A warning about statistical significance tests performed on large samples of nonindependent observations

When sample observations are not independent, the variance estimate in the denominator of the Student t statistic is altered, inflating the value of the test statistic and resulting in far too many Type I errors. Furthermore, how much the Type I error probability exceeds the nominal significance level is an increasing function of sample size. If N is quite large, in the range of 100 to 200 or larger, small apparently inconsequential correlations that are unknown to a researcher, such as .01 or .02, can have substantial effects and lead to false reports of statistical significance when effect size is zero.     

Gender Differences in Virtual Negotiation: Theory and Research

Social roles create conflicting behavioral expectations for female negotiators; however, virtual negotiations reduce social pressures. This paper reviews theoretical explanations on why men and women might differ in negotiations that occur through email, telephone, or video. Forty-three negotiation studies comparing face-to-face and virtual negotiations were examined for gender differences. All studies were reported in English but not limited to US participants. While many reports omitted gender information, meta-analytic findings supported the prediction that women would be more hostile in virtual compared to face-to-face negotiations, as well as finding no hostility difference for men between virtual and face-to-face negotiations. While negotiators overall were more successful face-to-face than virtually, results separated by gender did not find this effect.     

Expectation for Mood Enhancement as a Result of Helping: The Effects of Gender and Compassionate Love

Several theoretical perspectives in the social psychology literature on helping suggest that people forecast the benefit that they will receive as a result of helping others, and help only if they determine that it is rewarding to do so. One type of self-benefit that can be received from helping is an enhancement of positive mood. The major hypotheses of the present study were: (1) women, to a greater degree than men, would expect to experience enhanced positive mood as a consequence of both helping and receiving help in a relational context; and (2) those who are high in compassionate love for others would expect to experience enhanced positive mood from giving and receiving help relative to those who are lower on compassionate love. Support was found for both hypotheses. In addition, women were more likely than men to rate certain helping behaviors in a relational context (e.g., providing verbal support) as good examples of “compassionate love acts.” The meaning of the results with respect to altruism and for gender differences in helping behavior is discussed.     

Explanatory fictions—for real?

In this article I assess Alisa Bokulich’s idea that explanatory model fictions can be genuinely explanatory. I draw attention to a tension in her account between the claim that model fictions are explanatorily autonomous, and the demand that model fictions be justified in order for them to be genuinely explanatory. I also explore the consequences that arise from Bokulich’s use of Woodward’s account of counterfactual explanation and her abandonment of Woodward’s notion of an intervention. As it stands, Bokulich’s account must be deemed unworkable.     

Understanding the Dark Side of Costly Punishment: The Impact of Individual Differences in Everyday Sadism and Existential Threat

In public goods situations, a specific destructive behaviour reliably emerges when individuals face the possibility of costly punishing others: antisocial punishment, that is, costly punishing cooperative individuals. So far, however, little is known about the individual differences and situational factors that are associated with the dark side of costly punishment. This research deals with this shortcoming. We argue that antisocial punishment reflects the basic characteristics of sadism, namely, aggressive behaviour to dominate and to harm other individuals. We further argue that antisocial punishment may reflect a type of behaviour that allows for the maintenance of self‐esteem (through aggressively dominating others). Therefore, we expect that individuals who report a disposition for everyday sadism are particularly likely to engage in antisocial punishment when their self has been threatened (by thinking about one's own death). In a study (N = 99), we found empirical support for this assumption. The present research contributes to a better understanding of antisocial punishment and suggests that sadistic tendencies play a crucial role, especially when the self is (existentially) threatened. Copyright © 2015 European Association of Personality Psychology     

The heavy weight of death: how anti‐fat bias is affected by weight‐based group membership and existential threat

Anti‐fat bias is marked by a devaluation of overweight people compared with non‐overweight persons. Even though belonging to the same group, research on social identity theory (SIT) indicates that overweight people also devaluate overweight others. Merging insights from research on anti‐fat bias, SIT, and terror management theory, our study (n = 101) provides new insights on motivational aspects of anti‐fat bias by investigating the effects of existential threat on the evaluation of non‐overweight and overweight people. Results revealed that participants in the existential threat condition displayed in‐group bias: Participants perceiving themselves as non‐overweight showed more pronounced anti‐fat bias compared with participants in the non‐death threat condition. In contrast, participants perceiving themselves as overweight demonstrated less anti‐fat bias than controls.     

Moral Responsibility and the Moral Community: Is Moral Responsibility Essentially Interpersonal?

Many philosophers endorse the idea that there can be no moral responsibility without a moral community and thus hold that such responsibility is essentially interpersonal. In this paper, various interpretations of this idea are distinguished, and it is argued that no interpretation of it captures a significant truth. The popular view that moral responsibility consists in answerability is discussed and dismissed. The even more popular view that such responsibility consists in susceptibility to the reactive attitudes is also discussed, and it is argued that this view at best supports only an etiolated interpretation of the idea that moral responsibility is essentially interpersonal.