Facial attractiveness impressions precede trustworthiness inferences: lower detection thresholds and faster decision latencies

Prior research has found a relationship between perceived facial attractiveness and perceived personal trustworthiness. We examined the time course of attractiveness relative to trustworthiness evaluation of emotional and neutral faces. This served to explore whether attractiveness might be used as an easily accessible cue and a quick shortcut for judging trustworthiness. Detection thresholds and judgment latencies as a function of expressive intensity were measured. Significant correlations between attractiveness and trustworthiness consistently held for six emotional expressions at four intensities, and neutral faces. Importantly, perceived attractiveness preceded perceived trustworthiness, with lower detection thresholds and shorter decision latencies. This reveals a time course advantage for attractiveness, and suggests that earlier attractiveness impressions could bias trustworthiness inferences. A heuristic cognitive mechanism is hypothesised to ease processing demands by relying on simple and observable clues (attractiveness) as a substitute for more complex and not easily accessible information (trustworthiness).     

SPEECH PERCEPTION AS A TALKER-CONTINGENT PROCESS

Abstract— To determine how familiarity with a talker's voice affects perception of spoken words, we trained two groups of subjects to recognize a set of voices over a 9-day period One group then identified novel words produced by the same set of talkers at four signal-to-noise ratios Control subjects identified the same words produced by a different set of talkers The results showed that the ability to identify a talker's voice improved intelligibility of novel words produced by that talker The results suggest that speech perception may involve talker-contingent processes whereby perceptual learning of aspects of the vocal source facilitates the subsequent phonetic analysis of the acoustic signal     

Forgoing treatment in an adult with no apparent treatment preferences: A case report

This article reports in detail an ethics case consultation involving a decision to forgo life-sustaining treatment for a middle-aged man following a “massive” cerebral bleed resulting in profound brain damage, but not unconsciousness. An unusual feature of this case is that, despite normal intelligence, caring family relationships and a history of life-threatening cardiac disease, vigorous and sustained inquiry could not elicitany indications of this patient's values, perceptions or preferences regarding end of life care. Other than a deliberately autobiographical methodological prologue and a few brief comments at the end, the case is presented straightforwardly and without intercurrent analysis.     

Factors Affecting the Career Aspirations of Asian Americans

The authors compared the career considerations of a group of Asian American college students (52 men and 72 women) with a comparison group of Caucasian students (95 men and 151 women) using an Occupations List. The results revealed that Asian American students were more likely to have considered Investigative occupations and less likely to have considered Enterprising and Conventional occupations than were the Caucasian students. There were also differences in the career considerations of the two racial groups in terms of the prestige level and gender traditionality of the occupations. The implications of the findings for theory and practice are discussed.     

Suicide and Homicide Rates in Canada and the United States

Suicide and homicide rates by age were analyzed for Canada and the United States, indicating that suicide is higher in Canada and that homicide is higher in the United States. Results indicated a positive association between homicide and suicide rates in the United States but these two rates of death were not significantly associated in Canada. Holinger (1987) had associated the relative size of the cohort to the rates of suicide and homicide in young people in the United States. The more current data in both countries did not support Holinger's results. Using the measure devised by Easterlin (1980) and Ahlburg and Schapiro (1984) –that is, the proportion of youths aged 15–24 relative to adults aged 25–64–the correlation between the size of the youth cohort and the suicide rate of youths aged 15–24 was negative. It is concluded that the two patterns in these two countries may be explained from a historical perspective.     

The physician as priest,revisited

Despite much resistance from the medical profession, the notion persists in our culture that the physician plays a priestly role. Medical resistance must be taken seriously. It stems from legitimate concerns that the priestly role implies an unwelcome broadening of medical responsibilities, expectations of moral expertise, and being on the receiving end of people's most intense existential hopes. On the other hand, the nature of illness and healing makes it inevitable that physicianswill take on ministerial functions in their medical work. This essay attempts to recover the notion of the physician as priest on the basis of theological and religious reflection on the nature of ministry and pastoral care.     

Bright children become enlightened adults

We examined the prospective association between general intelligence (g) at age 10 and liberal and antitraditional social attitudes at age 30 in a large (N= 7,070), representative sample of the British population born in 1970. Statistical analyses identified a general latent trait underlying attitudes that are antiracist, pro-working women, socially liberal, and trusting in the democratic political system. There was a strong association between higher g at age 10 and more liberal and antitraditional attitudes at age 30; this association was mediated partly via educational qualifications, but not at all via occupational social class. Very similar results were obtained for men and women. People in less professional occupations-and whose parents had been in less professional occupations-were less trusting of the democratic political system. This study confirms social attitudes as a major, novel field of adult human activity that is related to childhood intelligence differences.     

Me or we? The role of personality and justice as other-centered antecedents to innovative citizenship behaviors within organizations

The present research takes an "other-centered" approach to examining personal and contextual antecedents of taking charge behavior in organizations. Largely consistent with the authors' hypotheses, regression analyses involving data collected from 2 diverse samples containing both coworkers and supervisors demonstrated that the other-centered trait, duty, was positively related to taking charge, whereas the self-centered trait, achievement striving, was negatively related to taking charge. In addition, the authors found that procedural justice at the organizational level was positively related to taking charge when evaluated by a coworker, while both procedural and distributive justice were positively related to taking charge when considered by a supervisor. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.