Meredith A. Repke

Ideologically Motivated Perceptions of Complexity Believing Those Who Agree With You Are More Complex Than They Are

While prior research has found linguistic complexity to be predictive across multiple domains, little research has examined how people perceive—or misperceive—linguistic complexity when they encounter it. Drawing from a model of the motivated ideological lens through which people view linguistic complexity, two studies examined the hypotheses that (a) participants are more likely to overestimate the complexity of political candidates when they believe they align with their own political views and (b) this complexity overestimation effect will be particularly strong for political liberals. Both studies presented participants with paragraphs from political candidates that varied in their actual integrative complexity levels and asked them to estimate the complexity of the paragraph. Consistent with expectations, Study 1 found that participants were significantly more likely to overestimate complexity levels for political candidates with whom they shared ideological beliefs and that this effect was particularly in evidence for political liberals. Study 2 replicated this basic pattern and further demonstrated that this effect was dependent on participants’ knowledge of their ideological agreement with the paragraph author. Because people misperceive linguistic complexity, researchers should move beyond thinking solely about how complex political rhetoric is; we have to also consider the degree that the intended audience may over- or underestimate complexity when they see it.

Ecological Origins of Freedom: Pathogens, Heat Stress, and Frontier Topography Predict More Vertical but Less Horizontal Governmental Restriction:

What kinds of physical environments make for free societies? The present research investigates the effect of three different types of ecological stressors (climate stress, pathogen stress, and frontier topography) on two measurements of governmental restriction: Vertical restriction involves select persons imposing asymmetrical laws on others, while horizontal restriction involves laws that restrict most members of a society equally. Investigation 1 validates our measurements of vertical and horizontal restriction. Investigation 2 demonstrates that, across both U.S. states and a sample of nations, ecological stressors tend to cause more vertically restrictive societies but less horizontally restrictive societies. Investigation 3 demonstrates that assortative sociality partially mediates ecological stress→restriction relationships across nations, but not in U.S. states. Although some stressor-specific effects emerged (most notably, cold stress consistently showed effects in the opposite direction), these results in the main suggest that ecological stress simultaneously creates opposing pressures that push freedom in two different directions.

Understanding what makes terrorist groups’ propaganda effective: an integrative complexity analysis of ISIL and Al Qaeda

ABSTRACT The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) became an increasingly powerful terrorist organisation in a relatively short period of time, drawing more recruits than its former affiliate, Al Qaeda. Many have attributed ISIL’s successful expansion in part to its extensive propaganda platform. But what causes terrorist groups to be effective in their communication to the public? To investigate, we examined one aspect of terrorists’ rhetoric: Integrative complexity. In particular, this historical examination provides a broad integrative complexity analysis of public statements released by key members of ISIL and Al Qaeda over a 10-year period when ISIL was rapidly growing as a terrorist entity (2004–2014). Findings revealed that (a) ISIL demonstrated less complexity overall than Al Qaeda (p < .001) and (b) ISIL became increasingly less complex over this focal time period (p < .001), while Al Qaeda’s complexity remained comparatively stable (p = .69). Taken together, these data suggest that as ISIL grew in size and strength between 2004 and 2014 – surpassing Al Qaeda on multiple domains such as recruitment, monetary resources, territorial control, and arms power – it simultaneously became less complex in its communication to the public.

The Strategic Manipulation of Linguistic Complexity: A Test of Two Models of Lying:

To what degree is complex language driven by personal cognitive factors versus strategic self-presentation? Studies teasing apart these two influences on complexity are hard to design and evidence bearing on the question is not abundant. To fill this gap, the present studies explored two models relevant to a form of communication full of strategic implications: deception. The cognitive strain model suggests that because lies are cognitively draining, deception will generally reduce complexity, whereas the strategic model expects the liar to adjust complexity up or down depending on the perceived benefits. Three studies tested differential predictions from these models by scoring different forms of linguistic complexity (dialectical and elaborative) for deceptive communications in real-world and experimental contexts. Results from these studies support the value of a strategic model of the effect of lying on complex language, thus suggesting that people strategically manipulate the complexity of their language to accomplish specific goals.

Cognitive complexity of clients and counsellors during motivation-based treatment for smoking cessation: an observational study on occasional smokers in a US college sample

Objective Motivational interviewing (MI) is a widely used and promising treatment approach for aiding in smoking cessation. The present observational study adds to other recent research on why and when MI works by investigating a new potential mechanism: integrative complexity. Setting The study took place in college fraternity and sorority chapters at one large midwestern university. Participants Researchers transcribed MI counselling sessions from a previous randomised controlled trial focused on tobacco cessation among college students and subsequently scored clients’ and counsellors’ discussions across four counselling sessions for integrative complexity. Interventions This is an observational secondary analysis of a randomised controlled trial that tested the effectiveness of MI. We analysed the relationship between integrative complexity and success at quitting smoking in the trial. Primary and secondary outcome measures Success in quitting smoking:Participants were categorised into two outcome groups (successful quitters vs failed attempters), created based on dichotomous outcomes on two standard variables: (1) self-reported attempts to quit and (2) number of days smoked via timeline follow-back assessment procedures that use key events in participants’ lives to prompt their recall of smoking. Results We found (1) significantly higher complexity overall for participants who tried to quit but failed compared with successful quitters (standardised β=0.36, p<0.001, (Lower Confidence Interval.)LCI=0.16, (Upper Confidence Interval) UCI=0.47) and (2) the predictive effect of complexity on outcome remains when controlling for standard motivational and demographic variables (partial r(102)=−0.23, p=0.022). Conclusions Taken together, these results suggest that cognitive complexity is uniquely associated with successful quitting in MI controlled trials, and thus may be an important variable to more fully explore during treatment.

How does nature exposure make people healthier?: Evidence for the role of impulsivity and expanded space perception

Nature exposure has been linked to a plethora of health benefits, but the mechanism for this effect is not well understood. We conducted two studies to test a new model linking the health benefits of nature exposure to reduced impulsivity in decision-making (as measured by delay discounting) via psychologically expanding space perception. In study 1 we collected a nationwide U.S. sample (n = 609) to determine whether nature exposure was predictive of health outcomes and whether impulsive decision-making mediated the effect. Results indicated that Nature Accessibility and Nature Exposure From Home significantly predicted reduced scores on the Depression, Anxiety, Stress Scales (DASS) (p < .001, p = .03, respectively) and improved general health and wellbeing (p < .001, p < .01, respectively). Nature Accessibility also predicted reduced impulsive decision-making (p < .01), and Nature Accessibility showed significant indirect effects through impulsive decision-making on both the DASS (p = .02) and general health and wellbeing (p = .04). In Study 2, a lab-based paradigm found that nature exposure expanded space perception (p < .001), and while the indirect effect of nature exposure through space perception on impulsive decision-making did not meet conventional standards of significance (p < .10), the pattern was consistent with hypotheses. This combination of ecologically-valid and experimental methods offers promising support for an impulsivity-focused model explaining the nature-health relationship.

Psychological Spacetime: Implications of Relativity Theory for Time Perception

It has been an accepted scientific fact in physics for almost 100 years that time speeds up and slows down for an observer based on factors—such as motion and gravity—that affect space. Yet this fact, drawn from the theory of relativity, has not been widely integrated into the study of the psychology of time. The present article helps to fill in this gap between physics and psychology by reviewing evidence concerning what a psychological spacetime processor—one that accounted for the theory of relativity’s empirically validated predictions of the compensatory relationship between time and space—would look like. This model of the spacetime processor suggests that humans should have a psychological mechanism for slowing time down as motion speeds up, a prediction that already has widespread research support. We also discuss several novel hypotheses directly suggested by the spacetime model and a set of related speculations that emerge when considering spacetime (some of which have already received empirical support). Finally, we compare and contrast three very different potential reasons why we might have developed a spacetime processor in the first place. We conclude that the spacetime model shows promise for organizing existing data on time perception and generating novel hypotheses for researchers to pursue. Considering how humans might process spacetime helps reduce the existing gap between our understanding of physics and our understanding of human psychology.