Psychological mechanisms underlying the Köhler motivation gain

Sometimes group work conditions lead to motivation gains rather than to social loafing. Two theoretical explanations for the K?hler motivation gain effect are identified, one stressing social comparison and a second stressing the indispensability of one's effort to the group. The results of three new experiments are reported. Experiment 1 suggested that both explanations are valid and contribute to the K?hler effect. Prior studies suggested that there might be gender differences in the relative importance of these two explanatory processes. Experiment 2 confirmed this suggestion. In Experiment 3, the gender difference was eliminated by priming women with a goal (viz., competition) presumed to be chronically more important to men. It is argued that the relative importance of these two motivational processes will depend on the immediate and chronic importance attached to more personal (viz., to achieve a favorable social comparison) versus collective (viz., to contribute to one's group) goals.     

Implementation Intentions and Facilitation of Prospective Memory

Forming detailed implementation intentions for a future behavior can increase the probability that the behavior is actually completed. We investigated whether this intention effect could be used to improve prospective memory in older adults. As expected, participants who formed an implementation intention were more than twice as likely to self-initiate the intended behavior (writing down the day of the week on every sheet of paper received during the experiment) compared with participants who either were merely instructed to do so or actively rehearsed the instruction. Forming an implementation intention, however, did not improve performance on a task that required a response to salient cues. We conclude that detailed implementation intentions facilitate prospective memory on tasks that lack salient cues and require self-initiation.     

Exceptions to the Rule: The Effects of Remorse,Status, and Gender on Decision Making1

One of several general rules suggested by past work is that it is advantageous to exhibit remorse when one has committed a transgression. A pair of experiments searched for the boundary conditions of this rule. In Experiment 1, mock jurors rated a remorseful defendant as more guilty when the law was fair than when the law was unfair. In contrast, an unremorseful defendant was viewed as equally guilty under both fairness levels. Study 2 conceptually replicated this result, and revealed a 3‐way interaction among remorse, status, and gender. It is argued that these findings illustrate the importance of violation of expectations on evaluation and judgment, inside the courtroom and elsewhere.     

Visual and Auditory Message Framing Effects on Tobacco Smoking1

Persuasive health messages can be framed to emphasize the benefits of adopting a health behavior (gains) or the risks of not adopting it (losses). This study examined the effects of message framing on beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors relevant to cigarette smoking. In video presentations about tobacco smoking, visual images and auditory voiceover content were framed either as gains or losses, yielding 4 message conditions. Undergraduates (N= 437) attending a public university in New England were assigned randomly to view one of these messages. Gain‐framed messages about smoking in visual and auditory modalities shifted smoking‐related beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors in the direction of avoidance and cessation. Health‐communication experts, when promoting prevention behaviors like smoking avoidance or cessation, may wish to diverge from the tradition of using loss‐framed messages and fear appeals in this domain, and instead consider using gain‐framed appeals that present the advantages of not smoking.     

Integrating temporal biases: the interplay of focal thoughts and accessibility experiences

We provide an integrative account of temporal biases (confidence changes, planning fallacy, impact bias, and hindsight bias). Students listed either 3 or 12 thoughts about success or failure before an upcoming real-life exam or immediately after learning their grades. Previous explanations had focused on how thought content alone (what comes to mind) influences temporal biases. We found, however, an interaction between thought content and accessibility experiences (how easily or difficultly thoughts come to mind). Thinking about 3 ways to succeed (success was easy to bring to mind) was equivalent to thinking about 12 ways to fail (failure was difficult to bring to mind), and conversely, thinking about 3 ways to fail was equivalent to thinking about 12 ways to succeed. In no case was thought content alone sufficient to predict the biases. These results have implications for debiasing strategies and other judgments over time.     

Working memory deficits in retinoid X receptor gamma-deficient mice

Retinoid signaling has been recently shown to be required for mnemonic functions in rodents. To dissect the behavioral and molecular mechanisms involved in this requirement, we have analyzed the spatial and recognition working memory in mice carrying null mutations of retinoid receptors RARbeta and RXRgamma. Double mutants appeared deficient in spatial working memory as tested in spontaneous alternation in the Y-maze and delayed nonmatch to place (DNMTP) test in the T-maze. These mutant mice did acquire, however, spatial place reference or right/left discrimination tasks in the T-maze set-up, indicating that basic sensorimotor functions, spatial orientation, and motivational factors are unlikely to account for deficits in working memory-sensitive tasks. Double-mutant mice were also deficient in novel object recognition at intermediate, but not short delays. RXRgamma appeared to be the functionally predominant receptor in modulation of the working memory, as RXRgamma, but not RARbeta single null mutant mice exhibited deficits similar to those observed in the double mutants. The mechanism of this modulation is potentially related to functions of RXRgamma in frontal and perirhinal cortex, structures in which we detected RXRgamma expression and which are functionally implicated in working memory processes.     

The cultural mind: environmental decision making and cultural modeling within and across populations

This article describes cross-cultural research on the relation between how people conceptualize nature and how they act in it. Mental models of nature differ dramatically among populations living in the same area and engaged in similar activities. This has novel implications for environmental decision making and management, including common problems. The research offers a distinct perspective on cultural modeling and a unified approach to studies of culture and cognition. The authors argue that cultural transmission and formation consist primarily not in shared rules or norms but in complex distributions of causally connected representations across minds interacting with the environment. The cultural stability and diversity of these representations often derive from rich, biologically prepared mental mechanisms that limit variation to readily transmissible psychological forms. This framework addresses several methodological issues, such as limitations on conceiving culture to be a well-defined system, bounded entity, independent variable, or an internalized component of minds.     

The reliability of a model influences 14-month-olds’ imitation

Human infants have an enormous amount to learn from others to become full-fledged members of their culture. Thus, it is important that they learn from reliable, rather than unreliable, models. In two experiments, we investigated whether 14-month-olds (a) imitate instrumental actions and (b) adopt the individual preferences of a model differently depending on the model’s previous reliability. Infants were shown a series of videos in which a model acted on familiar objects either competently or incompetently. They then watched as the same model demonstrated a novel action on an object (imitation task) and preferentially chose one of two novel objects (preference task). Infants’ imitation of the novel action was influenced by the model’s previous reliability; they copied the action more often when the model had been reliable. However, their preference for one of the novel objects was not influenced by the model’s previous reliability. We conclude that already by 14 months of age, infants discriminate between reliable and unreliable models when learning novel actions.