Attitude polarization as a function of thought and reality constraints

It was suggested that thought changes cognitions to be more consistent with one's initial attitude direction and, therefore, results in attitude polarization. Specifically, it was predicted that polarization would be highest under thought with reality constraints absent, followed by thought with reality constraints present, followed by distration. During the first period of each of two trials, some of the 144 subjects were distracted from thinking about a preselected painting, others thought about the painting while viewing it, and others thought about it in its absence. Subjects were redistributed across the same three conditions for a second period. They then indicated their feelings about the painting. In the original study as well as a partial replication, females behaved as predicted: Thought with reality constraints absent produced the most polarization, followed by thought with reality constraints present, followed by distraction. In both the original study and the replication there was no systematic trend for the males. The theoretical implications of the female results and the sex differences were discussed.     

Language acquisition following hemidecortication: Linguistic superiority of the left over the right hemisphere

The language development of three 9- and 10-year-old children possessing only a right or a left hemisphere was studied. Surgical removal of one brain half antedated the beginning of speech, so each child has acquired speech and language with only one hemisphere. Different configurations of language skill have developed in the two isolated hemispheres: phonemic and semantic abilities are similarly developed but syntactic competence has been asymmetrically acquired. In relation to the left, the right brain half is deficient in understanding auditory language, especially when meaning is conveyed by syntactic diversity; detecting and correcting errors of surface syntactic structure; repeating stylistically permuted sentences; producing tag questions which match the grammatical features of a heard statement; determining sentence implication; integrating semantic and syntactic information to replace missing pronouns; and performing judgments of word interrelationships in sentences. Language development in an isolated right hemisphere, even under seizure-free conditions, results in incomplete language acquisition.     

Pre‐registration: Why and How

In this article, we (1) discuss the reasons why pre‐registration is a good idea, both for the field and individual researchers, (2) respond to arguments against pre‐registration, (3) describe how to best write and review a pre‐registration, and (4) comment on pre‐registration’s rapidly accelerating popularity. Along the way, we describe the (big) problem that pre‐registration can solve (i.e., false positives caused by p‐hacking), while also offering viable solutions to the problems that pre‐registration cannot solve (e.g., hidden confounds or fraud). Pre‐registration does not guarantee that every published finding will be true, but without it you can safely bet that many more will be false. It is time for our field to embrace pre‐registration, while taking steps to ensure that it is done right.     

Word Order Typology Interacts With Linguistic Complexity: A Cross-Linguistic Corpus Study

Much previous work has suggested that word order preferences across languages can be explained by the dependency distance minimization constraint (Ferrer-i Cancho, 2008, 2015; Hawkins, 1994). Consistent with this claim, corpus studies have shown that the average distance between a head (e.g., verb) and its dependent (e.g., noun) tends to be short cross-linguistically (Ferrer-i Cancho, 2014; Futrell, Mahowald, & Gibson, 2015; Liu, Xu, & Liang, 2017). This implies that on average languages avoid inefficient or complex structures for simpler structures. But a number of studies in psycholinguistics (Konieczny, 2000; Levy & Keller, 2013; Vasishth, Suckow, Lewis, & Kern, 2010) show that the comprehension system can adapt to the typological properties of a language, for example, verb-final order, leading to more complex structures, for example, having longer linear distance between a head and its dependent. In this paper, we conduct a corpus study for a group of 38 languages, which were either Subject–Verb–Object (SVO) or Subject–Object–Verb (SOV), in order to investigate the role of word order typology in determining syntactic complexity. We present results aggregated across all dependency types, as well as for specific verbal (objects, indirect objects, and adjuncts) and nonverbal (nominal, adjectival, and adverbial) dependencies. The results suggest that dependency distance in a language is determined by the default word order of a language, and crucially, the direction of a dependency (whether the head precedes the dependent or follows it; e.g., whether the noun precedes the verb or follows it). Particularly we show that in SOV languages (e.g., Hindi, Korean) as well as SVO languages (e.g., English, Spanish), longer linear distance (measured as number of words) between head and dependent arises in structures when they mirror the default word order of the language. In addition to showing results on linear distance, we also investigate the influence of word order typology on hierarchical distance (HD; measured as number of heads between head and dependent). The results for HD are similar to that of linear distance. At the same time, in comparison to linear distance, the influence of adaptability on HD seems less strong. In particular, the results show that most languages tend to avoid greater structural depth. Together, these results show evidence for “limited adaptability” to the default word order preferences in a language. Our results support a large body of work in the processing literature that highlights the importance of linguistic exposure and its interaction with working memory constraints in determining sentence complexity. Our results also point to the possible role of other factors such as the morphological richness of a language and a multifactor account of sentence complexity remains a promising area for future investigation.     

The Harvard Pigeon Lab under Herrnstein

The history of the Harvard Pigeon Lab is a history of two periods of remarkable productivity, the first under Skinner's leadership and the second under Herrnstein's. In each period, graduate students flocked to the leader and then began stimulating one another. Chance favored Herrnstein's leadership, too, because an unusually large number of graduate students were admitted in the fall of 1962. In each period, productivity declined as the leader lost interest in the laboratory and withdrew. Directly and indirectly, the laboratory finally died as a result of the cognitive "revolution." Skinner and his students saw the possibility of a natural science of behavior and set about establishing that science based on concepts such as response rate, stimulus control, and schedules of reinforcement. Herrnstein and his students saw that the science could be quantitative and set about making it so, with relative response rate, the matching law, and the psychophysics of choice (analogous to S. S. Stevens' psychophysics). The history might provide a golden research opportunity for someone interested in the impact of such self-organizing research groups on the progress of science.     

Towards a research programme for ethics and technology

In this editorial contribution, two issues relevant to the question, what should be at the top of the research agenda for ethics and technology, are identified and discussed. Firstly: can, and do, engineers make a difference to the degree to which technology leads to morally desirable outcomes? What role does professional autonomy play here, and what are its limits? And secondly, what should be the scope of engineers' responsibility; that is to say, on which issues are they, as engineers, morally obliged to reflect? The research agendas proposed by the authors contributing to this special section, implicitly, give different answers to these questions. We suggest that an explicit discussion of these issues would greatly help in constructing a common research agenda.     

Changing explanatory frameworks in the U.S. government’s attempt to define research misconduct

Nearly two decades of debate have not settled the definition of research misconduct. The literature provides four explanatory frameworks for misconduct. The paper examines these frameworks and maps them onto efforts by the U.S. Public Health Service to define research misconduct and subsequent responses to these efforts by the scientific community. The changing frameworks suggest that closure will not be achieved without an authoritative effort, which may occur through the Research Integrity Panel’s recent attempt to create a government-wide definition.     

Stepfamilies Doing Family: A Meta‐Ethnography

The present review examines how stepfamily members without a shared history co‐construct a shared family identity and what family processes are relevant in this stepfamily formation. Three databases (Web of Science, PsycInfo, and ProQuest) were systematically searched, resulting in 20 included qualitative studies. The meta‐ethnography approach of Noblit and Hare allowed synthesizing these qualitative studies and constructing a comprehensive framework of stepfamilies doing family. Three interdependent family tasks were identified: (a) honoring the past, (b) marking the present, and (c) investing in the future. Stepfamily members’ experiences of these family tasks are strongly affected by the dominant societal perspectives and characterized by an underlying dialectical tension between wanting to be like a first‐time family and feeling the differences in their family structure at the same time. These findings clearly demonstrate the family work that all stepfamily members undertake and provide a broader context for interpreting stepfamilies’ co‐construction of a new family identity.     

Research trauma in incarcerated spaces: Listening to incarcerated women's narratives

This paper discusses researcher emotional experiences evoked while conducting narrative interviews in a research project that explored the rehabilitation experiences of 18 incarcerated women. I highlight the significance of listening as a methodology in spaces of incarceration. The importance of retrospective reflexivity in locating experiences of trauma encountered during the research process is discussed. The paper also brings to the fore the transformative power of stories for listeners as I share how my prejudices and attitudes regarding incarcerated women, as people who are framed as dangerous, were challenged. Experiences with interviewing and connecting with the incarcerated women further emphasised the importance of proactive self-care for researchers, with the significance of reflexivity as a self-care tool when doing qualitative research with vulnerable populations.