Safety behaviour does not necessarily interfere with exposure therapy

There has been much recent controversy regarding whether or not the use of safety and other neutralizing behaviour interferes with exposure-based therapy. The aim of this study was to examine the role of safety behaviour in the treatment of specific phobia. Sixty-two snake-fearful participants were randomized to a 45-min exposure session with or without the use of safety gear, such as gloves and goggles. During the treatment, participants in the safety behaviour group were able to achieve a significantly closer initial distance of approach to the snake compared to controls. When tested post-treatment without any safety gear, both groups demonstrated comparable treatment gains involving significant reductions in fearful cognitions and subjective anxiety, as well as significant improvements in distance of approach. Results suggest that reliance on safety behaviour during exposure therapy for anxiety disorders may not interfere with treatment outcome.     

Who shalt not kill? Individual differences in working memory capacity, executive control, and moral judgment

Recent findings suggest that exerting executive control influences responses to moral dilemmas. In our study, subjects judged how morally appropriate it would be for them to kill one person to save others. They made these judgments in 24 dilemmas that systematically varied physical directness of killing, personal risk to the subject, inevitability of the death, and intentionality of the action. All four of these variables demonstrated main effects. Executive control was indexed by scores on working-memory-capacity (WMC) tasks. People with higher WMC found certain types of killing more appropriate than did those with lower WMC and were more consistent in their judgments. We also report interactions between manipulated variables that implicate complex emotion-cognition integration processes not captured by current dual-process views of moral judgment.     

Manipulating response set in a choice reaction task: evidence for anatomical coding in response selection

Accurate motor performance requires a process of response selection that chooses the correct response out of a set of possible ones. Most theories of response selection assume that this selection process operates on spatial codes, which define the location of stimuli and responses in environmental coordinates, with little or no role for the anatomical codes of the effectors involved. In this study, I systematically manipulated the anatomical identities of the response fingers in a four-choice reaction task, while keeping the stimulus and response locations constant. Results showed that homologous fingers on different hands modulated the reaction time profiles and error patterns in a mirror-symmetrical way. This finding indicates that anatomical factors may play a more substantial role in response selection than often assumed.     

Power and sensitivity of alternative fit indices in tests of measurement invariance

Confirmatory factor analytic tests of measurement invariance (MI) based on the chi-square statistic are known to be highly sensitive to sample size. For this reason, G. W. Cheung and R. B. Rensvold (2002) recommended using alternative fit indices (AFIs) in MI investigations. In this article, the authors investigated the performance of AFIs with simulated data known to not be invariant. The results indicate that AFIs are much less sensitive to sample size and are more sensitive to a lack of invariance than chi-square-based tests of MI. The authors suggest reporting differences in comparative fit index (CFI) and R. P. McDonald's (1989) noncentrality index (NCI) to evaluate whether MI exists. Although a general value of change in CFI (.002) seemed to perform well in the analyses, condition specific change in McDonald's NCI values exhibited better performance than a single change in McDonald's NCI value. Tables of these values are provided as are recommendations for best practices in MI testing.     

Power and the objectification of social targets

Objectification has been defined historically as a process of subjugation whereby people, like objects, are treated as means to an end. The authors hypothesized that objectification is a response to social power that involves approaching useful social targets regardless of the value of their other human qualities. Six studies found that under conditions of power, approach toward a social target was driven more by the target's usefulness, defined in terms of the perceiver's goals, than in low-power and baseline conditions. This instrumental response to power, which was linked to the presence of an active goal, was observed using multiple instantiations of power, different measures of approach, a variety of goals, and several types of instrumental and noninstrumental target attributes. Implications for research on the psychology of power, automatic goal pursuit, and self-objectification theory are discussed.     

The whole is equal to the sum of its parts: a probabilistic model of grouping by proximity and similarity in regular patterns

The authors investigated whether the gestalt grouping principles can be quantified and whether the conjoint effects of two grouping principles operating at the same time on the same stimuli differ from the sum of their individual effects. After reviewing earlier attempts to discover how grouping principles interact, they developed a probabilistic model of grouping by proximity, which allows measurement of strength on a ratio scale. Then, in 3 experiments using dot lattices, they showed that the strength of the conjoint effect of 2 grouping principles--grouping by proximity and grouping by similarity--is equal to the sum of their separate effects. They propose a physiologically plausible model of this law.     

The use of indigenous interviewers in a study of latino men who have sex with men: A research note

The use of indigenous researchers has long been practiced in ethnographic research; a similar use of indigenous personnel has not been as commonly undertaken in interview studies of men who have sex with men (MSM). This research note reports on the use of indigenous interviewers in a study of Latino MSM’s perceptions about sexual relationships and behaviors. The full study explores sexual relationships among Latino MSM, and HIV risk behaviors undertaken by a population of MSM residing in a community in southern California. This research note describes both the strengths and limitations that arise from employing indigenous interviewers for improving the overall quality of sensitive data. Benefits discussed include improved access to an otherwise highly restricted group, enhanced rapport-building capabilities, and greater understanding of language unique to the study population. Limitations discussed include the use of previously untrained interview personnel and age and gender issues.     

In defense of the metaphysics of race

In this paper I defend the metaphysics of race as a valuable philosophical project against deflationism about race. The deflationists argue that metaphysical debate about the reality of race amounts to a non-substantive verbal dispute that diverts attention from ethical and practical issues to do with ‘race.’ In response, I show that the deflationists mischaracterize the field and fail to capture what most metaphysicians of race actually do in their work, which is almost always pluralist and very often normative and explicitly political. Even if debates about the reality of race turn out to be verbal disputes, they are substantive, and worth having.