Klaus Fiedler

The Linguistic Category Model, its Bases, Applications and Range

A model of interpersonal terms (verbs and adjectives) is reviewed in terms of the research on: (a) the systematic cognitive inferences these terms mediate, and (b) the implications of this model for social cognitive processes as it is applied in different domains such as attribution processes and intergroup relations.

Mood and constructive memory effects on social judgement

Abstract Based on a theoretical model of the mood-cognition interface, the prediction is derived and tested empirically that positive mood enhances constructive memory biases. After reading an ambiguous personality description, participants received a positive or negative mood treatment employing different films. Within each mood group, half of the participants were then questioned about the applicability of either desirable or undesirable personality traits to the target person. This questioning treatment was predicted to bias subsequent impression judgements in the evaluative direction of the questioned attributes. As earlier research had shown that such a bias is stronger for negative than positive attributes (presumably because of the higher diagnosticity of negative attributes), a non-trivial test of the sup posed mood effect was possible. Positive mood should enhance constructive effects, but this should be most apparent for negative attributes. The empirical findings lend support to these predictio...

On the Testability of the Availability Heuristic

Publisher Summary This chapter focuses on the theoretical idea that social judgments are mediated or even determined by the availability of relevant information—that is, by the ease with which different pieces of memorized information come to the judges mind. The chapter focuses on one empirical phenomenon that has been explained in terms of an availability heuristic—namely, the egocentric bias in responsibility attributions. When the partners in a close personal relationship judge their own and their partners contribution to various activities, they tend to overestimate their own contribution. This egocentric bias has been explained in the chapter. The chapter describes ways to overcome the methodological difficulties inherent in testing the causal role of differential recall in judgment formation. Egocentric biases are investigated by having the participants perform two cognitive operations: (1) a judgment operation that is having Ss judge the percentage of their own (vs. their partners) contribution to 20 different activities and (2) an elementary recall operation—that is, having them recall one example for each activity.

Asymmetry in human discrimination learning: Feature positive effect or focus of hypothesis effect? ☆

Abstract In a series of five experiments, the so-called feature positive effect (FPE) in discrimination learning is investigated (i.e., the asymmetric tendency to learn more rapidly to respond to the presence of a distinctive feature than to its absence). Human participants had to learn to respond (by pressing a key) to certain combinations of geometric symbols (S+) and not to respond to others (S-), the critical distinctive feature being one specific symbol that was either present or absent in S+. The surprising result was a feature negative effect (FNE) persistently obtained in several experiments, indicating that the absence, rather than the presence, of a feature facilitated the identification of S+. Manipulations of task characteristics in subsequent experiments suggest that the occurrence of the unexpected reversal is related to the use of non-contingent (as opposed to response-contingent) reinforcement or feedback, the number of stimulus elements in the displays, and the stimulus aspects that are in the focus of the hypotheses tested during human discrimination learning. In particular, the reversal from FPE to FNE is confined to situations in which invariant patterns or configurations can be detected in S+. Thus, the crucial factor which makes S+ easier to identify may not be the presence of a single feature but may be a configuration or wholistic property as well, suggesting that the FPE is but one special case from a broader class of asymmetry effects. The resulting picture of biases in discrimination learning is richer and more flexible, leaving more freedom for controlled cognitive processes, than traditional accounts of the FPE.

Person memory and person judgments based on categorically organized information

Abstract Free recall, cued recall, and rating-like judgments — conceived as alternative modes of expressing memorized information — were assessed in a person memory task. The target person had been described with respect to the presence or absence of 48 different interests (e.g., Mozart, sonatas, tennis, boxing) in 12 interest categories (e.g., music, sports). The number of interests (vs non-interests) per category was manipulated as well as the order of the three sub-tasks. The pattern of results can be explained within a categorical coding framework which suggests two functionally independent stages of recall: (a) access to a higher-order memory code on the category level, and (b0 reconstruction of specific items within categories. In particular, judgments of the degree of interest in the abstract categories were only related to selective free recall on the categorical level but not specific level free recall. Cued recall of the degree of interest in specific items was only related to free recall on the specific level. Making the category judgments before the free recall task, rather than afterwards, increased the availability of categories but not specific items. And inconsistent patterns of interests impaired the cued recall of specific patterns within categories but did not affect the categorical level. A strong positivity effect (i.e., more interests recalled than non-interests) was also found, resembling the often noted advantage of positive information in other domains of cognitive psychology.

GROUPING AND CATEGORIZATION IN JUDGMENTS OF CONTINGENCY

Abstract The cognitive process and performance of contingency detection is examined. The same statistical contingency may be easier to detect or experienced to be stronger when the stimulus events can be grouped and categorized in a consistent and intelligible fashion. Three experiments are reported to illustrate this point. First it is shown that observers are more sensitive to event contingencies when observations can be encoded in terms of meaningful categories (i.e., when the bivariate distribution of a disease and a virus over different countries is consistent within geographic categories of countries). Another experiment addresses redundancy among correlated attributes and context variables. The perceived contingency between X and Y is shown to depend on the redundancy created by an irrelevant context variable which can increase the consistency in the multivariate system. Finally, the possibility is considered that many socially significant attributes (e.g., honesty, attraction) cannot be observed immediately but have to be inferred from more proximal cues. Framing and grouping of these mediating cues can also influence the ease with which contingencies are detected.

Understanding other people's preferences: Epistemic constraints on social inferences

Abstract Two experiments are reported that investigate the ability to reconstruct another persons mental representations. A target persons vocational preferences were described in an incomplete paired comparison and the subjects task was to infer the targets preferences on the remaining pairs of professions. In Experiment 1, the preference structures to be abstracted were manipulated. The predictions indicated that social inferences are guided and biased by schema-like preconceptions of the form of preference structures. In particular, monotonic preference functions (e.g., maximal preference for the riskiest or the most secure profession) or inverted-U-shaped functions (maximal preference for intermediate risk) were easier to understand and to complete than a preference function with more than one peak (U-shaped). Thus, the cognitive preconceptions are characterized by the same essential restriction (i.e., single-peakedness) that is assumed to characterize actual preference functions ( Coombs & Avrunin, 1977 ). Experiment 2 replicates and extends these results, showing that abstracted preference structures for professions are readily transferred to related domains (hobbies and sports) that can be organized according to the same underlying dimension (i.e., risky vs secure). Performance differences are partly dissociated from differences in subjective confidence, which is generally strong and highlights the readiness for social inferences based on little information. Psychological implications of these findings as well as possible extensions and applications of the research method are discussed.