A person-oriented approach to hand hygiene behaviour: Emotional empathy fosters hand hygiene practice

Objectives: Adopting a social-psychological approach, this research examines whether emotional empathy, an affective reaction regarding another’s well-being, fosters hand hygiene as this affects other’s health-related well-being extensively.

Design: Three studies tested this notion: (a) a cross-sectional study involving a sample of health care workers at a German hospital, (b) an experiment testing the causal effect of empathy on hand hygiene behaviour and (c) an 11-week prospective study testing whether an empathy induction affected disinfectant usage frequency in two different wards of a hospital.

Main outcome measures: Self-reported hand hygiene behaviour based on day reconstruction method was measured in Study 1, actual hand sanitation behaviour was observed in Study 2 and disinfectant usage frequency in two different hospital wards was assessed in Study 3.

Results: Study 1 reveals an association of empathy with hand hygiene cross-sectionally, Study 2 documents the causal effect of empathy on increased hand sanitation. Study 3 shows an empathy induction increases hand sanitiser usage in the hospital.

Conclusions: Increasing emotional empathy promotes hand hygiene behaviour, also in hospitals. Besides providing new impulses for the design of effective interventions, these findings bear theoretical significance as they document the explanatory power of empathy regarding a distal explanandum (hand hygiene).     

“I can see it in your eyes”: Biased Processing and Increased Arousal in Dishonest Responses

According to self‐maintenance theory, people notice their dishonest acts and thus experience ethical dissonance between their misconduct and their positive moral self. In this view, dishonesty is facilitated by justifications that redefine moral boundaries. By contrast, the bounded ethicality approach suggests that biased perception prevents people from becoming aware of their dishonesty. We tested the key process assumptions behind these accounts using pupillary responses and fixation data and found physiological evidence for both kinds of mechanisms. In particular, physiological arousal increased at the initial stage of cheating responses. This suggests that people are on some level aware of their wrongdoings. At the same time, however, we found attentional biases that can reduce the likelihood for detecting potentially disadvantageous information. We suggest that dishonest acts come at the internal cost of increased tension, which people aim to avoid by pre‐emptive biased processing as well as post hoc justifications. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Eyes on the Prize? Evidence of Diminishing Attention to Experienced and Foregone Outcomes in Repeated Experiential Choice

Recently, there has been increased interest in decisions‐from‐experience (where decision makers learn from observing the outcomes of previous choices), which provide valuable insights into the learning and preference construction processes underlying many daily decisions. Several process models have been developed to capture these processes, and while such models often fit the data well, many assume that the decision maker is a vigilant observer, processing each outcome. In two studies, we provide a critical test of this assumption using eye tracking to record directed visual attention when participants choose repeatedly among two options, each time being shown the outcome for their chosen option and for the foregone option. Consistently, we find that the vigilance assumption is not supported, with decision makers often not attending to outcome information. Moreover, (in)attention to outcomes is predictable, with vigilance decreasing as more choices are made, and being greater for obtained than for foregone outcomes, and when options deliver only gains as opposed to losses or a mixture of gains and losses. Furthermore, we find that this variation in attentional allocation plays a central role in the apparent indecisiveness (inconsistency) in choice, with increased attention to foregone outcomes predicting switches to that option on the next choice. Together, these findings highlight the value of eye tracking in investigations of decisions‐from‐experience, providing novel insight into the cognitive processes underlying them. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Dispositional and induced optimism lead to attentional preference for faces displaying positive emotions: An eye-tracker study

The aim of this study was to examine whether dispositional optimism and induced optimism are associated with an attentional bias for positive stimuli. Fifty-six healthy participants performed an eye-tracking task twice, while their gazing time at faces displaying joy, anger, pain, or a neutral expression was measured. Participants scoring high on dispositional optimism tended to gaze longer at joy faces during the first face-presentation trial compared to participants scoring lower on optimism, and this correlation became significant during the second face-presentation trial. In between the two presentations, participants received either an optimism manipulation or a control manipulation. There was no effect of type of manipulation on gazing behavior but post hoc analyses demonstrated that participants showing an increase in state optimism displayed a significant decrease in gaze duration for anger faces and a nearly significant increase in gaze duration for joy faces.     

4-6岁儿童言语理解中世界知识运用能力的发展

以90名4-6岁学前儿童作为研究对象,考察了这一年龄段儿童在言语理解中对世界知识的运用能力及其发展特点。实验要求被试确定测试句中代词TA的回指名词,该回指名词需要被试依据相关的世界知识进行判断。实验发现：（1）4-6岁儿童在言语理解中对于世界知识的运用能力随年龄的增长而不断提高。（2）4岁组儿童对世界知识的运用能力水平较低,与其他两组儿童相比存在较显著的差异性;5岁组和6岁组儿童对世界知识的运用能力差异较小。（3）儿童在言语理解中对于不同类型的世界知识的运用能力存在显著性差异。与对现实生活相关的世界知识的运用能力相比,各组儿童对童话语境相关的世界知识的运用能力更为灵活。这一差异性在4-5岁组儿童表现得更为显著。     

阅读过程眼动控制理论模型:E-Z Reader

简要介绍了一个新近出现的阅读过程中的眼动控制理论模型——E-Z Reader模型,并对该模型的特点进行了深入讨论。文中还涉及了其它几个相关的理论模型．如Morrison(1984)模型和Mr．Chips：理想观察者模型等。最后就E-Z Reader在中文阅读过程认知研究领域中的应用前景进行了讨论。     

智能结构三层次理论述评

近些年来,在认知领域,理论整合的趋势日益强烈,德米特里欧提出了一个关于人类智能结构与发展的“三层次”理论,使人们看到了理论整合令人鼓舞的前景。该理论认为人类智能是一个三层次体系,包括限定了信息加工潜力的加工系统、由一组用以理解不同现实和知识领域的专门化的能力系统组成的环境指向系统以及对这些系统起监控作用的超认知系统。最后,对该理论作了评价。     

1557例违法犯罪者的人格研究

本研究对１５５７例违法犯罪者按其犯罪动机划分成利欲性、情感性、信仰性、过失性等各种类型,并应用明尼苏达多相人格测验对其人格特点进行定量的分析并引出定性的结论。     

遮挡范式下对碰撞时间的估计

本文研究视觉信息对碰撞时间估计的影响。实验采用遮挡范式（ｏｃｃｌｕｓｉｏｎ ｐａｒａｄｉｇｍ）,遮挡一段固定的距离,让被试估计该段距离所用的时间。自变量为移动速度与挡板的宽度。过程：让被试看速度知觉仪上移动的红灯,估计碰撞发生时按下电键。结果表明,移动速度对时间估计的准确性影响显著,速度越大,估计准确性越高;移动速度还与挡板宽度存在交互作用,即速度快、挡板宽度时碰撞时间的估计更准确,而速度慢、挡板