The Cooperation Link: Power and Context Moderate Verbal Mimicry

Drawing on theories of mimicry as a schema-driven process, we tested whether the degree of verbal mimicry is dependent on the congruence between interactants’ power dynamic (symmetric vs. asymmetric), task type (cooperative vs. competitive) and interaction context (negotiation vs. social). Experiment 1 found higher verbal mimicry amongst dyads who successfully completed a cooperative problem-solving task compared to those who did not, but only under conditions of symmetric, not asymmetric, power. Experiment 2 had dyads complete either a cooperative or a competitive negotiation task, under conditions of symmetric vs. asymmetric power. Verbal mimicry was associated with improved negotiation outcomes under conditions of cooperation and symmetry, and competition and asymmetry. Experiment 3 completes this picture by separating cooperative-competitive orientation from the interaction context. Consistent with Experiment 2, verbal mimicry was associated with task success during a negotiation context with asymmetric power, and during a social interaction context with symmetric power. Our results point to the contextual link between verbal mimicry and task outcome

‘Rapport myopia’ in investigative interviews: Evidence from linguistic and subjective indicators of rapport

Purpose. Rapport-building has beneficial effects in investigative and security contexts. However, there remains limited understanding of the extent of agreement between different parties in their judgments of rapport. Methods. We observed 133 mock suspect interviews, and subsequently surveyed the lead interviewer and secondary interviewer (trainees undertaking an undergraduate Policing programme), the ‘suspect’ (an actor), and an expert observer (a retired, highly experienced police detective). Each of these parties provided subjective judgments of the degree of rapport that had been formed between suspect and lead interviewer. Furthermore, we assessed whether these subjective judgments were associated with the degree of ‘Language Style Matching’ (LSM) between lead interviewer and suspect: a key linguistic measure of interpersonal synchrony. Results. The suspect, secondary interviewer, and expert observer had generally good agreement about the degree of rapport achieved, as evidenced through significant, moderate to strong correlations between their rapport ratings. However, these parties’ rapport ratings were weakly associated with those of the lead interviewer. Our linguistic analysis provided similar results: the extent of LSM was significantly associated with suspects’ and the expert’s subjective ratings of rapport, but not with the interviewers’ ratings. Conclusions. The findings suggest that the demands of interviewing might impede interviewers’ insight into the success of their rapport-building efforts, leading them to overlook cues that other parties rely upon. We discuss the need for future experimental manipulations to directly test this suggestion, and we consider the value of interpersonal synchrony in defining and measuring rapport

Cell Phone Rates Comparison Using Stella, GSP, and TI

Students will understand the existence of relationships between variables and they can be represented in multiple ways for understanding and analyzing. Recognizing and using the connection between tables and graphs in the solving real world problems

The Fate of the Unattended Revisited: Can Irrelevant Speech Prime the Non-dominant Interpretation of Homophones?

Whether the post-categorical, semantic properties of task-irrelevant speech are processed has been a source of debate between two central accounts. The first, a structural account, proposes that the semantic content of irrelevant speech is filtered out early on, and thus remains unprocessed. The second account proposes that the semantic content of speech is, in fact, processed and can influence later behavior. The present research offers a resolution between these two prominent accounts by examining whether semantic processing of task-irrelevant speech occurs despite explicit instructions to ignore it. During a visual-verbal serial recall paradigm, participants were auditorily presented with non-dominant homophones plus their close associates, or close associates without the homophone itself and asked to ignore this irrelevant speech containing these semantic primes. In a subsequent “unrelated” phase, we assessed whether the spelling of homophones was influenced by the irrelevant speech that had occurred earlier in the serial recall phase. We found evidence of semantic priming in conditions wherein the homophone was present, as well as conditions wherein only associates of the homophone were present. Regardless of whether they were presented, homophones were more likely to be spelt in accordance with their non-dominant meaning, and most participants did not report awareness of this fact. We suggest that semantic processing of irrelevant speech occurs even when there is an explicit direction to ignore it and does not result in any material disruptive effect on serial recall performance

Looking at the same interaction and seeing something different: The role of information, judgment perspective and behavioral coding on judgment accuracy

Abstract. The role of information context, judgment perspective and cue type on the “accuracy” of first impressions of another’s Big5 personality was studied in three phases of data collection (n = 173). Accurate judgments were defined as the level of agreement between a target person’s aggregated personality score (i.e., average of self and informant ratings of personality) and a personality judgement about the target, indexed using item correlations. Results for Phase 1 found that completing a different task with the same partner improved accuracy for conscientiousness. Phase 2 investigated the relationship between a person’s role (judgment perspective) within an interaction (interactants, observers) and showed that Observers were better at judging the less interpersonal traits of conscientiousness and openness relative to Interactants. Finally, Phase 3 examined the types of cues that people used when rating another’s personality. Although Observers and Interactants had access to the same interaction, analyses revealed that they employed different types of cues when judging others. Findings are discussed in terms of Funder’s Realistic Accuracy Model (1995, 1999) along with practical implications, limitations and suggestions for future research

A systematic review of the psychological distance of climate change: Towards the development of an evidence-based construct

The construct of psychological distance has gained traction as an explanation of why climate change is difficult to act on; it often feels far removed, with impacts arising in remote locations to other people or in an uncertain future. However, recent studies and narrative reviews have pointed out inconsistencies in the conceptualisation, operationalisation and results regarding the psychological distance of climate change, with research evidently struggling to develop the construct and determine its place in explaining and promoting pro-environmental behaviour. This paper presents a systematic review of the literature aimed at building an evidence base on which to develop research on psychological distance. Following a systematic search of three databases, 73 records with 84 individual studies were identified, which measured or manipulated the concept in relation to climate change. We find that psychological distance in the context of climate change is a dynamic, context-specific, multidimensional construct, with a wide variety of approaches to measurement and manipulation. Current theorising (primarily Construal Level Theory) is insufficient in describing the diversity and complexity of distance in the climate-change context. Based on the reviewed studies, we give recommendations for the measurement and manipulation of the construct. However, our overarching suggestion is to focus on specific contexts in which distance plays a role in climate-change cognition and action, such as the perception of impacts, policy or behaviour. We discuss how describing distance within these contexts can help researchers to understand current findings, to disentangle different components of distance beliefs and to incorporate theory and insights from related perspectives

Conspiracy theories: why they are believed and how they can be challenged

The current study aimed: (i) to identify personal characteristics associated with endorsing conspiracy theories; and (ii) to investigate methods for dispelling conspiracy beliefs. Participants were shown a single conspiracy theory and they also completed questionnaires about their reasoning skills, types of information processing (System 1 vs. System 2), endorsement of paranormal beliefs, locus of control and pattern perception. To challenge the endorsement of the conspiracy, participants read either: (i) neutral information; (ii) a critical analysis of the vignette; (iii) a critical analysis of the vignette with discussion of realistic consequences; or (iv) a critical analysis of the vignette with “feeling of control” priming. Only addressing the consequences of the conspiracy theory decreased its endorsement. Furthermore, only type of information processing and belief in paranormal phenomena, were associated with endorsement of the conspiracy. These findings are discussed in relation to previous studies and theories of conspiratorial ideation

Identification of four novel susceptibility loci for oestrogen receptor negative breast cancer

Common variants in 94 loci have been associated with breast cancer including 15 loci with genome-wide significant associations (P<5 × 10−8) with oestrogen receptor (ER)-negative breast cancer and BRCA1-associated breast cancer risk. In this study, to identify new ER-negative susceptibility loci, we performed a meta-analysis of 11 genome-wide association studies (GWAS) consisting of 4,939 ER-negative cases and 14,352 controls, combined with 7,333 ER-negative cases and 42,468 controls and 15,252 BRCA1 mutation carriers genotyped on the iCOGS array. We identify four previously unidentified loci including two loci at 13q22 near KLF5, a 2p23.2 locus near WDR43 and a 2q33 locus near PPIL3 that display genome-wide significant associations with ER-negative breast cancer. In addition, 19 known breast cancer risk loci have genome-wide significant associations and 40 had moderate associations (P<0.05) with ER-negative disease. Using functional and eQTL studies we implicate TRMT61B and WDR43 at 2p23.2 and PPIL3 at 2q33 in ER-negative breast cancer aetiology. All ER-negative loci combined account for ∼11% of familial relative risk for ER-negative disease and may contribute to improved ER-negative and BRCA1 breast cancer risk prediction

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Guidelines for the use and interpretation of assays for monitoring autophagy (3rd edition)

In 2008 we published the first set of guidelines for standardizing research in autophagy. Since then, research on this topic has continued to accelerate, and many new scientists have entered the field. Our knowledge base and relevant new technologies have also been expanding. Accordingly, it is important to update these guidelines for monitoring autophagy in different organisms. Various reviews have described the range of assays that have been used for this purpose. Nevertheless, there continues to be confusion regarding acceptable methods to measure autophagy, especially in multicellular eukaryotes. For example, a key point that needs to be emphasized is that there is a difference between measurements that monitor the numbers or volume of autophagic elements (e.g., autophagosomes or autolysosomes) at any stage of the autophagic process versus those that measure fl ux through the autophagy pathway (i.e., the complete process including the amount and rate of cargo sequestered and degraded). In particular, a block in macroautophagy that results in autophagosome accumulation must be differentiated from stimuli that increase autophagic activity, defi ned as increased autophagy induction coupled with increased delivery to, and degradation within, lysosomes (inmost higher eukaryotes and some protists such as Dictyostelium ) or the vacuole (in plants and fungi). In other words, it is especially important that investigators new to the fi eld understand that the appearance of more autophagosomes does not necessarily equate with more autophagy. In fact, in many cases, autophagosomes accumulate because of a block in trafficking to lysosomes without a concomitant change in autophagosome biogenesis, whereas an increase in autolysosomes may reflect a reduction in degradative activity. It is worth emphasizing here that lysosomal digestion is a stage of autophagy and evaluating its competence is a crucial part of the evaluation of autophagic flux, or complete autophagy. Here, we present a set of guidelines for the selection and interpretation of methods for use by investigators who aim to examine macroautophagy and related processes, as well as for reviewers who need to provide realistic and reasonable critiques of papers that are focused on these processes. These guidelines are not meant to be a formulaic set of rules, because the appropriate assays depend in part on the question being asked and the system being used. In addition, we emphasize that no individual assay is guaranteed to be the most appropriate one in every situation, and we strongly recommend the use of multiple assays to monitor autophagy. Along these lines, because of the potential for pleiotropic effects due to blocking autophagy through genetic manipulation it is imperative to delete or knock down more than one autophagy-related gene. In addition, some individual Atg proteins, or groups of proteins, are involved in other cellular pathways so not all Atg proteins can be used as a specific marker for an autophagic process. In these guidelines, we consider these various methods of assessing autophagy and what information can, or cannot, be obtained from them. Finally, by discussing the merits and limits of particular autophagy assays, we hope to encourage technical innovation in the field