Context-Specific Learning, Personality, and Birth Order

Most people believe that learning to get along (or not get along) with their siblings played an important role in shaping their personality, and that their position in the family—oldest, youngest, or in the middle—had lasting effects. Yet studies of birth order generally fail to support these beliefs. The apparent contradiction can be resolved by taking into account the context-specific nature of learned behavior. There is abundant evidence that people do not automatically transfer behavior from one context to another: They wait until they have evidence that what they learned in Context 1 will also be useful in Context 2. Because patterns of behavior acquired in the family of origin tend to be useless or inappropriate in other settings, birth order effects show up only in that context. Outside the family they grew up in, firstborns and later-borns are indistinguishable in personality.     

反应选项对时序知觉重复启动效应的影响

先前研究采用两项反应任务发现了时序知觉重复启动效应, 这可能是反应选项导致的虚假效应, 本研究采用三项反应任务对此进行了检验。实验1运用三项判断任务以消除缺乏中间选项所致的反应偏向, 结果发现重复启动显著影响“哪个图形先出现”和“两个图形同时出现”的时序判断; 实验2在实验1的基础上对“同时出现”反应选项进行两种指导语操作, 实验结果不仅与实验1一致, 而且“有把握时判断为同时出现”和“有无把握都判断为同时出现”之间没有显著差异, 说明被试能够识别时序加以判断, 不支持反应偏向的前提条件。因此, 时序知觉重复启动效应不是反应选项产生的反应偏向引发的虚假效应, 重复启动对“系列性”和“同时性”时序知觉都存在显著影响。     

Enrolling the Citizen in Sustainability: Membership Categorization,Morality and Civic Participation

This article examines the common-sense and methodical ways in which “the citizen” is produced and enrolled as an active participant in “sustainable” regional planning. Using Membership Categorization Analysis, we explicate how the categorization procedures in the Foreword of a draft regional planning policy interactionally produce the identity of “the citizen” and “civic values and obligations” in relation to geographic place and institutional categories. Furthermore, we show how positioning practices establish a relationship between authors (government) and readers (citizens) where both are ascribed with the same moral values and obligations toward the region. Hence, “the citizen” as an active participant in “sustainable” regional planning is viewed as a practical accomplishment that is underpinned by a normative morality associated with the task of producing orderliness in “text-in-interaction.”

Terror salience and punishment: Does terror salience induce threat to social order?

In recent times, international terrorism has become one of the most serious concerns of the modern Western world. As a consequence, the risk and fear of terrorism is more salient in people’s minds (i.e. terror salience), which is supposed to affect behavioral responses in our society. The present research suggests that increased punishment of violations of criminal laws is one societal reaction to increased terror salience. It was consistently shown that increased terror salience, induced by either varying the temporal distance from the London terrorist attacks of July 7, 2005 (Study 1), by vignettes in the form of newspaper articles manipulating the expected terror risk (Study 2), or by pictures of recent terrorist attacks (Studies 3 and 4), significantly increased the punishment assigned to a violation of criminal laws that was completely unrelated to terror (i.e. car theft and rape). Finally, Study 4 revealed that (a) the effect of terror salience on punishment is indeed due to increased perception of threat to social order and (b) that this effect cannot be explained by the general negative nature of the stimulus material employed in this study.     

何以近朱者赤、近墨者黑?特质激活理论的缘起、现状和未来

特质激活理论旨在阐明适宜的外部情境如何激活个体的内在特质, 以及这种激活如何促使潜藏的隐性特质表达出显性的行为。文章综述了特质激活理论, 剖析了其从思想诞生到基准模型, 再到拓展模型的两次飞跃, 重点阐释了情境分层、情境特征、激活后果的反馈等系统, 辨析了特质激活的内涵及其与“人-环境”匹配理论、与情境强度理论的异同, 从深化验证、拓展现有理论模型等视角提出未来研究走向。     

食物线索注意偏向及其神经机制

与其他类型的刺激相比, 个体会优先注意食物相关刺激, 即对食物刺激的注意偏向。对影响食物线索注意偏向个体因素研究的分析发现：(1)在状态因素中, 饥饿以及与自我威胁有关的、唤起强度大的负性情绪对食物线索注意偏向有增强作用, 这在注意加工的早期和晚期都有体现; (2)在特质因素中, 行为研究发现, 相比于体重正常个体和非限制性饮食者, 超重/肥胖个体以及唤起节食目标的成功限制性饮食者没有更强的注意偏向, 但是, ERP研究发现, 在注意加工的早期阶段, 就出现了特质因素对食物线索注意偏向的影响; (3) fMRI研究发现, 对食物线索的注意过程伴随着脑岛、眶额叶皮层等与奖励相关的脑区及视觉注意网络的激活。未来研究需要：(1)从动态角度研究注意偏向, 进一步提高测量的信度; (2)使用专门的范式探究个体因素影响注意偏向的神经机制; (3)严格分离不同状态因素; (4)对被试进行严谨筛选和划分, 做好被试间的对比研究。     

Ally confrontations as identity-safety cues for marginalized individuals

Three studies and an integrative data analysis (N = 1,017) demonstrated that confrontations (speaking up against a stereotypical or prejudiced statement), when affirmed by bystanders, serve as an effective safety cue for targets of bias. In Studies 1 and 2, Chinese-American and White women witnessed anti-Asian and sexist remarks, respectively. Results revealed that a lone confronter (i.e., a confronter not affirmed by others) was unable to boost identity-safety (e.g., belonging, safety) compared to when the bias was not confronted, regardless of confronter identity (i.e., ally vs. ingroup confronter). Study 2 demonstrated that other people in the interaction group (i.e., bystanders) must affirm the confrontation for it to serve as an effective safety cue. Study 3 replicated and extended these results among White women for confrontation of sexism and Black women for confrontation of racism. Overall, these studies suggest that confrontations, when affirmed, can serve as a safety cue.     

Making Sense of the Hands and Mouth: The Role of “Secondary” Cues to Meaning in British Sign Language and English

Successful face-to-face communication involves multiple channels, notably hand gestures in addition to speech for spoken language, and mouth patterns in addition to manual signs for sign language. In four experiments, we assess the extent to which comprehenders of British Sign Language (BSL) and English rely, respectively, on cues from the hands and the mouth in accessing meaning. We created congruent and incongruent combinations of BSL manual signs and mouthings and English speech and gesture by video manipulation and asked participants to carry out a picture-matching task. When participants were instructed to pay attention only to the primary channel, incongruent “secondary” cues still affected performance, showing that these are reliably used for comprehension. When both cues were relevant, the languages diverged: Hand gestures continued to be used in English, but mouth movements did not in BSL. Moreover, non-fluent speakers and signers varied in the use of these cues: Gestures were found to be more important for non-native than native speakers; mouth movements were found to be less important for non-fluent signers. We discuss the results in terms of the information provided by different communicative channels, which combine to provide meaningful information.     

A model statement does not enhance the verifiability approach

The present experiment investigated to what extent providing participants with a model statement influences the ability of the verifiability approach to detect deception. Participants gave a true and false statement about a negative autobiographical event, with half of the participants receiving a detailed model statement just before giving their statement. We expected false statements to include more nonverifiable and less verifiable details than true statements and that providing a model statement would increase these differences. False statements indeed included more nonverifiable details than truthful statements but did not differ in the number of verifiable details. True statements included a higher ratio of verifiable details. The model statement encouraged participants to give a longer and more detailed statement. However, it prompted participants to increase the number of included verifiable—and not nonverifiable—details, regardless of veracity. Using a model statement did not influence the discriminability of the verifiability approach.     

时序知觉研究方法及其影响因素

时序知觉是个体对直接作用于感觉器官的客观事件顺序性的知觉。时序判断任务和同时性判断任务是研究时序知觉的经典实验范式。时序知觉不仅受机体变量,刺激变量及反应变量的影响,还受注意和通道等中介变量的影响。个体的意识和潜意识在同时性、非同时性和序列性时间知觉中的作用问题有待进一步探索。