Seeing photos makes us read between the lines: the influence of photos on memory for inferences

Three studies examined how photos accompanying stories could contribute to people drawing inferences about outcomes from the stories and subsequently claiming that they had read what had actually only been inferred. Subjects read short stories designed to induce inferences about their conclusions (e.g., "Sabrina dropped the delicate vase" invites the inference that the vase broke) accompanied by a photo depicting the likely conclusion (the broken vase), a photo depicting a detail of the story but not the conclusion (the vase before it was dropped), or no photo. Results showed that seeing photographs consistent with inferred conclusions led people to falsely claim that they read those conclusions. Photo-boosted inferences were held with high confidence and were robust over time. Falsely recalled inferences were sometimes accompanied by false claims to have seen a photo depicting the inferred events when another photo or no photo had actually be seen. These findings support the source monitoring framework's prediction that people can mistakenly attribute their internally generated inferences about what occurred to externally derived sources when they have photographic "evidence" consistent with the inferred conclusions.     

Measuring Congregational Vitality: Phase 2 Development of an Outcome Measurement Tool

Since 2009 the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has worked to develop a survey that can reliably measure qualitative aspects of congregational vitality. This study describes the development of a survey that focuses on key missional outcomes. Congregation members and pastors from 73 congregations were surveyed. Exploratory factor analysis identified important differences in the way pastors and lay people understand concepts like mission resulting in the creation of separate scales for pastors and lay people. These scales describe congregational vitality in five areas. Lay scales describe a congregation’s connections with God, each other and the world while pastor scales describe their understanding of the congregation’s inner strength and faith in action outside the congregation. For each respondent, individual scale scores were averaged to create congregational scale scores. Congregational scale scores were then compared with each congregation’s annual statistics, key informant perceptions, and other items within the survey for validation. The result was a psychometrically sound instrument that helps congregations, synods and the denomination gain a more complete understanding of vitality. Implications for further research are discussed.     

Legitimating the legitimate: A grounded theory study of legitimacy work among Ethics and Compliance Officers

Organizations have responded to ethical scandals in part by creating the Ethics and Compliance Officer (ECO) role to help insure employee ethical and legal behavior. Because ECO work is so fundamental to behavioral ethics in organizations and we know very little about it, we conducted a grounded theory study to learn more. We learned that, although most ECOs were hired to help their organizations respond to external legitimacy challenges, ECOs face major legitimacy challenges inside their organizations. Facilitating conditions may reduce these challenges and help ECOs reach internal legitimacy. But, we also found that ECOs engage in what we term legitimacy work that relies on a number of tactics to help them gain legitimacy in the eyes of their constituents. We tie our findings to the broader legitimacy literature and draw implications for the behavioral ethics literature.     

The role of partial knowledge in statistical word learning

A critical question about the nature of human learning is whether it is an all-or-none or a gradual, accumulative process. Associative and statistical theories of word learning rely critically on the later assumption: that the process of learning a word’s meaning unfolds over time. That is, learning the correct referent for a word involves the accumulation of partial knowledge across multiple instances. Some theories also make an even stronger claim: Partial knowledge of one word–object mapping can speed up the acquisition of other word–object mappings. We present three experiments that test and verify these claims by exposing learners to two consecutive blocks of cross-situational learning, in which half of the words and objects in the second block were those that participants failed to learn in Block 1. In line with an accumulative account, Re-exposure to these mis-mapped items accelerated the acquisition of both previously experienced mappings and wholly new word–object mappings. But how does partial knowledge of some words speed the acquisition of others? We consider two hypotheses. First, partial knowledge of a word could reduce the amount of information required for it to reach threshold, and the supra-threshold mapping could subsequently aid in the acquisition of new mappings. Alternatively, partial knowledge of a word’s meaning could be useful for disambiguating the meanings of other words even before the threshold of learning is reached. We construct and compare computational models embodying each of these hypotheses and show that the latter provides a better explanation of the empirical data.     

Preachers who are not believers

There are systemic features of contemporary Christianity that create an almost invisible class of non-believing clergy, ensnared in their ministries by a web of obligations, constraints, comforts, and community. Exemplars from five Protestant denominations, Southern Baptist, United Church of Christ, Presbyterian, Methodist and Church of Christ, were found and confidentially interviewed at length about their lives, religious education and indoctrination, aspirations, problems and ways of coping. The in-depth, qualitative interviews formed the basis for profiles of all five, together with general observations about their predicaments and how they got into them. The authors anticipate that the discussion generated on the Web (at On Faith, the Newsweek/Washington Post website on religion, http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith//2010/03/disbelief_in_the_pulpit/all.html) and on other websites will facilitate a larger study that will enable the insights of this pilot study to be clarified, modified, and expanded.     

From intentions via planning and behavior to physical exercise habits

ObjectivesIndividuals who enact a health behavior effortlessly with minimal conscious deliberation can be assumed to have formed a healthy habit. This can be reflected by increases in self-reported habit strength of a behavior. We examined whether physical exercise intentions facilitate changes in exercise habit strength by increasing the use of action planning and exercise.DesignTwo field studies investigated the effect of behavioral intentions on changes in habit strength through a sequential path from action planning to exercise.MethodExercise intentions, action planning, habit strength, and exercise were assessed at two measurement points in time in 231 university students (Study 1), and at four points in time in 134 rehabilitation patients (Study 2).ResultsIn multiple-step mediation models in both samples, there were indirect effects of intentions on habit strength through action planning and behavior.ConclusionAction planning and behavior operated as sequential mediators to bridge the gap between intentions and habit strength. Exercise habit strength may increase as a result of conscious action planning and frequent behavior enactment. Including these constructs jointly into behavior change models may improve the understanding of the mechanisms involved in behavior maintenance.     

A Review of “Still Practicing: The Heartaches and Joys of a Clinical Career”

Abstract

INSIDE OUT AND OUTSIDE IN, PSYCHODYNAMIC CLINICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE IN CONTEMPORARY MULTICULTURAL CONTEXTS. Berzoff, Joan, Laura Melano Flanagan, and Patricia Hertz, Editors. Northvale, New Jersey: Jason Aronson, 1996, $45.00. Reviewed by Irene Chung.