The influence of number line estimation precision and numeracy on risky financial decision making

This study examined whether different aspects of mathematical proficiency influence one's ability to make adaptive financial decisions. “Numeracy” refers to the ability to process numerical and probabilistic information and is commonly reported as an important factor which contributes to financial decision‐making ability. The precision of mental number representation (MNR), measured with the number line estimation (NLE) task has been reported to be another critical factor. This study aimed to examine the contribution of these mathematical proficiencies while controlling for the influence of fluid intelligence, math anxiety and personality factors. In our decision‐making task, participants chose between two options offering probabilistic monetary gain or loss. Sensitivity to expected value was measured as an index for the ability to discriminate between optimal versus suboptimal options. Partial correlation and hierarchical regression analyses revealed that NLE precision better explained EV sensitivity compared to numeracy, after controlling for all covariates. These results suggest that individuals with more precise MNR are capable of making more rational financial decisions. We also propose that the measurement of “numeracy,” which is commonly used interchangeably with general mathematical proficiency, should include more diverse aspects of mathematical cognition including basic understanding of number magnitude.     

Prayer as a Religious Narrative: The Spiritual Self and the Image of God

Pastoral Psychology - This article examines William James’s study on prayer in The Varieties of Religious Experience by framing prayer as a form of religious narrative that demonstrates the...     

Two-Headed Coins or Kandinskys: White Racial Identification

Racial identity means different things to members of different racial and ethnic groups in the United States. However, while the study of race and politics is often the study of White racial attitudes ( Dawson & Cohen, 2003 ), research on racial identity almost always refers to non-White identity. This article addresses this hole in the literature by examining the extent and effects of White identity. We compare White identification and Black identification using National Election Studies data (1972–2000) and examine the relationships between racial identity and racial and political attitudes. This study adds a missing case to the study of racial identity, tests how well the theories about the concept travel across cases, and highlights the need for more frequent studies of the racial identity of all groups.     

From Buddha's speech to Buddha's essence: philosophical discussions of Buddha‐vacana in India and China1

This is a comparative study of the discourses on the nature of sacred language found in Indian Abhidharma texts and those written by 7th century Chinese Buddhist scholars who, unlike the Indian Buddhists, questioned ‘the essence of the Buddha’s teaching'. This issue labeled fo‐chiao t'i lun, the theory of ‘the essence of the Buddha’s teaching', was one of the topics on which Chinese Yogācāra scholars have shown a keen interest and served as the inspiration for extensive intellectual dialogues in their texts. It is in Hsüan‐tsang's massive and organized translation works, begun in 648, that various previous translations of the term buddhavacana from Indian Abhidharma texts were given the unified translation of fo‐chiao. (Fo‐chiao literally means “the Buddha's teachings,” and is the term used in the modern period for “Buddhism.”) By combining fo‐chiao with the term t'i, meaning ‘essence’ or ‘substance’ throughout his translations, Hsüan‐tsang attempted to define ‘the essence of the Buddha’s teaching'. In Indian Abhidharma texts, the nature of the Buddha's word was either ‘sound’ (?abdha), the oral component of speech, or ‘name’ (nāma), the component of language that conveys meaning, or some combination of the two. From the time of Hsüan‐tsang's translation, however, discourse on the nature of sacred language was no longer relegated to the category of language or of epistemological investigation, but became grounded in the Chinese discussion investigating the ‘essence’ or ‘substance’ of the Buddha's teaching, and even of ‘Buddhism’ itself. As such, it sought to transcend the distinction between language and meaning. This gradual but explicit process of inquiry into the nature of ‘the Buddha’s word' was a necessary antecedent to the transition to a ‘Chinese’ Buddhism.     

Likelihood of attending to the color word modulates Stroop interference

Three experiments investigated whether the Stroop color-naming effect is modulated by the likelihood of a color word capturing visual attention. In Experiment 1, a bar or a neutral word was presented at fixation as a color carrier, along with a color word randomly appearing in either an achromatic color (white in the main experiment, gray in a follow-up) or purple. Reduction of the Stroop effect (known as Stroop dilution) occurred when the color word was achromatic but not (or to a lesser extent) when it was in purple. In Experiment 2, the color of the color word remained constant throughout trial blocks, and Stroop dilution was equally evident when the word was always in purple and when it was always in white. In Experiment 3, a color bar was presented as the color carrier with both a color word and a neutral word. In this case, the Stroop effect was larger when the color word appeared in purple, and smaller when the neutral word appeared in purple, than when neither word did. These results imply that the extent to which processing of a color word occurs is determined by the likelihood of the word capturing attention.     

Magazine exposure,tanned women stereotypes,and tanning attitudes

This study investigated whether magazine exposure is related to stereotypical beliefs about tanned women. A survey of White college women (n = 205) assessed their exposure to beauty/fashion and health/fitness magazines. Outcome variables were the beliefs that tanned women are fashionable, fit, and shallow. Attention to the tanned women's images in health magazines positively predicted the belief that tanned women are fit and that tanned women are shallow; in contrast, attention to the images in beauty magazine negatively predicted the belief that tanned women are fit. Number of beauty magazines women read negatively predicted the belief that tanned women are shallow. The belief that tanned women are fit was unrelated, but the belief that tanned women are shallow was negatively related, with tanning attitudes.     

Influences of response position and hand posture on the orthogonal Simon effect

When lateralized responses are made to the locations of vertically arrayed stimuli, two types of mapping effect have been reported: an overall up-right/down-left advantage and mapping preferences that vary with response position. According to Cho and Proctor's (2003) multiple asymmetric codes account, these orthogonal stimulus-response compatibility effects are due to the correspondence of stimulus polarity and response polarity, as determined by the positions relative to multiple frames of reference. The present study examined these two types of orthogonal compatibility for situations in which participants made left-right responses to the colours of a vertically arrayed stimulus set, and stimulus location was irrelevant. Although a significant orthogonal Simon effect was not evident when responding at a centred, neutral response position, the effect was modulated by response eccentricity (Experiment 2) and hand posture (Experiment 3). These effects are qualitatively similar to those obtained when stimulus location is task relevant. The results imply that, as Proctor and Cho's (2006) polarity correspondence principle suggests, the stimulus polarity code activates the response code of corresponding polarity even when stimulus location is irrelevant to the task.     

Effects of motivations and gender on adolescents' self-disclosure in online chatting.

This study investigated the effect of motivations for online chatting and gender factors in self-disclosure in adolescents' online chatting. Participants were 260 high school students (128 female, 132 male) who participated in online chatting. The results revealed that self-disclosure in online chatting differed by motivation, but gender was not a significant variable for explaining self-disclosure.     

Transfer of orthogonal stimulus-response mappings to an orthogonal Simon task

When up-down stimulus locations are mapped to left-right keypresses, an overall advantage for the up-right/down-left mapping is often obtained that varies as a function of response eccentricity. This orthogonal stimulus-response compatibility (SRC) effect also occurs when stimulus location is irrelevant, a phenomenon called the orthogonal Simon effect, and has been attributed to correspondence of stimulus and response code polarities. The Simon effect for horizontal stimulus-response (S-R) arrangements has been shown to be affected by short-term S-R associations established through the mapping used for a prior SRC task in which stimulus location was relevant. We examined whether such associations also transfer between orthogonal SRC and Simon tasks and whether correspondence of code polarities continues to contribute to performance in the Simon task. In Experiment 1, the orthogonal Simon effect was larger after practising with an up-right/down-left mapping of visual stimuli to responses than with the alternative mapping, for which the orthogonal Simon effect tended to reverse. Experiment 2 showed similar results when practice was with high (up) and low (down) pitch tones, though the influence of practice mapping was not as large as that in Experiment 1, implying that the short-term S-R associations acquired in practice are at least in part not modality specific. In Experiment 3, response eccentricity and practice mapping were shown to have separate influences on the orthogonal Simon effect, as expected if both code polarity and acquired S-R associations contribute to performance.