Social learning in Cartilaginous fish (stingrays Potamotrygon falkneri)

Social learning is considered one of the hallmarks of cognition. Observers learn from demonstrators that a particular behavior pattern leads to a specific consequence or outcome, which may be either positive or negative. In the last few years, social learning has been studied in a variety of taxa including birds and bony fish. To date, there are few studies demonstrating learning processes in cartilaginous fish. Our study shows that the cartilaginous fish freshwater stingrays (Potamotrygon falkneri) are capable of social learning and isolates the processes involved. Using a task that required animals to learn to remove a food reward from a tube, we found that observers needed significantly (P < 0.01) fewer trials to learn to extract the reward than demonstrators. Furthermore, observers immediately showed a significantly (P < 0.05) higher frequency of the most efficient “suck and undulation” strategy exhibited by the experienced demonstrators, suggesting imitation. Shedding light on social learning processes in cartilaginous fish advances the systematic comparison of cognition between aquatic and terrestrial vertebrates and helps unravel the evolutionary origins of social cognition.     

Are all experiences of fit created equal? Two paths to persuasion

Regulatory fit influences the effectiveness of persuasion through two paths: 1) a “feeling right” as “feeling good about the target” effect where feeling right is a positive feeling that transfers positivity directly to the target, similar to “feelings as information” or fluency effects, and 2) a “feeling right” as “feeling confident about the evaluation” effect where feeling right is feeling confident about one's evaluative judgments of the target that increases reliance on those evaluations. We propose that the involvement with an attitude-related issue in a persuasion message is one key factor that determines when each effect will occur. Five studies demonstrate that under high involvement, fit increased reliance on evaluative reactions to the target, making a target of a positive advocacy message evaluated as more positive and a target of a negative advocacy message evaluated as more negative; and under low involvement, fit increased the positivity of feelings toward the target regardless of the valence of the message advocacy, making the evaluation of the target more positive for either a positive or negative advocacy message.     

The Effect of Genetic Counseling on Knowledge and Perceptions Regarding Risks for Breast Cancer

In 1994, a clinic for cancer risk counseling was opened at Hadassah University Hospital in Jerusalem. Most of the counselees have been women who had breast cancer and/or a relative with breast cancer. In order to evaluate the effect of this counseling on women's knowledge and perceptions regarding the risks for breast cancer, a questionnaire was given before and after the counseling session to 60 healthy women who came to the clinic because they have relatives with breast cancer. According to the genetic counselors' estimations, most of these women had a significantly increased risk (compared to the general population) of developing cancer. Before counseling, the women overestimated the population risk for breast cancer, the contribution of heredity to morbidity of cancer, and their own risks to get cancer. After counseling session, they gave reduced estimates, closer to the real ones. The subjective perceptions regarding these risks were reduced after counseling, except for the perceptions regarding their relativerisks which have not changed after the counseling. About 90% of the women who came to the clinic wanted to be tested for genetic predisposition to cancer. For most of these women, the expectations that the test can rule out a genetic predisposition to cancer became more realistic after the counseling. The option to first test an affected relative was offered to all families, and a test was actually conducted in 75% of the families.     

Motivated emotion and the rally around the flag effect: liberals are motivated to feel collective angst (like conservatives) when faced with existential threat

A careful look at societies facing threat reveals a unique phenomenon in which liberals and conservatives react emotionally and attitudinally in a similar manner, rallying around the conservative flag. Previous research suggests that this rally effect is the result of liberals shifting in their attitudes and emotional responses toward the conservative end. Whereas theories of motivated social cognition provide a motivation-based account of cognitive processes (i.e. attitude shift), it remains unclear whether emotional shifts are, in fact, also a motivation-based process. Herein, we propose that under threat, liberals are motivated to feel existential concern about their group’s future vitality (i.e. collective angst) to the same extent as conservatives, because this group-based emotion elicits support for ingroup protective action. Within the context of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, we tested and found support for this hypothesis both inside (Study 1) and outside (Study 2) the laboratory. We did so using a behavioural index of motivation to experience collective angst. We discuss the implications of our findings for understanding motivated emotion regulation in the context of intergroup threat.     

Psychological situations illuminate the meaning of human behavior: Recent advances and application to social influence processes

Psychologists have long sought to understand how people experience, think, and communicate about situations. Psychology's protracted journey toward understanding psychological situations recently took a momentous turn toward more rigorous conceptualization and measurement of situational characteristics along multiple dimensions. We provide a selective review of recent developments in research on psychological situations and highlight the value that these recent contributions deliver for researchers interested in human cognition, emotion, and behavior. We illustrate this value with an application of insights and instruments from the CAPTION and DIAMONDS models to social influence processes in groups. Specifically, we demonstrate how utilizing validated multidimensional scales of situational characteristics can illuminate the psychological meaning of brokering behaviors. We conclude by discussing current challenges and promising future directions for research on psychological situations.     

The relationship between beliefs about emotions and quality of life in irritable bowel syndrome

Suppression of undesirable emotions, as well as beliefs about the unacceptability of experiencing and expressing emotions, have both been shown to be related to poorer health-related outcomes in several clinical groups. Potential models through which these variables relate have yet to be tested in those with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and are therefore examined in the current article. Online questionnaires were administered to people with IBS (n = 84) to test a mediation model in which beliefs about the unacceptability of emotions are associated with greater emotional suppression, which in turn relates to increased affective distress and consequently poorer quality of life. An alternate model to test the direction of effect along with two further models using support-seeking as mediators of the same predictor and outcome were also tested. Emotional suppression and affective distress (in that particular order) mediate the relationship between beliefs about emotions and quality of life IBS. The models using support-seeking as mediators of the relationship between beliefs about emotions and the two outcomes were not supported. These findings suggest a role for emotional processing in medically unexplained symptoms and imply the need to address such beliefs about emotions in psychological therapies.     

Changes with Age in Subjective Well-Being Through the Adolescent Years: Differences by Gender

A one-year follow up study was conducted on a sample of 940 Spanish adolescents aged mostly from 10 to 15 in order to explore the extent to which their subjective well-being (SWB) changes from one year to the next, and whether these changes are the same for both genders regardless of the instrument used to measure SWB. Participants responded to the same four SWB scales twice, with an interval of a year in between. A decrease in the levels of SWB is identified from the years 11–12 onwards, the decrease in girls being more marked. Multiple-item, domain-based scales (Brief Multidimensional Student’s Life Satisfaction Scale and Personal Well-Being Index) are more sensitive than single-item scales (Overall Life Satisfaction and Happiness Taking into Account Overall Life) in detecting this decrease. Implications for the study of SWB are discussed from a developmental perspective.     

Bilinguals’ twisted tongues: Frequency lag or interference?

Though bilinguals know many more words than monolinguals, within each language bilinguals exhibit some processing disadvantages, extending to sublexical processes specifying the sound structure of words (Gollan & Goldrick, Cognition, 125(3), 491–497, 2012). This study investigated the source of this bilingual disadvantage. Spanish–English bilinguals, Mandarin–English bilinguals, and English monolinguals repeated tongue twisters composed of English nonwords. Twister materials were made up of sound sequences that are unique to the English language (nonoverlapping) or sound sequences that are highly similar—yet phonetically distinct—in the two languages for the bilingual groups (overlapping). If bilingual disadvantages in tongue-twister production result from competition between phonetic representations in their two languages, bilinguals should have more difficulty selecting an intended target when similar sounds are activated in the overlapping sound sequences. Alternatively, if bilingual disadvantages reflect the relatively reduced frequency of use of sound sequences, bilinguals should have greater difficulty in the nonoverlapping condition (as the elements of such sound sequences are limited to a single language). Consistent with the frequency-lag account, but not the competition account, both Spanish–English and Mandarin–English bilinguals were disadvantaged in tongue-twister production only when producing twisters with nonoverlapping sound sequences. Thus, the bilingual disadvantage in tongue-twister production likely reflects reduced frequency of use of sound sequences specific to each language.