The impact of emotions on recall: An empirical study on social ads

Emotions are a complex phenomenon that entails a tricky problem regarding the measurement. To partially overcome this question, we assess emotions both using self‐report and measures commonly used in neuromarketing. This study assesses the accuracy of the recall after 4 months regarding two social advertising videos about female genital mutilation. Forty female participants were recruited. The skin conductance trend of the participants is different when viewing the two videos. The majority of participants (94.9%) reported that the two videos elicited different emotions (sadness for the first video and anger for the second one). Furthermore, according to arousal and valence model, these data are consistent with the literature that underlines the importance of psychophysiological indexes in measuring emotions and their associations with memory performances.     

The mediating and moderating role of planning on mothers’ decisions for early childhood dietary behaviours

Objective: Examine the roles of action and coping planning on the intention–behaviour relationship for mothers’ decisions for their young children’s dietary behaviours.

Design: Prospective design with two waves of data collection, one week apart.

Main outcome measures: Mothers (N = 197, M_age = 34.39, SD = 5.65) of children aged 2–3 years completed a main questionnaire assessing planning constructs and intentions, and a one-week follow-up of the target behaviours – ‘healthy eating’ and ‘discretionary choices’.

Results: Intention was the strongest predictor of behaviour for both dietary behaviours. For healthy eating, intention moderated the indirect relationship between intention–behaviour via planning; coping planning was less important when intention was strong. Further, intention was not a direct predictor of behaviour when intention was relatively low. Action planning was not a direct predictor of either behaviour after accounting for intention and coping planning; action planning on behaviour was mediated by coping planning (only for healthy eating). Intention was not a direct predictor of coping planning; intention on coping planning was mediated by action planning. Neither type of planning predicted discretionary choices.

Conclusion: Current findings contribute novel information on the mechanisms underpinning the effect of action and coping planning on the intention–behaviour relationship.     

The Gettier Intuition from South America to Asia

Journal of Indian Council of Philosophical Research - This article examines whether people share the Gettier intuition (viz. that someone who has a true justified belief that p may nonetheless fail...     

A Systematic Review of Randomized Controlled Trials to Assess Outcomes of Genetic Counseling

With the advancements in precision medicine and health care reform, it is critical that genetic counseling practice respond to emerging evidence to maximize client benefit. The objective of this review was to synthesize evidence on outcomes from randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of genetic counseling to inform clinical practice. Seven databases were searched in conducting this review. Studies were selected for inclusion if they were: (a) RCTs published from 1990 to 2015, and (b) assessed a direct outcome of genetic counseling. Extracted data included study population, aims, and outcomes. Risk of bias was evaluated using the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions guidelines. A review of 1654 abstracts identified 58 publications of 54 unique RCTs that met inclusion criteria, the vast majority of which were conducted in cancer genetic counseling setting. Twenty-seven publications assessed ‘enhancements’ to genetic counseling, and 31 publications compared delivery modes. The methodological rigor varied considerably, highlighting the need for attention to quality criteria in RCT design. While most studies assessed several client outcomes hypothesized to be affected by genetic counseling (e.g., psychological wellbeing, knowledge, perceived risk, patient satisfaction), disparate validated and reliable scales and other assessments were often used to evaluate the same outcome(s). This limits opportunity to compare findings across studies. While RCTs of genetic counseling demonstrate enhanced client outcomes in a number of studies and pave the way to evidence-based practice, the heterogeneity of the research questions suggest an important need for more complementary studies with consistent outcome assessments.     

Emotional fitness and the movement of affective science from lab to field

Emotions provide a ubiquitous and consequential backdrop to daily life, influencing everything from physiology to interpersonal relationships in the blink of an eye. Instances of emotional experience accumulate and compound to impact overall mental and physical health. Under optimal conditions, emotions are adaptive for the successful navigation of daily life. However, situational features of military life likely amplify everyday emotions and their impact, creating the need for soldiers to have a well-oiled emotional resilience system in place from the start, to be maintained throughout their careers. Basic research in affective science has identified the active ingredients that would be required in order for such a system of skills and abilities to have maximum impact on overall emotional fitness. Results of this emotional resilience training may provide compounding benefits for the individual as well as have spreading impact for the benefit of the military unit and other social connections. The Comprehensive Soldier Fitness initiative highlights important new frontiers in affective science and presents a challenge to our field that requires taking a second look at the theory-testing process.     

Intelligent management of intelligence agencies: beyond accountability ping-pong

The intelligence community (IC) is asked to predict outcomes that may often be inherently unpredictable-and is blamed for the inevitable forecasting failures, be they false positives or false negatives. To move beyond blame games of accountability ping-pong that incentivize bureaucratic symbolism over substantive reform, it is necessary to reach bipartisan agreements on performance indicators that are transparent enough to reassure clashing elites (to whom the IC must answer) that estimates have not been politicized. Establishing such transideological credibility requires (a) developing accuracy metrics for decoupling probability and value judgments; (b) using the resulting metrics as criterion variables in validity tests of the IC's selection, training, and incentive systems; and (c) institutionalizing adversarial collaborations that conduct level-playing-field tests of clashing perspectives.     

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.     

Putting off tomorrow to do what you want today: planning for retirement

In this article we note that in the coming years, a larger number of people will be experiencing retirement for a longer period of time than ever before and that despite this fact, many will find themselves unprepared for this stage of their lives. We review the literature on retirement preparation, structuring our review around the key questions that need to be addressed when planning for retirement: (a) What will I do? (b) How will I afford it? (c) Where will I live? and (d) Who will I share it with? We make a number of suggestions for research and practice. We conclude that although psychology has begun to play a role in understanding and addressing retirement preparation, there are considerable opportunities for psychologists to engage with this issue in their research and applied work.