Salespersons’ empathy as a missing link in the customer orientation–loyalty chain: an investigation of drivers and age differences as a contingency

Salespersons’ customer orientation has attracted considerable attention from practitioners and researchers. By distinguishing customer-oriented attitude from behavior, this study sheds light on customers’ perceptions of salespersons’ empathy, as a missing link between customer orientation and customer-related outcomes. Noting the increasing age diversity among salespersons and customers, this study also investigates whether age differences in salesperson–customer dyads moderate the relationships of salespersons’ customer-oriented attitude and behavior with customer outcomes. Finally, this study examines salespersons’ climate perceptions as antecedents of their customer-oriented attitudes. Results of multilevel modeling with data from 164 salespersons and 405 customers reveal that salesperson empathy, as perceived by customers, is an important facilitator of the customer orientation–satisfaction relationship. When there are large age differences, salespersons’ customer-oriented attitude becomes more important for making customers feel understood by salespersons. Regarding antecedents, salespersons’ customer-oriented attitude is influenced by their perceptions of team-member exchange and age-inclusive climate.     

Algorithmic complexity for psychology: a user-friendly implementation of the coding theorem method

Kolmogorov-Chaitin complexity has long been believed to be impossible to approximate when it comes to short sequences (e.g. of length 5-50). However, with the newly developed coding theorem method the complexity of strings of length 2-11 can now be numerically estimated. We present the theoretical basis of algorithmic complexity for short strings (ACSS) and describe an R-package providing functions based on ACSS that will cover psychologists’ needs and improve upon previous methods in three ways: (1) ACSS is now available not only for binary strings, but for strings based on up to 9 different symbols, (2) ACSS no longer requires time-consuming computing, and (3) a new approach based on ACSS gives access to an estimation of the complexity of strings of any length. Finally, three illustrative examples show how these tools can be applied to psychology.     

What is the impact of the explicit knowledge of sequence regularities on both deterministic and probabilistic serial reaction time task performance?

The aim of this study was to explore the role of prior explicit sequence knowledge by comparing its influence on serial reaction time (SRT) performance with either a deterministic or a probabilistic sequence. The results confirm that, with a deterministic sequence, preliminary explicit learning improves SRT performance. On the other hand, with a probabilistic sequence, the results show no advantage for SRT performance in explicit-learning conditions. In addition, by using the process dissociation procedure (Jacoby, 1991), we show that performance on a subsequent generation task was more sustained by controlled processes for participants in the explicit-learning conditions than for those in the incidental condition. On the whole, these results, showing that the influence of explicit knowledge can be suppressed in certain specific conditions, are consistent with the intervention of both implicit and explicit mechanisms in SRT tasks, and the results also show that their relative influence can be modulated by the particular demands of the task.     

Cognitive flexibility in preschoolers: the role of representation activation and maintenance

Preschoolers' lack of cognitive flexibility has often been attributed to perseverative processing. This study investigates alternative potential sources of difficulty such as deficits in activating previously ignored information and in maintaining currently relevant information. In Experiment 1, a new task tapping attentional switching was designed to isolate the difficulty of overriding an initial representation, that is, perseverative processing ('Perseveration' version), and the difficulty of activating a previously ignored representation, that is, activation deficit ('Activation-deficit' version). Three-year-olds' performance suggested that inflexibility may primarily stem from an activation deficit. Control experiments confirmed that the difficulty of the 'Activation-deficit' version could not be attributed to the effect of attraction to novelty. In Experiment 2, 'distraction' errors, alleged to reflect a failure to maintain a relevant representation, and 'perseverative' errors were distinguished. The results highlighted the important role of representation maintenance in flexibility. The present study indicates that preschoolers' lack of cognitive flexibility is multi-determined and prompts us to reconsider the role of perseveration.     

The influence of suggestibility on memory

We provide a translation of Binet and Henri's pioneering 1894 paper on the influence of suggestibility on memory. Alfred Binet (1857-1911) is famous as the author who created the IQ test that bears his name, but he is almost unknown as the psychological investigator who generated numerous original experiments and fascinating results in the study of memory. His experiments published in 1894 manipulated suggestibility in several ways to determine effects on remembering. Three particular modes of suggestion were employed to induce false recognitions: (1) indirect suggestion by a preconceived idea; (2) direct suggestion; and (3) collective suggestion. In the commentary we suggest that Binet and Henri's (1894) paper written over 115 years ago is still highly relevant even today. In particular, Binet's legacy lives on in modern research on misinformation effects in memory, in studies of conformity, and in experiments on the social contagion of memory.     

Mother‐Stepfather Coparenting in Stepfamilies as Predictor of Child Adjustment

Coparenting between biological parents is a strong predictor of child adjustment. To date, however, little is known about the coparenting dynamics between parent and stepparent in stepfamilies. This study aimed at exploring the links between coparenting in the mother–stepfather dyad and child behavior in stepfamilies compared with the links between mother–father coparenting and child behavior in first‐marriage families. Two modes of coparenting were assessed: overt coparenting, that is, coparental behaviors in the presence of the child, and covert coparenting, that is, the way each parent speaks of the other parent to the child. The sample (N = 80) comprised 48 stepfamilies and 32 first‐marriage families with a child between 7 and 13 years old. Overt coparenting was assessed through direct observation in the standardized situation of the PicNic Game. Covert coparenting and child behavior were assessed through mother‐reported questionnaires. Results showed (a) more covert coparenting behaviors in first‐marriage families, (b) no differences in overt coparenting, (c) more child difficulties reported in stepfamilies, (d) less optimal overt coparenting being linked with more difficulties in children in both family structures, and (e) an interaction effect between family structure and coparenting, showing that overt coparenting is linked with child behavior mainly in stepfamilies.     

Clinical Equipoise and Adaptive Clinical Trials

Ethically permissible clinical trials must not expose subjects to risks that are unreasonable in relation to anticipated benefits. In the research ethics literature, this moral requirement is typically understood in one of two different ways: (1) as requiring the existence of a state of clinical equipoise, meaning a state of honest, professional disagreement among the community of experts about the preferred treatment; or (2) as requiring an equilibrium between individual and collective ethics. It has been maintained that this second interpretation makes it mandatory to minimize the number of patients receiving the treatment that will eventually be shown to be inferior by the trial. This requirement has led to the development of adaptive trials, i.e., trials in which treatment allocation is determined by data accumulated during interim analysis. Many statisticians argue that in some circumstances—typically with potentially high benefits, as in the much discussed ECMO trial—adaptive design is the only ethically permissible experimental design. Nevertheless, some proponents of clinical equipoise argue that adaptive trials are neither ethically required nor permissible. More specifically, they argue that clinical trials using adaptive designs fail to meet the moral requirement of clinical equipoise, since these trials presuppose an epistemic state that is incompatible with a physician’s duty of care to her subjects. This paper emphasizes that the debate is to a large extent resting on an epistemological confusion. Specifically, I argue that this response conflates two different conceptions of statistical evidence (i.e., frequentist and Bayesian), and that recognizing this distinction elucidates an epistemological framework in which adaptive trials are both consistent with and recommended by the moral requirement of clinical equipoise.

     

Face processing is enhanced in the left and upper visual hemi-fields

We tested whether two known hemi-field asymmetries would affect visual search with face stimuli. Holistic processing of spatial configurations is better in the left hemi-field, reflecting a right hemisphere specialization, and object recognition is better in the upper visual field, reflecting stronger projections into the ventral stream. Faces tap into holistic processing and object recognition at the same time, which predicts better performance in the left and upper hemi-field, respectively. In the first experiment, participants had to detect a face with a gaze direction different from the remaining faces. Participants were faster to respond when targets were presented in the left and upper hemi-field. The same pattern of results was observed when only the eye region was presented. In the second experiment, we turned the faces upside-down, which eliminated the typical spatial configuration of faces. The left hemi-field advantage disappeared, showing that it is related to holistic processing of faces, whereas the upper hemi-field advantage related to object recognition persisted. Finally, we made the search task easier by asking observers to search for a face with open among closed eyes or vice versa. The easy search task eliminated the need for complex object recognition and, accordingly, the advantage of the upper visual field disappeared. Similarly, the left hemi-field advantage was attenuated. In sum, our findings show that both horizontal and vertical asymmetries affect the search for faces and can be selectively suppressed by changing characteristics of the stimuli.