Anti‐Immigrant Propaganda by Radical Right Parties and the Intellectual Performance of Adolescents

In recent years radical right political parties have become a substantial electoral force in many countries around the world. Based on the vision of a mono‐ethnic state, anti‐immigration is these parties' core message. Connecting research on discrimination, social exclusion, and social identity threat, it was assumed that this anti‐immigrant propaganda undermines the intellectual performance of immigrant adolescents. In an experiment conducted at Austrian schools, the intelligence test performance of adolescents with an immigration background decreased after they were exposed to radical right election posters whereas ethnic majority adolescents remained unaffected. The results further suggest that individuals with a strong ethnic minority identity are less vulnerable to the detrimental impact of the radical right propaganda.     

Persuasive Effects of Fictional Narratives Increase Over Time

Fact-related information contained in fictional narratives may induce substantial changes in readers' real-world beliefs. Current models of persuasion through fiction assume that these effects occur because readers are psychologically transported into the fictional world of the narrative. Contrary to general dual-process models of persuasion, models of persuasion through fiction also imply that persuasive effects of fictional narratives are persistent and even increase over time (absolute sleeper effect). In an experiment designed to test this prediction, 81 participants read either a fictional story that contained true as well as false assertions about real-world topics or a control story. There were large short-term persuasive effects of false information, and these effects were even larger for a group with a 2-week assessment delay. Belief certainty was weakened immediately after reading but returned to baseline level after 2 weeks, indicating that beliefs acquired by reading fictional narratives are integrated into real-world knowledge.     

Transportation and Need for Affect in Narrative Persuasion: A Mediated Moderation Model

Two experiments investigated the idea that individual differences in need for affect are critical for narrative persuasion. Need for affect, that is, the disposition to approach emotions, was assumed to facilitate the experience of being transported into the mental world of the narrative. An intense experience of transportation, in turn, should enhance the persuasive impact of narrative information on readers' beliefs. A mediated moderation analysis was used to test these assumptions. In both experiments (N = 314), need for affect (approach) and transportation moderated the persuasive effects of a fictional narrative compared to a belief-irrelevant control story (Experiment 1) and the persuasive effects of a story with high emotional content compared to a story with low emotional content (Experiment 2). The moderator effects of need for affect were shown to be mediated by the moderator effects of transportation. In sum, the magnitude of a person's need for affect determines whether and to what extent the person experiences transportation into the story world and is persuaded by the information presented in the narrative.     

Aversive aspects of a schedule of positive reinforcement

Six male White Carneaux pigeons were trained to peck at one of two keys to obtain food on several fixed-ratio schedules of reinforcement. Concurrently, the first response on a second key could, I—change the conditions of visual stimulation and remove the food reinforcement contingency, II—change the conditions of stimulation and have no effect upon the reinforcement contingency, or III—do nothing. The second response on the stimulus change key always restored baseline conditions. When second-key responses produced a stimulus change, the number of such responses was a function of the ratio value on the first key. Typically, second-key responses occurred before the start of fixed-ratio runs. The duration of stimulus change periods was an exponential function of the number of responses required for reinforcement when the possibility for reinforcement was not disturbed by periods of stimulus change (Condition II).     

What makes people happy? Decoupling the experiential-material continuum

Extant literature suggests that consumers derive more happiness from experiences (e.g., vacations) than from material possessions (e.g., furniture). However, this literature typically pits material against experiential consumption, treating them as a single bipolar construct of their relative dominance: more material or more experiential. This focus on relative dominance leaves unanswered questions regarding how different levels of material and experiential qualities each contribute to happiness. Four preregistered studies (N = 3,288), using hundreds of product categories, measured levels of material and experiential qualities using two unipolar items. These studies investigate recalled, evoked, and anticipated happiness. Results show a more nuanced view of the experiential advantage that is critical for future research and consumer theory: material and experiential qualities both have positive relationships with happiness. Further, there is no inherent trade-off between experiential and material qualities: consumers can enjoy consumption that is high on both (e.g., swimming pools and home improvements).