Current explanations for anchoring phenomena seem to be unable to account for the diversity of effects found by 40 years of research. Additionally, the theories do not have much to say about the processes that make anchors so resilient to modification. I argue that by focusing on the mechanisms involved in spatial representation, we can account for most anchoring effects which have spatial components.

A reasoner’s beliefs can compromise or inflate the accuracy of their syllogistic judgments when syllogistic content and structure are incongruent or congruent, respectively. An integrated approach to the study of syllogistic reasoning led to the investigation of premise-based belief-content conflict and its impact on belief bias. The belief-content conflict cue attenuated belief bias in incongruent valid and invalid trials, as well as congruent invalid trials. Its efficacy was found to depend on the difficulty level of the syllogism in which it was embedded and the location of its placement. Reaction time analyses were used to guide interpretations about the relative engagement of Systems 1 and 2. The key findings suggested that belief-content conflict activated System 2 for invalid incongruent trials which would otherwise have been processed using low-cost heuristic means due to their inherent difficulty. In contrast, it appeared that in valid trials the cue led to a redirection of System 2 resources such that specialized analytic strategies were applied in incongruent trials preceded by belief-content conflict compared to those lacking this cue. Finally, belief bias was successfully offset by belief-content conflict even in cases of congruency. In congruent invalid trials without this cue participants’ intuitive awareness of the content-structure match appeared to lead to low-cost, belief-based guesses; yet when presented as the major premise this conflict cue appeared to shift System 1 processing away from content and towards structure. Albeit less diligent than System 2 analysis, the shallow consideration of structural features may have been viewed as a safer bet than any shortcut aiming to capitalize on syllogistic content. This set of findings cannot be fully accounted for by the selective scrutiny, misinterpreted necessity, mental models, verbal reasoning, selective processing, or Receiver Operating Characteristics accounts thereby highlighting the need for considering belief-content conflict in future models of belief bias.

The purpose of my dissertation was to examine whether adult romantic attachment and interpersonal threat bias people’s perceptions of physical distance within a social context. Across three separate studies, I assessed the interactive effects of attachment anxiety, attachment avoidance, and threat on perceptions of distance. In the baseline (control) condition, I predicted that people higher in attachment anxiety would perceive greater interpersonal closeness than people lower in attachment anxiety. However, in the threat condition, I predicted that this perceptual difference would disappear or, alternatively, that people higher in attachment anxiety would perceive greater interpersonal distance than people lower in attachment anxiety. Furthermore, I hypothesized that higher levels of attachment avoidance would be associated with greater perceptions of physical distance regardless of condition. In Study One, I used a loneliness prime and measured attachment orientation to examine their influence on the strength of the tendency to perceive an ambiguous, computerized figure as walking toward oneself. In Study Two, I investigated how attachment and the threat of separation affected estimations of physical distance from one’s romantic partner who was standing relatively close by. In the third and final study, I examined the impact of attachment and separation threat on perceptions of physical distance from one’s romantic partner when the partner was absent and imagined to be in another city. A meta-analysis of the experiments revealed that the influence of attachment anxiety on distance perception was not only dependent on condition, but also on attachment avoidance. Specifically, for people high in attachment avoidance in the control condition, higher attachment anxiety was associated with smaller perceptions of distance. In contrast, for people high in attachment avoidance in the threat condition, higher attachment anxiety was associated with greater perceptions of distance. For people low in attachment avoidance in both conditions, attachment anxiety did not predict distance perception. This pattern is partially consistent with, but also more complicated than, my original predictions. Explanations for the findings are discussed as well as future directions for investigation. Additionally, the important implications of this research for real-life interactions and, ultimately, the development and maintenance of attachment orientation are explored. / Thesis (Ph.D, Psychology) -- Queen's University, 2014-04-21 12:36:58.104

Fear of crime influences people’s daily habits (Lavrakas, 1982), as well as entire communities’ feelings of safety and cohesion (Gates, 1987). Gender has been identified as the strongest and most consistent predictor of fear of crime (for a review, see Hale, 1996). The literature consistently finds that women report greater fear of crime than do men. This finding is paradoxical when compared with the concurrent finding that men experience greater criminal victimization than do women. This phenomenon is referred to as the fear victimization paradox (Rennison, 2000). At first, it was accepted that women were more afraid of crime than were men and investigators offered many different theories to explain the paradox (e.g., Fisher & Sloan, 2003, Killias & Clerici, 2000, & Sacco, 1990). However, Sutton and Farrall (2005) investigated the possibility that masculinity was creating a social desirability bias in men’s reporting of fear of crime and when they accounted for this social desirability bias, they found that men actually experienced greater fear of crime than did women. The current investigation replicated and extended this research with 1009 university students and 508 Winnipeg residents. It extended Sutton and Farrall’s study by including measures of fear of crime and social desirability that have greater validity and by testing whether the findings apply differentially to fear of sexual versus non-sexual types of criminal victimization. The influence of age, location of residence within the city of Winnipeg, history of victimization, and masculinity on fear of crime was explored. This investigation was able to replicate Sutton and Farrall’s finding, but only in the community sample. The findings from this investigation suggest that there is a shift as men leave university from actually being less afraid of crime than women to being more afraid of crime. However, despite their increased fear, men in the community seem to maintain the façade of fearlessness. It was also found that women were consistently more afraid of sexual victimization than men, regardless of the influence of social desirability. Masculinity and social desirability had similar negative relationships to fear of crime and the implications of this are discussed.

No description available.

This dissertation consists of three stand-alone but interrelated empirical studies investigating various aspects of the well-documented ??home bias anomaly?? in international investment. The findings help to understand the international investment allocation behaviour of mutual funds as well as their implications for asset pricing and mutual fund evaluation. The first study investigates the roles of various firm attributes that encapsulate the deadweight costs in determining firm level investment bias. The main findings suggest that firm characteristics related to transaction costs, corporate governance and information asymmetry create significant barriers for fund managers. In addition, foreign funds are more constrained than domestic funds by information asymmetry, even in developed and liberalized markets. Moreover, this study stylises the international investment allocation model in Cooper and Kaplanis (1986) with a quadratic cost function, which reveals the marginal influence of market level deadweight costs on the relationship between firm characteristics and investment bias. It is found that when market level cross-border barriers are exacerbated, as in the case of emerging and restricted financial markets, foreign fund managers become more sensitive to market level deadweight costs and ignore firm characteristics. In general, these findings imply that the market level ??home bias anomaly?? is an outcome of the complementary effects of investment barriers at both firm and market levels. The second study examines the role of firm level investment bias in predicting future stock returns. It is found that both firm level foreign and domestic biases contain valuable information with respect to firm prospects. However, domestic bias is more informative than foreign bias in terms of subsequent stock returns, partially because of information asymmetry. The third study explores the determinants of fund level investment bias and its ability to predict fund performance. It is found that fund portfolio attributes determine fund level investment biases after controlling for market and fund investment objective specific effects, and fund level investment bias is positively related to fund performance due to lower deadweight costs. Moreover, good macroeconomic environments foster the development of the mutual fund industry.

The aim of this thesis is to analyse international financial integration. Chapter 2 investigates the determinants of international financial integration. Variables including the capital control policy dummy variable, openness to international trade, domestic credit and economic growth are candidates for explaining variation in the degree of international financial integration. Chapter 3 analyses cointegration between the US and several European Union equity markets. Between 1993 and 1998, there is mixed evidence of cointegration ties with the US equity market. Over the period covering the introduction of the euro, most of the European markets did not show any evidence of cointegration with the US market. Granger causality tests reveal significant causality running from the US to the European markets. Chapter 4 estimates time series of market and idiosyncratic volatilities for the firms composing the index DJ Eurostoxx 50 following the volatility decomposition method of Campbell et al. (2001). There was a positive trend in both market and firm-level volatility and average correlation among firms has increased. This contrasts with the US evidence in Campbell et al. (2001) of a strong positive trend in firm-level volatility, no trend in market volatility and a decrease in the average correlation. Results confirm a statistically significant market risk-return trade-off and that firm-level volatility has no predictive power for subsequent market returns. Chapter 5 analyses the link between FDI and economic growth using panel data. FDI has a stronger positive impact on economic growth in countries with higher levels of education attainment, those that are more open to international trade, have better stock market development and lower rates of population growth and levels of risk. Chapter 6 investigates the determinants of the home bias. Results indicate that capital controls and transaction costs are factors driving the home bias of Australian equity portfolio investment. The home bias lessens if the bilateral trade is higher. Australian investors invest a higher share of their portfolio in countries with better institutions and larger market size.

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The current study of 151 college men explored weight-related factors that contribute to depressive symptoms among undergraduate men using structural equation modeling (SEM). Results of SEM supported the hypothesis that perceived negative messages about one's body and body dissatisfaction were significant mediators of the relationship between BMI and depressive symptoms. Moreover, social connectedness and academic self-concept were significant moderators of the relationship between body dissatisfaction and depressive symptoms. Although self-esteem was not a significant moderator, it was significantly related to body dissatisfaction, despite the men's magnitude of perceived body pressures. These findings inform therapeutic work with college men, signifying the importance of improving the quality of their relationships in family and social systems to reduce both depressive symptoms and body dissatisfaction. Furthermore, advocacy programming to counter body related pressure from media, societal systems, and other people would likely benefit college men struggling with body dissatisfaction and depressive symptoms.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Toronto, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 43-45).