The effects of safety behaviors on health anxiety: an experimental investigation

The present study examined the extent to which safety behaviors exacerbate symptoms of hypochondriasis (severe health anxiety). Participants were randomized into a safety behavior (n = 30) or control condition (n = 30). After a baseline period, participants in the safety behavior condition spent one week actively engaging in a clinically representative array of health-related safety behaviors on a daily basis, followed by a second week-long baseline period. Participants in the control condition monitored their normal use of safety behaviors. Compared to control participants, those in the safety behavior condition reported significantly greater increases in health anxiety, hypochondriacal beliefs, contamination fear, and avoidant responses to health-related behavioral tasks after the safety behavior manipulation. In contrast, general anxiety symptoms did not significantly differ between the two groups as a function of the manipulation. Mediational analyses were consistent with the hypothesis that changes in the frequency of health-related thoughts mediated the effects of the experimental manipulation on health anxiety. These findings suggest that safety behaviors are associated with increases in health anxiety, perhaps by fostering catastrophic thoughts about health. The implications of these findings for the conceptualization of hypochondriasis as an anxiety disorder are discussed.     

The adaptive user: an investigation into the cognitive and task constraints on the generation of new methods

When people use a computer application, they have the opportunity to adapt the methods or strategies that they deploy to better fit the demands of the task. In Experiment 1, we demonstrated that the generation of methods is limited by, but not entirely prevented by, the reduced opportunity that is associated with the iterative nature of typical computer-based tasks. In Experiment 2, we demonstrated that the cognitive demands associated with task-related problem solving delay, but do not prevent, the generation of more efficient device strategies. We argue that people are rather good at adapting device strategies to task demands and that previously reported arguments to the contrary are premature.     

The role of cognitive stimulation on the relations between age and cognitive functioning

To make a convincing argument that cognitive stimulation moderates age trends in cognition there must be (a) a negative relation between age and level of cognitive stimulation, (b) a positive relation between level of cognitive stimulation and level of cognitive functioning, and (c) evidence of an interaction between age and cognitive stimulation in the prediction of cognitive functioning. These conditions were investigated in a study in which 204 adults between 20 and 91 years of age completed an activity inventory and performed a variety of cognitive tasks. Only the 1st condition received empirical support, and, thus, the results of this study provide little evidence for the hypothesis that cognitive stimulation preserves or enhances cognitive functioning that would otherwise decline.     

A bright side of sadness: The depolarizing role of sadness in intergroup conflicts

Intractable conflicts constitute violent and threatening environments that lead to intense emotions and polarized attitudes. Sadness is one emotion frequently elicited by the price of such conflicts. This investigation characterized the effects of sadness on conflict‐related information processing and attitudes in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Findings from four experimental studies suggest that both incidental and integral sadness can induce a depolarization of political attitudes. In Study 1 (N = 163), sadness reduced the effect of political ideology on conflict‐related decisions. Sadness reduced the effect of political ideology on in‐group bias in resource allocation in Studies 2 (N = 213) and 4 (N = 274), willingness to negotiate in Studies 1 and 3 (N = 174), and openness to information supporting the out‐group's perspective (Study 4). Overall, in addition to its more negative implications, these results suggest that sadness (compared to both the non‐emotional and anger conditions) may have a bright side, since it may induce depolarization of political attitudes in intractable conflicts.     

Social influences on cognitive strategies and cognitive development: The role of communication and instruction

Cognitive strategy training has been shown empirically to be extremely effective in enhancing learning and memory performance in retarded individuals. However, the theoretical status and applied utility of the strategy concept has been subjected to increasing criticism, particularly regarding the lack of definition and specificity in its use, when it is involved in instructional procedures applied to typical learning and information processing tasks. Extensions of research in language and communication provide a social basis for analyzing instruction, in terms of communication theory and pragmatics, and a possible approach to more general studies of the skills and strategies of information processing. The question arises whether rather disparate views of cognitive processing systems can be synthesized, or, by their mutual consideration, at least provide a basis for clearer articulation of research issues. A synthesis of prominent usages of the “strategic processing” construct derived from the social basis of communication theory is advanced.     

Impact of value congruence on work-family conflicts: the mediating role of work-related support

Based on past research regarding the relationship between person-environment fit and work-family conflict (WFC), we examined the mediating effects of perceived organization/supervisor support on the relationship between person-organization/supervisor value congruence and WFC. A structural equation model was used to test three hypotheses using data collected from 637 workers in Taiwan. Person-organization value congruence regarding role boundaries was found to be positively correlated with employee perception of organizational support, resulting in reduced WFC. Person-supervisor value congruence regarding role boundaries also increased employee perception of organizational support, mediated by perceived supervisor support. Research and managerial implications are discussed.     

The role of the feedforward paradigm in cognitive psychology

Feedforward control is a process adjusting behaviour in a continuative way. Feedforward takes place when an equilibrium state is disrupted and the system has to automatically retrieve the homeostatic stable state. It also occurs when a perturbation is previewed and must be eliminated in order to achieve a desired goal. According to the most general definition, a feedforward process operates by fixing the future representation of the desired state, the achieving of which stops the process. Then, feedforward works by means of the refinement determined by successive comparisons between the actual and target products. In its applications, a feedforward process is thought to be modulated by the subject’s purpose and the environmental state. Over the years, the feedforward process has assumed different connotations in several contests of cognitive psychology. An overview of the research fields in psychology that significantly progressed with the introduction of a feedforward paradigm is provided by: (a) reviewing models in which the feedforward concept plays a fundamental role in the system control; (b) examining critical experiments related to the interaction of feedforward and feedback processes; (c) evidencing practical applications for some of the presented feedforward-based architectures.     

The role of cognitive factors in the rod-and-frame effect

We compared the contribution and the effectiveness of modulating the orientation perception of two types of visual information: the visual frame and the visual polarity of objects. In experiment 1, we examined the effect of a square frame, a mouse, an elephant, and a map of France on the apparent vertical. In the upright position, despite the presence of tilted individual component features, the visual objects had no illusory visual tilt effects. When tilted, these objects had a substantial effect on the direction that appeared to be vertical. However, rod-setting errors were smaller in the inducing objects than when observed with the frame display. In the second experiment, the results of experiment 1 were replicated with a meaningful circular contour--a porthole and a clock. The presence of the external circular contour did not abolish the illusion on the apparent vertical. Moreover, in experiment 3, a clock whose numbers were displaced and not tilted--to avoid the possible tilt influence of visual cues--was also able to deflect the subjective visual vertical. This finding suggests that through top-down processing shapes can act as a framework which serves as a reference influencing the perceived orientation of the inner objects.     

Individual differences in self-assessed health: an information-processing investigation of health and illness cognition.

In 2 studies, the relation between measures of self-assessed health (SAH) and automatic processing of health-relevant information was investigated. In Study 1, 84 male and 86 female undergraduate students completed a modified Stroop task. Results indicated that participants with poorer SAH showed enhanced interference effects for illness versus non-illness words. In Study 2, 27 male and 30 female undergraduate students completed a self-referent encoding task. Results offered a conceptual replication and extension of Study 1 by confirming the specificity of the relation between SAH measures and automatic processing of health (vs. negative or positive general trait) information. These studies provide evidence that individual differences in SAH are reflected in schematic processing of health-relevant information.     

The role of necessity in cognitive development

There seem to be two kinds of nonconservers—those who think their response might change on another occasion and those who think their response would always be the same. After training in conservation, the former (called nonconservers without necessity) show no detectable gains in conservation, while the latter (called nonconservers with necessity), surprisingly, show significant gains in conservation.In the present study, nonconservers with necessity were more likely than the nonconservers without necessity to think the classic conservation arguments (e.g., identity, negation, and compensation) were good and correct reasons and that the typical nonconservation reasons were poor and wrong.In sum, the nonconservers who can support their conclusions with the deductive force of necessity, even though they are wrong in their conclusion, appear to be more developmentally advanced than other nonconservers who do not offer necessity as part of the justification for their nonconservation conclusion.     

Towards a Vygotskyan cognitive robotics: The role of language as a cognitive tool

Cognitive Robotics can be defined as the study of cognitive phenomena by their modeling in physical artifacts such as robots. This is a very lively and fascinating field which has already given fundamental contributions to our understanding of natural cognition. Nonetheless, robotics has to date addressed mainly very basic, low-level cognitive phenomena like sensory-motor coordination, perception, and navigation, and it is not clear how the current approach might scale up to explain high-level human cognition. In this paper we argue that a promising way to do that is to merge current ideas and methods of ‘embodied cognition’ with the Russian tradition of theoretical psychology which views language not only as a communication system but also as a cognitive tool, that is by developing a Vygotskyan cognitive robotics. We substantiate this idea by discussing several domains in which language can improve basic cognitive abilities and permit the development of high-level cognition: learning, categorization, abstraction, memory, voluntary control, and mental life.     

The perils of police psychology: 10 strategies for minimizing role conflicts when providing mental health services and consultation to law enforcement agencies

This article addresses common dilemmas faced by mental health professionals working on behalf of law enforcement agencies, focusing on those relating to informed consent; conflicts in values, norms, or their relative importance; and the erosion of professional identity. The authors suggest 10 strategies that mental health professionals may invoke to reduce their risk of confronting ethical dilemmas or of experiencing role conflicts while working on behalf of law enforcement agencies. The need for each strategy is illustrated with one or more examples of problems that have arisen when mental health professionals have failed to obtain consent for their activities, have been insufficiently sensitive to or unaware of conflicts between the usual norms in their professions, and the norms of law enforcement agencies, or have identified too strongly with law enforcement personnel. The 10 strategies recommended here are intended to reduce professional conflicts without compromising operational effectiveness.     

The role of robotic modelling in cognitive science

From the perspective of cognitive robotics, this paper presents a modern interpretation of Newell’s (1973) reasoning and suggestions for why and how cognitive psychologists should develop models of cognitive phenomena. We argue that the shortcomings of current cognitive modelling approaches are due in significant part to a lack of exactly the kind of integration required for the development of embodied autonomous robotics. Moreover we suggest that considerations of embodiment, situatedness, and autonomy, intrinsic to cognitive robotics, provide an appropriate basis for the integration and theoretic cumulation that Newell argued was necessary for psychology to mature. From this perspective we analyse the role of embodiment and modes of situatedness in terms of integration, cognition, emotion, and autonomy. Four complementary perspectives on embodied and situated cognitive science are considered in terms of their potential to contribute to cognitive robotics, cognitive science, and psychological theorizing: minimal cognition and organization, enactive perception and sensorimotor contingency, homeostasis and emotion, and social embedding. In combination these perspectives provide a framework for cognitive robotics, not only wholly compatible with the original aims of cognitive modelling, but as a more appropriate methodology than those currently in common use within psychology.