Opening the Creative Mind of High Need for Cognitive Closure Individuals through Activation of Uncreative Ideas

Drawing on the integrative system theory of creativity combining the person, process, and press perspectives, this research offers the first evidence of how high-need-for-cognitive-closure (NFC) individuals’ creative mind can be opened up, by making them become more cognizant of uncreative ideas as consensually invalid solutions to creative problems. A validation study was conducted to first establish the utility of a newly developed chocolate design task. In the second study, half of the participants were made aware of conventional chocolate designs by drawing these designs before generating a revolutionized design of chocolate; the other half did not have to draw out the conventional designs first. Results confirmed that, given the opportunity to cognize uncreative solutions, high-NFC participants who had a higher creative ideation potential became the most creative. Their low-NFC counterparts, however, did not seem to benefit from the trigger of uncreative solutions. The implication that holding onto a chronic motive to attain cognitive closure or epistemic certainty is not necessarily detrimental to creative performance was discussed.     

Towards a neural basis of auditory sentence processing

Functional dissociations within the neural basis of auditory sentence processing are difficult to specify because phonological, syntactic and semantic information are all involved when sentences are perceived. In this review I argue that sentence processing is supported by a temporo-frontal network. Within this network, temporal regions subserve aspects of identification and frontal regions the building of syntactic and semantic relations. Temporal analyses of brain activation within this network support syntax-first models because they reveal that building of syntactic structure precedes semantic processes and that these interact only during a later stage.     

Development of Teaching Skills and Relations to Theory of Mind in Preschoolers

The aims of this research were to examine the development of teaching skills in preschool children and to explore the relation between teaching and theory of mind (ToM). After learning a new board game, 3.5-, 4.5-, and 5.5-year-old children (N = 46) were asked to teach a confederate who “doesn't know how to play the game.” They also received two ToM tasks. Children's teaching skills increased significantly with age: older children taught longer, explained more rules, used more strategies when teaching, and were more likely to recognize and attempt to correct “errors” committed by the confederate. After being controlled for age, individual differences in ToM were significantly correlated with the number of strategies used when teaching. This research suggests that a dynamic teaching task is sensitive to developmental changes and that aspects of children's teaching may serve as a window into their developing understanding of mental states.     

Development and initial validation of the Brief Adolescent Life Event Scale (BALES)

We report initial validity analyses of the Brief Adolescent Life Event Scale (BALES). This instrument addresses negative and positive events pertinent to the well being of adolescent boys and girls, and is designed for use in studies utilizing an extended research protocol. Selection of items was guided by emerging perspectives on positive psychology , action theory , and personality vulnerability , as well as by new developments in statistical modeling theory. The 36 items of the scale tap negative and positive events, each of which addresses interpersonal and achievement life domains. Using a large sample of early-adolescents ( N = 895), we confirmed the hypothesized structure that includes four domain-level latent factors (i.e., negative interpersonal events, negative achievement events, positive interpersonal events, positive achievement events), and two overarching factors (negative events and positive events). Indices of positive and negative events predicted adolescent depressive symptoms in expected ways, and positive events buffered the effect of negative events on depressive symptoms. These findings encourage an informed use of the BALES and highlight considerations involved in the development of brief measures of stress and coping processes.     

Validation of the Impulsive/Premeditated Aggression Scale in College Students

ABSTRACT

Impulsive (IA) and premeditated (PM) aggression reflect functions of aggressive behavior that may have differential correlates and clinical utility. The purpose of this study was to extend the use of the Impulsive/Premeditated Aggression Scale (IPAS) for characterizing aggression in a college student sample. Three hundred forty students completed the IPAS, Buss and Perry's (1992) Buss, A. H. and Perry, M. 1992. The Aggression Questionnaire. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63: 452–459. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar] Aggression Questionnaire (AQ), and measures of childhood maltreatment and negative life events. Principal components analyses supported reliable IA and PM factors. The degree of IA was significantly higher than that of PM. Convergent validity for the IA scale was supported with significant relationships with certain AQ scales. Implications for studying aggressive functions in this age group may inform violence prevention and treatment on college campuses.     

The Mediating Role of Peritraumatic Dissociation and Thought Control Strategies on Posttraumatic Stress in Women Survivors of Child Sexual and Physical Abuse

This study examined the link between cognitive coping strategies, type of abuse, and posttraumatic stress symptomatology. In a sample of 294 undergraduate women, several key findings emerged: (a) reported use of cognitive coping strategies significantly differed based on the type of abuse; (b) some differences in posttraumatic stress symptomatology emerged based on the type of abuse; (c) once the cognitive coping strategies were accounted for, the type of abuse was no longer associated with posttraumatic stress symptomatology. These findings suggest that peritraumatic dissociation, punishment, and social control significantly mediated the relationship between the type of abuse and posttraumatic stress symptomatology. This is important information for interventionists striving to help their clients maximize already-occurring adaptive strategies (e.g., social control).     

Opposite effects of visual versus imagined presentation of faces on subsequent sex perception

Viewing faces of one sex changes the perception of subsequently seen ambiguous faces. Here we investigate if the mechanisms responsible for this sex aftereffect are also activated during mental imagery of faces. Participants categorized the sex of ambiguous faces after either viewing images of male or female actors' faces or imagining these same faces. As in previous studies, the ambiguous images were categorized as female more often after viewing male faces than after viewing female faces. The opposite effect was found for imagined faces, however; the ambiguous images were categorized as female more often after imagining female faces than after imagining male faces. Although our results are inconsistent with findings that imagined faces cause either no aftereffects or similar aftereffects to visually presented faces, our results are consistent with recent evidence that visual and imagined presentation of faces cause opposite adaptation effects on an early electrophysiological response associated with face processing.     

Domain‐specific impulsivity in school‐age children

Impulsivity is a salient individual difference in children with well‐established predictive validity for life outcomes. The current investigation proposes that impulsive behaviors vary systematically by domain. In a series of studies with ethnically and socioeconomically diverse samples of middle school students, we find that schoolwork‐related and interpersonal‐related impulsivity, as observed by teachers, parents, and the students themselves, are distinct, moderately correlated behavioral tendencies. Each demonstrates differentiated relationships with dimensions of childhood temperament, Big Five personality factors, and outcomes, such as report card grades. Implications for theoretical conceptions of impulsivity as well as for practical applications (e.g. domain‐specific interventions) are discussed.