Challenges for the sequential two-system model of moral judgement

Considerable evidence supports the sequential two-system (“default interventionist”) model of moral judgement, as proposed by Greene and others. We tested whether judgement speed and/or personal/impersonal moral dilemmas can predict the kind of moral judgements (utilitarian or deontological) subjects make for each dilemma, and whether personal dilemmas create difficulty in moral judgements. Our results showed that neither personal/impersonal conditions nor spontaneous/thoughtful-reflection conditions were reliable predictors of utilitarian or deontological moral judgements. Yet, we found support for an alternative view, in which, when the two types of responses are in conflict; the resolution of this conflict depends on both the subject and the dilemma. While thinking about this conflict, subjects sometimes change their minds in both directions, as suggested by the data from a mouse-tracking task.     

违实语义的加工机制

违实句(counterfactuals)是传递与事实相反意义的语句,广泛存在于人们的日常生活中并被用以表达对已知事实的另外假设。研究发现,相对于事实语义,违实语义能够激活双重心理表征/空间(虚拟vs.现实),需消耗更多的认知加工资源。本文分别从句法结构和语境制约两个层面详细探讨了违实语义的加工机制。语境方面,双重语义表征构建与消解的时间进程受到语境相关性的制约,充足的语境信息可以消解事实表征的干扰。句法方面,汉语违实标记的缺失使得汉语母语者更加依赖语境与语用来表达、理解违实义,但尚不明确其在线加工机制与印欧语违实义加工有何异同。后续研究应扩大语言研究范围,关注违实语义加工的个体差异,进一步厘清双重语义表征构建与消解的时间进程及其对语篇加工的影响。     

Western Marxism's Misreading of Marx's Critique of Capitalism

Since its advent in the early 1920s,Western Marxism has undergone a torturous process from anti-liberalism to virtually liberalism.The main theoretical deficiency behind this process is the over-estimation of Marx's cultural critique of capitalism.As his economic research gradually deepened,Marx's dual critique of capitalism from economic and cultural perspectives matured.When the leading proponents of Soviet Marxism gave prominence to Marx's economic critique,as circumstances required,they and some key figures in the Second International misread his theory with emphasis on economic determinism.In contrast,Georg Lukács and most Western Marxists proceeded to develop a Marxian cultural critique with the consequence that his economic research being marginalized.Without the counterbalance of a continuous and consistent economic theory to challenge a confident international capitalism,cultural critique is consequently reorganized in confluence with liberalism,which is centered on an individual ontology.Re-excavating Marxian dual critical theory may help Westem Marxism escape the dilemma.     

The Common Ratio Effect in Choice,Pricing, and Happiness Tasks

The Allais common ratio effect is one of the most robust violations of rational decision making under risk. In this paper, we conduct a novel test of the common ratio effect in which we elicit preferences for the common ratio choice alternatives in choice, pricing, and happiness rating tasks. We find large shifts in preference patterns across tasks, both within and between subjects. In particular, we find that both the consistency and distribution of responses differ systematically across tasks, with modal choices replicating the Allais preference pattern, modal happiness ratings exhibiting consistent risk aversion, and modal prices maximizing expected value. We discuss the predictions of various cognitive explanations of the common ratio effect in the context of our experiment. We find that a dual process framework provides the most complete account of our results. Surprisingly, we also find that although the Allais pattern was the modal behavior in the choice task, none of the 158 respondents in our experiment exhibited the Allais pattern simultaneously in choice, happiness, and pricing tasks. Our results constitute a new paradox for the leading theories of choice under risk. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Effects of repetition on age differences in associative recognition

The study reported here examined the effect of repetition on age differences in associative recognition using a paradigm designed to encourage recollection at test. Young and older adults studied lists of unrelated word pairs presented one, two, four, or eight times. Test lists contained old (intact) pairs, pairs consisting of old words that had been studied with other partners (rearranged lures), and pairs consisting of two unstudied words (new lures). Participants gave old/new responses and then indicated whether their responses were based on details that they could recollect or on familiarity. Older adults exhibited an ironic effect of repetition—an increase in false alarms on rearranged lures with more study opportunities—whereas young adults did not. Older adults also claimed to recall details of the study episode for rearranged lures whose constituent words were presented more frequently, but this was not true for young adults. Although both young and older adults said that they based correct rejections of rearranged lures on memory for details of the study episode, this effect was stronger for young adults. The observed age differences are consistent with older adults having reduced use of recollection in associative recognition tasks.     

The vigilant parent: Parental role salience affects parents' risk perceptions, risk-aversion, and trust in strangers

Since parenting involves protecting children from various risks and dangers, tendencies towards increased risk perception, risk-averse decision-making, and distrust of strangers may come to be associated with the parental role. Consequently, parents may be more likely to exhibit each of these psychological tendencies when their parental role is situationally salient than when it is not salient. We tested this hypothesis in two studies that manipulated the salience of the parental role in samples of parents and nonparents and measured the effects on participants' risk perceptions, risk-aversion, and trust in strangers. As we hypothesized, parents perceived greater risk (Study 1), made more risk averse choices (Study 1), and trusted strangers less (Study 2) when their parental role was salient than when it was not salient. Implications for understanding psychological adaptations to social roles are discussed.     

Digit ratio (2D:4D) and sex-role orientation: Further evidence and meta-analysis

Three new studies (N = 132, 623, 1112) did not yield hypothesized associations between digit ratio (2D:4D), an assumed negative correlate of prenatal testosterone, and psychometrically measured sex-role orientation (positive association with femininity, negative ones with masculinity and masculinity-femininity difference scores) among heterosexuals of either sex. Meta-analysis of the pertinent literature (N = 6311, 28 studies from 10 countries, 46% unpublished) showed only men’s (but not women’s) left-hand (but not right-hand) 2D:4D reliably related as expected (positively) to femininity. This effect was tiny (0.14% attributable variance) and possibly non-robust (crucially dependent on one large study included). Hence, the cumulative evidence does not support systematic, robust, noteworthy within-sex correlations between 2D:4D and the masculinity/femininity personality dimensions.     

Comprehension of argument structure and semantic roles: evidence from English-learning children and the forced-choice pointing paradigm

Research using the intermodal preferential looking paradigm (IPLP) has consistently shown that English-learning children aged 2 can associate transitive argument structure with causal events. However, studies using the same methodology investigating 2-year-old children's knowledge of the conjoined agent intransitive and semantic role assignment have reported inconsistent findings. The aim of the present study was to establish at what age English-learning children have verb-general knowledge of both transitive and intransitive argument structure using a new method: the forced-choice pointing paradigm. The results suggest that young 2-year-olds can associate transitive structures with causal (or externally caused) events and can use transitive structure to assign agent and patient roles correctly. However, the children were unable to associate the conjoined agent intransitive with noncausal events until aged 3;4. The results confirm the pattern from previous IPLP studies and indicate that children may develop the ability to comprehend different aspects of argument structure at different ages. The implications for theories of language acquisition and the nature of the language acquisition mechanism are discussed.     

Thinking styles and risky decision‐making: Further exploration of the affect–probability weighting link

People usually overweight small probabilities and underweight large probabilities leading to the familiar inverse S‐shaped weighting function. This research explores the link between affect and the structure of probability weighting from the perspective of thinking dispositions, a concept central to dual system theories of reasoning. The effects of affective priming and cognitive load on both probability weighting and the value function are also examined. The evidence suggests that thinking styles do have predictive implications for risky decision‐making. Participants with a more affective thinking style tend to be more risk‐seeking in small probability gambles. However, increasing access to the affective system by affective priming or cognitive load manipulations tend to reduce risk‐seeking behavior in small probability gambles as well as reduce risk averse behavior in large probability gambles. Previous research, manipulating the affective nature of lottery outcomes, found evidence for an increase in curvature (more overweighting of small probabilities and more underweighting of large probabilities) of the weighting function for affect‐rich outcomes, lending support to a hope‐and‐fear deconstruction of probability weighting. The present research suggests that increased anticipatory emotions characterized by the elevation of the weighting function (more overweighting at all probabilities) is also important and could sometimes be more significant than hope‐and‐fear in decision‐making under risk. An integrated approach incorporating the impact of affect on all three, the elevation and curvature of probability weighting as well as the curvature of the value function explains the empirical findings. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.