Bad news transmission as a function of the definitiveness of consequences and the relationship between communicator and recipient

There is ample evidence suggesting (e.g., A. Tesser & S. Rosen, 1975) that people are reluctant to transmit bad news. Research on rumors, on the other hand, suggests that people sometimes are less reluctant to transmit bad news. It is argued that differences between the 2 lines of research include the definitiveness of the consequences of the news and the relationship between communicator and recipient. The influence of these 2 factors on news transmission was investigated in 3 experiments. Results showed that bad news with indefinite consequences was transmitted more often than bad news with definite consequences and that both kinds of bad news were transmitted more often if the recipient was a friend rather than a stranger. Differences in feelings of moral responsibility to transmit the news largely accounted for both effects. The 2 factors did not affect the likelihood of good news transmission.     

Linguistically mediated visual search

During an individual's normal interaction with the environment and other humans, visual and linguistic signals often coincide and can be integrated very quickly. This has been clearly demonstrated in recent eyetracking studies showing that visual perception constrains on-line comprehension of spoken language. In a modified visual search task, we found the inverse, that real-time language comprehension can also constrain visual perception. In standard visual search tasks, the number of distractors in the display strongly affects search time for a target defined by a conjunction of features, but not for a target defined by a single feature. However, we found that when a conjunction target was identified by a spoken instruction presented concurrently with the visual display, the incremental processing of spoken language allowed the search process to proceed in a manner considerably less affected by the number of distractors. These results suggest that perceptual systems specialized for language and for vision interact more fluidly than previously thought.     

When sanctions fail to increase cooperation in social dilemmas: considering the presence of an alternative option to defect

Previous social dilemma research has shown that sanctioning defection may enhance cooperation. The authors argue that this finding may have resulted from restricting participants to two behaviors (cooperation and defection). In this article, the authors introduce the concept of a "social trilemma" (a social dilemma in which an alternative option to defect is present) and tested the effect of a sanction. The authors show that a sanction only increased cooperation and collective interests in the traditional social dilemma. In a social trilemma, the sanction failed because it caused some people to choose the alternative option to defect. Moreover, the results indicate that this was especially the case when people did not expect fellow group members to cooperate. In this case, the sanction even worked counterproductive because it decreased collective interests. It is concluded that allowing individuals to consider alternative options to defect can reveal the potential detrimental effects of sanctioning systems for the collective.     

Preferences for leadership in social dilemmas: Public good dilemmas versus common resource dilemmas

It has been argued that a structural solution to social dilemmas is to install a leader, but here we consider the possibility that group members will oppose giving up their decisional freedom. Previous studies have shown that feedback indicating collective failure results in a stronger preference for the leadership option. We argue that preferences for the leadership option depend not only on the feedback group members receive, but also on the type of dilemma they are facing. The results of our experiment, in which we manipulated dilemma type as well as feedback, corroborate our reasoning. The distribution of initial property in public good and common resource dilemmas helps to explain these findings.     

Intermittent stimulation of binocular disparatecolors and central color fusion

Two experiments were conducted to determine the relationships between the various parameters of intermittent stimulation and the occurrence of binocular color fusion. Numerous combinations of on and off durations were presented, some synchronously and some asynchronously. Three Os were asked to report all colors experienced during the 15-sec viewing period. Experiment ] showed that fusion can be reliably obtained with on durations of less than 100 msec in combination with off durations of more than 100 msec. Experiment 2 indicated that the limit of dichoptic onset asynchrony within which color fusion reliably occurs is 25 msec. Two possible alternative hypotheses consistent with the data are discussed.