Buy three but get only two: The smallest effect in a 2 × 2 ANOVA is always uninterpretable

Loftus (Memory & Cognition 6:312–319, 1978) distinguished between interpretable and uninterpretable interactions. Uninterpretable interactions are ambiguous, because they may be due to two additive main effects (no interaction) and a nonlinear relationship between the (latent) outcome variable and its indicator. Interpretable interactions can only be due to the presence of a true interactive effect in the outcome variable, regardless of the relationship that it establishes with its indicator. In the present article, we first show that same problem can arise when an unmeasured mediator has a nonlinear effect on the measured outcome variable. Then we integrate Loftus’s arguments with a seemingly contradictory approach to interactions suggested by Rosnow and Rosenthal (Psychological Bulletin 105:143–146, 1989). We show that entire data patterns, not just interaction effects alone, produce interpretable or noninterpretable interactions. Next, we show that the same problem of interpretability can apply to main effects. Lastly, we give concrete advice on what researchers can do to generate data patterns that provide unambiguous evidence for hypothesized interactions.     

Avoid violence,rioting, and outrage; approach celebration,delight, and strength: Using large text corpora to compute valence,arousal, and the basic emotions

Ever since Aristotle discussed the issue in Book II of his Rhetoric, humans have attempted to identify a set of “basic emotion labels”. In this paper we propose an algorithmic method for evaluating sets of basic emotion labels that relies upon computed co-occurrence distances between words in a 12.7-billion-word corpus of unselected text from USENET discussion groups. Our method uses the relationship between human arousal and valence ratings collected for a large list of words, and the co-occurrence similarity between each word and emotion labels. We assess how well the words in each of 12 emotion label sets—proposed by various researchers over the past 118 years—predict the arousal and valence ratings on a test and validation dataset, each consisting of over 5970 items. We also assess how well these emotion labels predict lexical decision residuals (LDRTs), after co-varying out the effects attributable to basic lexical predictors. We then demonstrate a generalization of our method to determine the most predictive “basic” emotion labels from among all of the putative models of basic emotion that we considered. As well as contributing empirical data towards the development of a more rigorous definition of basic emotions, our method makes it possible to derive principled computational estimates of emotionality—specifically, of arousal and valence—for all words in the language.     

Consequences of voluntary job changes in Germany: A multilevel analysis for 1985–2013

Analyzing the development of the consequences of voluntary job changes in Germany between 1985 and 2013, the study focuses on income gains and job satisfaction increases. Drawing on arguments of the job-search literature on the one hand and the proliferation of choices on the other we investigate whether the returns of job changes have increased or decreased. Results show that income gains have decreased over time while the job satisfaction surplus has remained stable. We further conclude that in determining the outcomes of job changes over time, structural factors seem to be more important than individual ones.     

Greater self‐enhancement in Western than Eastern Ukraine,but failure to replicate the Muhammad Ali effect

Based on the cross‐cultural research linking individualism–collectivism and self‐enhancement, this research examines regional pattern of self‐enhancement in Ukraine. Broadly speaking, the western part of Ukraine is mainly Ukrainian speaking and historically oriented towards Europe, whereas Eastern Ukraine is mainly Russian speaking and historically oriented towards the Russian cultural sphere. We found self‐enhancement on a “better than average” task to be higher in a Western Ukrainian sample compared to an Eastern Ukrainian sample, with differences in independent self‐construals supporting assumed regional variation in individualism. However, the Muhammad Ali effect, the finding that self‐enhancement is greater in the domain of morality than intelligence, was not replicated. The discussion focuses on the specific sources of this regional difference in self‐enhancement, and reasons for why the Muhammad Ali effect was not found.     

Trans‐Congregational Triadic Closure: Churchgoers’ Networks Within and Beyond the Pews

Triadic closure is the common tendency for connections to emerge between people's social network ties. This phenomenon has clear implications for congregational networks and may underlie many of the social benefits associated with church involvement. Less documented in the sociology of religion, however, is the occurrence of triadic closure involving congregational and noncongregational relationships within people's close personal networks. To conceptualize this boundary‐spanning network overlap, we elaborate the concept of trans‐congregational triadic closure (TCTC). Using data from the Portraits of American Life Survey—a project that examines both general and congregation‐specific networks of U.S. adults—we consider how religious tradition, macro‐level context, and individual factors predict the occurrence of TCTC in churchgoers’ networks. Findings suggest pronounced differences between evangelicals and mainline Protestants, a considerably lower likelihood of TCTC in densely populated areas, and higher likelihoods of TCTC corresponding with long durations of congregational involvement. We conclude by noting some of the implications of TCTC for the lives of individual believers and for religious organizations, and suggest ways that this concept could elucidate further aspects of contemporary religious life.     

Mathematics identity and discrepancies between self-and reflected appraisals: their relationships with grade 12 mathematics achievement using new evidence from a U.S. national study

Social Psychology of Education - While substantial research has shown the relationship between earlier mathematics coursetaking and later mathematics achievement, recent research suggests that...     

A processing advantage associated with analytic perceptual tendencies: European Americans outperform Asians on multiple object tracking

Analytic visual processing and holistic visual processing have been conceptualized in terms of attention to focal objects vs. the background. We expand the study of perceptual biases associated with these attentional patterns using the multiple object tracking task, which measures people's ability to track multiple moving target objects amidst otherwise identical distractors. We test two competing hypotheses: (1) Asians' more frequent eye saccades will enable them to quickly cycle through the multiple target objects before the objects move too far away, giving them another perceptual advantage; and (2) European Americans' tendency to focus attention on the focal objects while inhibiting attention to less important objects might facilitate tracking of multiple moving objects. We find that European Americans significantly outperform Asians on multiple object tracking. The research expands the conceptualization of analytic processing and holistic processing to include selective attention as a key component, a facet that has not been previously identified.     

The effects of winning and losing on perceived group variability

Previous research has shown that the people in low status, negatively-valued groups are perceived to be more homogeneous than the people in high status, positively-valued groups. The present research investigated the possibility of an opposite effect in which people perceive positive groups to be more homogeneous than negative groups. The researchers hypothesized that winning groups would be perceived to be more homogenous than losing groups because group homogeneity is associated with group cohesiveness, and group cohesiveness has a positive value in the context of an intergroup competition. In a first experiment (N = 175), target groups varied according to their objective group variability and whether they won or lost a competition. As predicted, winning groups were perceived to be significantly more homogenous than losing groups regardless of their objective variability. In a second experiment (N = 186), these effects were replicated using different social groups, and the effect of group performance on homogeneity judgments was mediated by perceptions of group cohesiveness.