Discounting of past outcomes.

Drug use, abuse, and addiction are common behavioral manifestations of impulsiveness. A useful and popular laboratory analogue of impulsiveness is temporal discounting. Temporal discounting refers to the reduction in the present, subjective value of outcomes that are temporally distant in the future. The extensive literature on temporal discounting indicates hyperbolic discounting, the magnitude effect, and the sign effect. It is possible that the same principles may apply to other dimensions of psychological distance, including past temporal distance. The purpose of the present study was to examine the possibility that outcomes in the past are discounted hyperbolically and at a similar rate to outcomes in the future. The magnitude and sign effects were also examined in past discounting. Indifference points of college students were determined from a paper-and-pencil questionnaire of future and past discounting. The results demonstrate that humans discount temporally distant past outcomes similarly to future outcomes. Discounting of the future and past are qualitatively and quantitatively similar; discounting of past outcomes is orderly, hyperbolic, and consistent with most empirical observations from studies of future discounting, including the magnitude and sign effects. The present study indicates that the discounting of past outcomes is a quantifiable phenomenon, and the results are similar to observations from the established future-discounting literature. Past discounting may be of use in the study of drug-dependent and other impulsive populations. Implications of a relationship between future and past discounting are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Memory for the time of past events.

Laboratory and autobiographical studies of normal adults' memory for the time of past events are reviewed, and the main phenomena that have been discovered are described. A distinction is introduced among several kinds of information on which this knowledge could be based: information about distances, locations, and relative times of occurrence. The main theories of memory for time are classified in these terms, and each theory is evaluated in light of the available evidence. In spite of the common intuition that chronology is a basic property of autobiographical memory, the research reviewed demonstrates that there is no single, natural temporal code in human memory. Instead, a chronological past depends on a process of active, repeated construction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Automatic optimism: The affective basis of judgments about the likelihood of future events.

People generally judge that the future will be consistent with their desires, but the reason for this desirability bias is unclear. This investigation examined whether affective reactions associated with future events are the mechanism through which desires influence likelihood judgments. In 4 studies, affective reactions were manipulated for initially neutral events. Compared with a neutral condition, events associated with positive reactions were judged as likely to occur, and events associated with negative reactions were judged as unlikely to occur. Desirability biases were reduced when participants could misattribute affective reactions to a source other than future events, and the relationship between affective reactions and judgments was influenced when approach and avoidance motivations were independently manipulated. Together, these findings demonstrate that positive and negative affective reactions to potential events cause the desirability bias in likelihood judgments and suggest that this effect occurs because of a tendency to approach positive possibilities and avoid negative possibilities. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Influence of prior events on cognitive judgments in amnesia.

Amnesic patients and control Ss read the names of famous and nonfamous persons. Subsequently, both groups were more likely to designate a name as famous if it had been encountered previously. The facilitatory effect of prior presentation was similar for amnesic patients and control Ss and similar for famous and nonfamous names. For amnesic patients, the effect occurred despite severely impaired recognition memory for the names. In a 2nd experiment, recombining the first and last names that had been presented together did not diminish the facilitatory effect of prior presentation, which indicates that the effect does not depend on forming an association between first and last names. The results show that nondeclarative (implicit) memory can support the acquisition of information that is specific (e.g., names of persons) and that has no preexisting representation (e.g., nonfamous names). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mood dependent memory for events of the personal past.

Previous research on mood dependent memory (MDM) suggests that the more one must rely on internal resources, rather than on external aids, to generate both the target events and the cues required for their retrieval, the more likely is one's memory for these events to be mood dependent. To instantiate this "do-it-yourself" principle, 3 experiments were conducted in which Ss experiencing either a pleasant or an unpleasant mood generated autobiographical events in response to neutral nouns. Subsequently, Ss were tested for event free recall while in the same or the alternative mood state. All 3 studies showed MDM, such that the likelihood of recalling an event generated 2 or 3 days ago was higher when generation and recall moods matched than when they mismatched. Prospects for future research aimed at elucidating and extending these results are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Current concerns are past concerns.

Replies to comments by J. S. Armstrong (see record 1998-11971-007), D. Buck (see record 1998-11971-008), J. Friedrich (see record 1998-11971-009), and R. E. Redding (see record 1998-11971-010) regarding articles in the November 1997 issues of American Psychologist concerning student evaluations of teaching (SETs) (see records 1997-43129-002, 1997-43129-003, 1997-43129-004, and 1997-43129-005). The current authors contend that the challenges explored in the comments are weak and suggestions are problematic. Abrami and D'Apollonia cite their review of research evidence from multisection validity studies and found that ratings explain instructor impacts on student learning to a moderate extend (corrected r?=?.47). They also state that the relationship between ratings and teacher-produced learning is somewhat variable. They also contend that it is harmful to disregard teaching effectiveness as a criterion for promotion and tenure, urge prudence in decision making, and advocate the use of ratings to make only gross distinctions regarding teaching effectiveness. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Outcome feedback: Hindsight and information.

Although "hindsight bias" research has demonstrated that outcome feedback leads people to exaggerate the odds they would have placed on known outcomes, learning theories view feedback as the key to effective adaptation. Our model and data show that outcome feedback has multiple effects. People can extract diagnostic information from feedback despite overestimating what they would have known in foresight. Ss reliably discriminate easy tasks where they "knew it all along" from difficult tasks where they "never would have known it"; differential reactions to feedback provide information useful in other judgment tasks such as assessment of population base-rates and personal knowledge calibration. In Experiments 1–4, feedback increased judgmental accuracy by over 150%. However, a final experiment suggests that certain tasks (insight problems) produce such strong "I knew it all along" reactions that hindsight can overwhelm the information contained in feedback and reduce predictive accuracy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Impact of directly and indirectly experienced events: The origin of crime-related judgments and behaviors.

Used data collected from 1,862 adults in 2 surveys of crime victimization to examine the integration of 1st-hand and indirect experiences with crime into crime-related judgments and behaviors. Analysis revealed 2 independent levels of judgment: general judgments of the base rate of crime and individual judgments of personal vulnerability to crime. Examination of the effect of 1st-hand and indirect experiences on these judgments counters the conventional wisdom that 1st-hand experiences have greater influence than indirect experiences and suggests that the relative influence of different modalities of experience depends on the level of the judgment being considered. The role of the perceived informativeness, memorability, and affectivity of a crime victimization experience in mediating its impact was also explored. Results suggest that informativeness was generally the most important mediator of impact. Results also suggest that different characteristics mediated the impact of experiences on judgments and on behaviors. (46 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Intuitive and deliberate judgments are based on common principles.

[Correction Notice: An erratum for this article was reported in Vol 118(3) of Psychological Review (see record 2011-07436-001). An incorrect reference was given in the reference list. The incorrect reference and the correct reference are provided in the erratum.] [Correction Notice: An erratum for this article was reported online in Psychological Review on April 11 2011 (see record 2011-07436-001). An incorrect reference was given in the reference list. The incorrect reference is: Osman, B. (2004). Quality assessment, verification, and validation of modeling and simulation applications. Proceedings of the 2004 Winter Simulation Conference, 122–129. The correct reference is: Osman, M. (2004). An evaluation of dual process theories of reasoning. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 11, 998–1010.] A popular distinction in cognitive and social psychology has been between intuitive and deliberate judgments. This juxtaposition has aligned in dual-process theories of reasoning associative, unconscious, effortless, heuristic, and suboptimal processes (assumed to foster intuitive judgments) versus rule-based, conscious, effortful, analytic, and rational processes (assumed to characterize deliberate judgments). In contrast, we provide convergent arguments and evidence for a unified theoretical approach to both intuitive and deliberative judgments. Both are rule-based, and in fact, the very same rules can underlie both intuitive and deliberate judgments. The important open question is that of rule selection, and we propose a 2-step process in which the task itself and the individual's memory constrain the set of applicable rules, whereas the individual's processing potential and the (perceived) ecological rationality of the rule for the task guide the final selection from that set. Deliberate judgments are not generally more accurate than intuitive judgments; in both cases, accuracy depends on the match between rule and environment: the rules' ecological rationality. Heuristics that are less effortful and in which parts of the information are ignored can be more accurate than cognitive strategies that have more information and computation. The proposed framework adumbrates a unified approach that specifies the critical dimensions on which judgmental situations may vary and the environmental conditions under which rules can be expected to be successful. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

"I knew we would win": Hindsight bias for favorable and unfavorable team decision outcomes.

This study examined hindsight bias for team decisions in a competitive setting in which groups attempted to outperform each other. It was anticipated that, because of self-serving mechanisms, individuals would show hindsight bias only when decision outcomes allowed them to take credit for their own team's success or to downgrade another team for being unsuccessful. MBA students playing a market simulation game made hindsight estimates regarding the likelihood that either their own or another team would perform well. Consistent with a self-serving interpretation, when decision outcomes were favorable individuals evaluating their own team, but not those evaluating another, showed hindsight bias. When outcomes were unfavorable individuals evaluating their own team did not show hindsight bias, but those evaluating another team did. Discussion focuses on implications of hindsight bias in team decision-making settings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Influence of social comparisons of outcomes and procedures on fairness judgments.

This study investigated the effects of social comparisons of outcomes and procedures on fairness judgments. Participants performed 1 of 2 tasks with which they could earn a bonus. Three variables were manipulated: participant's control over task choice (present vs. absent), comparison other's control over task choice (present vs. absent), and comparison other's outcome (high vs. low). All participants were informed that they themselves earned a low outcome. The dependent variable was participants' judgments of the fairness of the way in which the experiment was conducted. Two 2-way interactions were predicted and found, one involving the participant's control and the comparison other's outcome and the other involving the participant's control and the comparison other's control. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Lay judgments about child custody after divorce.

In a pair of studies, we examine lay people's judgments about how hypothetical cases involving child custody after divorce should be resolved. The respondents were citizens called to jury service in Pima County, AZ. Study 1 found that both male and female respondents, if they were the judge, would most commonly award equally shared custody arrangements, as advocated by most fathers' groups. However, if the predivorce child care had been divided disproportionately between the parents, this preference shifted, slightly but significantly, toward giving more time to the parent who had provided most of that care, consistent with the Approximation Rule advocated by the American Law Institute. Moreover, respondents judged that the arrangements prevailing in today's court and legal environment would award equal custody considerably less often, and would thereby provide much less parenting time to fathers, than the respondents themselves would award. Study 2 found that respondents maintained their strong preference for equally shared custody even when there are very high levels of parental conflict for which the parents were equally to blame, but awarded substantially less time to the culpable parent when only one was the primary instigator of the parental conflict. The striking degree to which the public favors equal custody combined with their view that the current court system under-awards parenting time to fathers could account for past findings that the system is seriously slanted toward mothers, and suggests that family law may have a public relations problem. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Criteria for judging the admissibility of eyewitness testimony of long past events.

Court cases of recovered memories of childhood abuse, in which the victim's testimony may constitute the only evidence available, and a growing body of research demonstrating the inexactitude and suggestibility of autobiographical memory of long past events, are forcing courts and cognitive scientists to seek scientific, principled criteria for admissibility of such testimony. The authors use as examples 2 recent court cases. In the 1st case, a concussion produced total retrograde amnesia for an accident for a period of 3 years, and then, over a few months, the driver claimed his memory returned. In the 2nd, 2 adults reported to the police that they witnessed their sister's murder 35 years earlier, when they were 3 and 5 years old, respectively. The authors provide objective guidelines for courts to determine whether testimony about recovered or very-long-term memory for eyewitnessed events should be admissible. The principles outlined can be expanded easily to include eyewitness testimony in general. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Dimensional analysis of the Attributional Style Questionnaire: Attributions or outcomes and events.

Argues that the Attributional Style Questionnaire (ASQ) does not measure 3 attributional dimensions (i.e., internality, globality, and stability) but 2 outcome factors and several events factors. Two published subscale correlation matrices by C. Peterson et al (see record 1983-02470-001) and by A. J. Zautra et al (see record 1986-11854-001) were factor analyzed. In addition, ASQ data from 537 high school and college students were collected. A 3rd subscale matrix and 3 item correlation matrices were derived from these data and the factor analyses. All factor matrices were compared to hypothesized matrices, and the argument was supported. There may be little cross-situational consistency in attributional style. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

When are social judgments made? Evidence for the spontaneousness of trait inferences.

[Correction Notice: An erratum for this article was reported in Vol 50(2) of Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (see record 2008-10962-001). There are errors in the labeling of Figure 1 on p. 244. The ordinate percentages should be three times greater than indicated. In addition, the algebraic formula in the note for Table 2 on p. 245 is incorrect. The correct ordinate percentages and the correct algebraic formula are provided in the erratum.] Adapted E. Tulving and D. M. Thomson's (see record 2005-09647-002) encoding specificity paradigm for 2 recall experiments with 153 undergraduates to investigate whether Ss would make trait inferences without intentions or instructions at the encoding stage of processing behavioral information. Under memory instructions only, Ss read sentences describing people performing actions that implied traits. Later, Ss recalled each sentence under 1 of 3 cuing conditions: a dispositional cue (e.g., generous); a strong, nondispositional semantic associate to an important sentence word; or no cue. Results show that recall was best when cued by the disposition words. Ss were unaware of having made trait inferences. Interpreted in terms of encoding specificity, findings indicate that Ss unintentionally made trait inferences at encoding. It is suggested that attributions are made spontaneously, as part of the routine comprehension of social events. (39 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

It feels like yesterday: Self-esteem, valence of personal past experiences, and judgments of subjective distance.

Supporting predictions from temporal self-appraisal theory, participants in 3 studies reported feeling farther from former selves and experiences with unfavorable implications for their current self-view than from equally distant selves and experiences with flattering implications. This distancing bias occurred when assignment to negative and positive pasts was random, for both achievement and social outcomes and for single episodes as well as longer term experiences. Consistent with a motivational interpretation, the distancing bias was stronger among high than low self-esteem participants and occurred for personal but not for acquaintances' past events. Frequency of rehearsal and ease of recall of past episodes also predicted feelings of distance, but these variables did not account for the Self-Esteem × Valence interaction on subjective distancing of personal events. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Stereotype formation: Biased by association.

We propose that biases in attitude and stereotype formation might arise as a result of learned differences in the extent to which social groups have previously been predictive of behavioral or physical properties. Experiments 1 and 2 demonstrate that differences in the experienced predictiveness of groups with respect to evaluatively neutral information influence the extent to which participants later form attitudes and stereotypes about those groups. In contrast, Experiment 3 shows no influence of predictiveness when using a procedure designed to emphasize the use of higher level reasoning processes, a finding consistent with the idea that the root of the predictiveness bias is not in reasoning. Experiments 4 and 5 demonstrate that the predictiveness bias in formation of group beliefs does not depend on participants making global evaluations of groups. These results are discussed in relation to the associative mechanisms proposed by Mackintosh (1975) to explain similar phenomena in animal conditioning and associative learning. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Hindsight bias among physicians weighing the likelihood of diagnoses.

Examines findings showing that (1) those who know an event has occurred tend to claim that, if they had been asked to predict the event in advance, they would have been likely to do so; and (2) such Ss demonstrate hindsight bias to the extent that their "prediction" accuracy exceeds the accuracy of others who actually make the prediction without knowledge of the outcome. 75 practicing physicians were divided into 5 equal groups and given the same medical case history. The foresight group was asked to assign a probability estimate to each of 4 possible diagnoses. The 4 hindsight groups were asked to do the same, but each was told that a different 1 of the 4 possible diagnoses was correct. The hindsight groups, who were told that the least likely diagnoses were correct, assigned far greater probability estimates to these "correct" diagnoses than did the foresight group. Implications for physicians are discussed with respect to overconfident 2nd opinions, overconfidence in diagnostic accuracy, and inadequate appreciation of the original difficulty of diagnoses. (6 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)