On the difference it makes

Man's belief in God is often contrasted with man's disbelief, Atheism; but the nature of human belief is contrastable with the nature of the belief of demons. A point of contrast lies in the consequences of the different sort of reasons men and demons must be understood to have. One consequence has to do with the vision of the world, seeing the world as God's creation, which men are expected to achieve and demons are not. The logic of the ‘seeing as’ formula is explored and found wanting even though it seems inescapable in connection with human belief. In the end human belief appears more peculiar than demonic.     

Multidimensions of Media Multitasking and Adaptive Media Selection

This study identifies 11 basic cognitive dimensions of media multitasking behaviors based upon resource theories. These dimensions provide a conceptual framework to help compare and synthesize media multitasking studies. In addition, using 2 empirical data sets, we examine how these cognitive dimensions interact with each other to predict choices of media multitasking behaviors in daily life in an adaptive manner to conserve limited mental resources. A systematic understanding of the multiple cognitive dimensions of media multitasking behaviors has the potential to foster theory‐guided designs and more mindful selection of media tasks, technologies, and environments to curb negative consequences of media multitasking and utilize its benefits.     

Stimulus timing by people with Parkinson's disease

Previous literature suggests that Parkinson’s disease is marked by deficits in timed behaviour. However, the majority of studies of central timing mechanisms in patients with Parkinson’s disease have used timing tasks with a motor component. Since the motor abnormalities are a defining feature of the condition, the status of timing in Parkinson’s disease remains uncertain. Data are reported from patients with mild to moderate Parkinson’s disease (both on and off medication) and age- and IQ-matched controls on a range of stimulus timing tasks without counting. Tasks used were temporal generalization, bisection, threshold determination, verbal estimation, and a memory for duration task. Performance of patients was generally “normal” on all tasks, but significant differences from performance of controls were found on the memory for duration task. Among the “normal” effects noted were arithmetic mean bisection, asymmetric temporal generalization gradients, and subjective shortening on the memory for duration task. The results suggest (a) that some previous reports of timing “deficits” in Parkinson’s patients were possibly due to the use of tasks requiring a timed manual response and (b) small differences between patients and controls may be found on tasks where two stimuli are presented on each trial, whether patients are on medication or off it.     

Addressing the Mental Health Needs of the Rural Underserved: Findings from a Multiple Case Study of a Behavioral Telehealth Project

Behavioral telehealth is a reasonable solution to the accessibility to mental health care problem that exists in many rural communities. This paper reports the results of a multiple case study of a behavioral telehealth program administered through a marriage and family therapy training program. The results suggest that mental health services can be effectively delivered using existing distance education technology to underserved rural populations. Rural communities have unique barriers to accessing mental health care, some of which can be overcome through the distance delivery of services and some of which cannot. In order to effectively deliver treatment, accommodations to the technology must be made by both therapist and client.     

Global and local evaluations of public speaking performance in social anxiety

Differences in the relative use of global and local information (seeing the forest vs. the trees) may explain why people with social anxiety often do not benefit from corrective feedback, even though they pay close attention to details in social situations. In the current study, participants high (n = 43) or low (n = 47) in social anxiety symptoms gave a series of brief speeches, and then self-rated their speaking performance on items reflecting global and local performance indicators (self-assessment) and also received standardized performance feedback from an experimenter. Participants then completed a questionnaire asking how they thought the experimenter would rate their performance based on the feedback provided (experimenter assessment). Participants completed the self- and experimenter assessments again after 3 days, in addition to a measure of postevent processing (repetitive negative thinking) about their speech performance. Results showed that, as hypothesized, the High SA group rated their performance more negatively than the Low SA group. Moreover, the High SA group's ratings of global aspects of their performance became relatively more negative over time, compared to their ratings of local aspects and the Low SA group's ratings. As expected, postevent processing mediated the relationship between social anxiety group status and worsening global performance evaluations. These findings point to a pattern of progressively more negative global evaluations over time for persons high in social anxiety.     

Measuring delay discounting in a crowdsourced sample: An exploratory study

Delay discounting is a measure of preferences for smaller immediate rewards over larger delayed rewards. Discounting has been assessed in many ways; these methods have variably and inconsistently involved measures of different lengths (single vs. multiple items), forced‐choice methods, self‐report methods, online and laboratory assessments, monetary and non‐monetary compensation. The majority of these studies have been conducted in laboratory settings. However, over the past 20 years, behavioral data collection has increasingly shifted online. Usually, these experiments involve completing short tasks for small amounts of money, and are thus qualitatively different than experiments in the lab, which are typically more involved and in a strongly controlled environment. The present study aimed to determine how to best measure future discounting in a crowdsourced sample using three discounting measures (a single shot measure, the 27‐item Kirby Monetary Choice Questionnaire, and a one‐time Matching Task). We examined associations of these measures with theoretically related variables, and assessed influence of payment on responding. Results indicated that correlations between the discounting tasks and conceptually related measures were smaller than in prior laboratory experiments. Moreover, our results suggest providing monetary compensation may attenuate correlations between discounting measures and related variables. These findings suggest that incentivizing discounting measures changes the nature of measurement in these tasks.     

The association of ecological variables and psychological distress with exposure to community violence among adolescents

Ecological theory suggests that exposure to community violence should be related to individual, family, and community characteristics; traumatic stress theory suggests that exposure to community violence should be related to level of psychological distress. A correlational study of 468 older adolescents in New York City tested these hypotheses. Exposure was found to be moderately related to level of psychological distress, but was not related to family or neighborhood characteristics. It was concluded that the nature of exposure to community violence poses difficulties for interventions aimed at either prevention or amelioration of effects.     

Differentiating corporal punishment from physical abuse in the prediction of lifetime aggression

Corporal punishment and parental physical abuse often co‐occur during upbringing, making it difficult to differentiate their selective impacts on psychological functioning. Associations between corporal punishment and a number of lifetime aggression indicators were examined in this study after efforts to control the potential influence of various forms of co‐occurring maltreatment (parental physical abuse, childhood sexual abuse, sibling abuse, peer bullying, and observed parental violence). College students (N = 1,136) provided retrospective self‐reports regarding their history of aggression and levels of exposure to childhood corporal punishment and maltreatment experiences. Analyses focused on three hypotheses: 1) The odds of experiencing childhood physical abuse would be higher among respondents reporting frequent corporal punishment during upbringing; 2) Corporal punishment scores would predict the criterion aggression indices after control of variance associated with childhood maltreatment; 3) Aggression scores would be higher among respondents classified in the moderate and elevated corporal punishment risk groups. Strong support was found for the first hypothesis since the odds of childhood physical abuse recollections were higher (OR = 65.3) among respondents who experienced frequent (>60 total disciplinary acts) corporal punishment during upbringing. Partial support was found for the second and third hypotheses. Dimensional and categorical corporal punishment scores were associated significantly with half of the criterion measures. These findings support efforts to dissuade reliance on corporal punishment to manage child behavior.