Making Sense of Climate Change: How Story Frames Shape Cognition

In 2006, Adam J. Berinsky and Donald R. Kinder published findings in the Journal of Politics that demonstrated that framing news as a story influences how individuals cognitively organize concepts and information. The study presented here moves forward in this tradition. This research combines samples obtained in the springs of 2009 and 2010 while conducting online experiments. In these experiments, slightly over 2,000 respondents are asked to organize concepts presented in one of three culturally nuanced stories about climate change or where information is presented as a list. Hierarchical cluster analysis indicates that when respondents are exposed to culturally congruent stories, respondent organizational patterns are more likely to mirror the story. We discuss the implications of these findings.     

Understanding of others’ knowledge in French and Japanese children: A comparative study with a disambiguation task on 16–38-month-olds

In order to explain the cultural differences reported in the results of false-belief tasks, we attempted to verify the ‘task bias hypothesis’ suggested by certain studies (e.g. Tardif et al. (2004). Journal of Child Language, 31, 779–800; Rubio-Fernandez & Geurts (2013). Psychological Science, 24(1), 27–33. doi 10.1177/0956797612447819). At the same time, we aimed to observe the theory of mind (ToM) ability of infants and young children under the age of three in verbal communication. To this end, we propose a new protocol to test young children's ToM ability, with particular attention paid to the linguistic aspect of the task. This original disambiguation task using proper nouns (first names) was tested on a total of 32 children aged between 16 and 38 months, in France and Japan. The results revealed that after the age of 30 months children begin to correctly interpret nouns while simultaneously taking into account their partner's knowledge (50% of the French and 29% of the Japanese children were successful), whereas this remains difficult for younger children (no child under 30 months was successful). The analysis of error types has shown that ‘memory bias’ was dominant in younger children in particular and ‘association bias’ was rarely observed across all ages. Given that the results of French and Japanese children did not differ significantly, we assume that this new task design could minimise the influence of cultural difference caused by the characteristics of different languages.     

Keeping the reader's mind in mind: Development of perspective-taking in children's dictations

This study investigated when children can take the perspective of their reader if the information-processing demands of writing are removed by means of dictation to a scribe. Participants (N = 96) aged 5, 6 and 7 years dictated letters to an addressee who possessed requisite content knowledge, and then revised the letter or dictated a new letter to an addressee who lacked this knowledge (counterbalanced). Results showed that 19% of 5-year-olds, 41% of 6-year-olds, and 72% of 7-year-olds considered their reader's missing knowledge. Children's awareness of their reader's knowledge was neither related to performance on higher-order theory of mind tasks, nor to measures of executive function. Significantly greater perspective-taking was demonstrated in children's new letters than revised letters. However, although revision is considered a late-developing skill, half of even the 5-year-olds were able to make revisions (albeit few revisions demonstrated actual perspective-taking). Findings have significant implications for the emergent-literacy curriculum.     

Throwing more light on the dark side of psychopathy: An extension of previous findings for the revised Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory

Despite previous studies of psychopathy and the motivational systems of the Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory (RST) of personality, few have examined psychopathy in light of the revised RST model. In a large sample (N = 779) of young adults, we expand on Hughes, Moore, Morris, and Corr’s (2012) preliminary findings relating primary/secondary psychopathy to revised RST’s three systems: Flight-Flight-Freeze System (FFFS), Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS), and Behavioral Approach System (BAS). Converging results between Hughes et al. and the current study emphasize three major findings: (1) primary psychopathy is negatively related to the BIS as well as the FFFS; (2) primary psychopathy is positively related to goal-driven behavior of the BAS; and, (3) secondary psychopathy is positively related to impulsivity reflected in the BAS. The FFFS was incrementally predictive of primary but not secondary psychopathy. No evidence for a BAS × BIS interaction in psychopathy was found. Results are discussed in terms of future research directions.     

Post hoc versus predictive accounts of children’s theory of mind: A reply to Ruffman

Ruffman (2014) argues for a minimalist account of infants’ performance on theory of mind tasks. This commentary argues that because Ruffman’s minimalist account is post hoc, it neither generates testable predictions about how infants will respond in new situations, nor does it offer a coherent explanation for existing false-belief findings. An alternative, mentalist account is presented. This account integrates infancy findings with prior theory of mind literature and generates novel predictions about children’s false belief performance.     

Moral error theories and folk metaethics

In this paper, I distinguish between two error theories of morality: one couched in terms of truth (ET1); the other in terms of justification (ET2). I then present two arguments: the Poisoned Presupposition Argument for ET1; and the Evolutionary Debunking Argument for ET2. I go on to show how assessing these arguments requires paying attention to empirical moral psychology, in particular, work on folk metaethics. After criticizing extant work, I suggest avenues for future research.     

Gettier made ESEE

Previous research in experimental philosophy has suggested that moral judgments can influence the ordinary application of a number of different concepts, including attributions of knowledge. But should epistemologists care? The present set of studies demonstrate that this basic effect can be extended to overturn intuitions in some of the most theoretically central thought experiments in contemporary epistemology: Gettier cases. Furthermore, experiment 3 shows that this effect is unlikely to be mediated by a simple desire to blame, suggesting that a correct psychological account of ordinary knowledge attribution may include moral judgment.     

理性行动-社会认同整合性集体行动模型

为探究理性行动理论和社会认同理论两大社会心理学宏论对于个体集体行动参与倾向的共同解释力,以“中日撞船事件”为考察蓝本向天津市431名大学生被试进行调查研究,结果发现：效能和社会规范作为态度和行动倾向的中介变量,在不同情境下对行动倾向的作用不同,符合理性行动原则;内部动机作为态度和效能、社会规范之间的中介变量,并受到学校认同和国家认同的直接或间接影响,支持了社会认同理论对遵从规范行为的解释;回归分析验证了不同水平认同对行动倾向作用程度的差异,整合模型则揭示了其具体的作用路径和影响机制.结论：理性行动理论与社会认同理论可彼此互补成为集体行动参与的整合性解释框架.     

Extended cognition and the space of social interaction

The extended mind thesis (EM) asserts that some cognitive processes are (partially) composed of actions consisting of the manipulation and exploitation of environmental structures. Might some processes at the root of social cognition have a similarly extended structure? In this paper, I argue that social cognition is fundamentally an interactive form of space management—the negotiation and management of “we-space”—and that some of the expressive actions involved in the negotiation and management of we-space (gesture, touch, facial and whole-body expressions) drive basic processes of interpersonal understanding and thus do genuine social-cognitive work. Social interaction is a kind of extended social cognition, driven and at least partially constituted by environmental (non-neural) scaffolding. Challenging the Theory of Mind paradigm, I draw upon research from gesture studies, developmental psychology, and work on Moebius Syndrome to support this thesis.