Red, rank, and romance in women viewing men.

In many nonhuman species of vertebrates, females are attracted to red on male conspecifics. Red is also a signal of male status in many nonhuman vertebrate species, and females show a mating preference for high-status males. These red–attraction and red–status links have been found even when red is displayed on males artificially. In the present research, we document parallels between human and nonhuman females' response to male red. Specifically, in a series of 7 experiments we demonstrate that women perceive men to be more attractive and sexually desirable when seen on a red background and in red clothing, and we additionally show that status perceptions are responsible for this red effect. The influence of red appears to be specific to women's romantic attraction to men: Red did not influence men's perceptions of other men, nor did it influence women's perceptions of men's overall likability, agreeableness, or extraversion. Participants showed no awareness that the research focused on the influence of color. These findings indicate that color not only has aesthetic value but can carry meaning and impact psychological functioning in subtle, important, and provocative ways. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of prosocial video games on prosocial behavior.

Previous research has documented that playing violent video games has various negative effects on social behavior in that it causes an increase in aggressive behavior and a decrease in prosocial behavior. In contrast, there has been much less evidence on the effects of prosocial video games. In the present research, 4 experiments examined the hypothesis that playing a prosocial (relative to a neutral) video game increases helping behavior. In fact, participants who had played a prosocial video game were more likely to help after a mishap, were more willing (and devoted more time) to assist in further experiments, and intervened more often in a harassment situation. Results further showed that exposure to prosocial video games activated the accessibility of prosocial thoughts, which in turn promoted prosocial behavior. Thus, depending on the content of the video game, playing video games not only has negative effects on social behavior but has positive effects as well. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Threat and selective exposure: The moderating role of threat and decision context on confirmatory information search after decisions.

Previous studies on the impact of perceived threat on confirmatory information search (selective exposure) in the context of decision making have yielded mixed results. Some studies have suggested that confirmatory information search is reduced, yet others have found contradictory effects. The present series of 5 studies consistently found that the crucial moderator for these inconsistent findings was whether the induced threat was contextually related to the subsequent decision and information search tasks. Contextual incongruence (e.g., an induction of terrorist threat followed by an economic decision case) results in reduced levels of confirmatory information search, whereas a congruent threat (e.g., an induction of terrorist threat followed by a decision case on terrorism) results in increased levels of confirmatory information search. Analyses of the underlying psychological processes revealed that decision-unrelated threat inductions increase decision makers' experienced decision uncertainty, thus reducing confirmatory information search. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of risk-glorifying media exposure on risk-positive cognitions, emotions, and behaviors: A meta-analytic review.

In recent years, there has been a surge in the quantity of media content that glorifies risk-taking behavior, such as risky driving, extreme sports, or binge drinking. The authors conducted a meta-analysis involving more than 80,000 participants and 105 independent effect sizes to examine whether exposure to such media depictions increased their recipients' risk-taking inclinations. A positive connection was found for overall, combined risk taking (g = .41); as well as its underlying dimensions: risk-taking behaviors (g = .41), risk-positive cognitions and attitudes (g = .35), and risk-positive emotions (g = .56). This effect was observed across varying research methods (experimental, correlational, longitudinal); types of media (video games, movies, advertising, TV, music); and differing risk-related outcome measures (e.g., smoking, drinking, risky driving, sexual behavior). Multiple moderator analyses revealed 2 theoretically new boundary conditions for sociocognitive models. First, the effect was stronger for active (i.e., video games) than for passive (e.g., film, music) exposure to risk-glorifying media content. Second, the effect was stronger when there was a high degree of contextual fit between the media content and type of risk-taking measure. The theoretical, practical, and societal implications of the present research synthesis are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Preference-consistent evaluation of information in the hidden profile paradigm: Beyond group-level explanations for the dominance of shared information in group decisions.

Common explanations for the failure of groups to solve so-called hidden profiles focus on group processes, namely insufficient discussion of unshared information and premature consensus on a suboptimal alternative. As 2 experiments show, even in the absence of such group processes, hidden profiles are hardly ever solved. In Experiment 1, participants first received individual information about a personnel selection task and then read a group discussion protocol containing full information exchange. If the individual information was misleading (hidden profile), most participants failed to detect the correct alternative. In Experiment 2, it was determined that this effect is due to preference-consistent evaluation of information that constitutes an individual-level process mediating the failure of group members to solve hidden profiles. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

How to ameliorate negative effects of violent video games on cooperation: Play it cooperatively in a team

The present research tests the idea that playing a team-player video game in which players work together as teammates and assist each other in achieving a common goal ameliorates the negative effects of violent video game play on cooperative behavior. In fact, two studies revealed that, relative to a single-player mode, playing a cooperative team-player violent video game increased cooperation in a decision dilemma task. Importantly, cooperative behavior generalized across targets in that the decision dilemma was played with a partner who was not the video game play partner. Mediation analyses revealed that cooperative team-play promoted feelings of cohesion, which activated trust norms, which in turn increased cooperative behavior.     

Information sampling and group decision making: The effects of an advocacy decision procedure and task experience.

Group discussions tend to focus on information that was previously known by all members (shared information) rather than information known by only 1 member (unshared information). If the shared information implies a suboptimal alternative, this sampling bias is associated with inaccurate group decisions. The present study examines the impact of 2 factors on information exchange and decision quality: (a) an advocacy group decision procedure versus unstructured discussion and (b) task experience. Results show that advocacy groups discussed both more shared and unshared information than free-discussion groups. Further, with increasing experience, more unshared information was mentioned in advocacy groups. In contrast, there was no such increase in unstructured discussions. Yet advocacy groups did not significantly improve their decision quality with experience. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Playing prosocial video games increases empathy and decreases schadenfreude.

Past research provided abundant evidence that exposure to violent video games increases aggressive tendencies and decreases prosocial tendencies. In contrast, research on the effects of exposure to prosocial video games has been relatively sparse. The present research found support for the hypothesis that exposure to prosocial video games is positively related to prosocial affect and negatively related to antisocial affect. More specifically, two studies revealed that playing a prosocial (relative to a neutral) video game increased interpersonal empathy and decreased reported pleasure at another's misfortune (i.e., schadenfreude). These results lend further credence to the predictive validity of the General Learning Model (Buckley & Anderson, 2006) for the effects of media exposure on social tendencies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-regulation and selective exposure: The impact of depleted self-regulation resources on confirmatory information processing.

In the present research, the authors investigated the impact of self-regulation resources on confirmatory information processing, that is, the tendency of individuals to systematically prefer standpoint-consistent information to standpoint-inconsistent information in information evaluation and search. In 4 studies with political and economic decision-making scenarios, it was consistently found that individuals with depleted self-regulation resources exhibited a stronger tendency for confirmatory information processing than did individuals with nondepleted self-regulation resources. Alternative explanations based on processes of ego threat, cognitive load, and mood were ruled out. Mediational analyses suggested that individuals with depleted self-regulation resources experienced increased levels of commitment to their own standpoint, which resulted in increased confirmatory information processing. In sum, the impact of ego depletion on confirmatory information search seems to be more motivational than cognitive in nature. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The bystander-effect: A meta-analytic review on bystander intervention in dangerous and non-dangerous emergencies.

Research on bystander intervention has produced a great number of studies showing that the presence of other people in a critical situation reduces the likelihood that an individual will help. As the last systematic review of bystander research was published in 1981 and was not a quantitative meta-analysis in the modern sense, the present meta-analysis updates the knowledge about the bystander effect and its potential moderators. The present work (a) integrates the bystander literature from the 1960s to 2010, (b) provides statistical tests of potential moderators, and (c) presents new theoretical and empirical perspectives on the novel finding of non-negative bystander effects in certain dangerous emergencies as well as situations where bystanders are a source of physical support for the potentially intervening individual. In a fixed effects model, data from over 7,700 participants and 105 independent effect sizes revealed an overall effect size of g = –0.35. The bystander effect was attenuated when situations were perceived as dangerous (compared with non-dangerous), perpetrators were present (compared with non-present), and the costs of intervention were physical (compared with non-physical). This pattern of findings is consistent with the arousal-cost-reward model, which proposes that dangerous emergencies are recognized faster and more clearly as real emergencies, thereby inducing higher levels of arousal and hence more helping. We also identified situations where bystanders provide welcome physical support for the potentially intervening individual and thus reduce the bystander effect, such as when the bystanders were exclusively male, when they were naive rather than passive confederates or only virtually present persons, and when the bystanders were not strangers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)