Positive and negative norm regulation and their relationship to therapy group size

Norm regulation was examined in 18 outpatient psychotherapy groups, each led by cotherapists and varying in size from two to eight clients. Clients indicated acceptabilityand likelihood of occurrenceof 24 member behaviors. Positive norm regulation of acceptable behaviors was more readily achieved than negative norm regulation of unacceptable behaviors. The amount of positive regulation in any group was unrelated to the amount of negative regulation. However, group size was associated with both positive and negative regulation, with very small groups achieving more norm regulations than large groups.The author is grateful to suggestions by Bob Dies, Ken Howard, and Roy MacKenzie on an earlier draft of this paper.     

Access to dimensional values can be unselective during early perceptual processing

On each trial of the primary task for the study, a pair of small circles appeared on a computer screen. Across trials, the circles appeared in an array of positions on the screen. The participant was required on each trial to indicate whether or not the test circles were two or fewer position units apart in terms of the horizontal dimension of this array. The discrimination that the task required was easier to the extent that the vertical distance between the circles was ignored. When the task was performed under a high degree of speed stress, vertical distance and horizontal distance exerted equivalent effects on measures of performance. When the task was performed under a lesser degree of speed stress, horizontal distance exerted a larger effect than vertical distance did. The results supported the early holistic hypothesis over the dimensional similarity hypothesis as an account of the way information from different dimensions is accessed in perceptual processing.     

Instant of chair-rise lift-off can be predicted by foot-floor reaction forces

OBJECTIVE: To develop a predictive model of the lift-off event during chair rise in healthy subjects, using foot-floor reaction forces. BACKGROUND: An important event during chair rise is lift-off from the seat: the transition from the inherently stable three-point contact to the unstable two-point contact. There is no consistent or generally agreed upon method for estimating the time of lift-off when an instrumented seat is unavailable. METHODS: Twenty healthy volunteers were divided into a testing set and training set. Each subject performed repeated chair rise trials at different speeds. Seat-floor and foot-floor forces, recorded with two force platforms, were used to develop a model of the lift-off event. RESULTS: The magnitude of the vertical foot-floor reaction at lift-off (F0VF) was linearly related (R2 = 0.71, P < 0.001) to the peak vertical foot-floor reaction force (FMVF). A linear model was developed for the training group, which enabled prediction of lift-off time for the testing group with an absolute average error of 6 ms (about 1 data frame at 150 Hz). The linear model derived for the entire sample was: F0VF = 28.14 + FMVF * (0.6434). CONCLUSIONS: The lift-off event for healthy subjects performing chair rise can be accurately predicted from foot-floor reaction forces, without requiring an instrumented seat.     

Spontaneous facial expression in a small group can be automatically measured: An initial demonstration

Manual measurement of facial expression is labor intensive and difficult to standardize. Automated measurement seeks to address the need for valid, efficient, and reproducible measurement. Recent systems have shown promise in posed behavior and in structured contexts. Can automated measurement perform in more natural, less constrained settings? In the present study, previously unacquainted young adults sat around a circular table for 30 min of conversation. Video was selected for manual and automatic coding of Facial Action Coding System action units (AUs), examining, in particular, AU 6 (cheek raise) and AU 12 (lip corner pull), which together signal enjoyment. Moderate out-of-plane head motion and occlusion, which are challenging for automatic processing, were both common, as participants turned toward and away from each other or consumed drinks. Concurrent validity for both AUs was high. This is the first study to find that automated measurement of facial action in relatively unconstrained contexts can achieve results comparable with those of manual coding. Video demos of our software may be downloaded from http://brm.psychonomic-journals.org/content/supplemental.     

A generation effect can be found during naturalistic learning

Recently, Carroll and Nelson (1993) presented research suggesting that general-information questions might represent a boundary condition for the generation effect. The present research focused on whether the generation effect did, in fact, generalize to such questions. In Experiment 1, when subjects read or generated the answers to general-information questions, a generation advantage was demonstrated on a 47-h delayed cued-recall test. However, when the Carroll and Nelson procedure was mimicked by requiring subjects to make an initial attempt to answer the questions, the generation advantage was reduced such that it was no longer statistically significant. In Experiments 2 and 3, the findings of the first experiment generalized to a free-recall test. Thus, general-information questions do not represent a boundary condition for the generation effect.     

Positive psychological approaches to therapy

The term positive psychology has become widely used in recent years to refer to the new movement among psychologists who have turned their attention to positive human functioning. In this article we will review what the emerging field of positive psychology tells us about therapeutic practice. The positive psychology movement has led to a questioning of the fundamental assumptions underlying the practice of psychological therapy, and it is our view that the emerging positive psychology research is supportive of those therapeutic approaches which serve to facilitate the client's ability to hear their own inner voice.     

In‐group bias in children's intention to help can be overpowered by inducing empathy

An experimental vignette study was conducted among children (8–13 years) to examine whether inducing empathic understanding is an effective intervention to overpower peer group boundaries in children's helping. Children were induced or not induced to empathize with the recipient of help, who was or was not part of their (imagined) group of friends. Results showed that children intended to help in‐group peers more compared to outgroup peers when empathic understanding was not induced. However, when empathy was induced, they intended to help friends and non‐friends equally. Inducing empathic understanding was effective independent of the recipient's level of need, and children's advanced social perspective‐taking ability. Encouraging children to imagine how a recipient of help feels might thus be a useful strategy to prevent peer group‐based biases in children's helping behaviour.     

I can be a bum: Knowledge about abilities and life style in vocational behavior

From recent reviews of the vocational behavior literature, it is suggested that vocational theory and research need to move toward models which take seriously the problems generated by normative theories. Such a model is presented which uses a cognitive model of behavior and incorporates life style parameters. The research implications of the model are outlined.     

Systemic family therapy can be manualized: research process and findings

Determining the efficacy of therapeutic interventions is becoming an increasing political and ethical necessity. Comparative therapeutic outcome trials are most powerful when there is a precise specification, or manualization, of the forms that therapies took. Manuals have begun to be developed for structural/behavioural family therapy and couple therapy. The development of these manuals is often reliant on experts' self-report, rather than a systematic analysis of the therapeutic process as it happens. This can limit their validity and applicability to standard clinical practice. In addition, no manuals exist which reflect less structured forms of family therapy aimed at incorporating systemic, postmodern and narrative frameworks. The feasibility of producing a workable manual that reflects the fluidity of such practices has been questioned.
A research project to systematically create and test such a manual is reported. Multiple data sources and research methods, primarily qualitative, were applied to generate a rich specification of the therapy. In reporting these results the contents of various aspects of the final manual are indicated. Procedures to ensure that the prescribed practice is consistent with a widely used approach to systemic family therapy are also described.
The manual will be an important tool for outcome research and therapeutic practice. The account of the research process should be helpful to researchers engaged in constructing a manual for other models of family therapy based on a rigorous analysis of actual practice. The manual itself is available for use by outcome researchers who wish to evaluate this widely used form of systemic family therapy.     

Metacognitive illusions can be reduced by monitoring recollection during study

Prior work has shown that judgments of learning (JOLs) are prone to an auditory metacognitive illusion such that loud words are given higher predictions than quiet words despite no differences in recall as a function of auditory intensity. The current study investigated whether judgments of remembering and knowing (JORKs)—judgments that focus participants on whether or not recollective details will be remembered—are less susceptible to such an illusion. In Experiment 1, participants studied single words, making item-by-item JOLs or JORKs immediately after study. Indeed, although increased volume elevated judgement magnitude for both JOLs and JORKs, the effect was significantly attenuated when JORKs were elicited. Experiment 2 replicated this finding and additionally demonstrated that participants making JORKs were less likely than participants making JOLs to choose to restudy quiet words relative to loud words. Taken together, these results suggest that JORKs are impacted less—in terms of both metacognitive monitoring and control—by irrelevant perceptual information than JOLs. More generally, these data support the contention that metacognitive illusions can be attenuated by simply changing the way metacognitive judgments are solicited, an important finding given that subjective experiences guide self-regulated learning.     

When a good fit can be bad

How should we select among computational models of cognition? Although it is commonplace to measure how well each model fits the data, this is insufficient. Good fits can be misleading because they can result from properties of the model that have nothing to do with it being a close approximation to the cognitive process of interest (e.g. overfitting). Selection methods are introduced that factor in these properties when measuring fit. Their success in outperforming standard goodness-of-fit measures stems from a focus on measuring the generalizability of a model's data-fitting abilities, which should be the goal of model selection.     

The impact of emotions on shopping behavior during epidemic. What a business can do to protect customers

The study investigated how the perception of in‐shop COVID‐19 contraction influences emotions in decision‐making and how they further effect actions undertaken by consumers to control the situation within a store. Structural equation modeling was used to study the relationship between the risk of in‐store infection, emotions and in‐shop behavior, based on data retrieved from 914 questionnaires. Results showed, that the perceived risk of becoming infected in a store causes an increase in arousal and, at the same time, a decrease in perceived pleasure during shopping. The rise in arousal led to an increase in consumers taking actions to decrease their risk of contagion, while an increase in noticeable pleasure lowered interest of following recommendations for pandemic behavior. The findings imply that through changes regarding in‐store atmosphere, stationary shops can provide consumers with a sense of urgency and awareness of infection risk so that they may do their shopping more efficiently.     

Infant-mother attachment can be improved through group intervention: a preliminary evaluation in Spain in a non-randomized controlled trial

The quality of infant-mother attachment has been linked to competence in different domains of child development. Research indicates that early intervention can enhance the quality of infant-mother attachment, though its efficacy in a group format has yet to be evaluated. The current study is aimed at examining the usefulness of a group intervention in enhancing infant-mother attachment. An intervention aimed at addressing aspects such as maternal responsivity, sensitivity and childrearing behaviour was developed by the researchers and experienced psychologists. The intervention spanned a period of 14 months starting from the third quarter of pregnancy. The intervention was evaluated among 24 mothers from the Basque region of Spain. The sample consisted of children of both genders in a similar proportion: 45.8% were boys and 54.2% were girls. The children in this sample were full-term born and did not present symptoms of any serious pre- or postnatal complications. The intervention had a statistically non-significant medium effect. Infants whose mothers had received the intervention showed higher rates of secure attachment compared to children from the control group, as assessed by the Strange Situation observation procedure. A potentially significant confounding variable, maternal attachment, was balanced across the intervention and comparison groups. We can tentatively point out that a group intervention may enhance the quality of infant-mother attachment. Nevertheless, because the study design was not randomized, the results of this study remain preliminary and need replication in a full randomized controlled trial designed study.     

Extinction can be enhanced by a concurrent excitor

Five experiments used rat subjects to investigate the impact on extinction of the presence of other conditioned stimuli. In Experiments 1 (Pavlovian magazine approach) and 2 (instrumental discriminative training), an excitatory stimulus (X) was extinguished alone, in conjunction with a previously reinforced other stimulus (A), in conjunction with previously nonreinforced other stimulus (B), or it was spared extinction. Responding during extinction was greatest to AX, and subsequent testing of X alone showed AX extinction to have produced the most decrement to X. Experiment 3 found similar results using a within-subject design. Experiment 5 continued separate reinforced presentations of A during extinction. This procedure not only promoted extinction of X but also converted it into a conditioned inhibitor. These experiments bear on the mechanisms of overshadowing and stimulus processing, as well as provide information on the determinants of extinction.