Interindividual‐intergroup discontinuity as a joint function of acting as a group and interacting with a group

An experiment assessed the prisoner's dilemma game (PDG) choices of a set of three persons who interacted with another supposed set of three persons. There were four conditions: (1) group‐on‐group (both three‐person sets constrained by a majority vote), (2) group‐on‐one (only own three‐person set constrained by a majority vote), (3) one‐on‐group (only other three‐person set constrained by a majority vote), (4) one‐on‐one (neither three‐person set constrained by a majority vote). The four conditions were compared with three orthogonal contrasts. Consistent with the assumption that interindividual interactions are less competitive than interactions involving groups, the first contrast indicated that there were fewer competitive choices in the one‐on‐one condition than in the other three conditions pooled. Consistent with the assumption that competitiveness can flow either from acting as a group or interacting with a group, the second contrast found no significant difference between the group‐on‐one and one‐on‐group conditions. Finally, consistent with the assumption that the interindividual‐intergroup discontinuity effect is a joint function of acting as a group and interacting with a group, the third contrast revealed that there were more competitive choices in the group‐on‐group condition than in the one‐on‐group and group‐on‐one conditions pooled. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Clarifying the role of the "other" category in the self-esteem IAT

A. Karpinski (2004) recently criticized Implicit Association Test (IAT) measures of self-esteem, arguing that their measurements of self-associations are compromised by their contrasting self with a putatively extremely negative second category, the nonspecific other. The present data show, to the contrary, that the nonspecific other category in the self-esteem IAT is near neutral in valence. Validity of the self-esteem IAT is most appropriately assessed by examining its correlations with conceptually related measures. That has been done in several previous studies that are reviewed here. The nonspecific other category is only one of several choices for representing the concept of other in self-esteem IATs. Choice of the appropriate other category to contrast with self in self-esteem IATs should be guided by the needs of the research question being addressed.     

What Does “Mind-Wandering” Mean to the Folk? An Empirical Investigation

Although mind-wandering research is rapidly progressing, stark disagreements are emerging about what the term “mind-wandering” means. Four prominent views define mind-wandering as (a) task-unrelated thought, (b) stimulus-independent thought, (c) unintentional thought, or (d) dynamically unguided thought. Although theorists claim to capture the ordinary understanding of mind-wandering, no systematic studies have assessed these claims. Two large factorial studies present participants (N = 545) with vignettes that describe someone's thoughts and ask whether her mind was wandering, while systematically manipulating features relevant to the four major accounts of mind-wandering. Dynamics explains between four and 40 times more variance in participants' mind-wandering judgments than other features. Our third study (N = 153) tests and supports a unique prediction of the dynamic framework—obsessive rumination contrasts with mind-wandering. Our final study (N = 277) used vignettes that resemble mind-wandering experiments. Dynamics had significant and large effects, while task-unrelatedness was nonsignificant. These results strongly suggest that the central feature of mind-wandering is its dynamics.