How subtyping shapes perception: Predictable exceptions to the rule reduce attention to stereotype-associated dimensions

Two experiments examined the relation between stereotype disconfirmation and attentional processes. Using an instrumental learning-paradigm, we successfully simulated stereotype acquisition and the subsequent subtyping of disconfirming exemplars. While replicating established markers of subtyping, the present research demonstrates a hitherto neglected cognitive consequence of subtyping: Predictable stereotype disconfirmation increased attention to features that facilitated discriminating between confirming and disconfirming exemplars, and reduced attention to features associated with the original stereotype. These effects were not observed when stereotype disconfirmation was not easily predictable and, hence, subtyping proved difficult. The discussion focuses on implications for research on subtyping and stereotype change.     

认知灵活性和顿悟表征转换：练习类型的影响

以停车场问题为实验材料,以42名大学生为被试,探讨认知灵活性高和低的被试在不同练习类型下顿悟问题表征转换的差异。结果表明：1）不同的练习类型对顿悟表征转换有影响,被试在难度逐渐增加的练习类型下比在简单的练习类型下顿悟产生得更快;2）顿悟表征转换的速度因认知灵活性的不同有差异,在简单的练习类型下,认知灵活性高的被试比认知灵活性低的被试顿悟产生得更早,在难度逐渐增加的练习类型下两者无差异;3）认知灵活性高的被试比认知灵活性低的被试顿悟问题解决更快。     

Empowering Community Settings: Agents of Individual Development, Community Betterment, and Positive Social Change

The pathways and processes through which empowering community settings influence their members, the surrounding community and the larger society are examined. To generate the proposed pathways and processes, a broad range of studies of community settings were reviewed, in the domains of adult well-being, positive youth development, locality development, and social change. A set of organizational characteristics and associated processes leading to member empowerment across domains were identified, as well as three pathways through which empowering settings in each domain contribute to community betterment and positive social change. The paper concludes with an examination of the ways that community psychology and allied disciplines can help increase the number and range of empowering settings, and enhance the community and societal impact of existing ones. Based on SCRA Distinguished Contribution to Theory and Research Award Address: Pasadena, CA, June 8, 2007.     

Expressive Electronic Journal Writing: Freedom of Communication for Survivors of Acquired Brain Injury

In addition to the impaired ability to effectively communicate, adults with acquired brain injury (ABI) also experience high incidences of depression, social isolation, and decreased quality of life. Expressive writing programs have been shown to be effective in alleviating these concomitant impairments in other populations including incarcerated inmates (Lane, Writing as a road to self-discovery, F & W, Cincinnati 1993). In addition, computer applications such as email have been suggested as an effective means of improving communication and social isolation in adults with brain injury (Sohlberg et al. [2003]. Brain Injury, 17(7), 609–629). This investigation examines the effects of on-line expressive journal writing on the communication, emotional status, social integration and quality of life of individuals with brain injury.     

How Do Organizations and Social Policies ‘Acculturate’ to Immigrants? Accommodating Skilled Immigrants in Canada

While the idea of acculturation (Berry 1997) was originally proposed as the mutual change of both parties (e.g., immigrants and the host society), the change processes of host societies are neglected in research. A grounded theory study explored the efforts of human service organizations to 'acculturate' to an increasingly diverse immigrant population, through interviews conducted with service providers serving Mainland Chinese immigrants. Acculturation efforts of human service organizations (mezzo-level acculturation) were often needs-driven and affected by the political will and resultant funding programs (macro-level forces). Even with limitations, human service organizations commonly focused on hiring Mainland Chinese immigrants to reflect the changing demographics of their clientele and creating new programs to meet the language and cultural backgrounds of the clients. To contextualize these organizational efforts, an analysis of how policy changes (macro-level acculturation) interact with organizational practice is presented. Finally, the meaning of acculturation for the host society is discussed.     

More Than Weighting Cognitive Importance: A Dual-Process Model of Issue Framing Effects

Issue frames in policy discourse and news reporting regularly influence citizens' political opinions. Yet, we only have a limited understanding of how and among whom these framing effects occur. I propose a dual-process model of issue framing effects arguing that we must understand mediators of framing (the how question) in connection with individual-level moderators of framing (the whom question). Experimental results show that issue framing affects opinion through different psychological processes depending on who the receiver of the frame is. Among the moderately politically aware or those having weak political values, framing effects were mediated through processes of changing importance of considerations as well as changing content of considerations. Among the highly aware, only the importance change process mediated framing effects, while there were no framing effects among those least aware or those having strong values.     

Discerning the Division of Cognitive Labor: An Emerging Understanding of How Knowledge Is Clustered in Other Minds

The division of cognitive labor is fundamental to all cultures. Adults have a strong sense of how knowledge is clustered in the world around them and use that sense to access additional information, defer to relevant experts, and ground their own incomplete understandings. One prominent way of clustering knowledge is by disciplines similar to those that comprise the natural and social sciences. Seven studies explored an emerging sense of these discipline-based ways of clustering of knowledge. Even 5-year-olds could cluster knowledge in a manner roughly corresponding to the departments of natural and social sciences in a university, doing so without any explicit awareness of those academic disciplines. But this awareness is fragile early on and competes with other ways of clustering knowledge. Over the next few years, children come to see discipline-based clusters as having a privileged status, one that may be linked to increasingly sophisticated assumptions about essences for natural kinds. Possible mechanisms for this developmental shift are examined.     

Context Effects on Musical Chord Categorization: Different Forms of Top‐Down Feedback in Speech and Music?

A critical issue in perception is the manner in which top-down expectancies guide lower level perceptual processes. In speech, a common paradigm is to construct continua ranging between two phonetic endpoints and to determine how higher level lexical context influences the perceived boundary. We applied this approach to music, presenting participants with major/minor triad continua after brief musical contexts. Two experiments yielded results that differed from classic results in speech perception. In speech, context generally expands the category of the expected stimuli. We found the opposite in music: The major/minor boundary shifted toward the expected category, contracting it. Together, these experiments support the hypothesis that musical expectancy can feed back to affect lower-level perceptual processes. However, it may do so in a way that differs fundamentally from what has been seen in other domains.     

Computer simulations of developmental change: the contributions of working memory capacity and long-term knowledge

Increasing working memory (WM) capacity is often cited as a major influence on children's development and yet WM capacity is difficult to examine independently of long-term knowledge. A computational model of children's nonword repetition (NWR) performance is presented that independently manipulates long-term knowledge and WM capacity to determine the relative contributions of each in explaining the developmental data. The simulations show that (a) both mechanisms independently cause the same overall developmental changes in NWR performance, (b) increase in long-term knowledge provides the better fit to the child data, and (c) varying both long-term knowledge and WM capacity adds no significant gains over varying long-term knowledge alone. Given that increases in long-term knowledge must occur during development, the results indicate that increases in WM capacity may not be required to explain developmental differences. An increase in WM capacity should only be cited as a mechanism of developmental change when there are clear empirical reasons for doing so.     

TWO BAD WAYS TO ATTACK INTELLIGENT DESIGN AND TWO GOOD ONES

Four arguments are examined in order to assess the state of the Intelligent Design debate. First, critics continually cite the fact that ID proponents have religious motivations. When used as criticism of ID arguments, this is an obvious ad hominem. Nonetheless, philosophers and scientists alike continue to wield such arguments for their rhetorical value. Second, in his expert testimony in the Dover trial, philosopher Robert Pennock used repudiated claims in order to brand ID as a kind of pseudoscience. His arguments hinge on the nature of methodological naturalism as a metatheoretic shaping principle. We examine the use of such principles in science and the history of science. Special attention is given to the demarcation problem. Third, the scientific merits of ID are examined. Critics rightly demand more than promissory notes for ID to move beyond the fringe. Fourth, although methodological naturalism gets a lot of attention, there is another shaping principle to contend with, namely, conservatism. Science, like most disciplines, tends to change in an incremental rather than revolutionary manner. When ID is compared to other non‐ or quasi‐Darwinian proposals, it appears to be a more radical solution than is needed in the face of the anomalies.