Working harder with the out-group: The impact of social category diversity on motivation gains

This paper examines the influence that social category diversity (i.e., working with an in-group or out-group member) has on individual levels of motivation. The results of two experiments provide evidence that individuals increase their effort more when being outperformed by an out-group instead of an in-group member (Experiment 1), but only when the potential for social comparison is present (Experiment 2). We discuss the implications of this research for understanding how and why social category diversity may impact individual levels of motivation.     

从对框架效应的分析看风险决策的神经基础

对风险决策的研究近年来一直是微观经济学和心理学的热门,但是从传统的决策理论到主张有限理性的预期理论大多是对决策行为的研究,决策的心理机制一直是无法解释的黑箱子。令人兴奋的是近几年来神经科学家及其他领域的学者开始用先进的神经心理学的方法来研究风险决策,试图理解神经过程调节风险决策行为的方式。文章从分析违背“不变性”原则的框架效应入手,从正反框架、确定选择和风险选择、风险规避和风险寻求、高估小概率事件几个方面,全面分析风险决策可能的神经基础。在总结已有研究的基础上提出了把风险决策研究扩展到不确定决策,把风险决策中的一次决策研究扩展到多次决策的研究思路     

数字的空间特性

当要求被试对数字进行奇偶判断时,左手对小数的反应较快,而右手对大数的反应较快,该现象被称为空间数字反应编码联合效应（SNARC效应）。大量研究证实了SNARC效应的存在,该效应表明人类对数字的加工受空间表征和空间注意的影响。该文系统地回顾了SNARC效应存在及其发生阶段的证据,对比了Simon效应与SNARC效应,最后尝试着从空间注意的角度挖掘数字和空间的本质联     

大学生职业决策和自尊、成就动机的关系

在应用自尊量表(SES)和成就动机量表(AMS)对106名大学生(男生46名,女生60名)进行调查的基础上,通过设计框架性职业决策情景,探究了大学生职业决策和自尊、成就动机的关系。结果发现:(1)成就动机中避免失败变量与框架效应的交互作用对大学生职业决策倾向性有显著性影响;(2)自尊水平对大学生职业决策倾向性存在显著性作用;(3)框架效应在大学生职业决策中发生作用,对大学生的职业决策倾向性有显著的影响。     

Hand function,not proximity,biases visuotactile integration later in object processing: An ERP study

Behavioral studies document a functional hand proximity effect: objects near the palm, but not the back of the hand, affect visual processing. Although visuotactile bimodal neurons integrate visual and haptic inputs, their receptive fields in monkey cortex encompass the whole hand, not just the palm. Using ERPs, we investigated whether hand function influenced the topology of integrated space around the hand. In a visual detection paradigm, target and non-target stimuli appeared equidistantly in front or in back of the hand. Equivalent N1 amplitudes were found for both conditions. P3 target versus non-target amplitude differences were greater for palm conditions. Hand proximity biased processing of visual targets equidistant from the hand early in processing. However, hand function biases emerged later when targets were selected for potential action. Thus, early hand proximity effects on object processing depend on sensory-reliant neural responses, whereas later multisensory integration depend more on the hand’s functional expertise.     

Learning and transfer of calorie information

This study compared generating information about food to viewing and verbally producing that information for learning and transfer. Specifically, during training, a list of food items was shown, and some participants generated either real calories (Experiment 1) or fabricated prices (Experiment 2) associated with those foods with feedback provided (seeding), some viewed and read aloud values provided (viewing), and others read aloud the names of the items with no values provided (control). All participants were tested immediately and 1 week later on both old and new foods. In both experiments, the seeding and viewing conditions showed more learning than the control condition, and only the experimental conditions showed transfer of learning from old to new foods, with advantages found for seeding over viewing only in some cases. The results are discussed in terms of the seeding, testing, generation, and production effects, as well as their applications to health and policy.     

红色及图形表征对健康行为的助推作用

本研究旨在通过3个实验从信息凸显的角度探讨红色图形对健康行为的助推作用。实验一和实验二分别采用星号图和直条图，通过操纵图形颜色或装有实验材料的信封颜色，以探讨数量信息表征方式（图形 vs. 数字）及颜色（红色 vs. 蓝色、黑色或白色）对健康风险回避行为的影响。实验三将针对宫颈癌疫苗接种这一健康行为，采用更加形象的人物杆形图进一步考察在不同决策框架下（损失/收益）红色图形能否有效助推个体的健康行为意愿。结果发现，在损失及收益情景下，红色图形均能稳定助推个体的健康行为，但当用信封颜色操纵颜色背景时，红色的影响力会降低。结果支持：红色图形可有效助推个体的健康行为。     

Homesickness in social context: An ecological momentary assessment study among 1st-year university students

Homesickness is common among university students and associated with mental health problems. Most previous studies assessed homesickness as a summary of the past weeks. However, there may be significant fluctuations across situations. At the current residence, homesickness may especially be triggered during (phone) interactions with attachment figures. Dutch and international 1st-year students (n = 92) completed the Utrecht Homesickness Scale and subsequently used a smartphone application to record social interactions for 14 days (ecological momentary assessment [EMA]). For each interaction they reported the social context (e.g. location, contact type) and their affective state, including homesickness. Homesickness in the past weeks and momentary homesickness were both higher in international students than in Dutch students. Feeling homesick was highest at participants' current residency, when interacting with parents, or when using video-chat. When participants felt more homesick, they reported less pleasant and more unpleasant affect. In conclusion, EMA provided insight in cross-situational variations in homesickness.     

Looking behaviour and preference for artworks: The role of emotional valence and location

The position of an item influences its evaluation, with research consistently finding that items occupying central locations are preferred and have a higher subjective value. The current study investigated whether this centre-stage effect (CSE) is a result of bottom-up gaze allocation to the central item, and whether it is affected by item valence. Participants (n = 50) were presented with three images of artistic paintings in a row and asked to choose the image they preferred. Eye movements were recorded for a subset of participants (n = 22). On each trial the three artworks were either similar but different, or were identical and with positive valence, or were identical and with negative valence. The results showed a centre-stage effect, with artworks in the centre of the row preferred, but only when they were identical and of positive valence. Significantly greater gaze allocation to the central and left artwork was not mirrored by equivalent increases in preference choices. Regression analyses showed that when the artworks were positive and identical the participants' last fixation predicted preference for the central art-work, whereas the fixation duration predicted preference if the images were different. Overall the result showed that item valence, rather than level of gaze allocation, influences the CSE, which is incompatible with the bottom-up gaze explanation. We propose that the centre stage heuristic, which specifies that the best items are in the middle, is able to explain these findings and the centre-stage effect.     

“Piensa” twice: On the foreign language effect in decision making

In this article, we assess to what extent decision making is affected by the language in which a given problem is presented (native vs. foreign). In particular, we aim to ask whether the impact of various heuristic biases in decision making is diminished when the problems are presented in a foreign language. To this end, we report four main studies in which more than 700 participants were tested on different types of individual decision making problems. In the first study, we replicated Keysar et al.’s (2012) recent observation regarding the foreign language effect on framing effects related to loss aversion. In the second section, we assessed whether the foreign language effect is present in other types of framing problems that involve psychological accounting biases rather than gain/loss dichotomies. In the third section, we studied the foreign language effect in several key aspects of the theory of decision making under risk and uncertainty. In the fourth study, we assessed the presence of a foreign language effect in the cognitive reflection test, a test that includes logical problems that do not carry emotional connotations. The absence of such an effect in this test suggests that foreign language leads to a reduction of heuristic biases in decision making across a range of decision making situations and provide also some evidence about the boundaries of the phenomenon. We explore several potential factors that may underlie the foreign language effect in decision making.