How people cope with uncertainty due to chance or deception

In making social judgments people process effects caused by humans differently from effects caused by non-human agencies. We assume that when they have to predict outcomes that are attributed to non-human causes, people acknowledge their ignorance and try to focus on what is most diagnostic. However, when events are attributed to human agency, they believe that nothing is arbitrary and that one can understand the decision situation well enough to eliminate error. If so, then people should behave differently when an uncertainty is attributed to chance (a non-human agency) or to deception (a human agency). We tested this prediction using the probability-matching paradigm and found reasonable support for our analysis in four experiments. Individuals who attributed uncertainty to deception were less likely to adopt the optimal rule-based strategy than those who attributed it to chance. Indeed, only when the former were prevented from thinking about and elaborating the outcomes (the high-interference condition in Experiment 3) was their performance comparable to the level of individuals in the chance condition.     

Does obsessive-compulsive personality disorder belong within the obsessive-compulsive spectrum?

It has been proposed that certain Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition Axis I disorders share overlapping clinical features, genetic contributions, and treatment response and fall within an "obsessive-compulsive" spectrum. Obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD) resembles obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and other spectrum disorders in terms of phenomenology, comorbidity, neurocognition, and treatment response. This article critically examines the nosological profile of OCPD with special reference to OCD and related disorders. By viewing OCPD as a candidate member of the obsessive-compulsive spectrum, we gain a fresh approach to understanding its neurobiology, etiology, and potential treatments.     

Group commitment as a moderator of attributional and behavioural responses to power use

This study used 50 Natural Science and English Literature students who held differential behavioural expectations of ingroup and outgroup members to investigate evaluative, attributional and behavioural responses to power use in an experimental research paradigm. It was hypothesized that subordinates interpret frequent power use by a superior differently depending on whether it is consistent or inconsistent with previous expectations. Frequent power use results in decreased satisfaction and negative evaluations of the superior. Attributional ratings indicated that when an outgroup member engaged in frequent power use, this negatively evaluated behaviour was attributed to the superior's group membership, and resulted in decreased cooperation on the part of the subordinate. To the extent that frequent power use of an ingroup member was attributed to external circumstances, subordinates maintained a sense of commitment to the ingroup superior, which resulted in displays of cooperative behaviour. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The effects of group membership and social context on information organization

Self-categorization theory posits that the perception of group members is flexible and determined by the comparative social context as well as by group membership. Subjects read about either four ingroup or outgroup target persons in the context of four additional stimulus persons who were members of either the same group as the target persons (intragroup context) or the other group (intergroup context). Individualized and attribute-wise information organization was assessed on the basis of information clustering in free recall. As predicted, differential processing of ingroup information occurred as a function of the salient social context; in an intragroup context, ingroup information was organized significantly more by person than in an intergroup context. Conversely, ingroup information tended to be clustered more by attribute in an intergroup than in an intragroup context. Clustering of outgroup information was not sensitive to changes in the social context. The results indicate that the perception of group members may be based on more than group membership alone. ©1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Working under cover: performance‐related self‐confidence among members of contextually devalued groups who try to pass

This paper experimentally examines the effects of passing (versus revealing) a contextually devalued identity on performance‐related self‐confidence. An experimental scenario was developed on the basis of the results of a pilot study. Studies 1 and 2 (total N = 255) experimentally manipulate passing versus revealing a contextually devalued identity, to an ingroup or an outgroup partner. The results show that, although passing makes participants believe that their partner has more positive expectations of them, it also undermines performance‐related self‐confidence. Moreover, the results show that negative self‐directed affect (i.e., guilt and shame) mediated the negative effect of passing on performance‐related self‐confidence. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.