No anticipation without intention: Response–effect compatibility in effect-based and stimulus-based actions

Goal-directed behavior is characterized by the anticipation of the resulting effect during response selection. Such anticipations can be contextualized in the sense that response–effect relationships in one stimulus context are inverted in another stimulus context. The primary study aim was to test the hypothesis that contextualized effect anticipation might depend on whether subjects adopt either an effect-based action control style or a stimulus-based control style. Importantly, we hypothesized that the choice of control styles depends on explicit instruction. Effect anticipation during response selection was determined by assessing the behavioral impact of spatial compatibility between the required response and an additional task-irrelevant spatial feature attached to the anticipated effect that would be produced by that response in a given context. In two experiments we found a compatibility effect exclusively in blocks with effect-based instruction but not in stimulus-based blocks. Furthermore, subjects could quickly switch between styles without one strategy dominating the others. Together, this shows that contextualized anticipation of distal visual effects is not an automatic process but depends on the intention to produce an effect.     

Focus on opportunities as a mediator of the relationships between age, job complexity, and work performance

Focus on opportunities is a cognitive-motivational facet of occupational future time perspective that describes how many new goals, options, and possibilities individuals expect to have in their personal work-related futures. This study examined focus on opportunities as a mediator of the relationships between age and work performance and between job complexity and work performance. In addition, it was expected that job complexity buffers the negative relationship between age and focus on opportunities and weakens the negative indirect effect of age on work performance. Results of mediation, moderation, and moderated mediation analyses with data collected from 168 employees in 41 organizations (mean age = 40.22 years, SD = 10.43, range = 19–64 years) as well as 168 peers providing work performance ratings supported the assumptions. The findings suggest that future studies on the role of age for work design and performance should take employees’ focus on opportunities into account.     

Two-year-olds grasp the intentional structure of pretense acts

Twenty-two- and 27-month-old children were tested for their understanding of pretending as a specific intentional action form. Pairs of superficially similar behaviors - pretending to perform an action and trying to perform that action - were demonstrated to children. The 27-month-olds, and to some degree the 22-month-olds, showed in their responses that they understood the intentional structure of both kinds of behaviors: after pretense models, they themselves performed appropriate inferential pretense acts, whereas after the trying models they properly performed the action or tried to perform it with novel means. These findings are discussed in the light of recent debates about children's developing understanding of pretense and theory of mind.     

Control over location-based response activation in the Simon task: behavioral and electrophysiological evidence

In 4 Simon experiments the authors examined control over 2 routes of sensorimotor processing: response priming in the unconditional route and response selection via the conditional route. The Simon effect diminished as the frequency of noncorresponding trials increased. Location-based response priming was observed only when the stimulus followed a corresponding event but not after a noncorresponding trial. Therefore, the unconditional route appears to be suppressed whenever the task context indicates priming as potentially disadvantageous. Moreover, the task-irrelevant stimulus location was used for response selection as a function of correspondence probability. Although exact repetitions of stimulus-response sequences caused a marked speed-up of responses, this 3rd mechanism is independent of unconditional route suppression and frequency-based adjustments in the conditional route.     

Bigger knows better: Young children selectively learn rule games from adults rather than from peers

Preschoolers' selective learning from adult versus peer models was investigated. Extending previous research, children from age 3 were shown to selectively learn simple rule games from adult rather than peer models. Furthermore, this selective learning was not confined to preferentially performing certain acts oneself, but more specifically had a normative dimension to it: children understood the way the adult demonstrated an act not only as the better one, but as the normatively appropriate/correct one. This was indicated in their spontaneous normative interventions (protest, critique, etc.) in response to third party acts deviating from the one demonstrated by the adult model. Various interpretations of these findings are discussed in the broader context of the development of children's social cognition and cultural learning.     

Taking fiction seriously: young children understand the normative structure of joint pretence games

Joint pretence games are implicit rule-governed activities with a normative structure: Given shared fictional stipulations, some acts are appropriate moves, others are inappropriate (i.e., mistakes). The awareness of 2- and 3-year-old children of this normative structure was explored, as indicated by their ability to not only act according to the rules themselves but to spontaneously protest against 3rd party rule violations. After the child and a 2nd person had set up a pretence scenario, a 3rd character (a puppet controlled by another experimenter) joined the game and performed acts either appropriate or inappropriate to the scenario set-up. Children in both age groups protested specifically against inappropriate acts, indicating they were able to not only follow pretence stipulations and act in accordance with them but to understand their deontic implications. This effect was more pronounced in the 3-year-olds than in the 2-year-olds. The results are discussed in the broader context of the development of social understanding and cultural learning.     

The Impact of Perceived Justice on Contingent Value Judgments1

We asked citizens suffering from road traffic about their willingness to pay for the building of a new road bypassing their home village. Opponents of the project were asked what they would consider adequate compensation for accepting the bypass. The perceived fairness of a monetary exchange was the only predictor for the decision in principle to pay or to claim compensation, whereas the exact amount was determined by the expected utility provided by the bypass. Norms of equity or equality introduced in 2 experimental priming conditions biased respondents' willingness to pay. We suggest feeding back the results of contingent valuation surveys into the public debate, instead of interpreting them as a static measure of economic preferences.     

Eldercare demands, strain, and work engagement: The moderating role of perceived organizational support

Demographic changes give rise to an increasing number of middle-aged employees providing home-based care to an elderly family member. However, the potentially important role of employees' perceptions of organizational support for eldercare has so far not been investigated. The goal of this study was to examine a stressor–strain–outcome model (Koeske & Koeske, 1993) of eldercare strain as a mediator of the relationship between eldercare demands and caregivers' work engagement. Perceived organizational eldercare support was expected to attenuate the positive relationship between eldercare demands and eldercare strain and to buffer the negative relationship between eldercare strain and work engagement. Results of mediation and moderated mediation analyses with data collected from 147 employees providing eldercare supported the hypotheses. The findings suggest that perceived organizational eldercare support is especially beneficial for employees' work engagement when eldercare demands and strain are high.