When children are witnesses: The effects of context,age and gender on adults' perceptions of cognitive ability and honesty

The goals of the present study were to examine how context impacts perceptions of children, and the extent to which context interacts with a child's age and gender to alter adults perceptions of children. Specifically, we examine how perceptions of honesty (i.e. knowing the difference between truth and lie, being trusted by adults, being reliable, and honest) and cognitive ability (i.e. having a good memory for events and being able to attend and concentrate) are the same or different in the context of a child sexual abuse case (CSA) than when no context is provided. First, the results revealed few significant findings with regard to either juror or child gender. The analyses did reveal several context effects, with attention, trusted, reliable and honesty each producing higher ratings, and therefore better perceived memories, in the CSA condition than the no context condition. Also, ratings of all the dependent variables varied by age and 4 out of the 5 higher order interactions involved child age. Importantly, we found that ratings of honesty and cognitive abilities were not linear with age but, typically, ratings increased with age but then leveled out or started decreasing after 8 years‐of‐age. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The south beach study: Bystanders' memories are more malleable

People's reports are affected by what others say. The current study compared memory conformity effects of people who interacted with a confederate, and of bystanders to that interaction. A second goal was to observe if memory conformity occurs in a naturalistic setting. A male confederate approached a group of people at the beach and had a brief interaction. About a minute later a research assistant approached the group and administered a target‐absent lineup to each person in the group. Memory conformity was observed. Bystanders were twice as likely to conform as those who interacted with the confederate. Forensic investigators should take into consideration the role a person plays in an event when assessing eyewitness evidence. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Who Earns More and Why? A Multiple Mediation Model from Personality to Salary

Purpose  

The purpose of this study was to investigate multiple indirect Big Five personality influences on professionals’ annual salary while considering relevant mediators. These are the motivational variables of occupational self-efficacy and career-advancement goals, and the work status variable of contractual work hours. The motivational and work status variables were conceptualized as serial mediators (Big Five → occupational self-efficacy/career-advancement goals → contractual work hours → annual salary).     

Multidisciplinary assessment and diagnosis of conversion disorder in a patient with foreign accent syndrome

Multiple reports have described patients with disordered articulation and prosody, often following acute aphasia, dysarthria, or apraxia of speech, which results in the perception by listeners of a foreign-like accent. These features led to the term foreign accent syndrome (FAS), a speech disorder with perceptual features that suggest an indistinct, non-native speaking accent. Also correctly known as psuedoforeign accent, the speech does not typically match a specific foreign accent, but is rather a constellation of speech features that result in the perception of a foreign accent by listeners. The primary etiologies of FAS are cerebrovascular accidents or traumatic brain injuries which affect cortical and subcortical regions critical to expressive speech and language production. Far fewer cases of FAS associated with psychiatric conditions have been reported. We will present the clinical history, neurological examination, neuropsychological assessment, cognitive-behavioral and biofeedback assessments, and motor speech examination of a patient with FAS without a known vascular, traumatic, or infectious precipitant. Repeated multidisciplinary examinations of this patient provided convergent evidence in support of FAS secondary to conversion disorder. We discuss these findings and their implications for evaluation and treatment of rare neurological and psychiatric conditions.     

Asymmetry in structural adaptation: The differential impact of centralizing versus decentralizing team decision-making structures

This study tested predictions derived from Structural Adaptation Theory (SAT) on the longitudinal effects of centralizing and decentralizing decision-making structures in teams. Results from 93 four-person teams working on a command and control simulation generally supported SAT, documenting that it was more difficult for teams to adapt to a centralized decision-making structure after formerly working within a decentralized structure, than it was to adapt in the alternative direction. The negative effects of centralized shifts were mediated by efficiency and adaptability, in the sense that former decentralized teams experienced the negative aspects of centralization (lack of adaptability), but not the positive aspects (efficiency). The dangers of employing structural reconfiguration to solve certain problems in teams are discussed, especially if these changes are based upon expectations generalized from cross-sectional research that did not directly observe teams that experienced true structural change.     

Promoting de-escalation of commitment: a regulatory-focus perspective on sunk costs

People frequently escalate their commitment to failing endeavors. Explanations for such behavior typically involve loss aversion, failure to recognize other alternatives, and concerns with justifying prior actions; all of these factors produce recommitment to previous decisions with the goal of erasing losses and vindicating these decisions. Solutions to escalation of commitment have therefore focused on external oversight and divided responsibility during decision making to attenuate loss aversion, blindness to alternatives, and justification biases. However, these solutions require substantial resources and have additional adverse effects. The present studies tested an alternative method for de-escalating commitment: activating broad motivations for growth and advancement (promotion). This approach should reduce concerns with loss and increase perceptions of alternatives, thereby attenuating justification motives. In two studies featuring hypothetical financial decisions, activating promotion motivations reduced recommitment to poorly performing investments as compared with both not activating any additional motivations and activating motivations for safety and security (prevention).     

Locus of control and organizational embeddedness

Using conservation of resources theory as a guide, this study examines why individuals with an internal locus of control (LOC) are more likely to feel embedded in their organizations. Two mediating processes are posited. First, people with high internal LOC are more likely to acquire greater work resources because they are more effective in negotiating and receiving employment deals which are not widely available or replicable elsewhere. Second, people with high internal LOC are more likely to acquire additional work resources because they network more proactively with colleagues and supervisors. Consequently, high LOC individuals are likely to become more embedded because they have more links with their colleagues and the sacrifices associated with leaving their jobs would be greater. The proposed model was tested and supported with three waves of data collected from a sample of 375 managerial respondents over an 8‐month period. Implications for future research, especially the role of personality traits in understanding organizational embeddedness, are also discussed.     

Leave Truth Alone: On Deflationism and Contextualism

Abstract: According to deflationism, grasp of the concept of truth consists in nothing more than a disposition to accept a priori (non‐paradoxical) instances of the schema: (DS) It is true that p if and only if p. According to contextualism, the same expression with the same meaning might, on different occasions of use, express different propositions bearing different truth‐conditions (where this does not result from indexicality and the like). On this view, what is expressed in an utterance depends in a non‐negligible way on the circumstances. Charles Travis claims that contextualism shows that ‘deflationism is a mistake’, that truth is a more substantive notion than deflationism allows. In this paper, I examine Travis's arguments in support of this ‘inflationary’ claim and argue that they are unsuccessful.     

PRP-paradigm provides evidence for a perceptual origin of the negative compatibility effect

Visual stimuli (primes) that are made invisible by masking can affect motor responses to a subsequent target stimulus. When a prime is followed by a mask which is followed by a target stimulus, an inverse priming effect (or negative compatibility effect) has been found: Responses are slow and frequently incorrect when prime and target stimuli are congruent, but fast and accurate when prime and target stimuli are incongruent. To functionally localize the origins of inverse priming effects, we applied the psychological refractory period (PRP-) paradigm which distinguishes a perceptual level, a central bottleneck, and a level of motor execution. Two dual-task experiments were run with the PRP-paradigm to localize the inverse priming effect relative to the central bottleneck. Together, results of the Effect-Absorption and the Effect-Propagation Procedure suggest that inverse priming effects are generated by perceptual mechanisms. We suggest two perceptual mechanisms as the source of inverse priming effects.     

Time limits and gender differences on paper-and-pencil tests of mental rotation: a meta-analysis

The purpose of this study was to summarize research relevant to the influence of time limits on gender differences in paper-and-pencil tasks of mental rotation by means of a meta-analysis. Thirty-six effect sizes from published and unpublished studies examining the influence of time constraints were retrieved. Results showed that gender differences in mental rotation are significantly larger when the task is administered with time constraints compared to when such constraints are absent. In addition, the magnitude of gender differences was linearly related to the amount of time available for test completion. These findings were not related to the age or the year of birth of participants in the retrieved studies. The results are discussed with regard to their implications for explanations of gender differences in mental rotation and cognitive abilities in general.