Effects of motivational cues on perceptual asymmetry: implications for creativity and analytical problem solving

In 4 experiments, participants were led to focus on either the prospect of positive outcomes (approach anticipation) or the prospect of negative outcomes (avoidance anticipation) and were subsequently administered behavioral measures of relative hemispheric activation. It was found that approach, relative to avoidance-related anticipatory states, produced greater relative right (diminished relative left) hemispheric activation. Experiment 3 additionally demonstrated that this pattern of activation was reversed when approach and avoidance states were not merely anticipatory but were also emotionally arousing. Finally, Experiment 4 replicated earlier findings demonstrating an influence of approach and avoidance anticipatory states on creativity and analytical problem solving (R. S. Friedman & J. Forster, 2001, 2003) and provided evidence that such effects are mediated by differences in relative hemispheric activation.     

Not Very Smart,thus Moral: Dimensional Comparisons Between Academic Self-Concept and Honesty

Three studies explored the influence of self-evaluation in one domain (e.g., the academic domain) on self-evaluation in another domain (e.g., morality), assuming a process of intra-personal dimensional comparisons (i.e., comparisons between self-evaluations in two different domains). A pre-study with N = 143 university students replicated the Muhammad Ali effect, that is, the tendency to rate one's own honesty higher than one's own intelligence. As suggested in our assumptions regarding dimensional comparisons, Study 1 (N = 70) then showed that low self-concept students rated their honesty slightly more positive than high self-concept students. More important, in Study 2 (N = 64) participants who just experienced academic failure in an experimental task rated their honesty slightly more positive than students who experienced academic success. Therefore, it was demonstrated that academic outcome influenced self-concept in a non-academic domain. Results are discussed with regard to their implications for the extension of the I/E model.     

A Brunswikean Approach to Tratt Continuity: Application to Shyness

A new method of assessing the continuity of traits independent of their stability is proposed that is based on Brunswik's lens model of person perception. The method is applied to the continuity of shyness between preschool age and adulthood. A sample of 108 children (observed at age 4 and again at age 6) and a sample of 70 university students were video-taped in conversations with adult strangers. Detailed coding of 17 different behaviors revealed a highly similar rank order of their validity coefficients for parental reports of children's shyness, self-reports of students' shyness, and observer judgments of both children's and students' shyness, even after controlling for differences in the behaviors' reliability. These findings suggest that the construct of shyness shows a strong continuity from preschool age through adulthood. The proposed methodology can also be applied to the continuity of emotional states or to the cross-situational generality of traits and states.     

Book reviews

Pseudo‐Problems. How Analytic Philosophy Gets Done, Roy Sorensen, 1993. London, Routledge xi + 291 pp., hb £37.50, ISBN: 0–415–09464X

Changing Tools: Case Studies in the History of Scientific Methodology, Marta Feher, 1995. Adademiai Kiado £23.17, ISBN: 9630567288

Evolutionary Naturalism, Michael Ruse, 1995, London, Routledge pp. 316, hb £35, ISBN 0–415–08997–2

Knowledge and the Body‐Mind Problem: in Defence of Interaction, Sir Karl Popper, 1994 London, Routledge ix+ 158 pp., hb £25; £10.99 pb, ISBN: 0–415–11504–3

Whys and Ways of Science, Peter J. Riggs, 1992 Melbourne University Press ix + 235 pp., £11.95, ISBN: 0522844715

Rethinking Objectivity, Aixan Megill, Ed., 1994 Durham and London, Duke University Press ix +342pp., £43.50, ISBN: 0822314797

Projective Probability, James Logue, 1995 Clarendon Press xiii+ 171 pp., £24.75, ISBN: 0198239599

Self‐motion: from Aristotle to Newton, M. L. Gill & J. G. Lennox (Eds), 1994 Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press xxi + 367 pp., £36.50, ISBN: 0–691–03235–1     

A note on response-decision in perceptual identification

Summary Perceptual identification is conceived here as a two-stage process which includes perceptual processing and a response-decision. Three models for the decision part are discussed. Nakatani's (1972) model is based on choice theory and incorporates sophisticated guessing. Rumelhart's (1971) model assumes that the probability of a response equals either the prior or posterior probability of the stimulus corresponding to this response. A third model is derived which incorporates assumptions from both Nakatani's and Rumelhart's model. According to the results of two visual identification experiments Rumelhart's model has been rendered implausible whereas the third model provides a more plausible interpretation of the results.     

Stimulus frequency in the identification of line segments

Summary In a complete identification experiment line segments with 0, 45, 90, and 135 degrees orientation were exposed tachistoscopically as stimuli. The four stimuli were identified under three successive frequency conditions: In the first condition the stimuli occurred with equal frequency, in the second condition the stimulus probabilities were 0.4, 0.3, 0.2, and 0.1, and in the third condition the stimulus probabilities were 0.2, 0.1, 0.4, and 0.3. A 4×4 stimulus-responses confusion matrix was obtained from each condition and subject. The hit rates obtained for a more frequent stimulus (P=0.4 or 0.3) were higher than the hit rates obtained for a less frequent stimulus, and the same relation held between the proportions of an incorrect response corresponding to a more frequent stimulus and a less frequent stimulus. The confusion matrices were analysed according to the perceptual all-or-none model which allows separation of the effects of stimulus frequency on sensory and on decision processes in identification. Results showed marked effects of stimulus frequency on the decision processes yet no systematic effects on the sensory processes. Attempts to decompose the effects of stimulus frequency on the decision processes failed.Paper presented at the Symposium: Heinrich Düker — Impulse seiner Forschung. 20. Tagung experimentell arbeitender Psychologen, Marburg, 1978     

Counterfactual theories of causation and the problem of large causes

Philosophical Studies - As is well-known, David Lewis’ counterfactual theory of causation is subject to serious counterexamples in ‘exceptional’ cases. What has not received due...     

Good Enough for an Affair. Self‐Enhancement of Attractiveness,Interest in Potential Mates and Popularity as a Mate

Using data from the Berlin Speed Dating Study, we tested rival hypotheses concerning the effects of self‐enhancement of attractiveness on dating outcomes. Three hundred eighty‐two participants took part in one of the 17 speed‐dating sessions. After each speed‐dating interaction, participants indicated how interesting they found the respective person as a long‐term and short‐term partner. Using social relations analyses, we computed perceiver effects (being more or less choosy) and target effects (being rated as more or less interesting) of long‐term and short‐term partner ratings. Self‐enhancement was operationalized as the discrepancy between self‐rated attractiveness and four components of actual attractiveness (observer‐rated facial and vocal attractiveness, height and body mass index). Results indicated that self‐enhancers were less choosy with respect to their interest for short‐term partners, which was especially true for men, but more choosy with respect to long‐term partners. With regard to popularity as a mate, potential partners indicated that they found self‐enhancers more interesting as short‐term partners but not as long‐term partners. As self‐enhancement is a key component of narcissism, these results are consistent with findings that narcissists perceive many sexual affairs as an achievement, while preferring selected ‘trophy’ long‐term partners, and narcissists have a charming appeal for short‐term, but not lasting, social relationships. Copyright © 2015 European Association of Personality Psychology     

Automatic effects of deviancy cues on creative cognition

Three experiments test the existence of an automatic deviancy‐creativity link. Using a lexical decision task, in Experiment 1 we found a semantic link between deviancy and creativity words in that decision times for creativity‐related words were enhanced after subliminal deviancy priming. In Experiment 2, participants were led to think about either a punk or an engineer and afterwards were administered creative insight and analytical reasoning problems. According to a pretest, punks and engineers were judged as differing in uniqueness but not in creativity. Participants given ‘punk’ priming solved more creative insight problems and fewer analytical reasoning problems than those given ‘engineer’ priming. In Experiment 3, participants were incidentally exposed to abstract artworks symbolically expressing either the concept of conformity or deviancy and were subsequently asked to solve a creative generation task. Exposure to the artwork representing deviancy led to generation of more creative solutions than exposure to that representing conformity. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.