Thirsty for H2O? Multiple essences and psychological essentialism

Within psychology, essentialism has often been understood as the imputation of a hidden natural underpinning that determines the identity and membership of a given category. This naturalistic understanding has failed to address the varied and multi-faceted manner in which essentialist beliefs function on a cognitive level. Specifically, such an understanding does not account for essentialist beliefs that are related to functional categories derivative of a particular individual's present needs or social context. A parsimonious theory of psychological essentialism that accounts for beliefs in essences with respect to all categories, including those believed to be “natural”, is found in the writing of James (The Principles of Psychology, Vol. 2, Dover, New York, NY, 1890/1950). After accounting for the manner in which James’ theory addresses the limitations of the naturalistic view and extends it, it is recommended that his theory be incorporated into future empirical study of psychological essentialism.     

Strategic navigation of two-dimensional alley mazes: comparing capuchin monkeys and chimpanzees

Planning is an important component of cognition that contributes, for example, to efficient movement through space. In the current study we presented novel two-dimensional alley mazes to four chimpanzees and three capuchin monkeys to identify the nature and efficiency of planning in relation to varying task parameters. All the subjects solved more mazes without error than expected by chance, providing compelling evidence that both species planned their choices in some manner. The probability of making a correct choice on mazes designed to be more demanding and presented later in the testing series was higher than on earlier, simpler mazes (chimpanzees), or unchanged (capuchin monkeys), suggesting microdevelopment of strategic choice. Structural properties of the mazes affected both species' choices. Capuchin monkeys were less likely than chimpanzees to take a correct path that initially led away from the goal but that eventually led to the goal. Chimpanzees were more likely to make an error by passing a correct path than by turning onto a wrong path. Chimpanzees and one capuchin made more errors on choices farther in sequence from the goal. Each species corrected errors before running into the end of an alley in approximately 40% of cases. Together, these findings suggest nascent planning abilities in each species, and the prospect for significant development of strategic planning capabilities on tasks presenting multiple simultaneous or sequential spatial relations. The computerized maze paradigm appears well suited to investigate movement planning and spatial perception in human and nonhuman primates alike.     

A demonstration of the value of interchangeable observers

The remarkably high agreement between observers using the SRIC, the TSBC, and the CFRS makes the observers interchangeable. This agreement is a product of the intensive and extensive training and monitoring of full-time observers, the use of categories rather than continua, the low degree of interpretation required by the procedures, the use of lay language, the immediate recording after short observational periods, and the familiar and standard setting. Other important features include use of rates, emphasis on time, concern for positive behavior, and close linkages between concepts and categories so that concepts are explicitly specified. Taken together, these characteristics make these systems powerful instruments for the guidance of treatment and the prediction of outcomes. The key to their success seems to be the recording of simple actions and action sequences (the basic phenomena of psychology) as the basic data from which a variety of useful indexes can be readily formed.Preparation of this article was supported by Grant MH-30654 from the National Institute of Mental Health to S. Duncan and D. Fiske.Presented at the 87th Annual Meetings of the American Psychological Association, New York City, September 1979, as part of a symposium on New assessment systems for residential treatment, management, research, and evaluation.     

The human genome project: A public forum. Report on a model conference for genetics professionals and consumers

This paper reports on the rationale, objectives, and outcome of a conference titled The Human Genome Project: A Public Forum. One of the distinguishing features of this conference was that it included both genetics professionals and consumers of genetics services in a dialogue about the potential ethical, legal, and social implications of learning more about one's genes. The conference was planned to yield two products: (1) a set of recommendations for planners of future educational, research, and public policy efforts related to the Human Genome Project; and (2) an assessment of participants' pre- and post-conference knowledge and opinions about the Human Genome Project.     

Intention-based evaluations of distributive actions by 4-month-olds

Four-month-olds’ ability to consider the intentions of agents performing distributive actions was investigated in four experiments, using the Violation of Expectation paradigm (VoE) (Experiments 1–3) and the Preferential Looking paradigm (Experiment 4). In Experiment 1, infants were presented with two events showing two types of failed attempts to perform a distribution. In an attempt to distribute fairly, the distributor first tried to reach one of the recipients to deliver an apple, he failed, and then attempted to reach the other recipient to deliver a second apple and also failed. In an attempt to distribute unfairly, a different distributor tried unsuccessfully to bring resources always to the same recipient. Infants looked reliably longer at failed fair distribution events, suggesting that they did not just react to the actions outcomes and they attended to agents' intentions. Experiments 2 and 3 assessed alternative explanations based on perceptual factors or affiliative behaviors. In Experiment 4, during the test trials, infants were shown both distributors simultaneously and they preferred to look at the fair rather than at the unfair distributor. Overall, these findings reveal an early ability to take into account distributors’ intentions and a preference for watching agents that tried to distribute resources fairly.     

Immoral,infectious, or both? How disgust sensitivity predicts judgments of violations against COVID-19 mitigation actions

Violations against mitigation actions to prevent the spreading of the SARS-CoV-2 virus causing COVID-19, such as not wearing a mask or not practicing social distancing, were seen as immoral and could also increase the likelihood of spreading the virus. In two studies (N1 = 318, N2 = 293), we found that moral and pathogen disgust sensitivity differentially predicted perceptions of such COVID-19 violations against mitigation actions, framed as a moral, pathogen, or on a good-bad dimension, albeit in a less specific way than initially hypothesized (e.g., regarding the pathogenic framed violations, not only pathogen but also moral disgust was associated with higher perceptions of infectiousness). These results suggest that individual differences, especially in pathogen disgust (and, more inconsistently, moral disgust), are important when evaluating violations against mitigation actions. Further research on the role of moral disgust is needed.     

Collective guilt,moral outrage,and support for helping the poor: A matter of system versus in‐group responsibility framing

We examined how the framing of responsibility for reducing socio‐economic inequality affects individuals' emotional reactions towards the poor and the willingness to engage in prosocial actions. Attribution of responsibility to either the system (government and institutions), the less deprived in‐group, or the disadvantaged out‐group (poor) was measured (Study 1) and manipulated (Study 2). Consistent with our hypotheses, moral outrage was higher than collective guilt when system responsibility for inequalities was put forth, but collective guilt arose to reach the level of moral outrage when in‐group responsibility was emphasized. Moreover, distinguishing between collective guilt for action and for inaction, we found guilt for inaction more difficult and thus less likely to arise, unless responsibility was put on the in‐group. Collective emotions were also found to be negatively linked to system justification motivation illustrating the palliative function of legitimization processes. Finally, moral outrage predicted the willingness to act upon socio‐economic inequalities both when the system's and in‐group's responsibility was emphasized, whereas collective guilt for action (but not for inaction) predicted support for prosocial actions only when the in‐group's responsibility was engaged. These findings suggest that the specific group‐based emotions in response to poverty depend on whether the system or the in‐group is held responsible and differentially predict individuals' commitment to act.     

‘Something in the way you move’: Infants are sensitive to emotions conveyed in action kinematics

Body movements, as well as faces, communicate emotions. Research in adults has shown that the perception of action kinematics has a crucial role in understanding others’ emotional experiences. Still, little is known about infants’ sensitivity to body emotional expressions, since most of the research in infancy focused on faces. While there is some first evidence that infants can recognize emotions conveyed in whole‐body postures, it is still an open question whether they can extract emotional information from action kinematics. We measured electromyographic (EMG) activity over the muscles involved in happy (zygomaticus major, ZM), angry (corrugator supercilii, CS) and fearful (frontalis, F) facial expressions, while 11‐month‐old infants observed the same action performed with either happy or angry kinematics. Results demonstrate that infants responded to angry and happy kinematics with matching facial reactions. In particular, ZM activity increased while CS activity decreased in response to happy kinematics and vice versa for angry kinematics. Our results show for the first time that infants can rely on kinematic information to pick up on the emotional content of an action. Thus, from very early in life, action kinematics represent a fundamental and powerful source of information in revealing others’ emotional state.     

Motion tracking of parents’ infant‐ versus adult‐directed actions reveals general and action‐specific modulations

Parents tend to modulate their movements when demonstrating actions to their infants. Thus far, these modulations have primarily been quantified by human raters and for entire interactions, thereby possibly overlooking the intricacy of such demonstrations. Using optical motion tracking, the precise modulations of parents’ infant‐directed actions were quantified and compared to adult‐directed actions and between action types. Parents demonstrated four novel objects to their 14‐month‐old infants and adult confederates. Each object required a specific action to produce a unique effect (e.g. rattling). Parents were asked to demonstrate an object at least once before passing it to their demonstration partner, and they were subsequently free to exchange the object as often as desired. Infants’ success at producing the objects’ action‐effects was coded during the demonstration session and their memory of the action‐effects was tested after a several‐minute delay. Indicating general modulations across actions, parents repeated demonstrations more often, performed the actions in closer proximity and demonstrated action‐effects for longer when interacting with their infant compared to the adults. Meanwhile, modulations of movement size and velocity were specific to certain action‐effect pairs. Furthermore, a ‘just right’ modulation of proximity was detected, since infants’ learning, memory, and parents’ prior evaluations of their infants’ motor abilities, were related to demonstrations that were performed neither too far from nor too close to the infants. Together, these findings indicate that infant‐directed action modulations are not solely overall exaggerations but are dependent upon the characteristics of the to‐be learned actions, their effects, and the infant learners.     

欺骗识别的准确率：影响因素与提高途径

欺骗是一种常见的社会现象,通过观察他人的行为表现识别欺骗则是人们的一项重要能力。研究表明,人们的欺骗识别能力仅仅略微高于随机水平。本文关注基于行为线索的欺骗识别研究。首先,介绍欺骗识别的准确率;然后,结合Brunswik的透镜模型从欺骗线索的有效性和欺骗线索的利用两方面分析识别准确率的影响因素;并在此基础上探讨了提高识别准确率的途径。最后,对未来可能的研究方向进行展望。