Elephant psychology: What we know and what we would like to know

Although elephants are well-known and one of the most popular species among people, their behavior and cognitive abilities have not been studied very extensively. But recently, more and more researchers are becoming interested in studying their cognition, particularly their general intelligence, including causal reasoning and mirror self recognition, memory, and numerical cognition. Although genetically elephants are more closely related to the small-brained aardvarks and manatees than to primates, they hold enormous potential in their cognitive skills. Also, studying their cognition is important from the point of view of animal welfare in captivity.     

Memory processes in elderly eyewitnesses: What we know and what we don't know

Research is reviewed on the memory abilities of elderly eyewitnesses. Two major issues are addressed: First, how credible are elderly witnesses? Second, how accurate are they? Despite negative stereotypes regarding elderly eyewitnesses, they do not necessarily lack credibility at trial. In terms of their memory performance, older witnesses are as accurate as young adults in many respects, but they are particularly vulnerable to misleading information that is presented after the witnessed event. Furthermore, their performance varies depending on the type of information that is sought and the manner in which their memory is assessed. Recommendations are made for improving the reliability of testimony that is offered by elderly eyewitnesses.     

Rational emotive behavior therapy research: What we know and what we need to know

Rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT) has achieved positive results in quantitative reviews of treatment outcome studies. In part because of methodological limitations of these studies, however, the generalizability of their favorable results to routine clinical practice is unknown. Also unknown are the clinical significance of outcomes achieved by REBT, the contribution made by its distinctive and specialized procedures, and the types of patients for whom REBT is particularly useful. Recommendations are provided for refining our knowledge of the effectiveness of REBT.     

Race/ethnicity, color-blind racial attitudes, and multicultural counseling competence: the moderating effects of multicultural counseling training

Increasing trainees' multicultural counseling competence (MCC) has been a hot topic in counseling. Scholars have identified predictors (e.g., race/ethnicity, color-blindness) of MCC, and educators provide multicultural training for trainees. Using a sample of 370 psychology trainees, this study examined whether multicultural training (a) moderated racial/ethnic differences on MCC and (b) changed the relationship between color-blindness and MCC. Results indicated a significant interaction effect of race/ethnicity (i.e., White vs. ethnic minority) and multicultural training on multicultural awareness, but not on multicultural knowledge. Specifically, at lower levels of training, racial/ethnic minority trainees had significantly higher multicultural awareness than their White counterparts; at higher levels of training, no significant difference was found. Described differently, more training significantly enhanced Whites' multicultural awareness, but did not enhance racial/ethnic minority trainees' awareness. Additionally, there was a significant interaction effect of color-blindness and multicultural training on multicultural knowledge, but not on multicultural awareness. The association between color-blindness and multicultural knowledge was stronger at higher levels of multicultural training than at lower levels of training. Alternatively, the effect of training on enhancing knowledge was stronger for those with lower color-blindness than for those with higher color-blindness.     

What we know and what to do

This paper discusses an important puzzle about the semantics of indicative conditionals and deontic necessity modals (should, ought, etc.): the Miner Puzzle (Parfit, ms; Kolodny and MacFarlane, J Philos 107:115–143, 2010). Rejecting modus ponens for the indicative conditional, as others have proposed, seems to solve a version of the puzzle, but is actually orthogonal to the puzzle itself. In fact, I prove that the puzzle arises for a variety of sophisticated analyses of the truth-conditions of indicative conditionals. A comprehensive solution requires rethinking the relationship between relevant information (what we know) and practical rankings of possibilities and actions (what to do). I argue that (i) relevant information determines whether considerations of value may be treated as reasons for actions that realize them and against actions that don’t, (ii) incorporating this normative fact requires a revision of the standard ordering semantics for weak (but not for strong) deontic necessity modals, and (iii) an off-the-shelf semantics for weak deontic necessity modals, due to von Fintel and Iatridou, which distinguishes “basic” and “higher-order” ordering sources, and interprets weak deontic necessity modals relative to both, is well-suited to this task. The prominence of normative considerations in our proposal suggests a more general methodological lesson: formal semantic analysis of natural language modals expressing normative concepts demands that close attention be paid to the nature of the underlying normative phenomena.     

Family demographics of clinically referred children: What we know and what we need to know

Published empirical studies were reviewed to establish family demographics of clinically referred children and adolescents. Data on parental marital status were collected from studies of referred and nonreferred children and adolescents in six empirical journals. Data on family socioeconomic status (SES) and child race or ethnicity were also collected. Based on 86 studies that presented parental marital status, 56.4% of clinically referred children and adolescents live with both their biological mother and biological father. Family SES data were difficult to summarize because of the different methods of presenting this information. When considering race and ethnicity, 86% of the children and adolescents in the clinical samples were Caucasian American. Of the studies that were originally reviewed, 80.4% did not include parental marital status and 36. 7% did not include SES, race, or ethnicity of the participants. There were no significant differences between journals in the rates of inclusion of family demographic data. In addition to revealing family demographic information about children and adolescents who participate in clinical research, these data highlight the lack of consistency in the presentation of family demographic data in published research. Suggestions are provided to help researchers colled and present meaningful family demographic data in clinical and nonclinical research with children and adolescents.This study was completed with support from the Division of Sponsored Research at the University of South Florida and preparation of this article was supported in part by National Institute of Mental Health Grant R29 49601-02 to the first author. We express our gratitude to Georgetta Bosco and Tracy Burbine for their diligent data collection in the library.     

Childhood obesity and social stigma: What we know and what we don't know

Evidence for the development of social stigma associated with body build in childhood, specifically obesity, was critically reviewed. Although there is overwhelming evidence to suggest that children hold a positive stereotype toward a mesomorph (normal) build when compared to other builds, and that this preference increases with age, studies have not convincingly shown a negative stereotype toward the endomorph or obese body build. Furthermore, the belief that obese children are generally discriminated against is without empirical verification. Specifically, it is unclear from the various empirical studies that examine self-esteem and body image, that the psychological consequences of obesity are debilitating. Studies which have noted disturbances in self-concept and body image have sampled clinical populations (youngsters seeking medically supervised reduction); and those studies which have examined nonclinical populations have not found psychological difficulties. Finally, potential moderators such as facial attractiveness × body build interactions, situational contexts, and degree of obesity are examined and new research directions are discussed.     

No-harm contracts: a review of what we know

Few events in the practice of a mental health clinician can be as devastating as the suicide of a client. Although suicide is a rare occurrence, clinicians face assessment of clients' risk for harming themselves on a regular basis. One well-accepted and widely practiced intervention for suicidal ideation is the use of no-harm contracts (NHC), although opinions about NHCs range from enthusiasm to apathy. The existing research does not support the use of such contracts as a method for preventing suicide, nor for protecting clinicians from malpractice litigation in the event of a client suicide.     

Exploring the relationships between multicultural training, racial attitudes, and attributions of poverty among graduate counseling trainees

Increased attention to multiculturalism and social justice in psychology has been accompanied by assertions that there is a need for more acknowledgment of system-level oppression. Multicultural training (MCT) may help increase counselors' awareness of structural forces in the lives of clients facing poverty by examining structural influences in racial discrimination. This study examined the relationship between multicultural counseling training, attitudes about race, and attributions of poverty. Data from 158 African American and White American graduate counseling students were examined to determine the extent to which MCT and cognitive and affective racial attitudes predicted tendencies to attribute poverty to structural barriers or to individuals facing poverty. Regression analyses indicated that more MCT and more sensitive cognitive racial attitudes predicted a greater tendency to endorse structural explanations of poverty. Fewer multicultural workshops and less sensitive cognitive racial attitudes predicted a greater tendency to endorse individual explanations of poverty. Implications for training, practice, and research are discussed. ((c) 2005 APA, all rights reserved).     

Syntactic processing in the human brain: what we know, what we don't know, and a suggestion for how to proceed

For every claim in the neuroimaging literature about a particular brain region supporting syntactic processing, there exist other claims implicating the target region in different linguistic processes, and, in many cases, in non-linguistic cognitive processes (e.g., Blumstein, 2009). We argue that traditional group analysis methods in neuroimaging may obscure functional specificity because of inter-subject anatomical variability (Fedorenko & Kanwisher, 2009). In Fedorenko, Hsieh, Nieto-Castanon, Whitfield-Gabrieli, and Kanwisher (2010) we presented a functional localizer that allows quick and reliable identification of key language-sensitive regions in each individual brain. This approach enables pooling data from corresponding functional regions across subjects rather than from the same locations in stereotaxic space that may differ functionally due to inter-subject anatomical variability. In the current paper we demonstrate that the individual-subjects functional localization approach is superior to the traditional methods in its ability to distinguish among conditions in a brain region’s response. This ability is at the core of all neuroimaging research and is critical for answering questions of functional specialization (e.g., does a brain region specialize for processing syntactic aspects of the linguistic signal), which is in turn essential for making inferences about the precise computations conducted in each brain region. Based on our results, we argue that supplementing existing methods with an individual-subjects functional localization approach may lead to a clearer picture of the neural basis of syntactic processing, as it has in some other domains, such as high-level vision (e.g., Kanwisher, 2010) and social cognition (e.g., Saxe & Kanwisher, 2003).     

Acquiescing to intuition: Believing what we know isn't so

When people identify an error in their initial judgment, they typically try to correct it. But, in some cases, they choose not to—even when they know, in the moment, that they are being irrational or making a mistake. A baseball fan may know that he cannot affect the pitcher from his living room but still be reluctant to say “no‐hitter.” A person may learn that flying in an airplane is statistically safer than driving a car and still refuse to fly. Dual‐process models of judgment and decision making often implicitly assume that if an error is detected, it will be corrected. Recent work suggests, however, that models should decouple error detection and correction. Indeed, people can explicitly recognize that their intuitive judgment is wrong but, nevertheless, stick with it, a phenomenon known as acquiescence. My goals are to offer criteria for identifying acquiescence, consider why people acquiesce even when it incurs a cost, discuss how lessons that are learned in cases when acquiescence is clearly identified can be exported to cases when acquiescence may be harder to establish, and, more broadly, describe the implications of a model that decouples error detection and error correction.     

Seeing what we know and understand: How knowledge shapes perception

Expertise in object recognition, as in bird watching or X-ray specialization, is based on extensive perceptual experience and in-depth semantic knowledge. Although it has been shown that rich perceptual experience shapes elementary perception and higher level discrimination and identification, little is known about the influence of in-depth semantic knowledge on object perception and identification. By means of recording event-related brain potentials (ERPs), we show that the amount of knowledge acquired about initially unfamiliar objects modulates visual ERP components already 120 msec after object presentation, and causes gradual variations of activity in similar brain systems within a later timeframe commonly associated with meaning access. When perceptual analysis is made more difficult by blurring object pictures, knowledge has an even stronger effect on perceptual analysis and facilitates recognition. These findings demonstrate that in-depth knowledge not only affects involuntary semantic memory access, but also shapes perception by penetrating early visual processes traditionally held to be immune to such influences.     

Aging and mental health in the decade ahead: what psychologists need to know

Until relatively recently, most psychologists have had limited professional involvement with older adults. With the baby boomers starting to turn 65 years old in 2011, sheer numbers of older adults will continue to increase. About 1 in 5 older adults has a mental disorder, such as dementia. Their needs for mental and behavioral health services are not now adequately met, and the decade ahead will require an approximate doubling of the current level of psychologists' time with older adults. Public policy in the coming decade will face tensions between cost containment and facilitation of integrated models of care. Most older adults who access mental health services do so in primary care settings, where interdisciplinary, collaborative models of care have been found to be quite effective. To meet the needs of the aging population, psychologists need to increase awareness of competencies for geropsychology practice and knowledge regarding dementia diagnosis, screening, and services. Opportunities for psychological practice are anticipated to grow in primary care, dementia and family caregiving services, decision-making-capacity evaluation, and end-of-life care. Aging is an aspect of diversity that can be integrated into psychology education across levels of training. Policy advocacy for geropsychology clinical services, education, and research remains critical. Psychologists have much to offer an aging society.     

Daydreaming to navigate the social world: What we know,what we don't know,and why it matters

A substantial portion of daily life is spent daydreaming—that is, engaged in thought independent of, and unrelated to, goals in the external environment. We argue that this naturally occurring, unconstrained cognition is a vital, but currently underappreciated, form of social cognition that enables navigation of the social world. First, we present the results of a meta‐analysis of neuroimaging studies which illustrate the shared neural basis of daydreaming and social cognition (including regions of the anterior temporal lobes and the posterior cingulate cortex). Second, we review evidence regarding the frequency, correlates, and adaptive outcomes of social daydreaming, cumulative findings that point to the adaptive value of imaging others during this offline state. We end by encouraging cross‐fertilization between daydreaming research and domains of social psychology (goal pursuit, social interactions, and close relationships), which we hope will foster mutually beneficial directions for understanding the role that unconstrained thinking plays in social life.