心理理论发展研究的一种新范式——矩阵博弈

心理理论指对他人心理状态的理解,是一种毕生发展的能力。但之前的研究在研究对象和研究内容上存在一些缺陷。本文介绍了一种新范式——矩阵博弈(matrix game),对利用其研究心理理论进行了可行性分析,同时指出了两者相结合的理论基础和实证证据。未来研究可利用矩阵博弈来研究更广年龄范围人群心理理论的发展轨迹,并借助fMRI等技术来测查矩阵博弈中心理理论推理的脑机制。     

信任：父母的代内相似和亲子的代际传递

以往研究指出, 信任有其家庭根源。以116个家庭中的子女及其父母为研究对象考察在家庭中, 父母信任水平是否相似, 父母和子女之间是否存在人际信任的代际传递现象。研究采用投资博弈问卷分别测量了子女和父母的信任水平, 并以送出数量和估计返还数量作为信任的测量指标。结果发现：(1)子女和父母在投资博弈中均表现出一定水平的信任, 且父母的信任表现出相似性; (2)在估计返还数量上, 信任表现出代际传递, 且传递存在性别差异：父亲和母亲的信任水平不能预测女孩的信任水平, 能预测男孩信任水平; 父亲对男孩的影响呈J型曲线, 母亲与男孩的信任水平呈倒U型曲线关系。     

PC-Based Game Features That Influence Instruction and Learner Motivation

PC-based games are currently being used for military training, but the instructional and motivational features of such technology are not well understood. To identify features of training games that influence instruction and motivation, a popular first-person-perspective game with a military theme was analyzed empirically. Twenty-one participants played the “basic training” portion of the game, which included Army background information, virtual marksmanship training, an obstacle course, virtual weapons familiarization, and an urban terrain training mission. The results of this research provide useful information to individuals developing training games, desktop simulations, and interactive multimedia courseware to meet optimal training objectives and strategies.     

Do the right thing: The assumption of optimality in lay decision theory and causal judgment

Human decision-making is often characterized as irrational and suboptimal. Here we ask whether people nonetheless assume optimal choices from other decision-makers: Are people intuitive classical economists? In seven experiments, we show that an agent’s perceived optimality in choice affects attributions of responsibility and causation for the outcomes of their actions. We use this paradigm to examine several issues in lay decision theory, including how responsibility judgments depend on the efficacy of the agent’s actual and counterfactual choices (Experiments 1–3), individual differences in responsibility assignment strategies (Experiment 4), and how people conceptualize decisions involving trade-offs among multiple goals (Experiments 5–6). We also find similar results using everyday decision problems (Experiment 7). Taken together, these experiments show that attributions of responsibility depend not only on what decision-makers do, but also on the quality of the options they choose not to take.     

Private Investigations of White‐Collar Crime Suspicions: A Qualitative Study of the Blame Game Hypothesis

The activity of private investigations by fraud examiners is a business of lawyers, auditors, and other professionals who investigate suspicions of financial crime by white‐collar criminals. This paper presents results from an empirical study of investigation reports. The available sample consists of 28 reports written mostly by auditing firms such as Deloitte, Ernst & Young, and PwC. The blame game can occur at two stages in a private investigation. First, the mandate formulated by a client may point investigators in a specific direction. Next, investigators sometimes suffer from a tunnel view of predetermined opinions. In the sample of 28 investigations reports, more than half of them involve potential blame game victims. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

游戏训练提高幼儿自我控制能力:来自ERP的证据

游戏是激发幼儿兴趣的有效载体,已有研究表明游戏可以提高幼儿自我控制的外显行为表现,但未考察是否能够引起幼儿自我控制相关的电生理变化。本研究将幼儿按班级随机分为实验组和对照组,实验组的幼儿接受一学期的游戏训练,对照组不参加训练,进行自由活动,训练前后所有幼儿完成Go/No Go任务的ERP测试,评定自我控制能力。结果发现:实验组后测中No Go任务的N2和P3成分(分别表示为No Go-N2和No Go-P3)平均波幅均显著小于前测,而对照组前后测波幅无变化;同时,后测实验组中No Go-N2平均波幅显著小于对照组。结果表明,游戏训练可促进幼儿自我控制相关大脑系统的发展,为自我控制游戏训练的效果提供了电生理证据。。     

Fairness‐related behaviour modulation by friendship is moderated by American primes in Chinese participants

Empirical studies from the fields of psychology and behavioural economics indicate that people do not like being treated unfairly and may punish those who violate the norm, even at a cost to themselves. Recent research has emphasized the relationship effect on fairness‐related behaviour but has shown conflicting results and has not focused much on the characteristics of culture. This study used the cultural priming paradigm and the Ultimatum Game (UG) to explore whether cultural primes could moderate the relationship effect on fairness‐related decision making. We primed Chinese participants with either Chinese cultural symbols or American cultural symbols and asked them to play as responders with friends or strangers in the two‐party UG (experiment 1) or in the three‐party UG (experiment 2). Results from the two experiments confirm that Chinese participants accepted unfair offers more often when the offers were made by friends than when the offers were made by strangers. However, the relationship effect was diminished after American cultural priming. These results suggest that American primes can moderate the relationship effect on fairness‐related behaviour in Chinese people. This finding may shed new light on the likelihood of exiting from the heavy reliance on social relationships in Chinese society.     

Knock,Knock–Who’s Scared?: The Knockout Game as a Short-lived Crime Problem

ABSTRACT

The “knockout game”--youths assaulting strangers at random with the goal of knocking them unconscious with a single blow—attracted intense attention in the United States for a brief period near the end of 2013. This paper examines the history of a set of claims about similar behaviors preceded that knockout game’s eventual celebrity. It demonstrates the difficulty of successfully constructing a new crime problem; it took decades before a combination of elements—location, the characterization of offenders and victims, an emphasis on technology, and a prominent media venue willing to promote the story—brought these claims to prominence.     

Power influences the expression of Honesty-Humility: The power-exploitation affordances hypothesis

Across different experiments we show that individual differences in Honesty-Humility predict exploitation in economic games, and that this relation is moderated by situational power. Power was manipulated by comparing games in which allocators either had absolute power (dictator game), intermediate (delta game), or shared power (ultimatum game) over joint outcomes. We developed the power-exploitation affordances hypothesis that predicts that allocators with lower Honesty-Humility act more exploitative when they have absolute power than when their power is intermediate or shared. Additionally, we also tested these predictions for the actual earnings in these games. The results were generally supportive of our main hypotheses. Our findings contribute to understanding situational and personality effects on how individuals behave in positions of power (e.g., leaders).