In 2 studies, college students were socially influenced to be risky or not in a driving simulation. In both studies, confederate peers posing as passengers used verbal persuasion to affect driving behavior. In Study 1, participants encouraged to drive riskily had more accidents and drove faster than those encouraged to drive slowly or not encouraged at all. In Study 2, participants were influenced normatively or informationally to drive safely or riskily. As in Study 1, influence to drive riskily increased risk taking. Additionally, informational influence to drive safely resulted in the least risk taking. Together, the studies highlight the substantial influence of peers in a risk‐related situation; in real life, peer influence to be risky could contribute to automobile accidents.
Recent research has demonstrated that verbal overshadowing occurs when a witness is forced to provide details of the culprit that are not readily available, but the effect does not occur when the witness is warned to provide only the information they are absolutely sure of . The present study attempts to replicate this effect and to further examine the instructional manipulation in the development of a computerized identification system, PC_Eyewitness (PCE). Among other things, PCE is designed to elicit verbal descriptions from witnesses. Overall, results from this study replicate those found by in demonstrating lower identification performance for participants forced to provide descriptive details. However, no verbal overshadowing was observed for the computerized feature checklist presented as either verbal features or pictorial features. Implications for the development of a computerized system of eyewitness identification are discussed.
Three studies assessed the construct of pathological video game use and tested its predictive validity. Replicating previous research, Study 1 produced evidence of convergent validity in 8th and 9th graders (N = 607) classified as pathological gamers. Study 2 replicated and extended the findings of Study 1 with college undergraduates (N = 504). Predictive validity was established in Study 3 by measuring cue reactivity to video games in college undergraduates (N = 254), such that pathological gamers were more emotionally reactive to and provided higher subjective appraisals of video games than non-pathological gamers and non-gamers. The three studies converged to show that pathological video game use seems similar to other addictions in its patterns of correlations with other constructs. Conceptual and definitional aspects of Internet Gaming Disorder are discussed.
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