Evidence for an equality heuristic in social decision making

Subjects read a story in which five business partners needed to allocate the profits and expenses of the partnership in a fair and reasonable manner. Each of the partners worked independently and produced different gross incomes between $140 and $285. The gross incomes were to be divided into expenses and profits. Subjects were asked to fill in fair allocations in an accounting ledger. Three factors were manipulated: the target of the allocation task (either the expenses or the profits), the causal attributions for the differences in gross incomes (internal, external, or both), and whether the subjects were asked to fill in both columns (expenses and profits) or just one.

The results supported the hypothesis that the subjects heuristically used equality to make their allocations. Over 70% of the subjects allocated at least one column equally (although the frequency of equality use varied as a function of both the target of the allocation and the attribution given). Subjects allocated the target columns equally more often than non-target columns, even though equality for one column implied inequality for the other. The use of equality was also sensitive to the attribution given for the performance differences. Differences due to external factors, i.e., the number of people showing up at the market, produced the most equal allocations of profits (with unequal expenses) while the internal attribution produced the highest proportion of equal expense allocations (with unequal profits).     

Additional evidence for veridicality of perceptions based on physiognomic cues.

This study was designed to determine whether veridical interpersonal perceptions can be found on the basis of physiognomic cues. 21 male and female college students attempted to identify the correct social category [honor student, active or inactive in extracurricular events, and beauty queen (for female stimulus persons) or athlete (for male stimulus persons)] of 44 photographed male and female stimulus persons. Results demonstrated considerable veridicality, especially by male judges and of stimulus persons occupying categories which imply physical attributes.     

Comments on Richard Jeffrey

In this commentary, after first summarizing the three major theses of Jeffrey's paper ‘Probability and Falsification: Critique of the Popper Program’, and sketching out what I take to be his central argument, I criticize Jeffrey on two grounds. The first is that he has failed to explain why his version of Bayesianism provides us with better theories upon which to make decisions; the second is that he has offered a theory about decision-making that by-passes the important question: How can we make more rational decisions?     

A proposal for handling missing data

A method for dealing with the problem of missing observations in multivariate data is developed and evaluated. The method uses a transformation of the principal components of the data to estimate missing entries. The properties of this method and four alternative methods are investigated by means of a Monte Carlo study of 42 computer-generated data matrices. The methods are compared with respect to their ability to predict correlation matrices as well as missing entries. The results indicate that whenever there exists modest intercorrelations among the variables (i.e., average off diagonal correlation above .2) the proposed method is at least as good as the best alternative (a regression method) while being considerably faster and simpler computationally. Models for determining the best alternative based upon easily calculated characteristics of the matrix are given. The generality of these models is demonstrated using the previously published results of Timm.     

A simple device for the preparation of exactly aligned dichotic tapes

A system is described involving three tape recorders and a control device whereby dichotic tapes can be prepared with onset alignment accurate to a few milliseconds, or to a measured asynchrony if required. No modifications of any sort are necessary for the three tape recorders. The two channels are separately recorded in the speaker’s own time, the only requirement being that the separate words be spoken with an interword interval of 350 msec or more, to provide sufficient time for starting and stopping the system. A tone burst is placed directly on tape on another channel ahead of each word, the latter being delayed by recording in tandem through two tape recorders. The first recorder is set to the delay (echo, NAB) facility, while the tone is recorded directly on the second. Subsequently, when this is done for each item on the two speech channels, the device, described below. utilizes the tone bursts to align the two input recorders. It then rerecords each pair of words on to the third (output or dichotic) machine, to the desired synchrony/asynchrony, and interitem interval. The system can be left to align the two channels automatically. A maximum repetition rate of two dichotic pairs every 1.3 sec can be achieved with Revox A77 tape recorders.     

Testing the attentional model of brightness contrast with relative area and figure-ground organization unconfounded

Using gray-white metric patterns, for which figure-ground relationships had been previously determined, several features of an attentional theory of brightness contrast were investigated. Experiment I, involving three subjects and the method of constant stimuli, showed that ground, the unattended area, could be reliably perceived as brighter; responses were affected by both the type of pattern and level of contrast ratio. Experiment II, involving 40 subjects and the method of magnitude estimation, used metric patterns for which attentional factors were not confounded with relative area. The results supported the first study and further indicated the primary involvement of relative area rather than focus of attention in brightness contrast.

     

Visual search under conditions of very rapid sequential Input rates

The purposes of the present experiment were to provide information on rate of information processing in visual perception and to determine the degree to which the “sequential blanking” effect found by Mayzner. Tresselt, and Cohen (1966) constituted a limitation on rapid sequential input rates. A 10-channel tachisto scope was employed that permitted controlled durations of each of the 10 channels and the 9 inter channel intervals. The S’s task was one of visual search or detection in which he searched for a target letter among noise letters. A temporal interval forced-choice procedure was used. In addition to varying the rate at which letters were sequentially presented, various irregular temporal spatial orders of presentation of the letter sequences were employed and the direction and orientation of the display in the visual field was varied as was also the spacing between adjacent stimuli. No evidence of “sequential blanking” was found either in terms of the detection criterion or in the Ss’ phenomenal reports. Detection performance was as good at a rate of 2 1/2 msec per letter as it was at a rate of 30 msec per letter.     

The Greatest Priority for Genetic Counseling: Effectively Meeting Our Clients’ Needs 2014 NSGC Natalie Weissberger Paul National Achievement Award

Receipt of the 2014 Natalie Weissberger Paul (NWP) National Achievement Award was a highlight of my career. Thank you to all who nominated me for this prestigious NSGC recognition. I am humbled to join past NWP award winners many of whom are admired mentors, treasured colleagues and friends. I would like to express what a privilege it is to honor Natalie Weissberger Paul for whom this award is named. Twenty-nine years ago I co-edited a volume of the Birth Defects Original Article Series with Natalie summarizing a conference co-funded by the March of Dimes and NSGC (Biesecker et al., 1987). Natalie demonstrated her devotion to children with special needs through her work at the March of Dimes. As such I believe she would concur with the focus of my remarks on the partners in our work: our clients.     

Cultural aspects of mental health and mental health service delivery with a focus on Nigeria within a global community

With an endless range of subgroups and individual variations, culture bears upon what all people bring to the clinical setting. Culture could account for health-seeking behaviour, type of services and support system and variations in how people communicate their health concerns. Culture may underlie presentation of sets of symptoms that are peculiar to certain societies – culture-bound syndromes. Culture also influences the meanings that people impart to their illness and also stigma associated with such illnesses. Culture must be viewed from the patients, clinicians and health system dimensions. Changes in mental health service delivery in last few decades have yielded culturally competent mental health services. The aim of this paper was to discuss culture and mental health with a focus on Nigeria and from a global perspective.