Resource-Building Processes Across Life Domains: Father-Child Interactions as Starting Points for Resource Caravans

Journal of Happiness Studies - In two studies, we examined preconditions of resource-building processes between family and work. Focusing on positive father-child interactions, we investigated...     

Cognitive control and the COMT Val158Met polymorphism: genetic modulation of videogame training and transfer to task-switching efficiency

The study investigated whether successful transfer of game-based cognitive improvements to untrained tasks might be modulated by preexisting neuro-developmental factors, such as genetic variability related to the catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT)—an enzyme responsible for the degradation of dopamine. The COMT Val¹⁵⁸Met genotype may differentially affect cognitive stability and flexibility, and we hypothesized that Val/Val homozygous individuals (who possess low prefrontal dopamine levels) show more pronounced cognitive flexibility than Met/-carriers (who possess high prefrontal dopamine levels). We trained participants, genotyped for the COMT Val¹⁵⁸Met polymorphism on playing “Half-Life 2”, a first-person shooter game which has been shown to improve cognitive flexibility. Pre-training (baseline) and post-training measures of cognitive flexibility were acquired by means of a task-switching paradigm. As expected, Val/Val homozygous individuals showed larger beneficial transfer effects than Met/-carriers. Our findings support the idea that genetic predisposition modulates transfer effects and that playing first-person shooter games promotes cognitive flexibility in individuals with a suitable genetic predisposition.     

The joint flanker effect: Less social than previously thought

Research on joint action has been taken to suggest that actors automatically co-represent the tasks and/or actions of co-actors. However, recent findings on the joint Simon effect have provided evidence for a nonsocial account, which renders automatic co-representation unlikely. In the present study, we aimed to test whether a nonsocial account is also feasible for the joint version of the flanker task. In particular, we manipulated the social nature of the “co-actor” who could be another human or a Japanese waving cat. Contrary to the social interpretation of the joint flanker effect, the results demonstrated a “joint” flanker effect, irrespective of whether participants shared the task with another person or with the Japanese waving cat.     

The role of human body movements in mate selection

It is common scientific knowledge, that most of what we say within a conversation is not only expressed by the words' meaning alone, but also through our gestures, postures, and body movements. This non-verbal mode is possibly rooted firmly in our human evolutionary heritage, and as such, some scientists argue that it serves as a fundamental assessment and expression tool for our inner qualities. Studies of nonverbal communication have established that a universal, culture-free, non-verbal sign system exists, that is available to all individuals for negotiating social encounters. Thus, it is not only the kind of gestures and expressions humans use in social communication, but also the way these movements are performed, as this seems to convey key information about an individual's quality. Dance, for example, is a special form of movement, which can be observed in human courtship displays. Recent research suggests that people are sensitive to the variation in dance movements, and that dance performance provides information about an individual's mate quality in terms of health and strength. This article reviews the role of body movement in human non-verbal communication, and highlights its significance in human mate preferences in order to promote future work in this research area within the evolutionary psychology framework.     

The role of the formal employment contract in the range and fulfilment of the psychological contract: Testing a layered model

This study investigates the employment contract (temporary vs. permanent) in relation to psychological contract content and fulfilment. The psychological contract includes employees' perceptions of their obligations and their entitlements. We hypothesize that transactional elements constitute a common core that is shared both by temporary and permanent workers. Relational elements are added to this core to show employees' and employers' loyalty, and their intentions to do more than necessary. These elements are more likely to be perceived by permanent workers as compared to temporary workers. Additionally, we suggest that relational elements are difficult to fulfil. Accordingly, we expect lower levels of perceived fulfilment for permanent workers as compared to temporary workers. Based on exchange theory, we furthermore hypothesize that these perceptions follow a similar pattern in how employees report entitlements (i.e., what they receive from the company) and reports of their own obligations (i.e., what they give in return). Results based on a seven-country sample (N _permanent = 3354; N _temporary = 1980) show that permanent workers as compared to temporary workers perceive more relational entitlements and obligations but a similar level of transactional entitlements and obligations. Thus, these results supported the idea of a layered model. The relationship between contract type and fulfilment of the psychological contract was only partly in line with expectations. Temporary workers reported higher fulfilment of entitlements and transactional obligations, but no difference was found for fulfilment of relational obligations.     

Attentional control and competition between episodic representations

The relationship between attentional control and episodic representation was investigated in six experiments that employed a variant of the classic attentional blink paradigm. We introduced a task-irrelevant (unpredictive) color match between the first and second target stimulus in a three-stream rapid serial visual presentation task. When this match was present, the first target reliably elicited a priming benefit to the identification of the second, lateralized target. However, this was only the case when the identities of the targets did not belong to the same category (digits, letters, or symbols). When targets did belong to the same category, interference was observed instead of priming, particularly at Lag 1. Furthermore, when color was the target-defining feature, interference at Lag 1 gave way to priming at longer lags. The interference effect is attributed to partial overlap between competing episodic target representations, which affects the availability of their overlapping features for successive attentional selection in rapid serial visual presentation.     

RELIGION AS A CONTROL GUIDE: ON THE IMPACT OF RELIGION ON COGNITION

Religions commonly are taken to provide general orientation in leading one's life. We develop here the idea that religions also may have a much more concrete guidance function in providing systematic decision biases in the face of cognitive‐control dilemmas. In particular, we assume that the selective reward that religious belief systems provide for rule‐conforming behavior induces systematic biases in cognitive‐control parameters that are functional in producing the wanted behavior. These biases serve as default values under uncertainty and affect performance in any task that shares cognitive‐control operations with the religiously motivated rule‐conforming behavior the biases were originally developed for. Such biases therefore can be unraveled and objectified by means of rather simple tasks that are relatively well understood with regard to the cognitive mechanisms they draw on.     

Aktuelle Entwicklungen in der Psychotherapieausbildung und der Ausbildungsforschung

In the journal Psychotherapeut, issues of psychotherapy training have been repeatedly published during recent years, especially related to discussions about a reform of the current training system. This reform now seems to have been initiated. Besides a historical sketch of the training-related discourse of recent years and a proposal for defining core fields of competence of psychotherapists, this paper summarizes current trends in training research, which seem to be gaining importance within psychotherapy research.