Voting at 16? 16–17-Year-Old Germans Vote as Correctly as Adults

Lowering the voting age from 18 to 16 years has recently been a hot topic of the political debate in many democratic countries. This study investigated whether the voting quality of 16–17-year-olds is inferior to that of the voting population. Shortly before the 2021 German federal election, two samples, representative for age and gender, indicated personal preferences about various political issues and weighted them according to importance, allowing for the calculation of individual expected values for political parties. Participants then indicated their voting choice. These choices were normatively correct when individuals voted for the party that best reflected their preferences, that is, the one maximizing the expected value. Results show that the voting decisions of 16–17-year-olds were as good as those by eligible voters. The study indicates that the exclusion of 16–17-year-old Germans in democratic elections cannot be justified by their lack of decision-making ability.     

“Put a Little Love in Your Heart”: Acceptance of Paternalistic and Ally Political Discourses Both Predict Pro-Roma Solidarity Intentions Through Moral Inclusion

The way politicians talk about minorities institutes the normative context of intergroup relations. We investigated how endorsement of different political discourses predicts donation and collective action intentions by majority members toward the Roma in five European countries. The survey was conducted online using samples demographically similar to the populations of Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, France, and Ireland (N = 5,054). First, results showed that accepting paternalistic discourse versus discourse promoting allyship were not distinguishable; both promoted higher moral inclusion which in turn predicted higher prosocial intentions. Second, donations (i.e., immediate relief) and collective action (i.e., social change action) were driven by identical factors. Third, acceptance of openly hostile political discourse neither predicted moral exclusion, nor lower prosocial intentions. In summary, our research provides important evidence that when it comes to Roma—non-Roma relations, the previously established distinction between solidarity intentions that aim to solidify status relations versus bring about social change is completely blurred, presumably because of the social context in which any positive message communicates moral inclusion challenging the hostile status quo.     

Further evaluation of prompt density,rate of reinforcement,and the persistence of manding

Previous research has evaluated the effects of prompt rates on the rate of communicative behavior. More recent research has suggested that dense prompting can result in communicative behavior that is more resistant to change. However, existing research has not considered the impact that higher response rates had on reinforcement rate, a variable known to impact response persistence. The current study systematically replicated previous research by evaluating communicative responding in contexts associated with dense- and lean-prompt schedules and extended existing research by (a) holding reinforcement rates similar across the two prompting schedules (lean and dense), and (b) evaluating the persistence of communicative responding in the contexts associated with each prompting schedule. The results for Experiment 1 clearly replicated and extended previous research. The results for Experiment 2 were equivocal and suggested that previous reinforcement history and response class size impacted outcomes.     

Correspondence between resident- and staff-report on the QABF: Do justice-involved youth agree with residential staff?

Residents in juvenile residential treatment facilities (JRTFs) often display various emotional, behavioral, and educational needs. Researchers have recently developed behavioral interventions to increase residents' appropriate behavior such as cooperation with facility staff instructions, accepting feedback from facility staff, and tolerating unpleasant events. However, there is not a generally accepted tool for assessing the operant function of residents' problem behavior in JRTFs. For various logistical reasons, indirect functional assessments may be more appropriate in a JRTF than manipulating either antecedent or consequent events. This study obtained scores on the Questions About Behavior Function (QABF) assessment for 17 residents from two dormitory staff members for each resident. To increase the number of respondents, each resident completed a QABF for their own behavior. Results revealed moderate to high correspondence (i.e., agreement) for highest and lowest potential operant function of problem behavior between combinations of JRTF staff and residents. These preliminary findings suggest additional research with the QABF in JRTFs is warranted.     

Introspective acquaintance: An integration account

In this paper, I develop a new version of the acquaintance view of the nature of introspection of phenomenal states. On the acquaintance view, when one introspects a current phenomenal state of one's, one bears to it the relation of introspective acquaintance. Extant versions of the acquaintance view neglect what I call the phenomenal modification problem. The problem, articulated by Franz Brentano in his Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, is that drawing introspective attention to one's current conscious experience may modify its phenomenology. Failing to take phenomenal modification into account affects the adequacy of extant versions of the acquaintance view. The purpose of this paper is to develop a better version, the integration account, that meets the phenomenal modification challenge while preserving the merits of other versions.     

Dehumanization of women and men in elective abortion: A preregistered replication in China

Although abortion in China has been legalized for several decades, it is still controversial and the woman and man involved are at risk of being stigmatized. The current research replicated two studies conducted in Italy by investigating how the abortion decision of the woman and man influence received moral outrage, dehumanization, and perceptions of female professional competence. Study 1, which only included female participants, found higher moral outrage toward a woman having an abortion when the pregnancy was depicted as referring to a “child” (vs. “foetus”), and higher dehumanization of the woman in terms of human nature. Study 2, which included both male and female participants, and clarified responsibility for the abortion decision with respect to the woman and the man, revealed higher moral outrage and a reduction in the attribution of human uniqueness to the man, and of human nature to both the woman and the man. Moral outrage mediated dehumanization when participants had low positive attitudes toward abortion in Study 1 and high positive attitudes in Study 2. Both studies showed a negative impact of the decision to have an abortion on the woman's perceived traditional professional competence. The results generally align with the findings from Italy and yield some practical implications on reducing abortion stigma. Future abortion stigma research should consider more gender-related factors.     

Delving into brand anthropomorphisation strategies in the experiential context of name-brand voice assistants

Consumers' increasing use of voice-activated artificial intelligence technologies is stimulating the development of a new line of research in the field of marketing aiming to analyse the branding implications in this innovative experiential context. The spread of so-called name-brand voice assistants (NBVAs) is creating interesting opportunities in terms of brand anthropomorphism. The brand anthropomorphisation strategies adopted by companies are poorly studied in the academic literature, and only one contribution has been made in the experiential field of NBVAs. Therefore, the objective of our work is to begin to fill this gap by investigating the pillars of brand anthropomorphisation strategies (i.e., activities and branding outcomes) in the specific NBVA context by adopting a managerial perspective. Therefore, we followed an exploratory qualitative approach based on in-depth personal interviews with practitioners engaged in these strategies in the automotive sector. The resulting cognitive map reveals the following three levels of strategic pillars: drivers (i.e., designing a human-like brand voice and human-like consumer-brand dialogue), intermediate outcomes (i.e., brand personality and the strength of consumer-brand relationships), and final outcomes (i.e., multidimensional brand loyalty). Our study enriches both the literature concerning brand anthropomorphisation strategies and the nascent stream on NBVAs and provides managerial guidelines in the new in-car NBVA context.     

Insights into computational thinking from think-aloud interviews: A systematic review

This systematic review examines 35 empirical studies featuring the use of think-aloud interviews in computational thinking (CT) research. Findings show that think-aloud interviews (1) are typically conducted in Computer Science classrooms and with K-12 students; (2) are usually combined with other exploratory CT assessment tools; (3) have the potential to benefit learners with special needs and identify the competency gaps through involving diverse participants; (4) are conducted in the absence of cognitive models and standard procedures; and (5) display insufficient definitional and methodological rigor. Theoretically, this review presents a systematic assessment about the application of think-aloud interviews in CT studies and identifies the limitations in existing CT-related think-aloud studies. Practically, this review serves as a reference for studying the cognitive processes during CT problem-solving and provides suggestions for CT researchers who intend to incorporate think-aloud interviews in their studies.