Portrait of a narcissist: Manifestations of narcissism in physical appearance

Narcissism is characterized in part by an acute concern for one’s appearance. Despite this fundamental aspect of narcissism, little is known about whether narcissism is manifested in features of physical appearance. Can you tell if someone is narcissistic just by looking at them? Our results indicate that snap judgments of narcissism based on full-body photographs are at least as accurate as snap judgments of any of the big five personality traits. Narcissists are more likely to wear expensive, flashy clothing, have an organized, neat appearance requiring a lot of preparation, and (in females) wear makeup and show cleavage. Furthermore, observers’ judgments correlate with the presence of these cues, suggesting that they are drawing on the correct information when making their judgments. Finally, observers’ judgments are associated with three of the four facets of narcissism and capture the unique constellation of personality traits typical of narcissists (i.e., high extraversion and low agreeableness). These findings suggest that physical appearance reflects narcissists’ personality, preoccupation with good looks, and desire to be the center of attention, and serves as a vehicle with which to promote their status.     

小学高年级学生的学习判断绝对准确性及预见偏差

本研究以小学高年级学生为被试,选取高熟悉度的具体名词组成的联结词对为实验材料,考察不同判断模式下学习判断的准确性及预见偏差。研究发现:(1)小学高年级学生的学习判断绝对准确性存在年级差异。总体来看,小学六年级学生在即时判断和延迟判断模式下都具有较好的绝对准确性,而四年级和五年级学生在即时判断时出现显著的高估,而在延迟判断模式下具有较好的绝对准确性。具体分析正向词对和反向词对的准确性发现,在即时判断模式下,五、六年级学生的正向联结词对有较好的准确性,而四年级的正向联结词对出现高估;三个年级的学生的反向词对都出现高估。在延迟判断模式下,三个年级学生在正向词对和反向词对上都有较好的准确性。(2)小学五年级学生的学习判断开始出现预见偏差。(3)延迟判断能够提高小学高年级学生的学习判断准确性,减小甚至消除预见偏差。     

Information integration in multiple cue judgment: a division of labor hypothesis

There is considerable evidence that judgment is constrained to additive integration of information. The authors propose an explanation of why serial and additive cognitive integration can produce accurate multiple cue judgment both in additive and non-additive environments in terms of an adaptive division of labor between multiple representations. It is hypothesized that, whereas the additive, independent linear effect of each cue can be explicitly abstracted and integrated by a serial, additive judgment process, a variety of sophisticated task properties, like non-additive cue combination, non-linear relations, and inter-cue correlation, are carried implicitly by exemplar memory. Three experiments investigating the effect of additive versus non-additive cue combination verify the predicted shift in cognitive representations as a function of the underlying combination rule.     

Moral Feedback and Motivation: Revisiting the Undermining Effect

Social psychologists have evidence that evaluative feedback on others’ choices sometimes has unwelcome negative effects on hearers’ motivation. Holroyd’s article (Holroyd J. Ethical Theory Moral Pract 10:267–278, 2007) draws attention to one such result, the undermining effect, that should help to challenge moral philosophers’ complacency about blame and praise. The cause for concern is actually greater than she indicates, both because there are multiple kinds of negative effect on hearer motivation, and because these are not, as she hopes, reliably counteracted by implicit features of praise and blame. The communicative ideal that she articulates does point us in the right direction, but it requires further elaboration. Once it is spelled out, we find that realizing this ideal, in light of the empirical research, requires rethinking the role of verdict-like judgments within moral feedback.

Turning failures into successes: a methodological shortcoming in empirical research on surrogate accuracy

Decision making for incompetent patients is a much-discussed topic in bioethics. According to one influential decision making standard, the substituted judgment standard, a surrogate decision maker ought to make the decision that the incompetent patient would have made, had he or she been competent. Empirical research has been conducted in order to find out whether surrogate decision makers are sufficiently good at doing their job, as this is defined by the substituted judgment standard. This research investigates to what extent surrogates are able to predict what the patient would have preferred in the relevant circumstances. In this paper we address a methodological shortcoming evident in a significant number of studies. The mistake consists in categorizing responses that only express uncertainty as predictions that the patient would be positive to treatment, on the grounds that the clinical default is to provide treatment unless it is refused. We argue that this practice is based on confusion and that it risks damaging the research on surrogate accuracy.

D. Z. Phillips and reasonable belief

As an illustration of what Phillips called the “heterogeneity of sense,” this essay concentrates on differences in what is meant by a “reason for belief.” Sometimes saying that a belief is reasonable simply commends the belief’s unquestioned acceptance as a part of what we understand as a sensible outlook. Here the standard picture of justifying truth claims on evidential grounds breaks down; and it also breaks down in cases of fundamental moral and religious disagreement, where the basic beliefs that we hold affect our conception of what counts as a reliable ground of judgment. Phillips accepts the resultant variations in our conceptions of rational judgment as a part of logic, just as Wittgenstein did. All objective means of determining the truth or falsity of an assertion presume some underlying conceptual agreement about what counts as good judgment. This means that the possibility of objective justification is limited. But no pernicious relativism results from this view, for as Wittgenstein said, “After reason comes persuasion.” There is, moreover, a non-objective criterion of sorts in the moral and religious requirement that one be able to live with one’s commitments. In such cases, good judgment is still possible, but it differs markedly from the standard model of making rational inferences.     

时间分解效应及其对跨期决策的影响

本文基于经典的分解效应, 提出并证实了一种影响人们判断与决策中时间知觉的新因素--时间分解效应。共包括两个研究, 分别在“时间够用”判断与跨期决策中检验了该效应的存在性与稳固性。实验结果表明：(1)相比未分解条件, 分解条件下的被试判断给定时间内完成某项任务的时间更够用, 即时间知觉更长。该效应受到任务难度的调节, 在较简单的任务中时间分解效应更显著; (2)在跨期决策中, 分解操纵增大了人们对较大较远的收益(larger & later, LL)选项中时间延迟的知觉, 证实了时间分解效应。此外, 还发现时间分解效应会导致人们在跨期决策中更偏好较小较近的收益(smaller & sooner, SS)选项, 对时间延迟的知觉中介了这一过程。总之, 本研究不仅在理论上提出了一种新的分解效应, 同时对现实生活中的决策(如计划制定等)有重要的应用价值。     

Order effects in sequentially judged options due to the direction of comparison

Many real-world judgment tasks present options in sequence. Typically, these judgments are made step-by-step, immediately after considering each option, or end-of-sequence, after all have been seen. We report similar order effects in both procedures, due to direction of comparison. It appears that judges form an impression of each new option by comparing it to those that preceded it. Using that option’s features as a “checklist,” more weight is given to unique ones than to ones shared with previous options. This unidirectional comparison process produces increasing ratings in options with unique positive features, and decreasing ratings when options have unique negative features. By manipulating the barriers to making multiple comparisons, we show that the direction-of-comparison effect is not limited to judgment tasks with sequential presentation. Even simultaneously presented options may show order effects, if they are judged one at a time—in sequence. Possible explanations and implications are discussed.     

Was Life Better in the “Good Old Days”? Intertemporal Judgments of Life Satisfaction

Intertemporal judgments are paired comparisons between the present time and some other time (e.g. “How satisfied are you with your life these days compared to five years ago?”). These judgments can provide evidence on the question, “Is life satisfaction in developed nations increasing, decreasing, or remaining constant?” This paper provides the first review of intertemporal judgments of life satisfaction, and reports a meta-analysis of 71 such studies from 9 developed countries. Results show that in every survey that asks people how happy their own lives are now compared to some past time, a majority says they are happier now than in the past. The meta-analysis also shows that this question must be carefully distinguished from asking about quality of life of the average person, which shows a majority believing that life was better for the “average person” in the past. These two beliefs are logically inconsistent, since the average respondent actually says their satisfaction is higher now. We consider several sources of bias that may influence these results, including cognitive processing heuristics, self-appraisal (desirability) bias, and information bias in media news.     

Rationality and Judgment

Abstract: Philosophical/epistemic theories of rationality differ over the role of judgment in rational argumentation. According to the “classical model” of rationality, rational justification is a matter of conformity with explicit rules or principles. Critics of the classical model, such as Harold Brown and Trudy Govier, argue that the model is subject to insuperable difficulties. They propose, instead, that rationality be understood, ultimately, in terms of judgment rather than rules. In this article I respond to Brown's and Govier's criticisms of the classical model, and to the “judgment model” they propose in its place. I argue that that model is unable both to distinguish between rational and irrational judgment and to avoid recourse to rules, and is therefore inadequate as an account of rationality, critical thinking, or argument appraisal. More positively, I argue that an adequate account of rationality must include a place for both rules and judgment.