Disgust sensitivity relates to attitudes toward gay men and lesbian women across 31 nations

Previous work has reported a relation between pathogen-avoidance motivations and prejudice toward various social groups, including gay men and lesbian women. It is currently unknown whether this association is present across cultures, or specific to North America. Analyses of survey data from adult heterosexuals ( N = 11,200) from 31 countries showed a small relation between pathogen disgust sensitivity (an individual-difference measure of pathogen-avoidance motivations) and measures of antigay attitudes. Analyses also showed that pathogen disgust sensitivity relates not only to antipathy toward gay men and lesbians, but also to negativity toward other groups, in particular those associated with violations of traditional sexual norms (e.g., prostitutes). These results suggest that the association between pathogen-avoidance motivations and antigay attitudes is relatively stable across cultures and is a manifestation of a more general relation between pathogen-avoidance motivations and prejudice towards groups associated with sexual norm violations

Disgust sensitivity relates to attitudes toward gay men and lesbian women across 31 nations

Previous work has reported a relation between pathogen-avoidance motivations and prejudice toward various social groups, including gay men and lesbian women. It is currently unknown whether this association is present across cultures, or specific to North America. Analyses of survey data from adult heterosexuals (N = 11,200) from 31 countries showed a small relation between pathogen disgust sensitivity (an individual-difference measure of pathogen-avoidance motivations) and measures of antigay attitudes. Analyses also showed that pathogen disgust sensitivity relates not only to antipathy toward gay men and lesbians, but also to negativity toward other groups, in particular those associated with violations of traditional sexual norms (e.g., prostitutes). These results suggest that the association between pathogen-avoidance motivations and antigay attitudes is relatively stable across cultures and is a manifestation of a more general relation between pathogen-avoidance motivations and prejudice towards groups associated with sexual norm violations

Concerns with attempts by neuroeconomics to answer the philosophical question “Is it rational to donate money for charity?”

by Sumitava Mukherje

Role of attentional scope on altruistic decisions

Understanding the cognitive mechanisms involved in altruistic decisions could enable us to better comprehend complex social interactions and also help us achieve a larger social gain. I sought to identify domain-generic mechanisms that could underlie charitable donation and investigated how content-free processing style linked with scope of attention influence altruistic decision. Attention is an important cognitive process that can influence a variety of behavior including prosociality. Most previous studies are based on effects of the presence (or lack) of attention using the framework of attention as a resource. Comparatively, there has been hardly any work on how differences in scope of attention could influence altruistic decisions. The overall hypothesis of the thesis was that since global processing is linked with eager approach orientations, love, compassions, an interdependent-self model and widening of one’s thought-action repertoire; it should increase altruistic behavior. Five studies were performed to investigate how attentional scope influence altruistic decisions. Study 1 and 2 experimentally manipulated scope of attention and found that priming a broad scope of attention using a global processing style increases propensity to donate money for poor children. Study 3 found that global processing leads to increased allocation towards charities whose appeal is framed in an approach orientation compared to appeals framed in an avoidance orientation. In study 4, even when socio-economical backgrounds were matched, global processing lead to more donations in an anonymous economic game among students. Study 5, showed that real-world motivational states like love and hunger which is linked with global and local processing respectively, influence donations in predictable ways. This thesis conclusively shows that attentional mechanisms play important role in decision making. Specifically, it adds to the literature on attentional scope and perceptual processing styles by showing for the first time, global-local processing styles can influence altruistic decisions. One of the important contributions of this thesis is that some seemingly unrelated previous studies on donations and pro-social behavior can possible by seen in light of the domain-generic global-local processing framework. After discussing some limitations of these studies, I conclude with a model of attentinal broadening and highlight possible applications to other fields.by Sumitava MukherjeePh.D

Materials

Sample instructions and screens use

Role of attentional processes on monetary estimations

If anyone is asked to name 'the one thing’ which virtually affects almost all life’s decisions, then many of us might agree that it is 'money', primarily due to its importance in everyday life. While psychologists have explored systematic effects of money on life and social behavior, there is a paucity of literature on psychology of Money (Vohs, Mead & Goode, 2008). It seems intuitive that key cognitive micro-processes like attention might interact with processes related with money.by Sumitava Mukherjee and Jaison A. Manjal

Cognitive Science is (largely) Psychological Science

Cognitive science has historically been introduced as a multidisciplinary and, sometimes, an interdisciplinary study of the mind. Recent critical views of the field have questioned the foundational core and its multidisciplinary nature by suggesting that psychology has come to dominate cognitive science. As these are actively debated issues, we need further investigations. This study examines the degree of overlap between cognitive science and psychological science by comparing article keywords and departmental affiliations of authors extracted from flagship journals over the past decade (2012-2022). The results reveal that over 50% of published authors stem from psychology departments. The topics of study between the two remain quite similar as well. However, network analyses found fragmentation in terms of the methodological approaches and a considerable focus by the community of cognitive scientists on formal modeling. Based on the topics and socio-institutional analysis, we suggest that cognitive science is largely (cognitive) psychology. Implications for the field of cognitive science and its claims of multidisciplinarity are discussed

Even unconscious thought is influenced by attentional mechanisms

In this commentary, we focus on the role of attentional mechanisms in unconscious thought. We argue that even distracted or unconscious thought is capacity limited and differences in scope of attention influence processing during unconscious thought. Attention also would influence processes at different stages in the proposed lens model. We conclude that there is a clear need to understand the role of attention to better understand conscious or unconscious thought.by Narayanan Srinivasana and Sumitava Mukherje

Effect of money on estimations of social distance

by Sumitava Mukherjee and Jaison A. Manjal

Critical analysis of dretske’s tests for perception and awareness

by Jaison A. Manjaly and Sumitava Mukherje