Understanding smoking after acute illness: An application of the sentinel event method

The sentinel event theory provides a stepwise approach for building models to understand how negative events can spark health behaviour change. This study tested a preliminary model using the sentinel events method in a sample (N = 300) of smokers who sought care for acute cardiac symptoms. Patients completed measures on: smoking-related causal attribution, perceived severity of the acute illness event, illness-related fear and intentions to quit smoking. Patients were followed up one week after the health event and a seven-day timeline follow back was completed to determine abstinence from tobacco. Structural equation models were performed using average predictor scale scores at baseline, as well as three different time anchors for ratings of illness severity and illness-related fear. Quit intentions, actual illness severity and age were the consistent, positive and independent predictors of seven-day point prevalence abstinence. Additional research on the influences of perceptions and emotional reactions is warranted.     

Paying attention to attention: evidence for an attentional contribution to the size congruity effect

Understanding the mechanisms supporting our comprehension of magnitude information represents a key goal in cognitive psychology. A major phenomenon employed in the pursuit of this goal has been the physical size congruity effect—namely, the observation that comparing the relative numerical sizes of two numbers is influenced by their relative physical sizes. The standard account of the physical size congruity effect attributes it to the automatic influence of the comparison of irrelevant physical magnitudes on numerical judgments. Here we develop an alternative account of this effect on the basis of the operation of attention in the typical size congruity display and the temporal dynamics of number comparison. We also provide a test of a number of predictions derived from this alternative account by combining a physical size congruity manipulation with a manipulation designed to alter the operation of attention within the typical size congruity display (i.e., a manipulation of the relative onsets of the digits). This test provides evidence consistent with an attentional contribution to the size congruity effect. Implications for our understanding of magnitude and the interactions between attention and magnitude are discussed.     

A New Conventionalist Theory of Promising

Conventionalists about promising believe that it is wrong to break a promise because the promisor takes advantage of a useful social convention only to fail to do his part in maintaining it. Anti-conventionalists claim that the wrong of breaking a promise has nothing essentially to do with a social convention. Anti-conventionalists are right that the social convention is not necessary to explain the wrong of breaking most promises. But conventionalists are right that the convention plays an essential role in any satisfactory account of promising. A new conventionalism can explain this by appealing to special features of social conventions. Two of these special features have important implications for any moral requirements they mediate, such as the requirement to keep one's promises and the moral requirements attached to social or occupational roles. First, these requirements will not depend on features of a situation that are inaccessible to typical participants in the convention. Second, these requirements often cannot be tailored to fit the overly unusual circumstances of participants.     

Gender and Compensation: Understanding the Impact of Gender and Gender Stereotypes in Children’s Rewards

Children’s understanding of rewards for task completion was examined in the context of gender, and gender-based stereotypes. Eighty-eight children (43 girls, M_overall?=?58.39 months) completed a measure assessing gender-based occupational stereotypes. This measure, along with gender, was used to predict children’s self-reward for undergoing the testing, as well as their reward for a fictional other child having undergone the same procedure. The methodology provided a novel approach for studying reward allocation in children, as it did not require children to divide resources between themselves and another child for completing the same task. An occupation-based stereotype measure was found to predict the self-reward, as well as the reward allocated to the other child. In addition, the participant’s gender predicted self-reward, and an interaction between participant gender and gender of the experimenter contributed to predicting the other child reward. Overall, these findings suggest that gender and gender-based stereotyping have an impact on reward allocation of young children. Implications of these results in the context of reward allocation research among children and adult populations are discussed.     

The Exchange Boundary Framework: Understanding the Evolution of Power within Collaborative Decision-Making Settings

Many community decision-making bodies encounter challenges in creating conditions where stakeholders from disadvantaged populations can authentically participate in ways that give them actual influence over decisions affecting their lives (Foster-Fishman et al., Lessons for the journey: Strategies and suggestions for guiding planning, governance, and sustainability in comprehensive community initiatives. W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Battle Creek, MI, 2004). These challenges are often rooted in asymmetrical power dynamics operating within the settings (Prilleltensky, J Commun Psychol 36:116–136, 2008). In response, this paper presents the Exchange Boundary Framework, a new approach for understanding and promoting authentic, empowered participation within collaborative decision-making settings. The framework expands upon theories currently used in the field of community psychology by focusing on the underlying processes through which power operates in relationships and examining the evolution of power dynamics over time. By integrating concepts from social exchange theory (Emerson, Am Soc Rev 27:31–41, 1962) and social boundaries theory (Hayward, Polity 31(1):1–22, 1998), the framework situates power within parallel processes of resources exchange and social regulation. The framework can be used to understand the conditions leading to power asymmetries within collaborative decisionmaking processes, and guide efforts to promote more equitable and authentic participation by all stakeholders within these settings. In this paper we describe the Exchange Boundary Framework, apply it to three distinct case studies, and discuss key considerations for its application within collaborative community settings.     

Nonconscious goals can shape what people want to feel

Goals can determine what people want to feel (e.g., Tamir et al., 2008), but can they do so even when they are primed outside of conscious awareness? In two studies, participants wanted to feel significantly less angry after they were implicitly primed with a collaboration goal, compared to a neutral prime. These effects were found with different implicit priming manipulations, direct and indirect measures of emotional preferences, and when controlling for concurrent emotional experiences. The effects were obtained in social contexts in which the potential for collaboration was relatively higher (Study 1) and lower (Study 2). Also, similar effects were found when collaboration was activated nonconsciously (Studies 1–2) and consciously (Study 2). By showing that nonconscious goals can shape emotional preferences, we demonstrate that what people want to feel can be determined by factors they are unaware of.     

The effect of passive heat stress on distress andself-control in male smokers and non-smokers

In the current study, we tested the effects of core body temperature increases (e.g. heat stress) on affect, self-reported physical discomfort, and subsequent self-control in male smokers and nonsmokers using a novel passive heat stress paradigm, within a distress tolerance framework. Twenty-eight men (14 smokers), completed both heat stress and control sessions in randomized order. Results revealed that increases in core body temperature were associated with increased anxiety, irritability, and body discomfort as well as decreased happiness, with stronger effects for smokers. Smokers and nonsmokers both evidenced less self-control during the heat session and did not differ on this measure, nor on a measure of interoceptive sensitivity. The current study indicates that heat stress is a viable method for studying distress tolerance in men, and suggests the value in examining dynamic changes in self-control as a function of distress. Implications will be discussed for distress tolerance in general and smokers in specific.     

What is the Cause of Confidence Inflation in the Life Events Inventory (LEI) Paradigm?

Briefly imagining, paraphrasing, or explaining an event causes people to increase their confidence that this event occurred during childhood—the imagination inflation effect. The mechanisms responsible for the effect were investigated with a new paradigm. In Experiment 1, event familiarity (defined as processing fluency) was varied by asking participants to rate each event once, three times, or five times. No inflation was found, indicating that familiarity does not account for the effect. In Experiment 2, richness of memory representation was manipulated by asking participants to generate zero, three, or six details. Confidence increased from the initial to the final rating in the three- and six-detail conditions, indicating that the effect is based on reality-monitoring errors. However, greater inflation in the three-detail condition than in the six-detail condition indicated that there is a boundary condition. These results were also consistent with an alternative hypothesis, the mental workload hypothesis.     

Construct Validity of the Rotter Incomplete Sentences Blank With Clinic-Referred and Nonreferred Adolescents

Inferred latent entities, whether those of psychoanalysis, factor analysis, or cluster analysis, have declined in value for many clinical psychologists, both as tools of practice and as objects of theoretical interest. Behavior modification, rational-emotive therapy, crisis intervention, psycho-pharmacology, and actuarial prediction all tend to minimize reliance on latent entities in favor of purely dispositional concepts. Behavior genetics is, however, a powerful movement to the contrary. As regards categorical entities (types, taxa, syndromes, diseases), history reveals no impressive examples of their discovery by cluster algorithms; whereas organic medicine and psychopathology have both discovered many taxonic entities without reliance on formal (statistical) cluster methods. I offer eight reasons for this strange condition, with associated suggestions for ameliorating it. Adopting a realist instead of a fictionist approach to taxonomy, I give high priority to theory-based mathematical derivation of quantitative consistency tests for all taxometric results. I urge a large scale cooperative survey of taxometric methods based on Monte Carlo runs, biological pseudoproblems where the true taxon is independently known, and live problems in genetics, organic medicine, and psychopathology. An empirical example of taxometric bootstrapping and consistency testing was presented from my own current research on schizotypy.     

Manipulation of visual information does not change the accuracy of distance estimation during a blindfolded walking task

While humans rely on vision during navigation, they are also competent at navigating non-visually. However, non-visual navigation over large distances is not very accurate and can accumulate error. Currently, it is unclear whether this accumulation of error is due to the visual estimate of the distance or to the locomotor production of the distance. In a series of experiments, using a blindfolded walking test, we examine whether enhancing the visual estimate of the distance to a previously seen target, through environmental enrichment, visual imagery, or repeated exposure would improve the accuracy of blindfold navigation across different distances. We also attempt to decrease the visual estimate in order to see if the opposite effect would occur. Our results would indicate that manipulation of the static visual distance estimate did not change the navigation accuracy to any great extent. The only condition that improved accuracy was repeated exposure to the environment through practice. These results suggest that error observed during blindfold navigation may be due to the locomotor production of the distance, rather than the visual process.