Accountability amplifies the status quo effect when change creates victims

This study assesses the impact of accountability, the status quo, and anticipated costs and benefits on judgement of the acceptability of a drug in the US pharmaceuticals market. Several effects are documented: (1) subjects were more accepting of a drug, the lower the anticipated risks of side effects and the greater the anticipated benefits; (2) subjects were especially unwilling to accept risk when the drug was not yet on the market and when they felt accountable for their decisions; (3) accountable subjects confronted by an off-the-market drug that posed moderate or high risk were also especially likely to procrastinate, to buckpass, and to think in integratively complex ways about the problem, notwithstanding the fact that many more lives would be saved than lost. We explain these results by positing that perceptual-cognitive processes (loss aversion) and political processes (blame avoidance) mutually reinforce each other when decision makers are accountable for choices that raise the possibility of changing the status quo in ways that impose losses on identifiable constituencies. We conclude by commenting on the complex normative issues that arise in labelling response tendencies as biases. Choices that look irrational within one ethical or political framework sometimes appear quite reasonable with another.     

Mental models and probabilistic thinking

This paper outlines the theory of reasoning based on mental models, and then shows how this theory might be extended to deal with probabilistic thinking. The same explanatory framework accommodates deduction and induction: there are both deductive and inductive inferences that yield probabilistic conclusions. The framework yields a theoretical conception of strength of inference, that is, a theory of what the strength of an inference is objectively: it equals the proportion of possible states of affairs consistent with the premises in which the conclusion is true, that is, the probability that the conclusion is true given that the premises are true. Since there are infinitely many possible states of affairs consistent with any set of premises, the paper then characterizes how individuals estimate the strength of an argument. They construct mental models, which each correspond to an infinite set of possibilities (or, in some cases, a finite set of infinite sets of possibilities). The construction of models is guided by knowledge and beliefs, including lay conceptions of such matters as the “law of large numbers”. The paper illustrates how this theory can account for phenomena of probabilistic reasoning.     

Components of Burnout,Resources, and Gender-Related Differences1

The present study examined gender-related differences in the ways social support and coping contribute to burnout, as measured by the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI). Specific hypotheses were made regarding relationships between antecedent conditions and MBI subscales, including emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and lack of personal accomplishment. Respondents were teachers, and data from 2 waves (1 year apart) were examined. Using LISREL structural equation analyses, results were that in women, co-worker support led to lower emotional exhaustion, and in men, supervisor and co-worker support led to higher personal accomplishment. Higher levels of internal control were associated with greater accomplishment in men only. Results were discussed from a gender role perspective.     

Spontaneous startle activity in newborn infants

Spontaneous startles have been reported to occur most frequently in quiet sleep, less frequently in active sleep and drowse, and relatively nonexistent in the waking states. These findings may be a result of a focus on infants whose prenatal histories reflect a restricted range of the conditions to which normal newborns are exposed. The present study examined the spontaneous startle behavior of 30 newborn infants characterized by high numbers of obstetric complications and by indicators of prenatal malnutrition, but within the range of normal, healthy newborns. In this sample, startles were not limited to the sleep and drowse states. Because individual differences in a number of neonatal behaviors have been related to autonomic nervous system (ANS) functioning, the different pattern of spontaneous startles observed in this sample may be related to the functional integrity of this system.     

The contribution of sex distribution,job content,and occupational classification to job sextyping: Two studies

The distribution of males and females on a job, occupational classification, and job content as defined by the DOT analysis of job activity demands were examined as predictors of job sex stereotypes in two studies. Results indicate that the actual base rate of males and females in the job is the most important predictor of job sextypes, accounting for 48 and 70% of the adjusted variance in sextypes in the two studies. The results lend little support to the proposition that job content makes a significant contribution to the perception of job sextypes.     

The neurotic paradox and self-punitive behavior in humans

Human subjects learned a key-pressing response in order to avoid or escape shock. The reinforcement contingencies were then changed to punishment or to regular nonpunished extinction. The locus of shock onset and offset was systematically varied during the punishment phase. More subjects reported awarencess of the change in the nonpunished extinction group. By inference, the punished groups responded more, and thus the results appear analogous to animal studies on vicious circle, self-punitive responding. Discriminability of change from acquisition to extinction appeared to affect detection of the change.