small sets of items. In the present study, we performed regression analyses on corpora of megastudies (English and British Lexicon Project databases) to examine the influence of the CV pattern in English. We compared hiatus words, which present a mismatch between the number of syllables and the number of groups of adjacent vowel letters (e.g., client), to other words, controlling for standard lexical variables. In speeded pronunciation, hiatus words were processed more slowly than control words, and the effect was stronger in low-frequency words. In the lexical decision task, the interference effect of hiatus in low-frequency words was balanced by a facilitatory effect in high-frequency words. Taken together, the results support the hypothesis that the configuration of consonant and vowel letters influences the processing of polysyllabic words in English.     

Cooperation in Mixed‐Motive Games: The Role of Individual Differences in Selfish and Social Orientation

In mixed‐motive games, people must choose between acting upon selfish interests and concerns for others. Yet, the consistency of people's behaviour across these various games is still unclear. If the same conflict between self and others is at the core of all mixed‐motive situations, three hypotheses can be stated: (1) behaviours in different mixed‐motive games should be substantially related; (2) all these games should substantially appeal to dispositional variables that probe in the psychological conflict between self and others; and (3) these dispositional variables should explain the shared variance among various games. These hypotheses were tested among undergraduate students (N = 219) who played seven different single‐shot mixed‐motive games and one sequential game. Social Value Orientation and the ideological attitudes Social Dominance Orientation and Right‐Wing Authoritarianism were included as dispositions. Our findings, however, showed evidence that did not fully substantiate our hypotheses, which calls into question the general idea that all mixed‐motive games render the conflict between selfish interests and concern for others salient. In the discussion, we focus on implications for research on mixed‐motive situations and elaborate on the role of ideology in this domain. Copyright © 2015 European Association of Personality Psychology