Interpersonal Judgments: Moral Responsibility and Blame

A deterministic perspective, believing choices are a function of hereditary and environmental factors, could theoretically impact perceived moral responsibility and lead to decreased blame in judging others. However, little consistent support has been found relating individual differences in deterministic attitudes to blame/tolerance for others. Perhaps, though, providing information regarding past background hardships affecting an individual's current lifestyle could potentially mediate harsh moralistic judgments of that individual. In the two studies reported here, we further explored the relation of free will/determinism scales to attitudes toward others as well as the effect of manipulating background information on the assignment of blame. As in previous research, little support was found for the relation of deterministic attitudes to tolerance toward others. However, judgments following manipulated information about hypothetical target persons supported the conclusion that target individuals are blamed less and given more sympathy if more information related to previous hardships is provided. In addition, in the second study perceived similarity to a target individual was associated with decreased blame/greater sympathy for a target with alcohol abuse problems.     

Children's Trait and Emotion Attributions in Socially Ambiguous and Unambiguous Situations

Children's attributions about story characters in ambiguous and unambiguous social situations were assessed. One hundred and forty-four 6–7-year-olds and 10–11-year-olds heard about actors who slighted a recipient intentionally or for an undetermined reason and then made causal attributions about the events, an emotion attribution about the recipient, and global personality attributions about the actors and recipient. Relations between perceived self-competence and attribution style were also assessed. Participants were more likely to make negative causal attributions in the unambiguous condition and with increasing age. Older girls and younger boys were more likely than other groups to attribute negative emotions to the recipient. Overall, participants perceived recipients positively and actors negatively. Perceived self-competence was positively correlated with actor attributions, although these differed by age and gender. Implications for children's psychosocial adjustment are discussed.     

Feeling in Love Is Not Enough

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to review recent findings in neuroscience for offering suggestions for further revisions of marriage education programs. Suggestions include paying more attention to the history of each partner; understanding the attachment styles of each partner; using both explicit and implicit learning; helping couples understand the role of emotions in rational decision making; promoting activation of the left hemisphere of the brain; focusing on process instead of content; increasing religious experiences and spirituality; the use of humor, absurdity and unordered material; and creating self-directed, technologically advanced modules that can be used as periodic checkups.     

专家与新手教师内隐与外显学习的比较

教师作为典型的知识密集、技术密集的群体,其隐性知识也自然比较集中和典型,而专长研究可以有效地揭示教师的知识获取特点和学习规律。然而,以往的专长研究往往通过测量专家教师和新手教师在某方面的外显行为或外显知识的差异了解教师的知识结构和行为特点,这种做法由于忽略了教师的内隐学习和隐性知识,因此难以有效地揭示专家教师与新手教师在知识和能力结构上的真实差异。本研究借鉴认知心理学对专长的研究方式（即专家--新手比较）,运用经典的序列反应时任务（SRT）调整后的范式,采用带颜色边框的同一个学生的四种真实课堂表情图片作为刺激材料,以表情作为内隐学习的维度,以颜色作为外显学习的维度,对61名专家教师与88名新手教师在内隐/外显序列学习上的差异进行了比较研究。结果发现：（1）专家和新手教师被试群体均能够习得内隐/外显序列规则;（2）专家教师与新手教师在内隐学习上存在显著差异,专家教师内隐学习效果要优于新手教师;（2）专家教师与新手教师在外显学习维度上差异并不显著。结论：专家教师与新手教师有着近乎相当的外显学习能力和外显知识水平,但专家教师的内隐学习能力和隐性知识水平要显著高于新手教师。     

Alternative Lens Model Equations for Dichotomous Judgments about Dichotomous Criteria

The Brunswik lens model typically represents a judge's accuracy using parameters derived from linear regression. This is not optimal if the judgment or the ecological criterion is dichotomous. Alternative approaches, modeling dichotomies using logistic regression, or linearizing judgments with confidence ratings, have not been compared with the same data. Four techniques for deriving lens model equation parameters were compared: (i) linear and (ii) logistic regression applied to dichotomous patient outcomes and judgments; (iii) linear regression with confidence‐adjusted judgments but dichotomous patient outcomes; and (iv) a hybrid with a linear model of the confidence‐adjusted judgments and a logistic model of the patient outcomes. Judgment accuracy (r_a) was slightly higher with confidence adjustment of the categorical judgments. The logistic lens model accounted for a higher proportion of r_a than the linear lens model; the confident‐linear and hybrid lens models were intermediate. For up to a quarter of participants, different methods identified different cues as most important. Display condition differences in achievement r_a and in lens model components are similar with all lens model methods. Each of the three alternative lens model equation methods improves on the linear lens model equation's decomposition of the accuracy of dichotomous judgments. Confidence adjustment improves achievement although it requires additional work from the subjects. The logistic lens model equation explains the highest proportion of achievement, but with a small stimulus set, it is more vulnerable to cue intercorrelations than either the linear or the confident linear lens model equation. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The influence of visual mental imagery size on metamemory accuracy in judgment of learning

Many studies have found the font size of to-be-remembered words has a significant influence on judgments of learning (JOLs). However, few studies have investigated whether JOLs are affected by the mental imagery size of to-be-remembered words, even when the font sizes themselves are kept identical in study materials. This study investigated whether the visual mental imagery size influences the participants’ JOLs and what the underlying mechanisms are. In Experiments 1 and 2, participants learned words with identical font sizes, mentally generated large or small imageries and then made JOLs. We found that JOLs under the large imagery condition were significantly higher than those under the small imagery condition, but actual recall performance exhibited no significant difference. In Experiment 3, participants pressed a button immediately after mental imagery generation and showed that it took significantly longer to generate large imageries than to generate small imageries, and the difference in JOLs between two conditions was no longer significant. In Experiment 4, we used a questionnaire to investigate the contribution of beliefs and found that participants believed large imageries were easier to remember. These findings indicate that imagery size has a significant impact on JOLs, in which beliefs may play a leading role.     

Getting at the source of distinctive encoding effects in the DRM paradigm: evidence from signal-detection measures and source judgments

Studying Deese–Roediger–McDermott (DRM) lists using a distinctive encoding task can reduce the DRM false memory illusion. Reductions for both distinctively encoded lists and non-distinctively encoded lists in a within-group design have been ascribed to use of a distinctiveness heuristic by which participants monitor their memories at test for distinctive-task details. Alternatively, participants might simply set a more conservative response criterion, which would be exceeded by distinctive list items more often than all other test items, including the critical non-studied items. To evaluate these alternatives, we compared a within-group who studied 5 lists by reading, 5 by anagram generation, and 5 by imagery, relative to a control group who studied all 15 lists by reading. Generation and imagery improved recognition accuracy by impairing relational encoding, but the within group did not show greater memory monitoring at test relative to the read control group. Critically, the within group’s pattern of list-based source judgments provided new evidence that participants successfully monitored for distinctive-task details at test. Thus, source judgments revealed evidence of qualitative, recollection-based monitoring in the within group, to which our quantitative signal-detection measure of monitoring was blind.     

Reconsidering research on self-humanizing: The importance of mean comparative judgments

Self-humanization is defined as the tendency to view oneself as more essentially human than others. Researchers have claimed that people attribute human nature traits more strongly to themselves than to others, but not uniquely human traits. In this article we suggest that such claims are based on the misinterpretation of results. Most studies have not presented mean comparative judgments, making it impossible to determine whether people thought they possessed characteristics less strongly or more strongly than the average person. We found that people (N = 256) in Poland, Italy, and Korea perceived themselves as possessing desirable human nature and uniquely human characteristics more than others, as possessing undesirable uniquely human traits less than others, and as similar to others in terms of undesirable human nature characteristics. It seems that being more human than others means possessing some traits more than others and possessing some traits less than others.