Trading relations in the perception of speech by 5-year-old children

Five-year-old children were tested for perceptual trading relations between a temporal cue (silence duration) and a spectral cue (F₁ onset frequency) for the “say-stay” distinction. Identification functions were obtained for two synthetic “say-stay” continua, each containing systematic variations in the amount of silence following the /s/ noise. In one continuum, the vocalic portion had a lower F₁ onset than in the other continuum. Children showed a smaller trading relation than has been found with adults. They did not differ from adults, however, in their perception of an “ay-day” continuum formed by varying F₁ onset frequency only. The results of a discrimination task in which the two acoustic cues were made to “cooperate” or “conflict” phonetically supported the notion of perceptual equivalence of the temporal and spectral cues along a single phonetic dimension. The results indicate that young children, like adults, perceptually integrate multiple cues to a speech contrast in a phonetically relevant manner, but that they may not give the same perceptual weights to the various cues as do adults.     

Development of hand preference in the Colorado Adoption Project

A longitudinal study of the development of hand preference in 152 adopted and 120 nonadopted (control) infants measured in natural behavioral situations at both 12 and 24 mo. of age is reported. Significant developmental trends were observed for both increasing strength and direction of handedness. Less than 10% of the infants exhibited a clear preference at 12 mo. of age, whereas about 30% were lateralized at 24 mo., with more boys than girls being left-handed. In contrast, over 90% of the parents of these children (both biological and adoptive parents of the adopted children and parents of the nonadopted children) were lateralized. Perhaps because so few infants were lateralized at either age, parent-offspring resemblances were inconsistent and the number of significant parent/child correlations was about that expected on the basis of chance alone.     

A detailed study of sequential saccadic eye movements for normal- and poor-reading children

This paper presents the results of an in-depth study of parameters characterizing sequenced saccadic eye movements for a group of dyslexic children and a comparative normal control group with ages in the range greater than 8.0 yr. and less than 13.0 yr. No parameters were statistically different for the two groups, which supports the findings of Brown, et al. and contradicts the findings of Pavlidis. Our results indicate that sequenced saccadic eye movements are not diagnostically useful for early detection of dyslexia.     

Implicit psychologists' estimates of attitude-behaviour consistencies

To investigate the relationship between implicit psychological hypotheses and explicit empirical findings, summaries of twenty published studies on attitude-behaviour consistency were presented to a sample of forty-eight psychology undergraduates. Subjects were asked to estimate the percentage of agreement between attitudes and behaviour obtained by each study. Correlations between subjects' covariation judgements and empirically obtained attitude-behaviour consistencies were minimal and nonsignificant. Results are discussed in the light of more recent research on attitude-behaviour relationship.     

“Put a Little Love in Your Heart”: Acceptance of Paternalistic and Ally Political Discourses Both Predict Pro-Roma Solidarity Intentions Through Moral Inclusion

The way politicians talk about minorities institutes the normative context of intergroup relations. We investigated how endorsement of different political discourses predicts donation and collective action intentions by majority members toward the Roma in five European countries. The survey was conducted online using samples demographically similar to the populations of Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, France, and Ireland (N = 5,054). First, results showed that accepting paternalistic discourse versus discourse promoting allyship were not distinguishable; both promoted higher moral inclusion which in turn predicted higher prosocial intentions. Second, donations (i.e., immediate relief) and collective action (i.e., social change action) were driven by identical factors. Third, acceptance of openly hostile political discourse neither predicted moral exclusion, nor lower prosocial intentions. In summary, our research provides important evidence that when it comes to Roma—non-Roma relations, the previously established distinction between solidarity intentions that aim to solidify status relations versus bring about social change is completely blurred, presumably because of the social context in which any positive message communicates moral inclusion challenging the hostile status quo.     

The mere possession effect of shareable digital coupons: The mediating role of anticipated self-enhancement

Shareable digital coupons have emerged as a new marketing strategy. Prior literature on shareable coupons assumes that shareable coupons can play a role only after they have been shared with others. Surprisingly, we theorize that shareable coupons can come into play as early as when consumers merely possess them, even before consumers share them with others, an effect that precedes the effect of the actual coupon sharing. In this research, we show that the mere possession of shareable digital coupons (not necessarily the actual sharing) is able to induce anticipated self-enhancement among consumers. Hence shareable digital coupons are more effective than non-shareable digital coupons, and the effect is most pronounced among consumers with high image concerns. The higher coupon effectiveness of shareable digital coupons is reflected in consumers' greater urge/intention to acquire the coupon, intention to revisit, willingness to spend, as well as in firm's sales increase when products are promoted with shareable instead of non-shareable digital coupons. Our work contributes to the literature on shareable coupons, the mere possession effects, anticipated self-enhancement, and other-rewarding promotions, and is of important managerial value given the ease with which the shareability feature can be added to coupons.     

Understanding dark side personality at work: Distinguishing and reviewing nonlinear,interactive, differential,and reciprocal effects

The topic of dark side personality at work has received considerable research attention over the past decade, and both qualitative and quantitative reviews of this field have already been published. To show the relevance of dark personality in the work context, existing reviews have typically focused on systematically discussing the different criteria that have been linked to dark traits (e.g., job performance, work attitudes, leadership emergence, etc.). In contrast, and complementing this earlier work, the current review paper summarizes the available literature on this topic by structuring it in terms of the nature of the relationships studied rather than in terms of the types of outcome variables. Doing so, the focus shifts from “What are the outcomes of dark traits?” to “How are dark traits related to work outcomes?” Scrutinizing the nature of these relationships, we specifically focus on four types of effects (i.e., nonlinear, interactive, differential, and reciprocal) that highlight the complexity of how dark side traits operate in the work context. Structured this way, this review first provides a conceptual underpinning of each of these complex effects, followed by a summary of the empirical literature published over the past 10 years. To conclude, we present an integration of this field, provide suggestions for future research, and highlight concrete assessment challenges.     

Do health beliefs about COVID-19 predict morbidity? A longitudinal study

In a highly powered (N ≈ 5000), six-months longitudinal study (December 2020-May 2021), we tested the assumption that beliefs concerning COVID-19 and the precautions against it predicted morbidity. Six months after having filled out a survey measuring beliefs about the disease and the precautions against it, participants reported if they were or had been ill with COVID-19. A lower likelihood of being or having been ill with COVID-19 was predicted by personal optimism concerning infection, perceived personal control over infection, perceived effectiveness of precautions, and self-reported personal or better-than-average adherence to the precautions. A higher likelihood of being or having been ill with COVID-19 was predicted by perceived personal control over a good outcome of an infection, egocentric impact perception concerning the impact of the disease, perceived difficulty of adherence to the precautions, and both personal and egocentric impact perception concerning the impact of the precautions. Comparative optimism did not predict morbidity, nor did personal optimism concerning severe disease or a good outcome, perceived personal control over severe disease, and moralization of the precautions. We discuss implications for public health communication.     

The scapegoat archetype

Summary Relying on some of the principles of Jung's analytical psychology, the writer has presented a hypothesis of the primordial image of the scapegoat, tracing its origins in antiquity and in the collective unconscious of man, its associations with the God-image and its development in the history of Judaeo-Christian religion, of the administration of justice and of the treatment of mental illness. The conclusion is reached that the scapegoat is an anachronism that the human race has outgrown, a luxury we can no longer afford to keep, and that a realization of this fact is important for the times in which we live.