Developing a measure of interpretation bias for depressed mood: An ambiguous scenarios test

The tendency to interpret ambiguous everyday situations in a relatively negative manner (negative interpretation bias) is central to cognitive models of depression. Limited tools are available to measure this bias, either experimentally or in the clinic. This study aimed to develop a pragmatic interpretation bias measure using an ambiguous scenarios test relevant to depressed mood (the AST-D).¹ In Study 1, after a pilot phase (N = 53), the AST-D was presented via a web-based survey (N = 208). Participants imagined and rated each AST-D ambiguous scenario. As predicted, higher dysphoric mood was associated with lower pleasantness ratings (more negative bias), independent of mental imagery measures. In Study 2, self-report ratings were compared with objective ratings of participants’ imagined outcomes of the ambiguous scenarios (N = 41). Data were collected in the experimental context of a functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging scanner. Consistent with subjective bias scores, independent judges rated more sentences as negatively valenced for the high versus low dysphoric group. Overall, results suggest the potential utility of the AST-D in assessing interpretation bias associated with depressed mood.     

四卡问题解决中的匹配偏向再探

选取经典的四卡问题作为实验材料,深入探讨了“综合考虑证真证伪作用”的提示以及逻辑分析过程对被试解决四卡问题不能产生促进效应的原因。结果发现:(1)多数被试能对卡片P和-Q进行正确的逻辑推断,但是最后却仍然倾向于选择卡片Q而非-Q,这种错误并非是由于附加的认知任务使得被试的短时记忆容量超载所致。(2)元音偶数组与元音非偶数组的被试对四张卡片作出正确逻辑推断的人数百分比基本一致,但是后者选择P-Q的人数百分比却显著高于前者,这表明多数被试似乎并不依据逻辑分析的结果及其命题检验的规则来作出选择,而是采用匹配策略,错误地选择了Q卡片。     

Mean Comparison: Manifest Variable Versus Latent Variable

Mean comparisons are of great importance in the application of statistics. Procedures for mean comparison with manifest variables have been well studied. However, few rigorous studies have been conducted on mean comparisons with latent variables, although the methodology has been widely used and documented. This paper studies the commonly used statistics in latent variable mean modeling and compares them with parallel manifest variable statistics. Our results indicate that, under certain conditions, the likelihood ratio and Wald statistics used for latent mean comparisons do not always have greater power than the Hotelling T² statistics used for manifest mean comparisons. The noncentrality parameter corresponding to the T² statistic can be much greater than those corresponding to the likelihood ratio and Wald statistics, which we find to be different from those provided in the literature. Under a fixed alternative hypothesis, our results also indicate that the likelihood ratio statistic can be stochastically much greater than the corresponding Wald statistic. The robustness property of each statistic is also explored when the model is misspecified or when data are nonnormally distributed. Recommendations and advice are provided for the use of each statistic. The research was supported by NSF grant DMS-0437167 and Grant DA01070 from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. We would like to thank three referees for suggestions that helped in improving the paper.     

Antecedents and Consequences of Perceived Personal Gender Discrimination: A Study of Solicitors in Hong Kong

Informed by social identity theory, we developed a model to examine the antecedents and consequences of perceptions of personal gender discrimination. In the model, gender, gender identity, and perceived gender bias against women are considered as salient predictors of perceived personal gender discrimination, and organizational commitment and intentions to leave are considered as the outcome variables. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to analyze the data collected from a sample of practicing solicitors in Hong Kong. We found that (a) women perceived more personal gender discrimination and gender bias against women than did men, (b) gender moderated the relationship between perceived gender bias against women and perceived personal gender discrimination, (c) the positive effect of gender bias against women on gender discrimination was more strongly positive for women than for men, and (d) perceived personal gender discrimination affected organizational commitment and intentions to leave. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Implicit sources of bias in employment interview judgments and decisions

This study empirically examined implicit sources of bias in employment interview judgments and decisions. We examined two ethnic cues, accent and name, as sources of bias that may trigger prejudicial attitudes and decisions. As predicted, there was an interaction between the applicant name and accent that affected participants’ favorable judgments of applicant characteristics. The applicant with the ethnic name, speaking with an accent, was viewed less positively by interviewers than the ethnic named applicant without an accent and non-ethnic named applicants with and without an accent. Furthermore, modern ethnicity bias had a negative association with the favorable judgments of the applicants, which, in turn, affected hiring decisions. Implications of the results, limitations of the study, and directions for future research are discussed.     

来源监测实验中的源记忆测量

来源监测实验既涉及到研究项目探测、来源甄别两种不同的认知加工过程,又涉及到研究反应倾向。当研究目的着眼于测量或比较不同来源源记忆或不同控制变量组在同一来源上的源记忆效果时,把来源甄别和项目探测两种认知过程及反应倾向分解开是十分必要的。通常的测量和分析方法对此收效甚微,多项式加工树模型旨在有效地实现这一目标。     

Physicians’ gender bias in the diagnostic assessment of medically unexplained symptoms and its effect on patient–physician relations

Nonspecific, functional, and somatoform (NFS) syndromes is an umbrella term for various diagnoses with medically unexplained symptoms. These syndromes are more prevalent among women than among men, and associated with negative preconceptions that can impede rehabilitation. In two studies, we quantitatively assess how patients’ gender affects the diagnostic assessment of NFS syndromes, as well as the healthcare experiences of individuals diagnosed with NFS syndromes. In the first study, our vignette‐based experiment showed that Swedish general practitioners (N = 90) were gender biased in their diagnostic assessment of NFS syndromes, such that a female patient with back pain was more likely to be assigned a NFS syndrome compared to an otherwise identical male patient. In the second study, a large community sample of Swedish individuals with medically explained (n = 432) and unexplained pain (n = 521) evaluated their treating physician's relational conduct. Even after accounting for a variety of sociodemographic variables and other pain characteristics, women with at least one NFS syndrome percieved their physician's relational conduct as significantly poorer than other women as well as men with and without NFS syndromes. When women's pain is more likely than men's to be assessed as NFS, their rehabilitation could be prolonged as pertient alternative diagnoses and treatments are omittied and their negative healthcare experiences lower their volition to partake and persevere in treatment.     

The impact of emotional expressions on children’s trust judgments

Research on the development of selective trust has shown that young children do not indiscriminately trust all potential informants. They are likely to seek and endorse information from individuals who have proven competent or benign in the past. However, research on trust among adults raises the possibility that children might also be influenced by the emotions expressed by potential informants. In particular, they might trust individuals expressing more positive emotion. Indeed, young children’s trust in particular informants based on their past behaviour might be undermined by their currently expressed emotions. To examine this possibility, we tested the selective trust of fifty 4- and 5-year-olds in two steps. We first confirmed that children are likely to invest more trust in individuals expressing more positive emotion. We then showed that even if children have already formed an impression of two potential informants based on their behavioural record, their choices about whose claims to trust are markedly influenced by the degree of positive emotion currently expressed by the two informants. By implication, the facial emotions expressed by potential informants can undermine young children’s selective trust based on the behavioural record of those informants.     

The experience machine and the expertise defense

Recent evidence suggests that participants without extensive training in philosophy (so-called lay people) have difficulties responding consistently when confronted with Robert Nozick’s Experience Machine thought experiment. For example, some of the participants who reject the experience machine for themselves would still advise a stranger to enter the machine permanently. This and similar findings have been interpreted as evidence for implicit biases that prevent lay people from making rational decisions about whether the experience machine is preferable to real life, which might have consequences for one of the strongest objections to philosophical hedonism (the view that pleasure is the only intrinsic value). Against this consequence, it has been argued that expert philosophers are immune to such biases (the so-called expertise defense). In this paper, I report empirical evidence against this expertise defense.     

Bias and Bias Remediation in Creative Problem-Solving: Managing Biases through Forecasting

Although scholars have identified many variables that contribute to creative problem-solving, less attention has been given to variables that might lead to failure in creative problem-solving. One set of variables that might lead to poor performance in creative problem-solving efforts may be found in various decision biases. In this study, the impact of simple and complex decision biases on the production of original, high-quality, and elegant solutions to a creative problem-solving task was examined in a sample of 227 undergraduates attending a large southwestern university. In addition, the value of forecasting instruction as a technique for reducing these decision biases was examined. It was found that both simple and complex decisions biases resulted in problem solutions of lower originality, quality, and elegance. Training in viable forecasting strategies resulted in the production of higher quality problem solutions. The implications of these findings for improving creative problem-solving performance are discussed.