The General Factor of Personality (GFP) and Vocational Interests: a Test of Social Effectiveness at the Behavioral and Genetic Level

Journal of Business and Psychology - Previous studies have examined how personality models (e.g., Big Five, HEXACO) relate to vocational interests. We adopt a novel approach by testing the...     

Longitudinal links between childhood peer acceptance and the neural correlates of sharing

Childhood peer acceptance is associated with high levels of prosocial behavior and advanced perspective taking skills. Yet, the neurobiological mechanisms underlying these associations have not been studied. This functional magnetic resonance imaging study examined the neural correlates of sharing decisions in a group of adolescents who had a stable accepted status (n = 27) and a group who had a chronic rejected status (n = 19) across six elementary school grades. Both groups of adolescents played three allocation games in which they could share money with strangers with varying costs and profits to them and the other person. Stably accepted adolescents were more likely to share their money with unknown others than chronically rejected adolescents when sharing was not costly. Neuroimaging analyses showed that stably accepted adolescents, compared to chronically rejected adolescents, exhibited higher levels of activation in the temporo‐parietal junction, posterior superior temporal sulcus, temporal pole, pre‐supplementary motor area, and anterior insula during costly sharing decisions. These findings demonstrate that stable peer acceptance across childhood is associated with heightened activity in brain regions previously linked to perspective taking and the detection of social norm violations during adolescence, and thereby provide insight into processes underlying the widely established links between peer acceptance and prosocial behavior.     

Developmental differences in prefrontal activation during working memory maintenance and manipulation for different memory loads

The ability to keep information active in working memory is one of the cornerstones of cognitive development. Prior studies have demonstrated that regions which are important for working memory performance in adults, such as dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC), and superior parietal cortex, become increasingly engaged across school-aged development. The primary goal of the present functional MRI study was to investigate the involvement of these regions in the development of working memory manipulation relative to maintenance functions under different loads. We measured activation in DLPFC, VLPFC, and superior parietal cortex during the delay period of a verbal working memory task in 11-13-year-old children and young adults. We found evidence for age-related behavioral improvements in working memory and functional changes within DLPFC and VLPFC activation patterns. Although activation profiles of DLPFC and VLPFC were similar, group differences were most pronounced for right DLPFC. Consistent with prior studies, right DLPFC showed an interaction between age and condition (i.e. manipulation versus maintenance), specifically at the lower loads. This interaction was characterized by increased activation for manipulation relative to maintenance trials in adults compared to children. In contrast, we did not observe a significant age-dependent load sensitivity. These results suggest that age-related differences in the right DLPFC are specific to working memory manipulation and are not related to task difficulty and/or differences in short-term memory capacity.     

Development of trust and reciprocity in adolescence

We investigate the development of two types of prosocial behavior, trust and reciprocity, as defined using a game-theoretical task that allows investigation of real-time social interaction, among 4 age groups from 9 to 25 years. By manipulating the possible outcome alternatives, we could distinguish among important determinants of trust and reciprocity that are related to the risk and benefit of trusting. The results demonstrate age-related changes in sensitivity to outcome for others from late childhood until late adolescence, with different developmental trajectories for trust and reciprocity and differential sensitivity to risk and benefit for self and others.     

Developmental change in feedback processing as reflected by phasic heart rate changes

Heart rate was recorded from 3 age groups (8-10, 12, and 20-26 years) while they performed a probabilistic learning task. Stimuli had to be sorted by pressing a left versus right key, followed by positive or negative feedback. Adult heart rate slowed following negative feedback when stimuli were consistently mapped onto the left or right key (response-dependent condition) but not when responses to stimuli were always followed by negative feedback (uninformative condition). Young children's heart rate showed slowing following both response-dependent and uninformative negative feedback. These findings suggest that the ability to assess the relevance of performance feedback improves with age, resulting in improved adjustment to dynamical changes in the task environment.     

A heart rate analysis of developmental change in feedback processing and rule shifting from childhood to early adulthood

Over the course of development, the ability to switch between different tasks on the basis of feedback cues increases profoundly, but the role of performance monitoring remains unclear. Heart rate indexes can provide critical information about how individuals monitor feedback cues indicating that performance should be adjusted. In this study, children of three age groups (8-10, 12-14, and 16-18 years) performed a rule change task in which sorting rules needed to be detected following positive or negative feedback. The number of perseverative errors was lower for 16- to 18-year-olds than for 8- to 10-year-olds, and 12- to 14-year-olds performed at an intermediate level. Consistent with previous findings, heart rate slowed following feedback indicating a rule change, and the magnitude of slowing was similar for all age groups. Thus, 8- to 10-year-olds are already able to analyze feedback cues. In contrast, 12- to 14-year-olds and 16- to 18-year-olds, but not 8- to 10-year-olds, showed heart rate slowing following performance errors, suggesting that with age children are increasingly able to monitor their performance online. Performance monitoring may therefore be an important contributor to set-shifting ability.     

Design and Feasibility of an Intervention to Support Cancer Genetic Counselees in Informing their At-Risk Relatives

Cancer genetic counselees receive individualized information regarding heightened risks and medical recommendations which is also relevant for their at-risk relatives. Unfortunately, counselees often insufficiently inform these relatives. We designed an intervention aimed at improving counselees’ knowledge regarding which at-risk relatives to inform and what information to disclose, their motivation to disclose, and their self-efficacy. The intervention, offered by telephone by trained psychosocial workers, is based on the principles of Motivational Interviewing. Phase 1 of the intervention covers agenda setting, exploration, and evaluation, and phase 2 includes information provision, enhancing motivation and self-efficacy, and brainstorming for solutions to disseminate information within the family. Fidelity and acceptability of the intervention were assessed using recordings of intervention sessions and by counselee self-report. A total of 144 counselees participated. Psychosocial workers (n = 5) delivered the intervention largely as intended. Counselees highly appreciated the content of the intervention and the psychosocial workers who delivered the intervention. In the sessions, psychosocial workers provided additional and/or corrective information, and brainstorming for solutions was performed in 70 %. These results indicate that this intervention is feasible and warrants testing in clinical practice. For this, a randomized controlled trial is currently in progress to test the intervention’s efficacy.     

Fairness considerations: Increasing understanding of intentionality during adolescence

The development of fairness considerations in decision making is not well understood. Here we tested the hypothesis that increased understanding of intentionality during adolescence underlies increased fairness considerations in social decision making. We conducted three experiments using an adapted version of the Ultimatum Game with participants during four stages of adolescence: 9, 12, 15, and 18 years of age. Participants made or evaluated monetary offers, and we manipulated the intentionality context of offers. Results show that strategic thinking is already present at 9 years of age. There was no age difference in fairness of offers when the responder could not reject an offer (Experiment 1), but when they could reject an offer there was an age-related increase in taking into account the perspective and intentionality of other players when making offers (Experiment 2) and evaluating offers (Experiment 3). Taken together, the results demonstrate a linear developmental transition in fairness considerations that may have important implications for our understanding of social interactions during adolescence.