Psychological Science最新文献

The mind represents abstract magnitude information, including time, space, and number, but in what format is this information stored? We show support for the bipartite format of perceptual magnitudes, in which the measured value on a dimension is scaled to the dynamic range of the input, leading to a privileged status for values at the lowest and highest end of the range. In six experiments with college undergraduates, we show that observers are faster and more accurate to find the endpoints (i.e., the minimum and maximum) than any of the inner values, even as the number of items increases beyond visual short-term memory limits. Our results show that length, size, and number are represented in a dynamic format that allows for comparison-free sorting, with endpoints represented with an immediately accessible status, consistent with the bipartite model of perceptual magnitudes. We discuss the implications for theories of visual search and ensemble perception.

Benefiting from a cooperative interaction requires people to estimate how cooperatively other members of a group will act so that they can calibrate their own behavior accordingly. We investigated whether the synchrony of a group's actions influences observers' estimates of cooperation. Participants (recruited through Prolific) watched animations of actors deciding how much to donate in a public-goods game and using a mouse to drag donations to a public pot. Participants then estimated how much was in the pot in total (as an index of how cooperative they thought the group members were). Experiment 1 (N = 136 adults) manipulated the synchrony between players' decision-making time, and Experiment 2 (N = 136 adults) manipulated the synchrony between players' decision-implementing movements. For both experiments, estimates of how much was in the pot were higher for synchronous than asynchronous groups, demonstrating that the temporal dynamics of an interaction contain signals of a group's level of cooperativity.

This research tested the hypothesis that mindful-gratitude practice attenuates the robust association between collective narcissism and prejudice. In Study 1 (a between-subjects study using a nationally representative sample of 569 Polish adults; 313 female), 10 min of mindful-gratitude practice-compared to mindful-attention practice and control-did not decrease prejudice (anti-Semitism), but weakened the positive link between collective narcissism and prejudice. In Study 2 (a preregistered, randomized, controlled-trial study using a convenience sample of 219 Polish adults; 168 female), a 6-week mobile app supported training in daily mindful-gratitude practice decreased prejudice (anti-Semitism, sexism, homophobia, anti-immigrant sentiment) and its link with collective narcissism compared to a wait-list control. The hypothesis-consistent results emphasize the social relevance of mindful-gratitude practice, a time- and cost-effective intervention.

We examined how 5- to 8-year-olds (N = 51; M_age = 83 months; 27 female, 24 male; 69% White, 12% Black/African American, 8% Asian/Asian American, 6% Hispanic, 6% not reported) and adults (N = 18; M_age = 20.13 years; 11 female, 7 male) accepted or rejected different distributions of resources between themselves and others. We used a reach-tracking method to track finger movement in 3D space over time. This allowed us to dissociate two inhibitory processes. One involved pausing motor responses to detect conflict between observed information and how participants thought resources should be divided; the other involved resolving the conflict between the response and the alternative. Reasoning about disadvantageous inequities involved more of the first system, and this was stable across development. Reasoning about advantageous inequities involved more of the second system and showed more of a developmental progression. Generally, reach tracking offers an on-line measure of inhibitory control for the study of cognition.

Initial impressions of others based on facial appearances are often inaccurate yet can lead to dire outcomes. Across four studies, adult participants underwent a counterstereotype training to reduce their reliance on facial appearance in consequential social judgments of White male faces. In Studies 1 and 2, trustworthiness and sentencing judgments among control participants predicted whether real-world inmates were sentenced to death versus life in prison, but these relationships were diminished among trained participants. In Study 3, a sequential priming paradigm demonstrated that the training was able to abolish the relationship between even automatically and implicitly perceived trustworthiness and the inmates' life-or-death sentences. Study 4 extended these results to realistic decision-making, showing that training reduced the impact of facial trustworthiness on sentencing decisions even in the presence of decision-relevant information. Overall, our findings suggest that a counterstereotype intervention can mitigate the potentially harmful effects of relying on facial appearance in consequential social judgments.

Recent years have brought increased accountability for personal misconduct, yet often, unequal consequences have resulted from similar offenses. Findings from a unique archival data set (N = 619; all university faculty) and three preregistered experiments (N = 2,594) show that the perceived artistic-versus-scientific nature of the offender's professional contributions influences the professional punishment received. In Study 1, analysis of four decades of university sexual-misconduct cases reveals that faculty in artistic (vs. scientific) fields have on average received more severe professional consequences. Study 2 demonstrates this experimentally, offering mediational evidence that greater difficulty morally decoupling art (vs. science) contributes to the phenomenon. Study 3 provides further evidence for this mechanism through experimental moderation. Finally, Study 4 shows that merely framing an individual's work as artistic versus scientific results in replication of these effects. Several potential alternative mechanisms to moral decoupling are tested but not supported. Practical and theoretical implications are discussed.

We often use cues from our environment when we get stuck searching our memories, but prior research has failed to show benefits of cuing with other, randomly selected list items during memory search. What accounts for this discrepancy? We proposed that cues' content critically determines their effectiveness and sought to select the right cues by building a computational model of how cues affect memory search. Participants (N = 195 young adults from the United States) recalled significantly more items when receiving our model's best (vs. worst) cue. Our model provides an account of why some cues better aid recall: Effective cues activate contexts most similar to the remaining items' contexts, facilitating recall in an unsearched area of memory. We discuss our contributions in relation to prominent theories about the effect of external cues.

Much of what we know and love about music hinges on our ability to make successful predictions, which appears to be an intrinsically rewarding process. Yet the exact process by which learned predictions become pleasurable is unclear. Here we created novel melodies in an alternative scale different from any established musical culture to show how musical preference is generated de novo. Across nine studies (n = 1,185), adult participants learned to like more frequently presented items that adhered to this rapidly learned structure, suggesting that exposure and prediction errors both affected self-report liking ratings. Learning trajectories varied by music-reward sensitivity but were similar for U.S. and Chinese participants. Furthermore, functional MRI activity in auditory areas reflected prediction errors, whereas functional connectivity between auditory and medial prefrontal regions reflected both exposure and prediction errors. Collectively, results support predictive coding as a cognitive mechanism by which new musical sounds become rewarding.

This article presents new evidence on the prevalence, dynamics, and hedonic correlates of experienced love from data describing the emotion, well-being, and time use of a diverse sample of 3,867 U.S. adults every half hour for 10 days (N = 1.12 million) supplemented by a hedonic snapshot of an additional 7,255 adults. The findings allude to the seemingly functional and adaptive nature of love and to similarities across binary gender-men and women reported comparable degrees of (passionate) partner love overall, elevated partner love after prolonged same-day separations, substantially elevated well-being in love's presence, and reduced (but not extinguished) partner love in mature marital cohorts. The gender differences that were found-women reported more child love than men, and men exhibited a less pronounced reduction in partner love across cohorts-are also consistent with functional accounts of love that recognize the varying role of men and women in the formation and sustenance of relationships.