Joanna Salapska-Gelleri

Schacter (1999, 2001) has provided a taxonomy for studying memory distortions that suggests there are seven "sins" of memory: misattribution, persistence, suggestibility, bias, absent-mindedness, blocking, and transience. Although there has been a great deal of evidence that these memory distortions occur among individuals, few studies have examined the effects of discussion on false memories. In the present study, we presented seven memory tasks, each designed to elicit a different memory sin, to participants who either encoded the information individually or engaged in discussion within groups of 2 or 3 while retrieving the information. We found widespread evidence of all seven memory sins, whether participants engaged in discussion during retrieval or not. Group discussion increased actual memory for information. Regarding memory sins, group discussion increased misattribution and persistence, and decreased transience. Discussion had no significant effect on suggestibility, bias, absent-mindedness, or blocking. We discuss implications for situations where people attempt to retrieve memories while discussing them.

Romantic relationships can greatly enhance our lives, creating intimacy and bonding. Yet, not all relationships succeed, and when they fail, the resulting feelings can be intense, often leaving us feel-ing regret. The regret we feel is determined in part by whether we decide to take action or rely on inaction. Research shows that actions typically elicit more regret than inactions. However, research also shows gender differences for romantic regret, with men sometimes reporting more regret over inactions and women more regret over actions or equal regret for actions and inactions. The deci-sion justification theory posits that regret is driven by two components: the event's outcome and self-blame. In the current investigation, we manipulated self and other blame in a hypothetical ro-mantic situation and showed that when blame is attributable to one's self, actions (e.g., breaking up) elicited more regret than inactions (e.g., staying in a relationship). However, when blame for relationship failure is attributed to one's partner, participants reported equal regret for actions or inactions. More specific analyses showed that men and women both have more regret for actions when self-blame is involved but when other-blame is involved, women showed equal regret for ac-tions and inactions whereas men trended toward more regret for inactions.

In this chapter, we discuss how human decision-making varies as a function of individual facets of the person as well as constructive elements inherent to the decision task. To address our thesis, we provide an overview of theories on decision-making, focusing on the components that involve thinking and the role of human variability. We then highlight research addressing how thinking may influence decision-making outcomes. We focus our analysis on two essential ways in which all humans vary, i.e., cognition and age, and show how variability in both can depict differences in thinking propensity and produce identifiable and predictable differences in decision-making performance. Finally, we review contemporary research from our labs that provide insight into the emerging view of thinking and decision-making. In our final summary, we provide an overall model to assist in organizing and interpreting how a person’s level of thinking interacts with varying levels of decision complexity to yield predictable performance differences in decision-making.

The oral testimonies of survivors and witnesses of the Holocaust stand as a most personal and visceral record of the strength of the Jewish people, of those who helped, and those who murdered, and so that we may remember the lives and futures lost of those who perished during the Holocaust. Oral accounts bring to life the seemingly impossible circumstances of the persecuted and the hunted, who lived and died through the most horrible of circumstances at the hands of their fellow men and women. Through these testimonies can also learn about the hopes, dreams, and acts, of those who lived and whose lives were recorded by the survivors. They give the briefest glimpse into the lives of the innocents which were cut short simply because of their beliefs and heritage.

This chapter considers a range of different experiences of women’s lives on the home front during the Second World War. These differences were for the most part due to a combination of factors involving culture, language, and political affiliations, among others. The chapter’s focus on women on the transnational home front reflects the respective areas of the authors’ expertise, with Frances Davey looking at women in the United States and Joanna Salapska-Gelleri covering Central and Eastern Europe. The primary difference was proximity to combat, notwithstanding the impact that the war had on home and family generally. This chapter thus explores the everyday realities of women’s lives on the home front, wherever that home front might have been. The chapter disrupts a common conceit: that the home front, which is often presumed to refer to the United States or Britain, is contained within national boundaries. Instead, the chapter zooms out to understand the home front from a transnational perspective; specifically, the United States and Central and Eastern Europe. The chapter does this through the lens of oral history.

In this article, we - an historian and a cognitive psychologist - address the interdisciplinary approach undergirding the oral history project Childhood Narratives of World War II on the Home Front. This project collects and analyzes the narratives of those who were between the ages of 5 and 18 during World War II through the lens of oral history and cognitive processing methodologies. We aim to collect roughly 200 oral histories, digitally archive the audios and transcriptions, and use them to access childhood realities of the home front across nationalities, cultures, and languages. This project is predicated on the idea that children were key actors in the creation of home front cultures across national borders, and that the integration of cognitive science into the practice of oral history gives interviewers access to rich, deeply nuanced narratives of a significant, but often overlooked, population. We argue that this approach, when executed systematically and thoughtfully, allows interviewers and narrators to break through decades-old metanarratives to understand the quotidian and widely varied realities of children on the home front. We call on oral historians of all stripes to reach out to colleagues who might approach interviewing from different angles. In so doing, we create greater opportunities to complicate our understanding of the past.

Objective: Undergraduate rape disclosure recipients' and nonrecipients' sociodemographic and life experience variables, attitudes towards rape, and responses to a hypothetical rape disclosure were compared to determine differences between them. Participants: One hundred ninety-two undergraduates at 3 universities participated in this online survey between November 2011 and April 2012. Methods: Participants reported on their rape myth acceptance (RMA) and personal direct and indirect (ie, disclosure receipt) experiences with sexual assault. Participants also responded to a hypothetical rape disclosure. Results: Disclosure recipients were more likely to report a victimization history, and less confusion and perceived ineffectiveness in helping the hypothetical victim. RMA and nonrecipient status predicted perceived victim responsibility; these variables and childhood victimization predicted confusion about helping. RMA also predicted perceived ineffectiveness of one's helping behaviors. Victimization history and female gender predicted victim empathy. Conclusions: These findings can inform sexual assault-related programming for undergraduates through the provision of targeted assistance and corrective information.

Students peer reviewed each others’ grant proposals in an undergraduate psychology course. Unliketraditional in-class peer reviews, these were completed online and discussed during a class period. The reviewoccurred multiple times throughout the year. Students had a chance to correct their papers and then resubmit fora second peer-review. As compared to students who either did not have the benefit of a peer review, only a singlefaculty grade, and ones who only received a one-time review, those students whose papers were reviewed multipletimes received significantly higher marks on their final papers as judged by an outside reviewer. The benefit ofpeer-reviewing has been experimentally demonstrated in the past (Dunn,1996; Topping, 1998) but faculty have been reluctant to use this pedagogical tool due to time constraints. The current demonstration utilized a hybrid settingwhere students completed the reviews online and delivered the results in a brief in-class activity.

Spoken word recognition involves brief activation of candidate words. Six experiments examined whether words semantically related to phonologically activated words would be falsely recognized. Experiments 1 and 2 involved homophones as test words; Experiment 3 used strong associates for the semantic mediation link. Experiment 4 approximated lists of "strong" converging associates. Experiment 5 expanded the real time needed for word identification by using a gating procedure during study. In Experiment 6, the goal was to create a more sensitive test by requiring participants to indicate which of two lures (mediated or control) was "most likely" to be new. Recognition errors were sensitive to separate phonetic and semantic stages in the mediated chain; however, there was little evidence of mediated false recognition, despite expectations derived from common models of spreading activation.