Biomedical subjects

John R Chambers

Publications and source records attributed to John R Chambers.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

Misperceptions in intergroup conflict. Disagreeing about what we disagree about.

Two studies examined misperceptions of disagreement in partisan social conflicts, namely, in the debates over abortion (Study 1) and politics (Study 2). We observed that partisans tend to exaggerate differences of opinion with their adversaries. Further, we found that perceptions of disagreement were more pronounced for values that were central to the perceiver's own ideology than for values that were central to the ideology of the perceiver's adversaries. To the extent that partisans assumed disagreement concerning personally important values, they were also inaccurate in perceiving their adversaries' actual opinions. Discussion focuses on the cognitive mechanisms underlying misperceptions of disagreement and strategies for reducing intergroup conflict.

Abortion, Legal↗

PubMed2006

Why do I hate thee? Conflict misperceptions and intergroup mistrust.

Members of partisan social groups often exaggerate how much their own opinions differ from those of their rivals. In the present two studies, partisans estimated their own and their rivals' attitudes toward different issues related to the social conflict and also made a variety of evaluative judgments about their own and the rival group. The authors found that (a) partisans perceive more disagreement with their rivals about values that are central to their own sides' ideological position than those that are central to their rivals' position and (b) perceptions of disagreement about the partisans' own central values are what predicts partisans' global evaluations of members of the outgroup (e.g., disliking, trait stereotypes, perceived similarity). Furthermore, partisans believed their adversaries were motivated by an opposition to the partisans' own core values rather than by promotion of the adversaries' core values. Discussion concentrates on the theoretical and applied implications of these findings.

Adult↗

PubMed2004

Biases in social comparative judgments: the role of nonmotivated factors in above-average and comparative-optimism effects.

Biases in social comparative judgments, such as those illustrated by above-average and comparative-optimism effects, are often regarded as products of motivated reasoning (e.g., self-enhancement). These effects, however, can also be produced by information-processing limitations or aspects of judgment processes that are not necessarily biased by motivational factors. In this article, the authors briefly review motivational accounts of biased comparative judgments, introduce a 3-stage model for understanding how people make comparative judgments, and then describe how various nonmotivational factors can influence the 3 stages of the comparative judgment process. Finally, the authors discuss several unresolved issues highlighted by their analysis, such as the interrelation between motivated and nonmotivated sources of bias and the influence of nonmotivated sources of bias on behavior.

Affect↗

PubMed2004

The dud-alternative effect in likelihood judgment.

The judged likelihood of a focal outcome should generally decrease as the list of alternative possibilities increases. For example, the likelihood that a runner will win a race goes down when 2 new entries are added to the field. However, 6 experiments demonstrate that the presence of implausible alternatives (duds) often increases the judged likelihood of a focal outcome. This dud-alternative effect was detected for judgments involving uncertainty about trivia facts and stochastic events. Nonnumeric likelihood measures and betting measures reliably detected the effect, but numeric likelihood measures did not. Time pressure increased the magnitude of the effect. The results were consistent with a contrast-effect account: The inclusion of duds increases the perceived strength of the evidence for the focal outcome, thereby affecting its judged likelihood.

Humans↗

PubMed2003

Egocentrism, event frequency, and comparative optimism: when what happens frequently is "more likely to happen to me".

Three studies investigated the role of nonmotivated egocentric processes in comparative optimism (and pessimism). According to an egocentric-processes account, when people judge their comparative likelihood of experiencing an event (e.g., "Compared to the average person, how likely are you to become wealthy?"), they consider their own chances of experiencing the event more so than the referent's chances. This should produce higher comparative estimates when an event's absolute frequency is high rather than low-a prediction supported in Study 1, which manipulated event frequency through a novel, time frame manipulation. Study 2 empirically distinguished egocentrism from a related focalism account. In Study 3, comparative estimates were related to the perceived frequency of events, independent of the events' perceived desirability and controllability. Path analyses provided additional support for egocentrism, and systematic cases of comparative pessimism were observed as predicted by the egocentric-processes account.

Ego↗