RETRACTED ARTICLE: Happiness as alchemy: Positive mood leads to self-serving responses to social comparisons

People in a positive mood process information in ways that reinforce and maintain this positive mood. The current studies examine how positive mood influences responses to social comparisons and demonstrates that people in a positive mood interpret ambiguous information about comparison others in self-benefitting ways. Specifically, four experiments demonstrate that compared to negative mood or neutral mood participants, participants in a positive mood engage in effortful re-interpretations of ambiguously similar comparison targets so that they may assimilate to upward comparison targets and contrast from downward comparison targets.     

Power and behavioral approach orientation in existing power relations and the mediating effect of income

A large number of authors have observed that the experience of power increases behavioral approach tendencies. There are however some important unresolved problems. Predominantly, the literature relies on lab manipulations, priming, and student populations. This has resulted in low face validity. Also, it is unclear what process underlies this effect. A large‐scale survey (N = 3082) reliably measures power among real low‐ and high‐power employees in existing organizations and finds strong support for the effect of power on behavioral approach. Consistent with expectations, this effect is mediated by increased access to resources. We also discuss findings that suggest the shape of this power‐approach effect might be quadratic. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The flexible unconscious: Investigating the judgmental impact of varieties of unaware perception

Two studies were conducted to investigate the notion that stimulus exposure time, target category, and mindset orientation can influence the impact of subliminally presented emotion faces on judgments of neutral targets. Specifically, Study 1 showed that when the stimulus and target were from different categories, assimilative judgments occurred at both short and long (but still subliminal) stimulus exposure times. Yet, when the stimulus and target were from the same category, assimilation occurred at short exposure times, and contrast occurred at long exposure times. Findings from Study 2 show that this effect is moderated by one’s goal during processing. That is, when motivated to see a specific type of stimulus, contrast occurred regardless of stimulus exposure time; however, when one is not poised to see specific stimuli, assimilation occurred at short exposure times and contrast occurred at long exposure times. These findings support the notion that unconscious perception is flexible and goal contingent.     

Relevant Restricted Quantification

The paper reviews a number of approaches for handling restricted quantification in relevant logic, and proposes a novel one. This proceeds by introducing a novel kind of enthymematic conditional.     

Sneaking in through the back door: How category-based stereotype suppression leads to rebound in feature-based effects

Given the dramatic shifts in societal norms to curb overt stereotyping and prejudice, these biases may leak out in more subtle ways than were apparent in the past. Accordingly, we examined how the suppression of stereotypes might affect post-suppression category-based stereotyping and the more subtle feature-based stereotyping. In support of our proposition, participants in the suppression condition used more feature-based, but less category-based stereotypes in their post-suppression task than participants in the control condition. Furthermore, a relation between post-suppression category-based and feature-based stereotyping existed in the suppression condition such that decreases in category-based stereotyping were associated with increases in feature-based stereotyping. Findings as a whole suggest that norms against the expression of stereotypic biases may ironically lead people to be more vulnerable to biases as a function of within-category features.     

Moods as spotlights: the influence of mood on accessibility effects

Three studies explore the manner in which one's mood may affect the use and impact of accessible information on judgments. Specifically, the authors demonstrated that positive and negative moods differentially influence the direction of accessibility effects (assimilation, contrast) by determining whether abstract traits or concrete actor-trait links are primed. Study 1 investigated the impact of positive versus negative mood on the judgmental impact of trait-implying behaviors and found that positive moods lead to assimilation and negative moods to contrast. In Study 2, this effect was replicated in a subliminal priming paradigm. In Study 3, it was demonstrated that the type of information activated by trait-implying behaviors is indeed mood dependent, such that abstract trait information is activated in a positive mood, whereas specific actor-trait links are activated in a negative mood.