Effects of Mood on Evaluative Judgements: Influence of Reduced Processing Capacity and Mood Salience

Schwarz and Clore (1983) proposed that the effects of mood on evaluative judgements are due to people's use of a “feeling heuristic”. Results of the present study suggest that this heuristic is particularly likely to be used under conditions of reduced processing capacity, induced by time pressure and competing task demands, as both factors intensified the effects of mood on evaluative judgements. In addition, previous findings that increasing the salience of a judgement-irrelevant cause disrupts the effects of mood on evaluative judgements were replicated. All of these effects were, however, obtained only when mood was salient to the participants, suggesting that to be effective, mood must exceed a threshold of salience. Taken together, the findings further support the hypothesis that at least in some situations, the effects of moods on evaluative judgements are based on a controlled inference strategy, rather than on automatic priming effects.     

Towards a better understanding of the legibility bias in performance assessments: The case of gender‐based inferences

Background. Handwriting legibility systematically biases evaluations in that highly legible handwriting results in more positive evaluations than less legible handwriting. Because performance assessments in educational contexts are not only based on computerized or multiple choice tests but often include the evaluation of handwritten work samples, understanding the causes of this bias is critical. Aims. This research was designed to replicate and extend the legibility bias in two tightly controlled experiments and to explore whether gender‐based inferences contribute to its occurrence. Sample(s). A total of 132 students from a German university participated in one pre‐test and two independent experiments. Method. Participants were asked to read and evaluate several handwritten essays varying in content quality. Each essay was presented to some participants in highly legible handwriting and to other participants in less legible handwriting. In addition, the assignment of legibility to participant group was reversed from essay to essay, resulting in a mixed‐factor design. Results. The legibility bias was replicated in both experiments. Results suggest that gender‐based inferences do not account for its occurrence. Rather it appears that fluency from legibility exerts a biasing impact on evaluations of content and author abilities. Conclusions. The legibility bias was shown to be genuine and strong. By refuting a series of alternative explanations, this research contributes to a better understanding of what underlies the legibility bias. The present research may inform those who grade on what to focus and thus help to better allocate cognitive resources when trying to reduce this important source of error.     

Increased levels of conditioned fear and avoidance behavior coincide with changes in phosphorylation of the protein kinase B (AKT) within the amygdala in a mouse model of extremes in trait anxiety

Patients diagnosed for anxiety disorders often display faster acquisition and slower extinction of learned fear. To gain further insights into the mechanisms underlying these phenomenona, we studied conditioned fear in mice originating form a bi-directional selective breeding approach, which is based on elevated plus-maze behavior and results in CD1-derived high (HAB), normal (NAB), and low (LAB) anxiety-related behavior mice. HAB mice displayed pronounced cued-conditioned fear compared to NAB/CD1 and LAB mice that coincided with increased phosphorylation of the protein kinase B (AKT) in the basolateral amygdala 45 min after conditioning. No similar changes were observed after non-associative immediate shock presentations. Fear extinction of recent but not older fear memories was preserved. However, HAB mice were more prone to relapse of conditioned fear with the passage of time. HAB mice also displayed higher levels of contextual fear compared to NAB and LAB mice and exaggerated avoidance following step-down avoidance training. Interestingly, HAB mice showed lower and LAB mice higher levels of acoustic startle responses compared to NAB controls. The increase in arousal observed in LAB mice coincided with the general absence of conditioned freezing. Taken together, our results suggest that the genetic predisposition to high anxiety-related behavior may increase the risk of forming traumatic memories, phobic-like fear and avoidance behavior following aversive encounters, with a clear bias towards passive coping styles. In contrast, genetic predisposition to low anxiety-related and high risk-taking behavior seems to be associated with an increase in active coping styles. Our data imply changes in AKT phosphorylation as a therapeutic target for the prevention of exaggerated fear memories.     

Testing social acoustic memory in rats: Effects of stimulus configuration and long-term memory on the induction of social approach behavior by appetitive 50-kHz ultrasonic vocalizations

Rats emit distinct types of ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs), which serve as situation-dependent affective signals. In appetitive situations, such as rough-and-tumble-play, high-frequency 50-kHz USVs occur, whereas low-frequency 22-kHz USVs can be observed in aversive situations, such as social defeat. USVs serve distinct communicative functions and induce call-specific behavioral responses in the receiver. While aversive 22-kHz USVs serve as alarm calls and induce behavioral inhibition, appetitive 50-kHz USVs have a pro-social communicative function and elicit social approach behavior, supporting the notion that they serve as social contact calls to (re)establish or maintain contact among conspecifics. The aim of the present study was to use the rat's ability to communicate in the ultrasonic range via high-frequency 50-kHz USVs in order to develop a test for social acoustic memory in rats with relevance for human verbal memory. Verbal learning and memory is among the seven cognitive domains identified as commonly deficient in human schizophrenia patients, but particularly difficult to model. We therefore tested whether the induction of social approach behavior by playback of appetitive 50-kHz USVs is dependent on (1) acoustic stimulus configuration and (2) social long-term memory, and whether (3) social long-term memory effects can be blocked by the administration of scopolamine, a muscarinic acetylcholine antagonist producing amnesia. Results show that social approach behavior in response to playback of natural 50-kHz USVs depends on acoustic stimulus configuration and occurs only when sound energy is concentrated to a critical frequency band in the ultrasonic range. Social approach behavior was detected during the first exposure to playback of 50-kHz USVs, whereas no such response was observed during the second exposure 1week later, indicating a stable memory trace. In contrast, when memory formation was blocked by i.p. administration of scopolamine (0.5mg/kg or 1.5mg/kg) immediately after the first exposure, rats displayed social approach behavior during the second exposure as well. Induction of social approach behavior in response to repeated playback of natural 50-kHz USVs may therefore provide a new and rather unique approach for testing social acoustic memory in rats with relevance to human verbal memory.     

Pro-criminal attitudes,intervention, and recidivism

We review the recent research literature on pro-criminal attitudes (PCAs) as a causal factor of recidivism with a focus on studies on the effectiveness of offender treatment programs targeting PCAs to prevent recidivism. The main conclusions that can be derived from the literature are: (1) the evidence supports the hypothesis that PCAs are related to reoffending; (2) most investigated offender treatment programs tend to reduce PCAs, although the general lack of adequate control group designs does not rule out alternative explanations for this reduction; and (3) there is no conclusive empirical evidence that intervention programs designed to reduce PCAs are effective in reducing recidivism. Empirical research in this area lacks the theoretical and methodological rigor to test causal models of the influence of treatment on reducing PCAs, and effects of PCAs on recidivism. Limitations of the empirical evidence are related to inadequate research designs and/or suboptimal data analysis strategies. Recommendations concerning optimized research designs and data analysis strategies that are likely to provide more conclusive evidence on the relation of PCAs, PCA treatment, and recidivism are given.     

The Study of Religions in the Third Reich: A Report on Work in Progress

Why was death considered polluting within classical Greek society when Olympian sacrifice was ubiquitous? Outside the polis the Greeks’ view of the uncultivated or improperly cultivated geography and of their own ‘city-less’ past was just the other way around. Here death represented no pollution whatsoever, while Olympian sacrifice was either absent or not properly performed. Death and life had yet to be separated, as had happened in the proper human realm of the Greek polis. Any reintroduction of either natural death or sacrifice into the ‘city of life’ would consequently negate its very structures. Sacrifice differed exactly through the aspect of control. Acts of sacrifice were therefore used to control the onset of natural death. But why would the Greeks sacrifice also in every other possible context? As the essential human characteristic, mortality pertained to all human creations, including the polis. Left to itself, the polis would wither and die. Through Olympian sacrifice, humans dissolved the structures of the city without ever losing control, thereby introducing the unlimited potential as still found in the primordial state of the uncultivated geography. The structures of the polis were recreated through the proper division of the sacrificial victim.     

Book Review

LOGIC AND ONTOLOGY

PETER SIMONS,Parts: a study in ontology.Oxford , Clarendon Press. 1987. Xiii + 390 PP. £40.

GERHARD HEYER, Generische Kennzeichnungen. Zur Logik und Ontologie generischer Bedeutung. Miinchen und Wien: Philosophia Verlag, 1987. 289pp. DM 138.

GÖDEL STUDIES

GÖDEL , O. TAuSSKY-TODD, S. C. KLEEnE and g. kreisel. Gödel remembered: Salzburg 10-12 July 1983. Edited and foreword by P. Weingartner and L. Schmetterer. Naples: Bibliopolis, 1987. 186 pp, 10 plts. $49.95.

S. G. SHANKER (ed.), Gödel's theorem in focus. London: Croom Helm, 1988. 261 + ix pp. £25.00 (hardback)/£l1.95 (paperback).

SET THEORY AND NUMBER

ALFRED TARSKI and STEVEN GIVANT, A formulization of set theory without variables. (American Mathematical Society Colloquium Publications, volume 41.) Providence,Rhnde Is!and: American Mathematical Society. 1987. 280 pp. $60.00.

J. Bidelow, Thr reality of numbers. A physicalist 's philosophy of mathematics. Oxford: Clarrndon Press. 1988. viii+ 193 pp. £25.

MISCELLANEOUS

PETER J. STEINBERGER, Logic and politics. Hegel's philosophy of' right. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1988. xiii + 254 pp. £22.00/$29.00.

MICHELE MALATESTA, La logical primaria. Strumenti per un dialogo tra le Due Culture Napoli and Roma: LER, 1988.193 pp. 25000 lire.     

Unravelling the Interplay Between Genetic and Environmental Contributions in the Unfolding of Personality Differences from Early Adolescence to Young Adulthood

In two studies, we examined the genetic and environmental sources of the unfolding of personality trait differences from childhood to emerging adulthood. Using self‐reports from over 3000 representative German twin pairs of three birth cohorts, we could replicate previous findings on the primary role of genetic sources accounting for the unfolding of inter‐individual differences in personality traits and stabilizing trait differences during adolescence. More specifically, the genetic variance increased between early (ages 10–12 years) and late (ages 16–18 years) adolescence and stabilized between late adolescence and young adulthood (ages 21–25 years). This trend could be confirmed in a second three‐wave longitudinal study of adolescents' personality self‐reports and parent ratings from about 1400 Norwegian twin families (average ages between 15 and 20 years). Moreover, the longitudinal study provided evidence for increasing genetic differences being primarily due to accumulation of novel genetic influences instead of an amplification of initial genetic variation. This is in line with cumulative interaction effects between twins' correlated genetic makeups and environmental circumstances shared by adolescent twins reared together. In other words, nature × nurture interactions rather than transactions can account for increases in genetic variance and thus personality variance during adolescence. © 2019 European Association of Personality Psychology     

Internet experts' planning of explanations for laypersons: a Web experimental approach in the Internet domain

How flexible are Internet experts in taking the perspective of laypersons? A Web experimental approach is presented that examines the Internet experts' perspective taking in planning explanations for laypersons. The Internet was the topic to be communicated and it also provided the means to implement the experimental method. Participants rated how extensively they would treat some specific concepts when explaining a topic such as the WWW. Independent variables were the addressee's intention, their level of domain knowledge, and the importance of the concepts to be evaluated. The results show that the experts preferred planning strategies that integrated all three types of information. Though their planning decisions were mainly guided by conceptual constraints, the Internet experts also took into account information about the addressee's intention and prior knowledge.