Prosocial consequences of imitation

Research has shown that helping behavior can be primed easily. However, helping decreases significantly in the presence of inhibition cues, signaling high costs for the executor. On the other hand, multiple studies demonstrated that helping behavior increases after being mimicked. The present study investigated whether imitation still increases helping when more substantial costs are involved. Helping behavior was operationalized as the willingness to accompany the confederate on a 15-20 minute walk to the train station. Results show that even in the face of these high costs, participants who were mimicked agreed more often to help the confederate than participants who were anti-mimicked. These findings suggest that mimicry not only makes people more helpful when it comes to small favors, but also allows them to ignore the substantial costs possibly involved in helping others.     

Can Reasons be Self-Undermining?

The characterization of objective, normative reasons to φ as facts (or truths) that count in favor of φ-ing is widely accepted. But are there any further conditions that considerations which count in favor of φ-ing must meet, in order to count as a reason to φ? In this brief paper, I consider and reject one such condition, recently proposed by Caspar Hare.     

Predicting Transitions in Low and High Levels of Risk Behavior from Early to Middle Adolescence: The TRAILS Study

The present study examined the joint development of substance use and externalizing problems in early and middle adolescence. First, it was tested whether the relevant groups found in previous studies i.e., those with an early onset, a late onset, and no onset or low levels of risk behavior could be identified, while using a developmental model of a single, underlying construct of risk behavior. Second, departing from Moffitt's taxonomy of antisocial behavior, it was tested if early, but not late, onset risk behavior is predicted by a problematic risk profile in childhood. Data were used from TRAILS, a population based cohort study, starting at age 11 with two follow-ups at mean ages of 13.6 and 16.3 years. Latent transition analyses demonstrated that, both in early and middle adolescence, a single underlying construct of risk behavior, consisting of two classes (labeled as low and high risk behavior), adequately represented the data. Respondents could be clearly classified into four possible transition patterns from early to middle adolescence, with a transition from high to low being almost non-existent (2.5 %), low to low (39.4 %) and low to high (41.8 %) being the most prevalent, and high to high (16.2 %) substantial. As hypothesized, only the high-high group was characterized by a clear adverse predictor profile in late childhood, while the low-high group was not. This study demonstrates that the development of substance use is correlated with externalizing problems and underscores the theory that etiologies of early and later onset risk behavior are different.     

Can Motivation Normalize Working Memory and Task Persistence in Children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder? The Effects of Money and Computer-Gaming

Visual-spatial Working Memory (WM) is the most impaired executive function in children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Some suggest that deficits in executive functioning are caused by motivational deficits. However, there are no studies that investigate the effects of motivation on the visual-spatial WM of children with- and without ADHD. Studies examining this in executive functions other than WM, show inconsistent results. These inconsistencies may be related to differences in the reinforcement used. The effects of different reinforcers on WM performance were investigated in 30 children with ADHD and 31 non-ADHD controls. A visual-spatial WM task was administered in four reinforcement conditions: Feedback-only, 1 euro, 10 euros, and a computer-game version of the task. In the Feedback-only condition, children with ADHD performed worse on the WM measure than controls. Although incentives significantly improved the WM performance of children with ADHD, even the strongest incentives (10 euros and Gaming) were unable to normalize their performance. Feedback-only provided sufficient reinforcement for controls to reach optimal performance, while children with ADHD required extra reinforcement. Only children with ADHD showed a decrease in performance over time. Importantly, the strongest incentives (10 euros and Gaming) normalized persistence of performance in these children, whereas 1 euro had no such effect. Both executive and motivational deficits give rise to visual-spatial WM deficits in ADHD. Problems with task-persistence in ADHD result from motivational deficits. In ADHD-reinforcement studies and clinical practice (e.g., assessment), reinforcement intensity can be a confounding factor and should be taken into account. Gaming can be a cost-effective way to maximize performance in ADHD.     

Climato-economic livability predicts societal collectivism and political autocracy better than parasitic stress does

A 121-nation study of societal collectivism and a 174-nation study of political autocracy show that parasitic stress does not account for any variation in these components of culture once the interactive impacts of climatic demands and income resources have been accounted for. Climato-economic livability is a viable rival explanation for the reported effects of parasitic stress on culture.     

Social change as an important goal or likely outcome: how regulatory focus affects commitment to collective action

The results of three experiments showed that regulatory focus influences the way in which the importance and likelihood of social change affect individuals' commitment to collective action. In Studies 1 (N= 82) and 2 (N= 153), the strength of participants' chronic regulatory focus was measured. In Study 3 (N= 52), promotion or prevention focus was experimentally induced. The results showed that for individuals under promotion focus, commitment to collective action depended on the perceived likelihood that through this action important social change would be achieved. Individuals under prevention focus were willing to commit to collective action when they attached high importance to its goal, regardless of the extent to which they believed that attainment of this goal was likely. Implications of these results for work on regulatory focus and collective action are discussed.     

Beyond negotiated outcomes: The hidden costs of anger expression in dyadic negotiation

This paper focuses on the hidden costs of expressing anger in negotiations. Two experimental studies show that an opponent’s expression of anger can elicit both concessionary and retaliatory responses by focal negotiators. In the first study, equal-power negotiators exhibited overt concessionary behaviors when their opponents expressed anger, but also sabotaged their opponents covertly. Feelings of mistreatment mediated the relationship between opponents’ anger expression and focal negotiators’ covert retaliation. In the second study, low-power negotiators made larger concessions when high-power opponents expressed anger, but they retaliated covertly against high-power negotiators. High-power negotiators were overtly demanding (and not concessionary) regardless of whether or not the opponent expressed anger, but also retaliated covertly against low-power opponents who expressed anger. The two studies suggest that the value-claiming advantages of expressed anger need to be weighed against the costs of eliciting (covert) retaliation. We discuss implications of the findings and provide recommendations for future research.     

Adolescent Self-Reports of Social Anxiety: Can They Disagree with Objective Psychophysiological Measures and Still Be Valid?

We examined self-reported and parent-reported adolescent social anxiety symptoms and objective baseline measures of psychophysiological flexibility in 62 families. Measures completed by 31 adolescents referred for a clinical screening evaluation for social anxiety were compared to an age- and gender-matched community control sample of 31 adolescents (total sample: age range 14 to 17?years; 22 boys and 40 girls; M?=?15.32?years; SD?=?1.1). Clinic referred adolescents reported significantly fewer social anxiety symptoms than parents reported about adolescents. Further, for all adolescents, self-reported social anxiety symptoms exhibited low correspondence with objective psychophysiological measures. Yet, both measures uniquely discriminated between adolescents on whether they were clinic referred for a social anxiety screening. Further, adolescent self-reported social anxiety symptoms exhibited high levels of internal consistency and convergent validity. Findings indicate that researchers and practitioners should refrain from using disagreements between adolescent self-reports and other measures (e.g., parent report, objective measures) as indicators of the veracity of adolescent self-reports.     

Stripping the Political Cynic: A Psychological Exploration of the Concept of Political Cynicism

The high level of political cynicism in contemporary society is often considered a serious threat to democracy. The concept, however, has received only scant attention in psychology. The current work introduces political cynicism and extensively explores its psychological implications by investigating the concept's validity, predictive utility and status as a dispositional variable. Our results revealed that political cynicism is empirically distinguishable from the closely related constructs of social cynicism and political trust. Furthermore, political cynicism was found to strongly related to a wide range of political variables, such as voting intentions, political normlessness and political estrangement, as well as to broad social attitudes and racial prejudice. Finally, we show that political cynicism yields limited but meaningful relationships with Neuroticism and Agreeableness, although social cynicism is more clearly related to the Five‐Factor Model personality dimensions. It is therefore concluded that political cynicism can be reliably measured and distinguished from closely related concepts and that it yields meaningful relationships with other relevant psychological variables. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.