The role of injection cues in the associative control of the US pre-exposure effect in flavour aversion learning

Two experiments, using rats as subjects, examined the role of contextual cues in producing the unconditioned stimulus (US) pre-exposure effect in conditioned taste aversion. Experiment 1 showed a significant US pre-exposure effect, when the pre-exposure was conducted in a familiar context, and that a change of context between the pre-exposure and conditioning phases did not attenuate this effect. Experiment 2 demonstrated that extinction of injection-related cues after the pre-exposure stage attenuated the US pre-exposure effect, when the pre-exposure was conducted in either a familiar or a novel context. Taken together, these results support the associative explanation of the US pre-exposure effect in terms of blocking, incorporating a role for injection-related cues in the context blocking analysis of the US pre-exposure effect.     

Emergence of Third-Order Conditional Discriminations from Learning Discriminations with Unrelated Stimuli

The Psychological Record - This study explored learning and generalization of a third-order conditional discrimination. Two 8-year-old children learned two auditory–visual conditional...     

Sharing without caring? Respect for moral others compensates for low sympathy in children's sharing

We examined links between sharing, respect for moral others, and sympathy in an ethnically diverse sample of 7‐ and 15‐year‐olds (N = 146). Sharing was assessed through children's allocation of resources in the dictator game. Children reported their respect towards hypothetical characters performing moral acts. Sympathy was evaluated via caregiver and child reports. Respect and caregiver‐reported sympathy interacted in predicting sharing: Higher levels of respect were associated with higher levels of sharing for children with low, but not medium or high, levels of sympathy. The motivational components of other‐oriented respect may compensate for low levels of sympathetic concern in the promotion of sharing.     

Relative time in dangerous and safe places influences one-way avoidance learning in the rat

This paper reports three experiments on one-way avoidance learning in rats which examined the effect of time spent in the safe and dangerous compartments on acquisition, maintenance, and extinction of avoidance. In Experiment 1 time spent in safety was manipulated, and time spent in danger was held constant. Animals spending more time in safety needed fewer trials to reach the acquisition criteria and more trials to reach the extinction criteria; both effects became stronger as the required criteria for acquisition and extinction were increased. In Experiment 2 time spent in safety/danger was manipulated while holding the intertrial interval constant. Groups simultaneously spending more time in safety and less time in danger again needed fewer trials to reach the learning criteria. In Experiment 3 time spent in danger was manipulated, whereas time spent in safety was held constant. Groups spending less time in danger needed fewer trials to reach the learning criteria. These results indicate that the magnitude of the reinforcement or incentive value of the safety compartment is not a linear function of absolute time spent therein, but a function of the ratio between the length of time spent in safety and in danger.     

Control by Contextual Stimuli in Novel Second-Order Conditional Discriminations

The Psychological Record - Eighteen undergraduates participated in studies designed to examine the factors that produce transfer of contextual functions to novel stimuli in second-order conditional...     

Support for rejection and reception policies toward asylum seekers in Italy: The role of conservative ideologies and legitimizing myths

ABSTRACT

Based on Social Dominance Theory (SDT), this study investigates the relationships between ideologically conservative attitudes (social dominance orientation, SDO; right-wing authoritarianism, RWA), legitimizing myths (false belief in asylum seekers as bogus; perception of in-group threats), and citizens’ support for restricted reception and rejection of asylum policies. A sample of 539 people living in Italy filled in an anonymous questionnaire administered using a cross-sectional design. The results support the expectations, showing that people high in SDO and RWA were more likely to hold the belief that asylum seekers are making false claims and to perceive that the latter pose a threat to the in-group, which in turn increased support for both of restrictive policies. Findings suggest that conservative ideologies can positively affect citizens’ support for restrictive asylum seeker policies based on both rejection and restricted reception by supplying ideological justification for not accommodating them in the host society.     

ARE WOMEN EVALUATED MORE FAVORABLY THAN MEN?

In an experiment in which male and female respondents evaluated the social category of women or men on several types of measures, analysis of respondents' attitudes toward the sexes and of the evaluative content of their beliefs established that they evaluated women more favorably than men. In addition, analysis of respondents' emotional reactions toward women and men did not yield evidence of negativity toward women at the emotional level. Nor did it appear that respondents' very positive evaluations of women masked ambivalence toward them. This research, therefore, provides strong evidence that women are evaluated quite favorably—in fact, more favorably than men.