Selective exposure among advisors: the impact of impression motivation

Audience confirmation bias (ACB) refers to the extent to which people prefer information supporting (vs. conflicting with) their audience's views. In two studies, we showed that advisors shifted their ACB toward the needs of their advisees (i.e., audience): When advisors were led to believe that their advisees wanted to defend their views, the ACB was higher compared with when advisees were open minded for critique. Study 2 indicated that this pattern occurred because advisors wanted to have a pleasant interaction with their advisees (impression motivation): Whereas impression‐motivated advisors exhibited a stronger ACB when they were asked to give advice to a defensive (vs. open‐minded) advisee, accuracy‐motivated advisors showed a balanced ACB, regardless of their advisee's needs.     

Impact of social value orientation on energy conservation in different behavioral domains

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between social value orientation and energy conservation over different energy consumption domains. Additionally, the impact of type of energy conservation measure (curtailment vs. energy efficiency) was investigated. Data were derived from a mail survey of Swiss households (N = 1,209). It was expected that social value orientation and type of conservation measure affect conservation behavior. Confirming our hypotheses, prosocials reported more energy conservation—in the housing, mobility, and food domain—compared with individualists and competitors. As assumed, the difference in energy conservation between the three social value orientations was found for curtailment behaviors, but not for energy efficiency behaviors requiring no change in habits. Results and implications are discussed.     

Influenceability of Sex Differences under Conditions of Risk Taking

In an experiment on the effect of intensity accents on the perception of time intervals between tones. H. G. Tekman (2001) found that the regular placement of deviant time intervals in short sequences of tones reduced detection, especially if intensity accents marked the deviant time intervals. That was the opposite of what one wòuld have expected on the basis of the dynamic attending theory of M. R. Jones (1976). The effect might have occurred because temporally deviant tones create cumulative onset shifts that affect all the subsequent tones. If the deviations were randomly placed, then they could follow each other in close succession and change the local tempo. In the present study, the changes of local tempo, which might have acted as a cue for the detection of temporal deviations in the random sequences, were eliminated by compensating for deviant time intervals with equal deviations in the opposite direction in the interval that followed. That change in the stimuli eliminated the negative main effect of regularity, and the accenting interacted with regularity in favor of detection in the regular sequences. However, a simple advantage of regular over random sequences was not observed. The author discusses possible reasons for the lack of a facilitatory effect of regularity.     

The Relationship Between Adult Happiness and Self-Appraised Childhood Happiness and Events

The primary purpose of the present research was to relate questionnaire-assessed self-reported childhood happiness and events to adulthood happiness in 387 nonclinical participants. Although childhood happiness and adult happiness were found to be significantly correlated (r = .28, p < .001), there was little relationship between reported adult happiness and reported specific childhood events and circumstances. Childhood events and circumstances, however, were much more highly correlated with childhood happiness (R = .64). Thirty-four percent of the persons who said they were unhappy or very unhappy as a child, but only 9% who said they were happy or very happy as a child, reported that they were unhappy or very unhappy as adults.     

Perceptual-Motor Contributions to Static and Dynamic Balance Control in Children

The authors addressed balance control in children from the perspective of skill development and examined the relationship between specific perceptual and motor skills and static and dynamic balance performance. Fifty 11- to 13-year-old children performed a series of 1-legged balance tasks while standing on a force platform. Postural control was reflected in the maximum displacement of the center of mass in anterior-posterior and mediolateral directions. Simple visual, discrimination, and choice reaction times; sustained attention; visuomotor coordination; kinesthesis; and depth perception were also assessed in a series of perceptual and motor tests. The correlation analysis revealed that balancing under static conditions was strongly associated with the ability to perceive and process visual information, which is important for feedback-based control of balance. On the other hand, when greater task demands were imposed on the system under dynamic balancing conditions, the ability to respond to the destabilizing hip abductions-adductions in order to maintain equilibrium was associated with motor response speed, suggesting the use of a descending, feedforward control strategy. Therefore, like adults, 11- to 13-year-old children have the ability to select varying balance strategies (feedback, feedforward, or both), depending on the constraints of a particular task.     

Reacquisition and Transfer of Motor Skills With Sensory Feedback Reduction

Reacquisition and transfer of Morse key tapping and finger circling under total peripheral feedback reduction were investigated. 23 medical students were tested. Kinesthetic and tactile feedback were reduced by compression block. The results showed that tapping performance was reacquired to 56.4% of normal and circling to 26.4% by the tenth preshift trials. Strong positive transfer was found for both tasks in Groups 1 and 2. This positive transfer indicated the existence of central, general programming operations. With trials alternating between the two tasks (Group 3) reacquisition curves followed the preshift trials for tapping and circling, showing absence of adverse emotional influence of the block technique. Marked individual differences in performance in the absence of peripheral information were observed, grouping Ss into two distinct categories.     

Transfer Variables in Tracking Skills

In the present work the effect of two task variables on transfer were studied: shape of the track-circular or triangular; and target speed-constant or variable. One or both of these variables was changed on transfer. Experimental conditions were (a) 10 preshift and 10 post-shift trials, and (b) 20 single-trial alternations of two tasks. 22 groups of 12 Ss each were tested. Condition (a) showed positive transfer with single variable change and zero or negative transfer with simultaneous change in two variables, and condition (b) annulled all transfer effects. Results are discussed in terms of commonality between tasks and receptor and perceptual anticipation.     

Handedness and Hemispheric Asymmetry in the Control Of Movements

This study investigated the influence of hemispheric specialization of function on the motor performance of the hands. Right-handed (n=17), ambidextral (n=21), and ambisinistral (n=12) subjects performed Fitts' (1954) reciprocal tapping task under two conditions with each hand. Conditions had the same index of difficulty but differed in movement precision. The left hand of righthanders was superior in the condition requiring the greatest amount of preprogramming. Conversely, the right hand was not superior in the condition having the greatest demand for feedback control. For ambidextrals, left-hand superiority in the relatively preprogrammed condition was also revealed. Ambisinistrals showed no significant difference between conditions with either hand. The results partially support the hypothesis that the motor performance of the hands mirrors the dominant processing mode of their contralateral hemisphere. Failure to find supportive evidence in ambisinistrals is consistent with the contention that they lack hemispheric specialization of function.     

Acquisition of Predictable Vertical Visual Targets: Eye-Head Coordination and the Triggering Effect

The study was designed to investigate target acquisition in the vertical plane with emphasis on establishing strategy differences associated with acquisition triggering methods. Eight subjects were tested. Measurements consisted of target acquisition time, eye-head latency differences, velocity of gaze, eyes and head, and head amplitude. Using 3-way repeated measures analyses of variance the results show that the strategy for acquisition of predictable visual targets in vertical plane with the head unrestrained significantly depended on (a) the direction of the gaze motion with respect to the gravity vector (i.e., there is significant up-down asymmetry), (b) the angular distance of the target, and (c) the method of triggering the command to acquire the target—external versus internal. The data also show that when vertical acquisition is compared with triggering methods in the horizontal plane there is a difference in overall strategy for the acquisition of targets with the same spatial distances from straight ahead gaze when both the eyes and head are used. Among the factors contributing to the difference in strategy for vertical target acquisition are the gravitational vector, the relationship of target displacement and vestibular activitation, biomechanical and neural control asymmetries, and the difference in the vertical field of view.