Correction to: Irritability and Emotional Impulsivity as Core Feature of ADHD and ODD in Children

Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment -     

Cognitive deficits, schizophrenia, and the anterior cingulate cortex

Cognitive deficits are thought to be responsible for some of the symptoms and dysfunction in schizophrenia. Recent research on the anterior cingulate cortex supports this assumption. More detailed and definitive evidence for this association will require identification of specific neural networks whose abnormal structure, connections or activity create the cognitive deficits in question.     

How central is the alliance in psychotherapy? A multilevel longitudinal meta-analysis

Prior meta-analyses have found a moderate but robust relationship between alliance and outcome across a broad spectrum of treatments, presenting concerns, contexts, and measurements. However, there continues to be a lively debate about the therapeutic role of the alliance, particularly in treatments that are tested using randomized clinical trial (RCT) designs. The purpose of this present study was to examine whether research design, type of treatment, or author's allegiance variables, alone or in combination, moderate the relationship between alliance and outcome. Multilevel longitudinal analysis was used to investigate the following moderators of the alliance-outcome correlation: (a) research design (RCT or other), (b) use of disorder-specific manuals, (c) specificity of outcomes, (d) cognitive and/or behavioral therapy (CBT) or other types of treatments, (e) researcher allegiance, and (f) time of alliance assessment. RCT, disorder-specific manual use, specificity of primary and secondary outcomes, and CBT did not moderate the alliance-outcome correlation. Early alliance-outcome correlations were slightly higher in studies conducted by investigators with specific interest in alliance than were those in studies conducted by researchers without such an allegiance. Over the course of therapy, these initial differences disappeared. Apart from this trend, none of the variables previously proposed as potential moderators or mediators of the alliance-outcome relation, alone or in combination, were found to have a mediating impact.     

Valuing clients' perspective and the effects on the therapeutic alliance: a randomized controlled study of an adjunctive instruction

The patterns of growth and development of the therapeutic alliance over the course of therapy have been of continued interest to psychotherapy researchers. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether a simple institutional metacommunication intervention with clients had an effect on the development of the alliance. This adjunctive instruction involved inviting therapy clients to take a proactive role in their treatment by encouraging feedback to their therapist about various aspects of the therapy process. In this randomized controlled study (N = 94), clients were assigned to 1 of 2 conditions: (a) an institutional adjunctive instruction condition in which patients were contacted by clinic personnel at the beginning of the remediation phase (Session 5) and encouraged to take a proactive role in their treatment and (b) a control condition that contained no institutional adjunctive instruction. Between-condition differences in the alliance were tested, controlling for baseline influences and the early therapeutic alliance. Clients' postsession reports from Sessions 1 to 24 indicated that the adjunctive instruction increased the alliance over the course of therapy vis-à-vis the control condition. The adjunctive instruction appeared to have fostered clients' evaluation of their therapists' interest in their welfare. The results indicate that interventions, even brief or subtle, can produce lasting benefits in the alliance when targeted at specific psychological processes. Systematic metacommunication from the institutional level appeared to reinforce clients' therapeutic alliance with their therapists in individual treatment.     

The law of categorical judgment (corrected) extended: a note on Rosner and Kochanski (2009)

Rosner and Kochanski (2009) noticed an inconsistency in the mathematical statement of the Law of Categorical Judgment and derived "the valid equation, the Law of Categorical Judgment (Corrected)" (p. 125). The purpose of this comment is to point out that the law can be corrected in many different ways, leading to substantially different equations. The different versions have different consequences for the predicted distributions of the responses and, hence, for fitting real data. Some of these consequences are unexpected and sometimes undesirable. Researchers should be aware of the different possibilities as they may lead to pronouncedly different accounts of given data.     

Gender Effects on Organizational Problems—Evidence from Non-Profit Sports Clubs in Germany

In sports organizations, women are still under-represented, especially compared with their share of the general population. This holds true for management and leadership positions in particular, which could be explained by the lack of congruence between the female gender role and leader role. Therefore, the theoretical framework underpinning this study is based on role congruity theory. The research question is whether the share of women on the board and among members influences the perceived severity of organizational problems faced by sports organizations. This postulation is examined for a representative sample of sports clubs in Germany (n?=?13,068). Analyses of variance are conducted with the severity of organizational problems and the share of women on the board and among club members. The results show that the share of women on the board and among members has a significant negative impact on the severity of organizational problems. Sports clubs with a high share of women on the board and among members perceive the severity of organizational problems as smaller on average. This finding is related to female leadership style, which might serve as one possible explanation. Based on these results, it is recommended that sports clubs appoint more women to management positions. This study provides empirical evidence that the often postulated increase in the share of women can be beneficial to sports organizations.     

Increased spatial salience in the social Simon task: A response-coding account of spatial compatibility effects

A spatial compatibility effect (SCE) is typically observed in forced two-choice tasks in which a spatially defined response (e.g., pressing a left vs. a right key) has to be executed to a nonspatial feature of a stimulus (e.g., discriminating red from green) that is additionally connoted by a spatial feature (e.g., the stimulus points to the left or the right). Responses are faster and more accurate when the response side and the spatial stimulus feature are compatible than when they are incompatible. Previous research has demonstrated that SCEs are diminished when stimuli from only one response category are responded to in individual go/no-go tasks, whereas SCEs reemerge when two participants work jointly on two complementary, individual go/no-go tasks in a joint go/no-go task setting. This social Simon effect has been considered evidence for shared task representations. We show that SCEs emerge in individual go/no-go tasks when the spatial dimension is made more salient, whereas SCEs are eliminated in joint go/no-go tasks when the spatial dimension is made less salient. These findings are consistent with an account of social Simon effects in terms of spatial response coding, whereas they are inconsistent with an account of shared task representations. The relevance of social factors for spatial response coding is discussed.     

Exploring replay value: shifts and continuities in user experiences between first and second exposure to an interactive story

While replay value is a common term in interactive entertainment, psychological research on its meaning in terms of user experiences is sparse. An exploratory experiment using the interactive drama "Fa?ade" was conducted (n=50) to examine shifts and continuities in entertainment-related user experiences between first and second exposure to the same system. A questionnaire with brief scales measuring various user-experience dimensions (interaction-related facets such as usability, flow, and presence, as well as narrative-related facets such as suspense and curiosity) was administered after the first and the second round of exposure. Findings suggest that replay produces gains in action-related experience components such as presence and effectance, whereas narrative-related experiences such as curiosity and suspense remain stable across exposures. Implications for theorizing on interactive entertainment experiences are discussed.     

The stability of the morning affect scale across age and gender

A limitation of the morningness–eveningness literature is the assumption that morningness is a ‘fixed’ construct. Morningness–eveningness scales are often developed on young adult samples, yet studies report that eveningness peaks in young adults with a shift to morningness from the age of 25 to 35 years of age. This age related change in morningness–eveningness may explain why these scales have limited success when applied in older samples. We tested this argument by developing a measurement model based on the Composite Scale of Morningness using a sample aged <30 years of age. Tucker’s congruence coefficient and confirmatory factor analysis indicated this solution was not a good fit in three older age groups. In contrast, we repeated this assessment using the ‘morning affect’ scale. This scale comprises items that measure morningness preference only. Model fit indicators suggested the ‘morning affect’ scale was a good fit across four age groups and gender.     

Proactive and reactive sequential effects on selective attention

Sequences of events can affect selective attention either through proactive mechanisms, through reactive mechanisms, or through a combination of the two. The current study examined electrophysiological responses to both prime and target stimuli in a primed dichotic listening task. Each trial presented a distractor prime syllable followed by two simultaneous syllables, and participants were asked to report one of the simultaneous syllables. Trials where the participant reported the non-primed syllable showed more negative event-related potentials at prime presentation, which may indicate inhibition of the prime representation. Trials where the participant reported the primed syllable showed more negative event-related potentials at target presentation, which may indicate cognitive conflict and effortful response selection. In context of current theories, the data suggest that the interplay of a proactive inhibition bias and a reactive potential for conflict is involved in causing sequential effects on selective attention mechanisms.