Combining advice: the weight of a dissenting opinion in the consensus

We present two studies that evaluate how people combine advice and how they respond to outlying opinions. In a preliminary study, we found that individuals use discounting strategies when they encounter an extreme opinion in a small sample of opinions taken only once (a one‐shot advice‐taking situation). The main study examines the influence of outlying opinions (which may or may not be accurate) within a learning paradigm with feedback. This study shows that it is easy to reinforce a discounting strategy (with feedback) whereas it is more difficult to counteract this default strategy. In the discussion we consider cognitive, statistical, and strategic justifications for discounting opinions, from both theoretical and practical points of view. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Can I Make a Difference? Efficacy,Employment, and Disability

Political efficacy is a widely studied phenomenon and an important predictor of political participation, but little is known about the political efficacy of the millions of people with disabilities in the United States. This paper reports the results of a nationally representative telephone survey of 1,240 people—stratified to include 700 people with disabilities—following the November 1998 elections. Several measures of efficacy that help predict political activity were found to be significantly lower among people with disabilities than among otherwise similar people without disabilities. Although lower levels of internal efficacy and civic skills could largely be explained by educational and employment gaps, lower levels of other variables (external efficacy, perceived influence of people with disabilities, and perceived treatment of people with disabilities) remained after applying a wide range of controls, indicating that people with disabilities are less likely to see the political system as responsive to them. This perception is concentrated among non–employed people with disabilities. The lower efficacy levels linked to "disability gaps" in employment, income, education, and group attendance appear to account for as much as half of the disability political participation gap; hence, policies intended to increase employment and educational opportunities for people with disabilities have potentially important political effects.     

Saving Bulgaria's Jews: an analysis of social identity and the mobilisation of social solidarity

This paper investigates the arguments used in public documents to mobilise Bulgarians against the deportation of Jews in World War II. We focus on the key documents relating to the first wave of mobilisation in 1940–1941 as provided by Todorov in The Fragility of Goodness ( 2001 ). We demonstrate that these documents are based on three types of argument. The first, category inclusion, treats the Jews as part of a common ingroup rather than as constituting a separate outgroup. The second, category norms, proposes that help for those under attack is a core aspect of ingroup identity. The third, category interest, suggests that the ingroup will be harmed if Jews are persecuted. In each case, the predominant category on which arguments are based is national identity (i.e. ‘we Bulgarians …’). This analysis is used to validate and extend a social identity of model of helping. The theoretical and practical implications of such an approach are considered in the discussion. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Exceptional intelligence and easygoingness may hurt your prospects: Threshold effects for rated mate characteristics

Prospective mate characteristics such as kindness, intelligence, easygoingness, and physical attraction are ranked consistently highly by both men and women. However, rank measurement does not allow for determinations of what level of a mate characteristic is rated most desirable. Based on a more informative percentile scale measurement approach, it was reported recently that mean desirability ratings of IQ in a prospective partner peaked at the 90th percentile, with a statistically significant reduction from the 90th to the 99th percentiles. The purpose of this investigation was to replicate the recently reported non‐linear desirability effect associated with IQ, in addition to the evaluation of three other valued mate characteristics: easygoing, kindness, and physical attraction. Based on a sample of 214 young adults, it was found that all four mate characteristics peaked at the 90th percentile. However, the IQ and easygoing mean desirability ratings evidenced statistically significant mean reductions across the 90th to the 99th percentiles, whereas kindness and physical attraction did not. Finally, the objectively and subjectively assessed intelligence of the participants was not found to be associated with the participants’ desirability ratings of IQ. We interpreted the results to be consistent with a broadly conceptualized threshold hypothesis, which states that the perceived benefits of valued mate characteristics may not extend beyond a certain point. However, mate characteristics such as intelligence and easygoing become somewhat less attractive at very elevated levels, at least based on preference ratings, for reasons that may be biological and/or psycho‐social in nature.     

Using functional near‐infrared spectroscopy to assess social information processing in poor urban Bangladeshi infants and toddlers

Children living in low‐resource settings are at risk for failing to reach their developmental potential. While the behavioral outcomes of growing up in such settings are well‐known, the neural mechanisms underpinning poor outcomes have not been well elucidated, particularly in the context of low‐ and middle‐income countries. In this study, we measure brain metabolic responses to social and nonsocial stimuli in a cohort of 6‐ and 36‐month‐old Bangladeshi children. Study participants in both cohorts lived in an urban slum and were exposed to a broad range of adversity early in life including extreme poverty, malnutrition, recurrent infections, and low maternal education. We observed brain regions that responded selectively to social stimuli in both ages indicating that these specialized brain responses are online from an early age. We additionally show that the magnitude of the socially selective response is related to maternal education, maternal stress, and the caregiving environment. Ultimately our results suggest that a variety of psychosocial hazards have a measurable relationship with the developing social brain.     

Adaptation of the Mullen Scales of Early Learning for use among infants aged 5‐ to 24‐months in rural Gambia

Infants in low‐resource settings are at heightened risk for compromised cognitive development due to a multitude of environmental insults in their surroundings. However, the onset of adverse outcomes and trajectory of cognitive development in these settings is not well understood. The aims of the present study were to adapt the Mullen Scales of Early Learning (MSEL) for use with infants in a rural area of The Gambia, to examine cognitive development in the first 24‐months of life and to assess the association between cognitive performance and physical growth. In Phase 1 of this study, the adapted MSEL was tested on 52 infants aged 9‐ to 24‐months (some of whom were tested longitudinally at two time points). Further optimization and training were undertaken and Phase 2 of the study was conducted, where the original measures were administered to 119 newly recruited infants aged 5‐ to 24‐months. Infant length, weight and head circumference were measured concurrently in both phases. Participants from both phases were split into age categories of 5–9 m (N = 32), 10–14 m (N = 92), 15–19 m (N = 53) and 20–24 m (N = 43) and performance was compared across age groups. From the ages of 10–14 m, Gambian infants obtained lower MSEL scores than US norms. Performance decreased with age and was lowest in the 20–24 m old group. Differential onsets of reduced performance were observed in the individual MSEL domains, with declines in visual perception and motor performance detected as early as at 10–14 months, while reduced language scores became evident after 15–19 months of age. Performance on the MSEL was significantly associated with measures of growth.     

A Study of Pastoral Care,Referral, and Consultation Practices Among Clergy in Four Settings in the New York City Area

Clergy (N = 179) in the catchment areas of four hospitals in New York and Connecticut were surveyed about their pastoral care activities. Factor analysis revealed two separate sets of problems presented in pastoral counseling, with respect to clergys ratings of their competence to address them. The first factor included grief, death and dying, anxiety, and marital problems, in descending order of frequency. The second factor consisted of depression, alcohol/drugs, domestic violence, severe mental illness, HIV/AIDS, and suicide. Clergy were significantly less confident of their ability to deal with Factor 2 problems, yet clergy rarely consulted with mental-health professionals about either type of problem. Less than half of the clergy had training in Clinical Pastoral Education, but those who did tended to feel they were more competent to deal with both types of problems. On average, clergy devoted 3.7 hours per week to visiting patients and nearly 55% said they were definitely more likely to refer a patient to a hospital with a pastoral care department.     

Is action naming better preserved (than object naming) in Alzheimer's disease and why should we ask?

The present study compared object and action naming in patients with Alzheimer's dementia. We tested the hypothesis put forward in (some) previous studies that in Alzheimer's dementia the production of verbs, that is required in action naming, is better preserved than the production of nouns, that is required in object naming. The possible reason for the dissociation is that verbs are supported predominantly by frontal brain structures that may remain relatively better preserved in early Alzheimer's disease. Objects, on the other hand, are supported by temporal lobe structures that are affected early in the disease. An alternative hypothesis, which is supported by other studies, is that action naming is more impaired than object naming due to verbs being semantically more complex than nouns. In order to test these contrasting hypotheses, the present study used more stringent methodology than previous studies. We used a larger set of stimuli with carefully matched object and action items and we collected not only accuracy data but also naming latencies, a measure that is sensitive to even mild lexical retrieval problems. We compared the performance of 19 patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease with that of 19 healthy age matched participants. We found that both the patients and the comparison group responded faster and made fewer errors on the object pictures than the action pictures. A qualitative analysis of the naming errors indicated that object and action naming pose different demands for the language system. The results overall suggest that the patients' performance is an exaggeration of the pattern present in the comparison participants.     

Can Spouses Provide Knowledge of Each Other's Communication Patterns? A Study of Self‐Reports,Spouses' Reports,and Observational Coding

The purposes of this study were (1) to assess individuals' self-reports of communication and their reports about their spouses' communication in order to examine the congruence of spousal views and (2) to investigate whether each report provided unique information about observed marital interactions. These associations were evaluated in a sample of 119 longtime married couples. The Verbal Aggression and Cooperation subscales from the Conflicts and Problem-Solving Scales were used as measures of negative and positive aspects of communication. The findings indicated that self-reports of both verbal aggression and cooperation were strongly associated with the same individual's report of his or her spouse's verbal aggression and cooperation. Conversely, self-reports were only moderately associated with reports made by spouses (e.g., the husband's report of his wife's communication). Hence, within-reporter agreement was higher than between-reporter agreement about marital communication. When entered into regression models, reports made by spouses, but not self-reports, explained unique variance in observations of marital hostility and affection. There was one exception: Wife self-report of verbal aggression explained unique variance in coders' ratings of wife hostility, controlling for husband report of wife verbal aggression. Findings indicate the importance of assessing partners' views of one another's communication for the most accurate portrayal of marital interactions. Implications for research and clinical work are discussed.     

A first impression of the future

We offer a response to six commentaries on our target article ‘Understanding trait impressions from faces’. A broad consensus emerged with authors emphasizing the importance of increasing the diversity of faces and participants, integrating research on impressions beyond the face, and continuing to develop methods needed for data-driven approaches. We propose future directions for the field based on these themes.