Understanding what students bring to the classroom: moderators of the effects of diversity courses on student attitudes

We investigated the impact of required diversity courses on students' understanding of racial inequality and their social development with regard to racial outgroups, with a specific focus on the effects of student race and empathy as moderators of diversity course effectiveness. First-semester students (N = 173), enrolled in either diversity courses or introduction to psychology, completed surveys at the beginning and end of the semester. Diversity courses increased understanding of White privilege, acknowledgment of blatant racism, and intersectional consciousness overall, but had a greater impact on intersectional consciousness for White students compared with students of color. White students taking diversity courses experienced a reduction in Protestant work ethic ideology that was absent for White students in psychology courses and for all students of color. Notably, empathy moderated the effect of diversity courses on both outgroup comfort and willingness to act to promote diversity.     

A new processing model for predicting performance on Pascual-Leone's test of M-space

A new model is proposed for explaining children's performance on Pascual-Leone's test of M-space. The model differs from Pascual-Leone's in three regards. (1) It assumes that children do not stop sampling a compound stimulus until every simple stimulus in their field of attention has already been noticed and responded to. (2) It assumes that the probability of sampling different combinations of simple stimuli conforms to the laws of Maxwell-Boltzman statistics rather than Bose-Einstein statistics. (3) It assumes that children's ability to detect all the simple stimuli in a compound stimulus is highly dependent both on the relative saliencies of the simple stimuli and on the length of time for which the compound stimulus is exposed. Using the developmental values of M hypothesized by Pascual-Leone, and standard techniques of computer simulation, the new model is used to generate theoretical performance curves for children at four different age levels and seven different levels of stimulus complexity. It is shown that the predicted performance curves for an exposure time of 5 sec provide a reasonable fit to the data originally reported by Pascual-Leone (1970), and that the predicted performance curves for an exposure time of 10 sec provide a reasonable fit to data obtained more recently by Parkinson (1976). Finally, it is shown that the order of children's responses as well as the number of their responses can be predicted. Two conclusions are drawn. (1) The new processing model offers a viable alternative to the model originally proposed by Pascual-Leone. (2) Regardless of which processing model is employed, the M-values originally postulated by Pascual-Leone are valid.     

Interactive versus passive dynamics and the exploratory analysis of multivariate data

In two experiments, we examined subjects’ ability to infer structure from three-dimensional data presented dynamically in interactive versus passive mode and in static scatterplots. Accuracy of estimating the number of clusters in three-dimensional data sets was measured for each of these conditions, as a function of cluster discriminability.     

Ethnography in Community Psychology: Promises and Tensions

Community psychology recognizes the need for research methods that illuminate context, culture, diversity, and process. One such method, ethnography, has crossed into multiple disciplines from anthropology, and indeed, community psychologists are becoming community ethnographers. Ethnographic work stands at the intersection of bridging universal questions with the particularities of people and groups bounded in time, geographic location, and social location. Ethnography is thus historical and deeply contextual, enabling a rich, in-depth understanding of communities that is aligned with the values and goals of community psychology. The purpose of this paper is to elucidate the potential of ethnography for community psychology and to encourage its use within the field as a method to capture culture and context, to document process, and to reveal how social change and action occur within and through communities. We discuss the method of ethnography, draw connections to community psychology values and goals, and identify tensions from our experiences doing ethnography. Overall, we assert that ethnography is a method that resonates with community psychology and present this paper as a resource for those interested in using this method in their research or community activism.     

Less means more for pigeons but not always

When humans are asked to judge the value of a set of objects of excellent quality, they often give this set higher value than those same objects with the addition of some of lesser quality. This is an example of the affect heuristic, often referred to as the less-is-more effect. Monkeys and dogs, too, have shown this suboptimal effect. But in the present experiments, normally hungry pigeons chose optimally: a preferred food plus a less--preferred food over a more-preferred food alone. In Experiment 2, however, pigeons on a less-restricted diet showed the suboptimal less-is-more effect. Choice on control trials indicated that the effect did not result from the novelty of two food items versus one. The effect in the less-food-restricted pigeons appears to result from the devaluation of the combination of the food items by the presence of the less-preferred food item. The reversal of the effect under greater food restriction may occur because, as motivation increases, the value of the less-preferred food increases faster than the value of the more-preferred food, thus decreasing the difference in value between the two foods.     

Affiliation‐seeking among the powerless: Lacking power increases social affiliative motivation

Although it is well known that many people possess fundamental desires for both social affiliation and power, research has only begun to investigate the interplay between these two core social motives. The current research tested the hypothesis that an individual's level of power would influence that person's level of social affiliative motivation. We predicted that, compared with participants in a control condition, (1) individuals who possess power would exhibit less social affiliative motivation; and (2) individuals who lack power would display greater social affiliative motivation. Although we found little evidence to support the former prediction, we observed consistent evidence across two experiments that supported the latter. In Experiment 1, priming participants with low power (versus control) led them to display greater interest in joining a campus service aimed at fostering new friendships among students. In Experiment 2, placing participants in a position of low power (versus control) led them to seek greater proximity to a partner. Together, these results suggest that lacking power motivates people to seek social affiliation. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Disease-avoidant behaviour and its consequences

Medical conditions that are non-contagious, but that appear contagious, seem to result in the sufferer being avoided. Error management theory (EMT), suggests that such false alarms occur because the cost of infection poses a greater threat to ones fitness than avoidance. Study 1 attempted to demonstrate a disease-related false alarm effect by asking participants, to evaluate a series of vignettes, featuring people with infectious diseases, non-infectious diseases that looked infectious and non-infectious diseases that did not. Judgements of contracting infection under varying levels of contact, and desire to avoid were obtained. Consistent with EMT, a false alarm effect was evident. Study 2 examined the importance of the face as a key indicator of real and apparent infection, by determining whether facial symptoms result in a greater desire to avoid people with infectious and non-infectious diseases. Consistent with expectation, participants reported a greater desire to avoid people with facially displayed symptoms. Together, these results support the idea that humans have evolved a general tendency to avoid individuals with disease signs, especially if displayed upon the face. One consequence is that where a facially displayed disease sign persists, even if known to be benign, its bearer will experience chronic avoidance.     

Working in the Metaphor Commentary on Paper by Stephen Seligman

This paper expands on Seligman's ideas about mentalization and the challenges of working with patients who cannot mentalize. Seligman's clinical presentation demonstrates that much valuable analytic work takes place without explicit reference to the transference. Drawing on Britton's notion of the triangular internal space that allows for reflective thought, we propose that analytic interest in an external object, discovered through the relationship and meaningful to both patient and analyst, helps create the same kind of space. The difference-within-sameness of shared contemplation can increase receptivity to divergent perspectives. Likewise, the “third object” can become a therapeutic metaphor, open to various meanings without being limited to any one interpretation. We trace how Seligman and his patient use a series of third objects in their work together. In this process, the patient moves from a transitional relationship of minimal differentiation to an increasingly secure sense of her own separateness, beginning to accept, and even enjoy, having a motivated mind of her own. Finally, we discuss how Ferro's concept of the analytic field offers a theoretical rationale for the effectiveness of this process.     

Reflexivity in Counterspaces Fieldwork

Reflexivity is an important tool for navigating ethically important moments in fieldwork. It may be particularly useful in situations where the researcher has the potential to undermine the conduct of the study and/or the well‐being‐enhancing role of counterspaces. In this article, I explore my use of reflexivity to traverse ethically important moments I encountered while investigating a counterspace for African‐American youth who had been incarcerated. The ethical challenge concerned whether and how to continue this study in light of realizing that I held implicit biases toward the research participants. I describe my process for arriving at a decision and propose key considerations for the use of reflexivity in supporting ethical fieldwork within counterspaces.     

Contrast between what is expected and what occurs increases pigeon’s suboptimal choice

Animal Cognition - When pigeons are given a choice between 50% signaled reinforcement and 100% reinforcement they typically do not choose optimally, sometimes even preferring 50% reinforcement....