The dimensionality of attributions of causality and responsibility for an accident

Effects of the dimensionality of responsibility and causality attributions were investigated. An accident was described. Subjects cued to respond with causality attributions increased their attributions with event severity. Subjects cued to respond with moral responsibility attributions decreased attributional levels with increasing severity. Assignments of guilt varied specifically with the cued attributional concept.     

The effects of specifying job requirements and using explicit warnings to decrease sex discrimination in employment interviews

To determine the relative effectiveness of instructions designed to reduce sex discrimination in employment interviews, 96 students rated resumes for both a male and a female applicant. In one instructional condition subjects were told the specific requirements necessary for success on the job. In a second condition subjects were warned that it was illegal to discriminate on the applicant's sex. A third condition received both instructions, and a fourth received neither. Results revealed a series of interactions suggesting that the use of legal warning alone tended to increase the ratings of male applicants in some cases and influenced how male evaluators rated all applicants in other cases. The major implications were that legal warnings may actually bias ratings in favor of male applicants and may occasionally lead male evaluators to make lenient ratings. The specification of job requirements was suggested as a viable method of reducing discrimination.This work was supported in part by funds from the Foundation of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and from the State of North Carolina. The author wishes to thank P. S. Siegfried, J. Thomas Puglisi, and an anonymous reviewer for their comments and revisions of an earlier draft.     

When a grandiose self-image is threatened: narcissism and self-concept clarity as predictors of negative emotions and aggression following ego-threat

Two studies examined the relation between narcissism, self-concept clarity, negative emotions, and aggression based on theoretical assumptions proposed by Baumeister, Smart, and Boden (1996). Narcissism and self-concept clarity were examined as predictors for anger, depression, and verbal aggression following ego-threat, which was operationalized by a bogus performance feedback on an intelligence test. The second study also examined the mediating effects of participants' negative emotions to provide an additional explanation for the aggressive reactions after failure. As expected, narcissism and self-concept clarity were significant predictors of negative emotions and aggression after failure. In accordance with our hypothesis, high narcissists with low self-concept clarity reacted with anger and aggression after failure, whereas less narcissistic individuals with high self-concept clarity showed feelings of depression and no aggression. The results also indicated that aggression was always directed toward the source of the ego-threatening feedback. Additionally, anger and depression could predict the aggressive response after failure but they did not mediate the relation between narcissism, self-concept clarity, performance feedback, and aggression.     

Motivational reserve: motivation-related occupational abilities and risk of mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer disease

Midlife motivational abilities, that is, skills to initiate and persevere in the implementation of goals, have been related to mental and physical health, but their association with risk of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer's disease (AD) has not yet been directly investigated. This relation was examined with data from the German Study on Ageing, Cognition, and Dementia in Primary Care Patients (AgeCoDe). A total of 3,327 nondemented participants (50.3% of a randomly selected sample) aged 75-89 years were recruited in primary care and followed up twice (after 1.5 and 3 years). Motivation-related occupational abilities were estimated on the basis of the main occupation (assessed at follow-up II) using the Occupational Information Network (O* NET) database, which provides detailed information on worker characteristics and abilities. Cox proportional hazards models were used to evaluate the relative risk of developing MCI and AD in relation to motivation-related occupational abilities, adjusting for various covariates. Over the 3 years of follow-up, 15.2% participants developed MCI and 3.0% developed AD. In a fully adjusted model, motivation-related occupational abilities were found to be associated with a reduced risk of MCI (HR: 0.77; 95% CI: 0.64-0.92). Motivation-related occupational abilities were associated with reduced risk of AD in ApoE ε4 carriers (HR: 0.48; CI: 0.25-0.91), but not in noncarriers (HR: 0.99; CI: 0.65-1.53). These results suggest that midlife motivational abilities are associated with reduced risk of MCI in general and with reduced risk of AD in ApoE ε4 carriers. Revealing the mechanisms underlying this association may inform novel prevention strategies for decelerating cognitive decline in old age.     

Listening, not watching: situational familiarity and the ability to detect deception

In 4 experiments, the authors investigated the influence of situational familiarity with the judgmental context on the process of lie detection. They predicted that high familiarity with a situation leads to a more pronounced use of content cues when making judgments of veracity. Therefore, they expected higher classification accuracy of truths and lies under high familiarity. Under low situational familiarity, they expected that people achieve lower accuracy rates because they use more nonverbal cues for their veracity judgments. In all 4 experiments, participants with high situational familiarity achieved higher accuracy rates in classifying both truthful and deceptive messages than participants with low situational familiarity. Moreover, mediational analyses demonstrated that higher classification accuracy in the high-familiarity condition was associated with more use of verbal content cues and less use of nonverbal cues.     

Are social value orientations expressed automatically? Decision making in the dictator game

Drawing on the social intuitionist model, the authors studied the hypothesis that social value orientations are expressed automatically in behavior. They compared spontaneous and more deliberated decisions in the dictator game and confirmed that social values determine behavior when responses are based on the automatic system. By means of both mediation and experimental analyses, the authors further demonstrate that the automatic expression of social value orientations is mediated by perceptions of interpersonal closeness. A reasoning process can subsequently override these automatic responses and disconnect decisions from perceptions of interpersonal closeness. This results in lower levels of other-regarding behavior, at least for prosocials.     

What a feeling! Touching sexually laden stimuli makes women seek rewards

We argue that women's previously documented unresponsiveness to sexual primes when making economic decisions may be a consequence of the specific types of primes that have been used (i.e., visual primes). In three studies we show that presenting women with tactile sexual cues does influence their decisions about economic rewards. Similar to the effect found in men, the first study demonstrates that touching a pair of boxer shorts leads to a craving for monetary rewards in women. In the second study it is shown that touching a pair of boxers makes women less loss averse for both money and food. The third study explicitly focuses on the relative effectiveness of tactile versus visual sexual cues in altering women's economic decisions, and reveals that women's willingness-to-pay for economic rewards increases only when the sexual cue is tactile. We suggest that touching (vs. seeing) sexually laden stimuli prompts pre-programmed consummatory Pavlovian responses that promote approaching economic rewards.