MLK Day and Racial Attitudes: Liking the Group More but Its Members Less

Intuition suggests that the Martin Luther King holiday (MLK Day) should improve racial attitudes toward African Americans. However, its influence may depend on whether African Americans are evaluated as a group or individually. In two studies, we assessed racial attitudes either on MLK Day or on a control day. As might be expected, participants had more sympathetic attitudes towards African Americans as a group on MLK Day compared to control days; however, they evaluated individual African American exemplars more negatively on MLK Day compared to control days, who presumably seemed worse by comparison to the eminent political figure.     

Spatial associations in number-related tasks: A comparison of manual and pedal responses

Bimanual parity judgments of numerically small (large) digits are faster with the left (right) hand (the SNARC effect; Dehaene, Bossini, & Giraux, 1993). According to one explanation, this effect is culturally derived and reflects ontogenetic influences such as the direction of written language; it might therefore be limited to, or at least be larger with, pairs of lateralized effectors which are instrumental to the production and comprehension of written language. We report two experiments which test for SNARC effects with pedal responses, and compare these effects to manual results. Pedal responses yielded highly systematic SNARC effects; furthermore, these effects did not differ from manual SNARC effects. These results argue against accounts in which the SNARC effect is specific for effectors that are habitually associated with the production or comprehension of written language.     

The Relationship Between Emotional Intelligence and Performance Among College Basketball Players

This study explored the nature of the relationship between muscle dysmorphia symptoms and self-concept as well as negative affect variables. Female (n = 183) and male (n = 103) college students completed a packet of questionnaires. Data were analyzed using canonical correlation analyses and revealed significant relationships between the sets of variables. Specifically, the variance explained by muscle dysmorphia symptoms in self-concept and negative affect variables was greater than the variance explained in muscle dysmorphia symptoms by self-concept and negative affect. Perceived body attractiveness and social physique anxiety were the individual variables that predominantly contributed to the multivariate relationships.     

Dependency Conflict,Marital Threat,and Alcohol Consumption in a Middle-Aged Sample

The hypothesis that dependency conflict is associated with higher levels of alcohol consumption when dependency needs are threatened or thwarted was tested with a sample of 672 middle-aged, married adults with college-age children. The subjects' current level of alcohol consumption was predicted based on the present level of threat to the marital relationship (assessed by reports from several family members) and on indices of dependency need and inhibition of dependent behavior estimated from sibship size, sibship density, and sibling position. A multiple regression analysis yielded a significant two-way interaction (p < .05) between marital threat and subject sex, and a significant three-way interaction of dependency heed, inhibition of dependent behavior, and marital threat. High marital threat was associated with higher levels of alcohol consumption in men and slightly lower levels of alcohol consumption in women. Additionally, when dependency need was high, alcohol consumption was generally low, except when both inhibition of dependent behavior and marital threat were high. However, when dependency need was low, the highest alcohol consumption score occurred when marital threat was low and inhibition was high.     

Enhancing the Learning of Sport Skills Through External-Focus Feedback

The authors examined how the effectiveness of feedback for the learning of complex motor skills is affected by the focus of attention it induces. The feedback referred specifically either to body movements (internal focus) or to movement effects (external focus). In Experiment 1, groups of novices and advanced volleyball players (N = 48) practiced “tennis” serves under internal-focus or external-focus feedback conditions in a 2 (expertise) × 2 (feedback type) design. Type of feedback did not differentially affect movement quality, but external-focus feedback resulted in greater accuracy of the serves than internal-focus feedback during both practice and retention, independent of the level of expertise. In Experiment 2, the effects of relative feedback frequency as a function of attentional focus were examined. A 2 (feedback frequency: 100% vs. 33%) × 2 (feedback type) design was used. Experienced soccer players (N = 52) were required to shoot lofted passes at a target. External-focus feedback resulted in greater accuracy than internal-focus feedback did. In addition, reduced feedback frequency was beneficial under internal-focus feedback conditions, whereas 100% and 33% feedback were equally effective under external-focus conditions. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of effect-related, as opposed to movement-related, feedback and also suggest that there is a need to revise current views regarding the role of feedback for motor learning.     

Emotion,cognition, and decision making

We examine two explanations of the subliminal affective priming effect. The feelings-as-information model (Schwarz &; Clore, 1988) holds that judgements are based on perceptible feelings. Hence, affective influences depend on the source to which feelings are (mis)attributed. In contrast, the affective primary hypothesis (Zajonc, 1980) suggests that affective influences should resist attributional interventions. This is because the affective system responsible for preferences is separate from the cognitive system responsible for inferences; because early affective processes are automatic and therefore inaccessible to higher-order interventions; and because early affective responses are not represented as conscious feelings. We tested these explanations in two experiments that crossed subliminal affective priming with (mis)attribution manipulations. Both studies found reliable shifts in judgements of neutral stimuli as a result of primes even when subjects were aware that their feelings might not be diagnostic for the judgement at hand. Subjects did not report experiencing any feelings in response to the primes. The obtained affective priming effect was independent of response times and subjective reports of engaging in judgemental corrections. However, the priming effect did prove sensitive to the experimental instructions. We discuss the implications of these findings for the affective primacy hypothesis and the feelings-as-information model.     

Against Magnetism

Magnetism in meta-semantics is the view that the meaning of our words is determined in part by their use and in part by the objective naturalness of candidate meanings. This hypothesis is commonly attributed to David Lewis, and has been put to philosophical work by Brian Weatherson, Ted Sider and others. I argue that there is no evidence that Lewis ever endorsed the view, and that his actual account of language reveals good reasons against it.     

Non-Normative Systemic Therapy in a Case of Intergenerational Enmeshment

There are a number of differences between normative and non-normative systemic therapy. It is useful to understand normative thinking because that is a traditional orientation. Non-normative clinical work also has much to offer both philosophically and practically: It is characterized by the premise that people's behavior makes sense given their histories and current context. Therefore, when understood from the perspective of the individual, even his or her psychopathology would make sense. Using a composite case analyzed in normative terms and treated non-normatively, the author illustrates how to bridge these two approaches. Solution-focused methods constitute the interventions of choice.