Cooperation in social dilemmas: free riding may be thwarted by second-order reward rather than by punishment

Cooperation among nonrelatives can be puzzling because cooperation often involves incurring costs to confer benefits on unrelated others. Punishment of noncooperators can sustain otherwise fragile cooperation, but the provision of punishment suffers from a "second-order" free-riding problem because nonpunishers can free ride on the benefits from costly punishment provided by others. One suggested solution to this problem is second-order punishment of nonpunishers; more generally, the threat or promise of higher order sanctions might maintain the lower order sanctions that enforce cooperation in collective action problems. Here the authors report on 3 experiments testing people's willingness to provide second-order sanctions by having participants play a cooperative game with opportunities to punish and reward each other. The authors found that people supported those who rewarded cooperators either by rewarding them or by punishing nonrewarders, but people did not support those who punished noncooperators--they did not reward punishers or punish nonpunishers. Furthermore, people did not approve of punishers more than they did nonpunishers, even when nonpunishers were clearly unwilling to use sanctions to support cooperation. The results suggest that people will much more readily support positive sanctions than they will support negative sanctions.     

The effects of curvature on haptic judgments of extent in sighted and blind people

A series of experiments was carried out to examine the effect of curvature on haptic judgments of extent in sighted and blind individuals. Experiment 1 showed that diameters connecting the endpoints of semicircular lines were underestimated with respect to straight lines, but failed to show an effect of visual experience on length judgments. In experiment 2 we tested are lengths. The effects of curvature on perceived path length were weaker, but were still present in this experiment. Visual experience had no effect on path length judgments. Another experiment was performed to examine the effect of repeated tracing (1, 5, 9, or unlimited number of traces) on judgments of the lengths of straight lines and diameters of semicircles. Judgments of extent were more accurate when subjects engaged in larger numbers of traces. There was no effect of number of traces on curve-height judgments, suggesting that subjects were not using height estimates to judge diameters of semicircles. In a further experiment we tested the effect of number of traces on curves that varied in height. Restricting subjects to a single trace magnified the effect of path length on judgments of the distance between the endpoints of curves. Additional experiments showed that curvature effects on diameter judgments were not eliminated when stimuli were in the frontal plane or when the curves were explored with the use of two hands. Arm support had no effect on judged length in experiment 7. A final experiment showed a robust horizontal vertical illusion in haptic perception of convex curves, with overestimation of the heights of the curves compared with their widths. The practical and theoretical implications of the results are discussed.     

Effects of an Extracurricular Science Intervention on Science Performance, Self-Worth, Social Skills, and Sexist Attitudes of Taiwanese Adolescents from Single-Parent Families

A one group pretest-posttest design was used to investigate effects of an extracurricular science intervention on female and male junior high school students’ science performance, self-worth, social skills, and sexist attitudes. Twenty-eight 8th grade Taiwanese students (16 boys, 12 girls) from single parent families participated in this study. Student responses to a questionnaire measuring their self-worth, social skills, and sexist attitudes, and interviews and classroom observations used for triangulation and consolidation of qualitative findings revealed that girls improved significantly on several indices of science performance, and that both boys and girls decreased their sexist attitudes. Girls had significantly less sexist attitudes than boys at both pretest and posttest. Implications for practice and research are provided.     

Measuring Job Interview Anxiety: Beyond Weak Knees and Sweaty Palms

A multidimensional measure of interview anxiety, called the Measure of Anxiety in Selection Interviews (MASI), was developed using a student sample  ( N = 212)  and tested using a sample of job applicants in a field setting  ( N = 276)  . The MASI goes beyond the measurement of "weak knees" and "sweaty palms" by providing an assessment of 5 interview anxiety dimensions: Communication, Appearance, Social, Performance, and Behavioral. The psychometric properties of the scales were strong and confirmatory factor analyses supported the a priori structure. In addition, substantial evidence for the concurrent, discriminant, criterion-related, and incremental validity of the MASI was obtained. Moreover, a multiple correlation of .34 was found for the 5 MASI scales in the prediction of interview performance. The development of the MASI has important implications for the field, as it may provide the foundation for future research on job interview anxiety, guide interview anxiety treatment programs, and promote the enhancement of job interview validity.     

Psychosocial Variables as Predictors of Psychological Stress–Induced Ischemia in the Laboratory

This study examined ischemic reactivity to a psychological stress protocol and whether psychological variables could reliably classify individuals as ischemic reactors. Participants were 54 male Veterans Administration patients who had or were suspected of having CAD. Psychological inventories were administered prior to a psychological stress protocol consisting of a surgical video, the Stroop Color–Word task, an arithmetic task, and discussion of a stressful event. Cardiac functioning was evaluated using an ECG Holter monitor and 23.53% of participants were classified as reactors. Mean differences between reactors and nonreactors were found for State Anger, Health Locus of Control—Powerful Others (MHLC-PO), and Depression. State Anger and MHLC-PO emerged as significant predictors of reactor status in logistic regression analyses. Models based on individual scale items suggested three items could be used to achieve higher classification rates. Implications for revising screening procedures for determining risk and possible mechanisms underlying psychological stress–induced ischemia are discussed.     

An Investigation of the Gender Stereotyped Thinking of Taiwanese Secondary School Boys and Girls

In this study we investigated the gender stereotyped thinking of 1672 Taiwanese senior high students (779 boys, 893 girls). Participants completed a Chinese version of a gender stereotyped thinking scale as part of a larger study. Six participants from 3 different types of academic schools (low, moderate, and high achievement levels) were interviewed to determine whether their written responses were consistent with their actual perceptions. Results of t tests and analyses of variance revealed significant gender differences for 9 of 11 gender stereotyped thinking items and significant main effects because of academic levels for 6 of 11 items. There were no significant interactions and no other main effects for other study variables. Strategies for decreasing students' gender stereotyped thinking are suggested.     

Building minds: solving the combination problem

Any panpsychism building complex consciousness out of basic atoms of consciousness needs a theory of ‘mental chemistry’ explaining how this building works. This paper argues that split-brain patients show actual mental chemistry or at least give reasons for thinking it possible. The paper next develops constraints on theories of mental chemistry. It then puts forward models satisfying these constraints. The paper understands mental chemistry as a transformation consistent with conservation of consciousness rather than an aggregation perhaps followed by the creation of something in addition. The paper suggests that this kind of mental chemistry alone yields a workable panpsychism.     

Where are the Males? Gender Differences in Undergraduates’ Interest in and Perceptions of the Genetic Counseling Profession

Genetic counseling is a female-dominated field, with women comprising about 95% of the profession (Smith et al. 2009). Greater patient choice and satisfaction may be achieved by increasing the number of male counselors, but empirical evidence about the reasons for this gender imbalance is limited. In this study 190 undergraduates (110 females, 79 males, 1 unknown) in upper division bioscience courses completed a survey assessing their knowledge and perceptions of and interest in genetic counseling as a career. There were only two significant gender differences. Females indicated significantly greater interest than males in pursuing a genetic counseling career, and they rated interpersonal skills as more integral to genetic counseling than males. Multiple regression analyses of knowledge and perceptions as possible predictors of male and female interest in pursuing a genetic counseling career yielded no significant predictors of male interest. For females, there were four significant predictors: estimated salary, career characteristics, perceptions of genetic counseling as interpersonally focused, and whether they had already chosen a career. Implications for recruiting males to the profession, and research recommendations are presented.     

The bit in the middle and why it’s important: a computational analysis of the linguistic features of body paragraphs

This study examines the relationship between the linguistic characteristics of body paragraphs of student essays and the total number of paragraphs in the essays. Results indicate a significant relationship between the total number of paragraphs and a variety of linguistic characteristics known to affect student essay scores. These linguistic characteristics (e.g., semantic overlap, syntactic complexity) contribute to two underlying factors (i.e., textual cohesion and difficulty) that are used as dependent variables in mixed-effect models. Results suggest that student essays with 5-8 paragraphs tend to be more linguistically consistent than student essays with 3, 4, and 9 paragraphs. Essays with totals of 5-8 paragraphs, considered by many educators to contain an optimal number of paragraphs, may include functionally and structurally similar paragraphs. These findings could aid writing researchers and educators in obtaining a clearer view of the relationship between the total number of paragraphs comprising an essay and the linguistic characteristics that affect essay evaluation. Consequently, writing interventions may become better equipped to pinpoint student difficulties and facilitate student writing skills by providing more detailed and informed feedback.     

You're getting warmer: Level of construal affects the impact of central traits on impression formation

Construal Level Theory argues that psychologically distant information will be processed conceptually, while psychologically near information will be processed concretely. Such theorizing implies that in the classic Asch (1946) paradigm in which participants make trait judgments of targets after viewing lists of trait words describing the targets, the words “warm” and “cold” should have more impact on impressions when targets are psychologically distant than when they are psychologically near. Results from two studies, indeed, found that the “warm–cold” effect reported by Asch was moderated by psychological distance. We interpret these findings as providing support both for the idea that the processes used to form impression of others can vary across situations and they do so in accord with the tenets of Construal Level Theory.