An exploration of psychological and physical injury schemas in civil cases

Civil plaintiffs often seek compensation for their psychological injuries. Yet little is known about jurors' preconceived notions (or schemas) for a prospective plaintiff's pain and suffering. The present studies examined (a) whether jurors have psychological injury schemas (Studies 1 and 2), (b) whether their existence and development vary by the type of civil case (Studies 1 and 2) or its severity (Study 2), and (c) how psychological injury schemas compare with physical injury schemas on a number of theoretically and legally relevant judgments (e.g., injury severity, availability, and plaintiff credibility; Study 2). Study 1 (N = 233) presented undergraduate mock jurors with 2 negligence incidents (car accident and slip and fall) and 2 intentional tort incidents (sexual assault and kidnapping) and asked them to report the typical incident and injuries that would result from the defendant's conduct. Results supported the sparse existence of psychological injury schemas but found that they were more developed in the kidnapping and sexual assault incidents than in the car accident and slip and fall incidents. Study 2 (N = 288) additionally manipulated incident schema severity (mild vs. severe) while having participants separately report and rate their psychological and physical injury schemas on judgments of legal and theoretical interest. Results indicated that although mock jurors' psychological injury schemas contained fewer injuries than their physical injury schemas, the reported psychological injuries were rated as more severe than physical injuries. We discuss how schemas may underlie the disparate treatment of psychological and physical injuries by legal decision‐makers.     

汉语发展性阅读障碍儿童心理机制的初步研究

本研究采用真假字判断与同音判断任务考察了汉语发展性阅读障碍儿童的心理机制。结果显示,对于真假字判断任务,阅读障碍儿童与正常儿童没有显著差异,而在同音判断任务中表现出了显著差异。本研究说明汉语阅读障碍儿童在整体字形表征方面是正常的,同时还支持了阅读障碍为语音表征缺陷的观点。     

意识思维和无意识思维对复杂决策的影响

以大学生为被试,以汽车作为实验材料,通过对12条汽车属性信息的操纵,设置出四款优差不同的汽车。通过对汽车的优差选择,探察在属性信息逐条呈现的情况下,有意识思维与无意识思维对复杂决策的影响。研究结果表明:在反应时上,无意识思维下的决策时间要比有意识思维下的决策时间长;在选择的正确率上,有意识思维决策的结果要优于无意识思维决策的结果;在信息回忆量上,有意识思维决策的回忆量要多于无意识思维决策的回忆量,这与无意识思维理论是相违背的。     

青少年情绪预测偏差与决策的关系研究

在决策过程中人们通常选择那些使其感到快乐的行为,决策结果与所预测的高兴或悲伤、满意或不满意紧密相连,以往研究发现这类预测即情绪预测存在偏差。本研究以188名中小学生为被试,采用自编情绪评定表和最后通牒游戏范式,对情绪预测偏差与决策的关系进行探索。结果表明青少年在预测对未来事件的情绪反应时存在强度偏差和持续时间偏差,情绪预测的强度偏差和持续时间偏差影响青少年回避或趋向决策。     

大学生的经济信心与职业决策自我效能的关系—— 归因和主动性人格的调节作用

通过对513名大学三年级学生的问卷调查, 本研究探讨了全球金融危机背景下大学生经济信心对其职业决策自我效能的影响, 以及内外控制点和主动性人格对此关系的调节作用。结果表明：大学生对经济发展的信心能预测其职业决策自我效能; 内外控制点和主动性人格在此关系中, 分别都起到了调节的作用; 当两者进入同一个调节模型时, 主动性人格的调节作用掩盖了内外控制点的作用。这一调节模型丰富了职业决策自我效能的研究理论, 对高校职业生涯辅导具有借鉴意义。     

Being of two minds: Switching mindsets exhausts self-regulatory resources

The human psyche is equipped with the capacity to solve problems using different mental states or mindsets. Different mindsets can lead to different judgment and decision making styles, each associated with its own perspective and biases. To change perspective, people can, and often do, switch mindsets. We argue, however, that mindset switching can be costly for subsequent decisions. We propose that mindset switching is an executive function that relies on the same psychological resource that governs other acts of executive functioning, including self-regulation. This implies that there are psychic costs to switching mindsets that are borne out in depleted executive resources. One implication of this framework is that switching mindsets should render people more likely to fail at subsequent self-regulation than they would if maintaining a consistent mindset. The findings from experiments that manipulated mindset switching in five domains support this model.     

Child Safety in Australian Family Law: Responsibilities and Challenges for Social Science Experts in Domestic Violence Cases

Understanding the potentially adverse effects of exposure to domestic violence on children is increasing in the Western world. However, in Australian family law, there remain challenges in centralising the special needs of these children in cases before the family courts in the determination of their best interests. This article draws on some key findings of a small qualitative study to highlight and discuss some of the barriers that need to be overcome in order for social science experts to enhance the courts' capacity to protect child subjects of proceedings from possible future harm.     

Post-decision consolidation in large group decision-making

Decision-makers tend to change the psychological attractiveness of decision alternatives in favor of their own preferred alternative after the decision is made. In two experiments, the present research examined whether such decision consolidation occurs also among individual group members in a large group decision-making situation. High-school students were presented with a decision scenario on an important issue in their school. The final decision was made by in-group authority, out-group authority or by majority after a ballot voting. Results showed that individual members of large groups changed the attractiveness of their preferred alternative from a pre- to a post-decision phase, that these consolidation effects increased when decisions were made by in-group members, and when participants identified strongly with their school. Implications of the findings for understanding of group behavior and subgroup relations are discussed.     

Turn right or turn left? Heuristic of adhering to the direction of destination

It has been found that humans not only tend to avoid the middle routes and prefer the peripheral routes among multiple choices, but also rely on the ‘initial segment strategy’ to select the route. In this paper, we propose a new heuristic which humans apply during route selection: Participants prefer the route whose initial direction lies in the direction of their final destination, while avoiding the route whose initial direction does not. Four maps were designed. The pathways, on different maps, constituted a parallelogram, a rectangle and a square. Pedestrians were instructed to select a route from an origin to a destination on one of the maps. The results confirm the application of the newly proposed heuristic. Other possible factors, such as handedness, route angles and occurrence of turns were excluded. Moreover, the heuristics of deferring decision and relying on initial straightness are not supported. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.