Patient Understanding of Potential Risk and Benefit With Informed Consent in a Left Ventricular Assist Device Population: A Pilot Study.

BACKGROUND: Consent issues have not been thoroughly explored in a left ventricular assist device (LVAD) population. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this pilot study was to explore patients' knowledge of their LVAD, including the accuracy of patients' understanding of the LVAD, potential complications, and lifestyle changes necessary after implantation. METHODS: Hospitalized patients with LVAD were recruited to complete a questionnaire. RESULTS: Among 16 patients, 13 (mean [SD] age, 60.2 [11.16] years) completed the protocol. CONCLUSIONS: Some of the items had a high level of accuracy, whereas other items suffered from poor performance (including complications from implantation and long-term survival rates). In addition, verbal aptitude was associated with overall scores on the questionnaire, such that patients with a higher verbal aptitude scored better on the questionnaire. CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS: The results of this pilot study suggest that patients would benefit from an improved consent process to increase their knowledge of the device.

The prevalence and prevention of crosstalk: a multi-institutional study.

It is a common problem in psychology subject pools for past study participants to inform future participants of key experimental details (also known as crosstalk). Previous research (Edlund, Sagarin, Skowronski, Johnson, & Kutter, 2009) demonstrated that a combined classroom and laboratory treatment could significantly reduce crosstalk. The present investigation tested a laboratory-only treatment for the prevention of crosstalk at five universities, along with institutional-level moderators of crosstalk. Results indicated the presence of crosstalk at all universities and that the laboratory-based treatment was effective in reducing crosstalk. Importantly, crosstalk rates were higher (but successfully neutralized) in research pools with higher research credit requirements. Therefore, this research provides valuable guidance regarding crosstalk prevalence and its minimization by researchers.

Fertility Fails to Predict Voter Preference for the 2020 Election: A Pre-Registered Replication of Navarrete et al. (2010).

As part of the Systematizing Confidence in Open Research and Evidence (SCORE) program, the present study reassesses the claim made in Navarrete et al. (2010) Study 1, that women's voter preference for male candidates who demonstrate cues of strong genetic fitness increases across the reproductive cycle as a function of conception risk. We report an attempt to conceptually replicate these findings, modifying the outcome variables for voter preference to reflect the 2020 election rather than the 2008 election, while maintaining fidelity to the original study by including Barack Obama as a candidate. Contrary to the original findings, conception risk did not predict greater voter support for Obama as a younger, more attractive alternative to Donald J. Trump, nor was conception risk a significant factor in other matchups we presented to participants. Candidate intelligence and participant psychopathy scores on the Dark Triad were found to be factors in preference for Obama/Biden or Trump, respectively. We discuss these results in the context of evolutionary and political psychology, suggesting the need for further research that takes political factors into account.

Cultural stereotypes and personal beliefs about individuals with dwarfism.

Three studies assessed the content of cultural stereotypes and personal beliefs regarding individuals with dwarfism among "average height" (i.e., non-dwarf) individuals. In Studies 1 and 2, undergraduates from three separate institutions selected adjectives to reflect traits constituting both the cultural stereotype about dwarves and their own personal beliefs about dwarves (cf. Devine & Elliot, 1995). The most commonly endorsed traits for the cultural stereotype tended to be negative (e.g., weird, incapable, childlike); the most commonly endorsed traits for personal beliefs were largely positive (e.g., capable, intelligent, kind). In Study 3, undergraduates from two separate institutions used an open-ended method to indicate their personal beliefs about dwarves (cf. Eagly, Mladinic, & Otto, 1994). Responses contained a mixture of positive and negative characteristics, suggesting a greater willingness to admit to negative personal beliefs using the open-ended method.

Juror Decision Making and Euthanasia: Exploring the Role of Jury Nullification, Manner of Death, and Defendant-Decedent Relationship.

In cases of euthanasia, determinations of guilt may be influenced by legal and extra-legal factors. This study explores the role that nullification instructions play in juror decision making. A defendant may be viewed as less culpable if the act was done out of mercy and jury nullification may occur as a result. We anticipated that these determinations may be influenced by the manner of death and the relational distance between the defendant and the decedent. It is unknown how euthanasia is viewed when it is performed by a physician compared to a family member or friend. To answer these questions, participants acted as mock jurors in a euthanasia case. The descriptions of the case varied by the presence of nullification instructions, the manner of death, and the defendant's relationship to the decedent. The results revealed significant effects of method of euthanasia and the type of defendant on juror verdicts. Jurors were most likely to acquit in a case that provided nullification instructions and involved a spouse using lethal injection for euthanasia. This finding suggests that different circumstances of a euthanasia case will affect jurors' propensity to focus on personal sympathies and interpretations. Limitations and future directions are discussed.

Miranda Warning Comprehension: The Influence of Verbal Aptitude and Hearing Status.

The Miranda warning was drafted in order to inform people of their rights upon arrest in an easy to understand manner. However, to understand the warning a person needs a high school level reading comprehension (which is above the level of most offenders). Among these offenders, deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) individuals are particularly prone to misinterpreting the Miranda warning due to language barriers with law enforcement and below average English literacy compared to hearing individuals. Two studies were performed. The first compared Miranda warning comprehension between hearing and DHH participants, and it was found that DHH participants showed overall lower comprehension. The second study, consisting only of DHH participants, compared the effectiveness of four different presentations of the Miranda warning: signed in American Sign Language (ASL), signed in Signed Exact English (SEE), oral presentation, and written presentation. The written presentation demonstrated the lowest comprehension scores while the other three methods showed no significant difference in comprehension. The results suggest that the Miranda warning is best administered to DHH individuals with the assistance of a certified sign language interpreter. Limitations of the sample and directions for future research are discussed.

Trait expectancies and stereotype expectancies affect person memory similarly in a jury context.

This experiment, a simulated trial study, examined whether trait expectancies and stereotype expectancies similarly affected memory for expectancy-relevant behaviors. Participants read a description of a defendant, which was followed by testimony that induced a trait or stereotype expectancy. After viewing the evidence items and giving a guilt judgment, the participants were asked to recall as many of the evidence items as they could and to complete a thought listing measure. The results showed that, when overtly applied to the defendant, trait expectancies and stereotype expectancies had similar effects, producing incongruity effects on recall. Additional analyses examining the participants' post-hoc reports of the thoughts that they had as they processed the behaviors provided little evidence that subjects attempted to reconcile items or attempted to reconcile the items with the expectancy.

Saving Science Through Replication Studies.

The scientific enterprise has long been based on the presumption of replication, although scientists have recently become aware of various corruptions of the enterprise that have hurt replicability. In this article, we begin by considering three illustrations of research paradigms that have all been subject to intense scrutiny through replications and theoretical concerns. The three paradigms are one for which the corpus of research points to a real finding, one for which the corpus of research points to a significantly attenuated effect, and one for which the debate is ongoing. We then discuss what scientists can learn-and how science can be improved-through replications more generally. From there, we discuss what we believe needs to be done to improve scientific inquiry with regard to replication moving forward. Finally, we conclude by providing readers with several different approaches to replication and how these approaches progress science. The approaches discussed include multilab replications of many effects, multilab replications of specific effects, adversarial collaborations, and stand-alone applications.

Receptivity to casual sexual requests.

Research has long noted that there are differences between men's and women's responses to casual sexual requests. In this study, we sought to replicate and extend the Clark and Hatfield paradigm while exploring the influence of requestor attractiveness, sexual orientation, and two individual difference measures: sociosexuality (which is how open to sexuality a person is) and personal mate value (which is how high quality of a mate the person is). We found that attractiveness matters in the likelihood of a request being accepted (the more attractive the requester, the higher the proportion of agreement); sexual orientation matters for the overall proportion of responses agreed to (heterosexuals were most impacted by the attractiveness of the target), and that sociosexuality moderates the likelihood of agreeing to the requests (such that participants with higher sociosexuality scores were more likely to agree to requests).

Whatever happens in the laboratory stays in the laboratory: the prevalence and prevention of participant crosstalk.

Foreknowledge in research participants can undermine the validity of psychological research. Three studies examined a potentially major source of foreknowledge: participant crosstalk in an undergraduate subject pool. Participants in all three studies attempted to win extra experimental credit by guessing the number of beans in a jar-a nearly impossible task without foreknowledge of the answer. Participants guessing incorrectly were told the correct answer by the experimenter. In Study 1, 23 of 809 participants showed clear evidence of having received the correct answer from a prior participant. In Study 2, a classroom-based treatment asking students not to talk about experiments to other students significantly reduced crosstalk rates. In Study 3, a laboratory-based treatment supplemented the classroom-based treatment. After revealing the number of beans in the jar, the experimenter obtained a verbal commitment from participants that they would not tell anyone about the experiment. The combined treatment nearly eliminated crosstalk.

Male Sexual Jealousy: Lost Paternity Opportunities?

Numerous studies have shown that men experience relatively greater levels of jealousy in response to the sexual aspects of an infidelity (relative to women), whereas women experience relatively greater levels of jealousy in response to the emotional aspects of an infidelity (relative to men). The traditional explanation for this relationship suggests that men experience this greater level of jealousy due to threats of a loss of paternal certainty. In this article, we present three studies that demonstrate that men's differentially greater jealousy occurs in response to situations that threaten paternity opportunities. These results suggest that a loss of perceived paternity opportunities is the ultimate origin of men's increased jealousy in response to sexual infidelity.

Registered Replication Report: Dijksterhuis and van Knippenberg (1998).

Dijksterhuis and van Knippenberg (1998) reported that participants primed with a category associated with intelligence ("professor") subsequently performed 13% better on a trivia test than participants primed with a category associated with a lack of intelligence ("soccer hooligans"). In two unpublished replications of this study designed to verify the appropriate testing procedures, Dijksterhuis, van Knippenberg, and Holland observed a smaller difference between conditions (2%-3%) as well as a gender difference: Men showed the effect (9.3% and 7.6%), but women did not (0.3% and -0.3%). The procedure used in those replications served as the basis for this multilab Registered Replication Report. A total of 40 laboratories collected data for this project, and 23 of these laboratories met all inclusion criteria. Here we report the meta-analytic results for those 23 direct replications (total N = 4,493), which tested whether performance on a 30-item general-knowledge trivia task differed between these two priming conditions (results of supplementary analyses of the data from all 40 labs, N = 6,454, are also reported). We observed no overall difference in trivia performance between participants primed with the "professor" category and those primed with the "hooligan" category (0.14%) and no moderation by gender.

Jealousy reconsidered: a reply to DeSteno (2010).

In a recent commentary, DeSteno (2010) critiqued the work of Levy and Kelley (2010) which investigated the relationship of attachment style to the sex difference in jealousy. This commentary addresses the concerns raised by DeSteno; I briefly review some of the literature that was not addressed by DeSteno's commentary and discuss directions that future research may take.