In this article the reliability and usefulness of Hare's Psychopathy Checklist Revised (PCL-R) and the conclusions on basis of the scores are examined. It was concluded that, a) this checklist is a not a reliable tool, b) the conclusions that are linked to these PCL-R scores with regard to the treatability of psychopaths are incorrect, harmful and unethical, c) can easily be misused in legal sy...

Mindfulness is defined as non-judgmental present-moment attention and awareness, which varies across persons and moments. As a non-judgmental stance, mindfulness should allow for greater perceptual objectivity. Previous research suggests that self-interest can motivate people to ‘‘see what they want to see’’ (Balcetis & Dunning, 2006). We hypothesized that mindfulness would moderate this effect...

Several difficulties are noted with general questions psychologists have been asking about human accuracy, such as whether people are typically accurate or inaccurate, what the boundary conditions for accuracy are, or the general process whereby accuracy may be improved. Instead, a situationally specific approach to accuracy is adopted in which a central role is assigned to the judgmental proce...

In a wide range of empirical paradigms, sadness has been associated with more extensive and detail-oriented thinking than happiness, resulting in reductions in judgmental bias that arise from reliance on stereotypes and other simple decision heuristics. It was hypothesized that anchoring would constitute a significant exception to this general pattern. Recent research on anchoring indicates tha...

Attractive individuals are favored in various evaluative and judgmental ways. This study examined the effects of the “what is beautiful is good” stereotype on the specific area of perceived trustworthiness. 284 undergraduate students enrolled in an introductory level psychology class at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse participated in an online survey, which rated one of three sets of four...

Prevailing theories of judgmental contrasts propose mechanisms ranging from relatively low versus high degrees of thought. The present research tests the hypothesis that the degree of thought involved in producing judgmental contrast has important implications. In three experiments, participants’ ability or motivation to engage in effortful thinking was manipulated. In Experiment 1, varying per...

Mindfulness is a type of active awareness that is purposeful, in the present moment, and non-judgmental (KabatZinn, 2005). Mindfulness interventions have been shown to benefit attentional engagement (e.g., Mrazek, Smallwood, & Schooler, 2012) and, increasingly, have been implemented in educational settings. However, prior work has rarely explored the impact of such interventions on learning and...

The role of social robots as advisors for decision-making is investigated. We examined how a robot advisor with logical reasoning and one cognitive fallacies affected participants’ in different contexts. participants were asked to make multiple decisions while receiving advice from both during the process. Participants had choose which they agreed and, at end scenario, rank possible options pre...