Frontiers in psychology
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Frontiers in psychology · Jan 2018
Effects of Facial Expression and Facial Gender on Judgment of Trustworthiness: The Modulating Effect of Cooperative and Competitive Settings.
People often judge trustworthiness based on others' faces (e.g., facial expression and facial gender). However, it is unclear whether social context plays a moderating role in forming trustworthiness judgments. Based on the emotions as social information (EASI) model, differing contexts may impact the effect of facial expression; however, there is no evidence demonstrating that differing contexts will or will not influence the effect of facial gender. ⋯ These results suggest that in the process of judging facial trustworthiness, individuals' judgments are affected by both facial expression and facial gender. Furthermore, the effect of facial gender on facial trustworthiness judgments presents cross-situational stability, and the role of facial expression is influenced by the settings. These findings support and expand the EASI model.
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Human decision-making shows systematic simplifications and deviations from the tenets of rationality ('heuristics') that may lead to suboptimal decisional outcomes ('cognitive biases'). There are currently three prevailing theoretical perspectives on the origin of heuristics and cognitive biases: a cognitive-psychological, an ecological and an evolutionary perspective. However, these perspectives are mainly descriptive and none of them provides an overall explanatory framework for the underlying mechanisms of cognitive biases. ⋯ The supposed mechanisms are complementary and not mutually exclusive. For different cognitive biases they may all contribute in varying degrees to distortion of information. The present viewpoint not only complements the earlier three viewpoints, but also provides a unifying and binding framework for many cognitive bias phenomena.
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Frontiers in psychology · Jan 2018
Uncovering Pluralistic Ignorance to Change Men's Communal Self-descriptions, Attitudes, and Behavioral Intentions.
Gender norms can lead men to shy away from traditionally female roles and occupations in communal HEED domains (Healthcare, Early Education, Domestic sphere) that do not fit within the social construct of masculinity. But to what extent do men underestimate the degree to which other men are accepting of men in these domains? Building on research related to social norms and pluralistic ignorance, the current work investigated whether men exhibit increased communal orientations when presented with the true norms regarding men's communal traits and behaviors vs. their perceived faulty norms. Study 1 (N = 64) revealed that young Belgian men indeed perceive their peers to hold more traditional norms regarding communal and agentic traits than their peers actually hold. ⋯ In particular, men who were presented with information about men's actual beliefs regarding the compatibility between communal and agentic traits exhibited the strongest movement toward a more communal orientation. The findings show that participants in conditions that uncover pluralistic ignorance adapted their attitudes and behaviors to be more in line with the actual norm: adopting a more communal self-concept, having lower intentions to hide future communal engagement, and supporting more progressive gender-related social change. The results are discussed in terms of influences of norms on men's communal orientations and broader attitudes toward gender-related social change, and the down-stream implications for increased gender-equality in HEED domains where men remain highly underrepresented.
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Frontiers in psychology · Jan 2018
Long-Term Pain Treatment Did Not Improve Sleep in Nursing Home Patients with Comorbid Dementia and Depression: A 13-Week Randomized Placebo-Controlled Trial.
Objective: Previous research indicates that pain treatment may improve sleep among nursing home patients. We aimed to investigate the long-term effect of pain treatment on 24-h sleep patterns in patients with comorbid depression and dementia. Design: A 13-week, multicenter, parallel-group, double-blind, placebo-controlled randomized clinical trial conducted between August 2014 and September 2016. ⋯ This could indicate that some patients had beneficial effects from the most potent pain treatment. However, based on the present findings, long-term pain treatment is not recommended as a strategy to improve sleep. Clinical Trial https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02267057.
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Frontiers in psychology · Jan 2018
Pain Mirrors: Neural Correlates of Observing Self or Others' Facial Expressions of Pain.
Facial expressions of pain are able to elicit empathy and adaptive behavioral responses in the observer. An influential theory posits that empathy relies on an affective mirror mechanism, according to which emotion recognition relies upon the internal simulation of motor and interoceptive states triggered by emotional stimuli. We tested this hypothesis comparing representations of self or others' expressions of pain in nineteen young healthy female volunteers by means of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). ⋯ ONP)] was found in a pre-defined region of aMCC known to be also active during noxious stimulation. These findings demonstrate that the observation of one's own and others' facial expressions share a largely common neural network, but self-related stimuli induce generally higher activations. In line with our hypothesis, selectively greater activity for self pain-related stimuli was found in aMCC, a medial-wall region critical for pain perception and recognition.