Beiträge zur Psychologie der Gestalt

Zusammenfassung Im Teil I bestätigten wir das Resultat von Fuchs über den Einfluß einer Form auf die Farbe ihrer Teile und erbrachten einiges Material zur quantitativen Bestimmung dieses Einflusses. Liegen von 12 auf der Peripherie eines Kreises angeordneten gelben Scheibchen einige hinter einem blauen Episcotister, so werden diese von den außerhalb liegenden gelb gefärbt. Der Grad dieser Färbung hängt ab 1. von dem Verhältnis der Zahl der außen liegenden Scheibchen zu der Zahl der im Episcotisterfeld befindlichen, 2. von figuralen Faktoren: je stärker der figurale Zusammenhang zwischen den Scheibchen drinnen und draußen, um so stärker die färbende Wirkung.Im II. Teil versuchten wir den Faktoren nachzugehen, von denen die Durchsichtigkeit eines Episcotisters konstanter Öffnung abhängt. Als solche Faktoren ergaben sich: Helligkeit des Hintergrundes, Helligkeit des Episcotisters (beide wirken im entgegengesetzten Sinn), Helligkeitsdifferenz zwischen Episcotister und Hintergrund und Ausgeprägtheit der auf dem Hintergrund erscheinenden Figur. Es ergaben sich Bedingungen, unter denen der Episcotister unsichtbar wurde, und es ließ sich diese Unsichtbarkeit als höchster Grad von Durchsichtigkeit auffassen. Die Durchsichtigkeit ging ferner Hand in Hand mit anderen Strukturbeschaffenheiten des Episcotisters, auch die phänomenale Helligkeit des Episcotisters war von dem Grad seiner Durchsichtigkeit nicht unabhängig.     

Predicting Creativity Based on the Facets of the Theoretical Intellect Framework

The present study investigates how the construct intellect, according to the Theoretical Intellect Framework (TIF), predicts creativity. The TIF is a theoretical model describing the structure of the construct intellect, a sub‐dimension of the Big Five domain openness to experience. People (N = 2709) from two sub‐samples (undergraduate students and Amazon MTurkers) completed one of three creativity tasks (self‐reported, remote associates, or rated photo caption) and the Intellect Scale. The results support hypotheses derived from the TIF, as the operation Create, rather than the operations Think or Learn, significantly and in some cases uniquely predicted the self‐reported creativity indicators. Creativity indicators with a strong cognitive load (remote associates test and rated photo caption), however, were predicted by the operation Think. Results are discussed with regards to the nomological net of the operation Create and the construct validity of the creativity assessments. We provide implications for applied purposes and call for further examination of the TIF with additional creativity measures. Copyright © 2015 European Association of Personality Psychology     

Persistent career indecision over time: Links with personality,barriers, self-efficacy,and life satisfaction

Taking control over one's career requires the ability to make career decisions; thus, remaining in a state of career indecision is problematic. However, the stability of career indecision has not yet been investigated using advanced statistical modeling approaches. We present two studies of German university students applying three-wave, longitudinal designs. Study 1 investigated the stability of career indecision by means of latent state-trait analysis within two samples with different time lags (Sample 1: N = 363, 7 weeks; Sample 2: N = 591, 6 months). The results indicated that career indecision was determined by a stable component (i.e., trait career indecisiveness) that was associated with lower core self-evaluations, lower occupational self-efficacy, and higher perceived career barriers. Study 2 (N = 469) examined career indecision over one year. We found that the stable career indecision component explained 5% of the variance in student life satisfaction beyond self-evaluated generalized indecisiveness.     

Knowledge and availability

The mentioning of error-possibilities makes us less likely to ascribe knowledge. This paper offers a novel psychological account of this data. The account appeals to “subadditivity,” a well-known psychological tendency to judge possibilities as more likely when they are disjunctively described.     

Metameric Whiteness and Absence of Causal Factors

Olaf Müller presents a supposedly empirically equivalent theory to Newtonian optics, which in his view is therefore threatened by underdetermination. This threat could even be expanded to modern physics, since this branch of physics is partly based on Newton’s theory. In this paper, I will show that Müller’s alternative theory contains an ill-defined concept, viz. the definition of whiteness as the absence of optical causal factors. This results from a fundamental property of whiteness: for every source of white light there exist metameric sources. I further argue that this cannot be reconciled by borrowing other concepts from modern physics, as is, I will show, tacitly presupposed in Müller’s argument. As a consequence, his alternative theory is not empirically equivalent to Newtonian optics and his argument in favour of underdetermination fails.