The theoretical framework presented in this article explains expert performance as the end result of individuals ' prolonged efforts to improve performance while negotiating motivational and external constraints. In most domains of expertise, individuals begin in their childhood a regimen of effortful activities (deliberate practice) designed to optimize improvement. Individual differences, even among elite performers, are closely related to assessed amounts of deliberate practice. Many characteristics once believed to reflect innate talent are actually the result of intense practice extended for a minimum of 10 years. Analysis of expert performance provides unique evidence on the potential and limits of extreme environmental adaptation and learning. Our civilization has always recognized exceptional individuals, whose performance in sports, the arts, and science is vastly superior to that of the rest of the population. Speculations on the causes of these individuals ' extraordinary abilities and performance are as old as the first records of their achievements. Early accounts commonly attribute these individuals' outstanding performance to divine intervention, such as the

People tend to hold overly favorable views of their abilities in many social and intellectual domains. The authors suggest that this overestimation occurs, in part, because people who are unskilled in these domains suffer a dual burden: Not only do these people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it. Across 4 studies, the authors found that participants scoring in the bottom quartile on tests of humor, grammar, and logic grossly overestimated their test performance and ability. Although their test scores put them in the 12th percentile, they estimated themselves to be in the 62nd. Several analyses linked this miscalibration to deficits in metacognitive skill, or the capacity to distinguish accuracy from error. Paradoxically, improving the skills of participants, and thus increasing their metacognitive competence, helped them recognize the limitations of their abilities. It is one of the essential features of such incompetence that the person so afflicted is incapable of knowing that he is incompetent. To have such knowledge would already be to remedy a good portion of the offense. (Miller, 1993, p. 4) In 1995, McArthur Wheeler walked into two Pittsburgh banks

Confirmation bias, as the term is typically used in the psychological literature, connotes the seeking or interpreting of evidence in ways that are partial to existing beliefs, expectations, or a hypothesis in hand. The author reviews evidence of such a bias in a variety of guises and gives examples of its operation in several practical contexts. Possible explanations are considered, and the question of its utility or disutility is discussed. When men wish to construct or support a theory, how they torture facts into their service! (Mackay, 1852/ 1932, p. 552) Confirmation bias is perhaps the best known and most widely accepted notion of inferential error to come out of the literature on human reasoning. (Evans, 1989, p. 41) If one were to attempt to identify a single problematic aspect of human reasoning that deserves attention above all others, the confirmation bias would have to be among the candidates for consideration. Many have written about this bias, and it appears to be sufficiently strong and pervasive that one is led to wonder whether the bias, by itself, might account for a significant fraction of the disputes, altercations, and misunderstandings that occur among individuals, groups, and nations. Confirmation bias has been used in the psychological literature to refer to a variety of phenomena. Here I take the term to represent a generic concept that subsumes several more specific ideas that connote the inappropriate bolstering of hypotheses or beliefs whose truth is in question.

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The authors tested and confirmed the hypothesis that priming a stereotype or trait leads to complex overt behavior in line with this activated stereotype or trait. Specifically, 4 experiments established that priming the stereotype of professors or the trait intelligent enhanced participants ' performance on a scale measuring general knowledge. Also, priming the stereotype of soccer hooligans or the trait stupid reduced participants ' performance on a general knowledge scale. Results of the experiments revealed (a) that prolonged priming leads to more pronounced behavioral effects and (b) that there is no sign of decay of the effects for at least 15 min. The authors explain their results by claiming that perception has a direct and pervasive impact on overt behavior (cf. J. A. Bargh, M. Chen, & L. Burrows, 1996). Implications for human social behavior are discussed. I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking.--Christopher Isherwood Some time ago, a few members of the Department of Social Psychology of the University of Nijmegen visited a soccer match. After they had parked their car, they walked the remaining mile to the stadium. The psychologists, behaving calmly and orderly

The existence of a beauty premium in the labor market and the malefemale wage gap suggests that appearance can matter in the real world. We explore beauty and gender in a public goods experiment and find similar effects. We find a beauty premium, even though beautiful people contribute, on average, no more or less than others. The beauty premium, however, disappears when we provide information on individual contributions, and becomes a beauty penalty. Players seem to expect beautiful people to be more cooperative. Relative to these expectations, they appear more selfish, which in turn results in less cooperation by others. These appear to be clear examples of stereotyping. We also find a substantial benefit tobeing male, especially with information. This is primarily due to men being better “leaders.” Men tend to make large contributions, and people follow their example and give more in later rounds.

Three replications of a double-blind experiment tested subliminal audiotape products that were claimed to improve memory or to increase selfesteem. Conditions of use adhered to manufacturers' recommendations, and subjects (N = 237) were limited to persons who desired the effects offered by the tapes. Actual content and labeled content of tapes were independently varied, so that some subjects who believed they were using memory tapes were actually using self-esteem tapes, and vice versa. After a month of use, neither the memory nor the self-esteem tapes produced their claimed effects. Nevertheless, a general improvement for all subjects in both memory and self-esteem (a nonspecific placebo effect) was observed, and more than a third of the subjects had the illusion of improvement specific to the domain named on the tape's label.

ii In this dissertation I develop a theoretical model on the effects of risk on the formation of trust in the initial stages of a relationship. Risk is proposed to influence trust in two ways: First, risk exerts a direct influence on trust. Risk may decrease trust, increase trust, or increase trust under specific conditions. Second, risk may affect the level of trust indirectly by influencing the effect of social stimuli on the formation of trust. In this second indirect effect of risk, risk is first proposed to influence the content of trust, or what trust is about as represented in the importance a trustor attaches to benevolence or ability. Moreover and related to the effect of risk on the form of trust, risk is further proposed to affect what people seek to know or the informational goals people adopt, and the interpretive schemas people use while processing social stimuli. In describing the indirect effect of risk on the formation of trust, I differentiate between rolebased and personal trust. Role-based trust emphasizes ability and reliability and is vested in people’s structural expectations toward social and professional roles. Personal trust emphasizes benevolence and is vested in a trustor’s appraisal of the personal traits and motivations of a trustee. High risk, I argue will activate personal trust, and cause people to interpret information in light of a person schema whereas low risk is proposed to activate rolebased trust and should cause people to interpret information in light of a role schema. Unlike conventional models of trust formation and development, which see trust as being based on declarative knowledge; the present model argue that trust in the initial stages of a relationship will be based on people’s experience with information processing and their experiences of fluency in information processing and relevance. Social stimuli that are structurally congruent with active interpretive schemas as well as relevant to active informational goals will increase trust whereas incongruent and irrelevant information should reduce trust. iii iv

Three replications of a double -blind experiment tested subliminal audiotape products that were claimed to improve memory or to increase selfesteem. Conditions of use adhered to manufacturers' recommendations, and subjects (N = 237) were limited to persons who desired the effects offered by the tapes. Actual content and labeled content of tapes were independently varied, so that some subjects who believed they were using memory tapes were actually using self-esteem tapes, and vice versa. After a month of use, neither the memory nor the self-esteem tapes produced their claimed effects. Nevertheless, a general improvement for all subjects in both memory and self-esteem (a nonspecific placebo effect) was observed, and more than a third of the subjects had the illusion of improvement specific to the domain named on the tape's label.

Today a majority of business organizations utilize work team designs in an effort to gain a competitive edge. A multitude of factors exert varying levels of influence on work teams, however, few are as potentially pernicious as conflict. Although conflict in work teams has received much attention within the literature, there is notable absence of investigations that have considered the influence of interpersonal factors on conflict within team settings. The present longitudinal, field investigation sought to address this deficit by examining the influence of interpersonal flexibility on work team conflict and conflict-related consequences in 20 naturally occurring M.B.A. project teams. The following research questions were addressed: (1) What is the relationship of interpersonal flexibility to team conflict? (2) What is the relationship of interpersonal flexibility to team outcome? (3) To what extent does interpersonal flexibility predict team conflict occurrence? (4) To what extent does interpersonal flexibility predict team outcome? (5) What is the trajectory of team conflict and outcomes over time based on member interpersonal flexibility? In addressing the questions, a series of Pearson correlations, one-way ANOVA, and GLM repeated measure analyses were conducted. Results