Examining how people reason about controversial scientific topics

Improving scientific literacy requires examining both what people believe about scientific issues and why they hold those beliefs. We examined how people justified their agreement with statements regarding evolution, climate change, genetically modified foods, and vaccinations. Participants rated their level of agreement with statements reflecting the scientific consensus on these topics, then responded to open-ended questions asking them to justify their position and to generate challenges to their belief. Responses to individual difference measures allowed us to assess the relationship between participants’ positions on these scientific issues and cognitive style, conspiracy ideation, religious service attendance, and political ideology. Qualitative analyses revealed inconsistent and topic-specific patterns of reasoning. Additionally, greater agreement with scientific conclusions was related to a greater predisposition towards analytical thinking and stronger self-reported political liberalism. These findings provide a next step for better understanding why some individuals reject science and for developing more effective means of improving science acceptance.     

A mechanism for biasing the appraisal process in affective agents

In this paper we present a mechanism to model the influence of agents’ internal and external factors on the emotional evaluation of stimuli in computational models of emotions. We propose the modification of configurable appraisal dimensions (such as desirability and pleasure) based on influencing factors. As part of the presented mechanism, we introduce influencing models to define the relationship between a given influencing factor and a given set of configurable appraisal dimensions utilized in the emotional evaluation phase. Influencing models translate factors’ influences (on the emotional evaluation) into fuzzy logic adjustments (e.g., a shift in the limits of fuzzy membership functions), which allow biasing the emotional evaluation of stimuli. We implemented a proof-of-concept computational model of emotions based on real-world data about individuals’ emotions. The obtained empirical evidence indicates that the proposed mechanism can properly affect the emotional evaluation of stimuli while preserving the overall behavior of the model of emotions.     

情绪调节自我效能感与心理健康的交叉滞后研究

摘 要：对531名青少年进行为期五个月的追踪,运用交叉滞后回归分析考察积极、沮丧、生气三种情绪调节自我效能感与心理健康（问题行为、抑郁和生活满意度）间的相互影响。结果：T1积极情绪调节自我效能感不能预测T2问题行为、抑郁和生活满意度;T1沮丧情绪调节自我效能感显著预测T2抑郁水平;T1生活满意度和抑郁显著预测T2生气情绪调节自我效能感。结论：高沮丧情绪调节自我效能感能保护青少年处于“低抑郁状态”,而生气情绪调节自我效能感更容易受到个体生活满意度和抑郁水平的影响,是青少年处于不良心理状态下的易感效能。     

Social support coping style predicts women’s cortisol in the laboratory and daily life: the moderating role of social attentional biases

Background and Objectives: Social stress and associated coping responses can profoundly influence women’s stress physiology and health. Implicit social attentional biases can also influence psychological and physiological stress responses. The purpose of this study was to explore whether a coping style characterized by greater use of social support predicts indices of cortisol activity in laboratory and daily life contexts among female university students. We hypothesized that the relation of this coping style to cortisol activity would be moderated by women’s attentional biases.

Methods: Seventy-four women (M_age?=?19.44, range: 17.8–27.8, 64% White) completed an interpersonal stress task and an attentional bias task in the lab, along with a self-report coping inventory. Participants provided five saliva samples during the lab protocol, followed by three saliva samples per day for three consecutive weekdays. Outcome measures included cortisol response to lab tasks (AUCg), diurnal cortisol slope, diurnal AUCg, and cortisol awakening response (CARi).

Results: A coping style characterized by greater use of social support predicted lower lab AUCg and lower, flatter average diurnal cortisol slope for women with attentional avoidance compared to women with attentional vigilance (ps?<?.05).

Conclusions: Responding to stress by using social support is linked to lower cortisol responses to social stress and diurnal cortisol activity for women with implicit avoidance of social threat cues.     

Integrating a cognitive computational model of planning and decision-making considering affective information

Planning and decision-making are two of the cognitive functions involved in the solution of problems. These functions, among others, have been studied from the point of view of a new field known as cognitive informatics focused on the development of cognitive architectures, autonomous agents, and human robots that are capable of showing human-like behavior. We present an exhaustive study of current biological and computational models proposed in the fields of neuroscience, psychology, and cognitive informatics. Also, we present a deep review of the brain areas involved in planning, decision-making, and affection. However, the majority of the proposed computational models are seeking to mimic human external behavior. This paper aims to contribute to the cognitive informatics field with an innovative cognitive computational model of planning and decision-making. The two main differences of our model with respect to the current models in the literature are: (i) our model considers affective and motivational information as a basic and essential trigger in planning and decision-making processes; (ii) our model attempts to mimic both the internal human brain as well as the external human behavior. We developed a computational model capable of offering a direct mapping from human brain areas to computational modules of our model. Thus, in this paper we present our model from a conceptual, formal, and computational approach in order to show how our proposal must be implemented. Finally, a set of tests were conducted in order to validate our proposal. These tests show an interesting comparison between the behavior of our prototype and the behavior exhibited by some people involved in a case study.     

Social connection and social networking: Daily conflict increases nightly Facebook use among avoidant participants

Using a daily diary methodology we explored whether attachment style predicted evening Facebook use and whether this effect was moderated by daily interpersonal conflict. High anxiety participants reported spending significantly more time on Facebook at night, regardless of daily conflict. Conversely, participants high in avoidance only reported increased time on Facebook on nights following days of more (vs. less) conflict. Daily conflict did not influence time spent in face-to-face interactions for avoidant participants. Interestingly, increased time on Facebook led to lower self-esteem next day , but increased time in face-to-face interactions led to higher self-esteem. Results suggest people high in avoidance use Facebook as an indirect way to seek connection following conflict, but, ironically, Facebook fails to fulfill avoidant’s belongingness needs.     

Open-minded cognition: The attitude justification effect

Abstract

Although open-mindedness is generally valued, people are not equally open-minded in all situations. Open-mindedness is viewed as socially desirable when individuals encounter viewpoints that are compatible with conventional social norms. However, open-mindedness is viewed in less desirable terms when individuals encounter viewpoints that undermine these norms. The perceived desirability of open-mindedness is also influenced by the individual’s personal attitudinal convictions. Individuals ‘inflate’ the normative appropriateness of open-mindedness when it serves to reinforce their convictions, but devalue the normative appropriateness of open-mindedness when it serves to contradict these convictions. Conversely, normative prohibition of closed-mindedness is exaggerated when a closed-minded orientation threatens the individual’s personal attitudinal convictions, but is minimized (or reversed) when a closed-minded orientation reinforces these convictions. Paradoxically, the perceived appropriateness of open-mindedness is engendered (at least in part) by the motivation to confirm one’s prior attitudinal convictions. Evidence of this attitude justification effect is obtained in two experiments.     

学思维网络活动对小学生创造性的影响:认知风格的调节作用

以89名小学生为被试,采用实验组对照组前后测实验设计,考察学思维网络活动对培养小学生创造性思维和创造性倾向的影响,以及认知风格的调节作用。结果发现：（1）学思维网络活动能有效促进小学生创造性思维以及创造性倾向的想象力和好奇心的发展;（2）学思维课堂活动和学思维网络活动对于培养小学生的创造性思维和创造性倾向具有一致的效果;（3）认知风格在学思维网络活动和学思维课堂活动对小学生创造性思维的影响中起调节作用：对于场依存学生,学思维网络活动能更大程度地提高其流畅性和独创性的表现。     

Invisible own- and other-race faces presented under continuous flash suppression produce affective response biases

One triumph of the human mind is the ability to place the multitudinous array of people we encounter into in- and out-group members based on racial characteristics. One fundamental question that remains to be answered is whether invisible own- and other-race faces can nevertheless influence subsequent affective judgments. Here, we employed continuous flash suppression (CFS) to render own- and other-race faces unperceivable in an affective priming task. Both on-line and off-line awareness checks were employed to provide more stringent control of partial awareness. Results revealed that relative to own-race faces, imperceptible other-race faces significantly facilitated participants’ identification of negative words, suggesting an other-race derogation bias. When faces were presented consciously, we found that not only other-race faces facilitated detection of negative words, but also own-race faces facilitated detection of positive words. These findings together provide novel and strong evidence suggesting that invisible racial faces can bias affective responses.