Investing Even in Uneven Contests: Effects of Asymmetry on Investment in Contests

Many competitions, such as political campaigns, innovative endeavors, sports, or courting rituals, require investment of nonrefundable resources: One contestant wins the prize for the invested amount, whereas all others lose their investments without receiving compensation. Frequently, contests are asymmetric, because of differing resources or prize valuations. Does asymmetry discourage the weaker contestants from investing? Do stronger contestants take this into account and also invest less? Or does the desire to win abolish these differences? Two experiments explored the effects of asymmetry between the contestants—arising from their resources or prizes—on nonrefundable investments. Subjects repeatedly competed in both symmetric and asymmetric contests, enabling within‐subject comparisons. We observed an effect of asymmetry only when it concerned resources: Subjects overall invested less when their resources were unequal, whereas inequality in the prizes did not influence investments. This pattern suggests that winning itself is motivating. The changes between consecutive investments can be explained by reactions to the previous outcome (win or loss): Across all contests, investment decreased following a win and increased following a loss. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Autonomy and relatedness with parents and romantic development in African American adolescents

The influence of adolescents' autonomy and relatedness to parents on romantic relationships was examined longitudinally over 5 years in 76 middle-class African American late adolescents (mean age = 18.43 years). Relatedness to parents in early adolescence led to longer duration and more supportive romantic relationships in late adolescence, but longer duration was concurrently associated with more negative romantic relationships. Cluster analyses yielded 3 profiles of early adolescent autonomy and relatedness; early adolescents who were high in relatedness and low in autonomy to parents in early adolescence reported longer duration romantic relationships in late adolescence than did adolescents who were moderate or high in relatedness and high in autonomy. The implications for romantic development in African American middle-class youth are discussed.     

Smoking involvement during adolescence among African Americans and Puerto Ricans: risks to psychological and physical well-being in young adulthood

The major aim of this study was to examine the longitudinal association between adolescent smoking involvement and self-reported psychological and physical outcomes in young adulthood. Participants included 333 African Americans and 329 Puerto Ricans who were surveyed in 1990 in their New York City schools and interviewed in 1995 and 2000-2001, primarily in their homes. The psychological outcomes included ego integration, symptoms of depression, anxiety, and interpersonal difficulty. The physical health measures included a general health rating, number of illnesses, and symptoms of ill health. Also, three scales measured problems due to alcohol, marijuana, and other illicit drug use. Smoking involvement varied by age, sex, and ethnicity but not by socioeconomic status nor by late adolescent parental status. Analysis showed that the relationships between adolescent smoking involvement and psychological and physical health problems in young adulthood remained significant even with control on demographic factors, earlier levels of the outcome variables, and marijuana use. The relationships between smoking behavior and problems with alcohol, marijuana and other illicit drug use were particularly strong. Thus, adolescent smoking seems to have a wide range of clinical implications for young adulthood.     

Stereotype Directionality and Attractiveness Stereotyping: Is Beauty Good or is Ugly Bad?

Dion, Berscheid, and Walster (1972), in their seminal article, labeled the attribution of positive characteristics to attractive people the "beauty-is-good" stereotype. The stereotyping literature since then provides extensive evidence for the differential judgment and treatment of attractive versus unattractive people, but does not indicate whether it is an advantage to be attractive or a disadvantage to be unattractive. Two studies investigated the direction of attractiveness stereotyping by comparing judgments of positive and negative attributes for medium vs. low and medium vs. high attractive faces. Taken together, results for adults (Experiment 1) and children (Experiment 2) suggest that most often, unattractiveness is a disadvantage, consistent with negativity bias (e.g., Rozin & Royzman, 2001) but contrary to the "beauty-is-good" aphorism.     

Understanding the effects of moving visual stimuli on unilateral neglect following stroke

Moving visual stimuli have been shown to reduce unilateral neglect (ULN), however, the mechanisms underlying these effects remain poorly understood. This study compared lateralised and non-lateralised moving visual stimuli to investigate whether the spatial characteristics or general alerting properties of moving visual stimuli are responsible for reducing neglect. Post-stroke left neglect patients as well as healthy and patient control subjects were tested on a computerised line bisection task under six visual stimulus conditions. The key finding was that, relative to the no stimulus condition, leftward moving and left-sided moving visual stimuli shifted neglect patients' bisection errors leftward while the non-lateralised random moving visual stimuli did not reduce neglect patients' rightward bisection errors. The results provide evidence that spatial characteristics rather than general alerting properties of moving visual stimuli reduce rightward bisection errors in ULN. Moreover, the pattern of findings strongly supports the notion that moving visual stimuli reduce neglect by capturing attention and drawing it to a spatial location rather than by activating the attentional system via superior collicular neurons.     

Who's afraid of the Wolfe couple: the interlocking traumatic scene

Fulfilling intimate relationships require a constant emotional and psychological struggle to disentangle strangleholds created by the interpenetration of unresolved complexes stemming from previous disappointing relational experiences. These complexes may manifest as an encrypted pattern of engagement that each partner brings to the marriage, like a 'malignant dowry'. The dowry box, once opened, releases its nefarious contents to create an extremely complex and entangled drama I call the 'interlocking traumatic scene'. Partners unconsciously entrap each other to play a part in such a scene with double (sometimes multiple) roles for each antagonist. The imaginal space between the two characters can be seen as a projection screen, upon which are superimposed two separate shadow plays, one on each side of the screen. A third play, which is a co-created product of these two individual traumatic scenes, can also be observed. Three plays are performed simultaneously. The defensive systems that the two individuals bring to the equation dovetail together, but the actual interlocking mechanism itself deadlocks in such a way that it seems to have its own malignant presence, a 'malevolent third' (after Ogden 1994). I outline therapeutic interventions using the metaphor of the therapist as 'anti-director' and I introduce my concept of the conjoint selected fact (after Bion 1963 after Poincaré 1952).