Why are some moral beliefs perceived to be more objective than others?

Recent research has investigated whether people think of their moral beliefs as objectively true facts about the world, or as subjective preferences. The present research examines variability in the perceived objectivity of different moral beliefs, with respect both to the content of moral beliefs themselves (what they are about), and to the social representation of those moral beliefs (whether other individuals are thought to hold them). It also examines the possible consequences of perceiving a moral belief as objective. With respect to the content of moral beliefs, we find that beliefs about the moral properties of negatively valenced acts are seen as reliably more objective than beliefs about the moral properties of positively valenced acts. With respect to the social representation of moral beliefs, we find that the degree of perceived consensus regarding a moral belief positively influences its perceived objectivity. The present experiments also demonstrate that holding a moral belief to be objective is associated with a more ‘closed’ response in the face of disagreement about it, and with more morally pejorative attributions towards a disagreeing other person.     

A novel study: Forgetting curves and the reminiscence bump

This study examined the forgetting curves for information read in a novel. People read a 10-chapter novel where each chapter covered an approximately 10-year period in the life of the protagonist. After reading the entire novel, participants completed various memory tests in which they summarised the novel, provided associated information from cues, and answered specific questions. Performance was plotted as the amount of information or the accuracy of question answering for each chapter. All of the memory tests revealed similar patterns: (a) better performance for early information (a primacy effect), (b) a bump in performance when the protagonist was approximately 20 years old, and (c) a smaller bump in performance when the protagonist began a career later in life. These results are considered in the context of theories of forgetting, autobiographical memory, and situation models.     

Dissociative effects of true and false recall as a function of different encoding strategies

Goodwin, Meissner, and Ericsson (2001 Goodwin, K. A., Meissner, C. A. and Ericsson, K. A. 2001. Toward a model of false recall: Experimental manipulation of encoding context and the collection of verbal reports. Memory & Cognition, 29: 806–819. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) proposed a path model in which elaborative encoding predicted the likelihood of verbalisation of critical, nonpresented words at encoding, which in turn predicted the likelihood of false recall. The present study tested this model of false recall experimentally with a manipulation of encoding strategy and the implementation of the process-tracing technique of protocol analysis. Findings indicated that elaborative encoding led to more verbalisations of critical items during encoding than rote rehearsal of list items, but false recall rates were reduced under elaboration conditions (Experiment 2). Interestingly, false recall was more likely to occur when items were verbalised during encoding than not verbalised (Experiment 1), and participants tended to reinstate their encoding strategies during recall, particularly after elaborative encoding (Experiment 1). Theoretical implications for the interplay of encoding and retrieval processes of false recall are discussed.     

‘See it doesn’t look pretty does it?’ Young adults’ airbrushed drinking practices on Facebook

A range of negative health outcomes are associated with young adults’ drinking practices. One key arena where images of, and interaction about, drinking practices occurs is social networking sites, particularly Facebook. This study investigated the ways in which young adults’ talked about and understood their uses of Facebook within their drinking practices. Face-to-face, semi-structured interviews were conducted with seven New Zealand young adults as they displayed, navigated and talked about their Facebook pages and drinking behaviours. Our social constructionist thematic analysis identified three major themes, namely ‘friendship group belonging’, ‘balanced self-display’ and ‘absences in positive photos’. Drinking photos reinforced friendship group relationships but time and effort was required to limit drunken photo displays to maintain an overall attractive online identity. Positive photos prompted discussion of negative drinking events which were not explicitly represented. Together these understandings of drinking photos function to delimit socially appropriate online drinking displays, effectively ‘airbrushing’ these visual depictions of young adults’ drinking as always pleasurable and without negative consequences. We consider the implications of these findings for ways alcohol health initiatives may intervene to reframe ‘airbrushed’ drinking representations on Facebook and provoke a deeper awareness among young people of drinking practices and their online displays.     

The Many Faces of Commitment: Facet-Level Links to Performance in Military Contexts

Over the past two decades, considerable progress has been achieved in an effort to better identify and understand the various types of organizational commitment, the foci toward which such committed bonds are directed, and the myriad outcomes associated with these bonds. This research adds to and extends such work within a military context. Specifically, we explore relations among various forms (e.g., affective, normative, and continuance) of both team- and military-focused commitment and several supervisory-rated performance criteria. Across the different criteria, team-focused commitment tended to be a stronger predictor of performance than military-oriented commitment did. However, military-oriented commitment was inversely related to supervisory ratings of soldiers' negative behaviors. We discuss the psychological mechanisms that likely drive these findings, the implications of this work, and several potentially fruitful next steps within this research domain.     

Structure and Scientific Controversies

In this paper, I highlight the importance of models and social structure to Kuhn’s conception of science, and then use these elements to sketch a Kuhnian classification of scientific controversies. I show that several important sorts of non-revolutionary scientific disagreements were both identified and analyzed in Structure. Ultimately, I contend that Kuhn’s conception of science supports an approach to scientific controversies that has the potential to both reveal the importantly different sources of scientific disagreements and to provide useful resources for understanding their endurance and eventual termination. Several brief examples are used to suggest the power of a Kuhnian analysis and this analysis is contrasted with several more contemporary alternatives.     

The 1928 Carlisle conference: Knight Dunlap and a national laboratory for psychology

In late March 1928, 32 experimental psychologists met in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. The National Research Council (NRC) sponsored the conference, which was organized by Knight Dunlap, chair of the NRC's Division of Anthropology and Psychology. The purpose of the Carlisle conference was to examine the status of experimental psychology, and Dunlap used it to propose a national laboratory for psychology, to be created in Washington, DC. This vision clashed with the traditional university-centered research model and the group resisted Dunlap's plan. Dunlap persisted, the eventual result being a National Institute of Psychology, which accomplished little. The Carlisle conference did succeed in being the impetus for small NRC-funded grants-in-aid to researchers, and it set in motion events that eventually led to the American Psychological Association publication manual.     

Complexity of categorical syllogisms: An integration of two metrics

The complexity of categorical syllogisms was assessed using the relational complexity metric, which is based on the number of entities that are related in a single cognitive representation. This was compared with number of mental models in an experiment in which adult participants solved all 64 syllogisms. Both metrics accounted for similarly large proportions of the variance, showing that complexity depends on the number of categories that are related in a representation of the combined premises, whether represented in multiple mental models, or by a single model. This obviates the difficulty with mental models theory due to equivocal evidence for construction of more than one mental model. The “no valid conclusion” response was used for complex syllogisms that had valid conclusions. The results are interpreted as showing that the relational complexity metric can be applied to syllogistic reasoning, and can be integrated with mental models theory, which together account for a wide range of cognitive performances.     

An Applied Example of Pooled Time Series Analysis: Cardiovascular Reactivity to Stressors in Children With Autism

The advent of telemetric devices that sample data extensively over time has facilitated single subject or idiographic research to intensively study a single person over time. One of the challenges of idiographic research is combining single subject results to determine generalizability across subjects. This article demonstrates the first behavioral science application of pooled time series analysis, an extension of time series analysis that allows for the testing of between-person effects. The analysis used cardiovascular data gathered from 4 children with autism between the ages of 10 and 20 while exposed to 6 experimentally manipulated environmental stressors. A pooled time series analysis using the general transformation approach identified 1 general (a difficult learning task) and 3 specific stressors (exposure to a loud noise, unstructured time, and eating a preferred food) across the 4 participants. This application of pooled time series analysis demonstrates the challenges and potential for this method to address the issue of generalizability when using an idiographic research approach in the behavioral sciences.