Role‐Induced Bias in Court: An Experimental Analysis

Criminal procedure is organized as a tournament with predefined roles. We show that assuming the role of a defense counsel or a prosecutor leads to role‐induced bias even if participants are asked to predict a court ruling after they have ceased to act in that role and if they expect a substantial financial incentive for being accurate. The bias is not removed either if participants are instructed to predict the court ruling in preparation of plea bargaining. In line with parallel constraint satisfaction models for legal decision making, findings indicate that role‐induced bias is driven by coherence effects, that is, systematic information distortions in support of the favored option. This is mainly achieved by downplaying the importance of conflicting evidence. These distortions seem to stabilize interpretations, and people do not correct for this bias. Implications for legal procedure are briefly discussed. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

My Way to Intercultural Pastoral Care: Experiences and Insights of a German in Brazil

This article informs about basic elements of a method of Intercultural Pastoral Counselling based on experiences in Brazil. In a case study it shows how the method works in counselling poor families in the cultural context of Latin-America. Theological and psychological aspects are discussed. The author asks whether this approach can be useful in other cultural contexts.     

Body height and occupational success for actors and actresses

The association of body height with occupational success has been frequently studied, with previous research mainly finding a positive effect among men and positive or null effects among women. Occupational success has almost exclusively been measured so far by short-term success variables (e.g., annual income). In the present study, the relationship of success and height was examined in a group of actors and actresses using a large online database about movies (Internet Movie Database) where heights of actors and actresses are stated. The number of roles played in movies and television series during each actor's lifetime was used as a measure of long-term occupational success. No height effect was found for male actors but a significant negative effect was found for actresses, even after controlling for possible confounding influences (age and birth year). Compared to the general population, actors and actresses were significantly taller; however, actresses who were shorter than average were more likely to achieve greater occupational success, in terms of being featured in more movies.     

Self-deception as pseudo-rational regulation of belief

Self-deception is a special kind of motivational dominance in belief-formation. We develop criteria which set paradigmatic self-deception apart from related phenomena of auto-manipulation such as pretense and motivational bias. In self-deception rational subjects defend or develop beliefs of high subjective importance in response to strong counter-evidence. Self-deceivers make or keep these beliefs tenable by putting prima-facie rational defense-strategies to work against their established standards of rational evaluation. In paradigmatic self-deception, target-beliefs are made tenable via reorganizations of those belief-sets that relate relevant data to target-beliefs. This manipulation of the evidential value of relevant data goes beyond phenomena of motivated perception of data. In self-deception belief-defense is pseudo-rational. Self-deceivers will typically apply a dual standard of evaluation that remains intransparent to the subject. The developed model of self-deception as pseudo-rational belief-defense is empirically anchored. So, we hope to put forward a promising candidate.     

Why did I eat that? Perspectives on food decision making and dietary restraint

Consumers trying to watch or restrict what they eat face a battle each day as they attempt to navigate the food-rich environments in which they live. Due to the complexity of food decision making, consumers are susceptible to a wide range of social, cognitive, affective, and environmental forces determined to interrupt their intentions to restrict their dietary intake. In this article, we integrate literature from diverse theoretical perspectives into a conceptual framework designed to offer a better understanding of the antecedents, interruptions, and consequences of dietary restraint. We outline a path for researchers to investigate how restraint behaviors in the eating domain influence a wide variety of consumer psychological phenomena. It is our hope that a collective examination of this literature provides a lens that directs future research on food decision making and dietary restraint and empowers consumers to invest their cognitive and behavioral resources towards healthy eating behaviors.     

Toward a complete decision model of item and source recognition: A discrete-state approach

In source-monitoring experiments, participants study items from two sources (A and B). At test, they are presented Source A items, Source B items, and new items. They are asked to decide whether a test item is old or new (item memory) and whether it is a Source A or a Source B item (source memory). Hautus, Macmillan, and Rotello (2008) developed models, couched in a bivariate signal detection framework, that account for item and source memory across several data sets collected in a confidence-rating response format. The present article enlarges the set of candidate models with a discrete-state model. The model is a straightforward extension of Bayen, Murnane, and Erdfelder's (1996) multinomial model of source discrimination to confidence ratings. On the basis of the evaluation criteria adopted by Hautus et al., it provides a better account of the data than do Hautus et al.'s models.     

Effects of Personalized Banner Ads on Visual Attention and Recognition Memory

Internet companies collect a vast amount of data about their users in order to personalize banner ads. However, very little is known about the effects of personalized banners on attention and memory. In the present study, 48 subjects performed search tasks on web pages containing personalized or nonpersonalized banners. Overt attention was measured by an eye‐tracker, and recognition of banner and task‐relevant information was subsequently examined. The entropy of fixations served as a measure for the overall exploration of web pages. Results confirm the hypotheses that personalization enhances recognition for the content of banners while the effect on attention was weaker and partially nonsignificant. In contrast, overall exploration of web pages and recognition of task‐relevant information was not influenced. The temporal course of fixations revealed that visual exploration of banners typically proceeds from the picture to the logo and finally to the slogan. We discuss theoretical and practical implications. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Dissociation of rapid response learning and facilitation in perceptual and conceptual networks of person recognition

Repetition priming is a prominent example of non‐declarative memory, and it increases the accuracy and speed of responses to repeatedly processed stimuli. Major long‐hold memory theories posit that repetition priming results from facilitation within perceptual and conceptual networks for stimulus recognition and categorization. Stimuli can also be bound to particular responses, and it has recently been suggested that this rapid response learning, not network facilitation, provides a sound theory of priming of object recognition. Here, we addressed the relevance of network facilitation and rapid response learning for priming of person recognition with a view to advance general theories of priming. In four experiments, participants performed conceptual decisions like occupation or nationality judgments for famous faces. The magnitude of rapid response learning varied across experiments, and rapid response learning co‐occurred and interacted with facilitation in perceptual and conceptual networks. These findings indicate that rapid response learning and facilitation in perceptual and conceptual networks are complementary rather than competing theories of priming. Thus, future memory theories need to incorporate both rapid response learning and network facilitation as individual facets of priming.     

Short- and Long-Term Effects of Video Game Violence on Interpersonal Trust

Two studies investigate the psychological processes underlying short- and long-term effects of video game violence on interpersonal trust. Study 1 demonstrates that interacting with physically aggressive virtual agents decreases players' trust in subsequent interactions. This effect was stronger for players who were dispositionally sensitive to victimization. In Study 2, long-term effects of adolescents' frequent exposure to video game violence on interpersonal trust and victim sensitivity were investigated. Cross-lagged path analyses show that the reported frequency of playing violent video games reduced interpersonal trust over a period of 12 months, particularly among victim-sensitive players. These findings are in line with the sensitivity to mean intentions (SeMI) model, and they suggest that interpersonal mistrust is a relevant long-term outcome of frequent exposure to video game violence.