Enhancing Social Justice by Promoting Prosocial Values in Career Development Interventions

In career counseling, social justice is typically integrated by helping oppressed groups navigate their way around obstacles of injustice while also working to dislodge the oppressive conditions from society. The authors affirm both of these courses of action while also advocating a third strategy: inviting clients to serve as agents of change by introducing and incorporating prosocial values into career development interventions. This article makes the case that this strategy may enhance client well‐being while simultaneously promoting harmony among organizations and society. Support for this strategy comes from theory, research, and the ethical approaches for working with values in counseling.     

Delusion‐proneness or miscomprehension? A re‐examination of the jumping‐to‐conclusions bias

Previous research has consistently shown that individuals with delusions typically exhibit a jumping‐to‐conclusions (JTC) bias when administrated the probabilistic reasoning ‘beads task’ (i.e., decisions made on limited evidence and/or decisions over‐adjusted in light of disconfirming evidence). However, recent work in this area has indicated that a lack of comprehension of the task may be confounding this finding. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the influence of task administration, delusion‐proneness, and miscomprehension on the elucidation of the JTC bias. A total of 92 undergraduate university students were divided into one of two task conditions (i.e., non‐computerised and computerised) and were further identified as either delusion‐prone or non‐delusion‐prone and as comprehending or non‐comprehending the task. Overall, 25% of the sample demonstrated a JTC bias, and just over half made illogical responses consistent with a failure to comprehend the task. Qualitative evidence of comprehension revealed that these ‘illogical responses’ were being driven by a misunderstanding of task instructions. The way the task was administrated and levels of delusion‐proneness did not significantly influence JTC. However, miscomprehending participants were significantly more likely to exhibit the bias than those who did comprehend. These results suggest that miscomprehension rather than delusion‐proneness may be driving the JTC bias, and that future research should include measures of miscomprehension.     

Safety behavior can hamper the extinction of fear of movement-related pain: An experimental investigation in healthy participants

Excessive fear of movement-related pain (FMRP), and its associated avoidance behavior, is considered a major risk factor for disability in chronic musculoskeletal pain. The current study aimed to investigate whether engaging in safety behavior, conceptualized as an avoidance response, hampers the extinction of FMRP. In a differential conditioning paradigm, we used joystick movements as conditioned stimuli (CSs) and a painful electrocutaneous stimulus as the unconditioned stimulus (US). In the Safety group, participants received the opportunity to avoid the pain-US by pressing a safety button during the extinction phase, whereas in the Control group, this option was not included. In a subsequent test phase, this safety button was no longer available. In two experiments, results demonstrate successful acquisition and extinction. Retrospective FMRP ratings in both experiments revealed a return of fear of pain in the test phase in the Safety group, but not in the Control group. In Experiment 1, mean eyeblink startle reflex amplitudes partly corroborated the self-report findings on fear of pain. The present results suggest that performing safety behavior during cognitive-behavioral interventions, i.e., exposure, might increase the risk of a return of FMRP.     

Miller (1944) revisited: Movement times in relation to approach and avoidance conflicts

Three experiments (total N = 291) sought to provide support for the idea that avoidance conflicts, relative to approach conflicts, are more difficult to motorically resolve. Conflicts were instantiated by asking individuals to approach desirable stimuli and avoid undesirable stimuli under conditions in which there was no objectively-correct direction of movement. To control for baseline movement speeds, non-conflict trials presented desirable (e.g., reward) and undesirable (e.g., threat) stimuli in the absence of any spatial conflict. In addition, movement times were isolated through the use of a joystick movement paradigm in which movement speeds were quantified subsequent to some initial tendency to move in one direction or the other. Consistent with hypotheses, all experiments found that movement times were slowed in the context of avoidance conflicts relative to approach conflicts. Results are discussed in terms of theories of motivation, affective processing, conflict, and anxiety.     

Political Humiliation and Conversion

In this article, I explore political humiliation and its relation to conversion, as seen in the autobiographies of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King. In brief, I argue that before and during the time that Martin Luther King and Malcolm X lived, political structures, laws, policies, and programs gave rise to and supported social behaviors and communications of the dominant group that were aimed at humiliating a subjugated, marginalized group—African-Americans. These experiences of political humiliation served to motivate Malcolm X and Martin Luther King to make changes in their religious commitments and attitudes. I argue further that their conversions, while different in a number of ways, cannot simply be understood as religious acts. Rather, their conversions represent political-religious acts that involved a turning away from the individual and social political subjugation to acts of political resistance against the pervasive barrage of humiliations at the hands of whites. Their political-religious acts of resistance also included a redemptive telos, which was a quest for a present and future political, social, and religious realization of human dignity and freedom.     

Malcolm X’s Conversions: The Interplay of Political and Religious Subjectivities

In this article, I offer a way of thinking about the interplay of political and religious subjectivities in persons’ conversion experiences or faith journeys. More particularly, I contend that a person’s political and religious experiences interact such that political experiences and ideas shape the person’s religious values and beliefs, and vice versa. Malcolm X’s story is used to illustrate this interplay of subjectivities vis-à-vis the varied changes or conversions in his life. The major point here is that the richness and depth of change in Malcolm X’s life (and other figures) are better grasped when we take into account the dynamic intersection of the political and religious.     

Do procedures for verbal reporting of thinking have to be reactive? A meta-analysis and recommendations for best reporting methods

Since its establishment, psychology has struggled to find valid methods for studying thoughts and subjective experiences. Thirty years ago, Ericsson and Simon (1980) proposed that participants can give concurrent verbal expression to their thoughts (think aloud) while completing tasks without changing objectively measurable performance (accuracy). In contrast, directed requests for concurrent verbal reports, such as explanations or directions to describe particular kinds of information, were predicted to change thought processes as a consequence of the need to generate this information, thus altering performance. By comparing performance of concurrent verbal reporting conditions with their matching silent control condition, Ericsson and Simon found several studies demonstrating that directed verbalization was associated with changes in performance. In contrast, the lack of effects of thinking aloud was merely suggested by a handful of experimental studies. In this article, Ericsson and Simon's model is tested by a meta-analysis of 94 studies comparing performance while giving concurrent verbalizations to a matching condition without verbalization. Findings based on nearly 3,500 participants show that the "think-aloud" effect size is indistinguishable from zero (r = -.03) and that this procedure remains nonreactive even after statistically controlling additional factors such as task type (primarily visual or nonvisual). In contrast, procedures that entail describing or explaining thoughts and actions are significantly reactive, leading to higher performance than silent control conditions. All verbal reporting procedures tend to increase times to complete tasks. These results suggest that think-aloud should be distinguished from other methods in future studies. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Facial affect processing and depression susceptibility: cognitive biases and cognitive neuroscience

Facial affect processing is essential to social development and functioning and is particularly relevant to models of depression. Although cognitive and interpersonal theories have long described different pathways to depression, cognitive-interpersonal and evolutionary social risk models of depression focus on the interrelation of interpersonal experience, cognition, and social behavior. We therefore review the burgeoning depressive facial affect processing literature and examine its potential for integrating disciplines, theories, and research. In particular, we evaluate studies in which information processing or cognitive neuroscience paradigms were used to assess facial affect processing in depressed and depression-susceptible populations. Most studies have assessed and supported cognitive models. This research suggests that depressed and depression-vulnerable groups show abnormal facial affect interpretation, attention, and memory, although findings vary based on depression severity, comorbid anxiety, or length of time faces are viewed. Facial affect processing biases appear to correspond with distinct neural activity patterns and increased depressive emotion and thought. Biases typically emerge in depressed moods but are occasionally found in the absence of such moods. Indirect evidence suggests that childhood neglect might cultivate abnormal facial affect processing, which can impede social functioning in ways consistent with cognitive-interpersonal and interpersonal models. However, reviewed studies provide mixed support for the social risk model prediction that depressive states prompt cognitive hypervigilance to social threat information. We recommend prospective interdisciplinary research examining whether facial affect processing abnormalities promote-or are promoted by-depressogenic attachment experiences, negative thinking, and social dysfunction.     

The paradox of the question

What is the best question to ask an omniscient being? The question is intriguing; is it also paradoxical? We discuss several versions of what Ned Markosian calls “the paradox of the question” and suggest solutions to each of those puzzles. We then offer some practical advice about what do if you ever have the opportunity to query an omniscient being.