Psychological science
-
Psychological science · Nov 2017
Meta AnalysisDebunking: A Meta-Analysis of the Psychological Efficacy of Messages Countering Misinformation.
This meta-analysis investigated the factors underlying effective messages to counter attitudes and beliefs based on misinformation. Because misinformation can lead to poor decisions about consequential matters and is persistent and difficult to correct, debunking it is an important scientific and public-policy goal. ⋯ A detailed debunking message correlated positively with the debunking effect. Surprisingly, however, a detailed debunking message also correlated positively with the misinformation-persistence effect.
-
Psychological science · Sep 2017
Resisting Temptation: Tracking How Self-Control Conflicts Are Successfully Resolved in Real Time.
Across four studies, we used mouse tracking to identify the dynamic, on-line cognitive processes that underlie successful self-control decisions. First, we showed that individuals display real-time conflict when choosing options consistent with their long-term goal over short-term temptations. ⋯ Third, we demonstrated that successful individuals who choose a long-term goal over a short-term temptation display movements that are smooth rather than abrupt, which suggests dynamic rather than stage-based resolution of self-control conflicts. These findings have important implications for contemporary theories of self-control.
-
Psychological science · Oct 2016
Blacks' Death Rate Due to Circulatory Diseases Is Positively Related to Whites' Explicit Racial Bias.
Perceptions of racial bias have been linked to poorer circulatory health among Blacks compared with Whites. However, little is known about whether Whites' actual racial bias contributes to this racial disparity in health. ⋯ Furthermore, in counties where Whites reported greater racial bias, both Blacks and Whites showed increased death rates due to circulatory diseases, but this relationship was stronger for Blacks than for Whites (Study 2). These results indicate that racial disparities in risk of circulatory disease and in circulatory-disease-related death rate are more pronounced in communities where Whites harbor more explicit racial bias.
-
Psychological science · Dec 2015
Put Your Imperfections Behind You: Temporal Landmarks Spur Goal Initiation When They Signal New Beginnings.
People often fail to muster the motivation needed to initiate goal pursuit. Across five laboratory experiments, we explored occasions when people naturally experience enhanced motivation to take actions that facilitate goal pursuit and why certain dates are more likely to spur goal initiation than others. We present causal evidence that emphasizing a temporal landmark denoting the beginning of a new time period increases people's intentions to initiate goal pursuit. In addition, we propose and show that people's strengthened motivation to begin pursuing their aspirations following such temporal landmarks originates in part from the psychological disassociation these landmarks induce from a person's past, imperfect self.
-
Psychological science · Nov 2015
Conceptual Conditioning: Mechanisms Mediating Conditioning Effects on Pain.
Classical conditioning can profoundly modify subsequent pain responses, but the mechanisms that drive this effect are unresolved. In pain-conditioning studies, cues are typically conditioned to primary aversive reinforcers; hence, subsequent pain modulation could reflect learned precognitive associations (i.e., those involving neural plasticity independent of expectations and other forms of conceptual thought) or conceptual expectancies. We isolated conceptual contributions using a thermal pain-conditioning procedure in which different conditioned stimulus (CS) cues were repeatedly paired with symbolic representations of high and low noxious heat. ⋯ These effects were mediated by participants' self-reported expectancies. CS cues associated with high temperature also evoked larger anticipatory SCRs than did CS cues associated with low temperature, but larger anticipatory SCRs predicted smaller subsequent heat-evoked SCRs. These results provide novel evidence that conditioned modulation of pain physiology can be acquired through purely conceptual processes, and that self-reported expectancies and physiological threat responses have opposing effects on pain.