Dealing with the past and facing the future: mediators of the effects of collective guilt and shame in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Two studies are reported which examined potential mediators of the effects of collective guilt and shame on reparation attitudes. Samples of young Bosnian Serbs (Ns = 173, 247) were asked to report their feelings of guilt and shame for what their group had done during the 1992–1995 war in Bosnia Herzegovina. They also reported their attitudes towards making reparation to Bosnian Muslims. Both collective guilt and shame positively predicted reparation attitudes, but these associations were differently mediated. The effects of guilt were mediated by empathy for the outgroup, while the effects of shame were mediated by self‐pity and empathy. The theoretical and applied implications of these findings are discussed. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Evidence for attenuated affective processing in obesity

Attenuated affective processing is hypothesized to play a role in the development and maintenance of obesity. Using an affective priming task measuring automatic affective processing of verbal stimuli, a group of 30 obese participants in a weight-loss program at the Psychosomatic University Clinic Bonn (M age = 48.3, SD = 10.7) was compared with a group of 25 participants of normal weight (M age = 43.6, SD = 12.5). A smaller affective priming effect was observed for participants with obesity, indicating less pronounced reactions to valenced adjectives. The generally reduced affective processing in obese participants was discussed as a possible factor in the etiology of obesity. Individuals who generally show less pronounced affective reactions to a given stimulus may also react with less negative affect when confronted with weight gain or less positive affect when weight is lost. Consequently, they could be expected to be less motivated to stop overeating or to engage in dieting and will have a higher risk of becoming or staying obese.     

Shame expressions reduce the recipient’s insult from outgroup reparations

Despite a growing literature on the consequences of group-based guilt and shame, little work has examined how expressions of self-conscious emotions are received by targets of collective wrongdoing. Two experiments tested the hypothesis that when an outgroup member offers apologies accompanied by reparations, the recipients are likely to take insult unless the outgroup member expresses the self-abasing emotion of shame rather than guilt. Experiment 1 showed that when reparations were offered, participants were less insulted by shame than guilt expressed by an outgroup member, rather than an ingroup member. Experiment 2 improved Experiment 1 by manipulating the culprit’s action (reparation vs. withdrawal), and this experiment replicated Experiment 1’s interaction on a measure of insult, but only when reparations were offered. These interactions on insult were not explained by the emotion’s perceived intensity or surprisingness. Our results indicate a possible functional aspect of expressions of shame in an intergroup context. Self-abasement, as opposed to a mere admission of culpability and regret, can reduce the insult taken from an outgroup’s reparations.     

Evaluations of pleasurable experiences: The peak-end rule

Prior research suggests that the addition of mild pain to an aversive event may lead people to prefer and directly choose more pain over less pain (Kahneman, Fredrickson, Schreiber, & Redelmeier, 1993). Kahneman et al. suggest that pain ratings are based on a combination of peak pain and final pain. Similarly, people rate a happy life that ends suddenly as being better than one with additional years of mild happiness (Diener, Wirtz, & Oishi, 2001), even though the former objectively consists of less pleasure than the latter. Applying these concepts to material goods, we investigated the impact of positivity and timing on the retrospective evaluations of material goods. We found strong evidence that the peak-end rule applies to both material goods and pain.     

Efficient statistics, common currencies and the problem of reward-harvesting

The mammalian brain is equipped with reward-harvesting mechanisms that efficiently categorize and value the behavioral choices that lead to rewards necessary for survival. In this context, 'efficiency' embodies the idea of achieving maximum returns for minimal energetic investments and places a premium on how an animal represents its available options. But the capacity to efficiently represent choices is a profoundly difficult problem because representations for behavioral choice depend intimately on the statistics of information arriving not just from the sensory world and but also from within the creature itself. Any complete account of decision-making in mammals must efficiently connect the internal needs to the perceptual apparatus available to a creature moment-to-moment.     

Increased Cognitive Load during Video Game Play Reduces Rape Myth Acceptance and Hostile Sexism after Exposure to Sexualized Female Avatars

The present study investigated how task demand (cognitive load and interactivity) and avatar sexualization in a video game influenced rape myth acceptance (RMA), hostile sexism, and self-objectification. In a between-subjects design, 300 U.S. college students either played or watched someone else play a videogame as either a sexualized or non-sexualized female avatar under high (memorize 7 symbols) or low (memorize 2 symbols) cognitive load. Hypotheses were derived from the limited capacity model of motivated mediated message processing (LC4MP) and perspectives on stereotype processing. Results contradicted hypotheses that greater task demands and sexualization would produce greater RMA, hostile sexism, and self-objectification. Instead, we found that sexualization did not affect these variables. Greater cognitive load reduced rape myth acceptance and hostile sexism for those in the sexualized avatar condition, but it did not affect self-objectification. We discuss these results with respect to the LC4MP and suggest that the processing of stereotype-inconsistent information might be the underlying cause of these unexpected findings. These results provide tentative evidence that cognitively demanding video game environments may prompt players to focus on stereotype-inconsistent, rather than stereotype-consistent, social information.     

The similarity heuristic

Decision makers often make snap judgments using fast‐and‐frugal decision rules called cognitive heuristics. Research into cognitive heuristics has been divided into two camps. One camp has emphasized the limitations and biases produced by the heuristics; another has focused on the accuracy of heuristics and their ecological validity. In this paper we investigate a heuristic proposed by the first camp, using the methods of the second. We investigate a subset of the representativeness heuristic we call the “similarity” heuristic, whereby decision makers who use it judge the likelihood that an instance is a member of one category rather than another by the degree to which it is similar to others in that category. We provide a mathematical model of the heuristic and test it experimentally in a trinomial environment. In this environment, the similarity heuristic turns out to be a reliable and accurate choice rule and both choice and response time data suggest it is also how choices are made. We conclude with a theoretical discussion of how our work fits in the broader “fast‐and‐frugal” heuristics program, and of the boundary conditions for the similarity heuristic. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.