228 research outputs found
Fork of RRR - SripadaEtAl2014 Calvillo Replication
No full textTemplate for participating labs in the Hart replication. Fork this template to create a new version for each lab
Fork of RRR - SripadaEtAl2014 Calvillo Replication
No full textTemplate for participating labs in the Hart replication. Fork this template to create a new version for each lab
Effectiveness of a Brief Training Activity on Reasoning Strategy and Judgment
No full textIndividual differences in information processing can influence deductive reasoning. The dual-strategy model of reasoning describes two strategies, in which reasoners can create a likelihood estimation (statistical strategy) or use specific examples from long-term memory (counterexample strategy) to evaluate new information (Markovits et al., 2012). There is evidence that participants can switch strategies under a time constraint (Markovits et al., 2013) and with the presence of counterexamples (Markovits et al., 2012). Using a counterexample strategy has been associated with better performance on judgment tasks such as belief-bias and base-rate neglect tasks (e.g., Thompson & Markovits, 2021). It has yet to be examined if a change in strategy influences performance on other tasks. The current study examined if participants' default reasoning strategy could be changed with a brief training task, and if a change in strategy influences base-rate neglect. Participants (N = 128) were randomly placed into a training or control condition. They completed two versions of a reasoning diagnostic, two base-rate neglect tasks, and either the training or filler task. A greater number of reasoners used a counterexample strategy after the training activity and more reasoners used a counterexample strategy in the training condition compared to the control condition. Reasoning strategy was not associated with base-rate neglect. The present findings provide further support that reasoning strategy is a flexible individual difference
Warnings Reduce the Sequential Lap Effect in Eyewitness Identification
No full textRecent studies in eyewitness identification have pointed to an advantage in accuracy for witnesses to identify suspects from a sequential, rather than simultaneous, lineup. Under the sequential procedure, some witnesses may wish to see another viewing (or lap) of the lineup if they did not get a good look at the suspects during the first viewing. Should police detectives allow multiple-lap lineups? Previous research shows that identification accuracy decreases from one lap to two laps, and some detectives may want to warn witnesses of this possibility before proceeding with a second viewing. The present study tested which presentation method (one lap, two laps, or two laps with a warning) produces the highest rate of correct decisions among culprit-present and culprit-absent lineups. All participants viewed a one-minute video portraying the theft of a laptop and then completed a distracter task for five minutes. In the identification phase, one-lap participants answered whether each of six mugshots was the culprit in the video, as well as their confidence in each decision. All two-lap participants viewed the lineup once without answering and a second time while answering as the one-lap participants did. Warned two-lap participants were given a warning of the possible detriment to identification accuracy before proceeding with the second viewing. Results indicated a lap effect ??? two-lap participants identified fillers more often than one-lap participants regardless of culprit presence. A warning effect also emerged, but only under the culprit-absent lineup: even though two-lap participants had a higher rate of filler identifications, those who received a warning chose a filler less often than those who did not. These findings imply that witnesses should be strongly encouraged to make a decision after only one viewing, but those witnesses who absolutely require multiple viewings should be warned to take care in identifying a suspect.Psycholog
The Impact of Humanizing Information and Prior Contact on Willingness to Help and Attitudes toward Children with Severe Disabilities
No full textChildren with severe disabilities are often socially excluded and stigmatized; this can lead to negative physical, emotional, and behavioral outcomes. Dehumanization is one type of stigma people with disabilities face and is common in medical practice. This is especially problematic for children with severe disabilities because they have high health care utilization. However, research clearly illustrates that empathy improves clinical outcomes. Given that children with severe disabilities are often dependent on the care of others for all aspects of daily living, it is critical to develop interventions that improve the attitudes of potential helpers. The purpose of this experiment was to examine the effects of humanizing information and prior contact with people who have disabilities on willingness to help and attitudes toward children with severe disabilities. Prior to watching a video of a child with severe disabilities, college students (N = 240) read either a clinical description of the child’s diagnosis or a less clinical description combined with humanizing information such as the child’s name, favorite color, and hobbies. After watching the video, participants’ attitudes and willingness to help a child with severe disabilities were measured as well as their comfort while watching the video. It was predicted that humanizing information would result in more positive attitudes and greater willingness to help a child with severe disabilities, especially for participants who reported lower levels of prior contact with people who have disabilities. Regarding willingness to help, the hypothesis was partially supported. There was evidence of an effect of prior contact on willingness to help, regardless of type of information, such that participants with higher levels of prior contact were more willing to help. A multidimensional approach assessed affect, behaviors, and cognitions toward individuals with disabilities. There was evidence of an effect of prior contact such that greater levels of prior contact were associated with more positive attitudes toward individuals with disabilities. However, a significant moderating effect of humanizing information was found for the affect and behaviors subscales. For those who received humanizing information, affect and behaviors toward a boy with severe disabilities were no longer bound by previous experiences. Additionally, type of information moderated the relationship between prior contact and comfort while watching the video of a child with severe disabilities. Those who had higher levels of prior contact and received the humanizing information were significantly more comfortable while watching the video of a child with severe disabilities than any other group. Given this finding, interventions directed toward caregivers may have a substantial impact on quality of life for children with disabilities. In this study, humanizing information interrupted the relationship between prior contact and affect and behaviors toward a child with severe disabilities. Therefore, humanizing information may be a useful tool in eliminating bias toward other stigmatized populations. Overall, these findings lend support to the use of multidimensional measures and a regression framework to further elucidate the complex nature of attitudes toward disability
Does Object-Scene Memory Integration Depend on Object-Scene Consistency?
No full textMemory for semantically inconsistent objects in scenes is greater than that for semantically consistent objects—a phenomenon known as the inconsistent object advantage (Hollingworth & Henderson, 2000). Semantically inconsistent objects are also fixated longer and more often than consistent objects (Henderson et al., 1999), potentially leaving less time for encoding the rest of the scene in which the objects occur. To determine whether semantically inconsistent objects are stored in memory with fewer of their scene's visual details, participants studied scenes that contained either semantically consistent or inconsistent target objects. After study, target objects were presented at test either in their original scene from the study phase or in a different scene of the same category. Memory for semantically consistent objects decreased when their scene changed at test. In contrast, changing the scene at test had no significant effect on memory for semantically inconsistent objects. The results suggest that semantically inconsistent objects are stored in memory with fewer of their scene's visual details, as changing those details at test did not disrupt memory for the objects. The findings provide new insight into the inconsistent object advantage and suggest that the semantic relationship between an object and its scene may influence whether both are stored as part of an integrated representation in visual long-term memory
Can Accuracy and Bias Feedback Affect News Headline Accuracy and Political Bias?
No full textThe topic of fake news has received no shortage of attention of late, and for many it may arouse feelings of cynicism towards news. Nonetheless, recent investigations have contributed to the increased understanding of the intricacies of this phenomenon. The majority of the literature on the topic has been focused on identifying factors that contribute to the why and the how of the susceptibility to fake news. Although there have been some investigations aimed at improving peoples' ability to discern between true and false news, important questions still exist and warrant empirical examination. A few such questions are the focus of the present study. First, this study investigated whether providing corrective feedback in a news headline discernment task can improve peoples' ability to differentiate between true and false headlines. Second, because of the pervasive influence of political biases, this investigation examined whether providing bias feedback can promote more objective evaluation of news content. The evidence regarding these questions were mixed. Corrective feedback did not lead to more accurate headline judgements. However, bias feedback did lead to reductions of bias compared to the control group. Acquiring more tools with which to combat misinformation and its spread remains a critical avenue for future research
We, the Righteous Few: Immoral Actions of Fellow Partisans are Judged as Less Possible
No full textPast research has shown that the default representation of what is possible is initially constrained by what is morally permissible (Phillips & Cushman, 2017; Watkins & Brandt, 2019). In other words, individuals are more likely to judge immoral actions as impossible when asked to respond quickly (< 1500 ms) compared to when they are given time to reflect (> 1500 ms). However, the actors being judged in these studies were not provided salient social identities. We expected that judgments about the possibility of immoral actions would be sensitive to social information given that morality is important to living in groups (e.g., Ellemers, 2017), and that people tend to think and behave in a group-serving manner (e.g., Tajfel, 1978). Thus, we predicted that there would be ingroup serving bias in individuals’ judgments about the possibility of actors committing immoral actions. In this study, we tested the thesis that the moral-possibility constraint effect is enhanced when the target actor is a member of a self-relevant ingroup and is attenuated when the target actor is a member of an outgroup. We chose to test this thesis in the context of political partisanship given that Americans are becoming more polarized (Pew Research Center, 2017) and express strong biases against out-party members (e.g., Iyengar & Westwood, 2015). We successfully replicated the moral-possibility constraint effect in our novel set of scenarios. However, we did not find that the partisan identity significantly affected moral-possibility constraint. Implications and future directions are discussed
Children's Understanding of Selective Trust and Theory of Mind
No full textBecause misinformation is ubiquitous, it is imperative that children understand when it is necessary to doubt what they are told. The present research investigated if and how children use mental state information (e.g., a lack of knowledge or antisocial motives) to guide their distrust of unreliable informants. Few studies have directly compared when children demonstrate distrust based on ignorance and deceptive motives. In addition, there have been mixed findings as to whether children's selective trust is related to their theory of mind (ToM). Previous research measuring these two constructs has not been methodologically consistent, therefore warranting to question whether this may be the reason for mixed findings. In this study, children (ages 3 – 6 years old) played a searching game with two informants that provide unreliable information—one informant provided unreliable information because of a lack of knowledge (i.e., ignorance) and the other informant displayed antisocial motives by intentionally deceiving children. Results of this experiment showed that under the same methodological circumstances children distrusted the ignorant informant and the deceptive informant at a similar rate. Children's theory of mind correlated with their distrust of both informants. Taken together, our results suggest that children's understanding of ignorance and deception develop on a similar timeline and that children's theory of mind capabilities may be useful when making selective trust judgments
Correcting Out-partisan Misperceptions in the Ethicality of Sharing Political Fake News
No full textThe prevalence of fake news on social media is a major problem. People are more likely to share fake news if they view it as being in line with their political ideology. The United States faces a 40-year high in aggressions between political partisans, resulting in political violence and dehumanization. Political partisans tend to view members of their out-party as their enemy and believe that it is ethical to initiate or retaliate with violence because of a feeling of being "wronged". Without intervention, the country could become even more divided. Most people hold misperceptions of their out-partisans, and without knowledge of these misperceptions, people cannot work toward fixing them. This thesis builds on existing research that correcting misperceptions helps to reduce partisans' self-ratings of willingness to knowingly share political fake news, and how ethical it is to knowingly share political fake news. In a preliminary study, participants rated themselves and then rated from their out-partisan's perspective on how willing they were to knowingly share political fake news and how unethical they thought it was. There was strong evidence for misperceptions. For example, participants believed their out-partisans would rate themselves as much more willing to share political fake news than they actually were. In this thesis, participants completed the same measures but were instructed to rate from their out-partisans' perspective first. After these ratings, half of the participants received the data from the preliminary study to correct misperceptions of their out-partisans (treatment group) and the other half served as the control group. All participants then answered these questions from their own perspective. Participants in the treatment group provided lower ratings of their willingness to knowingly share political fake news, however this finding was only significant in the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. Participants in the treatment group also rated that it is more unethical to knowingly share political fake news compared to participants in the control group. This was significant in the one-way ANOVA, the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, and the Mann-Whitney U test. This provides evidence that correcting these misperceptions can reduce partisans' willingness to knowingly share political fake news
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