Psychometric evaluation of a “standardized client” procedure with trainee counsellors

The validity and reliability of a “standardized client” procedure for assessing the impact of counsellor-trainees' behaviour upon client-perceived rapport was investigated within 22 counselling interviews. A typical client was trained to present the same genuine concern consistently across all interuiews, and to make minute-by-minute in-session ratings of experienced rapport. Data were collected on internal consistency, test-retest reliability, face validity, content, construct and concurrent validity via usual procedures and blind evaluations from professionals in the field. All common psychometric requirements were satisfied. Limitations of this procedure are discussed, and implications for use of “standardized client” ratings to gather data on the rapport-enhancing effects of specific counsellor behaviours are also raised.     

Partners' internal stress and well-being: The role of dyadic coping and problem resolution

Couples' experiences of daily stress can be detrimental for partners' individual and relational well-being, specifically their identity as a couple, their relational satisfaction, and their life satisfaction. Grounded in the Systemic Transactional Model, this study aimed at analyzing factors that may safeguard partners and their relationship from detrimental effects of internal stress (i.e., stress that originates inside the relationship). We examined the buffering effect of partners' positive dyadic coping and internal problem resolution. Daily diary data were collected across 7 days from 82 heterosexual couples. Multilevel dyadic analyses showed that internal stress was negatively associated with partners' individual and relational well-being. Positive dyadic coping moderated the association between partners' internal stress and couple satisfaction for both partners, but not life satisfaction and couple identity. Moreover, for partners who reported a resolution to the internal problem, the negative associations of internal stress with life satisfaction, couple satisfaction, and couple identity were significantly lower than for those who did not resolve the internal problem. This study confirms the negative role of internal stress on well-being, shows the associations between internal stress and couple identity, and highlights the protective role of dyadic coping and internal problem resolution in couples' daily lives.     

Changes in Multidigit Synergies and Their Feed-Forward Adjustments in Multiple Sclerosis

The authors explored the changes in multidigit synergies in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) within the framework of the uncontrolled manifold hypothesis. The specific hypotheses were that both synergy indices and anticipatory synergy adjustments prior to the initiation of a self-paced quick action would be diminished in the patients compared to age-matched controls. The MS patients and age-matched controls (n = 13 in both groups) performed one-finger and multifinger force production tasks involving both accurate steady-state force production and quick force pulses. The patients showed significantly lower maximal finger forces and a tendency toward slower force pulses. Enslaving was increased in MS, but only in the lateral fingers (index and little). Indices of multifinger synergies during steady-state force production were lower in MS, mainly due to the lower amount of intertrial variance that did not affect total force. Anticipatory synergy adjustments were significantly delayed in MS. The results show that MS leads to significant changes in multidigit synergies and feed-forward adjustments of the synergies prior to a quick action. The authors discuss possible contributions of subcortical structures to the impaired synergic control.     

From Equality‐Based Respect to Environmental Activism: Antecedents and Consequences of Global Identity

Global identity reflects social identification with the world and the largest, most inclusive human ingroup and is generally associated with behavior that serves the world and all humans, such as transnational cooperation or proenvironmental engagement. While the outcomes of being globally identified are well‐established, the antecedents of global identity are only partially explored. Drawing from research suggesting that respect fosters identification in small groups, we argue that the general experience of being respected as an equal by others increases global identification. In an online study with 469 Germans (students and nonstudents), we tested the relation between equality‐based respect and global identification in a structural equation model, with proenvironmental intentions and donation behavior as outcome variables. As expected, equality‐based respect, but not other forms of social recognition (need‐based care and achievement‐based social esteem), predicted global identity while higher global identity, in turn, predicted proenvironmental activism. These effects were substantial beyond known predictors of proenvironmental behavior and thus suggest that equality‐based respect represents an important facet of responses to global challenges.     

Do People Order Cues by Retrieval Fluency when Making Probabilistic Inferences?

In multiple‐cue probabilistic inferences, people infer alternatives' unknown values on decision criteria, using alternatives' attributes as cues. Some inferential strategies, like take‐the‐best, assume that people consider relevant cues sequentially in order of decreasing validity. This assumption has been deemed cognitively implausible by some, who suggest memory retrieval principles to guide cue order. We test whether memory‐based inferences are better described by a model considering cues in order of validity or in order of memory retrieval. In an experiment, we manipulated the frequency with which cues appeared in a learning phase, increasing retrieval fluency of cue values related to the more frequently appearing cue. In a subsequent decision phase, participants made a series of two‐alternative decisions based on the learned cue values. We compared two sequential sampling models, which differed in whether cues are sampled in order of subjective cue validity or in order of retrieval fluency. To model retrieval order of cues in the fluency sampling model, we used the declarative memory theory embedded in the ACT‐R cognitive architecture. Most participants' decisions were best described by the model sampling cues in order of memory retrieval. Only a minority of participants were classified as sampling cues by validity. Our result suggests that retrieval fluency is the primary driver of cue order in inferences from memory, irrespective of the cues' validities. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Phenomenological Dimension of Meaning: Words,Vowels, Phonemes As Ways To Sing The World,To Celebrate The World,and To Live It

This is commentary on Cornejo’s Intersubjectivity as co-phenomenology: from the holism to the being-in-the-world-with-others, co-phenomenology, in which meaning is defined as a construal of phenomenological experience, it is not an individual creation, but rather an intersubjective one. In this paper the basic question is how language expresses the world and things and, consequently, what vision of the world is expressed by language and what relationship it creates with the real. Language is a set of differences between signs and meanings. It lives for and by this constant aspiration to say the inexpressible, to capture the elusive. Language tries to express the driving inner movement of the real through references and interlacing, by multiplying the relational threads of meanings. For example, the phonetic gesture performs for the speaker and his listener a certain structuring of experience, a certain modulation of existence. This is a communicative dimension in which meaning is always a process. It is the situation of co-feeling between subjects, in which understanding is achieved, as defined by Cornejo in his essay.

How does bilingualism improve executive control? A comparison of active and reactive inhibition mechanisms

It has been claimed that bilingualism enhances inhibitory control, but the available evidence is equivocal. The authors evaluated several possible versions of the inhibition hypothesis by comparing monolinguals and bilinguals with regard to stop signal performance, inhibition of return, and the attentional blink. These three phenomena, it can be argued, tap into different aspects of inhibition. Monolinguals and bilinguals did not differ in stop signal reaction time and thus were comparable in terms of active-inhibitory efficiency. However, bilinguals showed no facilitation from spatial cues, showed a strong inhibition of return effect, and exhibited a more pronounced attentional blink. These results suggest that bilinguals do not differ from monolinguals in terms of active inhibition but have acquired a better ability to maintain action goals and to use them to bias goal-related information. Under some circumstances, this ability may indirectly lead to more pronounced reactive inhibition of irrelevant information.     

Perceived parenting style, self-esteem and psychological distress in adolescents with heart disease

The aim of the study was to assess the relationships between perceived parenting style, depressed mood, anxiety and self-esteem in adolescents with heart disease compared with healthy adolescents. Forty-five adolescents, aged 12-18 with congenital or acquired heart disease and 50 healthy age-matched adolescents answered perceived parental behaviour, self-esteem, depressed mood and anxiety questionnaires. The study group reported higher perceived acceptance and lower perceived parental control than healthy adolescents, but similar levels of depressed mood, anxiety and self-esteem. Fischer's r-to-z transformation and regression analyses showed different associations between perceived parenting style and depressed mood, anxiety and self esteem. In the study group, higher perceived parental acceptance was associated with lower depressed mood and higher self-esteem, whereas these associations were not significant in the control group. In the control, but not the study group, higher perceived parental control was associated with lower depressed mood and lower anxiety. Parenting style proved to exert a differential effect on adolescents with and without heart disease. For the former, perceived parental acceptance had a more substantial effect on psychological well-being than perceived parental control. Professionals caring for these adolescents should be aware of the special importance of parenting style on the well-being of adolescents with heart disease, and address this issue in the clinical setting with the patients and their parents.