Mass Response to the Lewinsky Scandal: Motivated Reasoning or BayesianUpdating?

This study attempts to account for the vastly different trajectories taken by mass andelite opinion in the wake of the Lewinsky affair. Data from a panel study, collected before andjust after the scandal broke, suggest that Clinton's prior popularity indelibly colored massresponse to the scandal, thereby constraining citizens' reactions. As would be predicted bytheories of "motivated reasoning," the influence of various considerations (like thecredibility and importance of the allegations) on reactions to the scandal was conditional uponprior affect for the president. Such findings are difficult to accommodate within the more rational"Bayesian updating" perspective. These data shed light on mass response to theLewinsky scandal in particular and citizen reaction to presidential behavior more generally, aswell as on the cognitive mechanisms that facilitate motivated reasoning in candidate evaluation.     

Super-learning of Causal Judgements

In three experiments, participants learned which of a variety of foods were capable of causing an allergic reaction in a hypothetical patient during training in which a compound of a treatment and a target food cue was paired with the reaction. In Experiment 1 the causal ratings of the target cue were increased if the treatment cue was pretrained as a preventative cause of the reaction. Experiments 2 and 3 demonstrated that the magnitude of this superlearning is unaffected by the order of compound and treatment cue training. The final study also showed that forward super-learning is not induced solely by simple exposure to the treatment cue prior to compound training but, rather, depends upon training the treatment cue as a preventative cause, whereas retrospective super-learning may be due merely to exposure of the treatment cue. These results are problematic for contingency-based accounts of causal induction but accord with modified and extended associative theories.     

Coercive family processes: A replication and extension of Patterson’s coercion model

Patterson hypothesized that aggressive behavior develops in families when parents use coercion as the primary mode for controlling their children. The model has been tested with boys and older children. In this paper, through confirmatory factor analysis, we examine how well the coercion model generalizes to 5‐year‐old children (boys and girls). Our results suggest that the model fits the data similarly for boys and girls. Few sex differences in child antisocial behavior were found on observed or parent‐rated measures, nor were differences found in observed parent aversive responses to child behavior. This implies that similar coercion processes apply to both boys and girls. Aggr. Behav. 27:14–25, 2001. © 2001 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Multimedia mug books: how multi should the media be?

The impact of allowing witnesses to choose the type of cues presented in multimedia mug books was explored in two experiments. In Experiment 1, participants viewed a videotaped crime and attempted to identify the perpetrator from one of three types of mug books: (a) dynamic‐combined—participants could choose to follow static mug shots with a computerized video clip combining three types of dynamic cues: the person walking, talking, and rotating; (b) dynamic‐separable—participants could limit the types of dynamic cues presented; and (c) static—just the static mug shot was presented. The dynamic‐separable condition produced significantly fewer false positive foil identifications than the static condition. Within the dynamic‐separable condition, voice was the most preferred cue. Experiment 2 explored the contribution of the individual cues. Participants attempted identifications from single dynamic cue mug books where only one type of cue was presented if a participant chose additional information. It was found that providing individual cues did not improve performance over the static mug book control. Based on the potential danger of witnesses choosing to rely on single dynamic cues, it was suggested that multimedia mug books should present dynamic cues in combination. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Ethnoracial comparisons in anxiety and depression outcomes among Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander college students

We explored differences in distress scores at intake as well as the change in anxiety and depression scores over the course of 12 therapy sessions for Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (NHPI) college students. Data were collected from the Center for Collegiate Mental Health (N = 256,242). Results support the notion that NHPI college students experience anxiety and depression in therapy differently from other ethnic groups with moderate-to-large magnitudes of effect.     

The inefficacy objection to consequentialism and the problem with the expected consequences response

Philosophical Studies - Collective action problems lie behind many core issues in ethics and social philosophy—for example, whether an individual is required to vote, whether it is wrong to...     

A confirmatory study of the relations between workplace sexism,sense of belonging,mental health,and job satisfaction among women in male‐dominated industries

The present study investigated the mediating role of sense of belonging in the relations between workplace sexism and (a) mental health and (b) job satisfaction. Participants were 190 women from a large Australian trade union that represented mainly male‐dominated jobs. They completed an online survey that contained measures of sexism, sense of belonging in the industry, mental health, and job satisfaction. As predicted, sense of belonging mediated the associations between organizational sexism and both mental health and job satisfaction. In addition, sense of belonging mediated the association between interpersonal sexism and mental health. These results are discussed in relation to strategies for supporting women and mitigating the effects of sexism in male‐dominated workplaces. The Open Science Framework webpage for this project is at: https://osf.io/a3yqc/ .     

Decreasing influence of arbitrarily applicable verbal relations of recreational gamblers: A randomized controlled trial

Twenty‐one recreational gamblers were randomly assigned to two groups; one group was exposed to a conditional discrimination relational training task to bias choice allocation to a black machine presented concurrently with a red machine, and the other group underwent the same relational training task immediately followed by a defusion procedure, designed to expand upon the relations developed in the initial relational task. Both groups completed a simulated slot‐machine task before and after the relational training task, with or without the defusion procedure. Results showed that 9 of 11 participants in the relational training only group showed an increased bias toward the black machine, compared to only 4 of 10 in the relational training plus defusion group; this latter group also showed greater matched responding. Results suggest that expanding verbal–relational networks may reduce the influence of any single verbal relation on gambling choice behavior.