Individual Difference Measures Research Articles

The effect of social factors on eye movements made when judging the aesthetic merit of figurative paintings

In the present study we explore how social factors (group contact, individuating experience, implicit racial bias) influence the eye movements made during the visual exploration when judging their aesthetic merit of figurative paintings depicting White and Black sitters. An opportunity sample of participants visiting a gallery in Liverpool viewed ten artworks while their eye movements were recorded and completed a set of individual difference measures. The individual difference measures indicated self-report of art interest, social contact and individuating experience with both Black and White communities, and implicitly held racial bias. The results showed that, despite viewing the paintings for less time, the majority of participants reported paintings showing Black sitters as more interesting, emotionally moving, and pleasurable then those depicting White sitters. However, if a participant reported limited social contact with Black community, and a negative implicit racial bias against them, their rating of aesthetic merit of paintings showing Black sitters was reduced, viewing time increased, and fixations became more focused on faces. The influence of social factors on the viewing of paintings showing White sitters was limited to aesthetic rating. The results are discussed in terms of how social factors influence eye movements when viewing paintings in a real-world setting.

Characterizing within-person variance in, and menstrual cycle associations with, event-related potentials associated with positive and negative valence systems: The reward positivity and the error-related negativity

Event-related potentials (ERPs) are widely employed as measures of transdiagnostic cognitive processes that are thought to underlie various clinical disorders (Hajcak et al., 2019). Despite their prevalent use as individual difference measures, the effects of within-person processes, such as the human menstrual cycle, on a broad range of ERPs are poorly understood. The present study leveraged a within-subject design to characterize between- and within-person variance in ERPs as well as effects of the menstrual cycle in two frequently studied ERPs associated with positive and negative valence systems underlying psychopathology—the Reward Positivity (RewP) and the Error- Related Negativity (ERN). Seventy-one naturally-cycling participants completed repeated EEG and ecological momentary assessments of positive and negative affect in the menstrual cycle's early follicular, periovulatory, and mid-luteal phases. We examined the mean degree of change between cycle phases in both ERPs, the between-person variability in the degree of change in both ERPs, and whether an individual’s degree of cyclical change in these ERPs show coherence with their degree of cyclical change in positive and negative affect recorded across the cycle. Results revealed no significant changes in positive and negative affect across the cycle and rather small changes in ERP amplitudes. Significant random slopes in our model revealed larger individual differences in trajectories of change in ERP amplitudes and affect, in agreement with prior evidence of heterogeneity in dimensional hormone sensitivity. Additionally, state-variance in these ERPs correlated with positive and negative affect changes across the cycle, suggesting that cycle-mediated ERP changes may have relevance for affect and behavior. Finally, exploratory latent class growth mixture modeling revealed subgroups of individuals that display disparate patterns of change in ERPs that should be further investigated.

Beyond self-report: Measuring visual, auditory, and tactile mental imagery using a mental comparison task

Finding a reliable and objective measure of individual differences in mental imagery across sensory modalities is difficult, with measures relying on self-report scales or focusing on one modality alone. Based on the idea that mental imagery involves multimodal sensorimotor simulations, a mental comparison task (MCT) was developed across three studies and tested on adults (n = 96, 345, and 448). Analyses examined: (a) the internal consistency of the MCT, (b) whether lexical features of the MCT stimuli (word length and frequency) predicted performance, (c) whether the MCT related to two widely used self-report scales, (d) response latencies and accuracies across the visual, auditory, and tactile modalities, and (e) whether MCT performance was independent of processing speed. The MCT showed evidence of reliability and validity. Responses were fastest and most accurate for the visual modality, followed by the auditory and tactile. However, consistent with the idea that self-report questionnaires index a different aspect of mental imagery, the MCT showed minimal correlations with self-report imagery. Finally, relations between MCT scales remained strong after controlling for processing speed. Findings are discussed in relation to current understanding and measurement of mental imagery.

How do linguistic illusions arise? Rational inference and good-enough processing as competing latent processes within individuals

ABSTRACT Non-literal interpretations of implausible sentences such as The mother gave the candle the daughter have been taken as evidence for a rational error-correction mechanism that reconstructs the intended utterance from the ill-formed input (…gave the daughter the candle). However, the good-enough processing framework offers an alternative explanation: readers sometimes miss problematic aspects of sentences because they are only processing them superficially, which leads to acceptability illusions. As a synthesis of these accounts, I propose that conscious rational inferences about errors on the one hand and good-enough processing on the other are competing latent processes that simultaneously occur within the same comprehender. In support of this view, I present data from a two-dimensional grammaticality/interpretability judgment task with different types of subtly ill-formed sentences. Both conscious rational inference and good-enough processing predict positive interpretability judgments for such sentences, but only good-enough processing also predicts positive grammaticality judgments. By fitting a lognormal race model jointly to judgments and response latencies, I show that conscious rational inference and good-enough processing, as well as purely grammar-driven processing, actively trade off with each other during reading. Furthermore, individual differences measures reveal that participant traits such as linguistic pedantry, interpretational charity, and analytic/intuitive cognitive styles contribute to variability in the processing patterns.

Global relations versus object relations in visual analogies

Based on the distinction between global and local levels of visual perception, here we studied different levels of reasoning in visual analogies. Specifically, we created problems that could be solved by inferring relations either between the global shapes (global path) or the underlying objects (object path). The problems varied in the saliency of the global shape, in the colour and familiarity of the objects, and in the presentation of the visual problem (simultaneous or sequential). The results of three studies showed that the global path was used more frequently than the object path, particularly for images with salient global shapes such as objects placed in a circle. However, neither colour nor object familiarity affected the tendency to use the object path. Importantly, the tendency to use the global path correlated with analogical problem-solving in other visual and verbal tasks. Overall, these findings suggest that the global precedence observed in image perception also applies to visual analogical reasoning. Furthermore, the tendency to use the global path can be regarded as an informative measure of individual differences.

Self-reported sensibility to bodily signals predicts individual differences in autobiographical memory: an exploratory study

ABSTRACT Recent theoretical perspectives have advanced that autobiographical memory processes are supported by interoception, the perception of internal bodily sensations. Yet, this relationship remains largely underexplored. The present study addressed this critical gap in the literature by systematically investigating the association between self-reported Interoceptive Sensibility and various individual differences measures of autobiographical memory. In Study 1, using a correlational approach in a large sample of participants (N = 247), we identified significant correlations between standardised measures of interoception and the general experience of autobiographical memory and the frequency of involuntary mental time travel. These associations remained significant even after controlling for potential confounding factors in terms of age, gender, and trait affectivity, underscoring their robustness. Study 2 replicated and extended the associations identified in Study 1 in another large participant sample (N = 257), further validating them by accounting for the potential confounding effect of well-being. Our findings demonstrate that individuals’ ability to perceive and understand bodily signals robustly relates to how they experience autobiographical memories. By adopting an exploratory approach based on individual differences, our results provide novel and concrete insights into the association between interoception and autobiographical memory, providing a strong foundation for future investigations into the causal mechanisms connecting these two constructs.

The Changing Moral Environment—A Three-Wave Study Testing Four Moral Theories and the Fear of COVID-19 in Predicting Compliance with Behavioral Guidelines on COVID-19, Moralization Toward Non-Compliance, and Vaccination

Governments across the globe imposed behavioral restrictions to halt the spread of the COVID-19. These preventive behaviors became a moralized issue and engagement in those behaviors varied. In moral psychology, there are various theoretical frameworks with measures of individual differences that concern the way we form moral judgments. In a pre-registered longitudinal three-wave project started before the pandemic, we examined the predictive power of several moral measures on compliance with behavioral guidelines, moralization toward noncompliance, and intention to vaccinate and actual vaccine uptake. Mature integrative and deliberative moral thinking predicted moralization and compliance better than several measures of utilitarianism. These results hold when controlling for Fear of Covid-19 and sociodemographic factors.

Infants' salivary oxytocin and positive affective reactions to people

Oxytocin is a neuropeptide positively associated with prosociality in adults. Here, we studied whether infants' salivary oxytocin can be reliably measured, is developmentally stable, and is linked to social behavior. We longitudinally collected saliva from 62 U.S. infants (44 % female, 56 % Hispanic/Latino, 24 % Black, 18 % non-Hispanic White, 11 % multiracial) at 4, 8, and 14 months of age and offline-video-coded the valence of their facial affect in response to a video of a smiling woman. We also captured infants' affective reactions in terms of excitement/joyfulness during a live, structured interaction with a singing woman in the Early Social Communication Scales at 14 months. We detected stable individual differences in infants' oxytocin levels over time (over minutes and months) and in infants' positive affect over months and across contexts (video-based and in live interactions). We detected no statistically significant changes in oxytocin levels between 4 and 8 months but found an increase from 8 to 14 months. Infants with higher oxytocin levels showed more positive facial affect to a smiling person video at 4 months; however, this association disappeared at 8 months, and reversed at 14 months (i.e., higher oxytocin was associated with less positive facial affect). Infant salivary oxytocin may be a reliable physiological measure of individual differences related to socio-emotional development.

Critique generation promotes the critical reading of multiple texts

BackgroundThis study is focused on students’ abilities to critically evaluate or critique the content in texts. Beyond comprehension, critique is an essential, yet underexamined, learning process in an increasingly complex and persistently inequitable world. AimsStudents were randomly assigned to a comprehension condition (i.e., asking them to summarize each text after reading), a critique condition (i.e., asking them to critique each text after reading), or to a control group, to examine whether these task assignments improved critical reading performance. SampleThe sample consisted of 172 online participants. MethodsParticipants completed individual difference measures; read three texts, in accordance with their experimental condition; and completed measures of critical reading, comprehension, and source recall. The texts used in this study were designed to provide limited and women-blaming arguments for declining birth rates, with these flaws intentionally introduced to foster critique. ResultsStudents assigned to the critique condition performed better on one of the critical reading questions, as compared to students in the comprehension condition, but not on the other question, and not as compared to students in the control group. The extent of students’ critique generation during reading significantly predicted performance on both critical reading questions as well as source recall performance. ConclusionsWe link critique generation during processing with critical reading performance; however, we do not find that explicitly directing students to engage in critique is necessarily the most fruitful means of fostering critical reading. The range of critiques that students generated when reasoning about flawed texts are analyzed and directions for future intervention introduced.

Individual differences in word skipping during reading in English as L2.

The Multilingual Eye-movement Corpus (MECO; Siegelman et al., 2022) contains data from unbalanced bilinguals reading in their first language (L1) for a variety of languages and in English as their second language (L2). We analyzed word skipping in L2 on the basis of five predictors consisting of the frequency and length of the word in L2 and three measures of individual differences. Besides the L2 proficiency of the participant, two novel measures were also constructed: the average amount of skipping in L1 across participants per language and whether an individual reader skips words often in their L1 compared with other L1 readers in the same language. Word skipping in L2 increased for short and high-frequency words, for participants with higher L2 proficiency, for readers whose L1 featured relatively high average skipping rates compared with the other languages, and especially for participants who skip more often in L1 than their peers. All three individual differences interacted with word length such that their influence was more pronounced for longer words. Our results show that readers prefer to maintain a certain level of word skipping resembling how they read in L1. Due to lower L2 than L1 proficiency in unbalanced bilinguals, word skipping in L2 would often be based on a comparatively less advanced stage in parafoveal word recognition.

Individual differences in visual search: A systematic review of the link between visual search performance and traits or abilities

Visual search (VS) comprises a class of tasks that we typically perform several times during a day and requires intentionally scanning (with or without moving the eyes) the environment for a specific target (be it an object or a feature) among distractor stimuli. Experimental research in lab-based or real-world settings has offered insight into its underlying neurocognitive mechanisms from a nomothetic point of view. A lesser-known but rapidly growing body of quasi-experimental and correlational research has explored the link between individual differences and VS performance. This combines different research traditions and covers a wide range of individual differences in studies deploying a vast array of VS tasks. As such, it is a challenge to determine whether any associations highlighted in single studies are robust when considering the wider literature. However, clarifying such relationships systematically and comprehensively would help build more accurate models of VS, and it would highlight promising directions for future research. This systematic review provides an up to date and comprehensive synthesis of the existing literature investigating associations between common indices of performance in VS tasks and measures of individual differences mapped onto four categories of cognitive abilities (short-term working memory, fluid reasoning, visual processing and processing speed) and seven categories of traits (Big Five traits, trait anxiety and autistic traits). Consistent associations for both traits (in particular, conscientiousness, autistic traits and trait anxiety – the latter limited to emotional stimuli) and cognitive abilities (particularly visual processing) were identified. Overall, however, informativeness of future studies would benefit from checking and reporting the reliability of all measurement tools, applying multiplicity correction, using complementary techniques, study preregistration and testing why, rather than only if, a robust relation between certain individual differences and VS performance exists.

Concept Creep of Collective Narcissism

Collective narcissism refers to overvaluing the group with which one identifies. In a widely circulated and attention-grabbing paper, Putnam and colleagues (2018) measured collective narcissism by asking people how much their state in the U.S.A. contributed to the nation’s history. This led to some media reports proclaiming that the U.S.A. is “a nation of narcissists.” We demonstrated here (valid N = 539) that Putnam’s operationalization of collective narcissism had a small correlation (r = .18) with a traditional individual difference measure of collective narcissism, falling short of typical benchmarks for convergent validity. These results call into question whether collective narcissism can be measured as Putnam did. In the end, this empirical investigation has implications for “concept creep.” Measures that lack convergent validity but use the same label (in this case, “collective narcissism”) not only create confusion, but also increase the chances of unfounded yet highly publicized claims. In this case, the meaning of the new measure does not adequately reflect the meaning of the original construct—implicating concept creep of collective narcissism.

The role of truth and bias in parents’ judgments of children’s science interests

Parents’ judgments about their children’s level of interest in different science topics may affect the science-learning opportunities they provide their children. However, little is known about how parents judge these interests. We used the truth and bias model of judgment of West and Kenny (Psychological Review [2011], Vol. 118, pp. 357–378) to examine factors that may affect parents’ judgments of their children’s science interests such as the truth (children’s self-reported interest) and potential sources of parental bias. We also investigated whether several individual difference measures moderated the effect of truth or bias on judgments. Children (N = 139, ages 7–11 years) rated their level of interest in five science and five non-science topics. Separately, parents (N = 139) judged their children’s interest in the same topics. Overall, parents accurately judged their children’s science interests, but we also found evidence of some forms of bias, namely that parents generally under-estimated their children’s science interests. In addition, parents’ personal science attitudes were related to judgments of science interests, such that parents more favorable of science tended to rate their children’s interest in science topics higher than parents with a less favorable view. We did not find evidence that individual differences among parents moderated the effect of truth or bias on judgments; however, parents were more accurate at judging the non-science interests of older children than younger children. Parents should be aware that they may be under-estimating their children’s interest in science topics and that their personal attitudes about science may be influencing their judgments of their children’s science interests.

Prejudice is epistemically unwarranted belief

AbstractIn two preregistered online studies with U.S. adults, we provide evidence of a common psychological profile characterizing belief in prejudicial and non‐prejudicial epistemically unwarranted claims. We solicited self‐report ratings of beliefs in prejudicial and non‐prejudicial pseudoscientific, conspiratorial, and paranormal claims, as well as individual difference measures related to cognitive style, social dominance orientation (SDO), and trust in science. We found moderate to strong positive correlations between endorsing prejudicial and non‐prejudicial unwarranted claims, and robustly replicable associations between endorsement of all the assessed varieties of epistemically unwarranted beliefs, SDO, and perceptions of the credibility of science. Our findings suggest that individuals who endorse epistemically unwarranted beliefs are not only characterized by a rejection of epistemic authority (e.g., science), but also by preferences for a rigid, inequitably stratified society. This suggests that successfully challenging epistemically unwarranted beliefs may benefit by incorporating explicit challenges to social dominance motivations.

Financial Homo Ignorans: Development and validation of a scale to measure individual differences in financial information ignorance

Information ignorance refers to the act of deliberately avoiding, neglecting, or distorting information to uphold a positive self-image and protect our identity-based beliefs. We apply this framework to household finance and develop a concise 12-item questionnaire measuring individuals’ receptiveness to financial information, or the lack thereof – the Financial Homo Ignorans (FHI) Scale. We conduct two studies with samples from the general population in Sweden (total N=2508) and show that the FHI scale has high reliability and distinct from other commonly used individual-difference measures in behavioral finance. We show that individual heterogeneity as assessed by the FHI scale explains a substantial variation in financial behaviors and financial well-being, also when controlling for demographics and financial literacy. These results unequivocally demonstrate the utility of the FHI scale as a valuable instrument for researchers and practitioners in comprehending and addressing the challenges posed by the omnipresence of financial information in today's world.

Experiencing beauty in everyday life

Beauty surrounds us in many ways every day. In three experience sampling (ESM) studies we investigated frequency, category of eliciting stimuli (natural vs human-made) and, the potential moderating role of several individual difference measures on such everyday experiences of beauty in an ecologically valid manner. Further, we explored the impact of such experiences on valence & arousal. Study 1 re-analysed data from a previous study, in line with the current aims. In Studies 2 and 3, we asked participants to report daily experiences of beauty using a mixed random and event-contingent sampling schedule. Mobile notifications (random sampling) prompted participants to take a photo and rate the beauty of their surroundings. Further, current valence and arousal were assessed. Notification frequency and total days of participation differed between these two studies. Participants were able to report additional experiences outside of the notification windows (event-contingent sampling). Our results indicate that we frequently encounter beauty in everyday life and that we find it in nature, in particular. Our results further suggest a mood-boosting effect of encounters with beauty. Lastly, our results indicate influences of individual differences however, these were inconclusive and require further attention.

Reflecting on the use of response times to index linguistic knowledge in SLA

Abstract Response times (RTs) have become ubiquitous in second language acquisition (SLA) research, providing empirical evidence for the theorization of the language learning process. Recently, there have been discussions of some fundamental psychometric properties of RT data, including, but not limited to, their reliability and validity. In this light, we take a step back to reflect on the use of RT data to tap into linguistic knowledge in SLA. First, we offer a brief overview of how RT data are most commonly used as vocabulary and grammar measures. We then point out three key limitations of such uses, namely that (a) RT data can lack substantive importance without considerations of accuracy, (b) RT differences may or may not be a satisfactory psychometric individual difference measure, and (c) some tasks designed to elicit RT data may not be sufficiently fine-grained to target specific language processes. Our overarching goal is to enhance the awareness among SLA researchers of these issues when interpreting RT results and stimulate research endeavors that delve into the unique properties of RT data when used in our field.

Is it better to be happy or right? Examining the relative role of the pragmatic and epistemic imperatives in momentary affective evaluations.

According to research highlighting the importance of predictions, the confirmation of expectations may be a positively-laden experience. A strong test of this principle is the case of the "doomsayer's delight": the possibility that belief confirmation can be rewarding even when negative expectations are realized. In order to investigate this idea, we conducted two high-powered experiments examining people's immediate affective reactions following exposure to expected or unexpected positive and negative stimuli. The results show that people feel significantly worse when their pessimistic expectations are confirmed than when their optimistic expectations are violated. This finding was not moderated by several theoretically relevant individual difference measures or temporal dynamics. Findings from this study contribute to our understanding of the interplay between epistemic and pragmatic motivations in guiding emotional responses. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Multimodal Associations of FKBP5 Methylation With Emotion-Regulatory Brain Circuits

BackgroundUnderstanding the biological processes that underlie individual differences in emotion regulation and stress responsivity is a key challenge for translational neuroscience. The gene FKBP5 is a core regulator in molecular stress signaling that is implicated in the development of psychiatric disorders. However, it remains unclear how FKBP5 DNA methylation in peripheral blood is related to individual differences in measures of neural structure and function and their relevance to daily-life stress responsivity. MethodsHere, we characterized multimodal correlates of FKBP5 DNA methylation by combining epigenetic data with neuroimaging and ambulatory assessment in a sample of 395 healthy individuals. ResultsFirst, we showed that FKBP5 demethylation as a psychiatric risk factor was related to an anxiety-associated reduction of gray matter volume in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, a brain area that is involved in emotion regulation and mental health risk and resilience. This effect of epigenetic upregulation of FKBP5 on neuronal structure is more pronounced where FKBP5 is epigenetically downregulated at baseline. Leveraging 208 functional magnetic resonance imaging scans during a well-established emotion-processing task, we found that FKBP5 DNA methylation in peripheral blood was associated with functional differences in prefrontal-limbic circuits that modulate affective responsivity to daily stressors, which we measured using ecological momentary assessment in daily life. ConclusionsOverall, we demonstrated how FKBP5 contributes to interindividual differences in neural and real-life affect regulation via structural and functional changes in prefrontal-limbic brain circuits.

Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) with better task-based delay of gratification skills are rated as less impulsive, more agreeable, and smarter.

Delay of gratification and inhibitory control are generally considered measures of self-control. In humans, individual differences in measures of self-control are associated with a host of behavioral, neurological, cognitive, and health-related outcomes. Self-control is not unique to humans and has been demonstrated in a variety of nonhuman species using a variety of paradigms. In this study, the effect of sex and age on delay of gratification performance, as measured by the hybrid delay task, was tested in a sample of 88 chimpanzees. Additionally, whether individual differences in hybrid delay task performance were associated with different aspects of personality was examined in this study. Contrary to reports in human subjects, geriatric male chimpanzees were found to perform more efficiently than adult males, while no age differences were found between geriatric and adult females. Indeed, delay of gratification efficiency was positively associated with age in males and negatively associated with age in females. Chimpanzees that performed more efficiently on the hybrid delay task were also found to be rated as more intelligent, more extraverted, and less impulsive. These findings suggest that objective measures of efficiency in delay of gratification tasks are associated with different dimensions of personality, which have some overlapping construct validity. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).