Perceived Source Variability Versus Familiarity: Testing Competing Explanations for the Truth Effect

This article tests 2 competing explanations for the truth effect, the finding that repeated statements are believed more than new statements. Previous research has put forth 2 explanations for this effect—subjective familiarity and perceived source variability. The subjective familiarity explanation holds that repeated statements feel more familiar and are therefore believed more than new statements. This explanation has received strong support in the literature. The source variability explanation holds that people attribute repeated statements to different sources; this belief, that multiple sources endorse the statement, increases belief in repeated statements relative to new statements attributed to a single source. However, previous studies testing this explanation have confounded source variability with source credibility. This research aims to tease apart the effects of subjective familiarity and source variability while holding source credibility constant across conditions. Results of the first 2 experiments manipulating number of sources and measuring recognition implicate subjective familiarity rather than perceived source variability as the mechanism underlying the truth effect. However, the third study demonstrates that source variability does enhance belief in repeated statements that are initially perceived as low in plausibility. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Narrative Intervention in Interethnic Conflict

This article is rooted in a narrative approach to interethnic conflict which treats them principally as competing stories. On this basis, we examine experimental strategies for narrative intervention in interethnic conflict and potential tools for their reconciliation. Narrative intervention is understood here as a set of actions to identify and disseminate narratives that can reduce negative emotions and attitudes and promote reconciliation between members of conflicting groups. In terms of new solutions, we suggest a method of “Progressive Narrative Transformation” whose key element is the establishment of common points of contact between conflicting narratives and their gradual transformation such that they may converge into a new narrative accepted and shared by both sides. We present different kinds of narratives to evaluate attitudes and emotions among Azerbaijanis, including people displaced from their homes by conflict. Analyzing responses to a “common suffering” narrative, we registered that individuals and groups are able to keep sympathetic attitudes, even implicitly, toward their opponents. Results might enable scholars in conflict resolution and reconciliation to learn how to develop strategies that take advantage of these attributes of the human mind.     

Conditioned nausea in rats: Assessment by conditioned disgust reactions, rather than conditioned taste avoidance

The terms conditioned taste avoidance and conditioned taste aversion are often used interchangeably in the literature; however, considerable evidence indicates that they may represent different processes. Conditioned taste avoidance is measured by the amount that a rat drinks in a consumption test that includes both appetitive phases and consummatory phases of responding. However, conditioned taste aversion is more directly assessed using the taste reactivity (TR) test that includes only the consummatory phase of responding. Rats display a conditioned taste aversion as conditioned disgust reactions (gapes, chin rubs, and paw treads) during an intraoral infusion of a nausea-paired flavored solution. Only treatments that produce nausea produce conditioned disgust reactions, but even rewarding drugs produce conditioned taste avoidance. Furthermore, treatments that alleviate nausea prevent the establishment and the expression of conditioned disgust reactions, but they do not necessarily modify conditioned taste avoidance. Considerable evidence exists indicating that these two measures can be independent of one another. The potential of a compound to produce conditioned disgust reactions is a reflection of its nausea-inducing properties. Taste avoidance may be motivated by conditioned fear rather than conditioned nausea, but conditioned disgust is motivated by conditioned nausea. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2008 APA, all rights reserved).     

IQ in childhood and the metabolic syndrome in middle age: Extended follow-up of the 1946 British Birth Cohort Study

IQ in early adulthood has been inversely associated with risk of the metabolic syndrome in midlife. We tested this association in the British 1946 birth cohort, which assessed IQ at age eight years and ascertained the metabolic syndrome at age 53 years based on modified (non-fasting blood) ATPIII criteria. Childhood IQ was inversely associated with risk of the metabolic syndrome, but this association was almost entirely mediated by educational attainment and achieved occupational social class. This may be consistent with a pattern where childhood IQ is strongly associated with outcomes that reflect neurological disorder, such as the degenerative dementias, but less so with common chronic physical diseases of ageing.     

Effect of exposure to lithium-paired or amphetamine-paired saccharin solution on open arm avoidance in an elevated plus maze

Recent evidence suggests that drug-induced conditioned taste avoidance may be mediated by conditioned fear (e.g., Parker, 2003). The experiments reported here evaluated the effect of exposure to a drug-paired flavor on open arm exploration in an elevated plus maze (EPM), a measure of fear. When rats were tested on a familiar (trial 2) EPM, but not on a novel (trial 1) EPM, prior exposure to a lithium-paired saccharin solution enhanced open arm activity relative to saline-paired saccharin. On the other hand, when rats were exposed to lithium-paired saccharin during plus maze exposure, they displayed suppressed open arm activity relative to unpaired controls when tested in a familiar maze. The pattern of results was specific to the conditional affective properties of the taste, because exposure to unconditional sickness produced by administration of lithium, and unconditionally unpalatable quinine solution did not produce this pattern. These results were interpreted in terms of the opponent process model of motivation; that is, exposure to a lithium-paired flavor elicits conditioned fear which is immediately followed by conditioned relief when the exposure is terminated. On the other hand, exposure to an amphetamine-paired flavor either before or during EPM testing enhanced open arm exploration. Since the strength of taste avoidance did not differ among amphetamine and lithium conditioned rats, these results provide further evidence that the nature of a saccharin-lithium association differs from that of a saccharin-amphetamine association.     

Automatic emotional information processing and the cortisol response to acute psychosocial stress

Attentional shifting may represent a means of regulating the stress response. Previously, automatic processing of emotional information was predictive of subsequent cortisol levels during a repeated loss stressor (Ellenbogen, Schwartzman, Stewart, & Walker, 2006). The stress induction did not, however, elicit a substantive cortisol increase. Thus, we sought to replicate this finding using the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST), a validated psychosocial stress induction. Seventy-nine students performed a modified spatial cuing task with supraliminal and masked pictorial stimuli during the TSST (n = 36) and a control condition (n = 43). The TSST elicited a greater cortisol response than did the control condition [F(1,76) = 4.6, p < .05]. Attentional shifting during trials with masked angry faces predicted cortisol change during the TSST (β = .76; t = 2.1, p < .05), but not during the control condition. These data suggest that early automatic emotional information processing is important in the regulation of the cortisol stress response, although the direction of effect is not known.     

Examining differences in minority versus majority preschoolers on social categorization and perceived intergroup distance

We examined the differences between majority and minority children (i.e., group membership) on racial categorization and perceived cultural distance, among 4‐ to 6‐year‐old children, in low diversified schools. We used a spontaneous social categorization task using pictures of children from three different racial groups broadly represented in France (Europeans, Black‐, and North‐Africans), and an evaluation of the perceived cultural distance between participants' in‐group and the racial group represented in the picture, adapted to children and based on three factors (language, eating habits, and music). Results revealed an effect of age on racial categorization: the older the children, the more successful they are in this task. They showed a significant effect of the racial group represented in the photos on perceived cultural distance: members of minority groups (i.e., Black‐ and North‐Africans) were evaluated as more different compared to those of the majority group on each of the factors. Finally, we got an interaction between participants' in‐group and the racial group represented in the pictures, for the language factor: members of the majority group perceived as more different photographs representing minorities peers than those representing majority peers, while participants belonging to minority groups perceived no differences between photographs, according to the racial criteria.     

An EEG-based neuro-recommendation system for improving consumer purchase experience

The aperture between the marketing domain and the electroencephalography (EEG)-based brain–computer interface (BCI) has been achieved with the inception of neuromarketing. This domain helps access the hidden information of the preferences and tastes of the consumers who intend to purchase. Research scholars have experimented with this emerging area in multiple aspects like designing pricing, promotions, predicting purchase-related activities, new product development, and so on. In this study, we have proposed an innovative use of neuromarketing to build a recommendation system. This recommendation system can potentially suggest suitable products to the consumer based on the past purchase behavior. This proposal carries huge potential in converting visitors to shoppers, increasing average order value, increasing the number of items per order, designing personalized promotions, and so on. The commonality of activated brain signals has been used to build this recommendation system. This neuromarketing-based recommendation system carries the advantage over the traditional recommendation system as this system suggests products based on the actual real-time state of the brain during the purchase. This system successfully initiated the starting point of building a neuromarketing-based recommendation system.     

The Price of Friendship: When,Why, and How Relational Norms Guide Social Exchange Behavior

This article critically examines McGraw and Tetlock's (2005) notion of relational framing and offers directions for future development of the conceptual model. I begin by discussing the inherent limitations of scenario studies and show how the emergence of attribution analysis in real interpersonal interactions may qualify the results obtained in these studies. I then discuss the norm consistency and social identity maintenance mechanisms proposed in the article and advance several alternative mediators of the phenomenon, including affect and anticipated interaction. I recommend experimental designs that could be used to isolate the role of the different mediators and suggest the incorporation of process measures. I end with a discussion of conditions under which relational framing may not matter and propose a research agenda for consumer researchers interested in building on the solid foundation laid by McGraw and Tetlock.     

A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Personality Structure Through the Lens of the HEXACO Model

Across 5 different samples, totaling more than 1,600 participants from India, Indonesia, Oman, Romania, and Thailand, the authors address the question of cross-cultural replicability of a personality structure, while exploring the utility of exploratory structural equation modeling (ESEM) as a data analysis technique in cross-cultural personality research. Personality was measured with an alternative, non–Five-Factor Model (FFM) personality framework, provided by the HEXACO–PI (Lee &; Ashton, 2004 Lee, K., &; Ashton, M. C. (2004). Psychometric properties of the HEXACO personality inventory. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 39, 329–358.[Taylor &; Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). The results show that the HEXACO framework was replicated in some of the investigated cultures. The ESEM data analysis technique proved to be especially useful in investigating the between-group measurement equivalence of broad personality measures across different cultures.