CiteULike: stefanherzog's library [417 articles]

Neural Predictors of Purchases

Brian Knutson — 2007-01-05T09:42:11-00:00

Neuron, Vol. 53, No. 1. (4 January 2007), pp. 147-156.

SummaryMicroeconomic theory maintains that purchases are driven by a combination of consumer preference and price. Using event-related fMRI, we investigated how people weigh these factors to make purchasing decisions. Consistent with neuroimaging evidence suggesting that distinct circuits anticipate gain and loss, product preference activated the nucleus accumbens (NAcc), while excessive prices activated the insula and deactivated the mesial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) prior to the purchase decision. Activity from each of these regions independently predicted immediately subsequent purchases above and beyond self-report variables. These findings suggest that activation of distinct neural circuits related to anticipatory affect precedes and supports consumers' purchasing decisions.

Food-Caching Western Scrub-Jays Keep Track of Who Was Watching When

Joanna Dally — 2006-07-24T13:59:25-00:00

Science, Vol. 312, No. 5780. (16 June 2006), pp. 1662-1665.

Western scrub-jays (Aphelocoma californica) hide food caches for future consumption, steal others' caches, and engage in tactics to minimize the chance that their own caches will be stolen. We show that scrub-jays remember which individual watched them during particular caching events and alter their recaching behavior accordingly. We found no evidence to suggest that a storer's use of cache protection tactics is cued by the observer's behavior. 10.1126/science.1126539

Social Modulation of Pain as Evidence for Empathy in Mice

Dale Langford — 2006-07-07T21:50:31-00:00

Science, Vol. 312, No. 5782. (30 June 2006), pp. 1967-1970.

Empathy is thought to be unique to higher primates, possibly to humans alone. We report the modulation of pain sensitivity in mice produced solely by exposure to their cagemates, but not to strangers, in pain. Mice tested in dyads and given an identical noxious stimulus displayed increased pain behaviors with statistically greater co-occurrence, effects dependent on visual observation. When familiar mice were given noxious stimuli of different intensities, their pain behavior was influenced by their neighbor's status bidirectionally. Finally, observation of a cagemate in pain altered pain sensitivity of an entirely different modality, suggesting that nociceptive mechanisms in general are sensitized. 10.1126/science.1128322

Visceral Drives in Retrospect: Explanations About the Inaccessible Past

Nordgren — 2006-07-04T22:10:59-00:00

Psychological Science, Vol. 17, No. 7. (July 2006), pp. 635-640.

Preschoolers' Current Desires Warp Their Choices for the Future

Atance — 2006-07-04T22:10:59-00:00

Psychological Science, Vol. 17, No. 7. (July 2006), pp. 583-587.

Guns, Testosterone, and Aggression: An Experimental Test of a Mediational Hypothesis

Klinesmith — 2006-07-04T22:11:00-00:00

Psychological Science, Vol. 17, No. 7. (July 2006), pp. 568-571.

Bayesian theories of conditioning in a changing world.

Aaron C Courville — 2006-07-03T15:56:29-00:00

Trends Cogn Sci (20 June 2006)

The recent flowering of Bayesian approaches invites the re-examination of classic issues in behavior, even in areas as venerable as Pavlovian conditioning. A statistical account can offer a new, principled interpretation of behavior, and previous experiments and theories can inform many unexplored aspects of the Bayesian enterprise. Here we consider one such issue: the finding that surprising events provoke animals to learn faster. We suggest that, in a statistical account of conditioning, surprise signals change and therefore uncertainty and the need for new learning. We discuss inference in a world that changes and show how experimental results involving surprise can be interpreted from this perspective, and also how, thus understood, these phenomena help constrain statistical theories of animal and human learning.

Study design in fMRI: Basic principles.

Edson Amaro — 2006-02-22T14:35:50-00:00

Brain Cogn (18 January 2006)

There is a wide range of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study designs available for the neuroscientist who wants to investigate cognition. In this manuscript we review some aspects of fMRI study design, including cognitive comparison strategies (factorial, parametric designs), and stimulus presentation possibilities (block, event-related, rapid event-related, mixed, and self-driven experiment designs) along with technical aspects, such as limitations of signal to noise ratio, spatial, and temporal resolution. We also discuss methods to deal with cases where scanning parameters become the limiting factor (parallel acquisitions, variable jittered designs, scanner acoustic noise strategies).

Cognitive neuroimaging: Cognitive science out of the armchair

Greig de Zubicaray — 2006-07-24T13:36:49-00:00

Brain and Cognition, Vol. 60, No. 3. (April 2006), pp. 272-281.

Cognitive scientists were not quick to embrace the functional neuroimaging technologies that emerged during the late 20th century. In this new century, cognitive scientists continue to question, not unreasonably, the relevance of functional neuroimaging investigations that fail to address questions of interest to cognitive science. However, some ultra-cognitive scientists assert that these experiments can never be of relevance to the study of cognition. Their reasoning reflects an adherence to a functionalist philosophy that arbitrarily and purposefully distinguishes mental information-processing systems from brain or brain-like operations. This article addresses whether data from properly conducted functional neuroimaging studies can inform and subsequently constrain the assumptions of theoretical cognitive models. The article commences with a focus upon the functionalist philosophy espoused by the ultra-cognitive scientists, contrasting it with the materialist philosophy that motivates both cognitive neuroimaging investigations and connectionist modelling of cognitive systems. Connectionism and cognitive neuroimaging share many features, including an emphasis on unified cognitive and neural models of systems that combine localist and distributed representations. The utility of designing cognitive neuroimaging studies to test (primarily) connectionist models of cognitive phenomena is illustrated using data from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) investigations of language production and episodic memory.

Detecting deception by manipulating cognitive load

Aldert Vrij — 2006-05-16T02:44:40-00:00

Trends in Cognitive Sciences, Vol. 10, No. 4. (April 2006), pp. 141-142.

A Better Lemon Squeezer? Maximum-Likelihood Regression With Beta-Distributed Dependent Variables

Michael Smithson — 2006-07-24T13:21:18-00:00

Psychological Methods, Vol. 11, No. 1. (March 2006), pp. 54-71.

Uncorrectable skew and heteroscedasticity are among the "lemons" of psychological data, yet many important variables naturally exhibit these properties. For scales with a lower and upper bound, a suitable candidate for models is the beta distribution, which is very flexible and models skew quite well. The authors present maximum-likelihood regression models assuming that the dependent variable is conditionally beta distributed rather than Gaussian. The approach models both means (location) and variances (dispersion) with their own distinct sets of predictors (continuous and/or categorical), thereby modeling heteroscedasticity. The location submodel link function is the logit and thereby analogous to logistic regression, whereas the dispersion submodel is log linear. Real examples show that these models handle the independent observations case readily. The article discusses comparisons between beta regression and alternative techniques, model selection and interpretation, practical estimation, and software.

Thirst for confirmation in multi-attribute choice: Does search for consistency impair decision performance?

Natalia Karelaia — 2006-07-24T13:13:10-00:00

Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Vol. 100, No. 1. (May 2006), pp. 128-143.

Experimental evidence suggests that people often do not feel comfortable with making decisions based on a single piece of evidence and that they systematically look for confirming evidence before choosing. The goal of this paper is to investigate whether such behavior is appropriate for multi-attribute binary choice. We model the experimentally observed "thirst for confirming redundancy" (Bruner, Goodnow, & Austin, 1956) through a simple heuristic strategy (CONF) that needs two consistent cues to make a binary choice. Analytical expressions for the probabilities that CONF chooses correctly between two alternatives and takes a decision after considering fewer than all pieces of evidence are presented. Importantly, CONF is advantageously insensitive to cue ordering. The model performs equally well in both structured environments, where cues are ordered by validity, and unstructured environments, where the cues are not consulted in the order of their validity. We further compare the performance of CONF with the performance of other heuristics in a series of simulated three-cue environments, where the cues are continuous and vary in both predictive ability and inter-correlation. We show that across environments, CONF balances the advantages and disadvantages of other simple models. We conclude that confirmation-seeking in multi-attribute decision making is a simple, fast, and robust "ignorance" strategy that hedges your bets when you know that you might not know.

Costly Punishment Across Human Societies

Joseph Henrich — 2006-06-26T21:04:14-00:00

Science, Vol. 312, No. 5781. (23 June 2006), pp. 1767-1770.

Recent behavioral experiments aimed at understanding the evolutionary foundations of human cooperation have suggested that a willingness to engage in costly punishment, even in one-shot situations, may be part of human psychology and a key element in understanding our sociality. However, because most experiments have been confined to students in industrialized societies, generalizations of these insights to the species have necessarily been tentative. Here, experimental results from 15 diverse populations show that (i) all populations demonstrate some willingness to administer costly punishment as unequal behavior increases, (ii) the magnitude of this punishment varies substantially across populations, and (iii) costly punishment positively covaries with altruistic behavior across populations. These findings are consistent with models of the gene-culture coevolution of human altruism and further sharpen what any theory of human cooperation needs to explain. 10.1126/science.1127333

Apes Save Tools for Future Use

Nicholas Mulcahy — 2006-05-19T00:14:35-00:00

Science, Vol. 312, No. 5776. (19 May 2006), pp. 1038-1040.

Planning for future needs, not just current ones, is one of the most formidable human cognitive achievements. Whether this skill is a uniquely human adaptation is a controversial issue. In a study we conducted, bonobos and orangutans selected, transported, and saved appropriate tools above baseline levels to use them 1 hour later (experiment 1). Experiment 2 extended these results to a 14-hour delay between collecting and using the tools. Experiment 3 showed that seeing the apparatus during tool selection was not necessary to succeed. These findings suggest that the precursor skills for planning for the future evolved in great apes before 14 million years ago, when all extant great ape species shared a common ancestor. 10.1126/science.1125456

Agent-Specific Responses in the Cingulate Cortex During Economic Exchanges

Damon Tomlin — 2006-07-24T12:54:52-00:00

Science, Vol. 312, No. 5776. (19 May 2006), pp. 1047-1050.

Interactions with other responsive agents lie at the core of all social exchange. During a social exchange with a partner, one fundamental variable that must be computed correctly is who gets credit for a shared outcome; this assignment is crucial for deciding on an optimal level of cooperation that avoids simple exploitation. We carried out an iterated, two-person economic exchange and made simultaneous hemodynamic measurements from each player's brain. These joint measurements revealed agent-specific responses in the social domain ("me" and "not me") arranged in a systematic spatial pattern along the cingulate cortex. This systematic response pattern did not depend on metrical aspects of the exchange, and it disappeared completely in the absence of a responding partner. 10.1126/science.1125596

Neurobiological Substrates of Dread

Gregory Berns — 2006-05-05T22:58:53-00:00

Science, Vol. 312, No. 5774. (5 May 2006), pp. 754-758.

Given the choice of waiting for an adverse outcome or getting it over with quickly, many people choose the latter. Theoretical models of decision-making have assumed that this occurs because there is a cost to waiting--i.e., dread. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we measured the neural responses to waiting for a cutaneous electric shock. Some individuals dreaded the outcome so much that, when given a choice, they preferred to receive more voltage rather than wait. Even when no decision was required, these extreme dreaders were distinguishable from those who dreaded mildly by the rate of increase of neural activity in the posterior elements of the cortical pain matrix. This suggests that dread derives, in part, from the attention devoted to the expected physical response and not simply from fear or anxiety. Although these differences were observed during a passive waiting procedure, they correlated with individual behavior in a subsequent choice paradigm, providing evidence for a neurobiological link between the experienced disutility of dread and subsequent decisions about unpleasant outcomes. 10.1126/science.1123721

Construal Levels and Self-Control

Kentaro Fujita — 2006-07-24T12:40:48-00:00

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 90, No. 3. (March 2006), pp. 351-367.

The authors propose that self-control involves making decisions and behaving in a manner consistent with high-level versus low-level construals of a situation. Activation of high-level construals (which capture global, superordinate, primary features of an event) should lead to greater self-control than activation of low-level construals (which capture local, subordinate, secondary features). In 6 experiments using 3 different techniques, the authors manipulated construal levels and assessed their effects on self-control and underlying psychological processes. High-level construals led to decreased preferences for immediate over delayed outcomes, greater physical endurance, stronger intentions to exert self-control, and less positive evaluations of temptations that undermine self-control. These results support a construal-level analysis of self-control.

Explaining heterogeneity in utility functions by individual differences in decision modes

Daniel Schunk — 2006-07-24T12:35:19-00:00

Journal of Economic Psychology, Vol. 27, No. 3. (June 2006), pp. 386-401.

The curvature of utility functions varies between people. We suggest that there is a relationship between individual differences in preferred decision mode (intuition vs. deliberation) and the curvature of the individual utility function. In this study the utility functions of the subjects were assessed using a lottery-based elicitation method and related to the relative preference for intuition vs. deliberation. We found that people who prefer the deliberative mode have a utility function that is more linear than the utility function of people who prefer the intuitive mode. We suggest that intuitive people's decisions mirror a feeling of risk and lead to behavior which is not risk neutral. They may have additionally integrated affective reactions towards the stimuli into the decision biasing their decision towards the affective reaction. Deliberate decision-makers seem to perform time consuming cognitive operations (apparently not just calculation) leading to more risk neutral decisions and a more linear utility function.

What you don't know won't hurt me: Costly (but quiet) exit in dictator games

Jason Dana — 2006-07-24T12:03:54-00:00

Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Vol. 100, No. 2. (July 2006), pp. 193-201.

We used simple economic games to examine pro-social behavior and the lengths that people will take to avoid engaging in it. Over two studies, we found that about one-third of participants were willing to "exit" a $10 dictator game and take $9 instead. The exit option left the receiver nothing, but also ensured that the receiver never knew that a dictator game was to be played. Because most social utility models are defined over monetary outcomes, they cannot explain choosing the ($9, $0) exit outcome over the dominating $10 dictator game, since the game includes outcomes of ($10, $0) and ($9, $1). We also studied exiting using a "private" dictator game. In the private game, the receiver never knew about the game or from where any money was received. Gifts in this game were added innocuously to a payment for a separate task. Almost no dictators exited from the private game, indicating that receivers' beliefs are the key factor in the decision to exit. When, as in the private game, the receivers' beliefs and expectations cannot be manipulated by exit, exit is seldom taken. We conclude that giving often reflects a desire not to violate others' expectations rather than a concern for others' welfare per se. We discuss the implications of our results for understanding ethical decisions and for testing and modeling social preferences. An adequate specification of social preferences should include "psychological" payoffs that directly incorporate beliefs about actions into the utility function.

Quantifying persuasion effects on choice with the decision threshold of the stochastic choice model

Claudia Gonzalez-Vallejo — 2006-07-24T12:02:12-00:00

Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Vol. 100, No. 2. (July 2006), pp. 250-267.

Three studies tested the stochastic difference choice model (proportional difference, PD, version in Gonzalez-Vallejo, 2002) in the domain of decision making under certainty. Consumer services and products, hotels defined by price and quality and MP3 players defined by price and memory size, served as choice pairs. The ordinal prediction relating the proportional difference variable, d (computed from stimuli pairs), and the observed choice proportions was supported. Model fitting showed that PD's estimated decision threshold measured within-person sensitivity to value attribute differences both at baseline and after persuasion manipulations. The threshold was also related to whether individuals were low or high in Need for Cognition (NFC, Cacioppo & Petty, 1982). Cross-validation strategies also showed PD to be descriptive and robust.

Beyond the Hedonic Treadmill: Revising the Adaptation Theory of Well-Being

Ed Diener — 2006-07-24T11:58:08-00:00

American Psychologist, Vol. 61, No. 4. (May 2006), pp. 305-314.

According to the hedonic treadmill model, good and bad events temporarily affect happiness, but people quickly adapt back to hedonic neutrality. The theory, which has gained widespread acceptance in recent years, implies that individual and societal efforts to increase happiness are doomed to failure. The recent empirical work outlined here indicates that 5 important revisions to the treadmill model are needed. First, individuals' set points are not hedonically neutral. Second, people have different set points, which are partly dependent on their temperaments. Third, a single person may have multiple happiness set points: Different components of well-being such as pleasant emotions, unpleasant emotions, and life satisfaction can move in different directions. Fourth, and perhaps most important, well-being set points can change under some conditions. Finally, individuals differ in their adaptation to events, with some individuals changing their set point and others not changing in reaction to some external event. These revisions offer hope for psychologists and policymakers who aim to decrease human misery and increase happiness.

I like it, because I like myself: Associative self-anchoring and post-decisional change of implicit evaluations

Bertram Gawronski — 2006-07-24T11:53:07-00:00

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Vol. In Press, Corrected Proof

Research in the cognitive dissonance tradition has shown that choosing between two equally attractive alternatives leads to more favorable evaluations of chosen as compared to rejected alternatives (spreading-of-alternatives effect). The present research tested associative self-anchoring as an alternative mechanism for post-decisional changes of implicit evaluations. Specifically, we argue that choosing an object results in the creation of an association between the chosen object and the self. By virtue of this association, implicit evaluations of the self tend to transfer to the chosen object, such that implicit evaluations of the chosen object depend on implicit evaluations of the self. Importantly, this mechanism can lead to ownership-related changes in implicit evaluations even in the absence of cognitive dissonance. Results from four experiments provide converging evidence for these assumptions. Implications for a variety of phenomena are discussed, including cognitive dissonance, the mere ownership effect, the endowment effect, and ingroup favoritism.

Comparative Evolutionary Psychology of Sperm Competition

Todd Shackelford — 2006-06-08T14:07:51-00:00

Journal of Comparative Psychology, Vol. 120, No. 2. (May 2006), pp. 139-146.

A comparative evolutionary psychological perspective predicts that species that recurrently faced similar adaptive problems may have evolved similar psychological mechanisms to solve these problems. Sperm competition provides an arena in which to assess the heuristic value of such a comparative evolutionary perspective. The sperm competition that results from female infidelity and polyandry presents a similar class of adaptive problems for individuals across many species. The authors first describe mechanisms of sperm competition in insects and in birds. They suggest that the adaptive problems and evolved solutions in these species provide insight into human anatomy, physiology, psychology, and behavior. The authors then review recent theoretical and empirical arguments for the existence of sperm competition in humans and discuss proposed adaptations in humans that have analogs in insects or birds. The authors conclude by highlighting the heuristic value of a comparative evolutionary psychological approach in this field.

Predicting the Near and Distant Future

Shiri Nussbaum — 2006-07-24T10:55:01-00:00

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, Vol. 135, No. 2. (May 2006), pp. 152-161.

Four studies investigated individuals' confidence in predicting near future and distant future outcomes. Study 1 found that participants were more confident in theory-based predictions of psychological experiments when these experiments were expected to take place in the more distant future. Studies 2-4 examined participants' confidence in predicting their performance on near and distant future tests. These studies found that in predicting their more distant future performance, participants disregarded the format of the questions (e.g., multiple choice vs. open ended) and relied, instead, on their perceived general knowledge (e.g., history knowledge). Together, the present studies demonstrate that predictions of the more distant future are based on relatively abstract information. Individuals feel more confident in predicting the distant future than the near future when the predictions concern outcomes that are implied by relatively abstract information.

Tradeoffs and Theory: The Double-Mediation Model

Marc Scholten — 2006-07-24T10:53:50-00:00

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, Vol. 135, No. 2. (May 2006), pp. 237-261.

Most theories of decision making suggest that, when options imply tradeoffs between their attributes, conflict increases as tradeoff size increases, because greater sacrifices are to be incurred in choosing one option instead of another. An alternative view is that conflict decreases as tradeoff size increases, because stronger arguments can be made for any decision. The authors propose a unified model, the double-mediation model, which combines the mediating effects of sacrifice and argumentation. Our model generally predicts an inverse U-shaped relation between tradeoff size and conflict. Results support this prediction. Also, when the decision situation increases the mediating effect of sacrifice relative to that of argumentation, the relation between tradeoff size and conflict changes in an upward direction; conversely, when the decision situation increases the mediating effect of argumentation relative to that of sacrifice, the relation changes in a downward direction. Results support these predictions as well. Commonalities and differences between our model and other formulations are discussed.

SSL: A Theory of How People Learn to Select Strategies

Jorg Rieskamp — 2006-07-24T10:51:36-00:00

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, Vol. 135, No. 2. (May 2006), pp. 207-236.

The assumption that people possess a repertoire of strategies to solve the inference problems they face has been raised repeatedly. However, a computational model specifying how people select strategies from their repertoire is still lacking. The proposed strategy selection learning (SSL) theory predicts a strategy selection process on the basis of reinforcement learning. The theory assumes that individuals develop subjective expectations for the strategies they have and select strategies proportional to their expectations, which are then updated on the basis of subsequent experience. The learning assumption was supported in 4 experimental studies. Participants substantially improved their inferences through feedback. In all 4 studies, the best-performing strategy from the participants' repertoires most accurately predicted the inferences after sufficient learning opportunities. When testing SSL against 3 models representing extensions of SSL and against an exemplar model assuming a memory-based inference process, the authors found that SSL predicted the inferences most accurately.

Probability as a psychological distance: Construal and preferences

Alexander Todorov — 2006-07-24T10:49:03-00:00

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Vol. In Press, Corrected Proof

We argue that probability, like space and time, instantiates psychological distance. Unlikely outcomes may seem more remote than likely outcomes and may therefore be construed at a relatively high level. Specifically, when the probability of an outcome is low, ends-related primary features should be more salient than means-related secondary features, but as the probability of the outcome increases, means-related features may become no less and even more salient than ends-related features. Thus, increases in probability should increase the weight of means-related features relative to the weight of ends-related features in decisions, thereby decreasing (or even reversing) the preference for a more desirable/less feasible outcome over a less desirable/more feasible outcome. We observed this pattern in two experiments. Analyses of judgments, monetary decisions, and self-reported reasons for decisions showed that the weight of means-related features was more sensitive to changes in probability than the weight of ends-related features in decisions.

A Bayesian view of covariation assessment

Craig Mckenzie — 2006-07-24T10:47:18-00:00

Cognitive Psychology, Vol. In Press, Corrected Proof

When participants assess the relationship between two variables, each with levels of presence and absence, the two most robust phenomena are that: (a) observing the joint presence of the variables has the largest impact on judgment and observing joint absence has the smallest impact, and (b) participants' prior beliefs about the variables' relationship influence judgment. Both phenomena represent departures from the traditional normative model (the phi coefficient or related measures) and have therefore been interpreted as systematic errors. However, both phenomena are consistent with a Bayesian approach to the task. From a Bayesian perspective: (a) joint presence is normatively more informative than joint absence if the presence of variables is rarer than their absence, and (b) failing to incorporate prior beliefs is a normative error. Empirical evidence is reported showing that joint absence is seen as more informative than joint presence when it is clear that absence of the variables, rather than their presence, is rare.

Concept empiricism: A methodological critique

Edouard Machery — 2006-07-24T10:20:38-00:00

Cognition, Vol. In Press, Corrected Proof

Thanks to Barsalou's, Damasio's, Glenberg's, Prinz' and others' work, neo-empiricism is gaining a deserved recognition in the psychology and philosophy of concepts. I argue, however, that neo-empiricists have underestimated the difficulty of providing evidence against the amodal approach to concepts and higher cognition. I highlight three key problems: the difficulty of sorting out amodal predictions from neo-empiricist predictions, the difficulty of finding experimental tasks that are not best solved by imagery and the difficulty of generalizing findings concerning a given cognitive process in a given context to other cognitive processes or other contexts. Finally, solutions to these three problems are considered.

Some Frontiers in Social Science

William Butz — 2006-07-24T10:19:09-00:00

Science, Vol. 312, No. 5782. (30 June 2006), pp. 1898-1900.

The fundamental challenge in the social sciences is moving from complicated correlations to useful prediction. Progress usually reflects an interplay between theory, data, and tools. Six areas of innovation, principally data and tools, are now pushing at the frontiers of these sciences: longitudinal data, laboratory experimentation, improved statistical methods, geographic information tools, biosocial science, and international replication. These innovations are gaining power as they cross disciplinary boundaries, helping to attribute causality to observed relationships, to understand their nature, and thereby to improve the accuracy and usefulness of predictions. 10.1126/science.1130121

Would You Be Happier If You Were Richer? A Focusing Illusion

Daniel Kahneman — 2006-07-04T17:35:25-00:00

Science, Vol. 312, No. 5782. (30 June 2006), pp. 1908-1910.

The belief that high income is associated with good mood is widespread but mostly illusory. People with above-average income are relatively satisfied with their lives but are barely happier than others in moment-to-moment experience, tend to be more tense, and do not spend more time in particularly enjoyable activities. Moreover, the effect of income on life satisfaction seems to be transient. We argue that people exaggerate the contribution of income to happiness because they focus, in part, on conventional achievements when evaluating their life or the lives of others. 10.1126/science.1129688

The deautomatization of accessible attitudes

David Sanbonmatsu — 2006-07-24T09:53:55-00:00

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Vol. In Press, Corrected Proof

The attitudinal effects of repeatedly encountering an object in a setting where an attitude was unneeded were investigated. In three experiments, participants repeatedly recognized words with strong evaluative connotations. A priming task was subsequently performed in which the repeatedly recognized words or control words served as primes. As expected, the attitudinal priming effects of the attitudes toward the repeated words were attenuated relative to the control words. This reduction in automatic attitude activation was observed even a day after the repeated recognition task, suggesting that attitudinal deautomatization is a relatively enduring effect that is not limited to the immediate context. The likelihood of automatic attitude activation was not diminished by the repeated evaluation of an object, indicating that the effect was not due to semantic satiation or fatigue of the attitude-object connection. A number of additional potential mediators of the deautomatization of attitudes were ruled out by the results. The findings highlight the functional nature of attitudes. Attitudes facilitate the appraisal of objects and the making of decisions. However, when the need to evaluate an object in a context decreases, the automatic activation of attitudes diminishes.

On Blowing Trumpets to the Tulips: To Prove or Not to Prove the Null Hypothesis--Comment on Bosch, Steinkamp, and Boller (2006)

David Wilson — 2006-07-24T09:40:01-00:00

Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 132, No. 4. (July 2006), pp. 524-528.

The H. Bosch, F. Steinkamp, and E. Boller (2006) meta-analysis reaches mixed and cautious conclusions about the possibility of psychokinesis. The authors argue that, for both methodological and philosophical reasons, it is nearly impossible to draw any conclusions from this body of research. The authors do not agree that any significant effect at all, no matter how small, is fundamentally important (Bosch et al., 2006, p. 517), and they suggest that psychokinesis researchers focus either on producing larger effects or on specifying the conditions under which they would be willing to accept the null hypothesis.

Reexamining Psychokinesis: Comment on Bosch, Steinkamp, and Boller (2006)

Dean Radin — 2006-07-24T09:39:35-00:00

Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 132, No. 4. (July 2006), pp. 529-532.

H. Bosch, F. Steinkamp, and E. Boller's (2006) review of the evidence for psychokinesis confirms many of the authors' earlier findings. The authors agree with Bosch et al. that existing studies provide statistical evidence for psychokinesis, that the evidence is generally of high methodological quality, and that effect sizes are distributed heterogeneously. Bosch et al. postulated the heterogeneity is attributable to selective reporting and thus that psychokinesis is "not proven." However, Bosch et al. assumed that effect size is entirely independent of sample size. For these experiments, this assumption is incorrect; it also guarantees heterogeneity. The authors maintain that selective reporting is an implausible explanation for the observed data and hence that these studies provide evidence for a genuine psychokinetic effect.

In the Eye of the Beholder: Reply to Wilson and Shadish (2006) and Radin, Nelson, Dobyns, and Houtkooper (2006)

Holger Bosch — 2006-07-24T09:39:17-00:00

Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 132, No. 4. (July 2006), pp. 533-537.

H. Bosch, F. Steinkamp, and E. Boller's (2006) meta-analysis, which demonstrated (a) a small but highly significant overall effect, (b) a small-study effect, and (c) extreme heterogeneity, has provoked widely differing responses. After considering D. B. Wilson and W. R. Shadish's (2006) and D. Radin, R. Nelson, Y. Dobyns, and J. Houtkooper's (2006) concerns about the possible effects of psychological moderator variables, the potential for missing data, and the difficulties inherent in any meta-analytic data, the authors reaffirm their view that publication bias is the most parsimonious model to account for all 3 findings. However, until compulsory registration of trials occurs, it cannot be proven that the effect is in fact attributable to publication bias, and it remains up to the individual reader to decide how the results are best and most parsimoniously interpreted.

Examining Psychokinesis: The Interaction of Human Intention With Random Number Generators--A Meta-Analysis

Holger Bosch — 2006-07-24T09:38:39-00:00

Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 132, No. 4. (July 2006), pp. 497-523.

Seance-room and other large-scale psychokinetic phenomena have fascinated humankind for decades. Experimental research has reduced these phenomena to attempts to influence (a) the fall of dice and, later, (b) the output of random number generators (RNGs). The meta-analysis combined 380 studies that assessed whether RNG output correlated with human intention and found a significant but very small overall effect size. The study effect sizes were strongly and inversely related to sample size and were extremely heterogeneous. A Monte Carlo simulation revealed that the small effect size, the relation between sample size and effect size, and the extreme effect size heterogeneity found could in principle be a result of publication bias.

The Mismatch Effect: When Testosterone and Status Are at Odds

Robert Josephs — 2006-07-24T09:31:14-00:00

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 90, No. 6. (June 2006), pp. 999-1013.

Why do some people strive for high status, whereas others actively avoid it? In the present studies, the authors examined the psychological and physiological consequences of a mismatch between baseline testosterone and a person's current level of status. The authors tested this mismatch effect by placing high and low testosterone individuals into high or low status positions using a rigged competition. In Study 1, low testosterone participants reported greater emotional arousal, focused more on their status, and showed worse cognitive functioning in a high status position. High testosterone participants showed this pattern in a low status position. In Study 2, the emotional arousal findings were replicated with heart rate, and the cognitive findings were replicated using a math test. In Study 3, the authors demonstrate that testosterone is a better predictor of behavior than self-report measures of the need for dominance. Discussion focuses on the value of measuring hormones in personality and social psychology.

The Competitive Advantage of Sanctioning Institutions

Ozgur Gurerk — 2006-04-11T20:40:02-00:00

Science, Vol. 312, No. 5770. (7 April 2006), pp. 108-111.

Understanding the fundamental patterns and determinants of human cooperation and the maintenance of social order in human societies is a challenge across disciplines. The existing empirical evidence for the higher levels of cooperation when altruistic punishment is present versus when it is absent systematically ignores the institutional competition inherent in human societies. Whether punishment would be deliberately adopted and would similarly enhance cooperation when directly competing with nonpunishment institutions is highly controversial in light of recent findings on the detrimental effects of punishment. We show experimentally that a sanctioning institution is the undisputed winner in a competition with a sanction-free institution. Despite initial aversion, the entire population migrates successively to the sanctioning institution and strongly cooperates, whereas the sanction-free society becomes fully depopulated. The findings demonstrate the competitive advantage of sanctioning institutions and exemplify the emergence and manifestation of social order driven by institutional selection. 10.1126/science.1123633

Bounded rationality, ambiguity, and the engineering of choice

James March — 2006-04-10T09:36:43-00:00

The Bell Journal of Economics, Vol. 9, No. 2. (1978), pp. 587-608.

Rational choice involves two guesses, a guess about uncertain future consequences and a guess about uncertain future preferences. Partly as a result of behavioral studies of choice over a twenty-year period, modifications in the way the theory deals with the first guess have become organized into conceptions of bounded rationality. Recently behavioral studies of choice have examined the second guess, the way preferences are processed in choice behavior. These studies suggest possible modifications in standard assumptions about taste and their role in choice. This paper examines some of those modifications, some possible approaches to working on them, and some complications.

A Behavioral Model of Rational Choice

Herbert Simon — 2006-04-10T09:32:27-00:00

Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 69 (1955), pp. 99-118.

State-Dependent Learned Valuation Drives Choice in an Invertebrate

Lorena Pompilio — 2006-03-18T22:08:13-00:00

Science, Vol. 311, No. 5767. (17 March 2006), pp. 1613-1615.

Humans and other vertebrates occasionally show a preference for items remembered to be costly or experienced when the subject was in a poor condition (this is known as a sunk-costs fallacy or state-dependent valuation). Whether these mechanisms shared across vertebrates are the result of convergence toward an adaptive solution or evolutionary relicts reflecting common ancestral traits is unknown. Here we show that state-dependent valuation also occurs in an invertebrate, the desert locust Schistocerca gregaria (Orthoptera: Acrididae). Given the latter's phylogenetic and neurobiological distance from those groups in which the phenomenon was already known, we suggest that state-dependent valuation mechanisms are probably ecologically rational solutions to widespread problems of choice.

Domain Specificity in Experimental Measures and Participant Recruitment: An Application to Risk-Taking Behavior

Yaniv Hanoch — 2006-03-22T05:32:00-00:00

Psychological Science, Vol. 17, No. 4. (April 2006), pp. 300-304.

The Propensity Effect: When Foresight Trumps Hindsight

Neal Roese — 2006-03-22T05:32:00-00:00

Psychological Science, Vol. 17, No. 4. (April 2006), pp. 305-310.

The Anchoring-and-Adjustment Heuristic: Why the Adjustments Are Insufficient

Nicholas Epley — 2006-03-22T05:32:00-00:00

Psychological Science, Vol. 17, No. 4. (April 2006), pp. 311-318.

Gratitude and Prosocial Behavior: Helping When It Costs You

Monica Bartlett — 2006-03-22T05:32:00-00:00

Psychological Science, Vol. 17, No. 4. (April 2006), pp. 319-325.

The Learned Interpretation of Cognitive Fluency

Christian Unkelbach — 2006-03-22T05:31:59-00:00

Psychological Science, Vol. 17, No. 4. (April 2006), pp. 339-345.

Spatial Distance and Mental Construal of Social Events

Kentaro Fujita — 2006-03-22T05:32:00-00:00

Psychological Science, Vol. 17, No. 4. (April 2006), pp. 278-282.

Social Discounting

Bryan Jones — 2006-03-22T05:32:00-00:00

Psychological Science, Vol. 17, No. 4. (April 2006), pp. 283-286.

The Impact of Emotion on Perception: Bias or Enhanced Processing?

Rene Zeelenberg — 2006-03-22T05:32:00-00:00

Psychological Science, Vol. 17, No. 4. (April 2006), pp. 287-291.

Emotion Facilitates Perception and Potentiates the Perceptual Benefits of Attention

Elizabeth Phelps — 2006-03-22T05:32:00-00:00

Psychological Science, Vol. 17, No. 4. (April 2006), pp. 292-299.