Cognitive bias via the Internet: a comparison of Web-based and standard emotional Stroop tasks in social phobia

There is accumulating evidence to suggest that social phobia is associated with attentional bias for words related to social threat. Information processing in individuals with social phobia (n = 87) was investigated in the present study using 2 versions of the emotional Stroop task. Results from a standard emotional Stroop task indicated delayed colour naming of socially threatening words relative to neutral words, in line with previous research, whereas results from a Web-based emotional Stroop task indicated a facilitation effect, with faster manual indication of colour choice for socially threatening words than for neutral words. Possible explanations for these contrasting findings and issues for further research are discussed.     

The Brunnsviken Brief Quality of Life Scale (BBQ): Development and Psychometric Evaluation

Measurements of subjective quality of life (QoL) are an important complement to symptom ratings in clinical research and practice. Despite there being several established QoL self-rating scales, we identified a need for a freely accessible, easy-to-use inventory, validated for use with both clinical and non-clinical samples, based on the overall life satisfaction conceptualization of QoL. The Brunnsviken Brief Quality of life scale (BBQ) was designed to meet these requirements. Items were selected by performing a factor analysis on a large data-set of QoL ratings collected previously. Six life areas (Leisure time, View on life, Creativity, Learning, Friends and Friendship, and View of self) were identified as important for overall QoL and were included in the BBQ. A psychometric evaluation was performed using two independent samples: healthy undergraduate students (n = 163), and a sample seeking treatment for social anxiety disorder (n = 568). Results suggested a unifactorial structure, with good concurrent and convergent validity, high internal and test-retest reliability, and accurate classification ability. We conclude that the BBQ is a valid and reliable measure of subjective QoL for use in clinical and research settings. The BBQ is presently available in 31 languages and can be freely downloaded from www.bbqscale.com.     

DIAGNOSTIC EXPLOITATION OF VISUAL AFTEREFFECT MEASURES IN A MODERATELY DEPRESSIVE PATIENT GROUP

SMITH, G. J. W., FRIES, I., ANDERSSON, A. L. & RIED, J. Diagnostic exploitation of visual aftereffect measures in a moderately depressive patient group. Scand. J. Psychol. , 1971, 12, 68–79.–A group of 39 moderately depressive patients were tested before and after therapy with two serial aftereffect tests. One of them concerned size, intensity, and color of projected afterimages (AI), the other the duration of spiral aftereffects (SAE). AI and SAE data correlated highly with psychiatric ratings of depressive retardation, anxiety, and compulsion. These correlations formed the nucleus of three independent dimensions in a factorial space.     

Gender and its contribution to the prediction of cognitive abilities at 5 years

Gender-related differences in the prediction of five year-olds' cognitive abilities from measures of distal environment, proximal environment and infant test scores were examined in a random sample of 93 boys and 90 girls. Distal environmental data included maternal IQ, maternal and paternal education. Proximal environmental data included two variables derived from the Home Screening Questionnaire: the Home Questions and the Toy Checklist. The Bayley MDI was administered at age 13 months, whereas WPPSI-R was used as cognitive outcome measure at age 5 years. The relationship between paternal education and child IQ, and between proximal environmental variables and child IQ was significantly stronger for boys than for girls. The associations between proximal environment and IQ in boys, were accounted for by the distal environmental variables. Bayley MDI correlated significantly higher with girls' IQ compared to boys' IQ. Findings are discussed in terms of parental gender-differentiated socialization processes.     

Correction to: Exploring Latent Profiles of Psychopathology in a Sample of Lonely People Seeking Treatment

Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment -     

Forecasting outcomes of the World Cup 2006 in football: Performance and confidence of bettors and laypeople

ObjectivesMotivated by a paucity of research on sports forecasting, this paper examines how well individuals with varying degrees of relevant knowledge predict football (soccer) and how much confidence they have in their predictions.Design and procedureThree groups of participants (110 art students, 81 sports students, and 85 bettors) representing three levels of knowledge (poor, moderate, and expert) performed five forecasting tasks with relation to the outcome of the first round of the World Cup 2006. The tasks were assumed to reflect different degrees of complexity. About half of the participants obtained relevant information (world rankings). The participants stated their confidence in connection to conducting those tasks.ResultsWhereas the groups had roughly similar levels of performance in three tasks (i.e., predicting the teams qualifying for the second round as well as two types of match statistics), the knowledgeable and expert participants were better at predicting scores and percentage of ball possession in the matches than the naïve participants. Relatively few participants performed better than the simple rule that followed world rankings. Regardless of task complexity, the knowledgeable and expert participants were found to be significantly more confident about their forecasts than the naïve participants. Access to information had limited influence on forecasting performance and confidence.ConclusionThe present study shows that the forecasting performance of football experts and laypeople varies dependent on task. For easy tasks, they tend to predict equally well, partly because laypeople might use well-adapted heuristics. Once the prediction tasks become more difficult, the experts may take advantage of their domain-specific skills and produce forecasts that excel those of the laypeople.     

The challenge of measuring immigrant origin and immigration-related ethnicity in Europe

Different European nation-states use the most diverse statistical constructions of foreign origin or ethnic minority populations. Several countries traditionally even shun from producing such data. This makes international comparison a very difficult endeavour. Anyone wanting to perform comparative research on immigrants or (immigrant origin) ethnic minorities in Europe is unavoidably confronted with the most diverse types of national statistical data and has to opt for ad hoc solutions. Attempts at international comparison can thus be very tricky due to data characteristics. It is important that researchers are aware of these problems and do not simply accept data (especially in comparisons) at face value. In this article we embark on a comparative explorative study of the way in which immigrant background and immigration related ethnicity is taken stock of by national statistical institutes in a set of European nation-states.