Fehldiagnose Aufmerksamkeitsdefizit- und Hyperaktivit?tssyndrom?

Although it is assumed both by healthcare professionals as well as by public opinion that attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is widely overdiagnosed, so far there is little empirical evidence to support this presumption. However, the presented study shows clear evidence for an overdiagnosis of ADHD. Furthermore, the data demonstrate that based on identical symptoms, boys more often receive a diagnosis for ADHD than girls. A false ADHD diagnosis also correlates with a recommendation for medical and psychotherapeutic treatment. One explanation for misdiagnosis is the fact that therapists in the course of diagnosis, as with other everyday decision-making processes, are influenced by heuristics. The most common heuristics that can lead to misdiagnosis are the representativeness heuristic and the availability heuristic. Such mistakes could be avoided by clearly following diagnostic criteria and the use of structural interviews.     

The influence of labor market discrimination on locus of control

Prior research has established the existence of racial differences in locus of control as well as a relationship between labor market experience and locus of control. This study extends this line of inquiry by examining the relationship between labor market discrimination and subsequent change in locus of control. Drawing on a national probability sample (N = 2857) of young men, multiple regression analysis was used to estimate the effect of labor market discrimination (over a 2-year period) on subsequent locus of control. The results indicate that perceptions of employment discrimination influence the level of externality among blacks, over and above racial identification. Blacks who view themselves as victims of employment discrimination experience twice the increase in externality as blacks reporting no awareness of discrimination.     

Bidirectional Links Between Teachers’ Disciplinary Practices,Students’ Peer Status,and Students’ Aggression in Kindergarten

Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology - This study examined bidirectional links between teachers’ disciplinary practices (punitive and educational), students’ peer status in...     

No indication that the ego depletion manipulation can affect insight: a comment on DeCaro and Van Stockum (2018)

Abstract

Recently, DeCaro and Van Stockum have suggested that ego depletion following intensive self-control can improve insight problem-solving; this finding was interpreted in terms of insight relying on decreased control over attention and memory. However, DeCaro and Van Stockum used three variants of the single matchstick arithmetic problem. Experiment 1 involved low sample and non-standard problem application, while the more powered Experiment 2 yielded a surprisingly low solution rate. These facts made both studies problematic and called for their replication. In the two present studies, the DeCaro and Van Stockum ego-depletion manipulation and their matchstick problems were administered to a total of 316 people. Furthermore, various other insight problems, subjective ratings of insight experience, analytical problems and executive control tests were applied. The key result was that no reliable effect of ego depletion could be found for any of these measures.     

Elevation and reduction of plasma tryptophan and their effects on aggression and perceptual sensitivity in normal males

Data from experimental animals suggest that 5-hydroxytryptamine (5HT) may have an inhibitory effect on aggression, while clinical studies have found a correlation between pathological aggression and low brain 5HT. To investigate this relationship further we used amino acid mixtures designed to raise or lower the levels of the 5HT precursor, tryptophan. Normal male subjects were given tryptophan-depleted, balanced, or tryptophan-supplemented ammo acid mixtures and tested for aggression 5 hours later. The balanced amino acid mixture served as a control for the tryptophan depletion and supplementation. Testing for aggression was done using the Buss paradigm in which subjects deliver electric shocks to a (nonexistent) partner in response to stimulus tones. Duration and intensity of shock delivered were the measures of aggression, while responsivity to the stimulus tones was the measure of perceptual sensitivity. Neither tryptophan supplementation nor tryptophan depletion had any effect on these measures of aggression or perceptual sensitivity. We conclude that raising or lowering the synthesis of brain 5HT through alterations in tryptophan availability does not influence aggression in normal males as measured by the Buss task.     

Perceived motion in structure from motion: Pointing responses to the axis of rotation

We investigated the ability to match finger orientation to the direction of the axis of rotation in structure-from-motion displays. Preliminary experiments verified that subjects could accurately use the index finger to report direction. The remainder of the experiments studied the perception of the axis of rotation from full rotations of a group of discrete points, the profiles of a rotating ellipsoid, and two views of a group of discrete points. Subjects’ responses were analyzed by decomposing the pointing responses into their slant and tilt components. Overall, the results indicated that subjects were sensitive to both slant and tilt. However, when the axis of rotation was near the viewing direction, subjects had difficulty reporting tilt with profiles and two views and showed a large bias in their slant judgments with two views and full rotations. These results are not entirely consistent with theoretical predictions. The results, particularly for two views, suggest that additional constraints are used by humans in the recovery of structure from motion.