Authenticity as meaning validation: An empirical investigation of iconic and indexical cues in a context of “green” products

Authenticity judgments involve how individuals distinguish what appears to be real versus fake, genuine versus phony. In this investigation, we bring authenticity into the laboratory to assess it in a manner quite different from most extant approaches. Taking a Peircian semiotic view in a context of environmentally conscious consumption, we develop and test a set of hypotheses concerning the effects of indexical and iconic cues to an authentic “green” product meaning. Results suggest that effects of these indicators of authenticity can be induced in a controlled manner with products being assessed as more or less “green” on the basis of particular cue arrangements. Furthermore, the effectiveness of these semiotic cues is moderated by a basic distinction among products. Taken together, the results provide evidence supporting a meaning validation process as the basis of authenticity judgments and suggest new directions for theory building in a domain where there is substantial practitioner interest. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The role of skin color and facial physiognomy in racial categorization: Moderation by implicit racial attitudes

Previous research has not sufficiently addressed factors that define and moderate racial categorization judgments. This study independently manipulated skin color and facial physiognomy to determine their relative weighting in racial categorization. Participants (N = 250) judged faces varying on 10 levels of facial physiognomy (from Afrocentric to Eurocentric) and 10 levels of skin color (from dark to light) under either no time constraints, a modest time constraint, and under a stringent time constraint. Skin color was a powerful predictor of racial typicality ratings at all levels of facial physiognomy, but participants relied upon facial physiognomy more when rating faces of light than dark skin color. Skin color was a more important cue than facial physiognomy under no time constraints, but as time constraints became more severe, skin color's importance decreased, yet it remained a more important cue at extreme physiognomy levels. The relationship between skin color and racial typicality ratings was stronger for those with more negative implicit racial attitudes. These findings suggest the primary role of skin color in racial categorization and underscore the importance of implicit attitudes in explicit categorization judgments.     

Evidence for the Effectiveness of an Alternative Multisource Performance Rating Methodology

Despite persistent concerns as to the quality of performance information obtained from multisource performance ratings (MSPRs), little research has sought ways to improve the psychometric properties of MSPRs. Borrowing from past methodologies designed to improve performance ratings, we present a new method of presenting items in MSPRs, frame‐of‐reference scales (FORS), and test the efficacy of this method in a field and lab study. The field study used confirmatory factor analysis to compare the FORS to traditional rating scales and revealed that FORS are associated with increased variance due to dimensions, decreased overlap among dimensions, and decreased error. The laboratory study compared rating accuracy associated with FORS relative to frame‐of‐reference training (FORT) and a control group and demonstrated that FORS are associated with higher levels of accuracy than the control group and similar levels of accuracy as FORT. Implications for the design and implementation of FORS are discussed.     

Sexual behavior in Spanish adolescents of divorced parents

Marital breakup has been associated with numerous behavioral problems in children, such as sexual risk behaviors. This research is the first to examine sexual behaviors of Spanish adolescents related to whether their parents were married or divorced. Participants were 342 boys and girls aged between 14 and 18 years. The sample provided confidential information about their sexual behavior and birth control methods. Significant differences were only found in percentages of adolescents who had engaged in mutual masturbation, intercourse, or oral sex, and who had practiced these sexual relations in the last six months, in both cases, they were higher when the parents had broken their marital relationship. Regarding adolescents of divorced parents, engaging in intercourse is more likely in older teenagers who live with a stepparent. Moreover, older adolescents who were younger when parents divorced and who live in a reconstituted family, have more sexual partners. These and other findings are discussed.     

Preventing suicide through improved training in suicide risk assessment and care: an American Association of Suicidology Task Force report addressing serious gaps in U.S. mental health training

There are twice as many suicides as homicides in the United States, and the suicide rate is rising. Suicides increased 12% between 1999 and 2009. Mental health professionals often treat suicidal patients, and suicide occurs even among patients who are seeking treatment or are currently in treatment. Despite these facts, training of most mental health professionals in the assessment and management of suicidal patients is surprisingly limited. The extant literature regarding the frequency with which mental health professionals encounter suicidal patients is reviewed, as is the prevalence of training in suicide risk assessment and management. Most importantly, six recommendations are made to address the longstanding insufficient training within the mental health professions regarding the assessment and management of suicidal patients.     

Cognitive adaptation: spatial memory or attentional processing. a comment on Furley and Memmert (2010)

This commentary considers the paper by Furley and Memmert (2010) who sought to test the respective validities of the specific processing and cognitive adaptation hypotheses. That they found no evidence of a difference between experienced basketball players and nonathletes on the Corsi block task, a measure of spatial memory, led them to infer support for the specific processing hypothesis, namely that differences between experts and novices manifest themselves only in processes related specifically to the domain of expertise. An alternative interpretation is offered, indicating possible confounds and referring to recent research that suggests Corsi block and dynamic spatial tasks depend upon different neuronal networks.     

The representation of abstract words: why emotion matters

Although much is known about the representation and processing of concrete concepts, knowledge of what abstract semantics might be is severely limited. In this article we first address the adequacy of the 2 dominant accounts (dual coding theory and the context availability model) put forward in order to explain representation and processing differences between concrete and abstract words. We find that neither proposal can account for experimental findings and that this is, at least partly, because abstract words are considered to be unrelated to experiential information in both of these accounts. We then address a particular type of experiential information, emotional content, and demonstrate that it plays a crucial role in the processing and representation of abstract concepts: Statistically, abstract words are more emotionally valenced than are concrete words, and this accounts for a residual latency advantage for abstract words, when variables such as imageability (a construct derived from dual coding theory) and rated context availability are held constant. We conclude with a discussion of our novel hypothesis for embodied abstract semantics.     

Personality and persona: personality processes in self-presentation

This article examines the role that personality variables and processes play in people's efforts to manage their public images. Although most research on self-presentation has focused on situational influences, people differ greatly in the degree to which they care about others' impressions of them, the types of impressions they try to convey, and their evaluations of their self-presentational effectiveness. Personality constructs such as public self-consciousness, approval motivation, and fear of negative evaluation are associated with the motive to manage one's impressions, and people who differ in self-disclosure and desire for privacy differentially reveal information about themselves to others. Other variables relating to people's self-concepts, interpersonal goals, and traits influence the construction of specific images. Finally, the extent to which people believe they are capable of making desired impressions influences their impression management strategies and how they respond to other people's evaluations.