Better than average and better with time: relative evaluations of self and others in the past,present, and future

Evaluations of self and others in the past, present, and future were examined by asking 385 students to rate themselves or an acquaintance relative to their peers on a number of personality traits. We predicted, and found, evidence for self‐enhancement, as most participants regarded themselves superior to ‘most others’ at all points in time. We also found a better than average improvement effect, as participants considered themselves more superior now, than they were in the past, and expected to become even more superior in the future. Expected improvement in the future was larger than improvement over an equal span of time in the past. It is suggested that favorable self‐constructions are possible to the extent that the past and the future are perceived as ambiguous. Singular acquaintances were also rated better than most others, and were believed to improve over time, but their rate of improvement in the future was smaller than the expected improvement for oneself. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Single‐limit interval estimates as reference points

People often describe uncertain quantities by suggesting a lower or upper limit of an uncertainty interval, rather than the complete range. Five studies are reported, which demonstrate how interval limits function as provisional reference points (PRP), conferring evaluative meanings to the target objects, by suggesting downward or upward comparisons. Thus, a price above X appears expensive, whereas a price below Y appears cheap, even when Y > X. This can give rise to framing effects: a purchase can appear to be recommended or advised against, and a seller can appear as optimistic or pessimistic, and, more generally, an estimate can indicate abundance or scarcity, depending upon which boundary (upper or lower) that is selected. Furthermore, inclusive lower bounds (minimum, at least) and upper bounds (maximum, at most) differ from exclusive lower (more than, above) and upper bounds (less than, below), by suggesting possible (likely) rather than implausible (unlikely) values. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Conditioning and post-hospital generalization of nondelusional responses in a chronic psychotic patient

An operant conditioning approach was successful in getting a chronic psychotic patient to give factual answers to direct questions that had previously elicited only delusional responses. Multiple baseline and reversal controls established that the changes were due to the experimental procedure. The subject was a female patient classified as paranoid schizophrenic who had persisted in giving bizarre responses to direct questions regarding her identity, age, and personal history during 26 yr of hospitalization. She was discharged after factual answers to these questions had been obtained, but operant conditioning trials were continued in the community to promote generalization. Two follow-up interviews were conducted 36 and 52 days after discharge to evaluate generalization. No generalization was found in the first interview, but the second gave evidence of some generalization.     

Societal risks as seen by a Norwegian public

In two studies, questionnaires originally developed to study risk perception in the United States were administered to Norwegian students. Level of perceived risk in Norway was clearly below American scores for most hazards, but slightly above what has been found in a parallel Hungarian study. Norwegians were more concerned than both Hungarians and Americans about narcotics, but less than Americans about chemicals used in food and agriculture, and less than Hungarians about a number of common, everyday hazards. When ratings on nine risk characteristics were factor analyzed, a two dimensional solution was found with Fatal risk and Involuntary risk as the two most important dimensions. Ratings of general death risk, harm risk, and death risk for those exposed were highly correlated, but appeared to be unrelated to the number of people believed to be exposed to the hazard.     

Surprises: low probabilities or high contrasts?

Outcome expectations can be expressed prospectively in terms of probability estimates, and retrospectively in terms of surprise. Surprise ratings and probability estimates differ, however, in some important ways. Surprises are generally created by low-probability outcomes, yet, as shown by several experiments, not all low-probability outcomes are equally surprising. To account for surprise, we propose a contrast hypothesis according to which the level of surprise associated with an outcome is mainly determined by the extent to which it contrasts with the default, expected alternative. Three ways by which contrasts can be established are explored: contrasts due to relative probabilities, where the obtained outcome is less likely than a default alternative; contrasts formed by novelty and change, where a contrast exists between the obtained outcome and the individual's previous experience; and contrasts due to the perceptual or conceptual distance between the expected and the obtained. In all these cases, greater contrast was accompanied by higher ratings of surprise.     

One hundred years of laws in psychology

Mainstream psychology in the 20th century has been conceived as a nomothetic science, but few psychological "laws" have been proposed. A PsycLit search of journal abstracts from 1900 to 1999 yielded a total of 3,093 "law" citations, or 22 per 10,000 entries, with two psychophysical laws (Weber's law and Stevens's power law) and two learning laws (Herrnstein's matching law and Thorndike's law of effect) as the most frequently cited. The number of law citations has been decreasing throughout the century, to 10 per 10,000 entries in the last decade, with few references to laws of recent origin. This could be the result of increasing doubts about the lawfulness of psychological processes coupled with a general preference for less ambitious terms (such as effects, principles, models, or functions).     

Better Safe than Sorry: Risking Irresponsibility by Seeking Uncertainty

Research findings differ as to whether choosing a risky option is an efficient strategy for decision makers seeking to avoid responsibility for potential failures. A risky choice may leave the final outcome to chance factors, but the decision maker can still be held responsible for choosing risk. Further, it is unclear whether a risky choice is a responsible choice. The present article investigates the putative relationship between risk‐taking and responsibility by drawing a distinction between being responsible for the outcome (R1) versus acting responsibly (R2). Four experiments were performed, in which participants were presented with scenarios describing decision makers facing a choice between a risky (uncertain) option and a riskless (certain) option, framed in terms of losses or equivalent gains. The results showed that decision makers who chose the risky alternative were judged to have acted in a less responsible manner (R2), while still being held equally responsible for the outcome (R1), unless they were ignorant of the risks involved. Choosing risk did not absolve decision makers from blame, despite being less causal and less in control than those who chose the riskless option. Risky decision makers were also judged to be more personally involved. The dissociation between R1 and R2 ratings confirms earlier findings and serves to clarify an alleged relationship between risky choices and responsibility aversion. Framing effects for own choices were found in both scenarios. In contrast, responsibility ratings were only slightly affected by frame. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.