Gender and appearance accuracy: Women’s advantage over men is restricted to dress items

Which aspects of people’s appearance do women remember better than men? Women were predicted to remember the dress-related items but not the physical characteristics of targets more accurately than men, given that the former might be a more female-relevant domain of interest among perceivers. Participants watched a videotaped target and then completed a surprise test of their memory for her/his appearance. Men were as accurate as women at remembering the target’s physical features but less accurate than woman at recalling what the target was wearing. Discussion focuses on the implications of these findings for eyewitness accuracy.     

Who needs ‘just plain’ goodness: a reply to Almotahari and Hosein

I address an argument in value theory which threatens to render nonsensical many debates in modern ethics. Almotahari and Hosein’s (Philos Stud 172(6):1485–1508, 2015) argument against the property of goodness simpliciter is presented. I criticise the linguistic tests they use in their argument, suggesting they do not provide much support for their conclusion. I draw a weaker conclusion from their argument, and argue that defenders of goodness simpliciter have not responded adequately to this milder conclusion. I go on to argue that moral philosophers ought to abandon the property of goodness simpliciter and focus their attention on the property of being a good state of affairs. I defend this property against Almotahari and Hosein’s criticism, and give reasons to think it (rather than goodness simpliciter) is at the heart of moral theory.     

Searching for Specificity Between Cognitive Vulnerabilities and Mood and Anxiety Symptoms

Using two large nonclinical samples (N = 725), relations between five targeted cognitive variables [intolerance of uncertainty, negative problem orientation, perfectionism/certainty, responsibility/threat estimation, and importance/control of thoughts] and mood [depression] and anxiety [social anxiety, generalized anxiety, and obsessive–compulsive] symptoms were examined. Analyses provided multiple levels of specificity, including zero-order correlations, partial correlations controlling for the effects of positive and negative affect, regression analyses, and hierarchical structural modeling. Results were that (a) intolerance of uncertainty showed relative specificity to anxiety versus depression symptoms and (b) negative problem orientation was common to mood and anxiety symptoms. Although certain analyses suggested that (c) perfectionism/certainty specifically predicted generalized anxiety and (d) both responsibility/threat estimation and importance/control of thoughts were unique predictors of obsessive–compulsive symptoms, these three cognitive variables inconsistently predicted symptom scores across the two studies. Conceptual and therapeutic implications are discussed.     

Maternal Control of Girls Versus Boys: Relations to Empathy and Persuasive Style with Peers

We investigated relations between maternal control and girls’and boys’ concern for others. Fifty-six pairs of children were separately interviewed, using a newly developed measure of empathy. While mothers completed a parenting inventory, we videotaped children as one child attempted to convince a friend to make greeting cards for hospitalized children. High maternal control was associated with lower empathy and less interpersonally sensitive verbal persuasion, but only in girls.     

Not all effect sizes are the same: Comments on Holden (2008)

Despite the common belief that response bias is a significant moderator of psychological tests in field settings, these biases have been notoriously difficult to identify. Holden (2008) has recently presented evidence suggesting this paradox may at least in part be explained by problems inherent to the use of moderated regression with self-report indicators of response bias. His article offers an innovative proposal for understanding a central issue in applied test use. However, the conclusions drawn about both moderated regression and the general validity of response bias indicators are open to alternative explanations. It would be premature to assume these factors are important contributors to the ephemeral character of response bias effects.     

Market entry decisions: effects of absolute and relative confidence

In a market entry game, the number of entrants usually approaches game-theoretic equilibrium quickly, but in real-world markets business start-ups typically exceed market capacity, resulting in chronically high failure rates and suboptimal industry profits. Excessive entry has been attributed to overconfidence arising when expected payoffs depend partly on skill. In an experimental test of this hypothesis, 96 participants played 24 rounds of a market entry game, with expected payoffs dependent partly on skill on half the rounds, after their confidence was manipulated and measured. The results provide direct support for the hypothesis that high levels of confidence are largely responsible for excessive entry, and they suggest that absolute confidence, independent of interpersonal comparison, rather than confidence about one's abilities relative to others, drives excessive entry decisions when skill is involved.     

Developmental differences in prosocial motives and behavior in children from low-socioeconomic status families

Developmental theories of prosocial reasoning and behavior posit a transition from concrete (e.g., give a toy to receive one) to abstract (e.g., spend time to make someone happy) forms and have been supported with research on middle-socioeconomic status (SES), White samples. The methodology that researchers have used to date has restricted the responses that children can offer. In the present study, 122 Grade 2 and Grade 4 children from low-SES families described different types of motives and behavior and whether a conflict existed between self- and other-serving behaviors. The authors found developmental differences for both abstract and tangible motives that focused on the benefactor of prosocial behavior. Grade 2 girls and Grade 4 boys were the most likely to spontaneously describe a conflict between self- and other-serving behaviors.     

The Rorschach in the context of performance-based personality assessment

In this article, I draw on literature concerning the current status of the Rorschach Inkblot Method (Exner, 2002), performance-based personality measurement, direct versus indirect personality assessment, and dual-process models to suggest a reconceptualization of the Rorschach. The goal is to offer an updated conceptual framework for thinking about the Rorschach that can potentially be used both to enhance the image of the method and to provide direction for future research on the validity of specific Rorschach scores.     

Asymmetric dominance and phantom decoy effects in games

In individual choices between alternatives x and y, the availability of a third alternative z, judged inferior to x but not to y, tends to increase preferences for x. Two experiments investigated corresponding strategic asymmetric dominance effects in games. In Experiment 1, 72 players chose strategies in six symmetric 3 × 3 games, each having one strategy dominating just one other, or in reduced 2 × 2 games constructed by deleting the dominated strategies. Asymmetrically dominated strategies, even when unavailable (phantom decoy), increased choices of the strategies that dominated them and bolstered decision confidence. In Experiment 2, 81 participants played 12 similar but asymmetric games with or without dominated strategies, and similar asymmetric dominance, phantom decoy, and confidence effects were found.