Overlooked but not untouched: How rudeness reduces onlookers’ performance on routine and creative tasks

In three experimental studies, we found that witnessing rudeness enacted by an authority figure (Studies 1 and 3) and a peer (Study 2) reduced observers’ performance on routine tasks as well as creative tasks. In all three studies we also found that witnessing rudeness decreased citizenship behaviors and increased dysfunctional ideation. Negative affect mediated the relationships between witnessing rudeness and performance. The results of Study 3 show that competition with the victim over scarce resources moderated the relationship between observing rudeness and performance. Witnesses that were in a competition with the victim felt less negative affect in observing his mistreatment and their performance decreased to a lesser extent than observers of rudeness enacted against a non-competitive victim. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Association between Terror Attacks and Suicide Attempts

Based on Durkheim's ‘Control theory,’ we explored the association between frequency of terror attacks in Israel and the frequency of suicide attempts admitted to the Emergency Room of a major general hospital in Tel‐Aviv (1999–2004). Analysis of the six‐year study period as a whole revealed no significant correlation between the variables, with the exception of one 11‐month segment within it (December 2000–October 2001) that did show a statistically significant positive correlation, and in opposition to Durkeim's hypothesis. It is suggested that suicide attempts as a phenomena should be seen as a product of a multivariate model, in which the social context plays a role as well.     

Feeling happy and (over)confident: the role of positive affect in metacognitive processes

The relationship between affect and metacognitive processes has been largely overlooked in both the affect and the metacognition literatures. While at the core of many affect-cognition theories is the notion that positive affective states lead people to be more confident, few studies systematically investigated how positive affect influences confidence and strategic behaviour. In two experiments, when participants were free to control answer interval to general knowledge questions (e.g. question: “in what year”, answer: “it was between 1970 and 1985”), participants induced with positive affect outperformed participants in a neutral affect condition. However, in Experiment 1 positive affect participants showed larger overconfidence than neutral affect participants. In Experiment 2, enhanced salience of social cues eliminated this overconfidence disadvantage of positive affect relative to neutral affect participants, without compromising their enhanced performance. Notably, in both experiments, positive affect led to compromised social norms regarding the answers’ informativeness. Implications for both affect and metacognition are discussed.     

Victim-centric diversion? The electronic monitoring of domestic violence cases

This article discusses the electronic monitoring of domestic violence cases as a form of diversion. The data derive from a two and a half year study of two "bilateral" electronic monitoring programs geared towards domestic violence offenders, mostly defendants, and their former or current intimate partners. Analysis consists of an examination of how the programs under study manifest the aims and tensions of diversion, and highlights how a victim-centered approach to diversion can amplify the tensions of diversion.     

The role of text representation in students' ability to identify fallacious arguments

Informal reasoning fallacies are arguments that, though they may seem persuasive, are not valid. The psychological aspect of informal reasoning fallacies, specifically the identification of factors that influence students' ability to identify fallacies, has not been the subject of empirical study. The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that subjects' ability to identify fallacious arguments is associated with the representation of the argumentative text in the cognitive system. In the first experiment, we tested the hypothesis through a recall task. In the second experiment, we tested the hypothesis through a classification task. The results of the experiments confirm the research hypothesis and point to the role of argumentative structures in argumentation tasks.