Showing papers in "Psychological Science in 1996"

Happiness Is a Stochastic Phenomenon

Abstract: Happiness, or subjective well-being, was measured on a birth-record-based sample of several thousand middle-aged twins using the Well-Being (WB) scale of the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire Neither socioeconomic status, educational attainment, family income, marital status, nor an indicant of religious commitment could account for more than about 3% of the variance in WB From 44% to 52% of the variance in WB, however, is associated with genetic variation Based on the retest of smaller samples of twins after intervals of 4 5 and 10 years, we estimate that the heriability of the stable component of subjective well-being approaches 80%

Most People Are Happy

Abstract: Myers and Diener (1995) asked “Who is happy?” but examined the question of who is more and who is less happy In fact, most people report a positive level of subjective well-being (SWB), and say that they are satisfied with domains such as marriage, work, and leisure People in disadvantaged groups on average report positive well-being, and measurement methods in addition to self-report indicate that most people's affect is primarily pleasant Cross-national data suggest that there is a positive level of SWB throughout the world, with the possible exception of very poor societies In 86% of the 43 nations for which nationally representative samples are available the mean SWB response was above neutral Several hypotheses to explain the positive levels of SWB are discussed

Processing Speed, Working Memory, and Fluid Intelligence: Evidence for a Developmental Cascade

Abstract: Processing speed, working memory capacity, and fluid intelligence were assessed in a large sample (N = 214) of children, adolescents, and young adults (ages 7 to 19 years) Results of path analyses revealed that almost half of the age-related increase in fluid intelligence was mediated by developmental changes in processing speed and working memory and nearly three fourths of the improvement in working memory was mediated by developmental changes in processing speed Moreover, even when age-related differences in speed, working memory and fluid intelligence were statistically controlled, individual differences in speed had a direct effect on working memory capacity which, in turn was a direct determinant of individual differences in fluid intelligence

Dissociation of Storage and Rehearsal in Verbal Working Memory: Evidence From Positron Emission Tomography

Abstract: Current cognitive models of verbal working memory include two components a phonological store and a rehearsal mechanism that refreshes the contents of this store We present research using positron emission tomography (PET) to provide further evidence for this functional division In Experiment 1, subjects performed a variant of Sternberg's (1966) item recognition task Experiment 2 used a continuous memory task with control conditions designed to separate the brain regions underlying storage and rehearsal The results show that independent brain regions mediate storage and rehearsal In Experiment 3, a dual-task procedure supported the assumption that these memory tasks elicited a rehearsal strategy

Gesture, Speech, and Lexical Access: The Role of Lexical Movements in Speech Production

Abstract: In a within-subjects design that varied whether speakers were allowed to gesture and the difficulty of lexical access, speakers were videotaped as they described animated action cartoons to a listener When speakers were permitted to gesture, they gestured more often during phrases with spatial content than during phrases with other content Speech with spatial content was less fluent when speakers could not gesture than when they could gesture, speech with nonspatial content was not affected by gesture condition Preventing gesturing increased the relative frequency of nonjuncture filled pauses in speech with spatial content, but not in speech with other content Overall, the effects of preventing speakers from gesturing resembled those of increasing the difficulty of lexical access by other means, except that the effects of gesture restriction were specific to speech with spatial content The findings support the hypothesis that gestural accompaniments to spontaneous speech can facilitate access to the menta...

The Social Psychology of False Confessions: Compliance, Internalization, and Confabulation

Abstract: An experiment demonstrated that false incriminating evidence can lead people to accept guilt for a crime they did not commit Subjects in a fast- or slow-paced reaction time task were accused of damaging a computer by pressing the wrong key All were truly innocent and initially denied the charge A confederate then said she saw the subject hit the key or did not see the subject hit the key Compared with subjects in the slow-pacelno-witness group, those in the fast-pace/witness group were more likely to sign a confession, internalize guilt for the event, and confabulate details in memory consistent with that belief Both legal and conceptual implications are discussed

Superordinate Identification, Subgroup Identification, and Justice Concerns: Is Separatism the Problem; Is Assimilation the Answer?

Abstract: The diversity of American society raises concerns about whether authorities can maintain social cohesion amid competing interests and values The group-value model of justice suggests that authorities function more effectively when they are perceived as fair (e g, benevolent, neutral, and respectful) However, such relational evaluations may be effective only if authorities represent a group with which people identify In a diverse society, subgroup memberships may assume special importance People who identify predominantly with a subgroup may focus on instrumental issues when evaluating a superordinate-group authority, and conflicts with that authority may escalate if those people do not receive favorable outcomes Results indicate that subgroup identification creates problems for authorities only when people have strong subgroup identification and weak superordinate-group identification As long as people identify strongly with the superordinate group, even if they also identify strongly with their subgroup,...

In Sight, Out of Mind: When Object Representations Fail

Abstract: Models of human visual memory often presuppose an extraordinary ability to recognize and identify objects, based on evidence for nearly flawless recognition of hundreds or even thousands of pictures after a single presentation (Nickerson, 1965, Shepard, 1967, Standing, Conezio, & Haber, 1970) and for storage of tens of thousands of object representations over the course of a lifetime (Biederman, 1987) However, recent evidence suggests that observers often fail to notice dramatic changes to scenes, especially changes occurring during eye movements (e g, Grimes, 1996) The experiments presented here show that immediate memory for object identity is surprisingly poor, especially when verbal labeling is prevented However, memory for the spatial configuration of objects remains excellent even with verbal interference suggesting a fundamental difference between representations of spatial configuration and object properties

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging of Semantic Memory Processes in the Frontal Lobes

Abstract: Frontal-lobe activation during semantic memory performance was examined using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a noninvasive technique for localizing neural activity associated with cognitive function Left inferior prefrontal cortex was more activated for semantic than for perceptual encoding of words, and for initial than for repeated semantic encoding of words Decreased activation for semantic encoding of repeated words reflects repetition priming, that is, implicit retrieval of memory gained in the initial semantic encoding of a word The left inferior prefrontal region may subserve semantic working memory processes that participate in semantic encoding and that have decreased demands when such encoding can be facilitated by recent semantic experience These results demonstrate that fMRI can visualize changes in an individual's brain function associated with the encoding and retrieval of new memories

Sex Differences in Jealousy in Evolutionary and Cultural Perspective: Tests From the Netherlands, Germany, and the United States:

Abstract: As predicted by models derived from evolutionary psychology, men within the United States have been shown to exhibit greater psychological and physiological distress to sexual than to emotional infidelity of their partner, and women have been shown to exhibit more distress to emotional than to sexual infidelity Because cross-cultural tests are critical for evolutionary hypotheses, we examined these sex differences in three parallel studies conducted in the Netherlands (N = 207), Germany (N = 200), and the United States (N = 224) Two key findings emerged First, the sex differences in sexual jealousy are robust across these cultures, providing support for the evolutionary psychological model Second, the magnitude of the sex differences varies somewhat across cultures—large for the United States, medium for Germany and the Netherlands Discussion focuses on the evolutionary psychology of jealousy and on the sensitivity of sex differences in the sexual sphere to cultural input

Averageness, Exaggeration, and Facial Attractiveness

Abstract: Langlois and her colleagues reported in this journal that composite faces are more attractive than the component faces used to create them, and conjectured that averageness is attractive (Langlois & Roggman, 1990, Langlois, Roggman, & Musselman, 1994) However, extremes may also be attractive (Perrett, May, & Yoshikawa, 1994) We investigated the effect of averageness (proximity to a norm or average face) on attractiveness using a computerized caricature generator to vary averageness Attractiveness increased with averageness (Experiment 1) and was negatively correlated with distinctiveness, a subjective measure of the converse of averageness (Expertments 1 and 2) Extremes (caricatures) were not attractive Line-drawing composites, which avoid some of the problems associated with gray-level composites, were significantly more attractive and less distinctive (more average) than individual faces (Experiment 2) These results support the claim that averageness is attractive

Chimpanzees: Joint Visual Attention

Abstract: Gaze following is a behavior that draws the human infant into perceptual contact with objects or events in the world to which others are attending One interpretation of the development of this phenomenon is that it signals the emergence of joint or shared attention, which may be critical to the development of theory of mind An alternative interpretation is that gaze following is a noncognitive mechanism that exploits social stimuli in order to orient the infant (or adult) to important events in the world We report experimental results that chimpanzees display the effect in response to both movement of the head and eyes in concert and eye movement alone Additional tests indicate that chimpanzees appear able to (a) project an imaginary line of sight through invisible space and (b) understand how that line of sight can be impeded by solid, opaque objects This capacity may have arisen because of its reproductive payoffs in the context of social competition with conspecifics, predation avoidance, or both

Evolutionary Origins of Sex Differences in Jealousy? Questioning the “Fitness” of the Model:

Abstract: Evolutionary psychology has become a popular framework for studying jealousy Much of this popularity can be attributed to work by Buss and his colleagues showing an apparent relation between an individual's sex and jealousy for certain types of infidelity (i e, sexual vs emotional) that is consistent with evolutionary theory (Buss, Larsen, Westen, & Semmelroth, 1992) In two studies, we take issue with these findings and argue that the relation between sex and jealousy reported by Buss and his colleagues is more properly explained by considering individuals' beliefs concerning the covariation between sexual and emotional infidelity

Infants' Individuation and Enumeration of Actions

Abstract: Two experiments examined 6-month-old infants' ability to individuate and enumerate physical actions—the sequential jumps of a puppet In both experiments, which employed a habituation paradigm, infants successfully discriminated two-jump from three-jump sequences The sequences of activity in the two experiments provided for an initial exploration of the cues infants use to individuate actions Results show that (a) infants can individuate and enumerate actions in a sequence, indicating that their enumeration mechanism is quite general in the kinds of entities over which it will operate, (b) actions whose temporal boundaries are characterized by a contrast between motion and absence of motion are especially easy to individuate and enumerate, but nonetheless (c) infants can individuate and enumerate actions embedded in a sequence of continuous motion, indicating that infants possess procedures for parsing an ongoing motionful scene into distinct portions of activity

Natural Musical Intervals: Evidence From Infant Listeners

Abstract: Ancient and medieval scholars considered tones related by simple (small-integer) ratios to be naturally pleasing, but contemporary scholars attribute the special perceptual status of such sounds to exposure We investigated the possibility of processing predispositions for some tone combinations by evaluating infants' ability to detect subtle changes to patterns of simultaneous and sequential tones Infants detected such changes to pairs of pure tones (intervals) only when the tones were related by simple frequency ratios This was the case for 9-month-old infants tested with harmonic (simultaneous) intervals and for 6-month-old infants tested with melodic (sequential) intervals These results are consistent with a biological basis for the prevalence of particular intervals historically and cross-culturally

Repeated Exposure to Suggestion and the Creation of False Memories

Abstract: The purpose of the present study was to extend research on repetition and illusory truth to the domain of eyewitness suggestibility Specifically, we assessed whether repeated exposure to suggestion, relative to a single exposure, facilitates the creation of false memory for suggested events After viewing a video of a burglary, subjects were asked questions containing misleading suggestions, some of which were repeated Their memory for the source of the suggestions was tested The results show that following repeated (relative to a single) exposure to suggestion, subjects were more likely to (a) claim with high confidence that they remembered the suggested events from the video (Experiment 1) and (b) claim that they consciously recollected witnessing the suggested events (Experiment 2) The effects of repeated exposure were highly reliable and were observed over retention intervals as long as 1 week

Whistling in the Dark: Exaggerated Consensus Estimates in Response to Incidental Reminders of Mortality

Abstract: Terror management theory posits that cultural worldviews function to provide protection against anxiety concerning human vulnerability and mortality and that their effectiveness as buffers against such anxiety is maintained through a process of consensual validation Two field experiments were conducted to test the hypothesis that incidental reminders of one's mortality increase the need to believe that others share one's worldview In both studies, passersby on city streets were asked to estimate the extent of social consensus for culturally relevant attitudes, 100 m before passing a funeral home, 100 m after passing a funeral home, or directly in front of a funeral home In the first study, conducted in Germany, subjects were asked to estimate the percentage of Germans who shared their opinions about a proposal to change the German constitution to restrict the immigration of foreigners, in the second study, conducted in the United States, subjects were asked to estimate the percentage of Americans who shar...

Dissociation of Spatial and Temporal Coupling in the Bimanual Movements of Callosotomy Patients

Abstract: The neural mechanisms of limb coordination were investigated by testing callosotomy patients and normal control subjects on bimanual movements Normal subjects produced deviations in the trajectories when spatial demands for the two hands were different, despite temporal synchrony in the onset of bimanual movements Callosotomy patients did not produce spatial deviations, although their hands moved with normal temporal synchrony Normal subjects but not callosotomy patients exhibited large increases in planning and execution time for movements with different spatial demands for the two hands relative to movements with identical spatial demands for the two hands This neural dissociation indicates that spatial interference in movements results from callosal connections, whereas temporal synchrony in movement onset does not rely on the corpus callosum

The Comprehensive System for the Rorschach: A Critical Examination

Abstract: The Comprehensive System (Exner, 1993) is widely accepted as a reliable and valid approach to Rorschach interpretation However, the present article calls attention to significant problems with the system First, contrary to common opinion, the interrater reliability of most scores in the system has never been demonstrated adequately Second, important scores and indices in the system are of questionable validity Third, the research base of the system consists mainly of unpublished studies that are often unavailable for examination Recommendations are made regarding research and clinical use of the Comprehensive System

The Roles of Recognition Processes and Look-Ahead Search in Time-Constrained Expert Problem Solving: Evidence From Grand-Master-Level Chess

Abstract: Chess has long served as an important standard task environment for research on human memory and problem-solving abilities and processes In this article, we report evidence on the relative importance of recognition processes and planning (look-ahead) processes in very high level expert performance in chess The data show that the rated skill of a top-level grand master is only slightly lower when he is playing simultaneously against a half-dozen grand-master opponents than under tournament conditions that allow much more time for each move As simultaneous play allows little time for look-ahead processes, the data indicate that recognition, based on superior chess knowledge, plays a much larger part in high-level skill in this task than does planning by looking ahead

Gender, Jealousy, and Reason

Abstract: Research has suggested that men are especially bothered by evidence of their partner's sexual infidelity, whereas women are troubled more by evidence of emotional infidelity One evolutionary account (Buss, Larsen, Westen, & Semmelroth, 1992) argues that this is an innate difference, arising from men's need for paternity certainty and women's need for male investment in their offspring We suggest that the difference may instead be based on reasonable differences between the sexes in how they interpret evidence of infidelity A man, thinking that women have sex only when in love, has reason to believe that if his mate has sex with another man, she is in love with that other A woman, thinking that men can have sex without love, should still be bothered by sexual infidelity, but less so because it does not imply that her mate has fallen in love as well A survey of 137 subjects confirmed that men and women do differ in the predicted direction in how much they think each form of infidelity implies the other, pro...

Mechanisms of Placebo Pain Reduction: An Empirical Investigation

Abstract: Identical experimental pain stimuli were applied to the right and left index fingers of 56 university students, following the application of a placebo in the guise of a topical anesthetic to one of the fingers The pain stimuli were administered simultaneously to treated and untreated fingers for half of the subjects and sequentially for the others Significant and equivalent reductions in pain were reported in both conditions as a function of placebo administration These data indicate that reductions of experimental pain produced by placebos presented in the guise of local anesthetics are not mediated by such global mechanisms as anxiety reduction or the release of endogenous opioids

Accuracy and Distortion in Memory for High School Grades

Abstract: The relation between accuracy and distortion of autobiographical memory content was examined by verifying 3,220 high school grades recalled by 99 college students Accuracy of recall declined monotonically with letter grade, from 89% for grades of A to 29% for grades of D The positive correlation between achievement and accuracy of recall is attributed to more frequent rehearsals of affectively positive content and to greater accuracy of reconstructive inferences based on homogeneous, generic memories Most errors inflated the verified grade, and the degree of asymmetry of the error distribution is used as an index of the degree of distortion Distortions are attributed to reconstructions in a positive, emotionally gratifying direction Contrary to expectation, the percentage of accurate recall and the degree of asymmetry of the error distribution were uncorrelated This finding indicates that the process of distortion does not cause forgetting of the veridical content Rather, distortion reflects bias in recon...

Infant Attachment Security and Affective-Cognitive Information Processing at Age 3

Abstract: Three-year olds' attention toward and memory of affectively laden information presented in specially designed puppet shows were examined to test the hypothesis, based on Bowlby's theory of attachment and the internal-working-model construct central to the theory, that children with secure attachment histories (measured at 12 months) would prove less distractable during positive than negative events and would remember positive events more accurately than negative events, with the reverse being true of children with insecure attachment histories Support for this hypothesis emerged in the case of memory but not attention (for which no attachment effects emerged), even when infants' temperament-emotionality and general verbal intelligence were taken into consideration Results are discussed in terms of life-course implications of affective-cognitive information processing and directions for future research

True Imitative Learning in Pigeons

Abstract: Providing evidence for imitative learning in animals has been made difficult by the need to control for a number of possible nonimitation accounts (e.g., mere presence of another animal, attention drawn to a location, attention drawn to an object being manipulated) that often have not been recognized in previous research In the present experiment we used a version of the two-action method in which a treadle could be operated by a pigeon in one of two distinctive ways with its beak by pecking or with its foot by stepping What is unique in this experiment is not only the distinct response topographies, but also that both responses have the same effect on the environment (depression of the treadle followed by food reward) When pigeons that had observed one of the two response topographies were given access to the treadle, a significant correspondence was found between the topography of the observers responses and that of their respective demonstrators' responses

Piaget's Legacy

Abstract: There have been many published assessments of Jean Piaget’s work over the years, both during his lifetime and since his death in 1980. One has only to look in any introductory textbook on developmental psychology or cognitive development to find examples. hlost of these assessments mention both praiseworthy and criticizable aspects of his work, but often give more space to the latter than to the former. This is understandable. In most cases, identified weaknesses in his work are proxies for important scientific discoveries made by subsequent researchers. That is, we learn that some Piagetian developmental story is probably wrong by doing research that points to some alternative, more correct-seeming story. Naturally, it is important for the people who write about cognitive development to communicate both the weaknesses and the scientific discoveries that revealed them and took us the next step forward. In the present assessment, I take a different tack, however. Useful though it is to examine the criticizable in Piagetiana, I focus entirely on the praiseworthy in this article. hly objective is to summarize what I believe to be Piaget’s contributions to what we know about cognitive development and how we think about it. Everyone knows that Piaget was the most important figure the field has known; the purpose of this article is simply to explain why.

Acting as Intuitive Scientists: Contingency Judgments Are Made While Controlling for Alternative Potential Causes

Abstract: In judging the efficacy of multiple causes of an effect, human performance has been found to deviate from the “normative”ΔP contingency rule However, in cases of multiple causes, that rule might not be normative, scientists and philosophers, for example, know that when judging a potential cause, one must control for all other potential causes. In an experiment in which they were shown trial-by-trial effects of two potential causes (which sometimes covaried), subjects used conditional rather than unconditional contingencies to rate the efficacy of the causes. A conditional contingency analysis may explain various “nonnormative” cue-integration effects (e.g., discounting) found in the literature and is relevant to how people unravel Simpson's paradox.

Effects of Evidence on Attitudes: Is Polarization the Norm?:

Abstract: A 1979 study by Lord, Ross, and Lepper has been widely cited as showing that examination of mixed evidence on a topic leads to polarization of attitudes The polarization phenomenon, we suggest, in fact encompasses two distinct change patterns—a shift from an initially moderate to a more extreme position (regarded here as genuine polarization) and a shift from an initially neutral to a moderate position (which might better be termed “articulating a position”) The findings reported here indicate that genuine polarization is a real but infrequent outcome of exposure to mixed evidence In addition, we offer data in support of the view that the effective component of such interventions is simply cognitive engagement, rather than exposure to new evidence

Illusion of Control: Detecting Response-Outcome Independence in Analytic but Not in Naturalistic Conditions:

Abstract: Experiments in which subjects are asked to analytically assess response-outcome relationships have frequently yielded accurate judgments of response-outcome independence, but more naturalistically set experiments in which subjects are instructed to obtain the outcome have frequently yielded illusions of control The present research tested the hypothesis that a differential probability of responding p(R), between these two traditions could be at the basis of these different results Subjects received response-independent outcomes and were instructed either to obtain the outcome (naturalistic condition) or to behave scientifically in order to find out how much control over the outcome was possible (analytic condition) Subjects in the naturalistic condition tended to respond at almost every opportunity and developed a strong illusion of control Subjects in the analytic condition maintained their p(R) at a point close to 5 and made accurate judgments of control The illusion of control observed in the naturalis...