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ERIC Number: EJ1006923
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2013-Feb
Pages: 7
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0096-3445
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: N/A
Eye Movements to Audiovisual Scenes Reveal Expectations of a Just World
Callan, Mitchell J.; Ferguson, Heather J.; Bindemann, Markus
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, v142 n1 p34-40 Feb 2013
When confronted with bad things happening to good people, observers often engage reactive strategies, such as victim derogation, to maintain a belief in a just world. Although such reasoning is usually made retrospectively, we investigated the extent to which knowledge of another person's good or bad behavior can also bias people's online expectations for subsequent good or bad outcomes. Using a fully crossed design, participants listened to auditory scenarios that varied in terms of whether the characters engaged in morally good or bad behavior while their eye movements were tracked around concurrent visual scenes depicting good and bad outcomes. We found that the good (bad) behavior of the characters influenced gaze preferences for good (bad) outcomes just prior to the actual outcomes being revealed. These findings suggest that beliefs about a person's moral worth encourage observers to foresee a preferred deserved outcome as the event unfolds. We include evidence to show that this effect cannot be explained in terms of affective priming or matching strategies. (Contains 2 figures, 2 tables and 2 footnotes.)
American Psychological Association. Journals Department, 750 First Street NE, Washington, DC 20002-4242. Tel: 800-374-2721; Tel: 202-336-5510; Fax: 202-336-5502; e-mail: order@apa.org; Web site: http://www.apa.org/publications
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A