Accuracy Motivations,Predispositions, and Social Information in Political Discussion Networks

This analysis studies how variation in individuals' motivation to form accurate judgments affects the process of political discussion. I use a small‐group experiment in which participants compete to elect the simulated candidate who best represents their true preferences. I manipulate economic incentives to control participants' accuracy motivations. The results show that accuracy‐motivated participants, compared to those with weaker accuracy goals, seek discussants with more expertise and a more diverse set of viewpoints, place greater emphasis on socially provided messages, and reduce emphasis on political predispositions. As a result of these differences, however, accuracy‐motivated participants rely more heavily on biased information. Hence, accuracy motivations do not produce more accurate judgments or better decisions. Although previous work on political discussion has largely ignored the role of motivations, these results suggest that accuracy motivations play an important but nuanced role in this process. Strengthened accuracy motivations increase individuals' exposure to political expertise and ideological diversity but also increase their potential to be misled.     

Exploiting Listener Gaze to Improve Situated Communication in Dynamic Virtual Environments

Beyond the observation that both speakers and listeners rapidly inspect the visual targets of referring expressions, it has been argued that such gaze may constitute part of the communicative signal. In this study, we investigate whether a speaker may, in principle, exploit listener gaze to improve communicative success. In the context of a virtual environment where listeners follow computer‐generated instructions, we provide two kinds of support for this claim. First, we show that listener gaze provides a reliable real‐time index of understanding even in dynamic and complex environments, and on a per‐utterance basis. Second, we show that a language generation system that uses listener gaze to provide rapid feedback improves overall task performance in comparison with two systems that do not use gaze. Aside from demonstrating the utility of listener gaze in situated communication, our findings open the door to new methods for developing and evaluating multi‐modal models of situated interaction.     

Ideas of justice and reconstructions of Confucian justice

Confucianism tends to play only a marginal role in current theorizing about justice, which is a global pursuit dominated by Western theory and its strong tendency to assume that justice refers to some substantive conception of distributive, socioeconomic justice. This article examines and compares reconstructions of Confucian justice by Joseph Chan, May Sim, and Fan Ruiping. Each reconstruction makes reference to both classical and modern Western justice theory and thus each involves a comparative approach; indeed, each reconstruction seeks ultimately, in its own distinctive fashion, to present a version of Confucian justice that is comparable with modern Western justice theory. In this article we assess, critically and comparatively, the tertium comparationis and the arguments in each reconstruction. While our analysis does not wholly endorse any of the reconstructions, it shows that there is a richness and vitality to Confucian justice theory that merits proper consideration in justice theory conceived as a truly global and cosmopolitan discipline.     

The politics of insight

Previous studies showed that liberals and conservatives differ in cognitive style. Liberals are more flexible, and tolerant of complexity and novelty, whereas conservatives are more rigid, are more resistant to change, and prefer clear answers. We administered a set of compound remote associate problems, a task extensively used to differentiate problem-solving styles (via insight or analysis). Using this task, several researches have proven that self-reports, which differentiate between insight and analytic problem-solving, are reliable and are associated with two different neural circuits. In our research we found that participants self-identifying with distinct political orientations demonstrated differences in problem-solving strategy. Liberals solved significantly more problems via insight instead of in a step-by-step analytic fashion. Our findings extend previous observations that self-identified political orientations reflect differences in cognitive styles. More specifically, we show that type of political orientation is associated with problem-solving strategy. The data converge with previous neurobehavioural and cognitive studies indicating a link between cognitive style and the psychological mechanisms that mediate political beliefs.     

Mothering under political violence: Post-traumatic symptoms,observed maternal parenting practices and child externalising behaviour

Using the family stress model as our conceptual framework, we explored whether observed maternal parenting practices (positive and coercive) account for the associations between mothers' post-traumatic stress symptoms and children's externalising behaviours. Mothers' self-reported post-traumatic stress symptoms, observed maternal practices, and reports of children's externalising behaviour were collected from 123 Israeli mothers and their children, who were exposed to ongoing rocket attacks in southern Israel. A structural equation model revealed that mothers' post-traumatic stress symptoms were linked with greater maternal coercive parenting practices, which in turn were associated with more externalising behaviours in children. The study highlights the crucial role of maternal distress and mothers' parenting skills in the development of externalising behaviours in children exposed to chronic political violence. These results suggest that prevention interventions designed to promote parenting skills for mothers exposed to political violence may be beneficial for children's healthy development.     

The political glass cliff: When left-wing orientation leads to minority candidate choices for hard-to-win seats

IntroductionGlass cliff evidence shows that women and ethnic, racial, and immigration (ERI) groups are more likely to face precarious leadership positions than majority groups. In politics, this is illustrated by minority candidates running for harder-to-win seats than majority candidates.ObjectiveThe present research extends these correlational findings on ERI populations to an experimental setting and investigates the underlying reasons.MethodTwo scenario-based experimental studies were conducted with voting populations in France and Switzerland, who took the role of party decision-maker. In Study 1 (n = 64), we manipulated candidate origin and measured the choice of political ward (hard vs. easy-to-win), while in Study 2 (n = 151), we manipulated ward winnability and measured candidate choice (ERI minority vs. majority).ResultsOverall, findings suggest that ERI minority (compared to majority) political candidates were more likely to be matched with hard-to-win than easy-to-win political wards. Of interest, this finding only occurred for participants with a political left-wing orientation. Moreover, both studies investigated the reasons underlying such tendency and, in particular, focused on participants’ motivation to implement change.ConclusionThe discussion confronts hostile and benign motives for glass cliff decisions and highlights the potentially distinct consequences for minority candidates.     

Influence of teachers’ political orientation and values on their success prediction toward students from different socioeconomic background

IntroductionTeachers tend to develop negative expectations and behaviours towards students coming from low socioeconomic backgrounds.ObjectiveThe objective of this study was to test the influence of teacher political orientation, as well as their attachment to power and universalism values, on their predictions of academic success towards students from different socioeconomic backgrounds.MethodEighty-eight high school teachers (M_age = 38.04 years; 44.3% men) responded to a questionnaire of political ideology and values, as well as to a questionnaire evaluating their prediction of success towards male high school students from different socioeconomic backgrounds.ResultsTeachers predicted a better academic success for students coming from a high socioeconomic background. Despite relatively small effect size, political ideology, as well as attachment to power and universalism values, predicted the bias of judgment.ConclusionTaking into consideration teachers’ ideology and values would deepen understanding of processes underlying expectations development.     

虚拟环境和WWW设计中的心理学研究

虚拟环境和互联网技术的应用极大地推动了计算机技术的发展,同时也产生了若干人因素问题。其中,虚拟环境中的“沉浸度”、“迷路”以及相关导航方式的设计等尤为突出。众多研究表明,在虚拟环境和WWW(World Wide Web)中,合理地呈现信息、恰当地布置浏览环境以及科学地设计导航方式,使人-计算机界面符合用户的认知加工特点和能力,减少认知负荷和心理压力,这对于最大程度地提高虚拟环境的沉浸度、减少迷路现象具有重要意义。     

Structuring decision problems and the ‘bias heuristic’

This paper examines our understanding of the decomposition of immediate acts when structuring decision problems. Seven different types of uncertainties are identified, and four of these are shown to be taken explicitly into account in models within the province of decision theory, described in terms of four interlocking systems interfaced with semantic memory (a core act-event system, and systems buffering utilities, probabilities and events, respectively). Requisite decision modeling is shown to require that the remaining three types of uncertainty (procedural uncertainty; how the decision maker will feel about subsequent acts; agency for changing subsequent states of the world) are also resolved. Methods for ‘fixing’ structure are discussed in terms of aiming at a common understanding about the ‘small world’ in which a decision problem is located. Difficulties in resolving uncertainties in doing this are described. An alternative approach, common in studies invoking ‘behavioural decision theory’ is contrasted: imposing structure, assuming common understanding. The latter approach is shown to involve (i) the ‘naturalisation’ of the small world in which the decision problem is located, and (ii) the utilisation of normative models as ‘ideal types’, leading to the use of the ‘bias’ argument in discussing subjects' performance in decision tasks. Using this argument reflexively, the operation of the ‘bias heuristic’ is identified in a survey of published papers referencing this approach to the study of decision making. Effects identified are: availability of tasks, subjects and explanations; representativeness of findings; and anchoring and adjustment of explanations. Implications for practice are discussed throughout the paper.     

The Perceptual Pathway: Tracing the Mechanisms of Political Value Transfer across Generations

The transfer of political values across generations is commonly understood as a two-step process. First, the child perceives the characteristics of the parent, thereby creating an image of what the parent is like. Second, the child is persuaded to adapt his or her own views to that image. Despite its theoretical dominance, the details of this perceptual pathway of parentalsocialization have rarely been examined empirically. A major Swedish socialization study offers unusually good opportunities to investigate how it actually operates. The results indicate that the perceptual pathway as a whole is of great but not universal significance, that perception is more important than persuasion because of its greater variability, and that the conditions regulating the former are distinct from those regulating the latter. One implication of the results is that studies of interpersonal influence based on a single source (e.g., the child alone) are likely to yield a very lopsided view of the socialization process.