Reductive and Emergent Views on Motor Learning in Rehabilitation Practice

To allow different views on motor learning to inform rehabilitation research, the authors aimed to explicate a frequently missed yet fundamental difference in starting point of such views. By considering how rehabilitation in practice answers the question of what parts an activity consists of, reductive and emergent approaches to motor learning are identified and traced throughout rehabilitation practice. The authors show that when a task is cut up along reductive dimensions while also apparently relying on emergent components, this unequally favors the reductive approach and acts to limit the views on motor learning available. By showing the approaches in practice, the authors hope to inspire an awareness that brings both approaches the opportunity to independently inform research so that new theories and practices can proliferate.     

Psychological processes in young bullies versus bully‐victims

Some children who bully others are also victimized themselves (“bully‐victims”) whereas others are not victimized themselves (“bullies”). These subgroups have been shown to differ in their social functioning as early as in kindergarten. What is less clear are the motives that underlie the bullying behavior of young bullies and bully‐victims. The present study examined whether bullies have proactive motives for aggression and anticipate to feel happy after victimizing others, whereas bully‐victims have reactive motives for aggression, poor theory of mind skills, and attribute hostile intent to others. This “distinct processes hypothesis” was contrasted with the “shared processes hypothesis,” predicting that bullies and bully‐victims do not differ on these psychological processes. Children (n = 283, age 4–9) were classified as bully, bully‐victim, or noninvolved using peer‐nominations. Theory of mind, hostile intent attributions, and happy victimizer emotions were assessed using standard vignettes and false‐belief tasks; reactive and proactive motives were assessed using teacher‐reports. We tested our hypotheses using Bayesian model selection, enabling us to directly compare the distinct processes model (predicting that bullies and bully‐victims deviate from noninvolved children on different psychological processes) against the shared processes model (predicting that bullies and bully‐victims deviate from noninvolved children on all psychological processes alike). Overall, the shared processes model received more support than the distinct processes model. These results suggest that in early childhood, bullies and bully‐victims have shared, rather than distinct psychological processes underlying their bullying behavior.     

Blushing-Fearful Individuals’ Judgmental Biases and Conditional Cognitions: An Internet Inquiry

The present study examines two mechanisms that might explain why blushing-fearful individuals fear blushing: Judgmental biases for blushing in ordinary social situations that usually do not elicit a blush, and negative conditional cognitions about blushing irrespective of situation. A web-based self-report measure, linked to a German internet forum for people with fear of blushing, was completed by a group of high blushing-fearful participants (n = 155) and a low fear group (n = 61). Supporting the idea that cognitive biases are involved in fear of blushing, blushing-fearful participants showed inflated estimates of both the probability and the costs of blushing in these situations. In addition, blushing-fearful individuals were characterized by relatively negative conditional cognitions about blushing.     

Not self-focused attention but negative beliefs affect poor social performance in social anxiety: An investigation of pathways in the social anxiety-social rejection relationship

Patients with social anxiety disorder (SAD) not only fear negative evaluation but are indeed less likeable than people without SAD. Previous research shows social performance to mediate this social anxiety-social rejection relationship. This study studied two pathways hypothesized to lead to poor social performance in social anxiety: increased self-focused attention and negative beliefs. State social anxiety was experimentally manipulated in high and low-blushing-fearful individuals by letting half of the participants believe that they blushed intensely during a 5 min getting-acquainted interaction with two confederates. Participants rated their state social anxiety, self-focused attention, and level of negative beliefs. Two confederates and two video-observers rated subsequently likeability (i.e., social rejection) and social performance of the participants. In both groups, the social anxiety-social rejection relationship was present. Although state social anxiety was related to heightened self-focused attention and negative beliefs, only negative beliefs were associated with relatively poor social performance. In contrast to current SAD models, self-focused attention did not play a key-role in poor social performance but seemed to function as a by-product of state social anxiety. Beliefs of being negatively evaluated seem to elicit changes in behavioral repertoire resulting in a poor social performance and subsequent rejection.     

Parenting behaviour as a mediator between young children's negative emotionality and their anxiety/depression

The goal of this longitudinal study was to examine observed paternal and maternal control (psychological control and autonomy granting) and support (rejection and emotional warmth) as mediators of the relation between children's negative emotionality at 3.5 years of age and depression and anxiety problems at 4.5 years. For 35 children, 60‐min unstructured parent–child interactions were rated at 4.5 years. Results indicated that maternal rejection mediated the relation between children's negative emotionality and their later anxiety/depression. Higher levels of child negative emotionality predicted more psychological control in mothers, but did not predict any parenting behaviours in fathers. Higher levels of paternal autonomy granting were associated with more child anxiety/depression. Unexpectedly, however, more maternal emotional warmth was related to higher levels of child anxiety/depression. The findings offer new insights to guide future research on the (mediating) role of parenting behaviours in the relation between children's negative emotionality and their internalizing problems. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Do-no-harm in coalition formation: Why losses inhibit exclusion and promote fairness cognitions

Previous research on coalition formation has established that people will not hesitate to exclude others in order to maximize their payoff. The authors propose that this view is too narrow and that the decision to exclude depends on the valence of the payoff. Consistent with a “do-no-harm” hypothesis, Experiment 1 showed that participants were more reluctant to exclude in order to minimize their losses than to maximize their gains. Experiment 2 replicated this effect and showed that participants were most affected by payoff valence when they were disposed to consider the viewpoint of others. Additional analyses revealed that participants were more motivated by fairness (Experiment 1) and that fairness was more cognitively accessible (Experiment 2) when payoffs were negative rather than positive.     

Wanna trade? Product knowledge and the perceived differences between the gains and losses of trade

We examine the effect of ownership on behavioural decision making in the context of trade. Based on the notion that traders may experience loss aversion, and that this is negatively related to willingness to trade, we reason that willingness to trade is a function of perceived similarities between the gains and losses of a trade. More specifically, we predicted that willingness to trade is a function of the characteristics of the trader: The traders' product knowledge about the objects involved in the trade may affect willingness to trade by affecting the differences traders perceive between the objects involved. In two experiments, participants endowed with a bottle of wine were offered the opportunity to trade their wine for another wine. Results of Experiment 1 indicated that the more knowledgeable participants were about wine, the more reluctant they were to trade, irrespective of what wine they possessed. The results of Experiment 2, in which we manipulated product knowledge, corroborated these findings. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On the psychology of ‘if only’: Regret and the comparison between factual and counterfactual outcomes

People experience regret when they realize that they would have been better off had they decided differently. Hence, a central element in regret is the comparability of a decision outcome with the outcomes forgone. Up to now, however, the comparison process that is so essential to the experience of regret has not been the subject of psychological research. In this article, we tune in on the comparison dependency of regret. We argue that factors that reduce the tendency to compare attenuate regret, and demonstrate that uncertainty about counterfactual outcomes (Experiment 1), and incomparability of counterfactual and factual outcomes (Experiments 2 and 3) produce such effects.     

Undermining trust and cooperation: The paradox of sanctioning systems in social dilemmas

Sanctioning systems in social dilemmas are often meant to increase trust in others and to increase cooperation. We argue, however, that sanctioning systems may also give people the idea that others act in their own self-interest and undermine the belief that others are internally motivated to cooperate. We developed the “Removing The Sanction” paradigm and a new trust manipulation, and showed in three experiments that when there is a sanction on defection, trust in others being internally motivated to cooperate is undermined: Participants who had experienced the presence of a sanctioning system trusted fellow group members less than participants who had not. In a similar vein, the sanction undermined cooperation when trust was initially high. The implications of these paradoxical findings are discussed.     

Bilingualism and Creativity: Towards a Situated Cognition Approach

In this paper, the association between bilingualism and creativity is investigated. In the first part, the results of a literature review are reported. Previous research predominantly found that bilinguals outperform monolinguals on creativity tasks, which was explained by bilinguals’ enhanced executive functioning compared to monolinguals, and their experience with multiple cultures. Most previous research has examined the relationship between bilingualism and creativity within a psychological trait framework, which does not take into account that cognitive processes are regarded to be situated‐embodied, meaning that they are influenced by environmental factors, and by a person's perceptions of and actions towards these environmental factors. In the second part, we discuss an alternative approach, in which creativity can be defined as the emerging skill of an individual to discover affordances, to come up with creative ideas and products. Recommendations for future research are discussed as well.