A Randomized Trial of Attention Training for Generalized Social Phobia: Does Attention Training Change Social Behavior?

The use of attention training protocols for the treatment of generalized social anxiety disorder (SAD) is undergoing increased examination. Initial investigations were positive but more recent investigations have been less supportive of the treatment paradigm. One significant limitation of current investigations is overreliance on self-report. In this investigation, we expanded on initial investigations by using a multimodal assessment of patient functioning (i.e., including behavioral assessment). Patients with a primary diagnosis of SAD (n = 31) were randomly assigned to eight sessions of attention training (n = 15) or placebo/control (n = 16). Participants were assessed at pre- and posttreatment via self- and clinician-report of social anxiety as well as anxious and behavioral response to two in vivo social interactions. Results revealed no differences between groups at posttreatment for all study outcome variables, suggesting a lack of effect for the attention training condition. The results are concordant with recent investigations finding a lack of support for the use of attention training as an efficacious treatment for patients with SAD.     

Flagging Up Buddhism: Charles Pfoundes (Omoie Tetzunostzuke) Among the International Congresses and Expositions, 1893–1905

Charles James William Pfoundes (1840–1907), a young emigrant from Southeast Ireland, spent most of his adult life in Japan, received a Japanese name ‘Omoie Tetzunostzuke’, first embraced and then turned against Theosophy and, from 1893, was ordained in several Japanese Buddhist traditions. Lacking independent means but educated, intellectually curious, entrepreneurial, fluent in Japanese and with a keen interest in Asian culture, Pfoundes subsisted as a cultural intermediary, explaining Japan and Asia to both Japanese and foreign audiences and actively seeking involvement in global expositions and congresses, in Asia and beyond. Drawing on a previously unstudied collection of Pfoundes' personal documents, this paper first outlines Pfoundes' unusual career and then focuses on his engagement, in the last 15 years of his life, in actual or proposed international congresses and expositions in London, Chicago, Japan, Hanoi, St Louis and Oregon. The paper thereby draws attention, through the forgotten figure of Charles Pfoundes, to the distinctive nineteenth century phenomenon of great international expositions and their associated congresses, viewing these complicated events as another kind of crossroads; innovative nodes and material stimuli to the kinds of travel, cultural communication and interaction which, like monastic, trade, political and ethnic networks, helped to exchange and promote modern representations of Buddhism.     

The effect of receipt personalization on tipping behavior

Research has shown that personalizing receipts, such as drawing “smiley faces” and writing “thank you” notes on customer bills to express gratitude, can result in larger tips for restaurant wait staff. Although the practice of receipt personalization has been supported using field experiments, limited research has examined the effectiveness of this technique based on the level of service quality provided by restaurant wait staff. Using a scenario‐based approach, we found from this study that adding a personalized message significantly lowers tip percentages. Moreover, the negative effect is magnified when service quality fails to exceed customer expectations. Implications related to the findings are discussed. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Need Satisfaction Supportive Game Features as Motivational Determinants: An Experimental Study of a Self-Determination Theory Guided Exergame

Empirical studies have validated that basic needs satisfaction supported by video game play predicts motivation and engagement outcomes. However, few studies specifically manipulated game features for each of the three basic needs specified in the self-determination theory (SDT) to examine how the game features impact players' need satisfaction and game experience. The current study employed an in-house developed exergame and manipulated the game features in a 2 (autonomy-supportive game features: on vs. off) × 2 (competence-supportive game features: on vs. off) experiment to predict need satisfaction, game enjoyment, motivation for future play, effort for gameplay, self-efficacy for exercise using the game, likelihood of game recommendation, and game rating. The manipulated game features led to the corresponding need satisfaction. Manipulated autonomy-supportive and competence-supportive game features had main effects on most motivation and engagement outcomes. Need satisfaction of autonomy and need satisfaction of competence were both found to be mediators for the relationships between the game features and the motivation and engagement outcomes. The findings add evidence to support the underlying mechanism postulated by SDT for media enjoyment and motivation as well as the emerging entertainment research conceptualizing enjoyment as need satisfaction. The findings also have practical implications for intervention effort that intends to capitalize the motivational pull of video games.     

Cognition and Emotion in TV Message Processing: How Valence,Arousing Content,Structural Complexity,and Information Density Affect the Availability of Cognitive Resources

This paper examines whether emotional message content alters the effects of structural complexity and information density on available resources, measured by secondary task reaction times (STRTs), and message encoding, measured by audio recognition. In addition, hypotheses relating motivational activation and resource availability based on the motivational activation concepts of positivity offset (greater appetitive activation in a neutral environment) and negativity bias (faster aversive activation) influence are tested. Results replicate previous research supporting the contention that STRTs measure available resources. In addition, they show that the basic pattern of STRTs and recognition as a function of allocated and required resources is relatively consistent regardless of emotional content of the message. Emotion appears to function as a constant, increasing both resource allocation and resources required. Finally, these data provide some initial support for predicted relationships between motivational activation and resource allocation based on the constructs of positivity offset and negativity bias.     

Playing With Prejudice: The Prevalence and Consequences of Racial Stereotypes in Video Games

A content analysis of top-selling video game magazines (Study 1) and of 149 video game covers (Study 2) demonstrated the commonality of overt racial stereotyping. Both studies revealed that minority females are virtually absent in game representations. Study 1 revealed that, in video game magazines, minority males, underrepresented generally, were more likely to be portrayed as athletes or as aggressive, and less likely to be depicted in military combat or using technology, than White males. Study 2 also showed evidence of the “dangerous” minority male stereotype in video game covers. Again, underrepresented overall, minority males were overrepresented as thugs, using extreme guns, and also as athletes. Study 3, an experiment, exposed players to both violent and nonviolent games with both White and Black characters. Participants were faster at classifying violent stimuli following games with Black characters and at classifying nonviolent stimuli following games with White characters, indicating that images of popular video game characters evoke racial stereotypes.     

Making Sense of Walt: A Psychoanalytic Understanding of Racism

This paper explores Klein's concepts of the depressive position, paranoid position, envy, projective identification and reparation, and their application to understanding overt racism. An extensive case example from the movie Gran Torino and its protagonist Walt Kowalski are the foci of this theoretical speculation. Implications for antiracist practice are discussed.     

Reproducibility of functional network metrics and network structure: A comparison of task-related BOLD, resting ASL with BOLD contrast, and resting cerebral blood flow

Network analysis is an emerging approach to functional connectivity in which the brain is construed as a graph and its connectivity and information processing estimated by mathematical characterizations of graphs. There has been little to no work examining the reproducibility of network metrics derived from different types of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data (e.g., resting vs. task related, or pulse sequences other than standard blood oxygen level dependent [BOLD] data) or of measures of network structure at levels other than summary statistics. Here, we take up these questions, comparing the reproducibility of graphs derived from resting arterial spin-labeling perfusion fMRI with those derived from BOLD scans collected while the participant was performing a task. We also examine the reproducibility of the anatomical connectivity implied by the graph by investigating test–retest consistency of the graphs’ edges. We compare two measures of graph-edge consistency both within versus between subjects and across data types. We find a dissociation in the reproducibility of network metrics, with metrics from resting data most reproducible at lower frequencies and metrics from task-related data most reproducible at higher frequencies; that same dissociation is not recapitulated, however, in network structure, for which the task-related data are most consistent at all frequencies. Implications for the practice of network analysis are discussed.     

Coherence and transituational generality in coping: The unity and the diversity

Abstract

We investigated the transituational coherence of coping strategy use by collecting coping data on multiple occasions, and assessing the effects of aggregation over varying numbers of occasions. Study 1 examined the effects of aggregating daily coping reports over three- and six-day periods. Study 2 extended the results of Study 1 by assessing the extent to which aggregation increased the correlation between a dispositional coping measure and daily coping reports. Both studies strongly supported the hypothesis that aggregation would enhance the consistency of coping preferences, suggesting some degree of coherence within the domain of coping strategy used. Aggregated coping reports correlated with each other at significantly higher levels (ranging from 0.46 to 0.77 in Study 1 and from 0.65 to 0.95 in Study 2), than unaggregated coping reports (ranging from ?0.12 to 0.30 in Study 1 and from 0.12 to 0.53 in Study 2). Study 2 also showed that aggregated daily reports were better predictors of subsequent coping than scores derived from a standard dispositional coping survey.