bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Terminal Decline in Well-Being: The Role of Multi-Indicator Constellations of Physical Health and Psychosocial Correlates
Authors: Brandmaier Andreas Markus
Published: July 2018

Well-being is often relatively stable across adulthood and old age, but typically exhibits pronounced deteriorations and vast individual differences in the terminal phase of life. However, the factors contributing to these differences are not well understood. Using up to 25-year annual longitudinal data obtained from 4,404 now-deceased participants of the nationwide German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP; age at death: M = 73.2 years; SD = 14.3 years; 52% women), we explored the role of multi-indicator constellations of socio-demographic variables, physical health and burden factors, and psychosocial characteristics. Expanding earlier reports, Structural Equation Model Trees (SEM Trees) allowed us to identify profiles of variables that were associated with differences in the shape of late-life well-being trajectories. Physical health factors were found to play a major role for well-being decline, but in interaction with psychosocial characteristics such as social participation. To illustrate, for people with low social participation, disability emerged as the strongest correlate of differences in late-life well-being trajectories. However, for people with high social participation, whether or not an individual had spent considerable time in the hospital differentiated high vs. low and stable vs. declining latelife well-being. We corroborated these results with Variable Importance measures derived from a set of resampled SEM Trees (so-called SEM forests) that provide robust and comparative indicators of the total interactive effects of variables for differential late-life well-being. We discuss benefits and limitations of our approach and consider our findings in the context of other reports about protective factors against terminal decline in well-being.
The Language of Smell: Connecting Linguistic and Psychophysical Properties of Odor Descriptors
Authors: Iatropoulos Georgios , Herman Pawel Andrzej , Lansner Anders , Karlgren Jussi , Larsson Maria , Olofsson Jonas
Published: July 2018

The olfactory sense is a particularly challenging domain for cognitive science investigations of perception, memory, and language. Although many studies show that odors often are difficult to describe verbally, little is known about the associations between olfactory percepts and the words that describe them. Quantitative models of how odor experiences are described in natural language are therefore needed to understand how odors are perceived and communicated. In this study, we develop a computational method to characterize the olfaction-related semantic content of words in a large text corpus of internet sites in English. We introduce two new metrics: olfactory association index (OAI, how strongly a word is associated with olfaction) and olfactory specificity index (OSI, how specific a word is in its description of odors). We validate the OAI and OSI metrics using psychophysical datasets by showing that terms with high OAI have high ratings of perceived olfactory association and are used to describe highly familiar odors. In contrast, terms with high OSI have high inter-individual consistency in how they are applied to odors. Finally, we analyze Dravnieks’s (1985) dataset of odor ratings in terms of OAI and OSI. This analysis reveals that terms that are used broadly (applied often but with moderate ratings) tend to be olfaction-unrelated and abstract (e.g., “heavy” or “light”; low OAI and low OSI) while descriptors that are used selectively (applied seldom but with high ratings) tend to be olfaction-related (e.g., “vanilla” or “licorice”; high OAI). Thus, OAI and OSI provide behaviorally meaningful information about olfactory language. These statistical tools are useful for future studies of olfactory perception and cognition, and might help integrate research on odor perception, neuroimaging, and corpus-based linguistic models of semantic organization.
Do additional features help or hurt category learning? The curse of dimensionality in human learners
Authors: Vong Wai Keen , Hendrickson Andrew T , Navarro Danielle , Perfors Amy
Published: July 2018

The curse of dimensionality, which has been widely studied in statistics and machine learning, occurs when additional features causes the size of the feature space to grow so quickly that learning classification rules becomes increasingly difficult. How do people overcome the curse of dimensionality when acquiring real-world categories that have many different features? Here we investigate the possibility that the structure of categories can help. We show that when categories follow a family resemblance structure, people are unaffected by the presence of additional features in learning. However, when categories are based on a single feature, they fall prey to the curse and having additional irrelevant features hurts performance. We compare and contrast these results to three different computational models to show that a model with limited computational capacity best captures human performance across almost all of the conditions in both experiments.
Problems with Recall-Based Attachment Style Priming Paradigms: Exclusion Criteria, Sample Bias and Reduced Power
Authors: Sakaluk John Kitchener
Published: July 2018

Attachment styles are often primed by having participants recall and describe a relationship that is prototypical of a given attachment style. Researchers may exclude participants who cannot recall such a relationship, or who describe relationships that do not conform to the assigned prime. I suggest that excluding participants is untenable, and may threaten a study’s validity. In the present research, I examine predictors of exclusion from an attachment priming study. Priming insecure attachment resulted in greater odds of exclusion relative to a control condition. Female participants with greater sexual experience also had lesser odds of exclusion. These results suggest that attachment-priming procedures contribute to participant exclusion that compromise internal and external validity. Discussion focuses on directions for future attachment-priming research.
The Reasons of Atheists and Agnostics for Nonbelief in God’s Existence Scale: Development and Initial Validation
Authors: Bradley David F. , Exline Julie J. , Uzdavines Alex , Stauner Nick , Grubbs Joshua B.
Published: July 2018

Research exploring nonbelievers’ reasons for not believing in the existence of god(s) has focused on theory development. Such efforts are valuable, but may not capture the lived experiences of nonbelievers. The current two studies quantitatively examined nonbelievers’ self-reported reasons for nonbelief through developing the Reasons of Atheists and Agnostics for Nonbelief in God’s Existence Scale (RANGES). We developed an initial pool of 64 items using prior published research, revised by a panel of experts including researchers and thought leaders in nonbelief communities. Both studies included participants from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (Study 1 & 2 Ns = 520 & 369), all of whom reported not believing in god(s). In Study 1, our exploratory factor analysis suggested nine factors across 35 items. In Study 2, we confirmed the nine-factor structure using 38 items (35 from Study 1 plus three new items for better coverage of factors with few items) with adequate fit. Across both studies, the RANGES subscales showed good reliability, convergent validity (e.g., positive correlations with previous lists of reasons for religious doubt), predictive validity (e.g., positive and negative feelings toward God and religion), and discriminant validity (e.g., subscales were not unexpectedly associated with other measures). Our one-year follow-up with a subset of Study 2 participants (N = 132) found different levels of stability among the RANGES subscales. This measure can promote further understanding the motivations, identities, and experiences of nonbelievers across cultures.
Consistency and variability in children's word learning across languages
Authors: Braginsky Mika , Yurovsky Daniel , Marchman Virginia A. , Frank Michael C.
Published: July 2018

Why do children learn some words earlier than others? The order in which words are acquired can provide clues about the mechanisms of word learning. In a large-scale corpus analysis, we use parent-report data from over 32,000 children to estimate the acquisition trajectories of around 400 words in each of 10 languages, predicting them on the basis of independently-derived properties of the words' linguistic environment (from corpora) and meaning (from adult judgments). We examine the consistency and variability of these predictors across languages, by lexical category, and over development. The patterning of predictors across languages is quite similar, suggesting similar processes in operation. In contrast, the patterning of predictors across different lexical categories is distinct, in line with theories that posit different factors at play in the acquisition of content words and function words. By leveraging data at a significantly larger scale than previous work, our analyses identify candidate generalizations about the processes underlying word learning across languages.
Knowing how effective an intervention, treatment, or manipulation is and increasing replication rates: accuracy in parameter estimation as a partial solution to the replication crisis
Authors: Peters Gjalt - Jorn Ygram , Crutzen Rik
Published: July 2018

Although basing conclusions on confidence intervals for effect size estimates is preferred over relying on null hypothesis significance testing alone, confidence intervals in psychology are typically very wide. One reason may be a lack of easily applicable methods for planning studies to achieve sufficiently tight confidence intervals. This paper presents tables and freely accessible tools to facilitate planning studies for the desired accuracy in parameter estimation for a common effect size (Cohen’s d). In addition, the importance of such accuracy is demonstrated using data from the Reproducibility Project: Psychology (RPP). It is shown that the sampling distribution of Cohen’s d is very wide unless sample sizes are considerably larger than what is common in psychology studies. This means that effect size estimates can vary substantially from sample to sample, even with perfect replications. The RPP replications’ confidence intervals for Cohen’s d have widths of around 1 standard deviation (95% confidence interval from 1.05 to 1.39). Therefore, point estimates obtained in replications are likely to vary substantially from the estimates from earlier studies. The implication is that researchers in psychology -and funders- will have to get used to conducting considerably larger studies if they are to build a strong evidence base.
Global evidence of extreme intuitive moral prejudice against atheists
Authors: Gervais Will M
Published: July 2018

Mounting evidence supports longstanding claims that religions can extend cooperative networks. However, religious prosociality may have a strongly parochial component. Moreover, aspects of religion may promote or exacerbate conflict with those outside a given religious group, promoting regional violence, intergroup conflict, as well as tacit prejudice against nonbelievers. Anti-atheist prejudice—a growing concern in increasingly secular societies—affects employment, elections, family life, and broader social inclusion. Preliminary work in the USA suggests that anti-atheist prejudice stems, in part, from deeply rooted intuitions about religion’s putatively necessary role in morality. However, the cross-cultural prevalence and magnitude—as well as intracultural demographic stability—of such intuitions, as manifested in intuitive associations of immorality with atheists, remain unclear. Here, we quantify moral distrust of atheists by applying well-tested measures in a large global sample (N=3256, 13 diverse countries). Consistent with cultural evolutionary theories of religion and morality, people in most—but not all—countries viewed extreme moral violations as representative of atheists. Notably, anti-atheist prejudice was even evident among atheist participants around the world. Results contrast with recent polls that do not find self-reported moral prejudice against atheists in highly secular countries15, and imply that the recent rise in secularism in Western countries has not overwritten intuitive anti-atheist prejudice. Entrenched moral suspicion of atheists suggests that religion’s powerful influence on moral judgements persists, even among nonbelievers in secular societies.
Surface curvature from kinetic depth can affect lightness
Authors: Peterson Lindsay , Kersten Daniel , Mannion Damien John
Published: July 2018

The light reaching the eye confounds the proportion of light reflected from surfaces in the environment with their illumination. To achieve constancy in perceived surface reflectance (lightness) across variations in illumination, the visual system must infer the relative contribution of reflectance to the incoming luminance signals. Previous studies have shown that contour and stereo cues to surface shape can affect the lightness of sawtooth luminance profiles. Here, we investigated whether cues to surface shape provided solely by motion (via the kinetic depth effect) can similarly influence lightness. Human observers judged the relative brightness of patches contained within abutting surfaces with identical luminance ramps. We found that the reported brightness differences were significantly lower when the kinetic depth effect supported the impression of curved surfaces, compared to similar conditions without the kinetic depth effect. This demonstrates the capacity of the visual system to use shape from motion to "explain away" alternative interpretations of luminance gradients, and supports the cue-invariance of the interaction between shape and lightness.
The Origins of WEIRD Psychology
Authors: Schulz Jonathan Friedemann , Barahmi-Rad Duman , Beauchamp Jonathan , Henrich Joseph
Published: July 2018

Recent research not only confirms the existence of substantial psychological variation around the globe but also highlights the peculiarity of populations that are Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic (WEIRD). We propose that much of this variation arose as people psychologically adapted to differing kin-based institutions—the set of social norms governing descent, marriage, residence and related domains. We further propose that part of the variation in these institutions arose historically from the Catholic Church’s marriage and family policies, which contributed to the dissolution of Europe’s traditional kin-based institutions, leading eventually to the predominance of nuclear families and impersonal institutions. By combining data on 20 psychological outcomes with historical measures of both kinship and Church exposure, we find support for these ideas in a comprehensive array of analyses across countries, among European regions and between individuals with different cultural backgrounds.
Multilevel intergroup contact and anti-gay prejudice (explicit and implicit): Evidence of contextual contact benefits in a less visible group domain
Authors: MacInnis Cara , Page-Gould Elizabeth , Hodson Gordon
Published: July 2018

Intergroup contact at the individual level is robustly associated with lower prejudice, butintergroup contact occurs within a greater regional context. Multilevel examinations thus far have focused on interethnic contact, where both individual- and contextual-level contact are associated with lower explicit prejudice. Given that ethnicity is visible, two lingering questions concern whether (a) contextual contact effects only apply to visible outgroups and (b) contextual contact effects predict implicit prejudice in addition to explicit prejudice. In 2 studies, we tested these questions in the domain of sexual orientation. Individual- and contextual-level contact were simultaneously (uniquely) associated with lower implicit and explicit prejudice: individuals having more contact with gay men/lesbians were less prejudiced toward gay men/lesbians, and individuals living in areas with greater contact with gay men/lesbians were less prejudiced toward gay men/lesbians. It seems that people need not directly witness intergroup contact in their region for contextual contact effects to occur.
Modelling the structure and dynamics of semantic processing
Authors: Rotaru Armand Stefan , Vigliocco Gabriella , Frank Stefan L.
Published: July 2018

The contents and structure of semantic memory have been the focus of much recent research, with major advances in the development of distributional models, which use word co-occurrence information as a window into the semantics of language. In parallel, connectionist modeling has extended our knowledge of the processes engaged in semantic activation. However, these two lines of investigation have rarely been brought together. Here, we describe a processing model based on distributional semantics in which activation spreads throughout a semantic network, as dictated by the patterns of semantic similarity between words. We show that the activation profile of the network, measured at various time points, can successfully account for response times in lexical and semantic decision tasks, as well as for subjective concreteness and imageability ratings. We also show that the dynamics of the network is predictive of performance in relational semantic tasks, such as similarity/relatedness rating. Our results indicate that bringing together distributional semantic networks and spreading of activation provides a good fit to both automatic lexical processing (as indexed by lexical and semantic decisions) as well as more deliberate processing (as indexed by ratings), above and beyond what has been reported for previous models that take into account only similarity resulting from network structure.
Winners and losers - communicating the potential impacts of policies
Authors: Brick Cameron , Skylark William John , Freeman Alexandra , Marteau Theresa
Published: July 2018

Individual decision-makers need communications that succinctly describe potential harms and benefits of different options, but policymakers or citizens evaluating a policy are rarely given a balanced and easily understood summary of the potential outcomes of their decision. We review current policy option communication across diverse domains such as taxes, health, climate change, and international trade, followed by reviews of guidance and evidence for communication effectiveness. Our conceptual synthesis identifies four characteristics of policy options that make their communication particularly difficult: heterogeneous impacts on different segments of the population, multiple outcomes, long timescales, and large uncertainties. For communicators that are trying to inform rather than persuade, these complexities reveal a core tension between issue coverage and comprehensibility. We find little empirical evidence for how to communicate policy options effectively. We identify promising current communications, analyze them based on the above synthesis, and suggest priorities for future research. Recognizing the particular challenges of balanced, effective policy option communications could lead to better guidelines and support for policy decision-making. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-018-0121-9
Controlling Images: How Awareness of Group Stereotypes Affects Black Women’s Well-Being
Authors: Jerald Morgan
Published: July 2018

This paper presents research exploring how stereotypes that are simultaneously racialized and gendered affect Black women. We investigated the mental and physical health consequences of Black women’s awareness that others hold these stereotypes and tested whether this association is moderated by the centrality of racial identity. A structural equation model tested among 609 young Black women revealed that metastereotype awareness (being aware that others hold negative stereotypes of one’s group) predicted negative mental health outcomes (depression, anxiety, hostility), which in turn predicted diminished self-care behaviors and greater drug and alcohol use for coping. High racial centrality exacerbated the negative association between metastereotype awareness and self-care. We discuss implications of the findings for clinical practice and for approaches to research using intersectionality frameworks.
Symbolic number comparison is not processed by the analogue number system: different symbolic and nonsymbolic numerical distance and size effects
Authors: Krajcsi Attila , Lengyel Gabor , Kojouharova Petia
Published: July 2018

Dominant numerical cognition models suppose that both symbolic and nonsymbolic numbers are processed by the Analogue Number System (ANS) working according to Weber’s law. It was proposed that in a number comparison task the numerical distance and size effects reflect a ratio-based performance which is the sign of the ANS activation. However, increasing number of findings and alternative models propose that symbolic and nonsymbolic numbers might be processed by different representations. Importantly, alternative explanations may offer similar predictions to the ANS prediction, therefore, former evidence usually utilizing only the goodness of fit of the ANS prediction is not sufficient to support the ANS account. To test the ANS model more rigorously, a more extensive test is offered here. Several properties of the ANS predictions for the error rates, reaction times and diffusion model drift rates were systematically analyzed in both nonsymbolic dot comparison and symbolic Indo-Arabic comparison tasks. It was consistently found that while the ANS model’s prediction is relatively good for the nonsymbolic dot comparison, its prediction is poorer and systematically biased for the symbolic Indo-Arabic comparison. We conclude that only nonsymbolic comparison is supported by the ANS, and symbolic number comparisons are processed by other representation.
Choosing to regulate: Does choice enhance craving regulation?
Authors: Cosme Danielle , Mobasser Arian , Zeithamova Dagmar , Berkman Elliot , Pfeifer Jennifer H
Published: July 2018

Goal-directed behavior and lifelong well-being often depend on the ability to control appetitive motivations, such as cravings. Cognitive reappraisal is an effective way to modulate emotional states, including cravings, but is often studied under explicit instruction to regulate. Despite the strong prediction from Self-Determination Theory that choice should enhance task engagement and regulation success, little is known empirically about whether and how regulation is different when participants choose (vs are told) to exert control. To investigate how choice affects neural activity and regulation success, participants reappraised their responses to images of personally-craved foods while undergoing fMRI. Participants were either instructed to view or reappraise ('no-choice') or chose freely to view or reappraise ('yes-choice'). Choice increased activity in the frontoparietal control network. We expected this activity would be associated with increased task engagement, resulting in better regulation success. However, contrary to this prediction, choice slightly reduced regulation success. Follow-up multivariate fMRI analyses indicated that choice likely disrupted allocation of limited cognitive resources during reappraisal. While unexpected, these results highlight the importance of studying upstream processes such as regulation choice, as they may affect the ability to regulate cravings and other emotional states.Group-level statistical maps for this project are available via NeuroVault: https://neurovault.org/collections/2427/
Studies of cross-lingual long-term priming
Authors: Poort Eva Denise , Rodd Jennifer M
Published: July 2018

Poort, Warren and Rodd (2016) showed that bilinguals profit from recent experience with an identical cognate in their native language when they encounter the same word in their second language. We conducted two experiments employing the same cross-lingual long-term priming paradigm to determine whether this is also the case for non-identical cognates, as this would indicate they share an orthographic representation in the bilingual lexicon. In Experiment 1, Dutch–English bilinguals read Dutch sentences containing identical cognates (e.g. “winter”–“winter”), non-identical cognates (e.g. “baard”–“beard”) or the Dutch translations (e.g. “fiets”) of English control words (e.g. “bike”). These words were presented again in an English lexical decision task approximately 19 minutes later. The analysis revealed only weak evidence, based both on p-values and Bayes factors, for a small 6-9 ms facilitative priming effect. Experiment 2 aimed to determine whether including interlingual homographs (e.g. “angel”–“angel”) in the experiment modulates the size of the priming effect. This time, the analysis revealed no evidence for a priming effect, either based on p-values or Bayes factors, in either version of the experiment for either the cognates or the interlingual homographs. In line with previous findings (Poort & Rodd, 2017, May 9), we did find strong evidence for an interlingual homograph inhibition effect and no evidence for a cognate facilitation effect. We conclude that, since the cross-lingual long-term priming effect is largely semantic in nature, the lexical decision tasks we used were not sensitive enough to detect an effect of priming.Note: This manuscript has not been peer-reviewed.
Frustration
Authors: Jeronimus Bertus F. , Laceulle Odilia M.
Published: July 2018

Frustration is a key negative emotion that roots in disappointment (Latin frustrā or “in vain”) and can be defined as irritable distress after a wish collided with an unyielding reality.
As the world becomes trauma–informed, work to do
Authors: Becker-Blease Kathryn A.
Published: July 2018

The term "trauma-informed" is trending. Trauma psychologists can and should help the world understand what this term means. Some ideas for doing so are included.
Measurement equivalence between men and women in the abbreviated social and emotional loneliness scale for adults (SELSA).
Authors: Pollet Thomas Victor , Saxton Tamsin , mitchell melanie
Published: July 2018

Health practitioners, policy-makers, and psychologists point to legitimate concerns about the negative impact of loneliness. To help resolve such negative impact, we need to better understand the psychometric structure of loneliness. Men’s and women’s differing social roles may mean that they experience different sources of loneliness. After matching via propensity scoring, we compared men and women’s scores (N = 273) on the SELSA using confirmatory factor analysis and measurement invariance. We replicated the three-factor structure of the SELSA, thereby providing further evidence for differing etiologies of family, romantic, and social loneliness. We found no good evidence for gender differences in the structure of the questionnaire answers, indicating the SELSA can be used to further illuminate the implications of loneliness for men and women.
Problematic Alcohol Use and Suicidal Ideation Among Firefighters: A Multi-Study Investigation of the Explanatory Roles of Perceived Burdensomeness and Thwarted Belongingness
Authors: Gallyer Austin James , Dougherty Sean Patrick , Gai Anna R. , Stanley Ian H. , Hom Melanie A. , Rogers Megan L. , Duffy Mary E. , Spencer-Thomas Sally , Joiner Thomas E.
Published: July 2018

Background: Firefighters are at increased risk for both problematic alcohol use and suicidality. Research has found that problematic alcohol use is related to suicidality among this population; however, limited data exist regarding what might account for this association. The present two-study investigation (1) examined the association between suicidality and problematic alcohol use among two large samples of current firefighters and (2) tested whether interpersonal theory of suicide constructs—perceived burdensomeness (PB) and thwarted belongingness (TB)—serve as indirect indicators of this relationship. Methods: Participants in Study 1 were 944 U.S. firefighters (12.5% female); participants in Study 2 were 241 U.S. women firefighters. Participants completed the Interpersonal Needs Questionnaire, Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test, and the Depressive Symptom Index: Suicidality Subscale (Study 1) or the Self-Injurious Thoughts and Behaviors Interview (Study 2). Bias-corrected bootstrap indirect effects path analyses were utilized. Results: In Study 1, more problematic alcohol use was significantly associated with more severe career suicidal ideation via PB but not TB. In Study 2, problematic alcohol use was associated with career suicidal ideation via both PB and TB. PB seems to account for the relationship between problematic alcohol use and career suicidal ideation among male and female firefighters. Limitations: Limitations include use of a cross-sectional design, use of retrospective measures of suicidal ideation, and our findings were derived from subsamples of two existing datasets. Conclusions: Findings suggest that PB and TB may explain the relationship between problematic alcohol use and suicidal ideation, but that this effect is discrepant based on gender.
Doing good vs. avoiding bad in prosocial choice: A refined test and extension of the morality preference hypothesis
Authors: Tappin Ben M , Capraro Valerio
Published: July 2018

Prosociality is fundamental to human social life, and, accordingly, much research has attempted to explain human prosocial behavior. Capraro and Rand (Judgment and Decision Making, 13, 99-111, 2018) recently provided experimental evidence that prosociality in anonymous, one-shot interactions (such as Prisoner’s Dilemma and Dictator Game experiments) is not driven by outcome-based social preferences – as classically assumed – but by a generalized morality preference for “doing the right thing”. Here we argue that the key experiments reported in Capraro and Rand (2018) comprise prominent methodological confounds and open questions that bear on influential psychological theory. Specifically, their design confounds: (i) preferences for efficiency with self-interest; and (ii) preferences for action with preferences for morality. Furthermore, their design fails to dissociate the preference to do “good” from the preference to avoid doing “bad”. We thus designed and conducted a preregistered, refined and extended test of the morality preference hypothesis (N=801). Consistent with this hypothesis, our findings indicate that prosociality in the anonymous, one-shot Dictator Game is driven by preferences for doing the morally right thing. Inconsistent with influential psychological theory, however, our results suggest the preference to do “good” was as potent as the preference to avoid doing “bad” in this case.
Cohort and rhyme priming emerge from the multiplex network structure of the mental lexicon
Authors: Stella Massimo
Published: July 2018

Complex networks recently opened new ways for investigating how language use is influenced by the mental representation of word similarities. This work adopts the framework of multiplex lexical networks for investigating lexical retrieval from memory. The focus is on priming effects, where the processing of couple of words sharing specific features is faster and more accurate. Supported by recent findings of network distance influencing lexical retrieval, the multiplex network approach tests how the layout of hundreds of thousands of word-word similarities in the mental lexicon of words can lead to priming effects on multiple, combined semantic and phonological levels.Results provides quantitative evidence that priming effects are encoded directly in the multiplex structure of the mental representation of words sharing phonemes either in their onsets (cohort priming) or at their ends (rhyme priming). By comparison with randomised null models, both cohort and priming effects are found to be emerging properties of the mental lexicon arising from its multiplexity: These priming effects are absent on individual layers but become prominent on the combined multiplex structure. The emergence of priming effects due to the multiplex nature of the mental lexicon is displayed both in case only semantic layers are considered, an approximated representation of the so-called semantic memory, but also when semantics is enriched with phonological similarities, an approximated representation of the lexical-auditory nature of the mental lexicon. These results indicate that multiplex lexical networks represent an insightful approach for shedding light on the interplay between multiple aspects of language and human cognition, as it can open new paths for the quantification of cognitive patterns in synergy with experimental psycholinguistic data.
Researcher degrees of freedom in phonetic research
Authors: Roettger Timo Benjamin
Published: July 2018

The results of published research critically depend on methodological deci-sions that have been made during data analysis. These so-called “researcher degrees of freedom” (Simmons, Nelson, & Simonsohn, 2011) can affect the results and the conclusions researcher draw from it. It is argued that phonetic research faces a large number of researcher degrees of freedom due to its scientific object - speech - being inherently multidimensional and exhibiting complex interactions between multiple covariates. A Type-I error simulation is presented that demonstrates the severe inflation of false positives when exploring researcher degrees of freedom. It is argued that combined with common cognitive fallacies, exploitation of researcher degrees of freedom introduces strong bias and poses a serious challenge to quantitative phonetics as an empirical science. This paper discusses potential remedies for this problem including adjusting the threshold for significance; drawing a clear line between confirmatory and exploratory analyses via preregistration; open, honest and transparent practices in communicating data analytical decisions; and direct replications.
Explicit (but not implicit) environmentalist identity predicts pro-environmental behavior and policy preferences (postprint)
Authors: Brick Cameron , Lai Calvin K.
Published: July 2018

Awareness of environmental problems has increased dramatically over recent decades, but individual action to address environmental issues has remained stagnant. Shifting social identities may be an under-appreciated explanation of this gap: identification with environmentalists in the U.S. dropped from 78% to 42% since 1991. In four pre-registered studies of U.S. residents (total N = 2,033), we explored the predictors and outcomes of environmentalist identity. We also developed a novel implicit measure of less deliberate aspects of environmentalist identity. We used explicit and implicit environmentalist identity to predict self-reported environmental behaviors and policy preferences. Meta-analysis of our studies revealed that explicit identity was moderately associated with implicit identity (r = .24). Explicit identity strongly and uniquely predicted pro-environmental behaviors and policy preferences (partial rs = .58, .62), while implicit identity did not uniquely predict either (partial rs = .05, .05). Our findings highlight the importance of social identity in conservation.
Gender biases in impressions from faces: Empirical studies and computational models
Authors: Oh DongWon , Dotsch Ron , Porter Jenny , Todorov Alexander
Published: July 2018

Trustworthiness and dominance impressions summarize trait judgments from faces. Judgments on these key traits are negatively correlated to each other in impressions of female faces, implying less differentiated impressions of female faces. Here we test whether this is true across many trait judgments and whether less differentiated impressions of female faces originate in different facial information used for male and female impressions or different evaluation of the same information. Using multidimensional rating datasets and data-driven modeling, we show that (1) impressions of women are less differentiated and more valence-laden than impressions of men, and find that (2) these impressions are based on similar visual information across face genders. Female face impressions were more highly intercorrelated and were better explained by valence (Study 1). These intercorrelations were higher when raters more strongly endorsed gender stereotypes. Despite the gender difference, male and female impression models – derived from separate trustworthiness and dominance ratings of male and female faces – were similar to each other (Study 2). Further, both male and female models could manipulate impressions of faces of both genders (Study 3). The results highlight the high-level, evaluative effect of face gender in impression formation – women are judged negatively to the extent their looks do not conform to expectations, not because people use different facial information across genders, but because people evaluate the information differently across genders.
Self-Regulation: An Individual Difference Perspective
Authors: Hoyle Rick H. , Moshontz Hannah
Published: July 2018

Self-regulation is the means by which people manage goal-directed behavior. The many processes that constitute self-regulation are numerous and complex - themselves the focus of fields of research. In this chapter, we provide a review of individual differences that relate to self-regulation, including traits directly relevant to self-regulation and traits that affect how people self-regulate. First, we review individual differences that characterize general self-regulatory effectiveness. Next, we review an array of constructs relevant to specific self-regulatory functions, grouped by the most relevant process domain: behavioral, cognitive, and motivational or emotional. Finally, we review individual difference that cross-cut domains.
Epigenetic Modification of the Oxytocin and Glucocorticoid Receptor Genes is linked to Attachment Avoidance in young Adults
Authors: Dor Tsachi Ein , Verbeke Willem J.M.I. , Mokry Michal , Vrticka Pascal
Published: July 2018

Attachment in the context of intimate pair bonds is most frequently studied in terms of the universal strategy to draw near, or away, from significant others at moments of personal distress. However, important inter-individual differences in the quality of attachment exist, usually captured through secure versus insecure – anxious and/or avoidant – attachment orientations. Since Bowlby's pioneering writings on the theory of attachment (e.g. Bowlby, 1969), it has been assumed that attachment orientations are influenced by both genetic and social factors – what we would today describe and measure as gene by environment interaction mediated by epigenetic DNA modification –, but research in humans on this topic remains extremely limited. We for the first time examined relations between intra-individual differences in attachment and epigenetic modification of the oxytocin receptor (OXTR) and glucocorticoid receptor (NR3C1) gene promoter in 109 young adult human participants. Our results revealed that attachment avoidance was significantly and specifically associated with increased OXTR and NR3C1 promoter methylation. These findings offer first tentative clues on the possible etiology of attachment avoidance in humans by showing epigenetic modification in genes related to both social stress regulation and HPA axis functioning.
Playing a Different Game: Situation Perception Mediates Framing Effects on Cooperative Behaviour
Authors: Columbus Simon , Münich Jiří , Gerpott Fabiola H.
Published: July 2018

Context frames such as describing a Prisoner’s Dilemma as a “community” or a “stock exchange” game cause significant variation in cooperative behaviour. Here, we draw on recent advances in research on situation construal to propose that perceived conflict of interests is a mechanism underlying framing effects on cooperation in experimental games. Specifically, we argue that people readily think about situations in terms of conflicts of interests, and how people perceive the conflict of interests in different games predicts differences in cooperation across these games. In a formal model, we show that variation in perceived conflict of interests can affect cooperative decisions even when first-order beliefs and social preferences are static. We test this model across two studies (total N = 1,615). In each study, we elicited situation perceptions and beliefs about others’ behaviour in a framed game. The basic framing effect replicated in a dichotomous-choice Prisoner’s Dilemma (study 1), but not in a continuous-choice Prisoner’s Dilemma (study 2). Perceptions of conflict of interests mediated between framing and cooperative behaviour, whereas beliefs and preferences did not. Exploratorily, perceptions of conflict of interests had a causal effect on cooperative behaviour when induced orthogonally to the frame. This study provides evidence for perceptions of conflict of interests as a mechanism underlying framing effects and integrates framing effects with the wider literature on situation perception. Moreover, it supports a causal role of situation perception in social decision-making. However, the results also call into question the generalisability of framing effects.
Skilled Bandits: Learning to Choose in a Reactive World
Authors: Hotaling Jared M , Navarro Danielle , Newell Ben R
Published: July 2018

In uncertain environments we must balance our need to gather information with our desire to reaprewards by exploiting current knowledge. Achieving this balance is further complicated in reactiveenvironments where actions produce long-lasting change to the system. In four experiments, weinvestigate how people learn to make effective decisions from experience in a dynamic multi-armedbandit task. In contrast to the typical exploitation-dependent diminishing rewards found in previousstudies, options were framed as skills that developed greater rewards the more they were chosen. InExperiment 1, we provide a proof of concept, and in Experiments 2-4 we explore the boundaries ofparticipants’ sensitivity to reactive dynamics. Our results suggest that most individuals can learneffective strategies for coping with these reactive environments. A two-part comparison of severalcompeting psychological models supports several conclusions: 1) a sizeable minority of individualslearned that their environment was reactive, 2) several distinct groups of individuals employed uniquedecision strategies, and 3) testing models with the simulation method reveals qualitative misfits thatmotivate future theory development.
Judgments of interpersonal warmth predict class-based voting preferences
Authors: Tan Jacinth Jia Xin , Kraus Michael W.
Published: July 2018

The present research examined how social class groups shape patterns of political participation. Drawing on research linking lower-class individuals to heightened attunement to others’ needs and behavior, we predicted that lower-class individuals would be more sensitive to different types of warm messages, modulating their trust and voting behavior more acutely to these messages than upper-class individuals. In Experiment 1, lower-class participants showed reduced trust and voting preferences for a candidate depicted as warm by common political tropes relative to upper-class participants, while no class differences were found for the candidate depicted as competent or hostile to an opponent. In Experiment 2, lower-class participants reported greater trust and support for a political figure described as warm by a lower-class member than upper-class participants, but no class difference was observed when the description was by an upper-class member. These findings have implications for cross-class communication with political elites and basic person perception.
Stepping back to see what matters: Psychological distance reduces diagnosticity neglect in social comparison
Authors: Yudkin Daniel Alexander
Published: July 2018

People frequently compare themselves to others, and these comparisons have important affective and organizational consequences. Social comparisons differ in their diagnosticity—the degree to which they are attributable to features of the person versus the situation. While logic suggests people should give more credence to diagnostic than nondiagnostic comparisons, research shows they may overlook diagnosticity when comparing themselves to others. This tendency, termed “diagnosticity neglect,” can lead them to draw inaccurate conclusions about themselves. Here I test whether psychological distancing strategies can mitigate diagnosticity neglect. Because diagnosticity neglect may come from people’s tendency to overestimate the self-relevance of social information, adopting a distanced perspective may increase the salience of causal sources outside the self, thereby reducing diagnosticity neglect. Five experiments (three preregistered, total N = 4,008) test and support this prediction. Experiment 1 shows that people exhibit less diagnosticity neglect when imagining participating in an anagrams task than when actually doing so. Experiments 2 and 3 show that people who are prompted to take a distanced (versus immersed) perspective exhibit less diagnosticity neglect in response to a poorly attended birthday and unpopular social media post, respectively, and Experiment 4 suggests this effect is mediated by internal versus external attribution. Experiment 5 shows that this observation also holds for favorable comparisons. Overall, this research highlights interventions that may provide people a more balanced understanding of their place in the world and foster more healthier and more cooperative organizational cultures.
Physical Warmth and Perceptual Focus: A Replication of IJzerman and Semin (2009)
Authors: Schilder Janneke Diane , IJzerman Hans , Denissen Jaap J. A.
Published: July 2018

With the changing of modal research practices in psychology, the grounded cognition perspective (sometimes categorized under the more popular term of “social priming”) has become heavily criticized. Specifically, LeBel and Campbell (2013) reported a failed replication of a study involving what some would call ‘social priming’. We sought to replicate a study from our own lab (IJzerman & Semin, 2009), to investigate the reproducibility of the reported effect that physical warmth leads to a greater focus on perceptual relations. We also improved our methods to reduce potential experimenter’s bias (cf. Doyen, Klein, Pichon, & Cleeremans, 2012). We successfully replicated the finding that a simple cue of physical warmth makes people more likely to adopt a relational focus.This paper was published in PLoS one:Schilder, J. D., IJzerman, H., & Denissen, J. J. (2014). Physical warmth and perceptual focus: A replication of IJzerman and Semin (2009). PloS one, 9(11), e112772.
Flexible Concepts
Authors: Pecher Diane , Zwaan Rolf Antonius
Published: July 2018

This is a commentary on Kemmerer (2016), Categories of object concepts across languages and brains: The relevance of nominal classification systems to Cognitive Neuroscience. The consequences of nominal classification systems for the organization of the conceptual system are consistent with several theories and findings in cognitive psychology. Concepts are flexible; they are categorized in various ways and change across contexts. Languages with nominal classification systems provide an interesting source of data that can give further insight into the mechanisms of flexible concepts.
Why Traditional Metrics May Not Adequately Represent Ethnic Minority Psychology
Authors: Syed Moin
Published: July 2018

The first Perspectives on Psychological Science symposium (Sternberg, 2016) on eminence in psychology focused almost exclusively on “traditional” markers of success (e.g., citation counts, awards, grants). In this essay I argue that the context of the research and the context of the researchers are crucial components of ethnic minority psychology. First, I describe structural reasons for why ethnic minority researchers might have less impressive traditional markers of success, then I highlight how the “minority tax” contours the scholarly activities of ethnic minority researchers. Any conceptualization of eminence must take these additional considerations into account.