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.     

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.     

An eye movement corpus study of the age-of-acquisition effect

In the present study, we investigated the effects of word-level age of acquisition (AoA) on natural reading. Previous studies, using multiple language modalities, showed that earlier-learned words are recognized, read, spoken, and responded to faster than words learned later in life. Until now, in visual word recognition the experimental materials were limited to single-word or sentence studies. We analyzed the data of the Ghent Eye-tracking Corpus (GECO; Cop, Dirix, Drieghe, & Duyck, in press), an eyetracking corpus of participants reading an entire novel, resulting in the first eye movement megastudy of AoA effects in natural reading. We found that the ages at which specific words were learned indeed influenced reading times, above other important (correlated) lexical variables, such as word frequency and length. Shorter fixations for earlier-learned words were consistently found throughout the reading process, in both early (single-fixation durations, first-fixation durations, gaze durations) and late (total reading times) measures. Implications for theoretical accounts of AoA effects and eye movements are discussed.     

Using Automated Learning Devices for Monkeys (ALDM) to study social networks

Social network analysis has become a prominent tool to study animal social life, and there is an increasing need to develop new systems to collect social information automatically, systematically, and reliably. Here we explore the use of a freely accessible Automated Learning Device for Monkeys (ALDM) to collect such social information on a group of 22 captive baboons (Papio papio). We compared the social network obtained from the co-presence of the baboons in ten ALDM testing booths to the social network obtained through standard behavioral observation techniques. The results show that the co-presence network accurately reflects the social organization of the group, and also indicate under which conditions the co-presence network is most informative. In particular, the best correlation between the two networks was obtained with a minimum of 40 days of computer records and for individuals with at least 500 records per day. We also show through random permutation tests that the observed correlations go beyond what would be observed by simple synchronous activity, to reflect a preferential choice of closely located testing booths. The use of automatized cognitive testing therefore presents a new way of obtaining a large and regular amount of social information that is necessary to develop social network analysis. It also opens the possibility of studying dynamic changes in network structure with time and in relation to the cognitive performance of individuals.     

The implicit cognition of reciprocal exchange: automatic retrieval of positive and negative experiences with partners in a prisoner's dilemma game

Models of reciprocity imply that cheater detection is an important prerequisite for successful social exchange. Considering the fundamental role of memory in reciprocal exchange, these theories lead to the prediction that memory for cheaters should be preferentially enhanced. Here, we examine whether information of a partner's previous behaviour in an interaction is automatically retrieved when encountering the face of a partner who previously cheated or cooperated. In two studies, participants played a sequential prisoner's dilemma game with cheaters and cooperative partners. Alternating with the game blocks, participants were asked to classify the smiling or angry facial expressions of cooperators and cheaters. Both experiments revealed congruence effects, reflecting faster identification of the smiles of cooperators (Experiments 1 and 2) and faster identification of the angry facial expressions of cheaters (Experiment 2). Our study provides evidence for the automatic retrieval of the partner's behaviour in the game, regardless of whether partners cheated or cooperated, and thus provides further evidence against the cheater detection hypothesis.