How Political Scandals Affect the Electorate. Tracing the Eroding and Spillover Effects of Scandals with a Panel Study

Political scandals are highly relevant for political decision-making and democratic processes more generally. While most prior research employed experimental and cross-sectional survey studies, we tested the effects of a political scandal in the context of the 2017 Austrian Parliamentary Elections using panel data (N = 559, both waves). Importantly, we used a unique data set collected before and just after a major scandal broke in the final election phase. Drawing on a motivated reasoning perspective, attribution theory, and the inclusion/exclusion model, our results revealed a scandal-eroding effect particularly damaging a candidate's own base of supporters and leaving followers in disappointment. The findings also showed a negative scandal-spillover effect for candidate supporters high in scandal knowledge decreasing political trust toward other politicians. Importantly, the results revealed that negative candidate evaluations are not a necessary precondition for negative spillover effects on political trust more generally.     

The Integrated Acculturation Model: Expanding Acculturation to Cultural Identities in Addition to Race and Ethnicity

This article is an attempt to integrate existing conceptual knowledge on acculturation as well as to expand the use of the construct, which has traditionally had race and ethnicity as its focus, to also include cultural identities such as sexual orientation, gender identity, nationality, and disability. The article begins with a review of existing theoretical contributions from both the United States and Europe. We then propose a model to update and expand the use of acculturation. Finally, we provide an assessment framework. Este artículo es un intento de integrar los conocimientos conceptuales existentes sobre la aculturación además de expandir el uso de este constructo, que tradicionalmente se ha enfocado hacia la raza y la etnicidad, para incluir también identidades culturales tales como la orientación sexual, la identidad de sexo, la nacionalidad y la discapacidad. El artículo comienza con una revisión de las contribuciones teóricas existentes tanto de Estados Unidos como de Europa. A continuación, proponemos un modelo para actualizar y expandir el uso de la aculturación. Por último, proporcionamos un marco de evaluación.     

Deception in psychotherapy: Frequency,typology and relationship

Deception in therapy has been documented anecdotally through various narratives of therapists. The investigation of its occurrence within therapy has largely been overlooked. We explored the reported frequency of deception within psychotherapy, the types of deception used within therapy, the likelihood of people lying to a therapist compared to other groups of people, and client perceptions of the types of deception that therapists use. Ninety‐one participants were provided with a series of deception examples, asked questions about the use of these types of deception within therapy, and asked generally about their use of deception in therapy. We found that a majority of the participants had been deceptive in therapy, and a majority were willing to be deceptive in future therapeutic contexts. Participants were more likely to use white lies than other forms of deception in therapy. Lastly, participants were less likely to lie to therapists compared to strangers and acquaintances. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

What is Ubuntu,? Different Interpretations among South Africans of African Descent

Abstract

In this article, I describe and systematize the different answers to the question ‘What is ubuntu,?’ that I have been able to identify among South Africans of African descent (SAADs). I show that it is possible to distinguish between two clusters of answers. The answers of the first cluster all define ubuntu, as a moral quality of a person, while the answers of the second cluster all define ubuntu, as a phenomenon (for instance a philosophy, an ethic, African humanism, or, a worldview) according to which persons are interconnected. The concept of a person is of central importance to all the answers of both clusters, which means that to understand these answers, it is decisive to raise the question of who counts, as a person according to SAADs. I show that some SAADs define all Homo sapiens, as persons, whereas others hold the view that only some Homo sapiens, count as persons: only those who are black, only those who have been incorporated into personhood, or only those who behave in a morally acceptable manner.     

The Growth of Multidisciplinarity in the Cognitive Science Society

In a case study of the growth of cognitive science, we analyzed the activities of the Cognitive Science Society with a particular emphasis on the multidisciplinary nature of the field. Analyses of departmental affiliations, training back-grounds, research methodology, and paper citations suggest that the journal Cognitive Science and the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society are dominated by cognitive psychology and computer science, rather than being an equal division among the constituent disciplines of cognitive science. However, at many levels, a growing percentage of work was found to involve a conjunction of multiple disciplines, such that approximately 30–50% of recent work in the Cognitive Science Society is multidisciplinary. In a questionnaire study of cognitive scientists involved in collaborative research, multidisciplinarity was found to shape the research process and affect the factors associated with successful research.     

A Simon effect for stimulus-response duration

A non-spatial variant of the Simon effect for the stimulus-response (S-R) feature of duration is reported. In Experiment 1 subjects were required to press a single response key either briefly or longer in response to the colour of a visual stimulus that varied in its presentation duration. Short keypresses were initiated faster with short than with long stimulus duration whereas the inverse was observed with long keypresses. In Experiment 2 subjects were required to press a left or right key (according to stimulus form) either briefly or longer (according to stimulus colour). The stimuli concurrently varied in their location (left or right) and duration (short or long), which were both task irrelevant. Approximately additive correspondence effects for S-R location and S-R duration were observed. To summarize, the results suggest that the irrelevant stimulus features of location and duration are processed automatically and prime corresponding responses in an independent manner.