You'd Better Ask an Expert: Mitigating the Comprehensibility Effect on Laypeople's Decisions About Science‐Based Knowledge Claims

Research shows that laypeople rely more on their capabilities to make decisions about science‐based knowledge claims after reading comprehensible compared with less comprehensible topic information. This can be problematic, because complex science‐based issues usually cannot be understood fully without experts' further advice. The present study investigated whether making readers aware of the ‘epistemic topic complexity’ of an issue (i.e., the extent of existing topic knowledge, the complexity of relationships between concepts, and the existence of multiple expert perspectives) can mitigate this influence of comprehensibility. Undergraduate students read comprehensible or less comprehensible health texts with topic knowledge being described as complex, uncomplex, or not described at all. They reported whether they agreed with the claim and would rely on their decision. Results showed that after reading comprehensible information, participants' reliance on their decision increased less when they considered topic knowledge to be complex. Practical implications of the findings are discussed. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Nichtspezifische,funktionelle und somatoforme Körperbeschwerden

In the S3 guidelines on non-specific, functional and somatoform bodily complaints, a broad group of medical and psychological societies as well as patient representatives have for the first time achieved an evidence-based consensus on terminology and care of these patients. This paper summarizes the main background information and recommendations for psychotherapists. For mild courses treatment by the general practitioner with establishment of a biopsychosocial explanatory model and physical as well as social activation is usually sufficient. More severe courses call for cooperative, coordinated management, including regular appointments with the general practitioner, graded activation and psychotherapy, especially cognitive behavioral, in addition to psychodynamic interpersonal or hypnotherapeutic imaginative psychotherapy. In particularly severe courses multimodal and if necessary day clinic or inpatient treatment is needed. Additionally the patient guidelines for affected people and their relatives are presented.     

Examining gender differences in received,provided, and invisible social control: an application of the dual-effects model

The dual-effects model of social control not only assumes that social control leads to better health practices but also arouses psychological distress. However, findings are inconsistent. The present study advances the current literature by examining social control from a dyadic perspective in the context of smoking. In addition, the study examines whether control, continuous smoking abstinence, and affect are differentially related for men and women. Before and three weeks after a self-set quit attempt, we examined 106 smokers (77 men, mean age: 40.67, average number of cigarettes smoked per day: 16.59 [SD = 8.52, range = 1–40] at baseline and 5.27 [SD = 6.97, range = 0–40] at follow-up) and their nonsmoking heterosexual partners, assessing received and provided control, continuous abstinence, and affect. With regard to smoker's affective reactions, partner's provided control was related to an increase in positive and to a decrease in negative affect, but only for female smokers. Moreover, the greater the discrepancy between smoker received and partner's provided control was the more positive affect increased and the more negative affect decreased, but again only for female smokers. These findings demonstrate that female smokers' well-being was raised over time if they were not aware of the control attempts of their nonsmoking partners, indicating positive effects of invisible social control. This study's results emphasize the importance of applying a dyadic perspective and taking gender differences in the dual-effects model of social control into account.     

Diverse Routes to Civic Participation Across Ages and Cultures: An Introduction

Civic participation is a cornerstone of civil societies and a part of positive and productive individual development. Much is known about individual predictors of civic participation among ethnic majority Western adolescent and young adult samples. In this special issue, the authors aim to uncover the predictors of civic participation in less studied populations to better understand diverse routes to civic participation across ages and cultures. Framed by life-span and ecological perspectives, this special issue draws together studies that target different age groups, from adolescents to the old–old, as well as minority and immigrant populations and residents of diverse countries, including the United States, Australia, Eastern and Western European countries, and Turkey.     

Knowing Who Knows: Laypersons' Capabilities to Judge Experts' Pertinence for Science Topics

Because modern societies are built on elaborate divisions of cognitive labor, individuals remain laypersons in most knowledge domains. Hence, they have to rely on others' expertise when deciding on many science‐related issues in private and public life. Even children already locate and discern expertise in the minds of others (e.g., Danovitch & Keil, 2004). This study examines how far university students accurately judge experts' pertinence for science topics even when they lack proficient knowledge of the domain. Participants judged the pertinence of experts from diverse disciplines based on the experts' assumed contributions to texts adapted from original articles from Science and Nature. Subjective pertinence judgments were calibrated by comparing them with bibliometrics of the original articles. Furthermore, participants' general science knowledge was controlled. Results showed that participants made well‐calibrated pertinence judgments regardless of their level of general science knowledge.     

Gender-based rejection sensitivity and academic self-silencing in women

Building on prior work on rejection sensitivity, we propose a social-cognitive model of gender-based rejection sensitivity (Gender RS) to account for individual differences in how women perceive and cope with gender-based evaluative threats in competitive, historically male institutions. Study 1 develops a measure of Gender RS, defined as anxious expectations of gender-based rejection. Studies 2-5 support the central predictions of the model: Gender RS is associated with increased perceptions of gender-based threats and increased coping by self-silencing--responses that reinforce feelings of alienation and diminished motivation. Study 2 shows that Gender RS is distinct from overall sensitivity to rejection or perceiving the world through the lens of gender. Study 3 shows that Gender RS becomes activated specifically when gender-based rejection is a plausible explanation for negative outcomes. Study 4 provides experimental evidence that Gender RS predicts lower academic self-confidence, greater expectations of bias, and avoidance of opportunities for further help from a weakness-focused expert evaluator. Study 5 tests the Gender RS model in situ, using daily diaries to track women's experiences during the first weeks in a highly competitive law school. Implications for women's coping with the subtle nature of contemporary sexism are discussed as well as the importance of institution-level checks to prevent the costs of gender-based rejection.