Journal of Experimental Psychology-Applied最新文献

As a global community, humankind stands before a monumental challenge: to change our behavioral habits toward a more sustainable way of life. There are multiple paths toward that challenge, one of which is motivating citizens to engage in more pro-environmental behavior in everyday life. In this series of experiments (N = 521 participants), we pioneer a new paradigm that simulates everyday decision making via narrative-interactive choice elements to evaluate motivating strategies with a specific focus on sense of agency (SoA), that is, perceived control. To this end, we first characterize different individual motivators in fostering pro-environmental behavior. Further, in an experimental approach, we implement prompt variants into the narrative-interactive choice elements paradigm (color coding of choices vs. information on choice consequences) aligned with different aspects of SoA formation to test how SoA might facilitate pro-environmental decisions. Our results demonstrate that increased SoA is associated with pro-environmental behavior and showcase how prompt variants during decision making may affect pro-environmental behavior. Moreover, our results demonstrate a strong association of the participants' attitude toward environmental protection with SoA and pro-environmental behavior. SoA has been identified as a crucial aspect of action motivation; the present study provides compelling evidence that optimizing SoA may provide a much-needed strategy in fostering sustainability behavior. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Although research has extensively examined the traits people expect leaders to possess, it has only recently begun to highlight the importance of investigating the traits that followers truly desire in leaders. Applying an affordance management approach, we hypothesized that some traits (i.e., those necessary to accomplish most group goals) would be desired in all leaders. In contrast, other traits (i.e., those relevant to accomplishing competitive vs. cooperative goals) should differ in their desirability depending on the goals of the respective group. In Studies 1 (student sample) and 3 (working adult sample), participants were presented with leaders who were initially lacking 10 positive traits. Participants in Study 2 received leaders who all were at the 100th percentile on 10 corresponding negative traits. We then asked them to use their budgets to increase (Studies 1 and 3) or decrease (Study 2) amounts of these traits with the goal of "building" ideal leaders. Across the three studies, results suggested that participants desired some traits (i.e., intelligence, trustworthiness) across leadership domains while the desirability of other traits (e.g., assertiveness, cooperativeness) was dependent on the goals of the group. We discuss the implications of affordance management on leadership practice. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

When one person harms another, the way lay jurors describe the perpetrator's mental state-whether they acted "knowingly" or "recklessly"-can significantly affect their culpability under U.S. criminal law. Five studies conducted in Fall 2017 show that the meanings of these crucial legal terms can shift depending on whether the jury instructions mention an alternative mental state. In Studies 1-3, lay participants, acting as mock jurors, were less likely to say an agent caused a harm "knowingly" when they could instead describe the person as acting "recklessly"-a less severe but still culpable state of mind. This pattern emerged whether or not participants received legal definitions of these terms. In Study 4, mock jurors were less likely to say an agent acted "knowingly" when "recklessly" appeared in the jury instructions as a contrast, even when they did not have any way to attribute the contrast term to the agent. In Study 5, mock jurors were also less likely to say an agent acted "recklessly" when the possibility of acting "negligently" appeared in the jury instructions. These studies provide evidence that "knowingly" and "recklessly" are contrast sensitive-that is, their meanings can shift based on what contrast concept is salient. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Generative artificial intelligence is reshaping content creation, shifting from human-generated content to artificial intelligence (AI)-generated content from which we choose. A growing concern is the propagation of stereotypes in AI-generated content. Through a preregistered large-scale field study in 2024, tasking ChatGPT, Midjourney, and Canva with generating 1,110 images for multiple scenarios, we find that AI systematically replicates and potentially amplifies sex and racial stereotypes by generating a significantly larger proportion of stereotypical content in a choice set. Five preregistered experiments in 2024 and 2025 (N = 2,994, U.S. adults) further demonstrate that this surplus of stereotypical content increases the likelihood of people choosing it, driven by both its availability and existing stereotypes in people's minds. When AI offers a larger proportion of content aligned with existing stereotypes, it makes such choices more fluent. Conversely, reducing the availability of AI-generated stereotypical content in choice sets decreases individuals' stereotypical beliefs and choices. We further find that increasing awareness of stereotypes in AI-generated content does not prompt self-correction when people are exposed to stereotypes perceived relatively harmless (e.g., women-nurse). Instead, it increases the likelihood of choosing stereotypical content. However, people self-correct when exposed to AI-generated stereotypes perceived as harmful (e.g., Black people-criminal). (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

A key component of mindful eating is paying attention to the sensory properties of one's food as one eats ("sensory eating"). Some studies have found this reduces subsequent food intake while others have failed to replicate these effects. We report four laboratory studies that (a) examine effects of sensory eating on subsequent intake and (b) explore potential mechanisms of action. In each study, participants ate a small high-calorie snack with or without sensory eating and, 5-15 min later, were given larger snack portions from which they could eat freely. Sensory eating reduced intake of the second snack and could not be explained by increased sensory-specific satiety or priming of health-related goals. However, this effect disappeared when we controlled eating rate for the first snack. Given evidence that slower eating increases satiation and reduces intake, we conclude that sensory eating reduces intake by slowing eating rate. Exploratory analyses also revealed that (among nondieters) effects of sensory eating were pronounced when participants reported higher hunger. Thus, for weight management, sensory eating may be most beneficial for those who are naturally fast eaters and/or in situations where people are inclined to eat more quickly, for example, when hungry or in a hurry. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Many job stress models emphasize the importance of job control as a resource that promotes well-being and performance. However, research has started to acknowledge that job control can sometimes also have negative effects. Our study adopts a self-control perspective to investigate these possible downsides. We hypothesized that job control should have negative effects on well-being and performance by enhancing self-control demands. However, we expected that only employees with low levels of trait self-control should experience negative effects of high job control due to increased self-control demands. We conducted a workplace simulation with an experimental manipulation of job control (high vs. low). We asked participants to complete an inbox task with work-related email inquiries and measured subjective well-being, as well as heart rate variability (HRV). Furthermore, we analyzed objective task performance. The findings revealed that, for individuals with low levels of trait self-control, job control negatively affected subjective well-being (i.e., anxiety and fatigue), but not HRV, through enhanced self-control demands. Although there was no evidence for mediating effects of self-control demands regarding performance, we found a (direct) moderation of trait self-control and job control in the form of lower performance of individuals with low trait self-control under high job control conditions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Many researchers and educators have strongly advocated for utilizing retrieval practice to improve student learning and grades. Yet, the mnemonic consequences of retrieval practice have almost exclusively been compared to rereading, which is a passive, ineffective study strategy. Across two experiments that each included 69 college student participants conducted in the 2022-2023 academic year, we tested how practice retrieving chemistry concepts impacts memory and transfer compared to generating mnemonics (and rereading). Learning was assessed either after 5 min or 2 days. Practicing retrieval and generating mnemonics both bolstered memory and transfer compared to restudying but did not yield different test performance from each other. Practicing retrieval took about half as much time as generating mnemonics, revealing its efficiency for learning complex concepts. However, participants rated generating mnemonics as more effective than practicing retrieval. We discuss the implications of these results for learners' study and for theories of retrieval practice. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

We examined whether the potential to distinguish between accurate and inaccurate decisions on eyewitness lineups could be improved by combining information from three witness behaviors: confidence, decision time, and the language that witnesses use to justify their lineup decisions. We assessed the postdictive potential of these variables for both positive identifications and lineup rejections on both simultaneous and sequential lineups. All three behaviors independently postdicted the accuracy of both positive identifications and lineup rejections for both simultaneous and sequential lineups. The potential to distinguish between accurate and inaccurate lineup decisions was maximized by considering all three variables. Interestingly, the classifier trained to distinguish the language of accurate and inaccurate witnesses appeared to recover a distinction between use of absolute- and relative-judgment strategies. For both simultaneous and sequential lineups, accurate decisions were accompanied by absolute language and inaccurate decisions were accompanied by relative language. The applied implications of this work are clear-accurate witnesses are confident, fast, and reference an absolute-judgment strategy. This work also advances theory on why sequential lineups lead to worse discriminability than do simultaneous lineups. Sequential lineups do not increase use of absolute-judgment strategies, but might make it more difficult to determine the strongest match to memory. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Plastic pollution control is imminent, and choosing biodegradable plastic bags instead of ordinary plastic bags is a critical way to control plastic pollution from the consumer side. This study constructs a prediction model of consumers' willingness to use biodegradable plastic bags under the influence of perceived behavioral control based on the stimulus-organism-response model from the consumer perspective's supply and demand sides. The empirical test results from 852 sample data points show that perceived product quality and price recognition have a significant positive effect on the willingness to use biodegradable plastic bags; attitude has a mediating effect on both paths; label cognition does not have a significant effect on the willingness to use biodegradable plastic bags, but label trust can play a mediating role; and the moderating effect of perceived behavioral control is also successfully verified. These findings can provide policy recommendations for promoting consumers' use of biodegradable plastic bags. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

An abundance of research has demonstrated that both posttesting (also referred to as retrieval practice) and pretesting (asking a learner for an answer to a cue before a study trial has been provided) can enhance the long-term retention of material. While the benefits of retrieval practice have been widely applied in various real-world applications, such as computerized tools that promote the memorization of factual materials, pretesting has seen limited real-world application. In this study, we examine whether and under which realistic digital learning conditions combining pretesting and posttesting can promote learning. In four experiments (total N = 210), we contrast learning conditions in which repeated retrieval practice is preceded by passive study to learning conditions in which retrieval practice is preceded by a test. In the first two experiments, we confirm and extend previous findings by demonstrating that pretesting boosts retrieval accuracy and reduces response times on subsequent retrieval repetitions, regardless of the accuracy of the pretest. We find these effects both when a fixed item repetition schedule is used and with performance-based, adaptive item scheduling that resembles popular digital learning tools. However, after three repetitions of an item, the initial advantage of pretesting disappears, calling into question its usefulness in applied settings that involve spaced repetition. In the final two experiments, we explore a more targeted use of pretesting, leveraging it to assess prior knowledge. Dropping items that were answered correctly during the pretest enhanced overall learning efficiency, especially for learners with moderate to high prior knowledge, without disadvantaging those with low prior knowledge. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).