Disdain for anxious individuals as a function of mortality salience

Terror management theory research has shown that reminders of mortality tend to decrease liking for people who threaten one's worldview. In research, these worldview threats typically come from outgroup members, but they may also come from ingroup members who are negatively characterized. Presumably the negative characteristics of ingroup members threaten to diminish or undermine the worldview by their association with it. In this research we examine anxious individuals as potentially threatening ingroup members. We hypothesized that a brief contemplation of mortality would lead people to decrease their liking for anxious individuals associated with their ingroup. Study 1 showed that a mortality reminder led people to react more negatively to an anxious police liaison from their community, but not to a calm police liaison. Study 2 showed that a mortality reminder led people who strongly identified with university students to react more negatively to a fellow university student who was anxious, but not to a student who did not display anxiety. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Uzilla: A new tool for Web usability testing

Web usability testing and research presents challenges for accurate data collection. An instrumented browser solution, Uzilla, is compared with existing solutions, and its contributions to usability testing practice are noted. Uzilla implements a client—server architecture based on the open source Mozilla browser. Instrumentation of the browser facilitates the evaluation of Web sites and applications inside and outside of the laboratory. An integrated data collection and analysis server application decreases the effort required to understand test results and facilitates iterative testing.     

Six regularities of source recognition

In recent work, researchers have shown that source-recognition memory can be incorporated in an extended signal detection model that covers both it and item-recognition memory (A. Hilford, M. Glanzer, K. Kim, & L. T. DeCarlo, 2002). In 5 experiments, using learning variables that have an established effect on item recognition, the authors tested further implications of that extended model. The results establish 6 source-recognition regularities that support the model. An important regularity in that set is the linkage of source and item recognition: Any learning variable that increases item recognition increases source recognition.     

Representational and executive selection resources in 'theory of mind': evidence from compromised belief-desire reasoning in old age

Effective belief-desire reasoning requires both specialized representational capacities-the capacity to represent the mental states as such-as well as executive selection processes for accurate performance on tasks requiring the prediction and explanation of the actions of social agents. Compromised belief-desire reasoning in a given population may reflect failures in either or both of these systems. We report evidence supporting this two-process model from belief-desire reasoning tasks conducted with younger and older adult populations. When task inferential complexity is held constant, neither group showed specific difficulty with reasoning about mental state content as compared with non-mental state content. However, manipulations that systematically increase executive performance demands within belief-desire reasoning caused systematic decreases in task performance in both older and younger adult groups. Moreover, the effect of increasing executive demands was disproportionately greater in the older group. Regression analysis indicated that measures of processing speed and inhibition contributed most to explaining variance in accuracy and response times in the belief-desire reasoning tasks. These results are consistent with the idea that compromised belief-desire reasoning in old age is likely the result of age-related decline in executive selection skills that supplement core mental state representational abilities, rather than as a result of failures in the representational system itself.     

Language, embodiment, and the cognitive niche

Embodied agents use bodily actions and environmental interventions to make the world a better place to think in. Where does language fit into this emerging picture of the embodied, ecologically efficient agent? One useful way to approach this question is to consider language itself as a cognition-enhancing animal-built structure. To take this perspective is to view language as a kind of self-constructed cognitive niche: a persisting but never stationary material scaffolding whose crucial role in promoting thought and reason remains surprisingly poorly understood. It is the very materiality of this linguistic scaffolding, I suggest, that gives it some key benefits. By materializing thought in words, we create structures that are themselves proper objects of perception, manipulation, and (further) thought.     

The Effects of Sex and Power Schemas,Attitudes Toward Women,and Victim Resistance on Rape Attributions1

This study examined the effects of attitudes toward women, rape schemas, and victim resistance on rape attributions in a hypothetical rape scenario. One hundred twenty-eight female subjects participated in the investigation. In line with the hypotheses, a 2 × 2 × 2 (Traditional vs. Nontraditional Attitudes × Sex vs. Power Schemas × Presence vs. Absence of Resistance) ANOVA demonstrated a significant interaction effect between rape schemas and victim resistance for rape attributions. As predicted, those who held sex schemas of rape attributed less fault and responsibility to resisting, compared to nonresisting, victims. In addition, they attributed more fault and responsibility to the nonresisting victim than did those who held power schemas. Rape schemas and victim resistance exerted an interactive influence on perpetrator attributions. Although attitudes toward women did not affect victim attributions, traditional women attributed less fault and responsibility to perpetrators than did nontraditional women.