The lack of effects of enriched and automated environments on the adaptive and maladaptive behavior of mentally retarded persons

This study addressed the relative effects of repeated exposures to an austere institutional dayroom, a toy enriched dayroom, a PUSH (Play Units for the Severely Handicapped) room that contained automated stimulation devices within a physical terrain, and a modular room that contained wall mounted automated stimulation devices, on the adaptive and maladaptive freeplay behavior of six groups of institutionalized mentally retarded individuals (N = 6 per group). Group One was observed in all four settings, whereas the other five were observed in two or more of the active settings. The results indicated that (1) there were only slight differences in object-directed adaptive behavior when the three active settings were compared to the austere setting, and (2) only the higher functioning subjects (Group Five) displayed consistent individual differences on any of the measures when active settings were compared. None of the comparisons, however, revealed statistically significant effects. This study clearly demonstrates the need for active control conditions, raises questions regarding the relevance of much of the previous research, and suggests that further refinements will be necessary before environments such as those in the present study produce meaningful changes in appropriate environmental interaction in the absence of staff mediation.     

The purposes of laboratory experimentation and the virtues of deliberate artificiality

Critics of the laboratory experiment have maintained that artificiality (the intrusion into the experiment of “unrealistic” conditions) vitiates any possibility of generalizability beyond the confines of the laboratory. It is argued here that such artificiality in laboratory experimentation is a defect or flaw only within the context of verification and may be a distinct virtue in the context of discovery. Indeed it is argued that social psychological experiments may not be artificial enough when contrasted with the most fruitful experiments in the natural sciences. One purpose of an experiment may be to maximize artificiality deliberately so as to discover regularities that do not presently obtain under the “real” conditions outside the laboratory but which are capable of existing. When such observed laboratory regularities produce potentially beneficial outcomes, an attempt may be made to create the specific artificial laboratory conditions outside the laboratory to benefit mankind. This logic, exceedingly common in the natural sciences, has been virtually ignored in social psychology, even in the laboratory experiment, in favor of “realistic” reproduction of existing or reasonably plausible situations. Theoretical benefits of this additional modality of experimentation are illustrated by two recent developments in psychology.     

Profiles of Resilience and Psychosocial Outcomes among Young Black Gay and Bisexual Men

Young Black gay/bisexual men (YBGBM) are affected by contextual stressors—namely syndemic conditions and minority stress—that threaten their health and well‐being. Resilience is a process through which YBGBM achieve positive psychosocial outcomes in the face of adverse conditions. Self‐efficacy, hardiness and adaptive coping, and social support may be important resilience factors for YBGBM. This study explores different profiles of these resilience factors in 228 YBGBM in New York City and compares profiles on psychological distress, mental health, and other psychosocial factors. Four profiles of resilience were identified: (a) Low self‐efficacy and hardiness/adaptive coping (23.5%); (b) Low peer and parental support (21.2%); (c) High peer support, low father support (34.5%); and (d) High father and mother support, self‐efficacy, and hardiness/adaptive coping (20.8%). YBGBM in profile 1 scored markedly higher on distress (d = .74) and lower on mental health functioning (d = .93) compared to men in the other profiles. Results suggest that self‐efficacy and hardiness/adaptive coping may play a more important role in protecting YBGBM from risks compared to social support and should be targeted in interventions. The findings show that resilience is a multidimensional construct and support the notion that there are different patterns of resilience among YBGBM.     

An ethical problem concerning recent therapeutic research on breast cancer

The surgical treatment of breast cancer has changed in recent years. Analysis of the research that led to these changes yields apparently good arguments for all of the following: (1) The research yielded very great benefits for women. (2) There was no other way of obtaining these benefits. (3) This research violated the fundamental rights of the women who were research subjects. This sets a problem for ethics at many levels.     

Dissociation in the laboratory: a comparison of strategies

Several methods for inducing dissociation in the laboratory were examined in a sample of 78 undergraduate students. Participants scoring high or low on the Dissociative Experiences Scale participated in three dissociation challenge conditions: (a) dot-staring task, (b) administration of pulsed photic and audio stimulation and (c) stimulus deprivation. Participants recorded their dissociative experiences both before and after each of the three challenge conditions. Across conditions, high DES participants reported significantly more dissociative sensations than low DES participants, even after controlling for pre-challenge dissociation. Moreover, regardless of DES status, pulsed photo and audio stimulation produced the greatest level of dissociative symptoms. The findings suggest that the induction of dissociative symptoms in a nonclinical sample is easily accomplished in the laboratory and that those who report more dissociative symptoms in their day-to-day life exhibit more pronounced dissociative symptoms when undergoing dissociative challenge in the laboratory. Implications for the study and treatment of dissociative symptoms are discussed.     

Bifactor Modeling and the Estimation of Model-Based Reliability in the WAIS-IV

Previous confirmatory factor analytic research that has examined the factor structure of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale–Fourth Edition (WAIS-IV) has endorsed either higher order models or oblique factor models that tend to amalgamate both general factor and index factor sources of systematic variance. An alternative model that has not yet been examined for the WAIS-IV is the bifactor model. Bifactor models allow all subtests to load onto both the general factor and their respective index factor directly. Bifactor models are also particularly amenable to the estimation of model-based reliabilities for both global composite scores (ω _h ) and subscale/index scores (ω _s ). Based on the WAIS-IV normative sample correlation matrices, a bifactor model that did not include any index factor cross loadings or correlated residuals was found to be better fitting than the conventional higher order and oblique factor models. Although the ω _h estimate associated with the full scale intelligence quotient (FSIQ) scores was respectably high (.86), the ω _s estimates associated with the WAIS-IV index scores were very low (.13 to .47). The results are interpreted in the context of the benefits of a bifactor modeling approach. Additionally, in light of the very low levels of unique internal consistency reliabilities associated with the index scores, it is contended that clinical index score interpretations are probably not justifiable.     

The Santa Clara Strength of Religious Faith Questionnaire

This article introduces the Santa Clara Strength of Religious Faith Questionnaire (SCSORF) and provides preliminary information on the instrument. The SCSORF is a quick, easy to administer and score, 10-item scale assessing strength of religious faith. The SCSORF and personality and mood measures (i.e., Symptom Check List-90-Revised, Weinberger Adjustment Inventory, Belief in Personal Control Scale, and several author-designed questions) were administered to 102 undergraduate students. Preliminary findings suggest that the SCSORF is both reliable and valid. Furthermore, significant correlations between strength of religious faith, self-esteem, interpersonal sensitivity, adaptive coping, and hope correspond with previous research, suggesting that mental health benefits are associated with strong religious faith. Implications for future research are also discussed.     

The paradox of creativity

Creativity seems to yield survival and reproductive benefits. Creative behaviors allow individuals to solve problems in new and appropriate ways, and thus to promote their survival. They also facilitate bonding and constitute a signal of one's fitness, favoring attraction of mates. However, to be creative, individuals often have to violate social norms in order to promote change. So far, this deviance induced by creative behaviors had not been seen as an adaptive disadvantage. This deviance entails negative consequences as social exclusion or ostracism, which are detrimental for both survival (e.g., reduced access to resources within the group) and reproduction (reduced reproductive fitness). Thus, the adaptive benefits yielded by creativity have to be nuanced by these potential disadvantages. The paradox of creativity proposes a finer-grained vision of the adaptive reasons why creativity has been maintained within the human species, has evolved, and is collectively regulated. Research perspectives are also proposed.     

The Caveman's Conscience: Evolution and Moral Realism

An increasingly popular moral argument has it that the story of human evolution shows that we can explain the human disposition to make moral judgments without relying on a realm of moral facts. Such facts can thus be dispensed with. But this argument is a threat to moral realism only if there is no realist position that can explain, in the context of human evolution, the relationship between our particular moral sense and a realm of moral facts. I sketch a plausible evolutionary story that illuminates this relationship. First, the sorts of adaptive pressures facing early humans would have produced more than just potent prosocial emotions, as evolutionary antirealists like to claim; it would have produced judgments—often situated within emotions—to the effect that others could reasonably disapprove of some bit of conduct, for an early human who cared deeply about how others might respond to her action enjoyed the benefits of more cooperative exchanges than those early humans who did not. Second, according to objectivist versions of moral constructivism, moral facts just are facts about how others, ideally situated, would respond to one's conduct. Thus if any objectivist moral constructivism story is true, then we can intelligibly assert that a) our capacity for moral judgment is the product of adaptive pressures acting on early humans and b) some moral judgments are objectively true.     

Attentional processing of emotional material in types of anxiety and depression

ABSTRACT

The present study was designed to address the hypothesis that differences and similarities in patterns of attentional processing in recently proposed types of anxiety and depression are connected with the dominant (reactive, regulative) function they play in stimulation processing and their structural components. Participants (N?=?1247) filled out the Anxiety and Depression Questionnaire, which assesses types of anxiety and depression, and completed the Emotional Faces Attentional Test one week later. The obtained results confirmed our prediction and suggested that the proposed typology of anxiety and depression is valid in the adaptive meanings of both phenomena.     

The two sides of adversity: the effect of distant versus recent adversity on updating emotional content in working memory

Previous research suggests that adversity can have both adaptive and maladaptive effects, yet the emotional and working memory processes that contribute to more or less adaptive outcomes are unclear. The present study sought to investigate how updating emotional content differs in adolescents who have experienced past, recent, or no adversity. Participants who had experienced distant adversity (N?=?53), no adversity (N?=?58), or recent adversity only (N?=?20) performed an emotion n-back task with emotional facial expressions. Results revealed that the distant adversity group exhibited significantly faster reaction times (RTs) than the no adversity and recent adversity only groups. In contrast, the recent adversity only group exhibited significantly slower RTs and more errors than the distant adversity and no adversity groups. These results suggest an emotion and executive control pathway by which both the benefits and negative effects of adversity may be conferred. Results also highlight the importance of time in assessing the impact of adversity.     

Learning about food: starlings, skinner boxes, and earthworms

Despite its importance as a tool for understanding a wide range of animal behavior, the study of reinforcement schedules in the laboratory has suffered from difficulties in the biological interpretation of its findings. This study is an operant-laboratory investigation of the ability of European starlings, Sturnus vulgaris, to learn to respond adaptively to the problem of foraging on patchily distributed prey that are uncertainly located in space. In order to maximize the biological relevance of the laboratory study, variation in the aggregation of earthworms, Lumbricus terrestris (a prey species), was rigorously quantified from the field, and the experimental birds were presented with reinforcement schedules designed to represent the extremes of the observed variation. The results demonstrate that, even for a single prey species, the degree to which individuals are aggregated can vary markedly over a range of spatial scales, and that starlings can rapidly learn to respond, in an adaptive manner, to these variations. These findings suggest that starlings are capable of adjusting their behavior to facilitate the efficient exploitation of prey that occurs in patches of an uncertain nature, and thus illustrate the heuristic value of an ecologically informed operant-laboratory approach to studying foraging behavior.     

How self-enhancers adapt well to loss: the mediational role of loneliness and social functioning

Objective: The tendency toward unrealistically optimistic self-serving biases, known as trait self-enhancement, has been associated with both adaptive benefits and negative social consequences. This study explored these potential benefits and costs in the context of conjugal bereavement. Method: The study included 94 individuals who had experienced the death of a spouse 1.5–3.0 years prior. The sample (62 female, 32 male) ranged in age from 37 to 60 (M = 51.45, SD = 6.08). To examine benefits, we used relatively objective measures of overall adjustment: structured clinical interviews and ratings from participants’ close friends and relatives. To examine social adjustment, we examined friends’/relatives’ ratings of the quality of social interactions and the possible mediating roles of perceived loneliness and friend/relative ratings. Results: Trait self-enhancement was uniformly associated with positive adjustment: relatively lower symptom totals, and friend/relative ratings of both overall better adjustment and better social adjustment. Self-enhancers’ low loneliness was found to mediate reduced symptoms. Also, friends’/relatives’ ratings of social functioning appeared to mediate self-enhancers’ reduced loneliness. Conclusions: These findings provide further empirical data to challenge the longstanding assumption that inaccurate self-perception is inherently maladaptive. Authentic benefits may result from mistaken perceptions of oneself by influencing the experience of loneliness and how one is seen by close friends/relatives. Self-enhancement may be an adaptation that provides clinically relevant advantages.     

Effects of monotonous stimulation on cortical alertness in fast and slow habituation groups

The present study investigated cortical alertness in Ss displaying fast and slow habituation of the evoked skin conductance response (SCR). From Sokolov's statement (Perception and the conditioned reflex, 1963, Pergamon) that the final stage of habituation is sleep, it was predicted that during monotonous stimulation, Ss displaying rapid habituation of the evoked SCR would show a more rapid decline in cortical alertness than Ss displaying slow habituation. Quantified EEG and electrodermal measures of cortical alertness were obtained from fast and slow habituation groups tested under conditions of either repetitive auditory stimulation or reduced sensory input. The results indicated that 8–13 Hz EEG abundance declined more rapidly in fast than in the slow habituation groups under both conditions of monotonous stimulation. No differences were obtained for the lower EEG frequencies (4–8 and 2–4 Hz) or for tonic electrodermal measures.     

Gratitude across the life span: Age differences and links to subjective well-being

Abstract

Gratitude has been described as an adaptive evolutionary mechanism that is relevant to healthy psychological and interpersonal outcomes. Questions remain as to whether the presence and benefits of gratitude are consistent from young adulthood to old age; prior research has yielded mixed evidence. We examined the magnitude and direction of age differences in gratitude in three samples (combined N = 31,206). We also examined whether gratitude was associated with greater/lesser well-being at different periods in the life course. We found that the experience of gratitude was greatest in older adults and least in middle aged and younger adults. Further, we found that the associations between gratitude and subjective well-being remained relatively constant across the lifespan. Findings are discussed from a developmental perspective.     

Autonomy and defensiveness: Experimentally increasing adaptive responses to health-risk information via priming and self-affirmation

Health information is often ineffective in motivating health-behaviour change. One way to improve information effectiveness might be to highlight autonomy, which is associated with less defensiveness and more adaptive psychological functioning. Three studies assessed whether experimentally elevating autonomy led to adaptive responses to risk information about alcohol consumption. In Study 1 (N?=?104), participants completed either an autonomy prime or a neutral prime task and read either risk information about the dangers of alcohol consumption or neutral information. Among high-risk participants in the autonomy prime condition, those who read risk information reported greater autonomous motivation towards moderate alcohol consumption than did those in the neutral information condition. Study 2 (N?=?157) compared two types of autonomy prime tasks with a neutral condition. For high-risk participants who read risk information, the autonomy prime tasks elicited greater autonomous motivation, more positive attitudes and greater intentions to drink in moderation than did the neutral prime task. Study 3 (N?=?130) found that for high-risk participants who read risk information, autonomy prime participants reported less subsequent alcohol consumption than did neutral prime participants. The results are discussed in terms of the benefits of autonomy for adaptive responses to risk information.     

Adaptive Flexibility,Cooperation, and Prosocial Motivations: The Emotional Foundations of Becoming Human

ABSTRACT

Humans are highly motivated to cooperate, share, and help others. The evidence for this claim comes from examining prosocial behaviors as they show up very early in development, and by systematic comparisons between young children and mankind’s closest great ape relatives. Highly cooperative and social species that care for kin and nonkin members of their group are rare in nature and call for an evolutionary explanation. Based on the work of Michael Tomasello and others, I offer a possible explanation based on a two-phase model. The first phase of the evolution of cooperation and sociability is induced by climate change taking place during a critical period of human evolution. Climate variability produced shifts from wet, monsoon landscapes to dry and arid landscapes in East Africa, the home of many of humanity’s ancestors. Shifting environmental conditions produced selective pressures favoring adaptive flexibility and forced cooperation and interdependence among our hominin ancestors, who had to search for food (cooperative foraging) and protect each other from predators. Forced interdependence came together with two biosocial adaptations: a cooperative form of raising young children (cooperative breeding) and long-term mating patterns (pair bonding). These biosocial adaptations help explain how the species might have begun to develop emotionally modern intersubjective mind-reading capacities. During a second phase of the evolution of cooperation, the emergence of shared social norms, social reputations, the cumulative effects of cultural knowledge passed on over many generations, and cultural differences produced a new form of evolution: cultural evolution. In turn, cultural evolution produced a new cycle of innovations consisting of symbolic capacities and language. When it comes to psychotherapy, the same conditions that made one human—adaptive flexibility, cooperation, helping others and mutual enjoyment in sharing—are the same conditions that make for a strong therapeutic alliance.     

Web-based image norming: How do object familiarity and visual complexity ratings compare when collected in-lab versus online?

It has been demonstrated previously that, for some experimental paradigms, Web-based research can reliably replicate lab-based results. Yet questions remain as to what types of research can be reproduced, and where differences arise when they cannot be. The present article examines the effect of research location (laboratory vs. online) on normative data collection tasks. Specifically, participants were randomly assigned to a laboratory or online condition and were asked to rate 593 photorealistic images on the basis of object familiarity (N=5 103) and object visual complexity (N=5 98). Dependent measures were compared across location conditions, including response latencies and image rating agreement. Our results suggest that norming data collected online are reliable, but an interesting interplay between task type and research location was observed. Specifically, we found that participating online (i.e., a more familiar environment) leads to systematically higher familiarity ratings than in the lab (i.e., an unfamiliar environment). These differences are not found when the alternate complexity rating task is used.     

Targeting self-regulation and academic functioning among preschoolers with behavior problems: Are there incremental benefits to including cognitive training as part of a classroom curriculum?

The purpose of this study was to examine the additional benefit of an adaptive Cogmed working memory training (CWMT) to a social-emotional/self-regulation classroom curriculum for preschoolers with externalizing behavior problems (EBP). Participants for this study included 49 children (71% boys, M_age = 4.52) with at-risk or clinically elevated levels of EBP. Children participated in an 8-week summer treatment program for Pre-Kindergarteners (STP-PreK), where they were randomly assigned to either adaptive CWMT (n = 24), or nonadaptive CWMT (n = 25). Multiple repeated measures analyses were conducted to examine the impact of adaptive versus nonadaptive CWMT on pre and posttreatment parent-/teacher-reported behavioral functioning, parent-/teacher reported and child task performance of executive functioning, and standardized academic achievement measures. Repeated measures analyses found that children in both groups improved on all measures (d’s = .23-.86). However, there were no significant time X condition effects for parent or teacher-reported behavior, reported or observed executive functioning, or standardized academic measures. These findings suggest that CWMT does not appear to provide any incremental benefits to children’s executive functioning, behavior, or academics when implemented within a comprehensive behavioral modification intervention.     

Clinical Equipoise and Adaptive Clinical Trials

Ethically permissible clinical trials must not expose subjects to risks that are unreasonable in relation to anticipated benefits. In the research ethics literature, this moral requirement is typically understood in one of two different ways: (1) as requiring the existence of a state of clinical equipoise, meaning a state of honest, professional disagreement among the community of experts about the preferred treatment; or (2) as requiring an equilibrium between individual and collective ethics. It has been maintained that this second interpretation makes it mandatory to minimize the number of patients receiving the treatment that will eventually be shown to be inferior by the trial. This requirement has led to the development of adaptive trials, i.e., trials in which treatment allocation is determined by data accumulated during interim analysis. Many statisticians argue that in some circumstances—typically with potentially high benefits, as in the much discussed ECMO trial—adaptive design is the only ethically permissible experimental design. Nevertheless, some proponents of clinical equipoise argue that adaptive trials are neither ethically required nor permissible. More specifically, they argue that clinical trials using adaptive designs fail to meet the moral requirement of clinical equipoise, since these trials presuppose an epistemic state that is incompatible with a physician’s duty of care to her subjects. This paper emphasizes that the debate is to a large extent resting on an epistemological confusion. Specifically, I argue that this response conflates two different conceptions of statistical evidence (i.e., frequentist and Bayesian), and that recognizing this distinction elucidates an epistemological framework in which adaptive trials are both consistent with and recommended by the moral requirement of clinical equipoise.