Experts in Dialogue: An Introduction

Different approaches to expertise and argumentation are discussed. After introducing the problem of expertise and its present day significance in a historical context, various connections with the study of arguments are highlighted. The need for and potential of argumentation analysis to contribute to existing research in social epistemology, science studies, and cognitive science, is discussed, touching on the problems of reasoning and argumentation, embodiment, tacit knowledge, expert context versus public context, expert disagreement, persuasion versus justification, and argument analysis as meta-expertise. As the arguments used by experts constitute a boundary object, we presume that a dialogue format is suitable to address central problems of the special issue “Rethinking Arguments from Experts”.     

The Jekyll and Hyde of emotional intelligence: emotion-regulation knowledge facilitates both prosocial and interpersonally deviant behavior

Does emotional intelligence promote behavior that strictly benefits the greater good, or can it also advance interpersonal deviance? In the investigation reported here, we tested the possibility that a core facet of emotional intelligence--emotion-regulation knowledge--can promote both prosocial and interpersonally deviant behavior. Drawing from research on how the effective regulation of emotion promotes goal achievement, we predicted that emotion-regulation knowledge would strengthen the effects of other-oriented and self-oriented personality traits on prosocial behavior and interpersonal deviance, respectively. Two studies supported our predictions. Among individuals with higher emotion-regulation knowledge, moral identity exhibited a stronger positive association with prosocial behavior in a social dilemma (Study 1), and Machiavellianism exhibited a stronger positive association with interpersonal deviance in the workplace (Study 2). Thus, emotion-regulation knowledge has a positive side and a dark side.     

Outsourcing self-regulation

Three studies demonstrate a novel phenomenon--self-regulatory outsourcing--in which thinking about how other people can be instrumental (i.e., helpful) for a given goal undermines motivation to expend effort on that goal. In Experiment 1, participants who thought about how their partner helped them with health goals (as opposed to career goals) planned to spend less time and effort on health goals in the upcoming week. This pattern was stronger for depleted participants than for nondepleted participants. In Experiment 2, participants who thought about how their partner helped them with academic-achievement goals procrastinated more, leaving themselves less time for an academic task, than did participants in two control conditions. This pattern was stronger for participants who were told that procrastinating would drain their resources for the academic task than for participants who were told that procrastinating would not drain their resources for that task. In Experiment 3, participants who decreased their effort after thinking of an instrumental significant other reported higher relationship commitment to that individual than did participants who did not decrease their effort. The possibility for shared (or transactive) self-regulation is discussed.     

Interpersonal aggression and team effectiveness: The mediating role of team goal commitment

This study examines the detrimental effect that interpersonal aggressive behaviours may have on two dimensions of team effectiveness, namely team performance and team viability. Moreover, this study investigates the mediating role of team goal commitment in these relationships. Data were collected from 97 work teams (341 members and 97 immediate supervisors) working in a public safety organization. The results indicate that interpersonal aggression is negatively related to team performance and team viability. The results also show that team goal commitment exercises a complete mediating role with regard to these relationships. Overall, this study highlights potential negative consequences of interpersonal aggression at the team level.     

Accountability for others,perceived resources,and well being: Convergent restricted non‐linear results in two samples

This two‐sample investigation examined the influence of perceived resources on the form and magnitude of the relationships between accountability for others (AFO) and job tension and job satisfaction. Employing resource theory, we hypothesized that the non‐linear relationship between AFO and job tension would surface only for individuals high in perceived resources, whereas the association between these constructs would be positive and linear for individuals low in perceived resources. A similar relationship was hypothesized for AFO and job satisfaction in which the non‐linear effect would arise for individuals high in perceived resources, and negative linear effects would emerge for those low in perceived resources. Data from two samples (N= 201; N= 182) provided support and replication for the hypotheses. Implications of the results and directions for future research are discussed.     

The influence of suggestibility on memory

We provide a translation of Binet and Henri's pioneering 1894 paper on the influence of suggestibility on memory. Alfred Binet (1857-1911) is famous as the author who created the IQ test that bears his name, but he is almost unknown as the psychological investigator who generated numerous original experiments and fascinating results in the study of memory. His experiments published in 1894 manipulated suggestibility in several ways to determine effects on remembering. Three particular modes of suggestion were employed to induce false recognitions: (1) indirect suggestion by a preconceived idea; (2) direct suggestion; and (3) collective suggestion. In the commentary we suggest that Binet and Henri's (1894) paper written over 115 years ago is still highly relevant even today. In particular, Binet's legacy lives on in modern research on misinformation effects in memory, in studies of conformity, and in experiments on the social contagion of memory.     

The PANAS structure revisited: on the validity of a bifactor model in community and forensic samples

The Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) is a widely used inventory for the assessment of affect in psychology and other applied sciences. Despite its popularity, the structure of the PANAS is still under debate. On the one hand, there is evidence of the traditional 2-factor model with Positive Affect (PA) and Negative Affect (NA) as uncorrelated factors. On the other hand, a more complex structure of the PANAS has been discussed. To shed further light on the core dimensions of the PANAS, 2 studies investigated the structure of the PANAS in 2 German samples (N = 354 and N = 364, respectively) by means of confirmatory factor analysis. The factor analysis results of Study 1 for a traitlike time frame instruction suggested a suboptimal model fit for the uncorrelated 2-factor model and the 3-factor model with PA, Afraid, and Upset as factors, whereas a superior model fit occurred for a bifactor model with traitlike PA, NA, and a general 3rd factor named Affective Polarity. In Study 2, the bifactor model was replicated for a statelike PANAS time frame instruction and evidence of criterion validity was provided for PA, NA, and Affective Polarity factors in 2 sex offender subgroups and in a community sample. With Affective Polarity, we introduce an affect dimension that captures additional variance beyond PA and NA. Because of the adjectives with relevant loadings on Affective Polarity, this general factor represents an individual's orientation toward approach and withdrawal, respectively.     

Walking dreams in congenital and acquired paraplegia

To test if dreams contain remote or never-experienced motor skills, we collected during 6 weeks dream reports from 15 paraplegics and 15 healthy subjects. In 9/10 subjects with spinal cord injury and in 5/5 with congenital paraplegia, voluntary leg movements were reported during dream, including feelings of walking (46%), running (8.6%), dancing (8%), standing up (6.3%), bicycling (6.3%), and practicing sports (skiing, playing basketball, swimming). Paraplegia patients experienced walking dreams (38.2%) just as often as controls (28.7%). There was no correlation between the frequency of walking dreams and the duration of paraplegia. In contrast, patients were rarely paraplegic in dreams. Subjects who had never walked or stopped walking 4–64 years prior to this study still experience walking in their dreams, suggesting that a cerebral walking program, either genetic or more probably developed via mirror neurons (activated when observing others performing an action) is reactivated during sleep.     

Consciousness and modality: on the possible preserved visual consciousness in blindsight subjects

In a recent paper, Brogaard (2011) presents counter-arguments to the conclusions of an experiment with blindsight subject GR. She argues that contrary to the apparent findings that GR’s preserved visual abilities relate to degraded visual experiences, she is in fact fully unconscious of the stimuli she correctly identifies. In this paper, we present arguments and evidence why Brogaard’s argument does not succeed in its purpose. We suggest that not only is relevant empirical evidence in opposition to Brogaard’s argument, her argument misconstrues necessary criteria to decide whether a conscious experience is visual or not visual.