Is Language Required to Represent Others’ Mental States? Evidence From Beliefs and Other Representations

An important part of our Theory of Mind—the ability to reason about other people's unobservable mental states—is the ability to attribute false beliefs to others. We investigated whether processing these false beliefs, as well as similar but nonmental representations, is reliant on language. Participants watched videos in which a protagonist hides a gift and either takes a photo of it or writes a text about its location before a second person inadvertently moves the present to a different location, thereby rendering the belief and either the photo or text false. At the same time, participants performed either a concurrent verbal interference task (rehearsing strings of digits) or a visual interference task (remembering a visual pattern). Results showed that performance on false belief trials did not decline under verbal interference relative to visual interference. We interpret these findings as further support for the view that language does not form an essential part of the process of reasoning online (“in the moment”) about false beliefs.     

The influence of school environment and self-regulation on transitions between stages of cigarette smoking: a multilevel analysis.

In this research, hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) was used to address how school context influences the likelihood of transitioning between stages of cigarette smoking as well as modifies the individual-level risk factor of self-regulation. Survey data were collected from 25,186 middle and high school students attending 38 public schools in Kentucky. Results show that students are less likely to increase use in schools with higher levels of teacher discipline and faculty involvement. The analyses of the multi-level interactions between self-regulation and school context reveal that students possessing low emotional regulation are more likely to initiate experimental smoking in schools with poor levels of discipline and involvement than similar types of students in schools with higher levels of these characteristics. This study illustrates how psychological risk factors for substance use may vary across social environments.     

Self-Determination Theory and Motivational Interviewing: Complementary Models to Elicit Voluntary Engagement by Partner-Abusive Men

Research examining intimate partner violence (IPV) has lacked a comprehensive theoretical framework for understanding and treating behavior. The authors propose two complementary models, a treatment approach (Motivational Interviewing, MI) informed by a theory (Self-Determination Theory; SDT), as a way of integrating existing knowledge and suggesting new directions in intervening early with IPV perpetrators. MI is a client-centered clinical intervention intended to assist in strengthening motivation to change and has been widely implemented in the substance abuse literature. SDT is a theory that focuses on internal versus external motivation and considers elements that impact optimal functioning and psychological well-being. These elements include psychological needs, integration of behavioral regulations, and contextual influences on motivation. Each of these aspects of SDT is described in detail and in the context of IPV etiology and intervention using motivational interviewing.     

Human behavioral contributions to climate change: psychological and contextual drivers

We are facing rapid changes in the global climate, and these changes are attributable to human behavior. Humans produce this global impact through our use of natural resources, multiplied by the vast increase in population seen in the past 50 to 100 years. Our goal in this article is to examine the underlying psychosocial causes of human impact, primarily through patterns of reproduction and consumption. We identify and distinguish individual, societal, and behavioral predictors of environmental impact. Relevant research in these areas (as well as areas that would be aided by greater attention by psychologists) are reviewed. We conclude by highlighting ethical issues that emerge when considering how to address human behavioral contributions to climate change.     

Psychology's contributions to understanding and addressing global climate change

Global climate change poses one of the greatest challenges facing humanity in this century. This article, which introduces the American Psychologist special issue on global climate change, follows from the report of the American Psychological Association Task Force on the Interface Between Psychology and Global Climate Change. In this article, we place psychological dimensions of climate change within the broader context of human dimensions of climate change by addressing (a) human causes of, consequences of, and responses (adaptation and mitigation) to climate change and (b) the links between these aspects of climate change and cognitive, affective, motivational, interpersonal, and organizational responses and processes. Characteristics of psychology that cross content domains and that make the field well suited for providing an understanding of climate change and addressing its challenges are highlighted. We also consider ethical imperatives for psychologists' involvement and provide suggestions for ways to increase psychologists' contribution to the science of climate change.     

Mentoring to Promote Courage and Confidence Among Elementary School Students With Internalizing Problems: A Single-Case Design Pilot Study

There is a paucity of selective, Tier 2 interventions that educators can implement for students with internalizing problems as part of their schools' Multi-Tiered Systems of Supports. To fill this void, the authors' purpose was to evaluate the efficacy, acceptability, and integrity of a structured school-based mentoring program, the Courage and Confidence Mentor Program (CCMP), for elementary students. A single-case experimental multiple baseline design across participants was used to evaluate the efficacy of the CCMP with 6 students. Visual analysis of the results and single-case effect size estimates revealed that all but 1 of the participants demonstrated noticeable reductions in internalizing problems as measured by teacher-completed direct behavior ratings. Findings were confirmed by other dependent variables gathered from students and teachers. Limitations of the methods and directions for future research involving Tier 2 interventions for elementary students with internalizing problems are discussed.     

Context and competition in the capture of visual attention

Competition-based models of visual attention propose that perceptual ambiguity is resolved through inhibition, which is stronger when objects share a greater number of neural receptive fields (RFs). According to this theory, the misallocation of attention to a salient distractor--that is, the capture of attention--can be indexed in RF-scaled interference costs. We used this pattern to investigate distractor-related costs in visual search across several manipulations of temporal context. Distractor costs are generally larger under circumstances in which the distractor can be defined by features that have recently characterised the target, suggesting that capture occurs in these trials. However, our results show that search for a target in the presence of a salient distractor also produces RF-scaled costs when the features defining the target and distractor do not vary from trial to trial. Contextual differences in distractor costs appear to reflect something other than capture, perhaps a qualitative difference in the type of attentional mechanism deployed to the distractor.     

Affect in the abstract: Abstract mindsets promote sensitivity to affect

Affective information is a key element of abstract, gist-based representations. Given this central role of affect in abstract representations, the authors hypothesized that those in an abstract mindset may show more sensitivity to affective information when attending to, interpreting, or responding to external stimuli. Across 5 studies, the authors present consistent evidence that those who tend to view the world in more abstract versus concrete terms, or who have been experimentally induced into an abstract (versus concrete) mindset, had their attention automatically captured by highly-affective stimuli (Studies 1a, 1b, and 1c), automatically extracted the affective connotation of stimuli presented outside of awareness (Study 2), and behaved more consistently with their affective construal of stimuli (Study 3). These findings suggest that the numerous dispositional and situational factors that influence the level at which one construes the world may also have, heretofore overlooked, consequences for basic affective processing. The present research also emphasizes the interdependence of so-called affective and cognitive processes, bridging major literatures on construal and affect that have developed largely independently.