Does the truth interfere with our ability to deceive?

Does the truth interfere with our ability to respond deceptively? We considered this question in the present study by examining the effects of a task set (i.e., selecting truthful or untruthful responses), both by comparing two presentations of the same task and through transfer to a different task. All participants carried out the task either under the instructions to respond both correctly and incorrectly (Experiment 1) or under the instructions to respond truthfully and deceptively (Experiment 2); the order of instructions was counterbalanced. In Experiment 2, after completing the main task, the participants also performed a Stroop task. The findings suggested that deceptive responses took longer overall, regardless of the order of instructions. Moreover, the experience of responding deceptively versus truthfully led to faster responding on a subsequent Stroop test. Although there may well be processes unique to deceptive responding, the evidence suggests that overcoming interference is a process shared by deceptive and nondeceptive tasks. orrespondence     

Boys Who Join Gangs: A Prospective Study of Predictors of First Gang Entry

In a representative sample of boys who were in the 7th grade of an urban public school system at the start of a 6-year longitudinal study, more African American boys (23.8%) than non-Hispanic White boys (3.9%) had entered an antisocial gang by age 19. There were too few White gang members to study, but among African American boys, first gang entry was predicted prospectively by both baseline conduct disorder (CD) behaviors and increasing levels of CD behaviors prior to gang entry. This suggests that gang entry may be a further developmental step for some boys who are already on a trajectory of worsening antisocial behavior. Having friends prior to gang entry who engaged in aggressive delinquency increased the risk of gang entry further, but only during early adolescence. Family income and parental supervision also independently predicted gang entry, but the direction of their influences depended on the youth's age.     

Development of intuitive rules: Evaluating the application of the dual-system framework to understanding children’s intuitive reasoning

Theories of adult reasoning propose that reasoning consists of two functionally distinct systems that operate under entirely different mechanisms. This theoretical framework has been used to account for a wide range of phenomena, which now encompasses developmental research on reasoning and problem solving. We begin this review by contrasting three main dual-system theories of adult reasoning (Evans & Over, 1996; Sloman, 1996; Stanovich & West, 2000) with a well-established developmental account that also incorporates a dual-system framework (Brainerd & Reyna, 2001). We use developmental studies of the formation and application of intuitive rules in science and mathematics to evaluate the claims that these theories make. Overall, the evidence reviewed suggests that what is crucial to understanding how children reason is the saliency of the features that are presented within a task. By highlighting the importance of saliency as a way of understanding reasoning, we aim to provide clarity concerning the benefits and limitations of adopting a dual-system framework to account for evidence from developmental studies of intuitive reasoning.     

Reduced electrodermal activity in psychopathy-prone adolescents

This study tests the hypothesis that psychopathy-prone adolescents show reduced anticipatory skin conductance responding. Electrodermal activity was recorded while participants anticipated and responded to a 105 dB signaled or unsignaled white-noise burst. Using an extreme groups design, the authors used Child Psychopathy Scale (D. R. Lynam, 1997) scores from a community sample of 335 male adolescents (age 16) to form control (n = 65) and psychopathy-prone (n = 65) groups. Significantly more psychopathy-prone participants were nonresponders in the signaled anticipatory (p = .014), signaled responsivity (p = .037), and unsignaled responsivity (p = .003) conditions compared with controls. Anticipatory hyporesponsivity of psychopathy-prone adolescents similar to the electrodermal hyporesponsivity found in psychopathic adults suggests that this autonomic impairment is present by adolescence and may predispose individuals to adult psychopathy.     

Can Empathy Promote Cooperation When Status and Money Matter?

Abstract

In the present study we ask, Does empathy also support cooperative behaviors when the status (high, low) of an individual differs relative to other group members and is determined by either chance or effort? In response to this unexplored question, the present study involved a series of 4 experiments using a linear public goods game (Experiment 1–3, 4-player; Experiment 4, 2-player). Regardless of the way in which status was achieved (chance, effort), those with low status cooperated more compared with their high-status counterparts. Empathy in and of itself revealed very small overall increases in cooperative behavior. Overall, status and monetary incentives appear to be more salient than empathy in guiding behaviors in a social dilemma task.     

Impact of Corporate Social Responsibility Attributions on Employees’ Creative Performance: The Mediating Role of Psychological Safety

This study contributes to the growing literature on individual-level outcomes of corporate social responsibility (CSR). Employing a sample of 339 subordinate–supervisor dyads, we explored the differential impact of CSR attributions on employees’ creative performance in the telecom industry. We also introduced and tested the role of psychological safety as a mediator underlying this relationship. The results indicate that although intrinsic CSR attributions are not directly related to creative performance, extrinsic CSR attributions have a significant negative effect on creative performance. We also found that psychological safety mediates the positive relationship between intrinsic CSR and creative performance and the negative relationship between extrinsic CSR and creative performance. Directions for future research and implications for practice are discussed.