Too fatigued to care: Ego depletion,guilt, and prosocial behavior

Although guilt feels bad to the individual, it is good for society because guilty feelings can prompt people to perform good deeds. This study tests whether fatigue decreases guilty feelings and subsequent prosocial behavior. Participants were randomly assigned to a depletion condition in which they watched a movie about butchering animals for their meat or skin and were told to express no emotions, or to a no-depletion condition in which they watched the same movie, but could express their emotions. Having participants play a game in which another person was punished for their errors induced guilt. Finally, participants played a dictator game in which they could leave money for the next participant. After the experiment, participants could also anonymously donate money to an anti-AIDS charity. The results showed that depleted participants felt less guilty than did non-depleted participants, and the less guilty participants felt the less helpful they were.     

Comparative interinstrument reliability of uniaxial and triaxial accelerometers in free-living conditions

The aim of this study was to measure the inter-instrument reliability of the ActiGraph and RT3 accelerometers in free-living conditions. 15 healthy adults wore eight ActiGraph accelerometers and five RT3 accelerometers fastened to their back with an elastic belt and adjustable buckle in free-living conditions. For both accelerometers, the inter-instrument coefficient of variation (CV) decreased with increasing physical activity intensity. The inter-instrument CV of the ActiGraph (3% to 10.5%) was significantly lower than that of the RT3 (12.6% to 35.5%; p < 0.05). This finding demonstrates that the ActiGraph has higher inter-instrument reliability than the RT3. For both accelerometers, the inter-instrument reliability was higher for moderate and vigorous physical activity, the two intensities recommended for public health purposes. Studies using these devices can be compared with a low risk of misclassification of participants who meet the recommendation to perform moderate to vigorous physical activity.     

L’impact du stress professionnel sur les intervenants SMUR

The aim of this work is to identify the situations of stress experienced by SAMU staff and to study the extent to which they can have an impact on burnout and the level of psychological distress observed in this population. Our sample consists of a group of 69 SAMU staff and a control group of 50 professionals working in hospital services. All subjects provided sociodemographic data and completed three clinical scales – the Job Stress Survey (JSS), the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) and the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) – and the clinical interview. This study shows that SAMU staff have low levels of professional stress, burnout and psychological distress per report with the personnel of the services of hepato-gastroenterology, endocrinology and digestive surgery. We discuss these results by examining the ability of the SAMU staff to manage situations of stress.     

Response to bitter substances in primates: Roles of diet tendency and weaning age

In primates, the perception of bitter taste may be an essential mechanism for avoiding the ingestion of bitter, and often toxic, substances. Bitterness sensitivity varies across the different primate species and, for bitter thioure substances (e.g., phenylthiocarbamide—PTC), within species. Primates respond to bitterness by displaying aversive affective reactions, and whether these serve for conspecifics as information on the taste of food is still unclear. The aim of this study was to investigate the response to two bitter substances (quinine and PTC) in 11 primate species (N = 29 individuals) hosted at the Ménagerie du Jardin des Plantes, in relation to their main diet tendency and weaning age. We tested primate reactions to bitterness with a two-bottle method. The study individuals showed a strong aversion to bitter taste, minimizing consumption of both bitter solutions. All of the individuals were PTC-taster phenotypes, but the degrees of sensitivity to PTC varied among the individuals. Across-species comparisons revealed that whereas the degree of frugivory of the species had a negative effect on the consumption of bitter solutions by the individuals, a later weaning age seems to be a better predictor for the occurrence of aversive affective reactions. Although the low sample size does not allow for excluding interindividual variability, our results support the hypothesis that affective reactions to bitterness may be trustworthy information for conspecifics during the learning process. Thus, the evolution of the appropriate perceiver systems to convert affective displays into true affective signals could be a shared trait among human and nonhuman primates.     

Evaluative Aspects of Creative Thought: Effects of Appraisal and Revision Standards

Recent research has begun to stress the influence of evaluation on creative thought. The authors begin this article by arguing that the evaluation of new ideas is a complex process involving forecasting, appraisal, and revision, where different standards might be applied to different ideas during appraisal and revision. The influence of appraisal and revision standards on creative problem solving was examined by asking 148 undergraduates to appraise and revise highly original, original, and nonoriginal ideas generated for an advertising campaign under conditions in which the standards to be applied stressed the generation of new ideas or under conditions in which the standards to be applied stressed efficiency of current operations. It was found that better plans for these advertising campaigns were obtained when generative, or innovative, criteria were applied to less original ideas and when implementation efficiency, or operating, criteria were applied to more original ideas. It was concluded that evaluation may serve to remediate deficiencies in ideas but that the standards applied must vary with the nature of the idea and the context in which it is to be implemented     

Effects of pitch distance and likelihood on the perceived duration of deviant auditory events

When a deviant (oddball) stimulus is presented within a series of otherwise identical (standard) stimuli, the duration of the oddball tends to be overestimated. Two experiments investigated factors affecting systematic distortions in the perceived duration of oddball stimuli. Both experiments used an auditory oddball paradigm where oddball tones varied in both their pitch distance from the pitch of a standard tone and their likelihood of occurrence. Experiment 1 revealed that (1) far-pitch oddballs were perceived to be longer than near-pitch oddballs, (2) effects of pitch distance were greater in low-likelihood conditions, and (3) oddballs in later serial positions were perceived to be longer than oddballs in earlier serial positions. The above effects held regardless of whether oddballs were higher or lower in pitch than the standard. Experiment 2 revealed a pattern of response times in an oddball detection task that generally paralleled the pattern of data observed in Experiment 1; across conditions, there was a negative correlation between detection times and perceived duration. Taken together, the results suggest that the observed effects of oddball pitch, likelihood, and position on perceived duration are at least partly driven by how quickly individuals are able to initiate timing the oddball following its onset. Implications for different theoretical accounts of the oddball effect are discussed.     

Do just‐world believers practice private charity?

The relationship between belief in a just world and private charity was examined in a representative sample of 805 French people. Participants were given money for their participation to a survey research and had the opportunity to allocate a part of it to an organization supporting victims of aggression. A multiple regression analysis including a selection of relevant covariates indicated that just‐world beliefs provided a unique contribution to monetary generosity. The amount of money left for the organization supporting victims was higher among women, and was correlated with participant's age and educational level. This study contributes to the literature by providing for the first time a behavioral demonstration of the relationship between just‐world belief for self and altruistic behavior.     

Neighborhood Racial Composition,Racial Discrimination,and Depressive Symptoms in African Americans

While evidence indicates that experienced racial discrimination is associated with increased depressive symptoms for African Americans, there is little research investigating predictors of experienced racial discrimination. This paper examines neighborhood racial composition and sociodemographic factors as antecedents to experienced racial discrimination and resultant levels of depressive symptoms among African American adults. The sample included 505 socioeconomically-diverse African American adults from Baltimore, MD. Study data were obtained via self-report and geocoding of participant addresses based on 2010 census data. Study hypotheses were tested using multiple pathways within a longitudinal Structural Equation Model. Experienced racial discrimination was positively associated with age and sex such that older individuals and males experienced increased levels of racial discrimination. In addition, the percentage of White individuals residing in a neighborhood was positively associated with levels of experienced racial discrimination for African American neighborhood residents. Experienced racial discrimination was positively associated with later depressive symptoms. Neighborhood-level contextual factors such as neighborhood racial composition and individual differences in sociodemographic characteristics appear to play an important role in the experience of racial discrimination and the etiology of depression in African American adults.     

Beliefs as inner causes: The (lack of) evidence

Many psychologists studying lay belief attribution and behavior explanation cite Donald Davidson in support of their assumption that people construe beliefs as inner causes. But Davidson’s influential argument is unsound; there are no objective grounds for the intuition that the folk construe beliefs as inner causes that produce behavior. Indeed, recent experimental work by Ian Apperly, Bertram Malle, Henry Wellman, and Tania Lombrozo provides an empirical framework that accords well with Gilbert Ryle’s alternative thesis that the folk construe beliefs as patterns of living that contextualize behavior.