Leadership in multiteam systems

This study examined 2 leader functions likely to be instrumental in synchronizing large systems of teams (i.e., multiteam systems [MTSs]). Leader strategizing and coordinating were manipulated through training, and effects on functional leadership, interteam coordination, and MTS performance were examined. Three hundred eighty-four undergraduate students participated in a laboratory simulation modeling a 3-team MTS performing an F-22 battle simulation task (N = 64 MTSs). Results indicate that both leader training manipulations improved functional leadership and interteam coordination and that functional leader behavior was positively related to MTS-level performance. Functional leadership mediated the effects of both types of training on interteam coordination, and interteam coordination fully mediated the effect of MTS leadership on MTS performance.     

Orthographic directionality and thematic role illustration in English and Arabic

This study tested the hypotheses that people had a bias for drawing agents on the left of a picture when given a verb stimulus targeting an active or passive event (e.g., "kicked" or "is kicked") and that orthographic directionality would influence the way events were illustrated. Monolingual English speakers, who read and write left-to-right, and Arabic speakers, who read and write right-to-left, drew agents and patients in response to verb stimuli. We found no significant orthographic directionality effects and no preference for positioning agents on the left of pictures in either group or sentence type. Instead, participants drew agents on the right regardless of language or sentence type, and this was exaggerated in English speakers illustrating passive verbs. These findings support the existence of a preference for placing agents in the right hemispace that may result from asymmetrical hemispheric (i.e., left>right) activation induced by language processing. Our results are consistent with findings that people prefer pictures in which focus is on the right, a preference strongest in pictures with no implicit directionality of movement. This suggests that the methodology of the current study encouraged a static rather than dynamic interpretation of the verb in most participants.     

Is young children’s recognition of pretense metarepresentational or merely behavioral? Evidence from 2- and 3-year-olds’ understanding of pretend sounds and speech

When young children observe pretend-play, do they interpret it simply as a type of behavior, or do they infer the underlying mental state that gives the behavior meaning? This is a long-standing question with deep implications for how “theory on mind” develops. The two leading accounts of shared pretense give opposing answers. The behavioral theory proposes that children represent pretense as a form of behavior (behaving in a way that would be appropriate if P); the metarepresentational theory argues that children instead represent pretense via the early concept PRETEND. A test between these accounts is provided by children’s understanding of pretend sounds and speech. We report the first experiments directly investigating this understanding. In three experiments, 2- and 3-year-olds’ listened to requests that were either spoken normally, or with the pretense that a teddy bear was uttering them. To correctly fulfill the requests, children had to represent the normal utterance as the experimenter’s, and the pretend utterances as the bear’s. Children succeeded at both ages, suggesting that they can represent pretend speech (the requests) as coming from counterfactual sources (the bear rather than the experimenter). We argue that this is readily explained by the metarepresentational theory, but harder to explain if children are behaviorists about pretense.     

Sex Differences in Relationships between Verbal Fluency and Personality

The Thurstone Verbal Fluency Test, Vandenberg Mental Rotation Test, and NEO-FFI personality test were administered to 182 university participants (126 female, 56 male). The men scored higher than the women on the spatial test, and the women scored higher than the men for the verbal fluency test, as reported by others. Women reported more extraversion and agreeableness than men. Extraversion was correlated with verbal fluency for both sexes. For the men, verbal fluency was also positively associated with agreeableness, and for the women, verbal fluency was associated with openness and conscientiousness. No relationships between personality and spatial ability were found. Thus, the relationships between cognitive variables and personality factors differed between the sexes. These findings are discussed in terms of the common frontal neural substrate of verbal fluency and these aspects of personality, as well as the inherently social nature of language as a communication tool.     

Observer‐relative chances and the doomsday argument

Suppose various observers are divided randomly into two groups, a large and a small. Not knowing into which group anyone has been sent, each can have strong grounds for believing in being in the large group, although recognizing that every observer in the other group has equally powerful reasons for thinking of this other group as the large one. Justified belief can therefore be observer‐relative in a rather paradoxical way. Appreciating this allows one to reject an intriguing new objection against Brandon Carter's ‘doomsday argument’. Carter encourages us to doubt that we are among only the first hundredth, say, or first millionth, of all humans who will ever have existed. He thereby reinforces whatever reasons we may have for suspecting that, unless we take great care, the human race will not survive long. Admittedly his argument is weakened if our world is indeterministic, so that there is no suitably guaranteed ‘fact of the matter’ of how many humans will ever have existed. But even then, it can caution us against believing that a lengthy future for humankind ‘is as good as determined’. Of all the objections the argument has yet faced, the new one is the most interesting.     

The CS-Preexposure Effect in Conditioned Taste-Aversion Learning in Golden Hamsters

In Experiment 1, golden hamsters were injected with either 0.9% saline or the nausea-inducing agent, lithium chloride (LiCL), immediately after consuming a flavored diet that was either novel or familiar. The LiCl-induced aversion was strong in hamsters for which the flavored diet was novel, but no significant aversion was observed in hamsters that were familiar with the flavored diet. In Experiment 2, the strength of the LiCl-induced aversion was related inversely to the amount of conditioned-stimulus (CS) preexposure and directly to the duration of the preexposure-conditioning interval. Thus, although some previous researchers have suggested that hamsters may not demonstrate the CS-preexposure effect in a conditioned taste-aversion paradigm, they clearly did so under the conditions of the present experiments, and moreover, the characteristics of the CS-preexposure effect in hamsters were generally similar to those observed in rats.     

Deciding the Fate of Others: The Cognitive Underpinnings of Racially Biased Juror Decision Making

In criminal law, jurors are supposed to ignore defendant race when considering factual matters of culpability. However, when judging the merits of a criminal case, jurors’ ability (or inability) to avoid bias may affect verdicts. Fact-based decision making expend cognitive resources, while heuristic-based decisions (e.g., using criminal stereotypes) conserve resources. Here, we investigated whether differences in cognitive resources and prejudice attitudes about Blacks influenced trial outcomes. We tested the impact of working memory capacity (WMC), cognitive load, prejudice, and target race (Black, White) on penalties ascribed to fictional criminal defendants in ambiguous-fact cases. Results showed that when “loaded,” prejudiced-low-WMC persons supported guilty verdicts with higher confidence more often for Black than White defendants. Conversely, regardless of WMC or prejudice attitude, participants penalized White defendants more often when not loaded. We suggest that cognitive resources and prejudice attitude influence fact-based decisions. Links to juror judgments and potential trial outcomes are discussed.     

The Relationship Between Adult Happiness and Self-Appraised Childhood Happiness and Events

The primary purpose of the present research was to relate questionnaire-assessed self-reported childhood happiness and events to adulthood happiness in 387 nonclinical participants. Although childhood happiness and adult happiness were found to be significantly correlated (r = .28, p < .001), there was little relationship between reported adult happiness and reported specific childhood events and circumstances. Childhood events and circumstances, however, were much more highly correlated with childhood happiness (R = .64). Thirty-four percent of the persons who said they were unhappy or very unhappy as a child, but only 9% who said they were happy or very happy as a child, reported that they were unhappy or very unhappy as adults.     

Relationship enhancement with premarital dyads: A six-month follow-up

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to assess the short-term and longterm effectiveness of relationship enhancement on the self-disclosure and empathy skills of premarital dating couples. Nineteen couples were given the Guerney Relationship Enhancement Program over an eight week period, while 18 other couples were given a lecture/discussion program on relationship development. Behavioral assessments of self-disclosure and empathy skill levels were taken prior to training, immediately following training, and six months after training. Results indicated that from both pretest to posttest and pretest to follow-up, the relationship enhancement couples, relative to the lecture/discussion couples, demonstrated a significant increase in both self-disclosure and empathy skill levels. Discussion centers on the implications of the durability of the skills learned as well as on suggestions for future research on skill generalization to social interactions with others.     

The Psychology of Gender Differences in Religion: A Review of Empirical Research

This paper presents, discusses and evaluates empirical studies concerned with gender differences in religion. Within the psychology of religion two main groups of theories have been advanced to account for gender differences in religiosity. The first group of theories concentrates on social or contextual influences which shape different responses to religion among men and women. This group may be divided into two categories: gender role socialisation theories and structural location theories. The second group of theories concentrates on personal or individual psychological characteristics which differentiate between men and women. This group may be divided into three categories: depth psychology theories, personality theories and gender orientation theories. It is concluded that gender orientation theories provide the most fruitful source for further research.