Self-serving biases and public justifications in trust games

Often, when several norms are present and may be in conflict, individuals will display a self-serving bias, privileging the norm that best serves their interests. Xiao and Bicchieri (J Econ Psychol 31(3):456–470, 2010) tested the effects of inequality on reciprocating behavior in trust games and showed that—when inequality increases—reciprocity loses its appeal. They hypothesized that self-serving biases in choosing to privilege a particular social norm occur when the choice of that norm is publicly justifiable as reasonable, even if not optimal for one of the parties. In line with the literature on motivated reasoning, this justification should find some degree of support among third parties. The results of our experimental survey of third parties support the hypothesis that biases are not always unilateral selfish assessments. Instead, they occur when the choice to favor a particular norm is supported by a shared sense that it is a reasonable and justifiable choice.     

Mood-dependent memory

Have you ever noticed that when you are in a bad mood the whole world seems to be against you? More negative things seem to happen, and you even remember past episodes of your life in a more negative way than usual. Most of us have experienced this phenomenon, but few will have thought about how this mood might interact with our ability to remember. In a recent paper, Susanne Erk et al. shed light on a possible neural basis for this phenomena.     

Experts and laymen grossly underestimate the benefits of argumentation for reasoning

Many fields of study have shown that group discussion generally improves reasoning performance for a wide range of tasks. This article shows that most of the population, including specialists, does not expect group discussion to be as beneficial as it is. Six studies asked participants to solve a standard reasoning problem—the Wason selection task—and to estimate the performance of individuals working alone and in groups. We tested samples of U.S., Indian, and Japanese participants, European managers, and psychologists of reasoning. Every sample underestimated the improvement yielded by group discussion. They did so even after they had been explained the correct answer, or after they had had to solve the problem in groups. These mistaken intuitions could prevent individuals from making the best of institutions that rely on group discussion, from collaborative learning and work teams to deliberative assemblies.     

Dispositional pessimism,defensive pessimism and optimism: The effect of induced mood on prefactual and counterfactual thinking and performance

This study analyses the extent to which dispositional pessimists differ from defensive pessimists and optimists in the generation of prefactual and counterfactual thoughts and in their performance in an anagram task, under different conditions of induced mood. Dispositional pessimists performed in a similar manner in all circumstances, recording an equal number of prefactual thoughts. By contrast, optimists and defensive pessimists optimised their performance under positive and negative conditions, respectively. It should be noted that after performing this task, the number of counterfactual thoughts expressed by dispositional pessimists varied according to mood states. The results are discussed in terms of the rigidity of the generalised expectations of dispositional pessimism.     

Impulsivity Mediates the Relationship between Future Orientation and Juvenile Deviancy

Both future orientation and impulsivity are intrinsic parts of an adolescent’s self-control, and empirical evidence clearly establishes them as crucial features on the origin of juvenile deviant behavior. However, we do not yet fully understand how these variables relate in explaining deviant conduct. In the present study, we tested a mediation model between these variables among 126 Portuguese adolescents. Findings support the mediation model in analysis, namely that impulsivity fully mediates the effect of future orientation on deviant behavior. In conclusion, our results suggest that lesser future orientated youth develop impulsive behavior which, in turn, explains their higher deviant conduct.     

Heart Rate Recovery After Exercise in Outpatients with Coronary Heart Disease: Role of Depressive Symptoms and Positive Affect

Heart rate recovery after 1 min of exercise cessation (HRR-1) is an important prognostic factor in patients with cardiovascular disease (CVD). We aimed to further elucidate the association between HRR-1 and known psychosocial risk factors in patients referred for comprehensive cardiac rehabilitation. We examined 521 patients with coronary heart disease in the first week of an outpatient cardiac rehabilitation program. Depressive and anxiety symptoms were measured with the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, and positive (PA) and negative affect were rated with the Global Mood Scale. Depressive symptoms showed a significant inverse relationship with HRR-1 (p?<?.05), controlling for sociodemographic and medical covariates, whereas anxiety symptoms did not show a significant association. PA made a significant contribution to HRR-1 as well (p?<?.05). Our findings suggest an independent association between HRR-1 and psychosocial risk factors of CVD.