Is Political Conservatism Adaptive? Reinterpreting Right‐Wing Authoritarianism and Social Dominance Orientation as Evolved,Sociofunctional Strategies

The Dual Process Model (DPM) explains prejudice and political conservatism as functions of Right‐Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) and a Social Dominance Orientation (SDO; Duckitt, 2001). From an evolutionary perspective, such orientations may represent specific adaptations to coalitional competition in the ancestral environment (Sinn & Hayes, 2016). Supporting this view, recent research suggests the two orientations represent divergent strategies, with RWA pursuing an honest‐cooperator strategy and SDO a deceptive, cooperation‐mimicking strategy (Heylen & Pauwels, 2015). In two studies, we examine additional evidence for an adaptationist interpretation of DPM. Utilizing life history theory, Study 1 finds that RWA reflects the predicted “slow” strategy by endorsing planning and control, investment in family relationships, altruism, and religiosity. In contrast, SDO reflects a “fast” strategy by devaluing planning and control, secure relationships, and altruism. Utilizing rank management theory, Study 2 finds that RWA reflects a prosocial orientation, endorsing coalition building and social networking while rejecting deception and manipulation. In contrast, SDO reflects an exploitive orientation, rejecting coalition building and networking but endorsing ruthless self‐advancement and deceptive tactics. These findings support an adaptationist revision of RWA to recognize its prosocial, honest‐cooperator dimension and of SDO to recognize proself, “dark” tactics seeking power within groups.     

Top-down social modulation of interpersonal observation–execution

Cyclical upper limb movement can involuntarily deviate from its primary movement axis when the performer concurrently observes incongruent biological motion (i.e. interpersonal observation–execution). The current study examined the social modulation of such involuntary motor interference using a protocol that reflected everyday social interactions encountered in a naturalistic social setting. Eighteen participants executed cyclical horizontal arm movements during the observation of horizontal (congruent) or curvilinear (incongruent) biological motion. Both prior to, and during the interpersonal observation–execution task, participants also received a series of social words designed to prime a pro-social or anti-social attitude. The results showed greater orthogonal movement deviation, and thus interference, for the curvilinear compared to horizontal stimuli. Importantly, and opposite to most of the previous findings from work on automatic imitation and mimicry, there was a greater interference effect for the anti-social compared to pro-social prime condition. These findings demonstrate the importance of interpreting the context of social primes, and strongly support predictions of a comparison between the prime construct and the self-concept/-schema and the top-down response modulation of social incentives.     

Evolution of Cultural Interbehavior in a Turn-Based Matching-to-Sample Procedure

The Psychological Record - Kantor’s (1982) analysis of cultural interbehavior focuses on shared stimulus–response functions that are conventional across individuals and established...     

Young Children's Phonological Sensitivity After Exposure to a Rhyming or Nonrhyming Story

This study examined the ability of preschool children to make phonological discriminations after hearing rhyming or nonrhyming versions of the same story. Participants first listened to either a rhyming or nonrhyming version of a story, Rainy Day Kate (Blegvad, 1987), then attempted a phonological deletion and a rhyme/alliteration detection task. In accordance with prior theoretical notions that listening to rhyme sensitizes young children to phonological properties of words, children who heard the rhyming version of the story showed significantly higher performance on the rhyme/alliteration task than did participants who heard the nonrhyming narrative. Children in the rhyme condition also offered more rhyming and clang (nonword but phonologically similar) associates in completing the phonological deletion task.     

A comparison of sniff bottle staircase and olfactometer-based threshold tests

Olfactometers have been gaining popularity as research tools, but they have yet to replace established testing procedures in a variety of laboratory and clinical settings, including absolute threshold tests. In this research, we designed and operated a simple olfactometer with which to assess threshold. To do this, we used a method-of-adjustment test that was compared to the three-alternative forced choice ascending sniff bottle staircase method, which is currently a standard threshold test procedure. We found that the olfactometer threshold test correlated highly with the staircase method, and that it possessed suitable test–retest reliability. The advantages of the olfactometer threshold test include faster test time and reduced cleaning and reassembly demands. Future use of the olfactometer in olfactory identification and/or detection thresholds amongst odors is also outlined.     

Does acceptance and relationship focused behavior therapy contribute to bupropion outcomes? A randomized controlled trial of functional analytic psychotherapy and acceptance and commitment therapy for smoking cessation

This study evaluated a treatment combining bupropion with a novel acceptance and relationship focused behavioral intervention based on the acceptance and relationship context (ARC) model. Three hundred and three smokers from a community sample were randomly assigned to bupropion, a widely used smoking cessation medication, or bupropion plus functional analytic psychotherapy (FAP) and acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT). Objective measures of smoking outcomes and self-report measures of acceptance and relationship processes were taken at pretreatment, posttreatment, 6-month, and 1-year follow-up. The combined treatment was significantly better than bupropion alone at 1-year follow-up with 7-day point prevalence quit rates of 31.6% in the combined condition versus 17.5% in the medication-alone condition. Acceptance and the therapeutic relationship at posttreatment statistically mediated 12-month outcomes. Bupropion outcomes were enhanced with an acceptance and relationship focused behavioral treatment.     

Immediate source-monitoring, self-focused attention and the positive symptoms of schizophrenia

Previous research suggests that tendencies to misattribute one's own thoughts to an external source, as assessed by an immediate source-monitoring test, are associated with auditory verbal hallucinations (AVHs). However, recent research suggests that such tendencies are associated instead with symptoms of thought interference. The main aim of the present study was to examine whether such tendencies are differentially associated with different types of thought interference, with AVHs, or with both. It has also been suggested that external misattributions are especially likely to occur with emotionally salient material and if the individual's focus is on the self. These suggestions were also tested. The positive psychotic symptoms of 57 individuals with a diagnosis of schizophrenia were assessed and they then completed the Self-Focus Sentence Completion blank. Immediately after completing each sentence they were asked to indicate to what extent the sentence was their own. The number of sentences that were not rated as completely their own served as their externalisation score. Externalisation scores correlated significantly with the severity of three symptoms: voices commenting, delusions of being controlled, and thought insertion. In a logistic regression analysis, all three of these symptoms were significantly and independently related to externalisation. Externalisation was not associated with either a negative or a neutral self-focus. Thus tendencies to misattribute one's own thoughts to an external source are associated with AVHs and some, but not all, symptoms of thought interference. The importance for externalisation of self-focused attention and of the emotional salience of the elicited thoughts was not supported.