The effects of mortality salience on political preferences: The roles of charisma and political orientation

Research has shown that mortality salience (MS) heightens liking for certain political candidates. Yet the particular qualities that make candidates more appealing after MS has been subject to debate. This study tested three possibilities: MS increases liking for charismatic candidates independent of participants’ or candidates’ political orientation; MS increases liking for conservative candidates independent of participants’ or candidates’ political orientation; and MS increases liking only for charismatic candidates who support the individual’s pre-existing political orientation, whether liberal or conservative. Following a MS manipulation, liberal and conservative participants evaluated two hypothetical gubernatorial candidates who differed both in their political orientation and level of charisma. MS heightened liking of charismatic candidates who shared the perceiver’s political orientation, whether liberal or conservative. In contrast, MS reduced liking for uncharismatic and opposing-orientation candidates. Results thus indicated that MS heightens regard for same-political orientation charismatic candidates, rather than just any charismatic candidate or conservative candidates. Implications for the influence of death-related concerns on political preference are briefly discussed.     

刺激的视觉显著性和奖赏价值对眼跳的影响

本研究旨在探索刺激的视觉显著性和奖赏价值分别在协同和竞争的条件下对眼跳过程的影响。实验材料为成对的Gabor图案,要求被试选择具有更高奖赏价值的图案,并记录下其眼动过程。实验分为协同条件和竞争条件。结果发现,在不同实验条件下,奖赏价值对眼跳命中率和潜伏期均存在显著效应;视觉显著性的效应则在不同实验条件下出现了分离。刺激驱动过程和目标驱动过程对眼动行为的影响可能是互相区别的两种不同模式。     

The “Islamized Stranger”: On “Chronic” Versus “Contextual” Salience in the Measurement of Anti‐Muslim Prejudice

There is an ongoing debate whether anti‐Muslim prejudice in Western countries is more widespread than prejudice towards other ethno‐cultural groups or general ethnic prejudice. Previous research used different methodologies and yielded contradictory results. In this article, we combine a population‐based split‐sample survey experiment (N = 1,323), where half of the respondents judged items about Muslims and the other half statements about strangers, with an open question probing which groups respondents thought of when thinking about “strangers.” We furthermore extend previous research by not only focusing on general ethnic prejudice, but to differentiate between perceived trustworthiness, economic, cultural, and security threat. Our results strongly support the idea that the difference between the “chronic” and “contextual” salience of the target of prejudice should be taken into account.     

催产素对情绪识别的影响及其机制

催产素(oxytocin)被称为“社会键(social bonds)荷尔蒙”, 时刻影响着社会行为和认知, 其中包括情绪识别。目前, 关于催产素对情绪识别的影响主要有3种观点：(1)催产素选择性地促进个体对积极情绪的识别、减慢对消极情绪的识别; (2)催产素选择性地增强对消极情绪的识别; (3)催产素提高对所有情绪的识别, 与情绪效价无关。催产素影响情绪识别神经机制的研究主要集中在3个方面：情绪效价、性别差异和精神疾病。此外, 还运用社会显著假说解释催产素对情绪识别的作用。催产素可能对情绪识别障碍类精神疾病有潜在的治疗效果, 未来的研究应深入探究催产素与情绪效价的关系, 考虑性别等个体因素的影响, 进一步探讨催产素的临床应用并拓展研究范围。     

When work and family collide: Deciding between competing role demands

This study examined the factors that influence the decision to participate in a work activity or a competing family activity. Part-time MBA students were presented with a vignette in which they were required to choose between participating in a weekend project team meeting and a surprise birthday party for a parent. Pressures from role senders (managers and spouses) to participate in each activity and the supportiveness of role senders for participation in the other role were manipulated in vignettes, and the salience of each role was assessed with self-report scales. Both work and family pressures affected the choice of activity. The salience of work and family roles for respondents also influenced the choice, with the effect of family salience stronger for those who were higher in self-esteem and higher in work salience. Implications of the findings for understanding the directionality of work–family interference are identified, limitations are discussed, and areas for future research are proposed.     

Existential Underpinnings of Approach and Avoidance of the Physical Body

In addition to enjoying pleasurable bodily activities, people appear threatened by the physical aspects of the body; they experience anxiety and inhibitions surrounding sex, eating, bodily appearance and functions. Based on terror management theory, we posit that people are dually motivated to approach the life-affirming properties of the physical body, and to avoid the physical or animalistic aspects of the body because of their association with death. This paper summarizes a substantial body of research, consisting of over twenty empirical studies, that identify personality and situational variables that interact with mortality concerns, moderating approach and avoidance attitudes and behaviors with respect to the physical body. We suggest that this dynamic motivation can go far in explaining the often observed ambivalence toward the body.     

Conceptual blending of high-level features and data-driven salience computation in melodic generation

Conceptual Blending (CB) theory describes the cognitive mechanisms underlying the way humans process the emergence of new conceptual spaces by blending two input spaces. CB theory has been primarily used as a method for interpreting creative artefacts, while recently it has been utilised in the context of computational creativity for algorithmic invention of new concepts. Examples in the domain of music include the employment of CB interpretatively as a tool to explain musical semantic structures based on lyrics of songs or on the relations between body gestures and music structures. Recent work on generative applications of CB has shown that proper low-level representation of the input spaces allows the generation of consistent and sometimes surprising blends. However, blending high-level features (as discussed in the interpretative studies) of music explicitly, is hardly feasible with mere low-level representation of objects. Additionally, selecting features that are more salient in the context of two input spaces and relevant background knowledge and should, thus, be preserved and integrated in new interesting blends has not yet been tackled in a cognitively pertinent manner. The paper at hand proposes a novel approach to generating new material that allows blending high-level features by combining low-level structures, based on statistically computed salience values for each high-level feature extracted from data. The proposed framework is applied to a basic but, at the same time, complicated field of music, namely melodic generation. The examples presented herein allow an insightful examination of what the proposed approach does, revealing new possibilities and prospects.     

Self-directedness and the susceptibility to distraction by saliency

People with low Self-directedness (SD) tend to explain their behaviour as being significantly influenced by events in the external environment. One important dimension of external cues is their level of salience: highly salient external stimuli are more likely to capture attention, even when such stimuli are not relevant to goals. We examined whether adults reporting low SD would exhibit greater susceptibility to distraction by highly salient external stimuli. Fifty-four (42 males) subjects completed the Attention Modulation by Salience Task (AMST) measuring reaction times to early- or late-onset auditory stimuli in the presence of high- or low-salience visual distractors. SD was assessed via self-report, and analyses tested the relationship between SD and performance on the AMST. Results showed a slowed early response to auditory cues during high salience compared to low salience. Indeed, individuals reporting low SD showed stronger salience interference, suggesting that external causality attribution is accompanied by a subconscious perceptual deficit.