Psychometric Properties of the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire: Factor Structure,Reliability, Construct,and Incremental Validity in a French-Speaking Population

In this research, we investigated the psychometrical properties of the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire (TEIQue, Petrides &; Furnham, 2003 Petrides, K. V. and Furnham, A. 2003. Trait emotional intelligence: Behavioural validation in two studies of emotion recognition and reactivity to mood induction. European Journal of Personality, 17: 39–57. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) in a French-speaking population. In summary, we found that (a) TEIQue scores were globally normally distributed and reliable; (b) the United Kingdom four-factor structure (well-being, self-control, emotionality, sociability) replicated in our data; (c) TEIQue scores were dependent on gender but relatively independent of age; (d) there was preliminary evidence of convergent/discriminant validity, with TEIQue scores being independent of nonverbal reasoning (Raven's [1976] Raven, J. C. 1976. Advanced Progressive Matrices Set II, Oxford, , England: Oxford Psychologist Press.  [Google Scholar] matrices) but positively related to some personality dimensions (optimism, agreeableness, openness, conscientiousness) as well as inversely related to others (alexithymia, neuroticism); (e) there was also preliminary evidence of criterion validity, with TEIQue scores predicting depression, anxiety, and social support as well as future state affectivity and emotional reactivity in neutral and stressful situations; (f) TEIQue scores were susceptible to socially desirable responding; however, (g) TEIQue scores had incremental validity to predict emotional reactivity over and above social desirability, alexithymia, and the Five-factor model of personality. Such results constitute encouraging preliminary findings in favor of the use of the TEIQue.     

Implicit Trait Policies in Multimedia Situational Judgment Tests for Leadership Skills: Can They Predict Leadership Behavior?

To explain why situational judgment tests are often correlated with personality measures, Motowidlo, Hooper, and Jackson (2006a Motowidlo, S. J., Hooper, A. C. and Jackson, H. L. 2006a. Implicit policies about relations between personality traits and behavioral effectiveness in situational judgment items. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91: 749–761. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], 2006b Motowidlo, S. J., Hooper, A. C. and Jackson, H. L. 2006b. “A theoretical basis for situational judgment tests”. In Situational judgment tests: Theory, measurement, and application, Edited by: Weekley, J. A. and Ployhart, R. E. 57–81. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.  [Google Scholar]) developed the implicit trait policy theory. Implicit trait policies are beliefs about causal relationships between personality traits and behavioral effectiveness. Among 180 employees, this field study examined whether a multimedia situational judgment test that was intended to assess leadership skills can capture individual differences in such policies. Furthermore, it was examined whether these implicit trait policies were able to predict leadership behavior. Results confirmed that the situational judgment test was able to capture individual differences in implicit trait policies for Extraversion and Conscientiousness. Furthermore, results showed that implicit trait policies for Extraversion can predict leadership behavior over and above leadership experience and the associated personality trait.     

Priming the trait category “hostility”: The moderating role of trait anxiety

Recent studies on affective priming with the naming task have revealed an influence of trait anxiety on the direction of affective priming effects (e.g., Berner & Maier, 2004 Berner, M. P. and Maier, M. A. 2004. The direction of affective priming as a function of trait anxiety when naming target words with regular and irregular pronunciation. Experimental Psychology, 51: 180–190. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). This moderating role of trait anxiety was further investigated in a study employing a conceptual priming task. After masked presentation of either hostile or neutral primes, participants performed a person judgment task. As expected, the direction of the hostility rating difference score, defined as the difference between hostility ratings of a target person in the hostility priming condition and in the neutral priming condition, changed from positive to negative with increasing levels of self-reported trait anxiety. The findings are interpreted in terms of salience-dependent overcorrection processes (Glaser & Banaji, 1999 Glaser, J. and Banaji, M. R. 1999. When fair is foul and foul is fair: Reverse priming in automatic evaluation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77: 669–687. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Implications for our understanding of the cognitive functioning in high trait anxiety are discussed.     

A closer look at moral dilemmas: Latent dimensions of morality and the difference between trolley and footbridge dilemmas

Although a distinction between moral-personal and moral-impersonal dilemmas (Greene, Sommerville, Nystrom, Darley, & Cohen, 2001 Greene, J. D., Sommerville, R. B., Nystrom, L. E., Darley, J. M. and Cohen, J. D. 2001. An fMRI investigation of emotional engagement in moral judgement. Science, 293: 2105–2108. doi:10.1126/science.1062872.[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) has been widely accepted as an explanation for a difference between the trolley and footbridge dilemmas (Thomson, 1985 Thomson, J. J. 1985. “The trolley problem”. In Ethics: Problems and principles, Edited by: Fischer, J. M. and Ravizza, M. Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.  [Google Scholar]), its psychometric properties remain a mystery. In this study 219 participants completed 62 moral dilemma tasks used in Greene et al. (2001 Greene, J. D., Sommerville, R. B., Nystrom, L. E., Darley, J. M. and Cohen, J. D. 2001. An fMRI investigation of emotional engagement in moral judgement. Science, 293: 2105–2108. doi:10.1126/science.1062872.[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), and the correlation structure among the dilemmas was analysed through factor analysis and structural equation modelling. Findings suggest that, first, moral-personal dilemmas are composed of one factor, indicating that the assumption in Greene et al. (2001 Greene, J. D., Sommerville, R. B., Nystrom, L. E., Darley, J. M. and Cohen, J. D. 2001. An fMRI investigation of emotional engagement in moral judgement. Science, 293: 2105–2108. doi:10.1126/science.1062872.[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) was supported. Second, moral-impersonal dilemmas are explained by two factors that reflect procedural and consequential aspects of decision making. Third, the trolley and footbridge dilemmas fall under the same factor category; therefore the difference between the two dilemmas cannot be attributed to emotional involvement. Additionally, the results of the structural equation modelling suggest that they differ in the engagement of rational processing.     

Self-ordered pointing as a test of working memory in typically developing children

The self-ordered pointing test (SOPT; Petrides & Milner, 1982 Petrides, M. and Milner, B. 1982. Deficits on subject-ordered tasks after frontal- and temporal-lobe lesions in man. Neuropsychologia, 20(3): 249–262. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) is a test of non-spatial executive working memory requiring the ability to generate and monitor a sequence of responses. Although used with developmental clinical populations there are few normative data against which to compare atypical performance. Typically developing children (5–11 years) and young adults performed two versions of the SOPT, one using pictures of familiar objects and the other hard-to-verbalise abstract designs. Performance improved with age but the children did not reach adult levels of performance. Participants of all ages found the object condition easier than the abstract condition, suggesting that verbal processes are utilised by the SOPT. However, performance on the task was largely independent from verbal and nonverbal cognitive ability. Overall the results suggest that the SOPT is a sensitive measure of executive working memory.     

Commentary Research on gene–environment interdependence: Honing the tools and examining the angles

The insightful overview by Sir Michael Rutter (this issue) on gene–environment interdependence comes about 10 years after the breakthrough Science publications on gene–environment interactions (G×E) involving the MAOA and 5-HTT genes by Caspi et al. (2002 Caspi, A., McClay, J., Moffitt, T. E., Mill, J., Martin, J.Craig, I. W. 2002. Role of genotype in the cycle of violence in maltreated children. Science, 297: 851–854. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], 2003 Caspi, A., Sugden, K., Moffitt, T. E., Taylor, A., Craig, I. W.Harrington, H. 2003. Influence of life stress on depression: Moderation by a polymorphism in the 5-HTT gene. Science, 301: 386–389. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Since then, a field of research has burgeoned that has produced replications as well as intriguing new evidence of gene–environment interdependence. At the same time, however, the field has witnessed a growing scepticism about the relevance of studying gene–environment interactions and has seen replication failures (see Duncan & Keller, 2011 Duncan, L. E. and Keller, M. C. 2011. A critical review of the first 10 years of candidate gene-by-environment interaction research in psychiatry. American Journal of Psychiatry, 168: 1041–1049. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Risch et al., 2009 Risch, N., Herell, R., Lehner, T., Liang, K.-Y., Eaves, L.Hoh, J. 2009. Interaction between the serotonin transporter gene (5-HTTLPR), stressful life events, and risk of depression: A meta-analysis. Journal of the American Medical Association, 301: 2462–2471. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Against this backdrop, we comment and elaborate on several of the key issues raised by Rutter, and suggest some directions for future research on G×E. Specifically, we discuss (1) replication issues; (2) the crucial role of experiments in understanding gene–environment interdependence; (3) current unknowns with regard to differential susceptibility; and (4) clinical and practical implications of G×E research.     

Are Preferences in Emotional Processing Affected by Distraction? Examining the Age-Related Positivity Effect in Visual Fixation within a Dual-Task Paradigm

ABSTRACT

Recent research has suggested that age-related positivity effects are eliminated under conditions of dual-task load (Knight et al., 2007 Knight, M., Seymour, T. L., Gaunt, J. T., Baker, C., Nesmith, K. and Mather, M. 2007. Aging and goal directed emotional attention: Distraction reverses emotional biases. Emotion, 7: 705–714. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], Emotion, 7, 705; Mather & Knight, 2005 Mather, M. and Knight, M. 2005. Goal directed memory: The role of cognitive control in older adults' emotional memory. Psychology and Aging, 20: 554–570. [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], Psychology and Aging, 20, 554), because the cognitive control resources necessary to enact such preferences are not available when individuals are distracted by competing information. We further examined how older adults' emotional information processing preferences are affected by distracting information by utilizing a within-subjects dual-task measure. Younger and older adults viewed a series of positive, negative, and neutral images both in conditions of full and divided attention. Fixation preferences to valenced images were assessed through eye tracking. Regardless of whether images were viewed in full or divided attention conditions, older adults demonstrated a preference in their fixation for positive and neutral in comparison to negative images. These results provide evidence that older adults' positive fixation preferences may not always necessitate full, cognitive control.     

Intentionality Attributions About Perfect and Imperfect Duty Violations

Abstract

Intentionality attributions were explored by drawing on the distinction between perfect and imperfect moral duties. Previous research has shown that perfect duty violations carry greater attributional weight than imperfect duty violations (Trafimow & Trafimow, 1999 Trafimow, D. and Trafimow, S. 1999. Mapping imperfect and perfect duties on to hierarchically and partially restrictive trait dimensions. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25: 686–695. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Trafimow, Bromgard, Finlay, & Ketelaar, 2005 Trafimow, D., Bromgard, I. K., Finlay, K. A. and Ketelaar, T. 2005. The role of affect in determining the attributional weight of immoral behaviors. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 31: 935–948. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). In Studies 1 and 2, the distinction between perfect and imperfect duties was replicated with intentionality judgments, and perfect duty violations received higher intentionality attributions than imperfect duty violations. In Study 3 this effect was reversed by manipulating information about an agent's mental intentions or plans to perform a behavior. That is, participants attributed less intentionality to perfect duty violations compared to imperfect duty violations when a mental intention to perform the behavior was absent.     

Perceived Discrimination and Health-Related Quality of Life: Testing the Reserve Capacity Model in Hispanic Americans

ABSTRACT

This study tested aspects of the Reserve Capacity Model (Gallo & Matthews, 2003 Gallo, L. C. and Matthews, K. A. 2003. Understanding the association between socioeconomic status and physical health: Do negative emotions play a role?. Psychological Bulletin, 129: 10–51. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Gallo, Penedo Espinosa de los Monteros, & Arguelles, 2009 Gallo, L. C., Penedo, F. J., Espinosa de los Monteros, K. and Arguelles, W. 2009. Resiliency in the face of disadvantage: Do Hispanic cultural characteristics protect health outcomes?. Journal of Personality, 77: 1707–1746. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) as a means of understanding disparities in health-related quality of life appraisals among Hispanic Americans. Questionnaire data were collected from 236 Hispanic participants, including measures of perceived discrimination, optimism, social support, symptoms of trait anxiety, and physical and mental health-related quality of life. Path analysis indicated direct, negative associations between perceived discrimination and both forms of health-related quality of life. Results also showed that these relationships were partially mediated by the reserve capacity variable of optimism and by symptoms of anxiety, though evidence for mediation by anxiety was stronger than for optimism. Findings suggest that perceived discrimination depletes intrapersonal reserves in Hispanic Americans, which, in turn, induces negative emotions. Implications for community-level interventions are discussed.     

Unmasking a shady mirror effect: Recognition of normal versus obscured faces

Hockley, Hemsworth, and Consoli (1999) Hockley, W. E., Hemsworth, D. E. and Consoli, A. 1999. Shades of the mirror effect: Recognition of faces with and without sunglasses. Memory & Cognition, 27: 128–138. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar] found that following the study of normal faces, a recognition test of normal faces versus faces wearing sunglasses produced a mirror effect: The sunglasses manipulation decreased hit rates and increased false-alarm rates. The stimuli used by Hockley et al. (1999) Hockley, W. E., Hemsworth, D. E. and Consoli, A. 1999. Shades of the mirror effect: Recognition of faces with and without sunglasses. Memory & Cognition, 27: 128–138. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar] consisted of separate poses of models wearing or not wearing sunglasses. In the current experiments, we separately manipulated same versus different depictions of individual faces and whether or not the faces were partially obscured. The results of a simulation and four experiments suggest that the test-based, mirror effect observed by Hockley et al. (1999) Hockley, W. E., Hemsworth, D. E. and Consoli, A. 1999. Shades of the mirror effect: Recognition of faces with and without sunglasses. Memory & Cognition, 27: 128–138. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar] is actually two separable effects.     

Homophonic context effects when naming Japanese kanji: evidence for processing costs?

The current study investigated the effects of phonologically related context pictures on the naming latencies of target words in Japanese and Chinese. Reading bare words in alphabetic languages has been shown to be rather immune to effects of context stimuli, even when these stimuli are presented in advance of the target word (e.g., Glaser & Düngelhoff, 1984 Glaser, W. R. and Düngelhoff, F. J. 1984. The time course of picture–word interference. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 10: 640–654. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Roelofs, 2003 Roelofs, A. 2003. Goal-referenced selection of verbal action: Modeling attentional control in the Stroop task. Psychological Review, 110: 88–125. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). However, recently, semantic context effects of distractor pictures on the naming latencies of Japanese kanji (but not Chinese hànzì) words have been observed (Verdonschot, La Heij, & Schiller, 2010 Verdonschot, R. G., La Heij, W. and Schiller, N. O. 2010. Semantic context effects when naming Japanese kanji, but not Chinese hànzì. Cognition, 115: 512–518. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). In the present study, we further investigated this issue using phonologically related (i.e., homophonic) context pictures when naming target words in either Chinese or Japanese. We found that pronouncing bare nouns in Japanese is sensitive to phonologically related context pictures, whereas this is not the case in Chinese. The difference between these two languages is attributed to processing costs caused by multiple pronunciations for Japanese kanji.     

Modality effects in memory for basic stimulus attributes: A temporal and nontemporal comparison

Previous research suggests that there are significant differences in the operation of reference memory for stimuli of different modalities, with visual temporal entries appearing to be more durable than auditory entries (Ogden, Wearden, & Jones, 2008 Ogden, R. S., Wearden, J. H. and Jones, L. A. 2008. The remembrance of times past: Interference in temporal reference memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 34: 1524–1544. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], 2010). Ogden et al. (2008 Ogden, R. S., Wearden, J. H. and Jones, L. A. 2008. The remembrance of times past: Interference in temporal reference memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 34: 1524–1544. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], 2010 Ogden, R. S., Wearden, J. H. and Jones, L. A. 2010. Are memories for duration modality specific?. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 63: 65–80. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) demonstrated that when participants were required to store multiple auditory temporal standards over a period of delay there was significant systematic interference to the representation of the standard characterized by shifts in the location of peak responding. No such performance deterioration was observed when multiple visually presented durations were encoded and maintained. The current article explored whether this apparent modality-based difference in reference memory operation is unique to temporal stimuli or whether similar characteristics are also apparent when nontemporal stimuli are encoded and maintained. The modified temporal generalization method developed in Ogden et al. (2008) Ogden, R. S., Wearden, J. H. and Jones, L. A. 2008. The remembrance of times past: Interference in temporal reference memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 34: 1524–1544. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar] was employed; however, standards and comparisons varied by pitch (auditory) and physical line length (visual) rather than duration. Pitch and line length generalization results indicated that increasing memory load led to more variable responding and reduced recognition of the standard; however, there was no systematic shift in the location of peak responding. Comparison of the results of this study with those of Ogden et al. (2008 Ogden, R. S., Wearden, J. H. and Jones, L. A. 2008. The remembrance of times past: Interference in temporal reference memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 34: 1524–1544. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], 2010 Ogden, R. S., Wearden, J. H. and Jones, L. A. 2010. Are memories for duration modality specific?. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 63: 65–80. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) suggests that although performance deterioration as a consequence of increases in memory load is common to auditory temporal and nontemporal stimuli and visual nontemporal stimuli, systematic interference is unique to auditory temporal processing.     

Why are there limits on theory of mind use? Evidence from adults' ability to follow instructions from an ignorant speaker

Keysar et al. (Keysar, Barr, Balin, & Brauner, 2000 Keysar, B., Barr, D. J., Balin, J. A. and Brauner, J. S. 2000. Taking perspective in conversation: The role of mutual knowledge in comprehension. Psychological Sciences, 11: 32–38. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Keysar, Lin, & Barr, 2003 Keysar, B., Lin, S. H. and Barr, D. J. 2003. Limits on theory of mind use in adults. Cognition, 89(1): 25–41. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) report that adults frequently failed to use their conceptual competence for theory of mind (ToM) in an online communication game where they needed to take account of a speaker's perspective. The current research reports 3 experiments investigating the cognitive processes contributing to adults' errors. In Experiments 1 and 2 the frequency of adults' failure to use ToM was unaffected by perspective switching. In Experiment 3 adults made more errors when interpreting instructions according to the speaker's perspective than according to an arbitrary rule. We suggest that adults are efficient at switching perspectives, but that actually using what another person knows to interpret what they say is relatively inefficient, giving rise to egocentric errors during communication.     

There goes the neighbourhood: Contextual control over the breadth of lexical activation when reading aloud

There are currently two computational accounts of how the time to read pseudohomophones (like BRANE) and their nonword controls (like FRANE) varies with changes in context. In Reynolds and Besner's (2005) account, readers vary the breadth of lexical activation in response to changes in context. A competing account proposed by Kwantes and Marmurek (2007 Kwantes, P. and Marmurek, H. 2007. Controlling lexical contributions to the reading of pseudohomophones. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 14: 373–378. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) and independently by Perry, Ziegler, and Zorzi (2007 Perry, C., Ziegler, J. C. and Zorzi, M. 2007. Nested incremental modeling in the development of computational theories: The CDP+ model of reading aloud. Psychological Review, 114: 273–315. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) has readers varying their response criterion in response to changes in context. The present work adjudicates between these two accounts by examining how the effect of neighbourhood density changes as a function of list context when reading pseudohomophones aloud. The results of an experiment and simulations from a leading computational model support the lexical breadth account, but are inconsistent with the response criterion account.     

Gaze Aversion During Children's Transient Knowledge and Learning

Looking away from an interlocutor's face during demanding cognitive activity can help adults and children answer challenging mental arithmetic and verbal-reasoning questions (Glenberg, Schroeder, & Robertson, 1998 Glenberg, A. M., Schroeder, J. L. and Robertson, D. A. 1998. Averting the gaze disengages the environment and facilitates remembering. Memory and Cognition, 26: 651–658. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Phelps, Doherty-Sneddon, & Warnock, 2006 Phelps, F., Doherty-Sneddon, G. and Warnock, H. 2006. Functional benefits of children's gaze aversion during questioning. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 24: 577–588. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). While such “gaze aversion” (GA) is used far less by 5-year-old school children, its use increases dramatically during the first years of primary education, reaching adult levels by 8 years of age (Doherty-Sneddon, Bruce, Bonner, Longbotham, & Doyle, 2002 Doherty-Sneddon, G., Bruce, V., Bonner, L., Longbotham, S. and Doyle, C. 2002. Development of gaze aversion as disengagement from visual information. Developmental Psychology, 38: 438–445. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Furthermore, GA increases with increasing mental demands, with high levels signalling that an individual finds material being discussed challenging but remains engaged with it (Doherty-Sneddon et al., 2002 Doherty-Sneddon, G., Bruce, V., Bonner, L., Longbotham, S. and Doyle, C. 2002. Development of gaze aversion as disengagement from visual information. Developmental Psychology, 38: 438–445. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Doherty-Sneddon & Phelps, 2005 Doherty-Sneddon, G. and Phelps, F. 2005. Gaze aversion: A solution to cognitive or social difficulty?. Memory and Cognition, 33: 727–733. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). In the current study we investigate whether patterns of gaze and gaze aversion during children's explanations can predict when they are in states of transient knowledge (Karmiloff-Smith 1992 Karmiloff-Smith, A. 1992. Beyond modularity: A developmental perspective on cognitive science, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.  [Google Scholar]; Goldin-Meadow, Kim, & Singer, 1999 Goldin-Meadow, S., Kim, S. and Singer, M. 1999. What the teacher's hands tell the student's mind about math. Journal of Educational Psychology, 91: 720–730. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). In Study 1, thirty-three 6-year-old children completed a balance beam task (Pine & Messer, 2000 Pine, K. J. and Messer, D. 2000. The effects of explaining another's actions on children's implicit theories of balance. Cognition and Instruction, 18: 37–54. [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar]). Children who improved the representational level of their explanations (Karmiloff-Smith, 1992 Karmiloff-Smith, A. 1992. Beyond modularity: A developmental perspective on cognitive science, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.  [Google Scholar]) of this task with training used more GA than those who did not. Practical implications for teaching and for recognizing transient knowledge states are discussed. In Study 2, fifty-nine 6-year-olds took part and completed a “Time Task” along with periodic teaching intervention to improve their comprehension of telling the time. Some children improved immediately, whereas others did so more gradually. The gradual improvers showed the highest levels of GA, particularly when they were at an intermediate level of performance.     

Linguistic Styles of Eminent Writers Suffering From Unipolar and Bipolar Mood Disorder

Past research has shown that the styles of drawings by patients with unipolar and bipolar mood disorder differ, the latter expressing more positive and fewer negative emotions (Wadeson, 1980 Wadeson , H. ( 1980 ). Art psychotherapy . New York : Wiley . [Google Scholar]). In the first study presented here, it was expected that prose texts by eminent writers who suffered from unipolar versus bipolar mood disorder would show this same effect. One novel per writer was analyzed, using Pennebaker, Francis, and Booth's (2001 Pennebaker , J. W. , Francis , M. E. , & Booth , R. J. ( 2001 ). Linguistic inquiry and word count . Mahwah , NJ : Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc . [Google Scholar]) Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count. Results disconfirmed the hypothesis, but indicated 3 other differences that were then replicated in Study 2, using a second set of novels by the same authors. Results indicated that: (a) Bipolar writers referred to death more than did unipolar writers; (b) unipolar writers referred to people other than themselves more than did control writers; (c) unipolar writers used more words describing cognitive mechanisms (e.g., understand, know) than did both other groups. The fact that the unipolar and bipolar groups did not differ from controls on measures related to emotions and feelings can be partially explained in terms of the therapeutic effect of writing (Pennebaker, 1997 Pennebaker , J. W. ( 1997 ). Writing about emotional experiences as a therapeutic process . Psychological Science , 8 , 162 – 166 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). The interest displayed by unipolar writers in cognitive mechanisms is consistent with Verhaeghen, Joorman, and Khan's (2005 Verhaeghen , P. , Joorman J. , Khan , R. ( 2005 ). Why we sing the blues: The relation between self-reflective rumination, mood and creativity . Emotion , 5 , 226 – 232 .[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) finding that rumination mediates the link between creativity and unipolar depression.     

Is There a Home Choke in Decisive Playoff Basketball Games?

Previous studies (Baumeister & Steinhilber, 1984 Baumeister, R. F. 1984. Choking under pressure: Self-consciousness and paradoxical effects of incentives on skillful performance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 46: 610–620. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Schlenker, Phillips, Boniecki, & Schlenker (1995a) Schlenker, B. R., Phillips, S. T., Boniecki, K. A. and Schlenker, D. R. 1995a. Championship pressures: Choking or triumphing in one's own territory?. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 68: 632–643. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar] have found conflicting results regarding whether home teams have an advantage or not in athletic performance. We conducted two studies to explore the effects of basketball teams playing at home in playoff competition. We archived more than fifty years of National Basketball Association (NBA) playoff data, extending previous research to include a longer range of time and broader sample of NBA playoff games. We also extended previous studies by archiving a unique sample of college playoff basketball competition. Results are discussed in terms of both theoretical and applied implications. In sum, we found virtually no evidence of a home choke and strong evidence in favor of a home court advantage.     

Models of dependence and independence: A two-dimensional architecture of dual processing

This theoretical note proposes a two-dimensional cognitive architecture for dual-process theories of reasoning and decision making. Evans (2007b Evans, J. St. B. T. 2007b. On the resolution of conflict in dual process theories of reasoning. Thinking and Reasoning, 13: 321–339. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], 2008a Evans, J. St. B. T. 2008a. Dual-processing accounts of reasoning, judgment, and social cognition. Annual Review of Psychology, 59: 255–278. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], 2009 Evans, J. St. B. T. and Frankish, K. 2009. In two minds: Dual processes and beyond, Oxford, , UK: Oxford University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) distinguishes between two types of dual-processing models: parallel-competitive, in which both types of processes operate in parallel, and default-interventionist, in which heuristic processes precede the analytic processes. I suggest that this temporal dimension should be enhanced with a functional distinction between interactionist architecture, in which either type of process influences the content and valence of the other, and independent architecture, in which they do not. Override architecture is a special case of the latter, which postulates statistical interaction, but no interaction of valence and content. I show that this added dimensional distinction casts doubt on two assumptions of statistical modelling that Evans makes: independence and linearity. However, Evans' (2007b Evans, J. St. B. T. 2007b. On the resolution of conflict in dual process theories of reasoning. Thinking and Reasoning, 13: 321–339. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) point, that statistical modelling is underspecified vis-à-vis the verbal theory, is given further support. The functional dimension is crucial to interpreting the statistical model, as well as to theoretical understanding of the cognitive architecture and its educational applications.     

Criteria for basic emotions: Is DISGUST a primary “emotion”?

Tornochuk and Ellis argue that DISGUST should be considered a basic emotional system, on a par with the other basic emotional systems such as SEEKING, FEAR, RAGE, LUST, CARE, PANIC and PLAY, which constitute the groundwork for a cross-species emotion neuroscience with immediate implications for understanding emotional imbalances that characterise psychiatric disorders. Disgust is clearly a basic sensory/interoceptive affect (Rozin & Fallon, 1987 Rozin, P. and Fallon, A. 1987. A perspective on disgust. Psychological Review, 94: 23–41. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), and a socially constructed moral emotion (Haidt, 2003a Haidt, J. 2003a. “The moral emotions”. In Handbook of affective sciences, Edited by: Davidson, R. J., Scherer, K. R. and Goldsmith, H. H. 852–870. New York: Oxford University Press.  [Google Scholar], b Haidt, J. 2003b. The emotional dog and its rational tail: A social intuitionist approach to moral judgment. Psychological Review, 108: 814–834.  [Google Scholar]), but perhaps it is a category error to classify disgust as a basic emotion. It is more akin to a sensory affect. If we consider sensory disgust to be a basic emotional systems, then why not include hunger, thirst, fatigue and many other affective states of the body as emotions?