The Flynn effect in South Africa

This is a study of secular score gains in South Africa. The findings are based on representative samples from datasets utilized in norm studies of popular mainstream intelligence batteries such as the WAIS as well as widely used test batteries which were locally developed and normed in South Africa. Flynn effects were computed in three ways. First, studies where two different groups take the same test, with several years in between, using representative or comparable samples were used. Second, studies where the same group takes two different test batteries at a specific time were used. Third, the score differences between English- and Afrikaans-speaking Whites in South Africa in the 20th century were compared. The Flynn effect in White groups in South Africa is somewhat smaller than the Flynn effect in Western, industrialized countries (total N = 6534), and the Flynn effect in Indian groups is substantially smaller (total N = 682). Non-verbal IQ scores surpassed increases in verbal IQ scores. The findings from English- and Afrikaans-speaking Whites evidence a leveling out of differences in score gains over the 20th century (total N = 79,310). A meta-regression analysis showed no clear support for the moderators a) method used for computing the Flynn effect gain, b) type of test battery, c) time span, d) quality of the sample, and e) average age of sample.     

The influence of attachment and temperament on venipuncture distress in 14-month-old infants: the Generation R Study

Objective

This study examined the effects of attachment and temperament on infant distress during venipuncture.

Method

The study was embedded in the Generation R Study, a prospective population-based study. Two different research procedures (i.e., blood sampling and the Ainsworth Strange Situation Procedure) yielded measures of venipuncture distress and attachment security and disorganization in 246 infants aged 14 months. Four temperament traits (distress to limitations, fear, recovery from distress, and sadness) were assessed using the maternally reported Infant Behavior Questionnaire - Revised, at the age of 6 months.

Results

There were no differences between mean levels of distress during venipuncture in infants classified as having insecure attachment, but there was a trend for disorganized attachment. The temperament traits were not related to distress. However, children with a disorganized attachment and higher temperamental fear had more venipuncture distress.

Conclusion

When different risk factors are present simultaneously, infant distress is heightened.     

Understanding cooperation in the Prisoner’s Dilemma game

In the standard one-shot Prisoner’s Dilemma game, participants often choose to cooperate, when the optimal strategy is to defect. This puzzling finding has attracted considerable interest both in terms of possible computational frameworks for modeling human judgment, but also regarding the more general debate of human altruism. In this research, we ask how much of human behavior in this task can be explained by a putative bias for cooperative behavior and whether this, in turn, is influenced by personality. We compared performance on the standard task with performance on a matched neutral one; we manipulated the optimal strategy (defect or cooperate); and we manipulated the amount of payoff for responding optimally. Results revealed little evidence for a bias for cooperative behavior, but significant associations with the personality factors of Behavioural Activation System (BAS) Reward Responsivity and Agreeableness were found. These findings are discussed in terms of the attempt to explain judgment in one-shot, Prisoner’s Dilemma tasks with statistical or probabilistic models.     

A taste of words: linguistic context and perceptual simulation predict the modality of words

Previous studies have shown that object properties are processed faster when they follow properties from the same perceptual modality than properties from different modalities. These findings suggest that language activates sensorimotor processes, which, according to those studies, can only be explained by a modal account of cognition. The current paper shows how a statistical linguistic approach of word co-occurrences can also reliably predict the category of perceptual modality a word belongs to (auditory, olfactory-gustatory, visual-haptic), even though the statistical linguistic approach is less precise than the modal approach (auditory, gustatory, haptic, olfactory, visual). Moreover, the statistical linguistic approach is compared with the modal embodied approach in an experiment in which participants verify properties that share or shift modalities. Response times suggest that fast responses can best be explained by the linguistic account, whereas slower responses can best be explained by the embodied account. These results provide further evidence for the theory that conceptual processing is both linguistic and embodied, whereby less precise linguistic processes precede precise simulation processes.     

Patterns of moral judgment derive from nonmoral psychological representations

Ordinary people often make moral judgments that are consistent with philosophical principles and legal distinctions. For example, they judge killing as worse than letting die, and harm caused as a necessary means to a greater good as worse than harm caused as a side‐effect ( Cushman, Young, & Hauser, 2006 ). Are these patterns of judgment produced by mechanisms specific to the moral domain, or do they derive from other psychological domains? We show that the action/omission and means/side‐effect distinctions affect nonmoral representations and provide evidence that their role in moral judgment is mediated by these nonmoral psychological representations. Specifically, the action/omission distinction affects moral judgment primarily via causal attribution, while the means/side‐effect distinction affects moral judgment via intentional attribution. We suggest that many of the specific patterns evident in our moral judgments in fact derive from nonmoral psychological mechanisms, and especially from the processes of causal and intentional attribution.     

The Cross‐Level Mediating Effect of Psychological Capital on the Organizational Innovation Climate–Employee Innovative Behavior Relationship

Organizational innovation climates have been found to be effective predictors of employee creativity and organizational innovation. As such, climate assessments provide a basis for useful organizational interventions in enhancing creativity and innovation. Researchers now call for better articulation of the motivational mechanisms that link social context to employee innovation. In responding to the above call, this study found that employee positive psychological capital (PsyCap) is more influential than organizational innovation climate on employee innovative behavior. With a large sample (N  = 781) from 16 organizations and a cross‐level analysis, we examined the relationship between organizational innovation climate and employee innovative behavior with employee PsyCap as mediator. The results showed that both organizational innovation climate and employee PsyCap significantly affect employee innovative behavior, and more importantly, employee PsyCap fully mediates this relationship. The innovation journey is a challenging and risky one with many frustrations and discouraging moments from idea generation to idea implementation. The research results presented here imply that to be innovatively effective, organizations are advised to manage both social (organizational innovation climate) and psychological (PsyCap) resources of employees in enhancing employee innovative behavior. Other theoretic and practical implications are discussed.     

Reconsidering research on self-humanizing: The importance of mean comparative judgments

Self-humanization is defined as the tendency to view oneself as more essentially human than others. Researchers have claimed that people attribute human nature traits more strongly to themselves than to others, but not uniquely human traits. In this article we suggest that such claims are based on the misinterpretation of results. Most studies have not presented mean comparative judgments, making it impossible to determine whether people thought they possessed characteristics less strongly or more strongly than the average person. We found that people (N = 256) in Poland, Italy, and Korea perceived themselves as possessing desirable human nature and uniquely human characteristics more than others, as possessing undesirable uniquely human traits less than others, and as similar to others in terms of undesirable human nature characteristics. It seems that being more human than others means possessing some traits more than others and possessing some traits less than others.     

A second type of magnitude effect: Reinforcer magnitude differentiates delay discounting between substance users and controls

Basic research on delay discounting, examining preference for smaller–sooner or larger–later reinforcers, has demonstrated a variety of findings of considerable generality. One of these, the magnitude effect, is the observation that individuals tend to exhibit greater preference for the immediate with smaller magnitude reinforcers. Delay discounting has also proved to be a useful marker of addiction, as demonstrated by the highly replicated finding of greater discounting rates in substance users compared to controls. However, some research on delay discounting rates in substance users, particularly research examining discounting of small‐magnitude reinforcers, has not found significant differences compared to controls. Here, we hypothesize that the magnitude effect could produce ceiling effects at small magnitudes, thus obscuring differences in delay discounting between groups. We examined differences in discounting between high‐risk substance users and controls over a broad range of magnitudes of monetary amounts ($0.10, $1.00, $10.00, $100.00, and $1000.00) in 116 Amazon Mechanical Turk workers. We found no significant differences in discounting rates between users and controls at the smallest reinforcer magnitudes ($0.10 and $1.00) and further found that differences became more pronounced as magnitudes increased. These results provide an understanding of a second form of the magnitude effect: That is, differences in discounting between populations can become more evident as a function of reinforcer magnitude.     

A social identification approach to the effects of religious disclosures in business communication

This research expands on prior research into the effects of religious disclosures on interpersonal attraction by drawing from social identification theory to explain attributions stemming from religious disclosures in professionals’ e-mail signature blocks. Participants (N = 268) were randomly exposed to one of three experimental conditions (a Christian, Islamic, or secular quotation in a signature block) and completed measures of social identification and perceptions of professionalism. Results indicate that, contrary to prior research, merely disclosing one’s religion does not increase attributions; rather, attributions of a sender’s professionalism are positively derived from the receiver’s social identification with the sender’s religion. Implications of these findings are discussed with regard to social identity theory, as well as for professional practice in developing signature blocks as a means of self-presentation.