Raising the Price of Agreement: Public Commitment and the Lowball Compliance Procedure1

Three studies examined the effect on compliance when a requester raises the price of the request. Participants in Experiment 1 were told that they would receive a free coffee mug for donating money to a fundraiser but were interrupted before they could respond and were told that the fundraisers were out of mugs. These participants were less likely to donate money than a group told nothing about the mugs. Experiments 2 and 3 compared this interruption procedure with the lowball procedure, which also uses a small‐to‐large price progression. The results from these two studies indicate that allowing people to respond to the initial price is critical for producing the lowball effect. Without a statement of public commitment, the small‐to‐large price progression led to a decrease rather than an increase in compliance relative to a control group.     

Are country level prevalences of rule violations associated with knowledge overclaiming among students?

Cultural norms of behaviour influence desirable and problematic behaviours of individuals. In particular, cultural norms should influence individuals' dishonesty. In a recent Nature study, prevalence of rule violations was introduced as a new country‐level measure of behavioural norms. However, information on individuals' actual honesty was not available due to characteristics of the experimental design. Overcoming this limitation, we show that country‐level behavioural norms are related to individual‐level knowledge overclaiming behaviour (i.e., claiming to know concepts that do not exist, a measure of individuals' actual behavioural dishonesty) among 290,954 students from 57 countries (from the 2012 PISA study). Our study represents a crucial test of the argument that cultural norms influence individual's behaviour and of the validity of the measurement of countries' prevalences of rule violations. These results imply that shaping the behaviour of today's students may result in new behavioural norms that emphasise honesty and rule adherence more strongly.     

Prediction of overt aggression experienced by college students

We sought to predict overt aggression among college students from their intra- and interpersonal relationships self-perceptions. Respondents were 311 students (females = 69.8%; black = 65.9%, white = 16.7%; mean age = 26.38 years, SD = 9.57 years) from a large South African university. Results following multivariate inferential analysis indicated Negative, destructive interpersonal relationships; Negative, destructive self-concept; and Positive inclination towards others to predict overt aggression among the university students. By contrast, Positive interaction with self and others; and Submissiveness towards others can be used to predict overt aggression among the university students. Our hypothesis that the more constructive (higher) students’ self-concept and intrapersonal relationships, interpersonal relationships, the lower will their levels of overt aggression, physical aggression and verbal aggression become was supported. As such, the finding was that: Overt Aggression = a(Negative destructive interpersonal relationships) + b(Negative destructive self-concept) ? c(Positive inclination towards others).     

Everyday problem solving in adulthood and old age

We examined everyday problem solving in adulthood and compared it with traditional measures of cognitive abilities. In the first phase of the research, we describe the construction of an inventory to assess problem solving in situations that adults might encounter in everyday life and examine raters' judgments of effective responses to the problems. In the second phase, adults (N = 126) between the ages of 20 and 78 were administered the inventory and tests of verbal and abstract problem-solving abilities. Results indicated modest but significant positive correlations between performance on the inventory and traditional ability tests. The examination of age differences revealed that performance on the Everyday Problem-Solving Inventory and verbal ability test increased with age, whereas performance on a traditional problem-solving test declined after middle age. In addition, education was unrelated to everyday problem solving, highly related to verbal ability, and moderately related to traditional problem solving. Results are discussed in relation to pluralistic conceptions of intelligence and theories of adult intellectual development.     

Passionate love and anxiety in young adolescents

Two studies tested the hypothesis that young adolescents who experience a great deal of anxiety will be more likely to experience passionate love as well. In the first study, 24 boys and 17 girls, ranging in age from 12 to 14, were given the Child Anxiety Scale (which measures trait anxiety) and the Juvenile Love Scale (JLS). In the second study, 32 adolescent girls and 32 adolescent boys, ranging in age from 13 to 16, were given the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory for Children (which measures both trait and state anxiety) and the JLS. The studies found significant correlations between anxiety (both state and trait) and JLS scores in these young adolescents.As you might guess, it is extremely difficult to secure permission to interview children and adolescents about their feelings of passionate love. Thus, we would like to thank Dr. Mark Silzer, Principal of Our Redeemer Lutheran Elementary School, for his help on this project.     

Transparency of Assessment Centers: Lower Criterion‐related Validity but Greater Opportunity to Perform?

Assessment centers (ACs) are popular selection devices in which assessees are assessed on several dimensions during different exercises. Surveys indicate that ACs vary with regard to the transparency of the targeted dimensions and that the number of transparent ACs has increased during recent years. Furthermore, research on this design feature has put conceptual arguments forward regarding the effects of transparency on criterion‐related validity, impression management, and fairness perceptions. This study is the first to examine these effects using supervisor‐rated job performance data as the criterion. We conducted simulated ACs with transparency as a between‐subjects factor. The sample consisted of part‐time employed participants who would soon be applying for a new job. In line with our hypothesis, results showed that ratings from an AC with nontransparent dimensions were more criterion valid than ratings from an AC with transparent dimensions. Concerning impression management, our results supported the hypothesis that transparency moderates the relationship between self‐promotion and job performance, such that self‐promotion in the nontransparent AC was more positively related to job performance than self‐promotion in the transparent AC. The data lent no support for the hypothesis that participants’ perceptions of their opportunity to perform are higher in the transparent AC.     

Exploring fantasies of TAT reliability

It has been argued that low TAT stability estimates are an artifact of retest instructions to be original and creative. This view was supported in a recent study by Winter and Stewart (1977) who found that test-retest reliability was higher when subjects were told on the second occasion to write the same stories than when they were told to write different stories. This study attempted to replicate Winter and Stewart's results and also to determine whether the similarity of stories did vary as hypothesized. The replication was only partially successful. More importantly, it was concluded that while instructions to write similar stories did improve reliability, the increase reflected only subjects' memory capabilities and not greater stability in motive expression. While true TAT stability may still be commonly underestimated, altering retest instructions to improve reliability does not appear to be the solution.     

The influence of various types of control on psychophysiological stress reactions

The influence of personal control on reactions to shock was found to differ not only as a function of the type of control, but also as a function of the combination of control conditions. For example, behavioral control in the presence of information (cognitive control) reduced stress, whereas behavioral control in the absence of information augmented stress. These results are discussed with regard to the appropriateness of two different models, a “substitutive” versus an “interactive” model, for understanding the effects of personal control.     

Changing the means of managerial work: effects of automated decision support systems on personnel selection tasks

Journal of Business and Psychology - To enhance the quality and efficiency of information processing and decision-making, automation based on artificial intelligence and machine learning has...     

Legal consequences of dating violence: A critical review and directions for improved behavioral contingencies

As researchers and clinicians seek to better understand, prevent, and address violence in dating relationships among adolescents and young adults, there is also a need to better explore the possible legal consequences for perpetrators of aggression. The purpose of this paper is to review legal involvement in violent intimate relationships, with a specific focus on dating relationships, as these sanctions represent possible punishing consequences for violent perpetration. Punishing consequences of aggression, including legal interventions, could serve to lessen or eliminate violence in the current relationship and also circumvent possible aggression in future relationships. Implications of this review for clinicians, law enforcement, judiciary officials, and prevention programmers addressing dating violence are provided, along with directions for future research.