Safety in Numbers: A Policy‐Capturing Study of the Alibi Assessment Process

A policy‐capturing analysis of alibi assessments was conducted. University students (N = 65), law enforcement students (N = 21), and police officers (N = 11) were provided with 32 statements from individuals supporting a suspect's alibi (i.e., alibi corroborators) and asked to assess the believability of the alibi, the suspect's guilt, and whether they would arrest the suspect. Each statement was composed of five binary features (i.e., relationship between corroborator and accused, age of corroborator, amount of available corroborators, alibi corroborator's confidence in their account, and memorability of the target event). Results showed that there was much parity in the type of information used to assess alibis across the samples. Specifically, we found that 90% of participants' decision policies included the amount of corroborators. Participants also relied upon, albeit to a lesser extent, the suspect–corroborator relationship and the age of the corroborator when assessing the alibi. The potential implications of these findings for understanding how people assess alibi corroborators are discussed. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Collateral Reports and Cross-Informant Agreement about Adult Psychopathology in 14 Societies

To advance international mental health assessment, instruments that have been internationally validated are needed. To this end, we analyzed ratings from 14 societies on the Adult Behavior Checklist (ABCL), a collateral-report form parallel to the Adult Self-Report (ASR; Achenbach and Rescorla 2003) for ages 18 to 59. Both the ABCL and the ASR assess problems, personal strengths, and adaptive functioning. For a sample of 8322 see note below collaterals, we found strong consistency across societies regarding which ABCL problem items tended to obtain relatively low, medium, or high ratings. Most societal effect sizes (ESs) for problem scale scores were small to medium (< 13.9 %), but the ES for the ABCL Personal Strengths scale was 25 %. For most of the same participants (N = 8,302), we analyzed cross-informant agreement between self-reports on the ASR and collateral reports on the ABCL. Cross-informant correlations for problem scale scores averaged .47, with considerable societal variation. Problem score means were higher on the ASR than the ABCL in every society, but the size of the difference varied across societies. Mean item ratings on the ABCL and ASR were highly correlated within every society (mean r = .92), but within-dyad item rating agreement varied widely in every society (mean r = .39). In all societies, non-corroboration of self-reported deviance and of collateral-reported deviance was common. Overall findings indicated considerable similarity but also some important differences in collateral-reported problems and adaptive functioning across 14 societies.     

A Probabilistic Model of Criticality in a Sequential Public Good Dilemma

A public good (PG) is a commodity or service made available to all members of a group: its provision depends on the voluntary contribution of its members. Once provided, all members can enjoy the benefits of the PG, regardless of whether they contributed or not; hence, there is a temptation to “free-ride” in the hope that others will contribute. Rapoport (1987) showed that an important factor that affects cooperation (contribution) in a PG dilemma is the extent to which a group member is critical in providing it. Erev and Rapoport (1990) tested a game-theoretic model that yields deterministic predictions about the effects of criticality on cooperation in public good dilemmas. Based on research by Chen, Au, and Komorita (1996), we propose a probabilistic model of criticality. The model is tested and found to fit empirical data. Extensions of the model to situations with uncertain group size or provision point are discussed.     

Ecumenical and Inter‐religious Engagement of Asian Pentecostals and Charismatics

The Christian Conference of Asia (CCA) has been a significant platform for all ecumenical organizations and churches in Asia to collaborate. However, although Pentecostal and charismatic churches have been growing rapidly in Asia and a number of megachurches have been founded, none of them have become members of the CCA. This article sets out the official ecumenical engagements of Asian Pentecostals with other Protestant churches and the Roman Catholic Church in recent years, before discussing the ecumenical impact of the charismatic renewal in several Asian countries. Finally, since Asia is the birthplace of Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism, and ecumenism is also concerned with inter‐religious relations, it discusses the development of Pentecostalism in the countries dominated by those three religions.     

Personality Traits Predict Smartphone Usage

The present study investigates to what degree individual differences can predict frequency and duration of actual behaviour, manifested in mobile application (app) usage on smartphones. In particular, this work focuses on the identification of stable associations between personality on the factor and facet level, fluid intelligence, demography and app usage in 16 distinct categories. A total of 137 subjects (87 women and 50 men), with an average age of 24 (SD = 4.72), participated in a 90‐min psychometric lab session as well as in a subsequent 60‐day data logging study in the field. Our data suggest that personality traits predict mobile application usage in several specific categories such as communication, photography, gaming, transportation and entertainment. Extraversion, conscientiousness and agreeableness are better predictors of mobile application usage than basic demographic variables in several distinct categories. Furthermore, predictive performance is slightly higher for single factor—in comparison with facet‐level personality scores. Fluid intelligence and demographics additionally show stable associations with categorical app usage. In sum, this study demonstrates how individual differences can be effectively related to actual behaviour and how this can assist in understanding the behavioural underpinnings of personality. Copyright © 2017 European Association of Personality Psychology     

Cultural Differences in the Subjective Experience of Emotion: When and Why They Occur

Cross‐cultural comparisons of subjective emotional experience are common, and virtually any comparison of nations or different ethnic groups is bound to yield some differences and some similarities. While nobody doubts the considerable intercultural variability in subjective or self‐reports of emotion, more attention needs to be given to when and why and these differences occur. In this article, we explore factors that accentuate or attenuate cultural differences in the subjective experience of emotion. We propose that cultural norms shape emotional experiences to different degrees depending on the time frame of the emotional experience, the valence of the emotion, and even the specific emotion being compared. We review the research that supports this view and we highlight new avenues of research that are likely to shed light on cultural differences in the subjective experience of emotions.     

The reading ability of good and poor temporal processors among a group of college students

In this study, we examined whether good auditory and good visual temporal processors were better than their poor counterparts on certain reading measures. Various visual and auditory temporal tasks were administered to 105 undergraduates. They read some phonologically regular pseudowords and irregular words that were presented sequentially in the same ("word" condition) and in different ("line" condition) locations. Results indicated that auditory temporal acuity was more relevant to reading, whereas visual temporal acuity was more relevant to spelling. Good auditory temporal processors did not have the advantage in processing pseudowords, even though pseudoword reading correlated significantly with auditory temporal processing. These results suggested that some higher cognitive or phonological processes mediated the relationship between auditory temporal processing and pseudoword reading. Good visual temporal processors did not have the advantage in processing irregular words. They also did not process the line condition more accurately than the word condition. The discrepancy might be attributed to the use of normal adults and the unnatural reading situation that did not fully capture the function of the visual temporal processes. The distributions of auditory and visual temporal processing abilities were co-occurring to some degree, but they maintained considerable independence. There was also a lack of a relationship between the type and severity of reading deficits and the type and number of temporal deficits.     

The contribution of rapid visual and auditory processing to the reading of irregular words and pseudowords presented singly and in contiguity

This study examined the relative involvement of rapid auditory and visual temporal resolution mechanisms in the reading of phonologically regular pseudowords and English irregular words presented both in isolation and in contiguity as a series of six words. Seventy-nine undergraduates participated in a range of reading, visual temporal, and auditory temporal tasks. The correlation analyses suggested a general timing mechanism across modalities. There were more significant correlations between the visual temporal measures and irregular word reading and between the auditory measures and pseudoword reading. Auditory gap detection predicted pseudoword reading accuracies. The low temporal frequency flicker contrast sensitivity measure predicted the accuracies of isolated irregular words and pseudowords presented in contiguity. However, when a combined speed-accuracy score was used, visible persistence at both low and high spatial frequencies and auditory gap detection were active in the reading of pseudowords presented in contiguity. Sensory processing skills in both visual and auditory modalities accounted for some of the variance in the reading performance of normal undergraduates, not just reading-impaired students.