Journal Articles

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://mro.massey.ac.nz/handle/10179/7915

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Author: search.filters.author.Hill SRSubject: search.filters.subject.1702 Cognitive Sciences

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    What makes for the most intense regrets? Comparing the effects of several theoretical predictors of regret intensity
    (Frontiers in Psychology, 15/12/2016) Towers A; Williams MN; Hill SR; Philipp MC; Flett R
    Several theories have been proposed to account for variation in the intensity of life regrets. Variables hypothesized to affect the intensity of regret include: whether the regretted decision was an action or an inaction, the degree to which the decision was justified, and the life domain of the regret. No previous study has compared the effects of these key predictors in a single model in order to identify which are most strongly associated with the intensity of life regret. In this study, respondents (N D 500) to a postal survey answered questions concerning the nature of their greatest life regret. A Bayesian regression analysis suggested that regret intensity was greater for—in order of importance—decisions that breached participants’ personal life rules, decisions in social life domains than non-social domains, and decisions that lacked an explicit justification. Although regrets of inaction were more frequent than regrets of action, regrets relating to actions were slightly more intense.
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    Global poverty, aid advertisements, and cognition: Do media images of the developing world lead to positive or negative responses in viewers
    (New Zealand Psychological Society, 2010) Kennedy S; Hill SR
    When viewing aid advertising portraying people living in poverty it is easy to automatically activate stereotypes. This can be uncomfortable and people may consciously attempt to avoid using those stereotypes. However, it has been shown that suppressing such stereotypes can rebound and lead to greater subsequent negative stereotypic behaviour. Recent research suggests rebound responses differ according to stereotype content (Kennedy & Hill, 2009). The current experiment compared behaviour in those who suppressed use of stereotypes of two dissimilar social outgroups: people living in poverty and people living in wealth. Effects differed; suppressors tended to be more negatively stereotypical when writing about the wealthy and less negatively stereotypical when writing about those in poverty. Behavioural measures (seating) also tended to diverge. Suppression appears to exaggerate later behavior and raises the possibility that viewers of aid advertising who avoid thinking stereotypically may find that their subsequent behaviour is more strongly driven by their stereotypes of people living in poverty than they may have wished, which in some cases can lead to greater negativity and a reduction of support.
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    Why are beliefs in different conspiracy theories positively correlated across individuals? Testing monological network versus unidimensional factor model explanations
    (Wiley, 27/01/2022) Williams M; Marques MD; Hill SR; Kerr JR; Ling M
    A substantial minority of the public express belief in conspiracy theories. A robust phenomenon in this area is that people who believe one conspiracy theory are more likely to believe in others. But the reason for this “positive manifold” of belief in conspiracy theories is unclear. One possibility is that a single underlying latent factor (e.g. “conspiracism”) causes variation in belief in specific conspiracy theories. Another possibility is that beliefs in various conspiracy theories support one another in a mutually reinforcing network of beliefs (the “monological belief system” theory). While the monological theory has been influential in the literature, the fact that it can be operationalised as a statistical network model has not previously been recognised. In this study, we therefore tested both the unidimensional factor model and a network model. Participants were 1553 American adults recruited via Prolific. Belief in conspiracies was measured using an adapted version of the Belief in Conspiracy Theories Inventory. The fit of the two competing models was evaluated both by using van Bork et al.’s (Psychometrika, 83, 2018, 443, Multivariate Behavioral Research, 56, 2019, 175) method for testing network versus unidimensional factor models, as well as by evaluating goodness of fit to the sample covariance matrix. In both cases, evaluation of fit according to our pre-registered inferential criteria favoured the network model.