Border bias: the belief that state borders can protect against disasters

In this research, we documented a bias in which people underestimate the potential risk of a disaster to a target location when the disaster spreads from a different state, but not when it spreads from an equally distant location within the same state. We term this the border bias. Following research on categorization, we propose that people consider locations within a state to be part of the same superordinate category, but consider locations in two different states to be parts of different superordinate categories. The border bias occurs because people apply state-based categorization to events that are not governed by human-made boundaries. Such categorization results in state borders being considered physical barriers that can keep disasters at bay. We demonstrated the border bias for different types of disasters (earthquake, environmental risk) and tested the underlying process in three studies.     

Cultural Values and Performance Appraisal: Assessing the Effects of Rater Self-Construal on Performance Ratings

Much of the prior research investigating the influence of cultural values on performance ratings has focused either on conducting cross-national comparisons among raters or using cultural level individualism/collectivism scales to measure the effects of cultural values on performance ratings. Recent research has shown that there is considerable within country variation in cultural values, i.e. people in one country can be more individualistic or collectivistic in nature. Taking the latter perspective, the present study used Markus and Kitayama's (1991) conceptualization of independent and interdependent self-construals as measures of individual variations in cultural values to investigate within culture variations in performance ratings. Results suggest that rater self-construal has a significant influence on overall performance evaluations; specifically, raters with a highly interdependent self-construal tend to show a preference for interdependent ratees, whereas raters high on independent self-construal do not show a preference for specific type of ratees when making overall performance evaluations. Although rater self-construal significantly influenced overall performance evaluations, no such effects were observed for specific dimension ratings. Implications of these results for performance appraisal research and practice are discussed.     

Developmental environment affects risk-acceptance in the hissing cockroach, Gromphadorhina portentosa

Consistent individual differences in the tendency to accept risk have been demonstrated in invertebrates, fish, birds, and mammals, including humans. These individual differences have been associated with size, growth rate, survival, and reproductive success. Little research, however, has investigated the effect of developmental environment on individual differences in risk-acceptance. Competing hypotheses offer different explanations of how variation in the quality of the developmental environment affects risk-acceptance in adults. The first hypothesis states that individuals developing in poor quality environments take risks because such behavior is their only means of obtaining adequate fitness returns. The second hypothesis states that individuals developing in poor environments avoid risk because their poor physical condition makes them especially vulnerable to injury or death. We measured several forms of risk-accepting behavior (exploration, foraging, and recovery after disturbance) in male hissing cockroaches (Gromphadorhina portentosa) that had developed in nutritional and social environments of varying quality. Individuals raised on poor nutrition diets exhibited lower levels of risk-acceptance than those raised on high nutrition diets. Risk-acceptance among individuals that developed on poor nutrition diets was negatively correlated with body size. We conclude that quality of developmental environment affects risk-acceptance across behavioral contexts in male hissing cockroaches. Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that condition-dependent vulnerability mediates the relationship between developmental environment and risk-acceptance.     

In praise of vagueness: malleability of vague information as a performance booster

Is the eternal quest for precise information always worthwhile? Our research suggests that, at times, vagueness has its merits. Previous research has demonstrated that people prefer precise information over vague information because it gives them a sense of security and makes their environments more predictable. However, we show that the fuzzy boundaries afforded by vague information can actually help individuals perform better than can precise information. We document these findings across two laboratory studies and one quasi-field study that involved different performance-related contexts (mental acuity, physical strength, and weight loss). We argue that the malleability of vague information allows people to interpret it in the manner they desire, so that they can generate positive response expectancies and, thereby, perform better. The rigidity of precise information discourages desirable interpretations. Hence, on certain occasions, precise information is not as helpful as vague information in boosting performance.     

Measuring delay discounting in a crowdsourced sample: An exploratory study

Delay discounting is a measure of preferences for smaller immediate rewards over larger delayed rewards. Discounting has been assessed in many ways; these methods have variably and inconsistently involved measures of different lengths (single vs. multiple items), forced‐choice methods, self‐report methods, online and laboratory assessments, monetary and non‐monetary compensation. The majority of these studies have been conducted in laboratory settings. However, over the past 20 years, behavioral data collection has increasingly shifted online. Usually, these experiments involve completing short tasks for small amounts of money, and are thus qualitatively different than experiments in the lab, which are typically more involved and in a strongly controlled environment. The present study aimed to determine how to best measure future discounting in a crowdsourced sample using three discounting measures (a single shot measure, the 27‐item Kirby Monetary Choice Questionnaire, and a one‐time Matching Task). We examined associations of these measures with theoretically related variables, and assessed influence of payment on responding. Results indicated that correlations between the discounting tasks and conceptually related measures were smaller than in prior laboratory experiments. Moreover, our results suggest providing monetary compensation may attenuate correlations between discounting measures and related variables. These findings suggest that incentivizing discounting measures changes the nature of measurement in these tasks.     

Location-specific attentional control is also possible in the Simon task

Goal-directed behavior usually requires mental control that directs attention to task-relevant information and ignores irrelevant information. For investigating how flexible this mechanism is, researchers have varied the proportion of congruent trials depending on some context, such as stimulus location. The corresponding studies revealed that attentional control indeed adapts to location-specific demands. However, until now, this flexibility has only been demonstrated for the Eriksen flanker task and for the Stroop task but not for the Simon task. Therefore, a Simon-task experiment was conducted in the present study, where the proportion of congruent trials differed for stimuli appearing above or below fixation, respectively. As a result, a reliable interaction between congruency and stimulus location was found. This demonstrates, for the first time, that location-specific control also is possible in the Simon task.     

Parent–child relationships and offspring’s positive mental wellbeing from adolescence to early older age

We examined parent-child relationship quality and positive mental well-being using Medical Research Council National Survey of Health and Development data. Well-being was measured at ages 13–15 (teacher-rated happiness), 36 (life satisfaction), 43 (satisfaction with home and family life) and 60–64 years (Diener Satisfaction With Life scale and Warwick Edinburgh Mental Well-being scale). The Parental Bonding Instrument captured perceived care and control from the father and mother to age 16, recalled by study members at age 43. Greater well-being was seen for offspring with higher combined parental care and lower combined parental psychological control (p < 0.05 at all ages). Controlling for maternal care and paternal and maternal behavioural and psychological control, childhood social class, parental separation, mother’s neuroticism and study member’s personality, higher well-being was consistently related to paternal care. This suggests that both mother–child and father–child relationships may have short and long-term consequences for positive mental well-being.     

The influence of second language proficiency on bilingual parallel language activation in Hindi–English bilinguals

We investigated the spontaneous activation of phonologically related words in high and low proficient Hindi–English bilinguals during spoken word processing in an eye-tracking study. Participants listened to spoken words in L1/L2 and looked at a display (consisting of line drawings of phonological cohort of the translation equivalent of the spoken word and unrelated distractors). Both the groups were quick in orienting their attention towards the competitor with the onset of the spoken word. Furthermore, high proficient bilinguals showed higher and earlier activation of the competitor compared to low proficient bilinguals. Cross-language activations were higher in the L2–L1 direction for both the groups. The results strongly suggest language non-selective access of translation in Hindi–English bilinguals in both language directions. We discuss the results with regard to the predictions of the bilingual language processing models and the effect of language proficiency on conceptual access during listening in bilinguals.     

The Group-Contagion Effect: The Influence of Spatial Groupings on Perceived Contagion and Preferences

ABSTRACT— We used contagion theory as a framework for studying the influence of spread of qualities in a group. We found that people's preferences change depending on how objects are arranged in a group. They prefer to choose from a closely arranged group if one unidentified object in that group has a positive quality, but prefer to choose from a group in which objects are farther apart if one unidentified object in that group has a negative quality. We call this pattern of preference the group-contagion effect. We also found that the magnitude of the effect increases if the number of objects possessing the positive or negative quality increases.     

Screening detoxifying inpatients with substance-related disorders for a major depressive disorder

The Beck Depression Inventory-Fast Screen for Medical Settings (BDI-FS; [Beck, Steer, & Brown, 2000]) and the Mood Module (MM) from the Primary Care Evaluation of Mental Disorders [Spitzer, Williams, Kroenke, Linzer, deGruy, III, Hahn, & Brody, 1995] were used to screen 100 inpatients detoxifying from alcohol, illicit substances, or both for a major depressive disorder (MDD). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analyses indicated that both tests were highly and comparably effective in differentiating patients who were and not diagnosed with a MDD; the ROC areas-under-curves for the BDI-FS and MM were, respectively, .87 and .84. A BDI-FS cut-off score of 10 and above had 90% sensitivity and 78% specificity rates, and a MM cut-off score of 7 and above had 90% sensitivity and 72% specificity rates for discriminating patients with and without a MDD. The clinical advantages and disadvantages of both instruments for rapidly screening detoxifying inpatients for clinical depression were discussed.