Personality and behavioral outcomes associated with risk-taking are accurately inferred from faces

Growing evidence suggests that people are able to accurately infer some personality traits and behavioral outcomes from facial photographs. However, little research has examined whether people are able to accurately infer personality traits or behavioral outcomes associated with risk-taking. In this study, we examined whether people were able to accurately infer, on average, others’ personality traits associated with risk-taking from facial photographs. We further examined whether such first impressions were associated with relevant and important behavioral outcomes—specifically, future discounting and gambling and problem gambling tendencies. Results suggest that people are able to accurately infer, on average, some personality traits and behavioral outcomes associated with risk-taking from faces.     

New Worlds,New Civilizations? From Science Fiction to Science Fact

ABSTRACT

Although long predicted on theoretical grounds, prior to the 1990s there was no observational evidence of worlds orbiting distant stars; however, the development of new technologies has enabled the discovery of thousands of these exoplanets. The diversity of these worlds exceeds scientific expectations and rivals foreshadowing by the most creative science fiction writers. Extrapolations based on statistical arguments and our understanding of how planetary systems form suggest exoplanets may outnumber the roughly 10 million quadrillion stars in the observable Universe. There are compelling reasons to expect conditions conducive to life on many of these worlds, but the existence of extraterrestrial life remains an open question. Although galaxy-spanning civilizations envisioned in science fiction remain unlikely, future contact with extraterrestrial species is not implausible, and in any case, the likelihood of having a human presence on Mars within the next few decades lends urgency to global, cross-cultural religious and ethical discussions.     

Get angry, get out: The interpersonal effects of anger communication in multiparty negotiation

Research on multiparty negotiation has investigated how parties form coalitions to secure payoffs but has not addressed how emotions may affect such coalition decisions. Extending research on bilateral negotiations which has generally argued that it is beneficial to communicate anger, we argue that it constitutes a considerable risk when there are more than two people present at the negotiation table. Using a computer-mediated coalition game we show that communicating anger is a risky strategy in multiparty bargaining. The main findings of three studies were that participants: (1) form negative impressions of players who communicate anger and therefore (2) exclude such players from coalitions and from obtaining a payoff share, but (3) make considerable concessions on those rare occasions that they choose to form a coalition with an angry player, or (4) when they had to form a coalition with an angry player. We discuss the implications of these results for theorizing on emotions, negotiations, and coalition formation.     

How extraverted is honey.bunny77@hotmail.de? Inferring personality from e-mail addresses

Computer mediated communication (CMC) plays a rapidly growing role in our social lives. Within this domain, e-mail addresses represent the thinnest slice of information that people receive from one another. Using 599 e-mail addresses of young adults, their self-reported personality scores and the personality judgments of 100 independent observers, it was shown that personality impressions based solely on e-mail addresses were consensually shared by observers. Moreover, these impressions contained some degree of validity. This was true for neuroticism, openness, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and narcissism but not for extraversion. Level of accuracy was explained using lens model analyses: Lay observers made broad use of perceivable e-mail address features in their personality judgments, features were slightly valid and observers were sensitive to subtle differences in validity between cues. Altogether, even the thinnest slice of CMC—the mere e-mail address—contains valid information about the personality of its owner.     

汉语双字复合词识别中语义、词类和构词法信息的激活

以90名中国大学生为被试,采用启动条件下的词汇判断任务,探讨了SOA在57ms、157ms和314ms条件下汉语双字复合词语义、词类和构词法等词汇信息激活的相对时间进程。结果表明,在57ms时语义信息已经被激活,在157ms时语义和词类两种信息均被激活,在314ms时激活了语义、词类和构词法三类信息。汉语双字复合词识别中最先激活语义信息,接着激活词类信息,构词法信息激活最晚。语义和词类信息激活后,随着SOA增加,其激活强度有增强的趋势。语义信息在整个词汇信息激活中占有优势。     

Inference making and linking both require thinking: Spontaneous trait inference and spontaneous trait transference both rely on working memory capacity

Past research suggests that spontaneous trait inference (STI) and spontaneous trait transference (STT) may reflect different cognitive processes, the former being inferential and the latter associational. The present research was designed to explore whether either or both of these processes involve thinking that occupies cognitive capacity. Four studies suggest that reductions in available cognitive capacity reduce both STI and STT effects, both on measures of savings in relearning (which reflect the strength of trait associations with a person) and on trait ratings measures (which reflect the strength of trait inferences made about a person). Similar results were obtained using an individual difference measure of cognitive capacity. Although these results suggest that STI and STT are similar, in that both exhibit interference from reductions in cognitive capacity, other results, such as halo effects in trait ratings, support previous assertions that their underlying processes are distinct.     

Development of implicit and explicit category learning

We present two studies that examined developmental differences in the implicit and explicit acquisition of category knowledge. College-attending adults consistently outperformed school-age children on two separate information-integration paradigms due to children’s more frequent use of an explicit rule-based strategy. Accuracy rates were also higher for adults on a unidimensional rule-based task due to children’s more frequent use of the irrelevant dimension to guide their behavior. Results across these two studies suggest that the ability to learn categorization structures may be dependent on a child’s ability to inhibit output from the explicit system.     

Contagious resource depletion and anxiety? Spreading effects of evaluative concern and impression formation in dyadic social interaction

Two studies examined how adopting an impression formation or evaluative concern mindset affects individuals' own and their interaction partner's experience of potentially stressful social exchanges, such as first meeting situations and interethnic interaction. Our main hypothesis was that adopting an impression formation mindset would, by diverting individuals' focus away from themselves and toward others, reduce both their own and their partner's cognitive resource depletion and negative affect. Consistent with predictions, positive effects of impression formation were evident and were “contagious” in that they were evident across individuals who received the mindset instructions and their partners, who were unaware of the manipulation. The positive effects of impression formation instructions were generally evident both in comparison to evaluative concern instructions, which provided similar structure, and in comparison to no instructions at all. Thus, adopting an impression formation mindset seems an effective strategy for minimizing negative outcomes experienced in stressful social interactions.     

Interorientation interactions and impressions: Does the timing of disclosure of sexual orientation matter?

Unlike gender, race, or ethnicity, sexual orientation is not necessarily readily identifiable. The current work tests whether the timing of disclosure of sexual orientation influences reactions to intergroup interactions. Participants in two studies anticipated interacting with a partner for a study of first-time interactions. Prior to the interaction, they received information about the partner in the form of a prerecorded interview. During the interview the partner revealed his sexual orientation either early or late. Male participants whose partner disclosed as gay early in the interview responded with negative and avoidant responses to the upcoming interaction, formed more stereotypic impressions of the interaction partner, and reacted more aggressively toward the partner. Timing of disclosure by a straight partner did not influence responses. In addition, the negative responses toward the gay target who disclosed early were mediated by the stereotypicality of the impression the male participants formed of their interaction partner. These results suggest a primacy effect for group categorization such that greater levels of bias occur when group categorization occurs prior to the receipt of individuating information.     

Eye'm lovin' it! The role of gazing awareness in mimetic desires

Recent studies showed that people evaluate objects more favorably when these objects are gazed-at by others, an effect coined as “mimetic desire”. In two studies, we tested whether mimetic desire stems from an automatic form of learning by examining one dimension of automaticity, i.e., people's awareness of the object-gaze association. Participants saw 6 neutral art paintings associated with a female gazing toward two of the paintings, away from two of the paintings, and closing her eyes with respect to the last two paintings. After the exposition phase, participants evaluated the paintings and performed a contingency-awareness test. Importantly, participants' responses on this test were genuinely driven by memory and not by inferences from liking. Results show that participants preferred objects that were gazed-at but only when they were aware of the object-gaze association. Hence, despite the adaptive function of joint attention, its impact on valence acquisition does not seem to qualify as an implicit learning process.