Perceivers' responses to in-group and out-group members who blame a negative outcome on discrimination

The authors extend recent research concerning the social costs of claiming discrimination by examining men's and women's responses to in-group and out-group targets who either blamed a failing grade on discrimination or answer quality. Although participants generally responded more negatively to targets who blamed discrimination, rather than answer quality, dislike was greatest and gender group identification was lowest when participants evaluated an in-group target. Moreover, an in-group target who claimed discrimination was perceived as avoiding personal responsibility for outcomes to a greater extent than was a similar out-group target. Perceptions that the target avoided outcome responsibility by claiming discrimination were shown to mediate the relationship between attribution type and dislike of the in-group target. The authors discuss their results in terms of intragroup processes and suggest that social costs may especially accrue for in-group members when claiming discrimination has implications for the in-group's social identity.     

Giving advice or making decisions in someone else's place: the influence of impression, defense, and accuracy motivation on the search for new information

When making decisions, people have been found predominantly to seek information supporting their preferred choice and to neglect conflicting information. In this article, the authors investigate to what extent different types of advisors, who recommend a choice to someone or make a decision on behalf of someone, show the same confirmatory information search. In Experiment 1, the authors presented participants, in the role of advisors, with a client's decision problem and found that when making a recommendation, advisors conducted a more balanced information search than participants who were making a decision for themselves. However, advisors who had to make a decision on behalf of their clients revealed an increased preference for information supporting their position. Experiment 2 suggested that this confirmatory information search was caused by impression motivation: The advisors bolstered their decision to justify it to the client. The results are discussed within the multiple motive framework of the heuristic systematic model.     

Identity and emergency intervention: how social group membership and inclusiveness of group boundaries shape helping behavior

Two experiments exploring the effects of social category membership on real-life helping behavior are reported. In Study 1, intergroup rivalries between soccer fans are used to examine the role of identity in emergency helping. An injured stranger wearing an in-group team shirt is more likely to be helped than when wearing a rival team shirt or an unbranded sports shirt. In Study 2, a more inclusive social categorization is made salient for potential helpers. Helping is extended to those who were previously identified as out-group members but not to those who do not display signs of group membership. Taken together, the studies show the importance of both shared identity between bystander and victim and the inclusiveness of salient identity for increasing the likelihood of emergency intervention.     

Reliability and validity of the revised experiences in close relationships (ECR-R) self-report measure of adult romantic attachment

Three studies examine the psychometric properties (i.e., the test-retest reliability, convergent, and discriminant validity) of Fraley, Waller, and Brennan's Revised Experiences in Close Relationships (ECR-R) self-report measure of romantic attachment anxiety (model of self) and avoidance (model of others). Longitudinal analyses suggest that the ECR-R provided highly stable indicators of latent attachment during a 3-week period (85% shared variance). Hierarchical linear modeling analyses further validated the ECR-R, suggesting that it explained between 30% to 40% of the between-person variation in social interaction diary ratings of attachment-related emotions experienced during interactions with a romantic partner and only 5% to 15% of that in interactions with family and friends. Guidelines are offered regarding the conditions where highly reliable and precise measures of romantic attachment, such as the ECR-R, are deemed necessary and where shorter, albeit slightly less reliable measures, such as Bartholomew and Horowitz's Relationship Questionnaire, may also be viable.     

Beliefs about power and its relation to emotional experience: a comparison of Japan, France, Germany, and the United States

This research examined the concept of power in Japan, France, Germany, and the United States, as well as beliefs about the emotions persons in power tend to elicit in others and about powerful people's regulation (specifically, inhibition) of certain emotions. Definitions of power were assessed by examining the importance of two main components: control over self versus other and freedom of action vis-à-vis social norms. Beliefs about both positive (pride, admiration) and negative (jealousy, contempt) emotions were measured. Analyses revealed that the concept of power differed across countries and that the definitions of power as well as country of origin significantly predicted beliefs about the emotions that are elicited in others by powerful people and also the regulation of expression of emotion by powerful people.     

Human cognition and a pile of sand: a discussion on serial correlations and self-organized criticality

Recently, G. C. Van Orden, J. G. Holden, and M. T. Turvey (2003) proposed to abandon the conventional framework of cognitive psychology in favor of the framework of nonlinear dynamical systems theory. Van Orden et al. presented evidence that "purposive behavior originates in self-organized criticality" (p. 333). Here, the authors show that Van Orden et al.'s analyses do not test their hypotheses. Further, the authors argue that a confirmation of Van Orden et al.'s hypotheses would not have constituted firm evidence in support of their framework. Finally, the absence of a specific model for how self-organized criticality produces the observed behavior makes it very difficult to derive testable predictions. The authors conclude that the proposed paradigm shift is presently unwarranted.     

Competition between endogenous and exogenous orienting of visual attention

The relation between reflexive and voluntary orienting of visual attention was investigated with 4 experiments: a simple detection task, a localization task, a saccade toward the target task, and a target identification task in which discrimination difficulty was manipulated. Endogenous and exogenous orienting cues were presented in each trial and their validity was manipulated orthogonally to examine whether attention mechanisms are mediated by separate systems and whether they have additive and independent effects on visual detection and discrimination. The results showed that each orienting mechanism developed its typical and independent effect in every case except for the difficult identification task. A theoretical framework for understanding the relationship between endogenous and exogenous orienting of attention is proposed, tested, and confirmed.     

Enemies and friends in the neighborhood: orthographic similarity effects in semantic categorization

Studies investigating orthographic similarity effects in semantic tasks have produced inconsistent results. The authors investigated orthographic similarity effects in animacy decision and in contrast with previous studies, they took semantic congruency into account. In Experiments 1 and 2, performance to a target (cat) was better if a previously studied neighbor (rat) was congruent (i.e., belonged to the same animate-inanimate category) than it was if it was incongruent (e.g., mat). In Experiments 3 and 4, performance was better for targets with more preexisting congruent neighbors than for targets with more preexisting incongruent neighbors. These results demonstrate that orthographic similarity effects in semantic categorization are conditional on semantic congruency. This strongly suggests that semantic information becomes available before orthographic processing has been completed.     

Perceived reachability in hemispace

A common observation in studies of perceived (imagined) compared to actual movement in a reaching paradigm is the tendency to overestimate. Of the studies noted, reaching tasks have been presented in the general midline range. In the present study, strong right-handers were asked to judge the reachability of visual targets projected onto a table surface at midline, right- (RVF), and left-visual fields (LVF). Midline results support those of previous studies, showing an overestimation bias. In contrast, participants revealed the tendency to underestimate their reachability in RVF and LVF. These findings are discussed from the perspective of actor 'confidence' (a cognitive state) possibly associated with visual information, perceived ability, and perceived task demands.