A dual-process model of brand extension: Taxonomic feature-based and thematic relation-based similarity independently drive brand extension evaluation

The success of a brand extension depends largely on the similarity between the brand and its extension product. Recent psychological and neuroscientific evidence supports a dual-process model that distinguishes taxonomic feature-based similarity from thematic relation-based similarity. In addition to providing a parsimonious organizational framework for prior brand extension research, this dual-process model also provides novel predictions about the processing and evaluation of taxonomic brand extensions (e.g., Budweiser cola) and thematic brand extensions (e.g., Budweiser chips). Results indicate that taxonomic and thematic similarities independently contribute to branding professionals' and lay consumers' evaluations of real and hypothetical brand extensions (Studies 1A and 1B). Counter-intuitively, thematic brand extensions are processed more rapidly (Study 2), judged more novel, and evaluated more positively than taxonomic extensions (Study 3). When induced to consider the commonalities between the brand and the extension product, however, taxonomic extensions are judged more novel and evaluated more positively (Study 3). Implications for brand extension and marketing more generally are discussed.     

Searching for two things at once: Establishment of multiple attentional control settings on a trial-by-trial basis

Recent work has demonstrated that attention can be configured to multiple potential targets in spatial search. However, this previous work relied on a fixed set of targets across multiple trials, allowing observers to offload attentional control settings to longer-term representations. In the present experiments, we demonstrate multiple attentional control settings that operate independently of space (Experiments 1 and 2). More important, we show that observers can be cued to different control settings on a trial-by-trial basis (Experiment 3). The latter result suggests that observers were capable of maintaining multiple control settings when the demands of the task required an attentional search for specific feature values. Attention can be configured to extract multiple feature values in a goal-directed manner, and this configuration can be can be dynamically engaged on a trial-by-trial basis. These results support recent findings that reveal the high precision, complexity, and flexibility of attentional control settings.     

Predicting premeditation: future behavior is seen as more intentional than past behavior

People's intuitions about the underlying causes of past and future actions might not be the same. In 3 studies, we demonstrate that people judge the same behavior as more intentional when it will be performed in the future than when it has been performed in the past. We found this temporal asymmetry in perceptions of both the strength of an individual's intention and the overall prevalence of intentional behavior in a population. Because of its heightened intentionality, people thought the same transgression deserved more severe punishment when it would occur in the future than when it did occur in the past. The difference in judgments of both intentionality and punishment was partly explained by the stronger emotional reactions that were elicited in response to future actions than in response to past actions. We consider the implications of this temporal asymmetry for legal decision making and theories of attribution more generally.     

Competitive victimhood as a response to accusations of ingroup harm doing

Accusations of unjust harm doing by the ingroup threaten the group's moral identity. One strategy for restoring ingroup moral identity after such a threat is competitive victimhood: claiming the ingroup has suffered compared with the harmed outgroup. Men accused of harming women were more likely to claim that men are discriminated against compared with women (Study 1), and women showed the same effect when accused of discriminating against men (Study 3). Undergraduates engaged in competitive victimhood with university staff after their group was accused of harming staff (Study 2). Study 4 showed that the effect of accusations on competitive victimhood among high-status group members is mediated by perceived stigma reversal: the expectation that one should feel guilty for being in a high-status group. Exposure to a competitive victimhood claim on behalf of one's ingroup reduced stigma reversal and collective guilt after an accusation of ingroup harm doing (Study 5).     

Subjectivity uncertainty theory of objectification: Compensating for uncertainty about how to positively relate to others by downplaying their subjective attributes

Why do people sometimes view others as objects rather than complete persons? We propose that when people desire successful interactions with others, yet feel uncertain about their ability to navigate others' subjectivity, they downplay others' subjective attributes, focusing instead on their concrete attributes. This account suggests that objectification represents a response to uncertainty about one's ability to successfully interact with others distinct from: instrumentalizing others in response to power; dehumanizing others in response to threat; and simplifying others in response to general uncertainty. Supporting this account: When uncertainty about navigating women's subjectivity was salient, men showed increased sexual objectification to the extent that they desired successful interactions with women (Study 1) and were primed to view such interactions as self-esteem relevant (Study 2). In a workplace scenario, participants made uncertain about their managerial ability felt less confident about their ability to navigate employees' subjectivity and, consequently, role-objectified employees (Study 3).     

LIVING RESEARCH: THE EXPERIENCE OF RESEARCHING SELF,OTHER, AND DISCOURSE

Although there is widespread agreement among psychologists that the self needs to be studied in context, how to actually study the interconnections between the self and environment can be challenging. This article describes a process of engaging in socially-embedded research by providing an inside view of the researcher's experience of working with such abstract concepts as culture, discourse, and the self. The background study consisted of three main layers of analysis, including (a) a narrative of one woman's reconstitution of self while recovering from anorexia nervosa, (b) an analysis of dominant discourses surrounding the discourse of recovery and treatment, and (c) a narrative of the research process including the discursive relationships of the researcher. This article focuses on this last phase and discusses the difficulties encountered when attempting to understand one's own relationship to various discourses. The researcher builds on constructivist conceptualizations of the self as the foundation for interpreting the texts selected as the data.     

Exploring Careers in Deviance: A Joint Trajectory Analysis of Criminal Behavior and Substance Use in an Offender Population

Empirically, one of the most consistently observed correlations in social science inquiry is that of substance use and criminal behavior. Recently, these behaviors have been examined separately within longitudinal, career-based frameworks. This study assesses the joint distribution of crime and substance use over several years and identifies a number of latent classes reflecting trends in these behaviors. The study data come from a sample of 524 offenders released from California Youth Authority custody. In general, the two behaviors tend to ebb and flow together, but the overall prevalence of substance use over time, absent offending, suggests some degree of independence.     

Confidence and gradedness in semantic categorization: Definitely somewhat artifactual,maybe absolutely natural

Artifacts tend to be categorized in a graded (i.e., continuous) manner, whereas natural categorization tends to be absolute (i.e., discrete). This domain-specific categorization is assumed to reflect a domain difference in representation. However, another tenable but untested explanation is that graded categorization arises from uncertainty, which is greater in artifact categories than in natural categories. Confidence ratings were used as an index of certainty in two experiments that tested whether confidence in category judgments can explain the apparent gradedness of those categories. Both experiments revealed that artifact categories were more graded and were judged with greater confidence than were natural categories. Confidence and gradedness were negatively correlated within both domains. Thus, confidence did indeed predict gradedness within the artifact and natural domains but failed to predict the difference in gradedness between those domains. There is more to gradedness than just uncertainty.     

Negative cognitive styles, dysfunctional attitudes, and the remitted depression paradigm: a search for the elusive cognitive vulnerability to depression factor among remitted depressives

Results from studies using a behavioral high-risk design and approximations to it generally have corroborated the cognitive vulnerability hypothesis of depression, whereas results from remitted depression studies typically have not. Suspecting that design features of previously conducted remitted designs likely precluded them from detecting maladaptive cognitive patterns, the authors conducted a study featuring the remitted design that has been successful in studies of a biological vulnerability for depression. Participants' current depressive symptoms, negative cognitive styles (hopelessness theory), dysfunctional attitudes (Beck's theory), and lifetime prevalence of clinically significant depression were assessed. Participants who had remitted from an episode of clinically significant depression had more negative cognitive styles, but not greater levels of dysfunctional attitudes, than did never depressed individuals.