Individual Differences in Susceptibility to Misinformation Effects and Hindsight Bias

The present study examined individual differences in susceptibility to two similar forms of memory distortion: the misinformation effect and hindsight bias. The misinformation effect occurs when individuals witness an event, are provided with misinformation, and recall the original event as containing elements of the misinformation. Hindsight bias occurs when individuals make judgments, are provided with feedback, and recall their original judgments as being more similar to the feedback than they actually were. Seventy-five participants completed a misinformation task, a hindsight bias task, and several individual difference measures related to memory distortions. Working memory capacity was negatively correlated with the misinformation effect and hindsight bias, and the misinformation effect and hindsight bias were negatively correlated with one another. Although the misinformation effect and hindsight bias are measured with similar designs, and both are predicted by working memory capacity, the negative correlation between them suggests these phenomena result from somewhat different processes.     

Bidirectional Associations Between Parenting Behavior and Child Callous-Unemotional Traits: Does Parental Depression Moderate this Link?

The current study longitudinally examined bidirectional associations between callous-unemotional (CU) traits and parenting dimensions. This study extended the literature by examining whether parental depression moderated these relations in a pre-adolescent sample. Proposed relations were examined using a longitudinal sample of 120 aggressive children (59.6 % male) who were in the 4th grade (M?=?10.56 years, SD?=?0.56) at baseline and were followed annually over 4 years. A series of generalized estimating equation (GEE) models were used to examine proposed relations. At the first order level, corporal punishment (p?p?=?0.03) however, the inverse relations were not found. Importantly, parental depression moderated the link between corporal punishment and CU traits. Specifically, at high levels of depression, corporal punishment was predictive of increases in CU traits, but was unrelated to CU traits at low levels of depression. These findings aid in our understanding of the link between corporal punishment and CU traits by highlighting conditions under which certain parenting behaviors have an impact on CU traits, which in turn, may have important intervention implications. Further clinical implications, limitations and future directions are discussed.     

Face‐Off: Facial Features and Strategic Choice

I study experimentally a single‐shot trust game where players have the opportunity to choose an avatar—a computer‐generated face—to represent them. These avatars vary on several dimensions—trustworthiness, dominance, and threat—identified by previous work as influencing perceptions of those who view the faces (Todorov, Said, Engell, & Oosterhof, 2008). I take this previous work and ask whether subjects choose faces that are ex ante more trustworthy, whether selected avatars have an influence on strategy choices, and whether individuals who evaluate faces as more trustworthy are also more likely to trust others. Results indicate affirmative answers to all three questions. Additional experimental sessions used randomly assigned avatars. This design allows me to compare behavior when everyone knows avatars are self‐selected versus when everyone knows they are randomly assigned. Random assignment eliminated all three effects observed when subjects chose their avatars.     

Succeeding in Rural Mental Health Practice: Being Sensitive to Culture by Fitting in and Collaborating

Sustainable solutions to the access to mental health care problems are complex and must address both the availability of mental health care resources and the acceptability of those resources to consumers. The purpose of this study was to determine how to address the acceptability problem by learning from medical and mental health care providers what mental health therapists need to know to be successful in providing care in rural communities. Using a qualitative design, focus groups were conducted in three rural communities (<2,500) with medical and mental health care providers practicing in these communities. Data were analyzed using inductive qualitative methods. Results indicate that in addition to sound clinical skill, mental health therapists should (A) be sensitive to the culture of the rural community in which they are working and (B) practice in a way that accommodates to the care culture of the community. The latter includes spending time with patients commensurate with what is expected by other providers, engaging in generalist practice, and collaborating with local providers in patient care. An important implication of these results is that mental health care must be acceptable to both the residents of the community and the gatekeepers to health care.     

Different sides of the same conversation: Black and White partners differ in perceptions of interaction content

A positive interracial interaction can create a foundation for friendships, improved intergroup attitudes and reduced prejudice. Recent research has demonstrated that what people talk about in important. Here, two studies expand the interaction content model of interracial interactions to reveal that Black and White Americans perceive interaction content in similar and different ways. As expected, Black and White participants evaluated conversation topics along the same three dimensions, but differed in their perceptions of specific conversation topics. These convergences and differences emerged for pre‐generated (Study 1) and self‐generated (Study 2) topics. Factor analyses revealed that conversation attributes similarly distilled to the predicted underlying content dimensions of intimacy, valence, and controversy for Black and White Americans. However, Black individuals found interaction content, in general, to be more controversial, race‐related, enjoyable, and predictable than White individuals. Although both groups found race‐related content more controversial, Black individuals were less bothered by discussing race and found race‐related topics to be more predictable and enjoyable to discuss. These findings supported the interaction content model which may provide a framework for future research on interracial interactions. We conclude with the importance of considering differences in perceptions of interaction content, as well as suggestions for how intergroup interaction research could benefit from systematically incorporating such content.     

Practical Certainty

When we engage in practical deliberation, we sometimes engage in careful probabilistic reasoning. At other times, we simply make flat out assumptions about how the world is or will be. A question thus arises: when, if ever, is it rationally permissible to engage in the latter, less sophisticated kind of practical deliberation? Recently, a number of authors have argued that the answer concerns whether one knows that p. Others have argued that the answer concerns whether one is justified in believing that one knows that p. Against both of these, this paper argues that the answer concerns whether p is ‘practically certain’—that is, whether the actual epistemic probability that p differs from epistemic certainty that p only in ways that are irrelevant to the decision one currently faces.     

An Auto‐Ethnographic Study of “Open Dialogue”: The Illumination of Snow

This auto‐ethnographic study describes the changes in the author's thinking and clinical work connected to her first‐hand experience of Open Dialogue, which is an innovative, psychosocial approach to severe psychiatric crises developed in Tornio, Finland. In charting this trajectory, there is an emphasis on three interrelated themes: the micropolitics of U.S. managed mental health care; the practice of “dialogicality” in Open Dialogue; and the historical, cultural, and scientific shifts that are encouraging the adaptation of Open Dialogue in the United States. The work of Gregory Bateson provides a conceptual framework that makes sense of the author's experience and the larger trends. The study portrays and underscores how family and network practices are essential to responding to psychiatric crises and should not be abandoned in favor of a reductionist, biomedical model.