Positive affect increases cognitive control in the antisaccade task

To delineate the modulatory effects of induced positive affect on cognitive control, the current study investigated whether positive affect increases the ability to suppress a reflexive saccade in the antisaccade task. Results of the antisaccade task showed that participants made fewer erroneous prosaccades in the condition in which a positive mood was induced compared to the neutral condition (i.e. in which no emotional mood was induced). This improvement of oculomotor inhibition was restricted to saccades with an express latency. These results are in line with the idea that enhanced performance in the positive affect condition could be caused by increased dopaminergic neurotransmission the brain.     

Now you see it, now you don't: evidence for age-dependent and age-independent cross-modal distraction

Age-related deficits in selective attention have often been demonstrated in the visual modality and, to a lesser extent, in the auditory modality. In contrast, a mounting body of evidence has suggested that cross-modal selective attention is intact in aging, especially in visual tasks that require ignoring the auditory modality. Our goal in this study was to investigate age-related differences in the ability to ignore cross-modal auditory and visual distraction and to assess the role of cognitive control demands thereby. In a set of two experiments, 30 young (mean age = 23.3 years) and 30 older adults (mean age = 67.7 years) performed a visual and an auditory n-back task (0 ≤ n ≤ 2), with and without cross-modal distraction. The results show an asymmetry in cross-modal distraction as a function of sensory modality and age: Whereas auditory distraction did not disrupt performance on the visual task in either age group, visual distraction disrupted performance on the auditory task in both age groups. Most important, however, visual distraction was disproportionately larger in older adults. These results suggest that age-related distraction is modality dependent, such that suppression of cross-modal auditory distraction is preserved and suppression of cross-modal visual distraction is impaired in aging.     

Extreme response style as a cultural response to climato‐economic deprivation

We investigated the effects of climato‐economic harshness on extreme response style. Climato‐economic theorising postulates that a more threatening climate in poorer countries, in contrast to countries with a more comforting climate and richer countries with a more challenging climate, triggers intolerance of ambiguity and uncertainty avoidance inherent to conservatism, in‐group favouritism and autocracy. Scores of extreme response style at country level, a proxy of this cluster of cultural characteristics, were extracted from students' responses in the Programme for International Student Assessment to test the hypothesis. In a series of hierarchical regression analysis across 64 countries, cold demands, heat demands and GDP per capita showed a highly significant interaction effect on extreme response style, predicting in total 30.7% of the variance. Extreme response style was highest in poorer countries with higher climatic demands, and lowest in richer countries with lower climate demands. Implications are discussed.     

Source credibility and the processing of refutation texts

The knowledge revision components framework (KReC) outlines the basic comprehension processes and text factors that can be accentuated to increase the potential for knowledge revision during reading. The goal of the present study was to explore source credibility as one such text factor. In Experiment 1, we established the utility of a set of refutation texts in influencing knowledge revision. Participants read ten refutation and ten control texts. The participants had faster reading times and higher posttest scores for the refutation than for the control texts, providing evidence for knowledge revision. In Experiment 2, we examined the influence of source credibility under normal reading conditions. Participants read 20 refutation texts, ten with high-credibility and ten with low-credibility sources. The reading times and posttest scores suggested that knowledge revision unfolded successfully, independent of credibility. Using the same texts, in Experiment 3 we examined the influence of direct instructions that made the credibility of the source of information more salient. When the credibility of the source was made salient, the revision process was disrupted in the low-credibility condition, as evidenced by slower reading times and lower posttest scores than in the high-credibility condition. The results add to our understanding of the factors that constrain knowledge revision during the reading of refutation texts, and are discussed in the context of the extant literature and KReC.     

Consequences of Politicians’ Disrespectful Communication Depend on Social Judgment Dimensions and Voters’ Moral Identity

The present study investigates the consequences of respectful versus disrespectful communication in political debates on voters’ social judgments and voting decisions. Reconciling previously mixed results, we argue that the consequences of disrespect vary with the judgment dimension (communion vs. agency) and voters’ moral identity. An initial study (N = 197) finds that a political candidate's disrespect towards his or her opponent affects voting decision through voting intention. A second study (N = 327) shows that disrespect influences voting intention through communion but not through agency ratings. Qualifying the previous finding, a third study (N = 329) shows that both communion and agency judgments act as mediators, but in different ways depending on the level of moral identity. Overall, communion judgments played a more prominent part in explaining the consequences of disrespectful communication. Our findings thus present a nuanced picture of respect and disrespect in political communication and shed light on their ramifications.     

The relationship between social-cultural attitudes and behavioral measures of cognitive style: a meta-analytic integration of studies

The present meta-analysis investigates the relationship between social-cultural right-wing attitudes and objective measures of cognitive style on a set of 124 unique samples, with a total of 29,209 participants. Intolerance of ambiguity and cognitive ability yielded relationships of moderate strength with right-wing attitudes, whereas only mixed evidence was obtained for rigidity, complexity, and field dependence. In the discussion, we compare the present weak to moderate relationships with a meta-analysis conducted by Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski, and Sulloway (2003b), included predominantly self-report measures of cognitive style, reporting moderate to strong relationships between conservatism. The need to study cognitive ability as a basis of ideological attitudes is also discussed.     

Cultural differences in asymmetric beliefs of interpersonal knowledge in vertical and horizontal relationships

Previous studies have reported that our interpersonal knowledge shows an asymmetry; that is, we tend to believe that we know and understand other people's thoughts and feelings better than other people know and understand our own thoughts and feelings. In the present study, the authors compared American (114 men, 192 women) and Korean (99 men and 98 women) students to examine whether the asymmetry is greater in collectivistic than in individualistic culture in two types of relationships: horizontal (with best friends) and vertical (with parents). On all three items--Know, Understand, and Visibility--asymmetry was found for both horizontal and vertical relationships. Further, the Understand and Visibility items showed greater asymmetry for the Korean group than for the American group. It was concluded that asymmetry is greater in collectivistic than in individualistic culture. The cultural differences can be explained by self-consistency, sensitivity to social consequences, parent-child interaction, and living arrangement.