Construal processes and trait ambiguity: Implications for self-peer agreement in personality judgment.

The relationship between trait ambiguity and self–peer agreement in personality judgment was examined. In Study 1, self–peer agreement was lower on ambiguous traits (those with many behavioral referents) than on unambiguous ones (those with few behavioral referents). This finding was partially moderated by the level of friendship between peers. These results suggest that people disagree in their judgments because they use idiosyncratic trait definitions when making judgments on ambiguous traits. Study 2 tested this explanation by exploring self–peer agreement when participant pairs were forced to use the same trait definition versus different ones when judging themselves and each other. Forcing participants to use the same trait definition increased the degree to which their judgments covaried with one another. Discussion centers on the cognitive and motivational forces that can influence the degree to which personality judgments differ. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cyclical processes in personality and psychopathology.

Both the understanding of psychopathology and the ability to intervene therapeutically are enhanced by an appreciation of the central role of vicious circles in the development and maintenance of psychological disorder. It is usually possible to discern a structure to people's difficulties in which internal states and external events continually recreate the conditions for the reoccurrence of each other in an all too real psychological version of the mythical perpetual motion machine. This article illustrates how such circular processes work in a number of representative types of psychological difficulty and discusses the implications of this conception for understanding psychopathology and for therapeutic intervention. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effortfulness and flexibility of dispositional judgment processes.

Two experiments investigated situational information is used to identify behavior (assimilative identification) and to adjust dispositional inferences from the identified behavior (inferential adjustment). Participants heard an ambiguous or unambiguous evaluation of a job candidate by an evaluator who was under situational pressure to present either a positive or negative evaluation. In Experiment 1 participants were under low or high cognitive load. In Experiment 2 the situational information was either validated or invalidated. Results showed that cognitive load and invalidation eliminated the use of situational information for inferential adjustment. Behavior ambiguity determined the use of situational information for assimilative identification. The results suggest that the use of situational information for assimilative identification is resource independent but inflexible, whereas inferential adjustment is flexible but resource dependent. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attributions of familiarity in amnesia: Evidence from a fame judgment task.

To evaluate the extent to which amnesic patients can attribute the source of familiarity to its correct source during a fame judgment task, gains in familiarity were placed in opposition to conscious recollection. In the 1st experiment, patients and controls were told specifically that nonfamous names presented just prior to a fame judgment task were not famous; in the 2nd experiment they were told that nonfamous names were in fact famous. Although such instructions produced dramatically different results in the fame judgment performance of normal control Ss, minimal change in attribution of fame occurred for the amnesic Ss. It is concluded that the amnesic Ss were unable to attribute the familiarity of a previously presented name to its correct source because of their inability to recollect a name's prior presentation. Hence, it may be the nature of the memory query rather than the adequacy of a specific memory system that determines whether or not an amnesic patient can access information in memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Moral judgment, personality, and attitudes toward authority.

Two studies investigating attitudes toward authority using the Survey of Ethical Attitudes (SEA) clarify the dynamics of conformity. The SEA and a semantic differential were administered to 369 college students, who rated the concepts mother, father, police, and government on 10 evaluative adjective pairs. Ss endorsing the "ethics of social responsibility" held more favorable attitudes toward authority than did those endorsing the "ethics of personal conscience." This result was replicated in the 2nd study. (17 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Comparison processes in social judgment: Mechanisms and consequences.

This article proposes an informational perspective on comparison consequences in social judgment. It is argued that to understand the variable consequences of comparison, one has to examine what target knowledge is activated during the comparison process. These informational underpinnings are conceptualized in a selective accessibility model that distinguishes 2 fundamental comparison processes. Similarity testing selectively makes accessible knowledge indicating target-standard similarity, whereas dissimilarity testing selectively makes accessible knowledge indicating target-standard dissimilarity. These respective subsets of target knowledge build the basis for subsequent target evaluations, so that similarity testing typically leads to assimilation whereas dissimilarity testing typically leads to contrast. The model is proposed as a unifying conceptual framework that integrates diverse findings on comparison consequences in social judgment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Positive and negative emotion enhances the processing of famous faces in a semantic judgment task.

Previous work has consistently reported a facilitatory influence of positive emotion in face recognition (e.g., D’Argembeau, Van der Linden, Comblain, & Etienne, 2003). However, these reports asked participants to make recognition judgments in response to faces, and it is unknown whether emotional valence may influence other stages of processing, such as at the level of semantics. Furthermore, other evidence suggests that negative rather than positive emotion facilitates higher level judgments when processing nonfacial stimuli (e.g., Mickley & Kensinger, 2008), and it is possible that negative emotion also influences latter stages of face processing. The present study addressed this issue, examining the influence of emotional valence while participants made semantic judgments in response to a set of famous faces. Eye movements were monitored while participants performed this task, and analyses revealed a reduction in information extraction for the faces of liked and disliked celebrities compared with those of emotionally neutral celebrities. Thus, in contrast to work using familiarity judgments, both positive and negative emotion facilitated processing in this semantic-based task. This pattern of findings is discussed in relation to current models of face processing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The relationship between memory and judgment depends on whether the judgment task is memory-based or on-line.

Five alternative information processing models that relate memory for evidence to judgments based on the evidence are identified in the current social cognition literature: independent processing, availability, biased retrieval, biased encoding, and incongruity-biased encoding. A distinction between 2 types of judgment tasks, memory-based vs online, is introduced and is related to the 5 process models. In 3 experiments, using memory-based tasks where the availability model described Ss' thinking, direct correlations between memory and judgment measures were obtained. In a 4th experiment, using online tasks where any of the remaining 4 process models may apply, prediction of the memory–judgment relationship was equivocal but usually followed the independence model prediction of zero correlation. It is concluded that memory and judgment will be directly related when the judgment was based directly on the retrieval of evidence information in memory-based judgment tasks. (61 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interactive effects of personality and mood on emotion-congruent memory and judgment.

Prior research on emotion congruency has tended to focus on either the effects of mood states or of personality traits on cognition. The aim of the present research was to explore when and how personality traits and mood states interact to influence emotion-congruent memory and judgment. In Study 1, participants filled out measures of personality and natural mood and then completed a series of memory and judgment tasks. The same procedure was used in Study 2, except a positive or negative mood state was induced prior to completion of the cognitive tasks. Extraversion and positive affectivity were related to retrieval of positive memories and the tendency to make positive judgments. Neuroticism and negative affectivity were related to retrieval of negative memories and the tendency to make negative judgments. In addition, several significant personality by mood interaction effects on memory and judgment were obtained in Study 2, which suggests that personality and mood effects on cognition are not independent of one another. Discussion focuses on integrating mood-congruency theories with personality theories and specifying the conditions under which mood by trait interaction effects emerge. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Information quantity and quality affect the realistic accuracy of personality judgment.

Triads of unacquainted college students interacted in 1 of 5 experimental conditions that manipulated information quantity (amount of information) and information quality (relevance of information to personality), and they then made judgments of each others' personalities. To determine accuracy, the authors compared the ratings of each judge to a broad-based accuracy criterion composed of personality ratings from 3 types of knowledgeable informants (the self, real-life acquaintances, and clinician-interviewers). Results supported the hypothesis that information quantity and quality would be positively related to objective knowledge about the targets and realistic accuracy. Interjudge consensus and self-other agreement followed a similar pattern. These findings are consistent with expectations based on models of the process of accurate judgment (D. C. Funder, 1995, 1999) and consensus (D. A. Kenny, 1994). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive processes in implicit personality trait inferences.

The cognitive processes by which people infer whether individuals who possess one trait also possess another were examined in 2 reaction time experiments with a total of 66 undergraduates. Ss took less time to affirm and more time to deny that 2 traits co-occurred, the greater the semantic similarity of the traits. As the amount of recalled evidence required to affirm that 2 traits co-occurred was increased by altering the nature of the co-occurrence statements, true response times increased and false response times decreased. Although it was not possible to determine whether the stored semantic "features" of a trait are locations on meaning dimensions, specific behaviors, known people characterized by the trait, or something else, results strongly suggest that implicit personality inferences result from a 2-stage process in which the 2nd and more detailed memory search stage is entered only if the similarity of the semantic features of the traits falls between 2 task-established decision criteria. (28 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Go with the flow: How to master a nonlinear multiple-cue judgment task.

The authors examined the cognitive processes that participants use in linear and nonlinear multiple-cue judgment tasks, hypothesizing that people are unable to use explicit cue abstraction in a nonlinear task, instead turning to exemplar memory. Experiment 1 confirmed that people are unable to use cue abstraction in nonlinear tasks but failed to confirm the hypothesized, spontaneous shift to exemplar memory. Instead, the participants appeared to be trapped in persistent and futile attempts to abstract the cue-criterion relations. Only after being instructed to rely on exemplar memory in Experiment 2 did they master the nonlinear task. The results suggest that adaptive shifts of representation need not occur spontaneously and that analytical thought may sometimes harm performance in nonlinear tasks. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Understanding perceptual processes: Responses to a weight-illusion task.

In two studies, children and adults were presented with a weight illusion based on perceptual adaptation or contrast effects, in which one of two containers of equal weights felt heavier than the other. Of major concern were developmental trends in the extent to which Ss erroneously maintained that the perceived difference represented a real difference, versus one in appearance, and the extent to which cues alerting Ss to past adaptationlike experiences would affect their understanding of the illusion. Results showed improved performance, with increases in age and the effectiveness of cuing about previous adaptation experiences, but only after the task was altered to highlight the relevance of the condition that produced the illusion. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Modulation of word-reading processes in task switching.

The authors examined modulation of the simple act of word naming induced by the conflict arising when that task competes with color naming in a task-switching paradigm. Subjects alternated between naming a word printed in black and naming the color of a stimulus in 2 conditions. In the incongruent condition, the colored stimulus was an irrelevant word generating conflict, and in the neutral condition, color was carried by a row of asterisks. Subjects took substantially longer to name a word printed in black in the incongruent condition, implying a form of suppression. This modulation of the word-naming response was adaptive in that it led to more efficient color naming. The modulation effect was replicated using phoneme detection instead of word naming but not with lexical decision or visual comparison, implicating a phonological encoding process. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Bidirectional priming processes in the Simon task.

The Simon effect is mostly explained in terms of dual-route models, which imply unidirectional activation processes from stimulus features to response features. However, there is also evidence that these preactivated response features themselves prime corresponding stimulus features. From this perspective, the Simon effect should only occur whenever the response is unequivocally mapped to just 1 stimulus feature (one-to-one mapping). If, however, more than 1 stimulus feature is mapped to each spatial response (many-to-one mapping), priming activation should spread and thus reduce or eliminate the Simon effect. In a series of 4 Simon task experiments, the authors compared many-to-one with one-to-one mapping, holding stimulus set size constant. As was expected, the Simon effect was only present with one-to-one mapping but was eliminated with many-to-one mapping. The authors therefore suggest that the Simon effect also depends on priming from response features to stimulus features. Theoretical implications of these findings are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of work task cues and play task cues on information processing, judgment, and motivation.

Explored how task cues affect cognition, attitudes, and behavior in this laboratory study with 82 MBA students. Linguistic analysis of responses to the same puzzle task, cued as either work or play, revealed that task cues influenced how information was perceived and was used to form judgments and to shape behavioral responses. Ss performing work tasks attended more to information about the quantity of their performance and made more streamlined, goal-directed responses. Ss performing play tasks attended more to information about the quality of their performance; made more elaborated, image-laden responses; and were more intrinsically motivated. Links among task cues, cognitive processes, and performance were explicated through path analysis. Task cues affected performance outcomes indirectly by instantiating associated cognitive orientations: a means orientation in play and an ends orientation in work. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On the accuracy of personality judgment: A realistic approach.

The "accuracy paradigm" for the study of personality judgment provides an important, new complement to the "error paradigm" that dominated this area of research for almost 2 decades. The present article introduces a specific approach within the accuracy paradigm called the Realistic Accuracy Model (RAM). RAM begins with the assumption that personality traits are real attributes of individuals. This assumption entails the use of a broad array of criteria for the evaluation of personality judgment and leads to a model that describes accuracy as a function of the availability, detection, and utilization of relevant behavioral cues. RAM provides a common explanation for basic moderators of accuracy, sheds light on how these moderators interact, and outlines a research agenda that includes the reintegration of the study of error with the study of accuracy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The development of a general associative learning account of skill acquisition in a relative arrival-time judgment task.

Current theory assumes that individuals only use information from the immediate environment to perform relative arrival-time judgment tasks. This article presents a theoretical analysis of the memory requirements of this task. The authors present an analysis of the inputs to the memory system and the processes that map those inputs onto outputs. The analysis generates a set of predictions regarding the specificity of transfer and the role of context during learning. In 3 experiments, participants decided whether pairs of aircraft would violate a minimum separation standard or pass each other safely. Participants were presented with pairs of aircraft in which properties of the pair varied along 3 structural and 3 surface dimensions. Contexts were defined by the co-occurrence of specific values along stimulus dimensions and the use of a neutral label. The results suggest that transfer was limited by the dimensions that were varied in training and the context in which those dimensions were varied. The discussion focuses on the problems that complex tasks like relative judgment pose for associative learning mechanisms and the development of precise models of cognition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Clinical judgment as a means of improving actuarial prediction from the MMPI.

Submitted pairs of MMPI profiles, matched for psychotic tendency but dissimilar in associated clinical diagnosis, to 7 expert judges for ratings of relative likelihood of a psychotic diagnosis. Since it was assumed that categorical decisions are best made from the MMPI by resorting to statistical procedures, the index provided no basis for decision. Under these conditions, judges' diagnoses did not improve over chance. The possibility that some judges might be worthy of study when confident was also not supported. When confidence in judgment was accompanied by greater success for that judge, the available alternative or nonmatching index was almost equally successful on that judge-selected subset of cases. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Executive control of cognitive processes in task switching.

In 4 experiments, participants alternated between different tasks or performed the same task repeatedly. The tasks for 2 of the experiments required responding to geometric objects in terms of alternative classification rules, and the tasks for the other 2 experiments required solving arithmetic problems in terms of alternative numerical operations. Performance was measured as a function of whether the tasks were familiar or unfamiliar, the rules were simple or complex, and visual cues were present or absent about which tasks should be performed. Task alternation yielded switching-time costs that increased with rule complexity but decreased with task cuing. These factor effects were additive, supporting a model of executive control that has goal-shifting and rule-activation stages for task switching. It appears that rule activation takes more time for switching from familiar to unfamiliar tasks than for switching in the opposite direction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)