Believing in a Purpose of Events: Cross‐Cultural Evidence of Confusions in Core Knowledge

We examined beliefs in the purpose of events in the American population. Previously, separate researchers surveyed these beliefs in the Finnish population. Their methodology was used to assess the beliefs in a dissimilar demographic. Four hypotheses were tested using questionnaire responses (N = 429; 301 women; M_age = 20.46) and analyzed with structural equation modeling. As hypothesized, a positive correlation was found between beliefs in the purpose of events and paranormal beliefs. Confusions of core biological, physical, and psychological knowledge predicted the belief variables—as hypothesized, although model fit was mediocre. Core knowledge confusions were also hypothesized to predict religiousness and purposeful‐event beliefs. A close‐fitting model displayed weak predictive power and was interpreted as insufficient support for the third hypothesis. Lastly, we hypothesized and found that participants rated events they experienced as more purposeful than events that they did not experience. We provide insight for the findings and make suggestions for future studies. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Deliberation in citizenship education: how the school context contributes to the development of an open classroom climate

Schools are expected to contribute to preparing students for engaged citizenship. Research shows that open classroom discussions on political issues have a positive effect on political attitudes and behaviour. However, a deeper understanding of why students perceive their classrooms as open for discussion is missing. The purpose of this study is to examine how deliberative democratic theory can be used to explain such perceptions. We argue that the openness of the discussion climate is positively affected by, on the one hand, a context of good student–teacher relations characterised by fairness and respect, and, on the other hand, by the level of collective efficacy, which is the perception of responsiveness of the school towards student demands. Using multilevel analyses on the European data of the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS 2009), we find that these predictors are significant at the student level and the school level. This means that both the individual experience of a student as well as the average school’s score on good student–teacher relations and collective efficacy affect how students perceive the discussion climate. Our findings, based on high-quality survey data from 22 countries, are a significant contribution to clarifying the underlying mechanism leading to an open classroom climate. As such discussions have proven to be an effective way to stimulate political engagement, we conclude that a school context characterised by fairness and responsiveness, should not be overlooked by schools and policy.     

Fact learning: How information accuracy,delay, and repeated testing change retention and retrieval experience

Previous classroom studies have shown that the phenomenology of studied facts changes over time. However, pedagogical needs preclude both the study of errors and the separation of the effects that delay and repeated testing have on retention and retrieval experience. We addressed these issues together in an experiment where participants read stories containing correct and misleading information and provided Remember, Just Know, and Familiar judgements on immediate and delayed general knowledge tests. After 2 days, information learned from the stories shifted from Remembered to Just Known, but repeated testing attenuated this shift. Interestingly, similar patterns of retrieval and phenomenology were observed for correct and misleading information with one important difference—the shift over time to Just Knowing was significantly greater for correct than for misleading information. Together, these findings show the roles of information accuracy, delay, and testing in determining both retention and the subjective experience of retrieval.     

Collaborative memory and part-set cueing impairments: The role of executive depletion in modulating retrieval disruption

When people are exposed to a subset of previously studied list items they recall fewer of the remaining items compared to a condition where none of the studied items is provided during recall. This occurs both when the subset of items is provided by the experimenter (i.e., the part-set cueing deficit in individual recall) and when they are provided during the course of a collaborative discussion (i.e., the collaborative inhibition effect in group recall). Previous research has identified retrieval disruption as a common mechanism underlying both effects; however, less is known about the factors that may make individuals susceptible to such retrieval disruption. In the current studies we tested one candidate factor: executive control. Using an executive depletion paradigm we directly manipulated an individual's level of executive control during retrieval. Results revealed no direct role of executive depletion in modulating retrieval disruption. In contrast, executive control abilities were indirectly related to retrieval disruption through their influence at encoding. Together these results suggest that executive control des not directly affect retrieval disruption at the retrieval stage, and that the role of this putative mechanism may be limited to the encoding stage.     

Sample size in psychological research over the past 30 years

The American Psychological Association (APA) Task Force on Statistical Inference was formed in 1996 in response to a growing body of research demonstrating methodological issues that threatened the credibility of psychological research, and made recommendations to address them. One issue was the small, even dramatically inadequate, size of samples used in studies published by leading journals. The present study assessed the progress made since the Task Force's final report in 1999. Sample sizes reported in four leading APA journals in 1955, 1977, 1995, and 2006 were compared using nonparametric statistics, while data from the last two waves were fit to a hierarchical generalized linear growth model for more in-depth analysis. Overall, results indicate that the recommendations for increasing sample sizes have not been integrated in core psychological research, although results slightly vary by field. This and other implications are discussed in the context of current methodological critique and practice.     

Suicidal behavior and firearm access: results from the second injury control and risk survey

The association between home firearms and the likelihood and nature of suicidal thoughts and plans was examined using the Second Injury Control and Risk Survey, a 2001-2003 representative telephone survey of U.S. households. Of 9,483 respondents, 7.4% reported past-year suicidal thoughts, 21.3% with a plan. Similar proportions of those with and without a home firearm reported suicidal thoughts, plans, and attempts. Among respondents with suicidal plans, the odds of reporting a plan involving a firearm were over seven times greater among those with firearms at home, compared with those without firearms at home. The results suggest people with home firearms may not be more likely to be suicidal, but when suicidal they may be more likely to plan suicide by firearm.     

A Clinician's Guide to PTSD Treatments for Returning Veterans

What options are available to mental health providers helping clients with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)? In this paper we review many of the current pharmacological and psychological interventions available to help prevent and treat PTSD with an emphasis on combat-related traumas and Veteran populations. There is strong evidence supporting the use of several therapies including prolonged exposure (PE), eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR), and cognitive processing therapies (CPT), with PE possessing the most empirical evidence in favor of its efficacy. There have been relatively fewer studies of non-exposure based modalities (e.g., psychodynamic, interpersonal, and dialectical behavior therapy perspectives), but there is no evidence that these treatments are less effective. Pharmacotherapy is promising (especially paroxetine, sertraline, and venlafaxine), but more research comparing the relative merits of medication vs. psychotherapy and the efficacy of combined treatments is needed. Given the recent influx of combat-related traumas due to ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, there is clearly an urgent need to conduct more randomized clinical trials research and effectiveness studies in military and Department of Veterans Affairs PTSD samples. Finally, we provide references to a number of PTSD treatment manuals and propose several recommendations to help guide clinicians' treatment selections.