Visuospatial attention in schizophrenia: deficits in broad monitoring

Although selective attention is thought to be impaired in people with schizophrenia (PSZ), prior research has found no deficit in the ability to select one location and withdraw attention from another. PSZ and healthy control subjects (HCS) performed a stimulus detection task in which one, two, or all four peripheral target locations were cued. When one or two locations were cued, both PSZ and HCS responded faster when the target appeared at a cued than uncued location. However, increases in the number of validly cued locations had much more deleterious effects on performance for PSZ than HCS, especially for targets of low contrast whose detection was more dependent on attention. PSZ also responded more slowly in trials with four cued locations relative to trials with one or two invalidly cued locations. Thus, visuospatial attention deficits in schizophrenia arise when broad monitoring is required rather than when attention must be focused narrowly.     

Social dominance orientation: revisiting the structure and function of a variable predicting social and political attitudes

Social dominance orientation (SDO) is one of the most powerful predictors of intergroup attitudes and behavior. Although SDO works well as a unitary construct, some analyses suggest it might consist of two complementary dimensions--SDO-Dominance (SDO-D), or the preference for some groups to dominate others, and SDO-Egalitarianism (SDO-E), a preference for nonegalitarian intergroup relations. Using seven samples from the United States and Israel, the authors confirm factor-analytic evidence and show predictive validity for both dimensions. In the United States, SDO-D was theorized and found to be more related to old-fashioned racism, zero-sum competition, and aggressive intergroup phenomena than SDO-E; SDO-E better predicted more subtle legitimizing ideologies, conservatism, and opposition to redistributive social policies. In a contentious hierarchical intergroup context (the Israeli-Palestinian context), SDO-D better predicted both conservatism and aggressive intergroup attitudes. Fundamentally, these analyses begin to establish the existence of complementary psychological orientations underlying the preference for group-based dominance and inequality.     

Using efficacy information to manipulate proxy efficacy in novice exercisers

ObjectivesTo examine whether proxy efficacy could be increased through an intervention targeting the four sources of efficacy using a written message.DesignPhase 1 (N = 33) tested the stimulus materials to ensure that the intervention message contained significantly more sources of efficacy than the controls. Phase 2 (N = 86) was an intervention assessing the effectiveness of the stimulus materials in increasing proxy efficacy.MethodIn Phase 1, female novice exercisers were randomly assigned to read either an attention control (AC) or proxy efficacy-enhancing (PEE) message about an exercise class leader. Participants completed manipulation checks assessing content, readability, and inclusion of the sources of efficacy. In Phase 2, participants were randomly assigned to AC or PEE groups and read the stimulus materials tested in Phase 1. In order to establish baseline efficacy, all participants read an AC message at Time 1. At Time 2 one week later, the PEE group read the PEE message while the AC group read a second AC message. Participants' proxy efficacy was assessed at both time points in Phase 2.ResultsIn Phase 1, results revealed that the participants who read the PEE message agreed that their stimulus material contained significantly more efficacy-enhancing information than did participants who read the AC messages. In Phase 2, MANCOVA revealed that, after controlling for Time 1 proxy efficacy, the PEE group had significantly greater proxy efficacy at Time 2 than the AC group.ConclusionsResults suggest that proxy efficacy can be increased through targeted written messages.     

Crises Now and Then—Comparing Integration Policy Frameworks and Immigrant Target Groups in Denmark in the 1970s and 2000s

This article investigates the impact of economic crises in the early 1970s and 2000s on integration policy frames in Denmark. By the means of a comparative case study of “guest workers” in the 1960s/1970s and labor migrants in 2000s, we identify changes in discourses and policy frames brought on by economic crisis. In the article, we explore policy transformations relating to integration in the light of periods economic upturns and downturns. We analyze and compare the development of policy frames and policy content before, during and after the crises and thereby seek to answer how economic contours affect not only policy-making processes and content but also the social construction of target groups. The fact that Denmark did not have an official policy on integration of the guest workers in the 1960s and 1970s created a different point of departure than in the 2000s where the experience with and policy on integration of immigrant is much more developed. It is therefore also rather striking that many of the mistakes made during the 1960s and 1970s seems to be repeated in the 2000s. The situation of economic upturn and envision of the migration being temporary did, in both cases, lead to little emphasis on integration up until the point of crisis. In the analysis, we find that issues such as religious background, cultural characteristics, and educational levels, position on labor market, language proficiency, housing, and mobility which all pertain to integration are given less attention in times of economic upturn.     

Tele‐web Psychology in Rural South Australia: The Logistics of Setting Up a Remote University Clinic Staffed by Clinical Psychologists in Training

There is a significant shortage of clinical psychology services in rural and remote Australia. It is proposed that tele‐web psychology may provide one potential solution to this inequity in health provision. A tele‐web psychology project was developed through a partnership between a university and country health service setting in rural South Australia. Tele‐web psychology was conducted by Provisional Psychologists on their first clinical placement, with patients attending sessions in a community mental health team hub in a regional centre north of Adelaide. This article describes the logistics of setting up a collaborative tele‐web psychology service and makes recommendations on how to expedite the success of this type of venture.     

Facial Feature Assessment of Popular U.S. Country Music Singers Across Social and Economic Conditions

The facial features of the artists of the top Country Billboard song for each year from 1946 to 2010 were investigated across changes in U.S. socioeconomic conditions. When conditions were relatively poor, country music artists with more mature facial features of smaller eyes and larger chins were popular, and when conditions were more prosperous, country music artists with more baby-faced features of larger eyes and smaller chins were popular. Results extend previous findings with pop singers, movie actresses, and Playboy Playmates, and suggest the social and economic environment influences preferences for country singers across time.     

Testing the bi‐dimensional effects of attitudes on behavioural intentions and subsequent behaviour

Attitudes are typically treated as unidimensional predictors of both behavioural intentions and subsequent behaviour. On the basis of previous research showing that attitudes comprise two independent, positive and negative dimensions, we hypothesized that attitudes would be bi‐dimensional predictors of both behavioural intentions and subsequent behaviour. We focused on health‐risk behaviours. We therefore also hypothesized that the positive dimension of attitude (evaluations of positive behavioural outcomes) would better predict both behavioural intentions and subsequent behaviour than would the negative dimension, consistent with the positivity bias/offset principle. In Study 1 (cross sectional design), N = 109 university students completed questionnaire measures of their intentions to binge‐drink and the positive and negative dimensions of attitude. Consistent with the hypotheses, both attitude dimensions independently predicted behavioural intentions and the positive dimension was a significantly better predictor than was the negative dimension. The same pattern of findings emerged in Study 2 (cross sectional design; N = 186 university students) when we predicted intentions to binge‐drink, smoke and consume a high‐fat diet. Similarly, in Study 3 (prospective design; N = 1,232 speed limit offenders), both the positive and negative dimensions of attitude predicted subsequent (6‐month post‐baseline) speeding behaviour on two different road types and the positive dimension was the better predictor. The implications for understanding the motivation of behaviour and the development of behaviour‐change interventions are discussed.     

My partner’s stories: relationships between personal and vicarious life stories within romantic couples

In this paper, we examined relationships and differences between personal and vicarious life stories, i.e., the life stories one knows of others. Personal and vicarious life stories of both members of 51 young couples (102 participants), based on McAdams’ Life Story Interview (2008), were collected. We found significant positive relationships between participants’ personal and vicarious life stories on agency and communion themes and redemption sequences. We also found significant positive relationships between participants’ vicarious life stories about their partners and those partners’ personal life stories on agency and communion, but not redemption. Furthermore, these relationships were not explained by similarity between couples’ two personal life stories, as no associations were found between couples’ personal stories on agency, communion and redemption. These results suggest that the way we construct the vicarious life stories of close others may reflect how we construct our personal life stories.     

Functions of personal and vicarious life stories: identity and empathy

The present study investigates functions of personal and vicarious life stories focusing on identity and empathy. Two-hundred-and-forty Danish high school students completed two life story questionnaires: one for their personal life story and one for a close other’s life story. In both questionnaires, they identified up to 10 chapters and self-rated the chapters on valence and valence of causal connections. In addition, they completed measures of identity disturbance and empathy. More positive personal life stories were related to lower identity disturbance and higher empathy. Vicarious life stories showed a similar pattern with respect to identity but surprisingly were unrelated to empathy. In addition, we found positive correlations between personal and vicarious life stories for number of chapters, chapter valence, and valence of causal connections. The study indicates that both personal and vicarious life stories may contribute to identity.