When you don't have to be exact: Investigating computational estimation skills with a comparison task

The present study is the first systematic investigation of computational estimation skills of multi-digit multiplication problems using an estimation comparison task. In two experiments, participants judged whether an estimated answer to a multi-digit multiplication problem was larger or smaller than a given reference number. Performance was superior in terms of speed and accuracy for smaller problem sizes, for trials in which the reference numbers were smaller vs. larger than the exact answers (consistent with the size effect) and for trials in which the reference numbers were numerically far compared to close to the exact answers (consistent with the distance effect). Strategy analysis showed that two main strategies were used to solve this task—approximate calculation and sense of magnitude. Most participants reported using the two strategies. Strategy choice was influenced by the distance between the reference number and exact answer, and by the interaction of problem size and reference number size. Theoretical implications as to the nature of numerical representations in the ANS (approximate number system) and to the estimation processes are suggested.     

To be or not to be a galaprock: Preschoolers' intuitions about the importance of knowledge and action for pretending

Can someone pretend to be a galaprock without knowing what a galaprock is? Do children recognize that such knowledge is required for pretending? Three studies focusing on the relations among action, knowledge and pretending suggest that children have this understanding by age 4 years. In Study 1, 4‐year‐olds and adults willingly pretended to be moving and unmoving objects but had trouble pretending to be objects that were difficult to represent physically. In Study 2, 3‐ and 4‐year‐olds claimed they could not pretend to be an unknown thing, justifying their refusals with mentalistic language indicating their ignorance of the object or its typical actions. In Study 3, 3‐ to 5‐year‐olds predicted that other children who have knowledge of an object unfamiliar to the subjects themselves can nevertheless pretend to be it, whereas those lacking that knowledge cannot. The results add support to the growing literature showing that preschoolers conceptualize pretense as involving mental activity.     

You don't have to go to church to be a good Christian: the implicit religion of the cathedral carol service congregation

The notion that you don't have to go to church to be a good Christian is accepted as an indicator of the form of implicit religiosity espoused by those who (in Bailey's analysis) say that they “believe in Christianity.” The present paper builds on the findings of a recently published survey of rural Anglican churchgoers celebrating harvest which suggested that de-institutionalised implicit religion may be superseding commitment to conventional explicit religious attendance. The responses of 1081 people who attended Christmas carol services in two English cathedrals in 2009 and 2010 are analysed. The findings of the previous paper that implicit religiosity is more prevalent among younger people and among those who attend church less frequently are replicated. Evidence is also found that women are more inclined to this view than men and that those who have a loose historical connection through baptism are more likely to endorse it than those with either no historical connections or stronger ones. Suggestions are made for further research.     

Remembering after a perception of discrepancy: out with the old, in with the two

A surprising validation of expectation experienced during a recognition test induces the perception of discrepancy and a feeling of familiarity. The authors investigated whether that perception also affects memory performance when it is experienced in the original encounter with a stimulus. Target words were presented in a study phase, half in a context thought to induce the perception of discrepancy. In a subsequent recognition test, that earlier experience increased the accuracy of subjects' discrimination. However, when the subsequent task required a once-versus-twice judgment, that experience caused an illusion of reoccurrence for words presented once. The authors concluded that a perception of discrepancy in an initial encounter may be a valuable aid to later recognition but can also cause systematic memory errors under some circumstances.     

On the benign qualities of behavioral disinhibition: because of the prosocial nature of people, behavioral disinhibition can weaken pleasure with getting more than you deserve

This article focuses on social situations in which people are surprised about what is happening and inhibited about how to respond to the situation at hand. We study these situations by examining a classic topic in social psychology: how people respond to receiving better outcomes than are deserved. In these situations, the actions of an authority or a coworker push in the direction of accepting and enjoying the unfair outcome, whereas personal values for most people push in the direction of rejecting or being displeased with the outcome. This conflict may inhibit people's response to the advantageous but unfair outcomes. If people are indeed inhibited about how to respond to these kinds of outcomes, then lowering behavioral inhibition by reminding people of having acted in the past without inhibitions (in a manner that is unrelated to the outcomes participants subsequently receive) should affect reactions to the outcomes. Specifically, we hypothesize that because many people are prosocial and want to adhere to principles of fairness, reminders of behavioral disinhibition will lead to less pleasure with the unfairly obtained outcomes. The results of 8 experiments (conducted both inside and outside the psychology laboratory) revealed evidence for this benign disinhibition effect on various reactions to outcomes that are better than deserved. In further accordance with our line of reasoning, the effect is particularly pronounced among those who adhere to a prosocial orientation or who have adopted a prosocial mindset and is not observed among those with proself orientations or mindsets.     

Persistent coordination patterns in a complex task after 10 years delay: Subtitle: How validate the old saying “Once you have learned how to ride a bicycle,you never forget!”

Motor learning studies have for a long time focused on performance variables (in terms of speed or accuracy) in assessing learning, transfer and retention of motor skills. We argue, however, that learning essentially resides in changes in coordination variables (in terms of qualitative organization of behavior) and that relevant tests for assessing the effectiveness of learning and retention should consider these variables. The aim of this experiment was to test the retention of a complex motor skill, after a long-term delay. Ten years ago, five participants were involved in an experiment during which they practiced for 39 sessions of ten 1-min trials on a ski-simulator. All participants volunteered for a retention test, ten years after, for one session of ten 1-min trials. Analyses focused on the oscillations of the platform of the simulator. Performance was assessed in terms of amplitude and frequency. Coordination was accounted for by an analysis of dynamical properties of the motion of the platform, and especially the nature of the damping function that was exploited for sustaining the limit cycle dynamics. Results showed a significant decrement in performance variables. In contrast, all participants adopted from the first trial onwards the coordination mode they learned 10 years ago. These results confirm the strong persistence of coordination modes, once acquired and stabilized in the behavioral repertoire. They also support the importance of coordination variables for a valid assessment of learning and retention.     

Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) can wait,when they choose to: a study with the hybrid delay task

Self-control has been studied in nonhuman animals using a variety of tasks. The inter-temporal choice (ITC) task presents choices between smaller–sooner (SS) and larger–later (LL) options. Using food amounts as rewards, this presents two problems: (a) choices of the LL option could either reflect self-control or instead result from animals’ difficulty with pointing to smaller amounts of food; (b) there is no way to verify whether the subjects would not revert their choice for the LL option, if given the opportunity to do so during the ensuing delay. To address these problems, we have recently introduced a new protocol, the hybrid delay task, which combines an initial ITC with a subsequent accumulation phase in which selection of the SS option leads to its immediate delivery, but choice of the LL option then leads to one-by-one presentation of those items that continues only as long as the subject does not eat any of the accumulated items. The choice of the LL option therefore only reflects self-control when the number of items obtained from LL choices during the accumulation phase is higher than what could be received in the SS option. Previous research with capuchin monkeys demonstrated that their apparent self-control responses in the ITC task may have overestimated their general self-control abilities, given their poor performance in the hybrid delay task. Here, chimpanzees instead demonstrated that their choices for the LL option in the ITC phase of the hybrid delay task were confirmed by their ability to sustain long delays during accumulation of LL rewards.     

Nice to know you: Positive emotions, self-other overlap, and complex understanding in the formation of a new relationship

Based on Fredrickson's ((1998). What good are positive emotions? Review of General Psychology, 2, 300-319.; (2001). The role of positive emotions in positive psychology: The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions. American Psychologist, 56, 218-226) broaden-and-build theory and Aron and Aron's ((1986). Love as expansion of the self: Understanding attraction and satisfaction. New York: Hemisphere) self-expansion theory, it was hypothesized that positive emotions broaden people's feelings of self-other overlap in the beginning of a new relationship. In a prospective study of first-year college students, we found that, after 1 week in college, positive emotions predicted increased self-other overlap with new roommates, which in turn predicted a more complex understanding of the roommate. In addition, participants who experienced a high ratio of positive to negative emotions throughout the first month of college reported a greater increase in self-other overlap and complex understanding than participants with a low positivity ratio. Implications for the role of positive emotions in the formation of new relationships are discussed.     

"Robovie, you'll have to go into the closet now": children's social and moral relationships with a humanoid robot

Children will increasingly come of age with personified robots and potentially form social and even moral relationships with them. What will such relationships look like? To address this question, 90 children (9-, 12-, and 15-year-olds) initially interacted with a humanoid robot, Robovie, in 15-min sessions. Each session ended when an experimenter interrupted Robovie's turn at a game and, against Robovie's stated objections, put Robovie into a closet. Each child was then engaged in a 50-min structural-developmental interview. Results showed that during the interaction sessions, all of the children engaged in physical and verbal social behaviors with Robovie. The interview data showed that the majority of children believed that Robovie had mental states (e.g., was intelligent and had feelings) and was a social being (e.g., could be a friend, offer comfort, and be trusted with secrets). In terms of Robovie's moral standing, children believed that Robovie deserved fair treatment and should not be harmed psychologically but did not believe that Robovie was entitled to its own liberty (Robovie could be bought and sold) or civil rights (in terms of voting rights and deserving compensation for work performed). Developmentally, while more than half the 15-year-olds conceptualized Robovie as a mental, social, and partly moral other, they did so to a lesser degree than the 9- and 12-year-olds. Discussion focuses on how (a) children's social and moral relationships with future personified robots may well be substantial and meaningful and (b) personified robots of the future may emerge as a unique ontological category.     

'Oh, I'm just, you know, a little bit weak because I'm going to the doctor's': young men's talk of self-referral to primary healthcare services

Young men visit their general practitioner (GP) less frequently than young women and tend to utilise primary healthcare services reluctantly. This research aimed to explore the ways young men used their talk to make sense of their own masculinity in the context of their healthcare visits, and to explore the ways they used their talk to make sense of those visits in terms of multiple masculinities and gendered behaviours. This was an important area for research as previous work has not focused on young men. Interviews, lasting approximately 1?h, were conducted by a male researcher with seven men aged 22-33. Questions related to visiting the GP, attention to healthcare and help-seeking behaviours. These were analysed, using an eclectic approach informed by Foucauldian discourse analysis and discursive psychology. Participants subscribed to a hegemonic masculinity that constructed men as strong, stoical and reluctant to seek help. However, at times, these men negotiated and disengaged from such discourses. Women were constructed as immediately responding to symptoms and seeking help for minor illnesses. In contrast to traditional masculinity, the young men drew upon discourses of vulnerability and embarrassment. These results are discussed in relation to their implications for Health Psychology.     

Social investment and personality: a meta-analysis of the relationship of personality traits to investment in work, family, religion, and volunteerism.

Investing in normative, age-graded social roles has broad implications for both the individual and society. The current meta-analysis examines the way in which personality traits relate to four such investments -- work, family, religion, and volunteerism. The present study uses meta-analytic techniques (K = 94) to identify the cross-sectional patterns of relationships between social investment in these four roles and the personality trait domains of agreeableness, conscientiousness, and emotional stability. Results show that the extent of investment in social roles across these domains is positively related to agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and low psychoticism. These findings are more robust when individuals are psychologically committed to rather than simply demographically associated with the investment role.     

The critical role of the research question, inclusion criteria, and transparency in meta-analyses of integrity test research: a reply to Harris et al. (2012) and Ones, Viswesvaran, and Schmidt (2012)

We clear up a number of misconceptions from the critiques of our meta-analysis (Van Iddekinge, Roth, Raymark, & Odle-Dusseau, 2012). We reiterate that our research question focused on the criterion-related validity of integrity tests for predicting individual work behavior and that our inclusion criteria flowed from this question. We also reviewed the primary studies we could access from Ones, Viswesvaran, and Schmidt's (1993) meta-analysis of integrity tests and found that only about 30% of the studies met our inclusion criteria. Further, analyses of some of the types of studies we had to exclude revealed potentially inflated validity estimates (e.g., corrected validities as high as .80 for polygraph studies). We also discuss our experience trying to obtain primary studies and other information from authors of Harris et al. (2012) and Ones, Viswesvaran, and Schmidt (2012). In addition, we address concerns raised about certain decisions we made and values we used, and we demonstrate how such concerns would have little or no effect on our results or conclusions. Finally, we discuss some other misconceptions about our meta-analysis, as well as some divergent views about the integrity test literature in general. Overall, we stand by our research question, methods, and results, which suggest that the validity of integrity tests for criteria such as job performance and counterproductive work behavior is weaker than the authors of the critiques appear to believe.     

In all questions, my interest is not in the individual people but in the analytic movement as a whole. It will be hard enough here in Europe in the times to come to keep it going. After all, we are just a handful of people who really have that in mind

The paper tries to deal with the difficult and at times contradictory decisions that the then leaders of the IPA, S. Freud, A. Freud, E. Jones etc. had to adopt as whether or not to clearly inform the readers of Die Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse and the International Journal of Psychoanalysis, the official scientific periodicals of the IPA, of the tragic events concerning first the German Psychoanalytic Society and then the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society and the newborn Italian Psychoanalytic Society and other European psychoanalytic societies during the years 1933-1945. Because of the anti-Jewish persecution by the Nazi and fascist regimes the IPA had to face the extremely difficult task of helping its Continental Jewish members to emigrate to the USA, Great Britain and other countries in order to save their lives and to allow psychoanalysis to survive, with enormous radical consequences for the scientific and sociocultural future developments of the discipline.The following notes are dedicated to those non-Aryans and Aryans who could not find a proper rescue and whose graves became the wind which scattered the ashes of their bodies with the smoke coming out of the chimneys of the Nazi gas chambers.