A dual-process account of the development of scientific reasoning: The nature and development of metacognitive intercession skills

Metacognitive knowledge of the dual-processing basis of judgment is critical to resolving conflict between analytic and experiential processing responses [Klaczynski, P. A. (2004). A dual-process model of adolescent development: Implications for decision making, reasoning, and identity. In R. V. Kail (Ed.), Advances in child development and behavior, Vol. 31 (pp. 73–123). San Diego, CA: Academic Press]. Such conflict is ubiquitous when reasoning scientifically. Three studies explored the nature, development, and stability of this metacognitive knowledge. In each study, participants completed the ratio-bias judgment task, which assessed their tendency to make analytically based responses, and the ratio-bias evaluation task, which assessed their metacognitive knowledge of the processing basis of judgments on the task (Metacognitive Status). In Study 1, college students’ judgment performance was related to metacognitive status but not to general cognitive ability. In Study 2, metacognitive status was related to age and mathematics-related changes. Metacognitive status again predicted participants’ tendency to make analytically based judgments. In Study 3, college students’ judgments, but not metacognitive status, were affected by task conditions. The evidence suggests that assessing metacognitive knowledge is important for understanding how conflict between analytically and experientially based judgments is resolved.     

Diagnostic hypothesis generation and human judgment

Diagnostic hypothesis-generation processes are ubiquitous in human reasoning. For example, clinicians generate disease hypotheses to explain symptoms and help guide treatment, auditors generate hypotheses for identifying sources of accounting errors, and laypeople generate hypotheses to explain patterns of information (i.e., data) in the environment. The authors introduce a general model of human judgment aimed at describing how people generate hypotheses from memory and how these hypotheses serve as the basis of probability judgment and hypothesis testing. In 3 simulation studies, the authors illustrate the properties of the model, as well as its applicability to explaining several common findings in judgment and decision making, including how errors and biases in hypothesis generation can cascade into errors and biases in judgment.     

Effects of mimicking: acting prosocially by being emotionally moved

Mimicry is functional for empathy and bonding purposes. Studies on the consequences of mimicry at a behavioral level demonstrated that mimicry increases prosocial behavior. However, these previous studies focused on the mimickee. In the present paper, we investigated whether mimickers also become more helpful due to mimicry. In two studies, we have demonstrated that participants, who mimicked expressions of a person shown on a video, donated more money to a charity than participants who did not mimic. Moreover, the processes by which mimicry and prosocial behavior are related largely remain empirically unexamined in existing literature. The results of Study 2 confirmed our hypothesis that affective empathy mediates the relationship between mimicry and prosocial behavior. This suggests that mimicry created an affective empathic mindset, which activated prosocial behaviors directed toward others. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Effects of Violent Versus Nonviolent Video Games on Children's Arousal, Aggressive Mood, and Positive Mood

This study investigated the relationship between violent video games and children's mood. A total of 71 children aged 8 to 12 years played a paper-and-pencil game, a nonviolent video game, and a violent video game. Results indicate that arousal, as measured by heart rate and self-reported arousal, increased significantly after playing the violent video game, as compared with the other two game conditions, with girls reporting more arousal than did boys. There was no significant increase in aggressive mood scores for either boys or girls after playing the violent game. Positive mood, as measured by positive affect, showed no significant increases or decreases after playing either video game. However, positive mood, as measured by general mood, showed a significant increase after playing the violent game for both boys and girls, but only as compared with the paper-and-pencil game. Results are interpreted in terms of social learning and cognitive information processing theories of aggression.     

Novelty Seeking and Reward: Implications for the Study of High-Risk Behaviors

Novelty seeking and sensation seeking are constructs useful in predicting human risk-taking behaviors. This predictive relation purportedly reflects some rewarding aspect of experiencing novelty. Research has confirmed this assumption. Rats display an increase in preference for an environment that has been differentially paired with novel stimuli. The physiological mechanisms mediating this rewarding effect of novelty involve the neurotransmitter dopamine, whereas those controlling novelty seeking do not. The mechanisms involved in drug seeking and reward show parallel dissociations. This concordance between novelty and drug-abuse research suggests that novelty and drug stimuli may interact in biologically and behaviorally meaningful ways. Indeed, preliminary research examining cocaine and novelty and published work with amphetamines support this suggestion. There is clear need for further systematic research on novelty reward and related processes at all levels of analysis: genetic, biological, behavioral, and social.     

Electronic Performance Monitoring: A Laboratory Investigation of the Influence of Monitoring and Difficulty on Task Performance, Mood State, and Self-Reported Stress Levels

Increases in the sophistication of workplace computerization has provided modern-day managers with superior tools, such as electronic performance monitoring (EPM), with which to supervise their employees. Expanding on studies by Aiello (e. g., Aiello, 1993), the present study aimed to examine EPM in a social facilitation framework, exploring not only the relationship with task performance and stress, but also with an individual's subjective mood state. Thirty-three female and 15 male university students were required to solve a series of anagrams via a purpose-built computer program. Both the difficulty of the anagrams (easy or difficult) and the presence of monitoring (present or absent) were varied for each participant. Results indicated that the visual presence of EPM resulted in an easy task being performed with greater proficiency and a difficult task being performed with less proficiency. When participants were attempting to solve an easy task, the presence of EPM resulted in a participant's mood state becoming significantly more positive; whereas when solving a difficult task, EPM caused a more negative mood state. Similarly, it was found that a higher level of subjective stress was experienced when EPM was present, as opposed to absent. when individuals were performing a difficult task. The implications for the workplace applications produced by this study are discussed.     

Sensation seeking, impulsive decision-making, and risky sex: implications for risk-taking and design of interventions

In an HIV prevention study, 2949 ninth-grade students in 17 high schools in two Midwestern U.S. cities were administered scales measuring sensation seeking and impulsive decision-making and their separate and combined relationships to a number of indicators of sexual risk-taking. Measures of sexual risk-taking included intentions to have sex, ever had sex, number of lifetime sexual partners, been pregnant or caused a pregnancy, used a condom, used marijuana, had unwanted sex when drunk, had unwanted sex under pressure, said no to sex, used alcohol or partner used alcohol before sex. Strong associations were observed between each of the measures and sexual risk-taking for most of the indicators. Strongest associations were found among sexually active students high on both sensation seeking and impulsive decision-making and weakest associations among students low on both measures. Implications for design of interventions in health campaigns are discussed.     

Predicting Soccer Matches After Unconscious and Conscious Thought as a Function of Expertise

ABSTRACT— In two experiments, we investigated the effects of expertise and mode of thought on the accuracy of people's predictions. Both experts and nonexperts predicted the results of soccer matches after conscious thought, after unconscious thought, or immediately. In Experiment 1, experts who thought unconsciously outperformed participants in all other conditions. Whereas unconscious thinkers showed a correlation between expertise and accuracy of prediction, no such relation was observed for conscious thinkers or for immediate decision makers. In Experiment 2, this general pattern was replicated. In addition, experts who thought unconsciously were better at applying diagnostic information than experts who thought consciously or who decided immediately. The results are consistent with unconscious-thought theory.     

Praise,blame, and demandingness

Consequentialism has been challenged on the grounds that it is too demanding. I will respond to the problem of demandingness differently from previous accounts. In the first part of the paper, I argue that consequentialism requires us to distinguish the justification of an act \(\varphi\) from the justification of an act \(\psi\), where \(\psi\) is an act of praise or blame. In the second part of the paper, I confront the problem of demandingness. I do not attempt to rule out the objection; instead, I argue that if certain plausible empirical claims about moral motivation are true, we morally ought not to blame people for failing to meet certain very demanding obligations. With this theory, we create a space in consequentialism for intuitions questioning the plausibility of demanding obligations. I conclude the paper by showing that separate justifications for \(\varphi\) and \(\psi\) may also give us a theoretical niche for intuitions about supererogation.