An on-line look at automatic contrast and correction of behavior categorizations and dispositional inferences

The current study examined on-line behavior recategorization as a mechanism underlying corrections for contextual influences in dispositional inferences. After watching an initial comparison video that portrayed either a successful or unsuccessful performance on a spatial ability task, cognitive load and no load participants watched and made real-time ratings of a target performance. The comparison video was expected to exert a contrastive influence on participants' automatic impressions of the performance (behavior categorizations) and the child's intelligence (dispositional inferences). Load participants' on-line and post-video performance and ability ratings showed this expected effect, as did no load participants' initial on-line performance ratings. However, no load participants' later on-line and post-video ratings did not. These findings support the notion that corrections for contextual influence can occur at the level of behavior identification as perceivers encode behavioral cues

The effects of causal uncertainty, causal importance, and initial attitude on attention to causal persuasive arguments

In two studies, we examined how individual differences in causal uncertainty (CU), causal importance (CI), and initial attitudes affected the processing of a persuasive message that contained causal or non-causal arguments. We predicted that high CU individuals' doubts about their causal understanding of events would be activated when they were presented with counterattitudinal arguments. When these individuals also placed a high value on causal understanding (high CI), they should scrutinize any available causal explanations. As a result, they should be more persuaded by strong compared to weak causal arguments. In support of these predictions, we found in two studies that high CU/high CI participants were more persuaded by strong compared to weak counterattitudinal causal arguments. Mediational analyses in Study 2 revealed that high CU/high CI participants were more persuaded by strong causal arguments because they were more confident in them. Implications for the CU model and persuasion processes are discussed

Persuasion by causal arguments: The motivating role of perceived causal expertise

We examined how perceived causal expertise affects the processing of causal persuasive arguments. In Study 1, participants received strong or weak causal arguments from a content-area expert who was high or low in causal expertise. Participants in the high causal expertise condition processed the causal arguments carefully: they were more persuaded by strong compared to weak causal arguments. In Study 2, participants received a high or low causal confidence prime and then read a message from a source who was high or low in content-area expertise. The message contained strong or weak, causal or non-causal arguments. Participants who received both the causal confidence prime and the high content-area expertise information processed the causal arguments carefully: they were more persuaded by strong compared to weak causal arguments. These findings demonstrate that causal and content-area expertise can increase motivation to attend to causal arguments. Implications for the persuasion literature are discussed

Chronic and temporarily activated causal uncertainty beliefs and stereotype usage

In 3 studies, we examined the hypothesis that the effects of stereotype usage on target judgments are moderated by causal uncertainty beliefs and related accuracy goal structures. In Study 1, we focused on the role of chronically accessible causal uncertainty beliefs as predictors of a target's level of guilt for an alleged academic misconduct offense. In Study 2, we examined the role of chronic causal uncertainty reduction goals and a manipulated accuracy goal; in Study 3, we investigated the role of primed causal uncertainty beliefs on guilt judgments. In all 3 studies, we found that activation of causal uncertainty beliefs and accuracy concerns was related to a reduced usage of stereotypes. Moreover, this reduction was not associated with participants' levels of perceived control, depression, state affect, need for cognition, or personal need for structure. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for the model of causal uncertainty and, more generally, in terms of the motivational processes underlying stereotype usage

A functionalist approach to online trolling

Online trolling is often linked to sadism and psychopathy. Yet, little research has assessed why people high in these traits seek online environments to achieve their nefarious goals. We employ a functionalist approach to examine whether people high in sadism and psychopathy are motivated to seek the affordances of online environments (e.g., anonymity) to reveal their malevolent self-aspects by engaging in trolling behavior. A sample of 515 university undergraduates (Mage = 20.47) read vignettes depicting trolling incidents and rated the acceptability of the perpetrators’ actions and whether they had ever written similar comments. Participants then completed measures of psychopathy, sadism, and toxic anonymous motivations. We find that toxic anonymous motivations partially mediate the relationship between psychopathy and sadism, and online trolling. Whereas trolling is often understood through its underlying personality traits, toxic motivations to seek anonymity may be a more proximal predictor of who is likely to troll online

Ad hominem attacks on scientists are just as likely to undermine public faith in research as legitimate empirical critiques

Media coverage attacking the character and trustworthiness of a scientist can diminish public faith in the research findings of that scientist. Ralph M. Barnes, Heather M. Johnston, Noah MacKenzie, Stephanie J. Tobin and Chelsea M. Taglang have investigated the degree to which such attacks do undermine trust in that scientist's research, and the relative impact of various types of ad hominem attacks. Perhaps surprisingly, purely ad hominem attacks, such as accusations of a financial conflict of interest, for example, prove just as effective in undermining public faith in research findings as direct criticism of the empirical foundations of a science claim

The role of contextual constraints and chronic expectancies on behavior categorizations and dispositional inferences

The authors examined the roles of chronic expectancies and other contextual information in the dispositional inference process within the domain of ability judgments. Prior to viewing a videotaped performance under either cognitive load or no load, participants in Studies 1 and 2 were given additional information designed to constrain their categorizations of the performance. In Study 2, chronic future-event expectancies also were assessed. Analyses revealed that when under cognitive load, participants' ability inferences were assimilated to the constraint information (Studies 1 and 2) and to chronic expectancies (Study 2). Furthermore, Study 2 analyses revealed that these effects were mediated by participants' behavior categorizations. Evidence suggestive of a proceduralized form of correction for task difficulty (Studies 1 and 2) and an effortful, awareness-based correction for the constraint information and for chronic expectancies also was found. Results are examined in light of recent models of the dispositional inference process

α/β-Hydrolase Domain 6 Deletion Induces Adipose Browning and Prevents Obesity and Type 2 Diabetes

SummarySuppression of α/β-domain hydrolase-6 (ABHD6), a monoacylglycerol (MAG) hydrolase, promotes glucose-stimulated insulin secretion by pancreatic β cells. We report here that high-fat-diet-fed ABHD6-KO mice show modestly reduced food intake, decreased body weight gain and glycemia, improved glucose tolerance and insulin sensitivity, and enhanced locomotor activity. ABHD6-KO mice also show increased energy expenditure, cold-induced thermogenesis, brown adipose UCP1 expression, fatty acid oxidation, and white adipose browning. Adipose browning and cold-induced thermogenesis are replicated by the ABHD6 inhibitor WWL70 and by antisense oligonucleotides targeting ABHD6. Our evidence suggests that one mechanism by which the lipolysis derived 1-MAG signals intrinsic and cell-autonomous adipose browning is via PPARα and PPARγ activation, and that ABHD6 regulates adipose browning by controlling signal competent 1-MAG levels. Thus, ABHD6 regulates energy homeostasis, brown adipose function, and white adipose browning and is a potential therapeutic target for obesity and type 2 diabetes

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<p>Error bars indicate 95% confidence intervals.</p

Identifying potential causal effects of age at menarche: A Mendelian randomization phenome-wide association study

Background: Age at menarche has been associated with various health outcomes. We aimed to identify potential causal effects of age at menarche on health-related traits in a hypothesis-free manner. Methods: We conducted a Mendelian randomization phenome-wide association study (MR-pheWAS) of age at menarche with 17,893 health-related traits in UK Biobank (n = 181,318) using PHESANT. The exposure of interest was the genetic risk score for age at menarche. We conducted a second MR-pheWAS after excluding SNPs associated with BMI from the genetic risk score, to examine whether results might be due to the genetic overlap between age at menarche and BMI. We followed up a subset of health-related traits to investigate MR assumptions and seek replication in independent study populations. Results: Of the 17,893 tests performed in our MR-pheWAS, we identified 619 associations with the genetic risk score for age at menarche at a 5% false discovery rate threshold, of which 295 were below a Bonferroni-corrected P value threshold. These included potential effects of younger age at menarche on lower lung function, higher heel bone-mineral density, greater burden of psychosocial/mental health problems, younger age at first birth, higher risk of childhood sexual abuse, poorer cardiometabolic health, and lower physical activity. After exclusion of variants associated with BMI, the genetic risk score for age at menarche was related to 37 traits at a 5% false discovery rate, of which 29 were below a Bonferroni-corrected P value threshold. We attempted to replicate findings for bone-mineral density, lung function, neuroticism, and childhood sexual abuse using 5 independent cohorts/consortia. While estimates for lung function, higher bone-mineral density, neuroticism, and childhood sexual abuse in replication cohorts were consistent with UK Biobank estimates, confidence intervals were wide and often included the null. Conclusions: The genetic risk score for age at menarche was related to a broad range of health-related traits. Follow-up analyses indicated imprecise evidence of an effect of younger age at menarche on greater bone-mineral density, lower lung function, higher neuroticism score, and greater risk of childhood sexual abuse in the smaller replication samples available; hence, these findings need further exploration when larger independent samples become available