To compete or to cooperate? Values' impact on perception and action in social dilemma games

Two studies investigated how values affect competitive versus cooperative behavior. Each Study presented a new social‐dilemma game, in which participants' interpretations of the dilemma (i.e., their subjective payoff matrix)—and consequently the dominant (i.e., rational) behavioral choice—depended on their values. The Paired Charity Game (Study 1) framed the situation in terms of cooperation. As hypothesized, contribution correlated positively with universalism and benevolence values that reflect concern for others and negatively with power, achievement, and hedonism values that promote self‐interests. Furthermore, values, but not traits, predicted the participants' contribution. The Group Charity Game (Study 2) was designed to frame the situation in terms of competition. As hypothesized, contribution correlated positively with emphasizing benevolence over power values. Moreover, the impact of values was stronger when they were rendered accessible, indicating a causal influence of values on behavior. Furthermore, when their value hierarchy was rendered accessible, participants explained their choices in terms of those values that were (a) important to them and (b) relevant to the situation. The findings thus point to the mechanism through which accessible values affect behavior. Taken together, the studies promote our understanding of the value–behavior relationships, by highlighting the impact of values on perception. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Skill level and graphical detail shape perceptual judgments in tennis

Reducing the representation of human actions from normal video to biological motion animation in perceptual tasks means removing a number of visual features from the scenery, thereby eliminating potentially useful information for successfully performing the task. To determine the impact of selected visual features on perceptual judgments in tennis, we invited skilled players and novices to predict baseline shot direction under four different display conditions (PL: point-light display; PL_TC: PL plus an animated tennis court; NV_NB: normal video without ball; NV: normal video). Skilled players clearly outperformed novices and prediction performance increased with more realistic display content. Both groups were similarly affected by display conditions and across groups significant differences between conditions were only found for PL vs NV, and PL_TC vs NV, respectively. Application of signal detection theory on response data revealed that, unlike novices, skilled players showed a bias towards preferentially expecting cross-court shots and this bias increased with enhancement in graphical detail. Results confirm previous research in that biological motion appears to provide the minimal essential information necessary for correctly predicting an opponent's intent, particularly in skilled players. In addition, findings indicate that a combination of player and scenery-related visual information is likely to facilitate visual anticipation; however, such information seems to impact skilled players' and novices' response behaviour differently.     

Fertility and intergroup bias in racial and minimal-group contexts: evidence for shared architecture

Recent research has shown that White women's bias against Black men increases with elevated fertility across the menstrual cycle. We demonstrate that the association between fertility and intergroup bias is not limited to groups defined by race, but extends to group categories that are minimally defined, and may depend on the extent to which women associate out-group men with physical formidability. In Study 1, Black and White women with strong associations between the racial out-group and physical formidability displayed greater bias against out-group men as conception risk increased. Study 2 replicated these results in a minimal-group paradigm. These findings are consistent with the notion that women may be endowed with a psychological system that generates intergroup bias via mechanisms that rely on categorization heuristics and perceptions of the physical formidability of out-group men, particularly when the costs of sexual coercion are high.     

To judge a book by its weight you need to know its content: Knowledge moderates the use of embodied cues

Participants evaluated a book as more important when it weighed heavily in their hands (due to a concealed weight), but only when they had substantive knowledge about the book. Those who had read a synopsis (Study 1), had read the book (Study 2) and knew details about its plot (Study 3) were influenced by its weight, whereas those unfamiliar with the book were not. This contradicts the widely shared assumption that metaphorically related perceptual inputs serve as heuristic cues that people primarily use in the absence of more diagnostic information. Instead, perceptual inputs may increase the accessibility of metaphorically congruent knowledge or may suggest an initial hypothesis that is only endorsed when supporting information is accessible.     

Die mitgebrachte Hilfe

Based on three case reports psychotic transfer manifestations will be examined mainly with respect to their concrete quality. In the first case presented the main theme is a situative ??overpresence of concrete external reality??. For the most recent consultation the female patient appeared accompanied by a large dog and in this way initially created an oppressive scenario. During the course of the consultation this could be linked to the internal (emergency) situation of the patient and in this way the Dobermann could be transformed to ??Charly??. In the second case the concretism impressed as a totally dominating modus vivendi. The patient switched off broad areas of her emotionality and exclusively recognized concrete tangible objects and facts as the only valid reality. During the course of the treatment the ??misrepresentation of a useful object?? could be recognized as the center of this concrete world, an object from which the expectation was that it (half-heartedly) predominantly removed concrete deficiencies and therefore from which no emotional help can be expected. It will be presented how the (mental) development of the patient was additionally influenced by the schizophrenia of her father: she developed this ??concretization?? as a central ego function in order to be able to suppress an increasingly ??louder?? madness. In the third case example psychotic clefts and concinnities will be described which appear to damage the verbal thought process in an omnipotent fashion. A detailed examination shows, however, that these ??mad syntheses??, comparable with the astrophysical ??dark matter??, provide stabilizing functions of gravity.     

Attribution of Arousal as a Mediator of the Effectiveness of Fear-Arousing Communications1

Before watching a fear-arousing antismoking movie, male smokers were administered a placebo pill that was said to have either arousing, tranquilizing, or no side effects. Subjects reported less intention to reduce smoking when they could attribute their arousal to the presumably arousing pill, and greater intention to do so when they expected the pill to be tranquilizing, than when they expccted no side effects. The self-reported number of cigarettes smoked during a two-week period following the experiment decreased in both the tranquilizing and no side-effects conditions, but not in the arousing side-effects condition. The data on subjects' i]ntentions are consistent with predictions derived from Kelley's discounting and augmentation principles and demunstrate informational functions of affective states. Several explanations concerning the differences between intentions and behavior are discussed, and implications concerning strategies for behavior change are explored.     

What mediates the impact of response alternatives on frequency reports of mundane behaviors?

Previous research demonstrated that respondents assume that the range of precoded response alternatives reflects the researcher's knowledge of the distribution of opinions or behaviours in the population. This assumption may influence respondents' reports in two ways: respondents may either use the range of the response alternatives as a frame of reference in estimating their own behavioural frequencies, or they may be reluctant to report frequencies that appear extreme in the context of the scale. Three experiments using reports of mundane behaviours, namely watching TV and drinking beer, were conducted to differentiate between the frame of reference and the self-presentation hypothesis. The results of all studies favour the frame of reference hypothesis, and suggest that the impact of response alternatives is the more pronounced the less episodic information about the behaviour is accessible in memory. Specifically, proxy-reports were found to be more affected by the range of response alternatives than self-reports (Experiments 1 and 2), and respondents with dispositionally low access to self-related information were found to be more affected than respondents with dispositionally high access to self-related information (Experiment 3). Implications for questionnaire construction are discussed.     

Priming and communication: Social determinants of information use in judgments of life satisfaction

Two experiments examined the effects of answering a question about a specific component of life satisfaction on respondents' assessment of their overall satisfaction with life. The results suggest that the use of primed information in forming subsequent judgments is determined by Grice's conversational norms. In general, answering the specific question increases the accessibility of information relevant to that question. However, the effect that this has on the general judgment depends on the way in which the two questions are presented. When the two questions are merely placed in sequence without a conversational context, the answer to the subsequent general question is based in part on the primed specific information. As a result, the answer to the general question becomes similar to that for the specific question (i.e. assimilation). However, this does not occur when the two questions are placed in a communication context. Conversational rules dictate that communicators should be informative and should avoid redundancy in their answers. Therefore, when a specific and a general question are perceived as belonging to the same conversational context, the information on which the answer to the specific question was based is disregarded when answering the general one. This attenuates the assimilation effect. The conditions under which these different processes occur are identified and experimentally manipulated, and the implications of these findings for models of information use in judgment are discussed.