Maternal teaching techniques and preschool children's ideational fluency

As a counterpart to research showing relationships between parental behaviors and attitudes and children's divergent thinking, this study investigated mothers’ teaching techniques and preschool children's ideational fluency, one aspect of creativity. Twenty mother‐child dyads were videotaped interacting in both a warm‐up and structured teaching session. Mothers’ teaching behaviors were assessed with the Maternal Teaching Observation Technique (MTOT) and children's ideational fluency was measured with the Multidimensional Stimulus Fluency Measure (MSFM). Correlational analyses indicated relationships between children's divergent thinking and mothers’ use of verbal negative feedback (r = .51), physical control (r = ‐.40), and visual cues (r = ‐.44).     

Psychological effects of risk glorification in the media: Towards an integrative view

Media contents that glorify risk-taking (e.g., video games that simulate illegal street racing, TV depictions of dangerous extreme sports or stunts) are becoming increasingly popular. Theory and research suggest that risk glorification is associated with risk-taking among the audience. Until recently the evidence was limited in three ways: First, most studies, being correlational, did not permit clear causal inferences. Second, we did not know the strength of the effect of different types of media and different types of risk-taking outcomes. Third, early research did little to isolate the underlying psychological processes that mediate the pernicious effects of risk glorifying media formats. In order to address these open questions we review the results of an experimental programme of research and the findings of a comprehensive meta-analysis. The main findings are that (a) the risky media contents do indeed have causal force; (b) according to our meta-analysis active participation in risk glorifying media interfaces has a larger effect than passive consumption; (c) psychological processes include the priming of risk-related constructs, effects of risk-positive situational heuristic cues, perceived social norms, personal risk habituation, and changes in the recipient's self-concept. To integrate these findings we propose a theoretical framework derived from broad-range socio-cognitive models. We conclude with a discussion of possible directions for future research.     

Selective exposure among advisors: the impact of impression motivation

Audience confirmation bias (ACB) refers to the extent to which people prefer information supporting (vs. conflicting with) their audience's views. In two studies, we showed that advisors shifted their ACB toward the needs of their advisees (i.e., audience): When advisors were led to believe that their advisees wanted to defend their views, the ACB was higher compared with when advisees were open minded for critique. Study 2 indicated that this pattern occurred because advisors wanted to have a pleasant interaction with their advisees (impression motivation): Whereas impression‐motivated advisors exhibited a stronger ACB when they were asked to give advice to a defensive (vs. open‐minded) advisee, accuracy‐motivated advisors showed a balanced ACB, regardless of their advisee's needs.     

A multitrait–multimethod study of assessment instruments for complex problem solving

Recently published studies on Complex Problem Solving (CPS) suggest that assessments of CPS using multiple complex systems are only moderately related to tests of classical cognitive abilities. Further, CPS assessments show incremental validity beyond tests of other cognitive abilities when predicting relevant outcomes. However, these empirical accounts have relied on single CPS assessment instruments. We do not know whether these findings will generalize to the construct level across different CPS assessment instruments. To answer this question, we tested a sample of N = 339 German university students who completed three CPS assessment instruments based on multiple complex systems (MicroDYN, the Genetics Lab, and MicroFIN) and the matrices subtest of the Intelligence Structure Test as measure of reasoning. Students further reported their school grades. Analyses including latent multitrait–multimethod models provided support for the conceptualization of CPS as a complex cognitive ability. Results indicated that different CPS assessment instruments showed sufficient convergent validity (with a consistency mostly between .50 and .60). In addition, we found evidence for the divergent validity of CPS from reasoning (reasoning predicted two CPS facets, knowledge and control, β_KNOW = .49 and β_CON = .53, respectively). In the prediction of academic achievement, CPS explained variance in natural science grades after we controlled for reasoning (β_CPS = .22), whereas social science grades were not predicted. Our findings suggest that the validity of CPS generalizes across different measurement instruments.     

“I Don’t feel like melting butter”: An interpretative phenomenological analysis of the experience of ‘inorgasmia’

Inorgasmia is under-studied in the domain of sexual health psychology. This study explores women's experiences of inorgasmia and the meanings giving to this experience. Interviews with six inorgasmic women were analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). The analysis showed that the absence of orgasm was experienced as problematic and disturbing. A search for reasons for their condition, and its effects on self-image and self-confidence underpinned the experience of inorgasmia as a problem. The spectrum of meanings surrounding female orgasm demonstrates that, far from being perceived as a merely physical experience, the moment of orgasm takes on relational significance and it has implications for the women's identities. The paper identifies areas for future research and theorising.     

Childhood Maltreatment and PTSD: Spiritual Well-Being and Intimate Partner Violence as Mediators

Childhood maltreatment places individuals, including African American women who are undereducated and economically disadvantaged, at risk for developing posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms. Participants were 192 African American women with a history in the prior year of both a suicide attempt and intimate partner violence (IPV) exposure. They were recruited from a public hospital that provides medical and mental health treatment to mostly low-income patients. A simple mediator model was used to examine if (a) existential well-being (sense of purpose) or religious well-being (relationship with God) mediated the link between childhood maltreatment and adult PTSD symptoms. Sequential multiple mediator models determined if physical and nonphysical IPV enhanced our understanding of the mediational association among the aforementioned variables. Findings suggest that existential well-being mediated the association between childhood maltreatment and adult PTSD symptoms in a simple mediator model, and existential well-being and recent nonphysical IPV served as sequential multiple mediators of this link. However, religious well-being and physical IPV were not significant mediators. Findings underscore the importance of enhancing existential well-being in the treatment of suicidal African American women with a history of childhood maltreatment and IPV.     

Abortion and Ownership

I explore two thought-experiments in Judith Jarvis Thomson’s important article, “A Defense of Abortion”: the violinist example and the people-seeds example. I argue (contra Thomson) that you have a moral duty not to unplug yourself from the violinist and also a moral duty not to destroy a people-seed that has landed in your sofa. Nevertheless, I also argue that there are crucial differences between the thought-experiments and the contexts of pregnancy due to rape or to contraceptive failure. In virtue of these differences, it would not follow from my conclusions about the violinist and people-seeds cases that abortion would not be permissible in a case of rape or in a case of voluntary intercourse with contraceptive failure.     

Bogus Mystery about Linguistic Competence

The paper considers a version of the problem of linguistic creativity obtained by interpreting attributions of ordinary semantic knowledge as attributions of practical competencies with expressions. The paper explains how to cope with this version of the problem without invoking either compositional theories of meaning or the notion of `tacit knowledge' (of such theories) that has led to unnecessary puzzlement. The central idea is to show that the core assumption used to raise the problem is false. To render precise argument possible, the paper first identifies and removes some relevant semantic indeterminacy in philosophical talk of `semantic knowledge' and `information'. This yields rules for attributing the two to human speakers and information-processors, respectively. The paper then shows, first, that ordinary speakers qualify as possessing all along an other than finite and definite stock of semantic knowledge and, second, that a very simple information-processor running a procedural semantics qualifies as possessing an analogous stock of semantic information. The second result is used to bring out that the first is neither unduly impressive nor particularly puzzling.