How information about building design influences causal attributions for earthquake damage

Causal attributions for events are shaped by information about causal mechanisms that contribute to the events. In the case of damage from earthquakes, these mechanisms include the design of buildings. Three studies presented scenarios drawn from actual reports of recent earthquakes (Kobe, Japan and Northridge, California, USA), including statements by engineers about the quality of the design of damaged and undamaged buildings. Studies examined whether this design information affected attributions for earthquake damage. Participants attributed damage to building design more strongly and rated damage more preventable when scenarios referred to the poor building design of damaged buildings than when scenarios gave no design information. Information about the excellent design of undamaged buildings had less consistent effects. This effect was most consistent with scenarios about the design of damaged buildings. These findings show that mechanism (design) information does influence judgments about damage in earthquakes and, by implication, other hazards.     

Benchmarking Community-Based Couple Therapy: Considering Measurement Reactivity

Couple therapy has been shown to be effective in randomized clinical trials; however, results from naturalistic couple therapy have been less consistent. This study utilized a benchmarking approach to compare the effectiveness of couple therapy in a community-based setting with findings from efficacy treatments, such as treatment within randomized clinical trials. The current study is the largest couple therapy sample published to date (N = 3,347 couples). Clients in couple therapy were asked to provide initial and weekly ratings of symptomology on the Outcome Questionnaire (OQ-45.2). We found that treatment effect sizes found at community clinics were smaller than efficacy studies (i.e., the benchmark). However, when taking into account measurement reactivity, the effect sizes were comparable. This is the first benchmarking study for community-based couple therapy, allowing for meaningful comparisons and understanding of outcomes in real-world couple therapy. Implications for the field are offered in terms of evaluating community-based psychotherapy studies with benchmarking for couple therapy. Results of this study provide clinicians and researchers a way to meaningfully compare couple therapy outcomes, accounting for differences in community-based practices and randomized clinical trials. This benchmark also underscores the impact of measurement sensitivity, an issue commonly overlooked in psychotherapy research and practice.     

Examining reproducibility in psychology: A hybrid method for combining a statistically significant original study and a replication

The unrealistically high rate of positive results within psychology has increased the attention to replication research. However, researchers who conduct a replication and want to statistically combine the results of their replication with a statistically significant original study encounter problems when using traditional meta-analysis techniques. The original study’s effect size is most probably overestimated because it is statistically significant, and this bias is not taken into consideration in traditional meta-analysis. We have developed a hybrid method that does take the statistical significance of an original study into account and enables (a) accurate effect size estimation, (b) estimation of a confidence interval, and (c) testing of the null hypothesis of no effect. We analytically approximate the performance of the hybrid method and describe its statistical properties. By applying the hybrid method to data from the Reproducibility Project: Psychology (Open Science Collaboration, 2015), we demonstrate that the conclusions based on the hybrid method are often in line with those of the replication, suggesting that many published psychological studies have smaller effect sizes than those reported in the original study, and that some effects may even be absent. We offer hands-on guidelines for how to statistically combine an original study and replication, and have developed a Web-based application (https://rvanaert.shinyapps.io/hybrid) for applying the hybrid method.     

DISORGANIZATION,FEAR AND ATTACHMENT: WORKING TOWARDS CLARIFICATION

In 1990, M. Main and J. Solomon introduced the procedures for coding a new “disorganized” infant attachment classification for the Ainsworth Strange Situation procedure (M.D.S. Ainsworth, M. Blehar, E. Waters, & S. Wall, 1978). This classification has received a high degree of interest, both from researchers and from child welfare and clinical practitioners. Disorganized attachment has primarily been understood through the lens of E. Hesse and M. Main's concept of “fright without solution,” taken to mean that an infant experiences a conflict between a desire to approach and flee from a frightening parent when confronted by the Strange Situation. Yet, looking back, it can be observed that the way Hesse and Main's texts were formulated and read has generated confusion; there have been repeated calls in recent years for renewed theory and clarification about the relationship between disorganization and fear. Responding to these calls, this article revisits the texts that introduced the idea of fright without solution, clarifying their claims through articulating more precisely the different meanings of the term fear. This clarified account will then be applied to consideration of pathways to infant disorganized behaviors.     

The Source and Robustness of Duties of Friendship

Abstract

Certain relationships generate associative duties that exhibit robustness across change. It seems insufficient for friendship, for example, if I am only disposed to fulfil duties of friendship towards you as things stand here and now. However, robustness is not required across all variations. Were you to become monstrously cruel towards me, we might expect that my duties of friendship towards you would not be robust across that kind of change. The question then is this: is there any principled way of distinguishing those variations across which robustness of the disposition to fulfil duties of friendship is required from those across which it isn’t? In this paper I propose a way of answering this question that invokes distinctions concerning how we value friends and friendships, and how persons and friendships possess value – distinctions that are central to the project of specifying not only the limits of robustness, but also the source of duties of friendship and associative duties more generally.     

Perceptions of social influence when messages favour ‘us’ versus ‘them’: A closer look at the social distance effect

The third‐person effect (TPE) is the tendency for individuals to assume that persuasive communications have a stronger effect on other people than on themselves. In turn the social distance effect (SDE) is the tendency for this TPE to increase with the psychological distance between self and comparator. Two experiments showed that the SDE is moderated by whether the message favours the ingroup or the outgroup, holding all other content constant. In Study 1, male and female participants read a message arguing that either women were better drivers than men or vice versa, and then indicated how much they thought themselves, ingroup members, outgroup members and society would be influenced. The results indicate that for the pro‐outgroup message the SDE was found. However, for the pro‐ingroup message the SDE was reversed with ingroup members perceived as more influenced than all other targets, including the self. Study 2 replicated this finding using minimal groups, which eliminated the effects of prior stereotypes about male and female drivers. Across both studies the self was perceived as relatively invulnerable to influence regardless of message bias. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The world may not be just for you but you'd better not say it: On the social value of expressing personal belief in a just world

The expression of personal belief in a just world (PBJW) has been discussed as a criterion of excellence in social judgments. In four experimental studies we hypothesized and found that targets who express high versus low PBJW are judged as more: (i) deserving of success and (ii) suited to socio-organizational expectations. The four studies show that suitability to socio-organizational expectations mediates the relation between PBJW expressed and success deservingness, even after controlling for judgments of likability, status, rationality, optimism, and targets as victims. Studies 2 and 3 show this pattern occurs regardless of target performance appraisal. Study 4 indicates that expressing low PBJW decreases the social value of individuals, but expressing high PBJW does not increase it. We discuss the impact of PBJW expression on people's lives, namely on upward social mobility of members of low-status groups, and the influence of the negativity bias on judgments caused by PBJW expression.     

Understanding Conspiracy Theories

Scholarly efforts to understand conspiracy theories have grown significantly in recent years, and there is now a broad and interdisciplinary literature. In reviewing this body of work, we ask three specific questions. First, what factors are associated with conspiracy beliefs? Our review of the literature shows that conspiracy beliefs result from a range of psychological, political, and social factors. Next, how are conspiracy theories communicated? Here, we explain how conspiracy theories are shared among individuals and spread through traditional and social media platforms. Next, what are the societal risks and rewards associated with conspiracy theories? By focusing on politics and science, we argue that conspiracy theories do more harm than good. We conclude by suggesting several promising avenues for future research.