Taking a fresh perspective: Vicarious restoration as a means of recovering self-control

In the realm of self-regulation, recent work shows that the state of ego depletion can be vicariously transmitted from a target to a perceiver simply by imagining the perspective of a depleted target (i.e., vicarious depletion; Ackerman et al., 2009). The present study asked whether such vicarious effects can extend to the domain of self-regulatory recovery. In Experiment 1, depleted participants who took the perspective of someone engaging in a restorative activity showed recovered self-control on a later task. Experiments 2 and 3 expanded upon this effect by illustrating that such vicarious self-regulatory processes only emerge if the target is similar to the participant. Taken together, the present studies offer a powerful method by which mental resources can be replenished, and identify one critical boundary condition of its effectiveness.     

Force control under auditory feedback: effector differences and audiomotor memory

Audiomotor integration is a basic form of sensorimotor control for regulating vocal pitch and vocal loudness, but its contribution to general motor control has only been studied minimally. In this paper, auditory feedback for prolonged force control was investigated by comparing manual and oral force generation and testing short-term audiomotor memory for these effectors. Ten healthy volunteers between the ages of 20 and 30 years old were recruited. The participants produced continuous force for 30 sec. with the lip or finger to match auditory targets. In the feedback condition, when auditory feedback was provided for 30 sec., lip force was more variable than finger force. In the memory condition, the force output of both effectors remained stable for approximately 4 sec. after feedback removal, followed by significant decay. A longer short-term memory capacity could facilitate encoding of motor memories for tasks having acoustic goals. The results demonstrate that "audiomotor" integration was effective for sustaining forces, and that audiomotor force memory is comparable to reports of visuomotor force memory.     

Intrinsic religiosity reduces intergroup hostility under mortality salience

Results of three studies indicate that intrinsic religiosity and mortality salience interact to predict intergroup hostility. Study 1, conducted among 200 American Christians and Jews, reveals that under mortality salience, intrinsic (but not extrinsic or quest) religiosity is related to decreased support for aggressive counterterrorism. Study 2, conducted among 148 Muslims in Iran, demonstrates that intrinsic religiosity predicts decreased out‐group derogation under mortality salience. Study 3, conducted among 131 Polish Christians, shows that under mortality salience, priming of intrinsic religious concepts decreases support for aggressive counterterrorism. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Verbal interference suppresses exact numerical representation

Language for number is an important case study of the relationship between language and cognition because the mechanisms of non-verbal numerical cognition are well-understood. When the Pirahã (an Amazonian hunter-gatherer tribe who have no exact number words) are tested in non-verbal numerical tasks, they are able to perform one-to-one matching tasks but make errors in more difficult tasks. Their pattern of errors suggests that they are using analog magnitude estimation, an evolutionarily- and developmentally-conserved mechanism for estimating quantities. Here we show that English-speaking participants rely on the same mechanisms when verbal number representations are unavailable due to verbal interference. Followup experiments demonstrate that the effects of verbal interference are primarily manifest during encoding of quantity information, and—using a new procedure for matching difficulty of interference tasks for individual participants—that the effects are restricted to verbal interference. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that number words are used online to encode, store, and manipulate numerical information. This linguistic strategy complements, rather than altering or replacing, non-verbal representations.     

Exergaming immediately enhances children's executive function

The current study examined an important aspect of experience--physical activity--that may contribute to children's executive function. The design attempted to tease apart 2 important aspects of children's exercise by examining the separate and combined effects of acute physical activity and cognitive engagement on an aspect of children's executive functioning. In a 2 × 2 within-subject experimental design, children (N = 33, 6 to 10 years old) completed activities that varied systematically in both physical activity (physically active video games versus sedentary video activities) and cognitive engagement (challenging and interactive video games versus repetitive video activities). Cognitive functioning, including executive function, was assessed after each activity by a modified flanker task (Rueda et al., 2004). Whereas cognitive engagement had no effect on any aspect of task performance, physical activity (i.e., exergaming) enhanced children's speed to resolve interference from conflicting visuospatial stimuli. Age comparisons indicated improvements with age in the accuracy of resolving interference and in overall response time. The results extend past research by showing more precisely how physical activity influences executive function and how this effect differs from the improvements that occur with development.     

Multiple trials may yield exaggerated effect size estimates

Published psychological research attempting to support the existence of small and medium effect sizes may not have enough participants to do so accurately, and thus, repeated trials or the use of multiple items may be used in an attempt to obtain significance. Through a series of Monte-Carlo simulations, this article describes the results of multiple trials or items on effect size estimates when the averages and aggregates of a dependent measure are analyzed. The simulations revealed a large increase in observed effect size estimates when the numbers of trials or items in an experiment were increased. Overestimation effects are mitigated by correlations between trials or items, but remain substantial in some cases. Some concepts, such as a P300 wave or a test score, are best defined as a composite of measures. Troubles may arise in more exploratory research where the interrelations among trials or items may not be well described.     

Do procedures for verbal reporting of thinking have to be reactive? A meta-analysis and recommendations for best reporting methods

Since its establishment, psychology has struggled to find valid methods for studying thoughts and subjective experiences. Thirty years ago, Ericsson and Simon (1980) proposed that participants can give concurrent verbal expression to their thoughts (think aloud) while completing tasks without changing objectively measurable performance (accuracy). In contrast, directed requests for concurrent verbal reports, such as explanations or directions to describe particular kinds of information, were predicted to change thought processes as a consequence of the need to generate this information, thus altering performance. By comparing performance of concurrent verbal reporting conditions with their matching silent control condition, Ericsson and Simon found several studies demonstrating that directed verbalization was associated with changes in performance. In contrast, the lack of effects of thinking aloud was merely suggested by a handful of experimental studies. In this article, Ericsson and Simon's model is tested by a meta-analysis of 94 studies comparing performance while giving concurrent verbalizations to a matching condition without verbalization. Findings based on nearly 3,500 participants show that the "think-aloud" effect size is indistinguishable from zero (r = -.03) and that this procedure remains nonreactive even after statistically controlling additional factors such as task type (primarily visual or nonvisual). In contrast, procedures that entail describing or explaining thoughts and actions are significantly reactive, leading to higher performance than silent control conditions. All verbal reporting procedures tend to increase times to complete tasks. These results suggest that think-aloud should be distinguished from other methods in future studies. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Toward a tripartite vision of supervision for psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapies: alliance, transference-countertransference configuration, and real relationship

The psychoanalytic supervision relationship is examined as a tripartite phenomenon, comprised of the supervisory alliance, transference-countertransference configuration, and real relationship. While most supervisory analysts would readily acknowledge that a real (or personal) relationship element exists in analytic supervision, that facet of the supervision relationship has not routinely been incorporated into considerations of psychoanalytic supervision. In this vision of supervision, real relationship, supervisory alliance, and transference-countertransference configuration are presented as integral and complementary constructs that define psychoanalytic supervision. Each of those three components is examined briefly with regard to its beginnings, evolution, and contemporary status; each component is also considered from an empirical perspective. While we have a growing quantitative and qualitative research foundation that supports psychoanalytic practice, psychoanalytic supervision has largely been ignored as a subject and object of scientific study. Supervisory alliance, transference-countertransference configuration, and real relationship are explored as research ready variables. Some clinical hypotheses--eminently testable and worthy of investigation--are proposed with regard to each component of the model, and some ideas--albeit tentative and preliminary--about how to initiate such inquiries are offered.     

The great escape: World War II, neo-freudianism, and the origins of U.S. psychocultural analysis

Psychocultural analysis stands as a signal accomplishment of the 1930s U.S. assimilation of European refugee-intellectuals. Scholars in the U.S. had been moving toward a kind of psychocultural analysis well in advance of the Great Migration--the U.S. was not an intellectual vacuum or wasteland--nevertheless, it was through their interdisciplinary collaboration, fueled by the specter of war, that these international peers stimulated one of the most wide-ranging, dynamic, and productive exchanges of ideas of the century. Through the lens of Erich Fromm's Escape from Freedom, this article explores psychoculturalism's emergence in the interstices between cultures, nations, ideas, and disciplines--between Europeans and Americans, psychoanalysts and social scientists.