Connectionist simulation of attitude learning: asymmetries in the acquisition of positive and negative evaluations

Connectionist computer simulation was employed to explore the notion that, if attitudes guide approach and avoidance behaviors, false negative beliefs are likely to remain uncorrected for longer than false positive beliefs. In Study 1, the authors trained a three-layer neural network to discriminate "good" and "bad" inputs distributed across a two-dimensional space. "Full feedback" training, whereby connection weights were modified to reduce error after every trial, resulted in perfect discrimination. "Contingent feedback," whereby connection weights were only updated following outputs representing approach behavior, led to several false negative errors (good inputs misclassified as bad). In Study 2, the network was redesigned to distinguish a system for learning evaluations from a mechanism for selecting actions. Biasing action selection toward approach eliminated the asymmetry between learning of good and bad inputs under contingent feedback. Implications for various attitudinal phenomena and biases in social cognition are discussed.     

Interview etiquette and hiring outcomes

Despite the presumed importance of interview etiquette, research examining its relationship with hiring outcomes has been relatively limited. As a step toward validating its importance, two studies were conducted to assess the influence of interview etiquette on hiring outcomes relative to other predictors. In the first study, the impact of interview etiquette was demonstrated to be similar to that of interview answer quality in influencing recruiters’ perceptions of employment suitability. Moreover, a significant interaction was found, whereby interview etiquette mattered more when interview answer quality was also high. In the second study, interview etiquette was demonstrated to explain incremental variance in job offers beyond other impression management strategies (i.e., ingratiation and self-promotion) and biographical data (i.e., work experience, academic achievement, and extracurricular involvement). Overall, these findings provide evidence that interview etiquette bears a significant relationship with hiring outcomes, signaling its value beyond other credentials and impression management tactics.     

Parent–child relationships and offspring’s positive mental wellbeing from adolescence to early older age

We examined parent-child relationship quality and positive mental well-being using Medical Research Council National Survey of Health and Development data. Well-being was measured at ages 13–15 (teacher-rated happiness), 36 (life satisfaction), 43 (satisfaction with home and family life) and 60–64 years (Diener Satisfaction With Life scale and Warwick Edinburgh Mental Well-being scale). The Parental Bonding Instrument captured perceived care and control from the father and mother to age 16, recalled by study members at age 43. Greater well-being was seen for offspring with higher combined parental care and lower combined parental psychological control (p < 0.05 at all ages). Controlling for maternal care and paternal and maternal behavioural and psychological control, childhood social class, parental separation, mother’s neuroticism and study member’s personality, higher well-being was consistently related to paternal care. This suggests that both mother–child and father–child relationships may have short and long-term consequences for positive mental well-being.     

Humility attenuates negative attitudes and behaviors toward religious out-group members

Humility is marked by the regulation of selfish impulses for the sake of others, including holding a modest view of one’s beliefs (and their relative strengths and weaknesses). In three studies, we evaluated the extent to which humility attenuates negative attitudes, behavioral intentions, and behaviors toward religious out-group members. In Study 1 (N = 159), humility regarding religious beliefs was associated with positive attitudes toward religiously different individuals. In Study 2 (N = 149), relational and intellectual humility were associated with less aggressive behavioral intentions in a hypothetical situation in which their cherished beliefs were criticized. In Study 3 (N = 62), participants implicitly primed with humility administered significantly less hot sauce (a behavioral measure of aggression) to a religious out-group member who criticized their cherished views relative to participants in the neutral prime condition. We highlight the importance of humility in promoting positive attitudes and behaviors toward religious out-group members.     

Valence specific laterality effects in free viewing conditions: the role of expectancy and gender of image

Recent research has looked at whether the expectancy of an emotion can account for subsequent valence specific laterality effects of prosodic emotion, though no research has examined this effect for facial emotion. In the study here (n=58), we investigated this issue using two tasks; an emotional face perception task and a novel word task that involved categorising positive and negative words. In the face perception task a valence specific laterality effect was found for surprise (positive) and anger (negative) faces in the control but not expectancy condition. Interestingly, lateralisation differed for face gender, revealing a left hemisphere advantage for male faces and a right hemisphere advantage for female faces. In the word task, an affective priming effect was found, with higher accuracy when valence of picture prime and word target were congruent. Target words were also responded to faster when presented to the LVF versus RVF in the expectancy but not control condition. These findings suggest that expecting an emotion influences laterality processing but that this differs in terms of the perceptual/experience dimension of the task. Further, that hemispheric processing of emotional expressions appear to differ in the gender of the image.     

Choice Models of Deterrence: Another Look

Choice models of deterrence emphasize the importance of including rewards and costs for both crime and noncrime in capturing the process whereby criminal decisions are made. A review of the literature indicates that these models also include probabilities as well as magnitudes for both rewards and costs of crime, but exclude probabilities for law-abiding behavior, treating rewards for noncrime as opportunity costs while eschewing their chance of occurrence. Here we provide experimental data comparing the explanatory power of 2 choice models, one that includes probabilities for rewards and costs for noncrime and another that omits these probabilities altogether. Findings show that the more inclusive model explains approximately twice as much variation in the dependent variable, thereby providing additional support for earlier findings.