Overconfidence in Probability and Frequency Judgments: A Critical Examination

The overconfidence observed in calibration studies has recently been questioned on both psychological and methodological grounds. In the first part of the article we discuss these issues and argue that overconfidence cannot be explained as a selection bias, and that it is not eliminated by random sampling of questions. In the second part of the article, we compare probability judgments for single events with judgments of relative frequency. Subjects received a target individual's personality profile and then predicted the target's responses to a series of binary questions. One group predicted the responses of an individual target, while a second group estimated the relative frequency of responses among all target subjects who shared a given personality profile. Judgments of confidence and estimates of relative frequency were practically indistinguishable; both exhibited substantial overconfidence and were highly correlated with independent judgments of representativeness.     

RegRand: Statistical software for the multiple-baseline design

RegRand (Version 1.0) is Macintosh-based software that enables a researcher to conduct a nonparametric statistical analysis of the data from Koehler and Levin’s (1998) recently described regulated randomization single-case multiple-baseline design. Regulated randomization design and analysis principles are reviewed in relation to an educational research application and a step-by-step illustration of them in relation to the RegRand program is presented.     

Effects of diazepam on a belief-updating task

This study examined the effects of a minor tranquilizer, diazepam, on a cognitive task that involved the updating of beliefs. On this task, subjects are first asked to express their strength of belief in a hypothesis and then to update this on the basis of new evidence. Past research has shown that revision of beliefs can be affected by many variables including the strength with which the initial belief is held, whether new information is perceived as positive or negative vis-à-vis the hypothesis, and the order in which evidence is processed. The purpose of this study was to assess whether a tranquilizer, diazepam, would affect the updating of beliefs, and specifically whether it would dampen the extent to which people revise their opinions. 12 healthy subjects participated in four experimental sessions, in which they received diazepam (0.14 mg/kg) or placebo and completed an updating task in which they received information in either of two orders, positive-negative or negative-positive. In each session, subjects saw a different experimental stimulus determined by a Latin-square design, and also completed pre- and postdrug mood questionnaires. Analysis showed order of presentation induced a recency effect similar to that obtained in previous studies, and the diazepam produced significant tranquilizer-like effects on self-report questionnaires. However, the diazepam had no effect on the updating task. These findings indicate that previously reported order effects in the belief updating task are robust and unaffected by a drug that has known sedative and memory-impairing properties.     

Traffic Citations in Relation to Gender

The present study was designed to examine the possibility that traffic officers are more lenient in issuing citations to other gender drivers. Statistics on the traffic citations issued for a year were obtained from the highway patrols of two states. The information was classified by violation, officers' gender, and drivers' gender. For most categories of violation, men issued a greater percent of their citations to male drivers than women did and women issued a greater percent of their citations to female drivers than men did. The differences could have been due to leniency on the part of one gender or both genders of officers. Leniency on the part of both genders is more consistent with the literature on helping in situations with low cost and low threat to the helper. A possible interpretation is that gender identity includes norms for positive treatment of other gender persons.     

Psychoanalysis and Neuroscience in Dialogue: Commentary on Paper by Arnold H. Modell

Arnold H. Modell has been engaged in an ongoing effort to advance psychoanalysis as well as to integrate psychoanalytic theory and relevant domains of science, particularly neuroscience, with psychoanalytic practice. He has been articulating a biology and construction of meaning and the role of metaphor as he attempts to understand the relationship between mind and brain. Modell strives to understanding how “matter becomes imagination,” as well as the relationship between the first-person psychological unconscious and the third-person neurophysiological unconscious. The latter, according to Modell, is interpreted by a personal “autobiographical self” and given meaning. This discussion of Modell's theories will include historical and contemporary attempts to understand how “matter becomes imagination.” Although there is a growing neuroscience research base for articulating the reverse, i. e., “how imagination becomes matter,” the present author will focus on the project Modell h as placed before himself and his audience. The role of consciousness in the brain-mind interface, mirror neuron systems and intersubjectivity will be discussed. Clinically, the role of trauma's effects on memory and metaphor as well as the defensive functions of non-relatedness and counter-dependency will be examined within the wider context of the very rich and subjectively meaningful journey of matter becoming imagination.     

Belief bias during reasoning among religious believers and skeptics

We provide evidence that religious skeptics, as compared to believers, are both more reflective and effective in logical reasoning tasks. While recent studies have reported a negative association between an analytic cognitive style and religiosity, they focused exclusively on accuracy, making it difficult to specify potential underlying cognitive mechanisms. The present study extends the previous research by assessing both performance and response times on quintessential logical reasoning problems (syllogisms). Those reporting more religious skepticism made fewer reasoning errors than did believers. This finding remained significant after controlling for general cognitive ability, time spent on the problems, and various demographic variables. Crucial for the purpose of exploring underlying mechanisms, response times indicated that skeptics also spent more time reasoning than did believers. This novel finding suggests a possible role of response slowing during analytic problem solving as a component of cognitive style that promotes overriding intuitive first impressions. Implications for using additional processing measures, such as response time, to investigate individual differences in cognitive style are discussed.     

Selling From 1900 to 1949: A Historical Perspective

Selling has developed dramatically in the twentieth century. It has changed from largely an independent and unstructured activity to a modern and scientifically managed profession that has contributed to the economic growth of this century. This paper examines its development from 1900 to 1950, focusing on the practices, events, and philosophies that have influenced the selling profession.     

Cognitive style and religiosity: The role of conflict detection

Recent research has indicated a negative relation between the propensity for analytic reasoning and religious beliefs and practices. Here, we propose conflict detection as a mechanism underlying this relation, on the basis of the hypothesis that more-analytic people are less religious, in part, because they are more sensitive to conflicts between immaterial religious beliefs and beliefs about the material world. To examine cognitive conflict sensitivity, we presented problems containing stereotypes that conflicted with base-rate probabilities in a task with no religious content. In three studies, we found evidence that religiosity is negatively related to conflict detection during reasoning. Independent measures of analytic cognitive style also positively predicted conflict detection. The present findings provide evidence for a mechanism potentially contributing to the negative association between analytic thinking and religiosity, and more generally, they illustrate the insights to be gained from integrating individual-difference factors and contextual factors to investigate analytic reasoning.