Workplace justice outcomes as a function of adversaries' gender composition: A field assessment

There is extensive documentation that the sex of organizational members may bias a wide variety of managerial decisions and workplace outcomes. While such effects have been persuasively demonstrated, the sex context of these effects has received little attention. It is argued here that it is not merely the sex of the actor, but the nature of the dyadic match (male/male; female/female; male/female; female/male) that is a critical influence on outcomes. This hypothesis is strongly supported by gross differences in workplace justice outcomes based on the dyadic composition of the actors involved in dispute proceedings (n=369) in a field setting. These results are tempered, however, inasmuch as analysis also indicates differences in the severity of disputed issues across these dyadic compositions.     

The nature and duration of adaptation following long-term odor exposure

Any individual living or working in an odorous environment can experience changes in odor perception, some of which are long lasting. Often, these individuals report a significant reduction in the perception of an odor following long-term exposure to that odor (adaptation). Yet, most experimental analyses of olfactory adaptation use brief odorant exposures which may not typify real-world experiences. Using a procedure combining long-term odor exposure in a naturalistic setting with psychophysical tests in the laboratory, we present evidence to show that reduced odor intensity following long-term exposure is accompanied by odorant-specific shifts in threshold. Subjects were exposed continuously to one of two odorants while in their home for a period of 2 weeks. Exposure produced an odorant-specific reduction in sensitivity and perceived intensity compared with preexposure baselines: Detection thresholds for the adapting odorant were elevated following exposure and perceived intensity ratings for weak concentrations were reduced. For most individuals, reduced sensitivity to the test odorant was still evident up to 2 weeks following the last exposure. The persistence of the change, as evidenced by the duration of recovery from adaptation, distinguishes this phenomenon from the adaptation seen following shorter exposures and highlights the need for the study of exposure durations that are more similar to real-world exposures.     

The role of stimulus familiarity in context-dependent recognition

Memory & Cognition - Investigations of context-dependent recognition, a phenomenon in which recognition is better for items studied and tested with the same rather than different context, have...     

专业社会工作者的角色与和谐医患关系的构建

当前医疗纠纷频繁发生,医患关系日趋紧张,问题的复杂性呼唤着多种力量的积极参与和共同努力。作为一种综合性的助人手段,社会工作者在严格秉承专业价值观的基础上,运用三大专业方法,协助医患双方有效预防、和平解决医疗纠纷问题,肩负着构建和谐医患关系的专业使命。     

动机冲突影响混合跨期决策：趋近-回避动机理论视角

组织与个人面临的许多决策,既无纯粹获益,也无纯粹损失,往往需要同时对未来不同时间点的损益加以权衡,这类损益兼具的决策称为混合跨期决策。过往研究通常沿用纯粹获益或损失跨期决策的理论框架,缺乏与混合跨期决策相匹配的理论建构和决策过程探索。基于此,本研究从趋近-回避动机理论出发,探索动机冲突影响混合跨期决策的过程机制。研究1拟探讨混合跨期决策中动机冲突特点,及其与决策行为之间的关系。研究2则计划分别操纵影响动机冲突程度的内源性因素(得失金额的相对差异程度)和外源性因素(资源有限程度),试图揭示动机冲突程度与混合跨期决策之间的因果链条。研究3拟采用鼠标追踪技术,基于决策过程指标进一步探索动机冲突影响混合跨期决策的过程机制。我们预期该研究结果有利于从动机冲突视角揭示并建构混合跨期决策的作用机制,同时也将为涉及混合跨期情境的企业管理和个体消费决策提供科学依据。     

Social suggestibility to central and peripheral misinformation

This study used a laboratory-based paradigm to investigate social influences on participants' susceptibility to misleading suggestions. Participants viewed a video clip of an action sequence with one or more peers, and then were required to discuss the event with the co-witness or with the group of co-witnesses. During the discussion a confederate, posing as a peer, presented misinformation about central and peripheral features of the co-witnessed event. Results indicated that participants were more susceptible to misleading suggestions during one-on-one discussions than during group discussions. In addition, participants were susceptible to misleading suggestions about central features of the witnessed event, although to a lesser extent than they were susceptible to misleading suggestions about peripheral features.     

The emerging fragile X premutation phenotype: evidence from the domain of social cognition

Fragile X syndrome is a neurodevelopmental disorder that is caused by large methylated expansions of a CGG repeat (>200) region upstream of the FMR1 gene that results in the lack of expression of the fragile X mental retardation protein (FMRP). Affected individuals display a neurobehavioral phenotype that includes a significant impairment in social cognition alongside deficits in attentional control, inhibition and working memory. In contrast, relatively little is known about the trajectory and specificity of any cognitive impairment associated with the fragile X premutation ("carrier-status") (approximately 55-200 repeats). Here, we focus on one aspect of cognition that has been well documented in the fragile X full mutation, namely social cognition. The results suggest that premutation males display a pattern of deficit similar in profile, albeit milder in presentation, to that of the full mutation. However, little evidence emerged for a correlation between CGG repeat length and severity of phenotypic outcomes. The findings are discussed in the context of functional neuroimaging and brain-behaviour-molecular correlates. We speculate that the deficiencies in social cognition are attributable to impairment of neural pathways modulated by the cerebellum.     

Young children's performance on the balance scale: the influence of relational complexity

Three experiments investigated the effect of complexity on children's understanding of a beam balance. In nonconflict problems, weights or distances varied, while the other was held constant. In conflict items, both weight and distance varied, and items were of three kinds: weight dominant, distance dominant, or balance (in which neither was dominant). In Experiment 1, 2-year-old children succeeded on nonconflict-weight and nonconflict-distance problems. This result was replicated in Experiment 2, but performance on conflict items did not exceed chance. In Experiment 3, 3- and 4-year-olds succeeded on all except conflict balance problems, while 5- and 6-year-olds succeeded on all problem types. The results were interpreted in terms of relational complexity theory. Children aged 2 to 4 years succeeded on problems that entailed binary relations, but 5- and 6-year-olds also succeeded on problems that entailed ternary relations. Ternary relations tasks from other domains--transitivity and class inclusion--accounted for 93% of the age-related variance in balance scale scores.     

Victim Blaming in Young, Middle-Aged, and Older Adults: Variations on the Severity Effect

It has been long known that people blame victims for the bad things that happen to them, and that people blame victims more when the victims experience severe difficulties than when they experience minor difficulties, even if the victims were not particularly irresponsible. Little previous research has examined victim blaming in middle-age and older adults. One hundred and forty-five adults in 3 age groups (18–34, 35–59, and 60–84) read 4 scenarios (2 accidents, 1 crime, and 1 fire) imbedded in other scenarios. The scenarios were varied so that the victim is either very irresponsible or not very irresponsible, and the outcome is mild or severe. The oldest group of participants blamed the victims more than the other groups. However, in contrast to the typical severity effect, the oldest group blamed the very irresponsible victim more when the outcome was mild than they did when the outcome was severe.