Evidence Of Contextual Effects Research Articles

Geographic Divides and Cosmopolitanism: Evidence From Switzerland

Large cities are cosmopolitan environments where people embrace inter-national connections whereas small towns, villages, and the countryside are more likely to prioritize the maintenance of national traditions. These geographic divides are at the center of contemporary politics but we do not know why they exist. One possibility is that cities make people more cosmopolitan while smaller areas make people less cosmopolitan. However, credibly measuring geographic effects is difficult because people sort across geography in ways that are correlated with political attitudes. I address these methodological challenges with longitudinal data from the Swiss Household Panel. My central result is that evidence of contextual effects is limited and unlikely to account for the broad geographic divides. Instead, sorting is likely to be the most important explanation for spatial polarization over cosmopolitanism. These findings have several implications for our understanding of geographic divides.

Contextualising Smiles: Is Perception of Smile Genuineness Influenced by Situation and Culture?

Considerable evidence for contextual effects in emotion perception has been reported, but little is known about how contexts influence the perception of smiles, a rich source of social information. We investigated whether the perceived genuineness of a smile depends on the valence of the situation accompanying the smile, and whether such contextual effects depend on culture. Seventy-two North Americans and 83 mainland Chinese rated the genuineness of smiles displayed by Caucasians and East Asians in three situational contexts (positive, negative, and in isolation). Smiles in a negative situation were considered less genuine than the same smiles rated in isolation; this effect was observed for both groups of observers but stronger for North Americans, a finding at odds with the notion that East Asians are more likely to engage in holistic perceptual processes. Our study demonstrates contextual effects in assessment of smile genuineness, contributing new insights into the perception of affective information.

Individual-level differences in negativity biases in news selection

Literatures across the social sciences highlight the tendency for humans to be more attentive to negative information than to positive information. We focus here on negativity biases in news selection (NBNS) and suggest that this bias varies across individuals and contexts. We introduce a survey-based measure of NBNS which is used to explore the correlates of negative news bias in surveys in the U.S., Canada, and Sweden. We find that some respondents are more prone to NBNS than others. There is evidence of contextual effects, but panel data suggests that some of the individual-level differences persist over time. NBNS likely reflects some combination of long-term personality differences and short-term situational factors, and is systematically related to a number of economic and political attitudes.

Neuroscientific evidence for contextual effects in decision making

Both internal and external states can cause inconsistencies in decision behavior. I present examples from behavioral decision-making literature and review neuroscientific knowledge on two contextual influences: framing effects and social conformity. The brain mechanisms underlying these behavioral adjustments comply with the dual-process account and simple learning mechanisms, and are weak indicators for unintentionality in decision-making processes.

Perception of 3D Slant Out of the Box

Evidence for contextual effects is widespread in visual perception. Although this suggests that contextual effects are the result of a generic property of the visual system, current explanations are limited to the domain in which they occur. In this paper we propose a more general mechanism of global influences on the perception of slant. We review empirical data and evaluate proposed explanations of contextual biases. By assessing not only a model about three-dimensional slant perception but also evaluating more generic mechanisms of contextual modulation, we show that surround suppression of neural responses explains the major phenomena in the empirical data on contextual biases. Moreover, contextual biases may be part of a mechanism of grouping and segmentation.

Contextual Effects in School-Based Violence Prevention Programs: A Conceptual Framework and Empirical Review

This paper reviews the theoretical and practical importance of studying contextual factors in school-based violence prevention programs and provides a framework for evaluating factors at the classroom, school, and community/district level. Sixty-two published papers describing 38 different programs were reviewed; of these 16 were identified that reported data on contextual effects or discussed possible contextual effects on the intervention. The small number of studies precludes definitive conclusions regarding contextual effects in school-based violence prevention programs, but suggests (a) some evidence for contextual effects on program outcomes, and (b) interdependence of context and implementation factors in influencing outcomes.Editors' Strategic Implications: This review suggests that contextual effects are important to school violence prevention, as context can influence outcomes directly and through interactions with implementation factors. Consequently, characteristics of the classroom, school, and community contexts should be considered by practitioners when implementing prevention programs and measured by researchers studying the processes and outcomes of these programs.

THE DIFFERENTIAL EFFECTS OF THE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT ON STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT MOTIVATION: A COMPARISON BETWEEN FRONTAL AND COMPLEX INSTRUCTION STRATEGIES

Based on the postulates of “achievement goal theory,” the present study compared the effectiveness of two instructional strategies, frontal instruction (FIS) and complex instruction (CIS), in promoting mastery goal orientation and adaptive motivational patterns. Three motivational variables, namely, the perception of the classroom goal structure, personal goal orientation, and achievement motivation patterns, were assessed by means of three separate questionnaires administered to 267 sixth-grade students from 5 CIS and 5 FIS classes. Overall, the results supported predictions that the two strategies led to differential effects on each of the three motivational variables, as well as on the relationships between them. The results provide further evidence for contextual effects on achievement motivation.