Elaboration and numerical anchoring: Implications of attitude theories for consumer judgment and decision making

Researchers across many domains have examined the impact of externally presented numerical anchors on perceiver judgments. In the traditional paradigm, “anchored” judgments are typically explained as a result of elaborate thinking (i.e., confirmatory hypothesis testing that selectively activates anchor-consistent information in memory). Consistent with a long tradition in attitude change, we suggest that the same judgments can result from relatively thoughtful or non-thoughtful processes, with more thoughtful processes resulting in judgments that have more lasting impact. We review recent anchoring research consistent with this elaboration-based perspective and discuss implications for past anchoring results and theory in judgment and decision making.     

Effect of video self‐monitoring on procedural integrity

A video self‐monitoring treatment package was used to evaluate the procedural integrity of staff implementing behavioral guidelines for one child with autism. Staff members with low procedural integrity scores were asked to participate. The treatment package incorporated an implementation video which reviewed the relevant behavioral guidelines and a procedural integrity monitoring system. Each participant was taught to score a pre‐training video, which highlighted components of implementing behavioral guidelines, with a procedural integrity tool denoting correct implementation of the procedures. The participant then scored their own baseline video using a similar tool constructed to highlight the target student's behavior plan. Participant scores were compared to experimenter scores and verbal feedback was given by the experimenter if the scores varied. Results showed increased procedural integrity implementing the behavior guidelines from baseline to 100% implementation for two out of three participants. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Love imagined: Working models of future romantic attachment in emerging adults

An attachment theory perspective guided this investigation of emerging adults' (N = 174) expectations regarding relational patterns in their future long‐term romantic relationships. Participants' working models of future romantic attachment were assessed by having them respond to an attachment measure with respect to an imagined future committed relationship. Dimensions of future attachment predicted participants' anticipated relationship dynamics in the imagined relationship, their focus on closeness and abandonment when writing about having a future long‐term relationship, and their change in state anxiety over the course of the study. These effects of future attachment remained statistically significant after controlling for current global attachment, parental caregiving sensitivity, and conflict between parents; most of these effects were not moderated by current dating status.     

Nonword repetition in children and adults: effects on movement coordination

Hearing and repeating novel phonetic sequences, or novel nonwords, is a task that taps many levels of processing, including auditory decoding, phonological processing, working memory, speech motor planning and execution. Investigations of nonword repetition abilities have been framed within models of psycholinguistic processing, while the motor aspects, which also are critical for task performance, have been largely ignored. We focused our investigation on both the behavioral and speech motor performance characteristics of this task as performed in a learning paradigm by 9‐ and 10‐year‐old children and young adults. Behavioral (percent correct productions) and kinematic (movement duration, lip aperture variability – an index of the consistency of inter‐articulator coordination on repeated trials) measures were obtained in order to investigate the short‐term (Day 1, first five vs. next five trials) and longer‐term (Day 1 vs. Day 2, first five vs. next five trials) changes associated with practice within and between sessions. Overall, as expected, young adults showed higher levels of behavioral accuracy and greater levels of coordinative consistency than the children. Both groups, however, showed a learning effect, such that in general, later Day 1 trials and Day 2 trials were shorter in duration and more consistent in coordination patterns than Day 1 early trials. Phonemic complexity of the nonwords had a profound effect on both the behavioral and speech motor aspects of performance. The children showed marked learning effects on all nonwords that they could produce accurately, while adults’ performance improved only when challenged by the more complex nonword stimuli in the set. The findings point to a critical role for speech motor processes within models of nonword repetition and suggest that young adults, similar to children, show short‐ and longer‐term improvements in coordinative consistency with repeated production of complex nonwords. There is also a clear developmental change in nonword production performance, such that less complex novel sequences elicit changes in speech motor performance in children, but not in adults.     

Sex differences in language first appear in gesture

Children differ in how quickly they reach linguistic milestones. Boys typically produce their first multi‐word sentences later than girls do. We ask here whether there are sex differences in children’s gestures that precede, and presage, these sex differences in speech. To explore this question, we observed 22 girls and 18 boys every 4 months as they progressed from one‐word speech to multi‐word speech. We found that boys not only produced speech + speech (S+S) combinations (‘drink juice’) 3 months later than girls, but they also produced gesture + speech (G+S) combinations expressing the same types of semantic relations (‘eat’ + point at cookie) 3 months later than girls. Because G+S combinations are produced earlier than S+S combinations, children’s gestures provide the first sign that boys are likely to lag behind girls in the onset of sentence constructions.     

Online usage of theory of mind continues to develop in late adolescence

The development of theory of mind use was investigated by giving a computerized task to 177 female participants divided into five age groups: Child I (7.3–9.7 years); Child II (9.8–11.4); Adolescent I (11.5–13.9); Adolescent II (14.0–17.7); Adults (19.1–27.5). Participants viewed a set of shelves containing objects, which they were instructed to move by a ‘director’ who could see some but not all of the objects. Correct interpretation of critical instructions required participants to use the director’s perspective and only move objects that the director could see. In a control condition, participants were asked to ignore objects in slots with a grey background. Accuracy improved similarly in both conditions between Child I and Adolescent II. However, while performance of the Adolescent II and Adult groups did not differ in the control condition, the Adolescent II group made more errors than the adults in the experimental condition. These results suggest that theory of mind use improves between late adolescence and adulthood. Thus, while theory of mind tasks are passed by age 4, these data indicate that the interaction between theory of mind and executive functions continues to develop in late adolescence.     

Terror management among Taiwanese: Worldview defence or resigning to fate?

Terror management theory (TMT) proposes that people who are reminded of their mortality should be motivated to defend their cultural worldview. Studies 1 and 2 examined whether the TMT worldview defence‐buffering effect found in Western cultures could be generalized to Asians in Taiwan. No such effect was found in the present studies. This non‐significant result was robust when either a stronger distraction task was used (study 1) or when a subliminal manipulation of mortality salience was utilized (study 2). A meta‐analysis, including 24 TMT experiments in East Asia, was also conducted (study 3). The average effect size (d = 0.11, r = 0.055) of worldview defence among these experiments was not significantly different from zero. Study 4 found that mortality salience manipulation also did not change Taiwanese participants' view of reincarnation; however, it did make them more inclined to resign to fate, suggesting that they might be using this symbolic means to defend their anxiety of death. The issue of the generality of TMT to Asians was discussed.     

Three Reviews of For Life Abundant: Practical Theology,Theological Education,and Christian Ministry,edited by Dorothy C. Bass and Craig Dykstra, 2008

For Life Abundant, the fruit of sustained reflection among systematic theologians, practical theologians, and pastors, is an important new work that deserves attention. The volume provokes creative and critical thinking about practical theology. Its contributors conceptualize the field as a disciplined practice of imagination and skill residing at the confluence of Christian tradition and living ecclesial communities, and ask what such a construal of practical theology might mean for theological education. Given the significance of For Life Abundant, Teaching Theology and Religion asked three theological educators who are located in different regions, types of institutions, and fields, to review and respond to it. Rebecca Slough describes the volume's central questions and organization, and considers how it might contribute to the deliberations of a seminary faculty regarding a school's curriculum. Martha Stortz shows how the process and structure of For Life Abundant are in themselves illustrative of the conceptualization of practical theology for which it argues. Kwok Pui‐lan notes the volumes strengths and goes on to probe its lacunae, particularly with regard to global, gender, and multi‐cultural considerations relevant to a robust construal of pastoral theology in our time. While the authors of these three reviews and responses to the volume did not interact as they wrote them, together they comprise a conversation that should be on‐going. TTR invites further responses to the volume.     

Facial perception of conspecifics: chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) preferentially attend to proper orientation and open eyes

This paper reports on the use of an eye-tracking technique to examine how chimpanzees look at facial photographs of conspecifics. Six chimpanzees viewed a sequence of pictures presented on a monitor while their eye movements were measured by an eye tracker. The pictures presented conspecific faces with open or closed eyes in an upright or inverted orientation in a frame. The results demonstrated that chimpanzees looked at the eyes, nose, and mouth more frequently than would be expected on the basis of random scanning of faces. More specifically, they looked at the eyes longer than they looked at the nose and mouth when photographs of upright faces with open eyes were presented, suggesting that particular attention to the eyes represents a spontaneous face-scanning strategy shared among monkeys, apes, and humans. In contrast to the results obtained for upright faces with open eyes, the viewing times for the eyes, nose, and mouth of inverted faces with open eyes did not differ from one another. The viewing times for the eyes, nose, and mouth of faces with closed eyes did not differ when faces with closed eyes were presented in either an upright or inverted orientation. These results suggest the possibility that open eyes play an important role in the configural processing of faces and that chimpanzees perceive and process open and closed eyes differently.