Common Sense
Time Crawls When You're Not Having Fun: Feeling Entitled Makes Dull Tasks Drag On
Edward O'Brien, Phyllis Anastasio & Brad Bushman
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, forthcoming
Abstract:
All people have to complete dull tasks, but individuals who feel entitled may be more inclined to perceive them as a waste of their "precious" time, resulting in the perception that time drags. This hypothesis was confirmed in three studies. In Study 1, participants with higher trait entitlement (controlling for related variables) thought dull tasks took longer to complete; no link was found for fun tasks. In Study 2, participants exposed to entitled messages thought taking a dull survey was a greater waste of time and took longer to complete. In Study 3, participants subliminally exposed to entitled words thought dull tasks were less interesting, thought they took longer to complete, and walked away faster when leaving the laboratory. Like most resources, time is a resource valued more by entitled individuals. A time-entitlement link provides novel insight into mechanisms underlying self-focus and prosocial dynamics.
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Spatial Metaphor and Real Estate: North-South Location Biases Housing Preference
Brian Meier et al.
Social Psychological and Personality Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Metaphors are used to help people understand abstract concepts in terms of perceptual experiences (e.g., "feeling high" or "feeling down"). A consequence of this strategy is that metaphor can bias perception and decision making. For example, consistent with metaphors for affect and spatial perception (up = good, down = bad), people more readily identify positive things when high in location. North and south are abstract concepts, which are also tied by metaphor to spatial perception (north = up, south = down). Based on this, the authors hypothesized that, by virtue of a shared mapping with up and down, north and south may have affective associations (north = good, south = bad) that bias decisions related to housing in terms of location preference and expectations of where others live. The authors found convergent support for this hypothesis across four studies using correlational (Studies 1 and 2) and experimental (Studies 3 and 4) data.
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Pascale Sophie Russell & Roger Giner-Sorolla
Emotion, forthcoming
Abstract:
In the present research, we tested the unreasoning disgust hypothesis: moral disgust, in particular in response to a violation of a bodily norm, is less likely than moral anger to be justified with cognitively elaborated reasons. In Experiment 1, participants were asked to explain why they felt anger and disgust toward pedophiles. Participants were more likely to invoke elaborated reasons, versus merely evaluative responses, when explaining their anger, versus disgust. Experiment 2 used a between-participants design; participants explained why they felt either anger or disgust toward seven groups that either violated a sexual or nonsexual norm. Again, elaborated reasons were less prevalent when explaining their disgust versus anger and, in particular, when explaining disgust toward a group that violated a sexual norm. Experiment 3 further established that these findings are due to a lower accessibility of elaborated reasons for bodily disgust, rather than inhibition in using them when provided. From these findings, it can be concluded that communicating external reasons for moral disgust at bodily violations is made more difficult due to the unavailability of those reasons to people.
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A proximity effect in adults' contamination intuitions
Laura Kim & Nancy Kim
Judgment and Decision Making, April 2011, Pages 222-229
Abstract:
Magical beliefs about contagion via contact (Rozin, Nemeroff, Wane, & Sherrod, 1989) may emerge when people overgeneralize real-world mechanisms of contamination beyond their appropriate boundaries (Lindeman & Aarnio, 2007). Do people similarly overextend knowledge of airborne contamination mechanisms? Previous work has shown that very young children believe merely being close to a contamination source can contaminate an item (Springer & Belk 1994); we asked whether this same hyper-avoidant intuition is also reflected in adults' judgments. In two studies, we measured adults' ratings of the desirability of an object that had made contact with a source of contamination, an object nearby that had made no contact with the contaminant, and an object far away that had also made no contact. Adults showed a clear proximity effect, wherein objects near the contamination source were perceived to be less desirable than those far away, even though a separate group of adults unanimously acknowledged that contaminants could not possibly have made contact with either the nearby or far-away object (Study 1). The proximity effect also remained robust when a third group of adults was explicitly told that no contaminating particles had made contact with the objects at any time (Study 2). We discuss implications of our findings for extending the scope of magical contagion effects beyond the contact principle, for understanding the persistence of intuitive theories despite broad acceptance of science-based theories, and for constraining interpretations of the developmental work on proximity beliefs.
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Hitting is Contagious: Experience and Action Induction
Rob Gray & Sian Beilock
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, March 2011, Pages 49-59
Abstract:
In baseball, it is believed that "hitting is contagious," that is, probability of success increases if the previous few batters get a hit. Could this effect be partially explained by action induction - that is, the tendency to perform an action related to one that has just been observed? A simulation was used to investigate the effect of inducing stimuli on batting performance for more-experienced (ME) and less-experienced (LE) baseball players. Three types of inducing stimuli were compared with a no-induction condition: action (a simulated ball traveling from home plate into left, right, or center field), outcome (a ball resting in either left, right, or center field), and verbal (the word "left", "center", or "right"). For both ME and LE players, fewer pitchers were required for a successful hit in the action condition. For ME players, there was a significant relationship between the inducing stimulus direction and hit direction for both the action and outcome prompts. For LE players, the prompt only had a significant effect on batting performance in the action condition, and the magnitude of the effect was significantly smaller than for ME. The effect of the inducing stimulus decreased as the delay (i.e., no. of pitches between prompt and hit) increased, with the effect being eliminated after roughly 4 pitches for ME and 2 pitches for LE. It is proposed that the differences in the magnitude and time course of action induction as a function of experience occurred because ME have more well-developed perceptual-motor representations for directional hitting.
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The Effect of Construal Level on Predictions of Task Duration
Alf Børre Kanten
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Construal level theory (Trope & Liberman, 2010) contends that distance to events leads to higher level processing. In a series of studies, we examined the role of construal level in prediction of the time needed to perform a task. Estimates increased when the tasks were distant rather than close in time (Study 1), were hypothetical rather than real (Study 2), and when participants were primed to adopt an abstract rather than a concrete mindset (Study 3). As a possible explanation, it is suggested that time units are perceived as smaller as people move up in abstraction, so that more time units are needed to cover the same amount of work. In line with this, we found that people who were primed to adopt a higher level processing mode visualized an hour as shorter than those in a lower level mode, as indicated by their distance marks on a time-line (Study 4). Finally, the contraction of time units was shown to mediate the relationship between temporal distance and task duration estimates (Study 5).
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Pecunia olet: The role of incidental disgust in the ultimatum game
Nicolao Bonini et al.
Emotion, forthcoming
Abstract:
We address the role of the incidental emotion of disgust in the Ultimatum Game. Participants had to choose whether or not to accept a €2 offer from a €10 pot made by another participant; 120 were in a room where a disgusting smell was released and 120 were in a room with no particular smell. Acceptance rates were higher in the room with the disgusting smell. The effect was mainly carried by the male participants who also reported more disgust with the disgusting smell and judged the offer as less unfair than females. We propose a spontaneous discounting explanation. Acceptance rates were higher in the room with the disgusting smell because participants misattributed the disgust induced by the offer to the ambient disgusting smell.
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A feel for disgust: Tactile cues to pathogen presence
Robert Oum, Debra Lieberman & Alison Aylward
Cognition & Emotion, Spring 2011, Pages 717-725
Abstract:
One function of disgust is to act as a pathogen-avoidance system preventing contact with substances harbouring disease-causing organisms. Avoiding pathogens, however, requires systems for their detection. Whereas previous research on disgust has focused on visual and olfactory detection cues, one largely overlooked modality is touch. Here we examine whether tactile cues play a role in pathogen detection and activate the disgust response. Participants briefly touched and then rated stimuli varying along dimensions predicted to correlate with pathogen presence: moisture, temperature, and consistency. Results show that participants rated wet stimuli and stimuli resembling biological consistencies as more disgusting than dry stimuli and stimuli resembling inanimate consistencies, respectively. No main effect for temperature was found. We report on predicted interactions, the relationship between disgust ratings and perceived infection risk, and individual differences. Taken together, these data suggest that touch is an important modality providing information for disgust-related processes.
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The Effects of Duration Knowledge on Forecasted versus Actual Affective Experiences
Min Zhao & Claire Tsai
Journal of Consumer Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
Contrary to the lay theory that predicts duration knowledge of affective episodes to ameliorate negative experiences and weaken positive ones, we demonstrate that duration knowledge increases the extremity of affective experience. In experiments 1 and 2, participants either know the exact duration of the episodes or not and then experience either negative or positive episodes. The results show that, contrary to general intuition, duration knowledge worsens negative experiences and enhances positive experiences. In experiments 3a and 3b, we identify a boundary condition wherein the effect of duration knowledge is attenuated when participants focus primarily on the end of the experience (as opposed to the ongoing experience). In closing, we highlight the theoretical implications for studies on hedonic adaptation in general and the uncertainty effect in particular. Possible mechanisms for the effect of duration knowledge are discussed.
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Timing in the performance of jokes
Salvatore Attardo & Lucy Pickering
Humor - International Journal of Humor Research, May 2011, Pages 233-250
Abstract:
The notion of timing in humor is often mentioned as a very significant issue, and yet very little has been written about it. The paper reviews the scant literature on the subject and narrows down the definition of timing as comprising pauses and speech rate. The discussions of timing in the literature see it either as a speeding up or slowing down of speech rate. Using data collected from twenty joke performances, we show that speakers do not significantly raise or lower their speech rate at and around the punch line. The other common assumption is that punch lines are preceded by pauses. Our data show no evidence supporting this claim nor do they show differences concerning these parameters in jokes that involved punch lines in reported speech and those that did not. Similarly, we found no differences between prepared and spontaneous jokes. Therefore, our data lead us to conclude that the theory of timing in joke performance is in serious need of further research.
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Mariëlle Stel et al.
European Journal of Social Psychology, April 2011, Pages 269-274
Abstract:
People often mimic each other's behaviors. As a consequence, they share each other's emotional and cognitive states, which facilitates liking. Mimicry, however, does not always affect liking. In two studies, we investigate whether the mimicry-liking link is influenced by people's social value orientations. More specifically, we examine whether prosocials and proselfs are differently affected when being mimicked or not. Prosocials and proselfs indicated their liking for the interaction partner after being or not being mimicked in a face-to-face interaction. The results of two studies showed that prosocials rated the interaction partner as less likeable when they were not mimicked than when they were mimicked. Proselfs, however, were not affected by mimicry. These results show that people's social motives play a role in whether or not the effects of mimicry on liking occur: Proselfs are less sensitive to the mimicry acts of others.
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Emotion recognition in music changes across the adult life span
Ceacutesar Lima & Satildeo Luiacutes Castro
Cognition & Emotion, Spring 2011, Pages 585-598
Abstract:
In comparison with other modalities, the recognition of emotion in music has received little attention. An unexplored question is whether and how emotion recognition in music changes as a function of ageing. In the present study, healthy adults aged between 17 and 84 years (N=114) judged the magnitude to which a set of musical excerpts (Vieillard et al., 2008) expressed happiness, peacefulness, sadness and fear/threat. The results revealed emotion-specific age-related changes: advancing age was associated with a gradual decrease in responsiveness to sad and scary music from middle age onwards, whereas the recognition of happiness and peacefulness, both positive emotional qualities, remained stable from young adulthood to older age. Additionally, the number of years of music training was associated with more accurate categorisation of the musical emotions examined here. We argue that these findings are consistent with two accounts on how ageing might influence the recognition of emotions: motivational changes towards positivity and, to a lesser extent, selective neuropsychological decline.
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The perception of musical spontaneity in improvised and imitated jazz performances
Annerose Engel & Peter Keller
Frontiers in Auditory Cognitive Neuroscience, May 2011
Abstract:
The ability to evaluate spontaneity in human behavior is called upon in the aesthetic appreciation of dramatic arts and music. The current study addresses the behavioral and brain mechanisms that mediate the perception of spontaneity in music performance. In a functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging experiment, 22 jazz musicians listened to piano melodies and judged whether they were improvised or imitated. Judgment accuracy (mean 55%; range 44-65%), which was low but above chance, was positively correlated with musical experience and empathy. Analysis of listeners' hemodynamic responses revealed that amygdala activation was stronger for improvisations than imitations. This activation correlated with the variability of performance timing and intensity (loudness) in the melodies, suggesting that the amygdala is involved in the detection of behavioral uncertainty. An analysis based on the subjective classification of melodies according to listeners' judgments revealed that a network including the pre-supplementary motor area, frontal operculum, and anterior insula was most strongly activated for melodies judged to be improvised. This may reflect the increased engagement of an action simulation network when melodic predictions are rendered challenging due to perceived instability in the performer's actions. Taken together, our results suggest that, while certain brain regions in skilled individuals may be generally sensitive to objective cues to spontaneity in human behavior, the ability to evaluate spontaneity accurately depends upon whether an individual's action-related experience and perspective taking skills enable faithful internal simulation of the given behavior.
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Lateral biases in lighting of abstract artwork
David McDine et al.
Laterality: Asymmetries of Body, Brain and Cognition, May/June 2011, Pages 268-279
Abstract:
Previous studies examining perceptual biases in art have revealed that paintings tend to be lit from above and to the left. Abstract images provide a way of testing for the left-light bias while controlling for cues such as posing biases, ground line, shadows, and reflections. A total of 42 participants completed a task that required moving a "virtual flashlight" across the surface of abstract images presented on a computer screen: 20 images (presented both right-side-up and upside down) were used in the study. The participant's only instruction was to "light the painting in a way that is most aesthetically pleasing to you". As predicted, participants on average focused the "virtual flashlight" in the top left quadrant. This study reveals that lateral lighting biases in artwork are not dependent on perception of local light source or interactions with discrete, concrete visual representations in the artwork.
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Hormones and dichotic listening: Evidence from the study of menstrual cycle effects
Patricia Cowell et al.
Brain and Cognition, forthcoming
Abstract:
This report presents evidence for changes in dichotic listening asymmetries across the menstrual cycle, which replicate studies from our laboratory and others. Increases in the right ear advantage (REA) were present in women at phases of the menstrual cycle associated with higher levels of ovarian hormones. The data also revealed correlations between hormone levels and behavioural measures of asymmetry. For example, the pre-ovulatory surge in luteinising hormone (LH) was related to a decrease in left ear scores, which comprised a key part of the cycle related shift in asymmetry. Further analysis revealed a subgroup of women who had not reached postovulatory status by days 18-25 of the cycle, as verified by low progesterone levels. These women showed laterality profiles at days 18-25 that looked more like the other women when measured at the periovulatory phase (i.e., days 8-11). Data were combined with those from a previous study to highlight the stability of effects. Results showed a distinct menstrual cycle related increase in asymmetry in the combined sample. This final comparison confirmed the nature of sex differences in dichotic listening as being dependent on hormone status in women.
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Steven Boker et al.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, forthcoming
Abstract:
During conversation, women tend to nod their heads more frequently and more vigorously than men. An individual speaking with a woman tends to nod his or her head more than when speaking with a man. Is this due to social expectation or due to coupled motion dynamics between the speakers? We present a novel methodology that allows us to randomly assign apparent identity during free conversation in a videoconference, thereby dissociating apparent sex from motion dynamics. The method uses motion-tracked synthesized avatars that are accepted by naive participants as being live video. We find that 1) motion dynamics affect head movements but that apparent sex does not; 2) judgments of sex are driven almost entirely by appearance; and 3) ratings of masculinity and femininity rely on a combination of both appearance and dynamics. Together, these findings are consistent with the hypothesis of separate perceptual streams for appearance and biological motion. In addition, our results are consistent with a view that head movements in conversation form a low level perception and action system that can operate independently from top-down social expectations.
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Effect of watermarks as visual cues for guiding consumer choice: An experiment with restaurant menus
Nicolas Guéguen, Céline Jacob & Renzo Ardiccioni
International Journal of Hospitality Management, forthcoming
Abstract:
Priming can influence preferences. In this experiment, we extend this idea by using watermark visual primes. On a restaurant menu cart, primes related to the sea, countryside (or no prime) were used with alone diners in a restaurant. The results show that, compared to the control no-prime condition, primes related to the sea significantly increased the consumption of fish dishes whereas primes related to the countryside did not significantly increase the consumption of meat dishes.
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Paul Atchley & Mark Chan
Human Factors: The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, February 2011, Pages 3-12
Objective: The objective of this study was to investigate the nature of concurrent task interference during a vigilance task and to determine whether a concurrent task improves performance with decreased vigilance.
Background: Research has repeatedly shown that engaging in a cell phone conversation while driving increases the risk of getting into crashes. At the same time, it has also been found that task monotony could lead to an increase in crash risk. There is evidence that suggests that engaging in a concurrent task reduces the effects of monotony, leading to an improvement in vigilance task performance.
Method: A monotonous drive in a driving simulator was used to investigate the effects of a concurrent verbal task. Three task conditions were used: no verbal task, continuous verbal task, and late verbal task.
Results: When engaged in a secondary verbal task, drivers showed improved lane-keeping performance and steering control when vigilance was lowest.
Conclusion: A strategically placed concurrent task can improve performance when vigilance is at its lowest.
Application: There is potential for the design of a countermeasure system that can be strategically activated by an automated system monitoring driver performance.