Perceiving stability as a means to attitude certainty: The role of implicit theories of attitudes

This research introduces the concept of implicit theories of attitude stability. Across three studies, individuals are shown to vary both naturally and situationally in their lay theories about the stability of attitudes. Furthermore, these general theories are shown to impact people's certainty in their specific attitudes by shaping their perceptions of the stability of the attitude under consideration. By affecting attitude certainty, implicit theories of attitude stability also influence the extent to which people rely on their attitude when committing to future attitude-relevant behavior. Moreover, following exposure to a persuasive attack, implicit theories are shown to interact with situational perceptions of attitude stability to determine attitude certainty. Collectively, these findings suggest that implicit theories of attitude stability have an important influence on people's attitude certainty, subsequent behavioral intentions, and resistance to persuasive messages. Future directions concerning the potential impact of these theories for other attitudinal phenomena are discussed.     

Consider the situation: Reducing automatic stereotyping through Situational Attribution Training

The present research investigated the effectiveness of a new technique for reducing automatic biases rooted in attribution theory - the Situational Attribution Training Technique. The goal of this strategy extends previous work by targeting the fundamental attributional pillars underlying automatic stereotyping. We aimed to circumvent the well-documented tendency for individuals to be overly reliant on dispositional attributions when perceiving negative stereotype-consistent behaviors performed by outgroup members. By teaching participants to consider situational attributions for such behaviors, we expected a reduction in outgroup stereotyping. Specifically, White participants were trained extensively to choose situational over dispositional explanations for negative stereotype-consistent behaviors performed by Black men. Across two experiments, participants who completed Situational Attribution Training demonstrated reduced automatic racial stereotyping on a person categorization task, relative to control participants who exhibited substantial automatic stereotyping. The implications of these findings for the nature and reduction of intergroup biases are discussed.     

Implicit learning of social predictions

Humans exchange a range of nonverbal social signals in every interaction. It is an open question whether people use these signals, consciously or unconsciously, to guide social behavior. This experiment directly tested whether participants could learn to predict another person’s behavior using nonverbal cues in a single interaction, and whether explicit knowledge of the cue-outcome relationship was necessary for successful prediction. Participants played a computerized game of rock-paper-scissors against an avatar they believed was another participant. Sometimes the avatar generated a predictive facial cue before the play. On these trials, participants’ win-frequency increased over time, even if they did not acquire explicit knowledge of the predictive cue. The degree to which participants could predict the avatar (wins on cued trials) related to their self-reported liking of the avatar. These findings demonstrate the importance of implicit associative learning mechanisms in guiding social behavior on a moment-to-moment basis during interaction.     

Chess as a Behavioral Model for Cognitive Skill Research: Review of Blindfold Chess by Eliot Hearst and John Knott

This multifaceted work on chess played without sight of the pieces is a sophisticated psychologist's examination of this topic and of chess skill in general, including a detailed and comprehensive historical account. This review builds on Hearst and Knott's assertion that chess can provide a uniquely useful model for research on several issues in the area of cognitive skill and imagery. A key issue is the relationship between viewing a stimulus and mental imagery in the light of blindfold chess masters' consistent reports that they do not use or have images. This review also proposes a methodology for measuring and quantifying an individual's skill shortfall from a theoretical maximum. This methodology, based on a 1951 proposal by Claude Shannon, is applicable to any choice situation in which all the available choices are known. The proposed “Proficiency” measure reflects the equivalent number of “yes—no” questions that would have been required to arrive at a best choice, considering also the time consumed. As the measure provides a valid and nonarbitrary way to compare different skills and the effects of different independent variables on a given skill, it may have a wide range of applications in cognitive skill research, skill training, and education.     

工作倦怠的测量及其干预研究综述

工作倦怠不仅会给组织和家庭带来消极的影响,而且会严重损害个体的身心健康,因而有必要采取措施进行干预。文章首先描述工作倦怠的定义,接着对其测量进行介绍,然后在此基础上分析其相关的影响因素,并指出如何实现有效的干预,最后对研究的热点进行了展望。     

The kinds of information that support novel associative object priming and how these differ from those that support item priming

We investigated how the information that supports novel associative and item object priming differs under identical study/test conditions. In Experiments 1 and 2, participants rated the meaningfulness of sentences linking two object pictures at study. At test, they performed either a size judgement or an associative recognition memory task on intact, recombined and novel picture (Experiment 1) or word (Experiment 2) associations. Associative priming was modulated by subjective meaningfulness of the encoded links, and depended on study/test perceptual overlap. In contrast, item priming was neither affected by the meaningfulness of the sentences nor by study/test changes in the stimulus presentation format. Associative priming and recognition were behaviourally dissociated, and associative recognition was probably too slow to have seriously contaminated associative priming. In Experiment 3, participants performed a perceptually oriented task during both experimental phases, and both associative and item priming were observed. These results suggest that associative priming depends on stored associative semantic and perceptual information when the test task requires flexible retrieval of associative information. Under the same conditions, item priming may only require activation of items' semantic properties. When both study and test tasks stress perceptual processing, retrieval of perceptual information is sufficient to support both kinds of priming.     

Adapting to test structure: Letting testing teach what to learn

We propose that we encode and store information as a function of the particular ways we have used similar information in the past. More specifically, we contend that the experience of retrieval can serve as a powerful cue to the most effective ways to encode similar information in comparable future learning episodes. To explore these ideas, we did two studies in which all participants went through study–test cycles of single category lists while we manipulated the nature of the recognition tests. The recognition tests either included only same-category lures or only different-category lures. The experience of repeated testing leads participants to avoid conceptual-based strategies but only when conceptual knowledge was poorly diagnostic for recognition (i.e., in the same-category lures condition). In a second study with a similar manipulation, we showed that repeated testing with lures from the same category as study items improved performance in a final recall surprise test compared to conditions in which different-category lures were used. Such a difference is akin to the one obtained when encoding instructions focus on distinctive item features compared to cases in which the focus is on relational processing. We suggest that testing requirements lead to adaptive changes at encoding.     

混合模式调查下的测量不变性：跨文化视角

混合模式调查收集数据的有效性需以模式间测量等同为前提.以往调查模式间的测量等同研究尚未考虑文化因素的影响.本研究通过两个自我创新能力评价量表,基于中美两国数据,运用多组确认性因子分析法考察了将由网络调查和纸笔调查构成的混合调查模式应用于自我能力和行为评估时的测量等同问题.结果在美国的样本中发现创新能力评价量表在两种调查模式下具有测量不变性,而在中国的样本中只发现强因子测量不变性,提示混合模式调查下测量不等同的出现是调查模式和文化因素共同导致的结果.我们认为,集体主义文化扩大与强化了纸笔调查和网络调查之间的匿名感知差异,进而受访者可能在网络调查中呈现出“满意决策”作答行为或在线下的调查中呈现出“社会称许性作答行为”,从而增加了出现测量不等同的可能性.     

Implicit volition and stereotype control

Goals are mental representations that vary in accessibility and operate within goal systems. The implicit nature of goal activation and pursuit is shown here to make goals effective not merely at overturning the influence of an activated stereotype on how people respond to members of stereotyped groups, but effective at implicitly controlling the activation of stereotypes in the first place. In a set of experiments examining chronic egalitarian goals, faces and names of members of stereotyped groups presented as target stimuli led to the inhibition of stereotypes, as well as to the heightened accessibility of egalitarian goals. A separate set of experiments illustrate a similar ability of individuals to control stereotype activation when egalitarian goals are temporarily triggered within a context, rather than being chronically held. Goals that require one to inhibit stereotypic associations to a target can lead to the intended, yet implicit, control of stereotype activation, even when one is not aware the goal is active or being pursued or being regulated.     

Putting yourself in the skin of a black avatar reduces implicit racial bias

Although it has been shown that immersive virtual reality (IVR) can be used to induce illusions of ownership over a virtual body (VB), information on whether this changes implicit interpersonal attitudes is meager. Here we demonstrate that embodiment of light-skinned participants in a dark-skinned VB significantly reduced implicit racial bias against dark-skinned people, in contrast to embodiment in light-skinned, purple-skinned or with no VB. 60 females participated in this between-groups experiment, with a VB substituting their own, with full-body visuomotor synchrony, reflected also in a virtual mirror. A racial Implicit Association Test (IAT) was administered at least three days prior to the experiment, and immediately after the IVR exposure. The change from pre- to post-experience IAT scores suggests that the dark-skinned embodied condition decreased implicit racial bias more than the other conditions. Thus, embodiment may change negative interpersonal attitudes and thus represent a powerful tool for exploring such fundamental psychological and societal phenomena.