Three studies investigated the effects of extreme context stimuli and categorization on hedonic contrast by having subjects judge the attractiveness of faces. Experiment 1 demonstrated hedonic contrast in both directions by using 2 sets of stimuli presented in different orders. Preceding moderately unattractive faces with moderately attractive faces made the unattractive faces more unattractive. When the order of presentation was reversed, the moderately attractive faces became more attractive. Experiment 2 found that this hedonic contrast was eliminated when the moderately attractive faces were replaced with extremely attractive faces. Experiment 3 showed that even with those 2 sets of extremely different stimuli, hedonic contrast occurred if subjects were instructed to think of both sets of stimuli as belonging to the same category. These findings, using hedonic judgments, parallel Sarris's (1967, 1968) finding with weights that when 2 sets of stimuli are too different in the dimension being judged, no contrast occurs. They also lend support to his explanation for this result. When the 2 sets of stimuli are too different they are not seen as belonging to the same category. They are therefore not compared, and contrast does not occur. The authors propose that these principles might apply to contrast in all settings.PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved.

Deciding whether an unfamiliar person is trustworthy is one of the most important decisions in social environments. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to show that the amygdala is involved in implicit evaluations of trustworthiness of faces, consistent with prior findings. The amygdala response increased as perceived trustworthiness decreased in a task that did not demand person evaluation. More importantly, we tested whether this response is due to an individual's idiosyncratic perception or to face properties that are perceived as untrustworthy across individuals. The amygdala response was better predicted by consensus ratings of trustworthiness than by an individual's own judgments. Individual judgments accounted for little residual variance in the amygdala after controlling for the shared variance with consensus ratings. These findings suggest that the amygdala automatically categorizes faces according to face properties commonly perceived to signal untrustworthiness.

Do we always know the reasons for our actions? Or is our behavior sometimes unknowingly and unintentionally influenced by what we have recently perceived? It has been traditionally assumed that the automatic influence of knowledge in memory is limited to people's interpretation of the world, and stops short of shaping their actual behavior. Researchers in experimental social psychology have begun to challenge this assumption by documenting how people's behaviors can be unknowingly influenced by knowledge that is incidentally activated in memory during social perception. We review findings that suggest that the social knowledge that is incidentally activated while reading words or imagining events subsequently affects participants' behaviors across a range of ostensibly unrelated domains.

Human perceivers continually react to the social world implicitly-that is, spontaneously and rapidly. Earlier research suggested that implicit impressions of other people are slower to change than self-reported impressions in the face of contradictory evidence, often leaving them miscalibrated from what one learns to be true. Recent work, however, has identified conditions under which implicit impressions can be rapidly updated. Here, we review three lines of work showing that implicit impressions are responsive to information that is highly diagnostic, believable, or reframes earlier experience. These findings complement ongoing research on mechanisms of changing implicit impressions in a wider variety of groups, from real people to robots, and provide support for theoretical frameworks that embrace greater unity in the factors that can impact implicit and explicit social cognition.

G*Power (Erdfelder, Faul, & Buchner, 1996) was designed as a general stand-alone power analysis program for statistical tests commonly used in social and behavioral research. G*Power 3 is a major extension of, and improvement over, the previous versions. It runs on widely used computer platforms (i.e., Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Mac OS X 10.4) and covers many different statistical tests of the t, F, and chi2 test families. In addition, it includes power analyses for z tests and some exact tests. G*Power 3 provides improved effect size calculators and graphic options, supports both distribution-based and design-based input modes, and offers all types of power analyses in which users might be interested. Like its predecessors, G*Power 3 is free.

It has been argued that "we feel the pain of others' ostracism as our own". However, it is unknown whether observed ostracism is as distressing as self-experienced ostracism. We conducted two studies to address this lacuna. In Study 1, participants played or observed an online ball-tossing game, in which they or a stranger were ostracized or included by others. In Study 2, participants imagined themselves or someone else being ostracized or included. Across both studies, self-experienced and observed ostracism had the same negative effect on mood. Also, both self-experienced and observed ostracism evoked need threat, but this effect was slightly lower after observed ostracism. In sum, the findings suggest that we do feel the pain of others' ostracism as our own, consistent with the notion that humans are equipped with a system that detects violations of social inclusion norms in the environment.

<em>Preference reversal</em> of joint evaluation is well known in the field of decision-making. The Generalized Evaluability Theory (GET), as a theory for preference reversal with the strongest explanatory power, emphasizes the role of the <em>mode of evaluation</em> (i.e., the presence or absence of contextual information) in the decision-making process. The theoretical models for the <em>contextual effect</em> of social comparison and social evaluation, e.g., the Inclusion/Exclusion Model (IEM), also emphasizes the role of <em>contextual information </em>(especially the <em>similarity</em> between context and target) in the evaluation process. Analogous to<em> preference reversal,</em> the <em>contextual effect</em> can also be explained as a kind of "decision preference" (upward assimilation and downward contrast) and its "reversal" (upward contrast and downward assimilation). Taken as analogous concepts, preference reversal and contextual effect are first introduced and compared, and then contextual effect is explained and extended from the new perspective of joint evaluation. Future research should pay attention to the following aspects to deepen the understanding of the contextual effect and promote the theoretical integration and practical implications of these two fields.<br/>&nbsp;&nbsp;First, how to <em>measure</em> contextual effects. Previous studies usually measured the contextual effects as the relative difference of the target evaluations among different contexts, which might lead to a contrary conclusion. Similar to the fact that preference reversal is concluded from the difference between joint and separate evaluations, future research on contextual effect should also take the baseline condition (i. e., the target is evaluated separately) into account. This is to avoid the inapposite measure of contextual effects of social comparison and social evaluation. <br/>&nbsp;&nbsp;Second, what <em>factors influence</em> contextual effects. Inspired from the contextual factors of preference reversal effects of joint evaluations, future research may pay more attention to the target-context similarity for various evaluation dimensions of social comparison and social evaluation. <br/>&nbsp;&nbsp;Third, the contextual effect may be extended to <em>cross-dimensional domains</em>. It is common for cross-dimensional trade-offs in decision-making during joint evaluations. Thus, the cross-dimensional contextual effects should not be rare in social comparison and social evaluation. Specifically, the cross-dimensional domains may be manifested as followings: 1) context and target are cross-dimensional, 2) target evaluation on one dimension (e.g., trustworthiness) is impacted by the ingroup/outgroup relationships between the evaluator and target resulted from another feature (e.g., race), and 3) contextual effects are modulated by the relevance between the contextual dimension and the target dimension, and so on. <br/>&nbsp;&nbsp;Finally, the contextual effect can be linked into <em>practical applications</em>. Decision-making is common in practical context, and the new perspective of joint evaluation can provide insights for the decision-making dilemma related to contextual effects, in particular when the target and the context are extremely similar leading to a hard prediction of the occurrence of the assimilation effect. Besides, based on the perspective of joint evaluation, multidimensional criteria in real situations such as interviews should be evaluated separately to minimize the adverse impact of contextual assimilation and contrast, when it is more difficult to evaluate the key criterion than the less important criterion. Therefore, the perspective of joint evaluation can inspire the application of contextual effect in a wider range of evaluation and decision-making situations in the future.

决策领域存在一个经典的联合评估的偏好反转现象(又称评估模式效应), 其解释力最强的广义可评估性理论(GET)强调了评估模式(即背景信息是否存在)的作用。社会认知领域也存在社会比较和社会评价的背景效应, 其著名的包含排除模型(IEM)也强调背景信息的作用, 尤其是目标-背景相似性的作用。因此, 背景效应可以类比于评估模式效应, 也可以理解为一种&#x0201c;偏好&#x0201d; (上行同化和下行对比)及其&#x0201c;反转&#x0201d; (上行对比和下行同化)现象。基于从联合评估这一新的视角对背景效应进行的解释和拓展, 未来研究应该关注背景效应的测量标准、影响因素之间的交互作用、跨维度作用及其实践应用等方面, 以促进对背景效应的深化理解和两个领域的理论融合和实践结合。

Previous studies showed that the attractiveness rating of a face was influenced by context face, which may lead the evaluation to be closer to or far away from the attractiveness of the context, known as assimilation effect or contrast effect. It suggests the influence of context face on target attractiveness evaluation varies and needs to further clarify how it happens. However, there are two problems remain to be solved according to the manner on how the assimilation effect is calculated in previous studies. Firstly, the calculation method of assimilation effect is based on a relative standard by comparing attractiveness ratings of target faces between different contexts (i.e., T1 vs T2), which ignores the initial attractiveness of target face (T0) presented alone. This might lead to an illusive assimilation effect, where both T1 and T2 are far away from T0 and is actually a contrast effect. Secondly, there is a change of assimilation effect associated with the change of target-context difference if an illusive assimilation effect is true. But the change of target-context difference is ignored in previous studies, and how it impact on the attractiveness rating of target face remains unlcear. In this study, the assimilation effect was calculated based on an absolute standard by comparing attractiveness ratings of target faces with their initial attractiveness rated without context. In the experiment, the medium attractive faces was chosen as target face and high-attractive faces as context faces, and the attractiveness difference between the target and the context was changed in a consecutive way. A within-participant design was adopted with the attractiveness difference between the target and the context and exposure time as independent variables. The results found that under highly attractive context faces, individuals' attractiveness ratings of medium target were increased to be closer to the context, resulted in an assimilation effect. In particular, we found the assimilation effect was changed with the attractiveness difference between the target and the context, called the continuum effect in assimilation process. More interestingly, an illusive contrast effect would be concluded if comparing attractiveness ratings between different context without considering th initial attractiveness rating (i.e., a relative standard). That is, the assimilation effect might be mistaken as a contrast effect in previous studies. In addition, the exposure time affected the evaluation of facial attractiveness, and individuals were more inclined to overestimate facial attractiveness in short time.

以往研究表明目标面孔的吸引力评价会偏向背景面孔, 产生同化效应。但同化效应的计算常常是对不同背景下目标面孔吸引力评分进行比较, 并没有考虑目标面孔单独呈现时的吸引力评分, 可能是虚假的同化效应。本文以单独呈现的目标面孔吸引力评分作为基准值计算同化效应, 考察了呈现时间和目标与背景面孔吸引力的差异对目标面孔吸引力评价的影响。结果发现, 个体对目标面孔吸引力的评分会偏向背景面孔的吸引力, 并表现出同化的连续性效应, 即目标和背景面孔的吸引力差异越大, 同化效应越小。

Putting feelings into words (affect labeling) has long been thought to help manage negative emotional experiences; however, the mechanisms by which affect labeling produces this benefit remain largely unknown. Recent neuroimaging studies suggest a possible neurocognitive pathway for this process, but methodological limitations of previous studies have prevented strong inferences from being drawn. A functional magnetic resonance imaging study of affect labeling was conducted to remedy these limitations. The results indicated that affect labeling, relative to other forms of encoding, diminished the response of the amygdala and other limbic regions to negative emotional images. Additionally, affect labeling produced increased activity in a single brain region, right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (RVLPFC). Finally, RVLPFC and amygdala activity during affect labeling were inversely correlated, a relationship that was mediated by activity in medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC). These results suggest that affect labeling may diminish emotional reactivity along a pathway from RVLPFC to MPFC to the amygdala.

This article proposes an informational perspective on comparison consequences in social judgment. It is argued that to understand the variable consequences of comparison, one has to examine what target knowledge is activated during the comparison process. These informational underpinnings are conceptualized in a selective accessibility model that distinguishes 2 fundamental comparison processes. Similarity testing selectively makes accessible knowledge indicating target-standard similarity, whereas dissimilarity testing selectively makes accessible knowledge indicating target-standard dissimilarity. These respective subsets of target knowledge build the basis for subsequent target evaluations, so that similarity testing typically leads to assimilation whereas dissimilarity testing typically leads to contrast. The model is proposed as a unifying conceptual framework that integrates diverse findings on comparison consequences in social judgment.

People automatically evaluate faces on multiple trait dimensions, and these evaluations predict important social outcomes, ranging from electoral success to sentencing decisions. Based on behavioral studies and computer modeling, we develop a 2D model of face evaluation. First, using a principal components analysis of trait judgments of emotionally neutral faces, we identify two orthogonal dimensions, valence and dominance, that are sufficient to describe face evaluation and show that these dimensions can be approximated by judgments of trustworthiness and dominance. Second, using a data-driven statistical model for face representation, we build and validate models for representing face trustworthiness and face dominance. Third, using these models, we show that, whereas valence evaluation is more sensitive to features resembling expressions signaling whether the person should be avoided or approached, dominance evaluation is more sensitive to features signaling physical strength/weakness. Fourth, we show that important social judgments, such as threat, can be reproduced as a function of the two orthogonal dimensions of valence and dominance. The findings suggest that face evaluation involves an overgeneralization of adaptive mechanisms for inferring harmful intentions and the ability to cause harm and can account for rapid, yet not necessarily accurate, judgments from faces.

Previous research demonstrated that ensemble perception of groups can be formed rapidly by extraction of the average of high-level complex features. However, it is unclear whether the average percept is the outcome of extraction from the characteristic value of the average stimulus (for example, average face) created from group members, or from calculation of the average value of group members’ characteristic values. The above two values were confused with each other in prior research, since most average value of group members are similar as the characteristic value of the average stimulus. However, the attractiveness rating of the average face created from a group of faces is usually systematically higher than the mean value of attractiveness ratings of this group of faces. Therefore, it is easier to explore how the ensemble coding of crowd face attractiveness (i.e. group attractiveness) is formed by comparing the attractiveness of the average face with the mean value of attractiveness rating of a group of faces. This could provide a useful approach to explore how the average percept is formed. The present study used the average discrimination paradigm (Experiment 1 & 2) and the scoring paradigm (Experiment 3 & 4) to clarify the mechanism of the formation of average percept by comparing the group attractiveness with the attractiveness of average face. To tackle this issue, whether the average face was presented in the group of faces or not was manipulated (conditions: Avg vs. NoAvg). Group size were also manipulated to explore whether group size modulated the formation of average percept. In the average discrimination paradigm, a group of faces served as group stimuli to be compare with the probe face for attractiveness. Participants were asked to judge which is more attractive between the group stimuli and the probe face. In the scoring paradigm, participants were asked to rate the attractiveness of group stimuli, the average face created from the group, and each face of the group in isolated manner. Each group consisted of twelve (in Experiments 1 and 3) or four faces (in Experiments 2 and 4). There were two kinds of groups: one is that all group members are original faces, without the average face. The other is that an average face morphed from other original faces was included in the group. In Experiment 1, the proportions for judging probe average face more attractive than group attractiveness in the Avg condition was similar with the NoAvg condition. In Experiment 2, when the set size was four, the proportions for judging probe average face more attractive than group attractiveness were significantly higher in the NoAvg condition. Moreover, in Experiment 3, the ratings for group attractiveness were not significantly different between Avg and NoAvg conditions. This may indicate that the group attractiveness is based on the average face which was created from group members rather than the mean value calculated from group members’ attractiveness. In addition, the diffusion model analysis showed that the coding time was longer for NoAvg condition, which indicated that the formation of average face needed cognitive resource. In Experiment 4, when the set size was four, the attractiveness rating of the average face was significantly higher than group ratings for the two kinds of groups. The different results in different group size may be interpreted as the outcome of weakened average percept caused by the salient individual face representations in small group. This was evident from several analyses: 1) group attractiveness and the attractiveness of morphed average face decreased with smaller set size (Experiment 4); 2) When the probe face was morphed average face, the proportion for judging probe face as more attractive than group attractiveness was greater, comparing with the condition when the probe was a new face whose attractiveness was similar with the morphed average face (Experiment 2); 3) The performance for the hypothesized condition with average percept included in the set is in between the conditions with/without real average face included (Experiment 2-4). In addition, comparing with Experiment 1, the information accumulation speed in Experiment 2 is slower, the processing time of group attractiveness is longer, reflecting the disturbance of the individual face representation. In summary, the findings supported the hypothesis that group attractiveness is based on the morphed average face. Thus, the ensemble percept relies on the extraction from the average stimulus created from the group.

人类能够快速提取集合中的统计信息, 形成平均表征。对于平均表征的产生机制, 研究者提出整合集合成员以合成平均刺激, 或计算集合成员特征值的平均值两种观点。以往研究中合成的平均刺激的特征值和计算成员特征值的平均值两种方式的结果相似, 难以区分两种观点。由于多个面孔的吸引力评分的均值与用这些面孔合成的平均面孔的吸引力评分存在差异, 本研究使用经典的平均辨别任务(实验1和2)和吸引力评价任务(实验3和4)为平均表征的产生来源于合成平均刺激的观点提供了支持证据。4个实验分别采用大容量面孔集合和小容量面孔集合探讨平均表征的形成机制, 结果发现大、小集合都形成了平均刺激, 并且平均表征的评定和加工可能更多依赖合成的平均刺激, 而非简单的对成员特征值进行平均; 此外, 集合吸引力出现了高评现象, 但小集合高评现象更少出现, 说明平均刺激的作用受到集合大小的影响。本研究为集合平均表征的形成机制和面孔集合吸引力高评现象的产生机制提供了新证据。

<p id="p00005">Previous research has shown that using adaptive emotion-regulation strategies, particularly cognitive reappraisal, can help reduce procrastination. However, the precise cognitive mechanisms underlying the impact of emotion regulation on procrastination remain unclear. The temporal decision model of procrastination posits that procrastination is primarily influenced by the tradeoff between task aversiveness and outcome utility. When task aversiveness surpasses outcome utility, individuals are more likely to procrastinate, whereas when outcome utility outweighs task aversiveness, immediate action is more probable. Consequently, emotion regulation could reduce procrastination by diminishing task aversiveness or by improving outcome utility.</p> <p id="p00010">To investigate this issue, based on Gross’s emotion regulation theory and the temporal decision model of procrastination, this research focuses on individuals exhibiting high levels of procrastination (as measured by the General Procrastination Scale, with scores above 67.5). These participants were divided into two groups: the positive reappraisal group (consisting of 34 individuals) and the ineffective strategy group (also consisting of 34 individuals). Over a period of 7 days, the two groups were longitudinally tracked through empirical sampling, resulting in a total of 14 data collection points.</p> <p id="p00015">The results showed that: (1) There was no notable disparity between the two groups in task executive willingness during the pre-test, while the positive reappraisal group demonstrated a significantly higher task executive willingness compared to the ineffective strategy group in the post-test, indicating that positive reappraisal significantly enhanced individuals’ task executive willingness. (2) No significant difference was observed in task aversiveness between the two groups during the pre-test, while the positive reappraisal group exhibited noticeably lower levels of task aversiveness compared to the ineffective strategy group in the post-test. Additionally, initial outcome utility levels did not differ significantly between the two groups, while the positive reappraisal group demonstrated significantly higher outcome utility compared to the ineffective strategy group in the post-test. (3) Mediation analysis indicated that the reduction of task aversiveness mediated the influence of emotion regulation on the degree of improvement in procrastination (that is, the increase in task executive willingness), whereas the increase of outcome utility did not mediate the impact of emotion regulation on the degree of improvement in procrastination (that is, the increase in task executive willingness).</p> <p id="p00020">These findings suggest that emotion regulation mainly enhance individuals’ task executive willingness by diminishing task aversiveness, thereby reducing procrastination behavior. This offers a strong theoretical foundation for interventions targeting procrastination through the lens of emotional regulation.</p>

先前研究表明, 使用适应性情绪调节策略越多则拖延行为越少, 但情绪调节影响拖延行为的认知机制仍不清楚。拖延的时间决策模型认为拖延与否主要取决于任务厌恶与结果效用之间的权衡。因此, 情绪调节可能是通过降低任务厌恶或提升结果效用来改善拖延。为探明此问题, 本研究选取高拖延人群作为研究对象, 分为积极重评组(34人)和无效策略组(34人), 对两组被试进行了为期7天的经验采样法的纵向追踪(共14次)研究。结果发现：(1)后测中积极重评组执行意愿显著高于无效策略组，前测中两组无显著差异。(2)后测中积极重评组任务厌恶显著低于无效策略组，前测中两组无显著差异; 后测中积极重评组结果效用显著高于无效策略组，前测中两组无显著差异。(3)任务厌恶降低量中介了情绪调节对拖延改善程度的作用, 而结果效用提升量不能中介此作用。结果表明：情绪调节主要通过降低任务厌恶来提升执行意愿, 从而降低拖延行为, 这为从情绪调节角度干预拖延提供了坚实的理论依据。

People are capable of thinking about the future, the past, remote locations, another person's perspective, and counterfactual alternatives. Without denying the uniqueness of each process, it is proposed that they constitute different forms of traversing psychological distance. Psychological distance is egocentric: Its reference point is the self in the here and now, and the different ways in which an object might be removed from that point-in time, in space, in social distance, and in hypotheticality-constitute different distance dimensions. Transcending the self in the here and now entails mental construal, and the farther removed an object is from direct experience, the higher (more abstract) the level of construal of that object. Supporting this analysis, research shows (a) that the various distances are cognitively related to each other, (b) that they similarly influence and are influenced by level of mental construal, and (c) that they similarly affect prediction, preference, and action.PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved.

Since the mid-1990s, research on interpersonal acceptance and exclusion has proliferated, and several paradigms have evolved that vary in their efficiency, context specificity, and strength. This article describes one such paradigm, Cyberball, which is an ostensibly online ball-tossing game that participants believe they are playing with two or three others. In fact, the "others" are controlled by the programmer. The course and speed of the game, the frequency of inclusion, player information, and iconic representation are all options the researcher can regulate. The game was designed to manipulate independent variables (e.g., ostracism) but can also be used as a dependent measure of prejudice and discrimination. The game works on both PC and Macintosh (OS X) platforms and is freely available.

Social comparison is a common social psychological phenomenon for human being. In western, the studies on social comparison are becoming an important domain for psychologists especially for social psychologists. The article mainly reviewed the studies of social comparison from Festinger in 1954, including the concept、types、motivations and strategies of social comparison. In the end, the author puts forward some perspectives for further studies on social comparison in the future.

社会比较是人类普遍存在的一种社会现象，在西方关于社会比较的研究已经成为心理学界的一个重要课题。该文从社会比较的概念、类型、动机和策略等几个方面，回顾了国外近50年来研究者关于社会比较的研究脉络；最后，在回顾近几年研究的基础上对社会比较的未来研究趋势进行了展望。

Vicarious ostracism refers to a form of ostracism that observes other's experience of ostracism and also feels the experience of ostracism. From the perspective of behavioral study and neuroimaging, it is found that experiencing vicarious ostracism can trigger individual's needs, emotion, behavior and brain network responses, etc. Ostracism detection system theory, multimotive model theory, moral attribution theory, social identity theory and empathy theory provide a theoretical basis for why individuals were experiencing vicarious ostracism make these responses. Future research can also continue to explore the complexity of ostracism situations, individual's empathy and theoretical explanation in order to expand the scope of vicarious ostracism.

替代性排斥是指观察别人遭受排斥, 其自身也感受到排斥体验的一种排斥形式。基于行为研究视角和神经影像视角发现, 经历替代性排斥会引发个体需求、情绪、行为和神经网络等方面的反应。排斥觉察系统理论、多元动机模型理论、道德归因理论、社会认同理论以及共情理论为经历替代性排斥的个体为何做出这些反应提供了理论依据。未来研究还可以从个体的特质共情、排斥情境的复杂程度以及理论解释等方面继续探索, 以丰富替代性排斥的研究范畴。