When does a referent public problem affect financial and political support for public action?

In three studies we examined the willingness to support action to remedy a public problem. In Study 1 and Study 2, people were asked whether they would financially contribute to solution of a public problem. In Study 3, people were asked whether they would sign a petition to support a public action. The aim was to test whether the willingness to support solution of a public problem is affected by the type of problem that is used as the referent. We hypothesized that the willingness to support a public action is lower when evaluated in the context of a high‐ as opposed to a low‐importance referent problem (importance contrast effect). We also hypothesized that the importance contrast effect is tied to the perceived relatedness between the target and referent problems. The importance contrast effect should be found only when the two problems relate to different category domains. The findings bear out this prediction. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

非言语声音影响汉语听者言语声音的知觉

采用启动范式, 以汉语听者为被试, 考察了非言语声音是否影响言语声音的知觉。实验1考察了纯音对辅音范畴连续体知觉的影响, 结果发现纯音影响到辅音范畴连续体的知觉, 表现出频谱对比效应。实验2考察了纯音和复合音对元音知觉的影响, 结果发现与元音共振峰频率一致的纯音或复合音加快了元音的识别, 表现出启动效应。两个实验一致发现非言语声音能够影响言语声音的知觉, 表明言语声音知觉也需要一个前言语的频谱特征分析阶段, 这与言语知觉听觉理论的观点一致。     

条件联结觉察在评价性条件反射中的作用

评价性条件反射(Evaluative Conditioning, EC)指通过将一个中性刺激和一个情绪性刺激重复配对, 使中性刺激获得情绪性刺激的情感性评价。条件联结觉察(Contingency Awareness)指被试觉察到中性刺激和情绪性刺激的配对规律。当前, 条件联结觉察在EC中的作用尚存争议。一些研究证明, 条件联结觉察独立于EC, 甚至阻碍了EC; 另一些研究则表明, 条件联结觉察促进EC的发生; 还有些研究发现条件联结觉察在EC中的作用受其他变量的调节。因此, 在将来的研究中, 需发展出更准确的觉察测量、检验其他变量的调节作用、加强多感觉通道的EC研究、探索EC的加工机制。     

Contrast Effects and Approval Voting: An Illustration of a Systematic Violation of the Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives Condition

In approval voting, voters indicate all alternatives acceptable to them, instead of indicating their most preferred alternative. This study sought to examine the hypothesis that, under certain conditions, approval voting systematically violates a rationality condition of social choice: the independence of irrelevant alternatives condition. Given a well-known psychological phenomenon, the contrast effect, it was hypothesized that sets of acceptable alternatives might be changed as a result of changes in unacceptable alternatives. This hypothesis was tested in a sample of undergraduates who were presented with fictional profiles of juvenile delinquents and then were asked whether they should be granted parole. The outcomes of approval voting changed merely as the result of a change in an alternative least preferred by all voters.     

Effects of Performance Context on Processing Speed and Performance Ratings

The present study demonstrated that the presence of evaluatively polarized context performances not only produces contrast and halo effects on judgments of a target performance, but also causes judgments to be made much faster. Processing speed and positive halo were highly correlated, supporting the notion that halo in performance ratings results from raters' recall and use of a single, general impression. Furthermore, regression analyses demonstrated that processing speed mediates the relationship between context and halo. The relationship between these findings, halo, processing speed, and general impressions, as well as implications for performance appraisals, are discussed.     

Social Identity versus Reference Frame Comparisons: The Moderating Role of Stereotype Endorsement

Two studies tested the prediction that belief in a negative stereotype about an in-group will cause members to shift from viewing their in-group as a social identity to viewing it as a frame of reference. The stereotype that was the focus of inquiry was the belief that women have less aptitude at math and spatial tasks than do men. In both studies, female participants took a test of math and spatial ability and then received social comparison information about their abilities relative to a male and a female confederate. In Study 1, participants felt enhanced when the two women outperformed the male confederate, even when this meant that the participants themselves performed worse than the other woman. If participants were first reminded of the negative stereotype, however, they felt best when they outperformed the other woman, even if this meant that the two women performed worse than the man. Study 2 showed that the effects of stereotype activation were especially pronounced among female participants who showed moderate to high levels of stereotype endorsement. These findings suggest that belief in stereotypes about the in-group can lead to in-group comparison and contrast, even in contexts in which a group member's ability level challenges the validity of the stereotype.     

Varieties of contrast: a review of incentive relativity by charles f. Flaherty

The phenomenon of contrast has been studied from two quite separate perspectives, one derived from the classic studies of incentive contrast such as Crespi (1942) and the other from the study of behavioral contrast within behavior analysis. This book reviews both of these types of contrast effects and finds both differences and similarities between them. Still at issue is the validity of the interpretation of contrast that assumes that the value of some target level of reward is modified in inverse relation to the level of reward from other sources in the same context. This concept works well for the classic studies of incentive contrast, but is challenged by the emerging importance of anticipatory contrast and the finding in both of the separate research traditions that anticipatory contrast is inversely related to other measures of reinforcement value.     

Contrast and reallocation of extraneous reinforcers between multiple-schedule components

Four pigeons responded in components of multiple schedules in which two responses were available and reinforced with food. Pecks on the left key (“main” key) were reinforced at a constant rate in one component and at a rate that varied over conditions in the other component. When reinforcer rate was varied, behavioral contrast occurred in the constant component. On the right key (“extra” key), five variable-interval schedules and one variable-ratio schedule, presented conjointly, arranged reinforcers for responses in all conditions. These conjoint schedules were common to both multiple-schedule components—rather than unique to particular components—and reinforcers from these schedules could therefore be arranged in one component and obtained during the other component. In this way, the additional reinforcers were analogous to the “extraneous” reinforcers thought to maintain behavior other than pecking in conventional multiple schedules. Response rate on the extra key did not change systematically over conditions in the constant component, and in the varied component extra responding was inversely related to main-key reinforcement. All subjects obtained more extra-key reinforcers in whichever component arranged fewer main-key reinforcers. Consistent with the theory that reallocation of extraneous reinforcers may cause behavioral contrast, absolute reinforcer rate for the extra key in the constant component was low in conditions that produced positive contrast on the main key and high in those that produced negative contrast. Also consistent with this theory, behavioral contrast was reduced in two conditions that canceled extra-key reinforcers that had been arranged but not obtained at the end of components. Thus, a constraint on reallocation markedly reduced the extent of contrast.     

Competition between stimulus-reinforcer contingencies and anticipatory contrast.

Procedures used to study anticipatory contrast are conceptually similar to those used to study autoshaping, in that two target stimuli signal either higher or lower rates of reinforcement in the following components of the schedule. Despite this signal contingency, anticipatory contrast entails response rates that are higher to the target stimulus followed by the lower rate of reinforcement. To determine the relation between such effects and autoshaping, different variations of the procedure were used in which the signal contingency was presented in the absence of reinforcement in the target components themselves and in which the reinforcement schedules in the different following components were signaled by the same stimulus. Autoshaping effects of this signal contingency were demonstrated when no reinforcement was available during the target-component signals themselves. Intermediate patterns of behavior occurred when reinforcement was available during the target-component signals and when their different following schedules were correlated with the same stimulus. Attempts to isolate these signal and contrast effects functionally by using the signal-key procedure were unsuccessful. The results demonstrate that Pavlovian stimulus contingencies are in competition with the dynamics of anticipatory contrast, thus reducing its occurrence under some circumstances.