Temporal discounting and preference reversals in choice between delayed outcomes

Subjects chose between pairs of hypothetical amounts of money available after different delays. When smaller, more immediate amounts were selected over larger, more delayed amounts, the addition of a constant delay to both outcomes resulted in reversals of preference, contrary to the standard discounted utility model of economics. The delays at which preference reversed were determined for three pairs of amounts ($20 vs. $50, $100 vs. $250, and $500 vs. $1,250). The relation between the delay to the larger amount and the delay to the smaller amount at preference reversal was well fit by both linear and quadratic functions. Intercepts increased with amount, strongly suggesting that rate of discounting decreases with amount. The presence of significant negative curvature in the data from the majority of individual subjects poses problems for exponential and hyperbolic models of temporal discounting in self-control, both of which predict a linear relation between the delays to the larger and smaller amounts.     

Bioethics and Christian Theology

The authors of this essay suggest that the field of bioethics and Christian theology have a great deal to offer to each other. The authors first argue that representatives from both fields must first make sure that they fully and correctly represent their respective position. In other words, scientists, ethicists, and theologians alike must make sure that they present their fields and not use their knowledge merely for personal gain at the stake of misguiding people. Once this is established, the authors then proceed to show the intimate relationship between Christianity and medicine that has existed throughout the ages. It is a call for a continuation of such a relationship that the authors suggest between bioethics and theology. Through an integration of bioethics and Christian theology, both scientists/physicians and theologians are able to gain greater insight into the human person—a focus in both fields.     

The destructive nature of power without status

The current research explores how roles that possess power but lack status influence behavior toward others. Past research has primarily examined the isolated effects of having either power or status, but we propose that power and status interact to affect interpersonal behavior. Based on the notions that a) low-status is threatening and aversive and b) power frees people to act on their internal states and feelings, we hypothesized that power without status fosters demeaning behaviors toward others. To test this idea, we orthogonally manipulated both power and status and gave participants the chance to select activities for their partners to perform. As predicted, individuals in high-power/low-status roles chose more demeaning activities for their partners (e.g., bark like a dog, say “I am filthy”) than did those in any other combination of power and status roles. We discuss how these results clarify, challenge, and advance the existing power and status literatures.     

Scope of attention, control of attention, and intelligence in children and adults

Recent experimentation has shown that cognitive aptitude measures are predicted by tests of the scope of an individual's attention or capacity in simple working memory tasks and also by the ability to control attention. However, these experiments do not indicate how separate or related the scope and control of attention are. An experiment with 52 children (10 to 11 years old) and 52 college students included measures of the scope and control of attention, as well as verbal and nonverbal aptitude measures. The children showed little evidence of using sophisticated attentional control, but the scope of attention predicted intelligence in that group. In adults, both the scope and control of attention varied among individuals and accounted for considerable individual variance in intelligence. About one third that variance was shared between scope an d control, and the rest was unique to one or the other.Scope and control of attention appear to be related but distinct contributors to intelligence.     

Blame contagion: The automatic transmission of self-serving attributions

When people blame others for their mistakes, they learn less and perform worse. This problem is magnified when blame becomes embedded in the shared culture of groups and organizations. Yet, little is known about whether—and, if so, how—the propensity to blame spreads from one person to another. Four experiments addressed this issue, demonstrating that blame is socially contagious: observing an individual make a blame attribution increased the likelihood that people would make subsequent blame attributions for their own, unrelated, failures (Experiments 1, 2, and 4). Results also indicated that this “blame contagion” is due to the transmission of goals. Blame exposure led to the inference and adoption of a self-image protection goal (Experiment 3), and blame contagion was eliminated when observers had the opportunity to alleviate this self-image protection goal via self-affirmation (Experiment 4). Implications for research on causal attributions, social contagion, and cultural transmission are discussed.     

Aging of attention: Does the ability to divide decline?

Previous research has yielded conflicting results regarding the relationship between adult age and the ability to divide attention between two concurrent tasks. At least some of the inconsistency is probably attributable to methodological variations, such as the manner in which divided-attention ability has been assessed, how single-task performance has been considered, and the degree of control over relative emphasis placed on each task. Two experiments employing procedures sensitive to these concerns were conducted in which a speeded decision task was performed during the retention interval of a letter-memory task. The results of both experiments indicated that there were relatively few age-related influences on dual-task performance vis-à-vis those on single-task performance.     

Common Ground and Cultural Prominence: How Conversation Reinforces Culture

ABSTRACT— Why do well-known ideas, practices, and people maintain their cultural prominence in the presence of equally good or better alternatives? This article suggests that a social-psychological process whereby people seek to establish common ground with their conversation partners causes familiar elements of culture to increase in prominence, independently of performance or quality. Two studies tested this hypothesis in the context of professional baseball, showing that common ground predicted the cultural prominence of baseball players better than their performance, even though clear performance metrics are available in this domain. Regardless of performance, familiar players, who represented common ground, were discussed more often than lesser-known players, both in a dyadic experiment (Study 1) and in natural discussions on the Internet (Study 2). Moreover, these conversations mediated the positive link between familiarity and a more institutionalized measure of prominence: All-Star votes (Study 2). Implications for research on the psychological foundations of culture are discussed.     

When the Boss Feels Inadequate: Power, Incompetence, and Aggression

ABSTRACT— When and why do power holders seek to harm other people? The present research examined the idea that aggression among the powerful is often the result of a threatened ego. Four studies demonstrated that individuals with power become aggressive when they feel incompetent in the domain of power. Regardless of whether power was measured in the workplace (Studies 1 and 4), manipulated via role recall (Study 2), or assigned in the laboratory (Study 3), it was associated with heightened aggression when paired with a lack of self-perceived competence. As hypothesized, this aggression appeared to be driven by ego threat: Aggressiveness was eliminated among participants whose sense of self-worth was boosted (Studies 3 and 4). Taken together, these findings suggest that (a) power paired with self-perceived incompetence leads to aggression, and (b) this aggressive response is driven by feelings of ego defensiveness. Implications for research on power, competence, and aggression are discussed.     

Working Together in a Community Garden: Justice in CTC,EG, TTL

From the context of ministry in Guatemala, the author explores themes of injustice and loving service, need and promise in the Lausanne Movement document known as The Cape Town Commitment, the apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, and the ecumenical text on mission and evangelism Together towards Life, with a particular focus on justice and Christian mission. Common elements are depicted through the image of a community garden exhibiting biodiversity and requiring a diversity of talents to flourish.     

An Information-Processing-Based Conceptual Framework of the Effects of Unproctored Internet-Based Testing Devices on Scores on Employment-Related Assessments and Tests

The widespread use of unproctored Internet-based testing (UIT) in employment-related assessments has resulted in a burgeoning use of mobile devices to complete these assessments. Coupled with this is a concomitant interest in UIT-device-type effects, specifically, differences or lack thereof between assessments completed on “mobile” versus “nonmobile” devices. However, there is limited theoretical or conceptual work that seeks to explain the observed effects of UIT device type on test scores. Consequently, this article first presents a review of the extant empirical literature and then, on the basis of that, presents a framework—the structural characteristics/information processing framework—for psychologically conceptualizing the effect of UIT device types on test and assessment scores. The framework is used to explain previous findings and advance testable propositions for future research.