Assessing People's General Ecological Behavior: A Cross‐Cultural Measure1

The present study aims to further develop the General Ecological Behavior (GEB) scale in order to apply it cross‐culturally. The scale is proposed to be relatively open, neither bound to a particular set of ecological behaviors nor to a particular questionnaire response format. Questionnaire data from 686 California students were compared with the original Swiss calibration data. Reliability, internal consistency, and discriminant validity revcal that the GEB could be applied to the California students as well as to the Swiss sample, which consisted of older adults. Because the GEB measure makes use of behavior difficulties–caused by situational influences‐the proposed approach also guides the search for political actions that could promote changes in more ecologically behaving societies.     

The Center for Lifespan Psychology at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development: Overview of conceptual agenda and illustration of research activities

Founded in 1981 by the late Paul B. Baltes, the Center for Lifespan Psychology at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development has helped to establish lifespan psychology as a distinct conceptual approach within developmental psychology. Recently, the Center has extended its research programme into developmental behavioural neuroscience. Here, we provide an overview of the Center's conceptual agenda, and present two of its seven research projects in greater detail. Work at the Center is guided by three propositions: (1) to study lifespan changes in behaviour as interactions among maturation, learning, and senescence; (2) to develop theories and methods that integrate empirical evidence across domains of functioning, timescales, as well as behavioural and neuronal levels of analysis; (3) to identify mechanisms of development by exploring age-graded differences in plasticity. The Intra-Person Dynamics Project studies the organization of cognitive abilities within individuals of different ages, and investigates lifespan age differences in the plasticity and components of episodic memory performance. The Sensorimotor–Cognitive Couplings Project examines lifespan differences in dynamic dependencies between sensorimotor and cognitive performance. Both projects combine behavioural assessments with methods from developmental neuroscience to delineate age-graded changes in brain–behaviour mappings. Current research in other projects includes: (1) behavioural development in very old age, as assessed in the Berlin Aging Study; (2) the interplay of motivation, affect, and cognition in developmental regulation; (3) behavioural and electrophysiological mechanisms of social interaction from infancy to adulthood; and (4) formal and statistical issues in structural equation modelling, with an emphasis on latent growth curve modelling. Graduate education and research at the Center profit greatly from cooperation with other institutions in Berlin and Potsdam as well as from national and international collaboration.     

Take a risk or proceed with caution: Prevention motivation moderates responses to near-loss events

A persistently pressing issue identified in the decision-making literature is that people not only fail to recognize the risks entailed in a near-loss event but also subsequently engage in further risk-taking. We contend in this paper that prevention motivation critically regulates decision-makers' responses to a near-loss. Across three studies, we found that high prevention-focused individuals perceive greater risks in a near-loss event and are subsequently less likely to take risks, compared with low prevention-focused individuals. This finding highlights the significance of applying a motivational perspective to studying decision-making and risk.     

Process components of the Implicit Association Test: a diffusion-model analysis

The authors present a diffusion-model analysis of the Implicit Association Test (IAT). In Study 1, the IAT effect was decomposed into 3 dissociable components: Relative to the compatible phase, (a) ease and speed of information accumulation are lowered in the incompatible phase, (b) more cautious speed-accuracy settings are adopted, and (c) nondecision components of processing require more time. Studies 2 and 3 assessed the nature of interindividual differences in these components. Construct-specific variance in the IAT relating to the construct to be measured (such as implicit attitudes) was concentrated in the compatibility effect on information accumulation (Studies 2 and 3), whereas systematic method variance in the IAT was mapped on differential speed-accuracy settings (Study 3). Implications of these dissociations for process theories of the IAT and for applications are discussed.     

Environmental knowledge and conservation behavior: exploring prevalence and structure in a representative sample

Knowledge is commonly seen as a necessary precondition for a person’s behavior. Consistent with this, most educational interventions rely on knowledge transfer. However, for the most efficient informational strategies for education, it is essential that we identify the types of knowledge that promote behavior effectively and investigate their structure. A questionnaire consisting of three environmental knowledge scales and a conservation behavior measure was sent to 5000 randomly selected Swiss adults. A completed questionnaire was returned by 55% of them (N=2736). A series of structural equation analyses indicates that the three knowledge forms exert different influences on conservation behavior: Action-related knowledge and effectiveness knowledge have a direct effect on performance. In contrast, system knowledge is more remote from behavior, exerting only a mediated influence on it by way of affecting the other two knowledge types.     

A Matlab function to estimate choice model parameters from paired-comparison data.

Tversky (1972) has proposed a family of models for paired-comparison data that generalize the Bradley-Terry-Luce (BTL) model and can, therefore, apply to a diversity of situations in which the BTL model is doomed to fail. In this article, we present a Matlab function that makes it easy to specify any of these general models (EBA, Pretree, or BTL) and to estimate their parameters. The program eliminates the time-consuming task of constructing the likelihood function by hand for every single model. The usage of the program is illustrated by several examples. Features of the algorithm are outlined. The purpose of this article is to facilitate the use of probabilistic choice models in the analysis of data resulting from paired comparisons.     

Long‐Term Effects of an Extensive Cognitive Training on Personality Development

Previous research found that cognitive training increases the Big Five personality trait Openness to Experience during and some weeks after the intervention. The present study investigated whether long‐term changes happen in Openness to Experience and other personality traits after an extensive cognitive training of memory and perceptual speed. The intervention group consisted of 204 adults (20–31 years and 65–80 years; 50% female) who received daily 1‐hour cognitive training sessions for about 100 days. The control group consisted of 86 adults (21–29 years and 65–82 years; 51% female) who received no cognitive training. All participants answered the NEO Five‐Factor Inventory before and 2 years after the cognitive training. Latent change models were applied that controlled for age group (young vs. old) and gender. In the long run, the cognitive training did not affect changes in any facet of Openness to Experience. This was true for young and old participants as well as for men and women. Instead, the cognitive training lowered the general increase of Conscientiousness. Even an extensive cognitive training on memory and perceptual speed does not serve as a sufficient intervention for enduring changes in Openness to Experiences or one of its facets.     

Stereotypes as Pseudocontingencies

We introduce a heuristic called pseudocontingencies (PCs) as an alternative account of various stereotyping phenomena. PCs give rise to the expectation that attributes are correlated based solely on asymmetries in attribute base rates. Attributes that are encountered frequently and attributes that are encountered rarely are perceived to be correlated with each other. Such differences in information densities are typical of many stereotyped targets, including the self vs. others, the in-group vs. out-groups and majority vs. minority groups. Evidence is reviewed for PCs underlying illusory correlations, confirmation biases, gender stereotypes, Simpson’s paradox, and in procedures used for implicit stereotype measurement. PCs are shown to predict specific patterns of self-enhancement and self-depreciation, the effects of intergroup contact on in-group biases and the readiness to infer stereotypes from aggregated “big-data”. Although PCs can lead to seriously flawed stereotypic expectations, they afford an efficient and possibly adaptive inference strategy.     

Intra-EU Migration: Legal and Economic View on Jobseekers’ Welfare Rights

International migration influences economies of both the home and the host country. Some countries perceive immigration as a threat and consider limitations to their social security system to protect the domestic economy. Within the European Union, both the economic and the legal side of the issue must be taken into account. The paper presents an empirical analysis of natives’ and immigrants’ unemployment rates in EU15 countries and discusses a possible use of the findings in intra-EU migration policy. Using Labour Force Survey Data for 2012, we estimate a series of logistic regressions in order to compare the immigrant/native unemployment rates, considering the differences in the structure of both subpopulations (in terms of age, sex, education and types of jobs). We conclude that a substantial part of the gap between natives’ and immigrants’ unemployment rates can be explained by these additional characteristics in most of the EU15 countries.