Music Hath Charms … And Can Influence Helpfulness1

Eighty university students, half men and half women, were distributed evenly among 4 conditions in a one-way design. Three of the groups heard a seven-minute-long musical selection, either soothing, stimulating, or aversive in nature, while the remaining subjects were not exposed to any music and sat still. Ratings indicated that the soothing and stimulating music created some- what different positive moods while the aversive music tended to arouse negative feelings. Those who heard the soothing music were most apt to be helpful immediately afterwards, significantly more so than the aversive music or no music subjects, perhaps because of the ideas evoked by this selection.     

Less is not more: Further observations on nonlinguistic strategies

In an attempt to clarify the role of nonlinguistic preferences in children's responses to the words more and less, children 3–4 years of age were administered three tasks. Two of these required the child to indicate which of two arrays had more or less items, as instructed; the third task required the child to point to any one of two arrays. Children consistently selected the arrays with more items on all three tasks. The present finding of a response bias necessitates a reinterpretation of earlier studies of more and less. The results are discussed in terms of the full and partial semantics hypotheses as articulated by E. Clark.     

Processing load and memory for stereotype-based information

The present research considered the effects of stereotypes on judgmental and memorial processes. In particular, we investigated the heuristic utility of stereotype application in difficult or demanding information-processing contexts. Our results supported the prediction that stereotypical effects on memory are contingent upon the characteristics of the task environment. Whereas perceivers displayed preferential recall for stereotype-inconsistent information under low processing loads, this switched to a preference for consistent information as task demands increased. Likewise, target-based judgments were most stereotypic under high processing loads. Judgment-recall correlations supported the contention that, under high-loads, these inferences are related to the relative memorability of stereotypic information. We consider these findings in the wider context of stereotype-based effects on social cognition.     

Close to me: The importance of closeness versus superficiality in explaining the positive-negative contact asymmetry

The evidence for differential effects of positive and negative intergroup contact on prejudice is mixed. We propose that the closeness of the relationships respondents have with contact partners can explain inconsistencies in previous findings. In three studies (total N = 953), we tested the associations between positive intimate, negative intimate, positive superficial, and negative superficial contact and attitudes toward different outgroups (immigrants and gay people). We hypothesized that: (H1) the effect of positive contact would be maximized in intimate interactions; (H2) the effect of negative contact would be maximized in superficial interactions; (H3) positive intimate and negative superficial contact would have similar power in predicting attitudes. Results always supported H1, and supported H2 and H3 only with immigrants. Findings held also when controlling for category salience and agreeableness, but not for social dominance orientation, which instead strengthened the effect of negative superficial contact. Overall, findings clarify the positive–negative contact asymmetry.     

Predictors of individual variation in reversal learning performance in three-spined sticklebacks

Animal Cognition - Behavioral flexibility is a type of phenotypic plasticity that can influence how animals cope with environmental change and is often measured with a reversal learning paradigm....     

Does type of team matter? An investigation of the relationships between job characteristics and outcomes within a team-based environment

The authors examined the relationship between team type (consultative or substantive); job characteristics; and the outcome variables of job satisfaction, satisfaction with team processes and activities, and team commitment. The present results supported the hypothesis that job characteristics mediate the relationship between team type and team commitment and partially mediate the relationship between team type and job satisfaction and satisfaction with team processes and activities. However, contrary to the hypothesis, consultative team members perceived the content of their jobs to be more enriched and reported higher levels of satisfaction and commitment than did substantive team members.     

Crossed categorization effects on the formation of illusory correlations

This study investigates how stereotypes are formed and whether stereotype formation is reduced by the prevalence of multiple categorizations. Illusory correlations between the desirability of behaviours and two dimensions of social categorization, both containing a majority and a minority category, were assessed in single categorization and crossed categorization conditions. In the single categorization conditions, the usual illusory correlation in favour of the majority category was obtained. In the crossed condition, the combination of the two majority categories was positively discriminated from the remaining three combinations, while no differences were found among the latter. A source‐monitoring analysis of assignment frequencies replicated earlier findings that illusory correlations are due to an evaluative guessing bias, rather than to enhanced memory for individual instances of behaviour. The results show inconsistencies with a distinctiveness‐based and a social categorization account of illusory correlations, but they can be explained in terms of information loss. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.