System-justifying beliefs and psychological well-being: the roles of group status and identity

This research examined the relationship between endorsing system-justifying beliefs and psychological well-being among individuals from ethnic groups that vary in social status. System-justifying beliefs are beliefs that imply that status in society is fair, deserved, and merited; examples of system-justifying beliefs in the United States include the beliefs that hard work pays off and that anyone can get ahead regardless of their group membership. We found that endorsing system-justifying beliefs was negatively related to psychological well-being among members of low-status groups who were highly identified with their group but positively related to well-being among members of low-status groups who were not highly identified with their ethnic group. In addition, we found that endorsing system-justifying beliefs was positively related to well-being among members of high-status groups, especially among members of high-status groups who were highly identified with the group.     

Exploring the role of emotions in injustice perceptions and retaliation

Although organizational justice scholars often describe unfairness as an emotionally laden experience, the role of emotion is underresearched. In a study of individuals who experienced being laid off (N = 173), the authors found that outcome favorability interacts with both procedural and interactional justice to predict participants' emotions. The pattern of interaction differed for inward-focused (i.e., shame and guilt) and outward-focused (i.e., anger and hostility) negative emotions. Attributions of blame mediated the relationship between fairness perceptions and outward-focused negative emotion. Outward-focused emotion mediated the relationship between fairness perceptions and retaliation.     

Acoustic mechanisms of note-type perception in black-capped chickadee (Poecile atricapillus) calls

Acoustic communication in black-capped chickadees (Poecile atricapillus) has been studied intensively, the "chick-a-dee" call being among the most well described. This call consists of 4 note types; chickadees perceive these notes as open-ended categories and do so in a continuous manner, with As more similar to Bs and Bs more similar to Cs. Acoustic features contributing to the note-type differentiation are unknown. Recent analyses suggested that certain acoustic features may play a role in note-type classification. Here, the authors tested black-capped chickadees in an operant-conditioning paradigm to determine which features were controlling note-type perception. The results suggest that the note pitch and the frequency modulation in the initial portion of the note control the perception of note types.     

Implicit romantic fantasies and women's interest in personal power: a glass slipper effect?

Three experiments investigated the relationship between women's romantic fantasies and their interest in personal power. Romantic fantasies (associating partners with chivalry and heroism) were assessed using the Implicit Association Test and self-reports. In each experiment, women's implicit romantic fantasies were dissociated with their conscious beliefs. More important, implicit (but not explicit) romantic fantasies negatively predicted women's interest in personal power, including projected income, education goal, interest in high-status jobs, and group leadership appeal. By contrast, men's implicit romantic fantasies were not routinely linked to their interest in personal power. In concert, the findings are consistent with positing a "glass slipper" effect for women that may be an implicit barrier to gender equity.     

Task versus relationship conflict,team performance,and team member satisfaction: a meta-analysis

This study provides a meta-analysis of research on the associations between relationship conflict, task conflict, team performance, and team member satisfaction. Consistent with past theorizing, results revealed strong and negative correlations between relationship conflict, team performance, and team member satisfaction. In contrast to what has been suggested in both academic research and introductory textbooks, however, results also revealed strong and negative (instead of the predicted positive) correlations between task conflict team performance, and team member satisfaction. As predicted, conflict had stronger negative relations with team performance in highly complex (decision making, project, mixed) than in less complex (production) tasks. Finally, task conflict was less negatively related to team performance when task conflict and relationship conflict were weakly, rather than strongly, correlated.     

Stereoscopic surface interpolation supports lightness constancy

The human visual system has a remarkable ability to construct surface representations from sparse stereoscopic, as well as texture and motion, information. In impoverished displays where few points are used to define regions in depth, the brain often interpolates depth estimates across intervening blank regions to create a compelling sense of a solid surface. The set of experiments described here examined stereoscopic interpolation using a novel technique based on lightness constancy. The effectiveness of this method is notable because it stands as the only technique to date that unequivocally examines the perception of interpolated surfaces, and not surfaces inferred subjectively from depth information in the stimulus. Further, these data support the growing evidence that a primary function of the stereoscopic system is to define three-dimensional surface structure.     

Oculomanual Coordination in Tracking of Pseudorandom Target Motion Stimuli

Oculomanual coordination was investigated in 9 healthy subjects during tracking of pseudorandom motion stimuli. Each subject was required to track visual stimuli under eye-hand (EH) and eye-alone (EA) conditions. Subjects were exposed to 3 types of mixed sinusoidal stimulus with varying frequency or amplitude of the highest frequency component, or various degrees of irregularity. Progressive degradation in tracking performance was nonlinearly induced by an increase in either (a) the highest frequency component or (b) its amplitude, but not by stimulus irregularity. No significant difference was found in eye velocity gain and phase under the EH and EA conditions. Eye and hand responses were found to be highly correlated in gain and phase when compared across frequencies and motion stimuli. The results suggest that frequency and amplitude are dominant factors controlling the breakdown of oculomanual performance in response to pseudorandom stimuli. Frequency responses of smooth pursuit eye movements are not affected by the hand motion in pursuit of unpredictable stimuli. Eye and hand motor systems appear to share common nonlinear drive mechanisms when pursuing pseudorandom target motion stimuli.     

Derived Relational Responding As An Operant: The Effects Of Between-Session Feedback

The Psychological Record - Relational Frame Theory (RFT) views derived relational responding as an overarching operant class of behavior. One approach to the analysis of derived relations from the...