Evaluating the evaluator: The effects of the valence,sequence and target of evaluations on the perception of the evaluator

People commonly want to be perceived as intelligent, as well as be liked by others. Previous research has demonstrated that people who wish to appear intelligent tend to criticise others, and that criticising others indeed leads to the perception of high intelligence. In the current research we hypothesised and found that this is not the case when (a) the criticism is targeted towards the people who form the impression, and (b) the criticism is targeted towards those with whom the people who form the impression have just interacted. In both cases, participants in our study liked evaluators less when they used criticism than when they used praise. Moreover, they perceived the evaluators as less intelligent. We also demonstrated that in cases of mixing praise with criticism, the sequence of the evaluation interacted with the target of the evaluation in influencing liking. We found a greater liking for evaluators whose evaluation changed from negative to positive rather than vice versa, but only when the perceiver was the target of the evaluation. The discussion centres on the potential underlying mechanisms for these results, as well as on the practical applications of the results and directions for future research.     

The Politics of Trauma Studies: What Can We Learn From Women Combatants' Experiences of Traumatic Events in Conflict Zones?

Wars, combat, and political developments triggered the study of trauma. Knowledge about trauma initially emerged from the experiences of men combatants in the battlefield. At a later stage, the study of trauma focused on women and children subject to violence and abuse. The current research suggests that additional aspects of trauma can be understood through the study of competent women exposed to traumatic events and not merely as victims of war or abuse. The study offers an analysis of women combatants' narratives of their exposure to traumatic events in conflict zones. Data were obtained from two focus groups and a series of 30 personal interviews of women veterans who served in the IDF. Interviewing women combat soldiers revealed a variety of narratives of their war experiences, including the intertwining of the emotional and the physical. The window to understanding the trauma was opened by analysis of the responses of the women combatants to potentially traumatic events rather than by focusing on post‐traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) per se. We emphasize the need for a critical perspective in the study of trauma and combat trauma and propose that there is value in engaging with and listening to diverse narratives of trauma.     

Dynamics of self-regulation: How (un)accomplished goal actions affect motivation

Two factors increase the motivation to adhere to a goal: goal commitment and lack of goal progress. When people ask about commitment, focusing on what they have accomplished (to date) signals to them high commitment and increases motivation. Conversely, when commitment is certain and people ask about goal progress, focusing on what they have yet to accomplish (to go) signals to them lack of progress and increases motivation. Accordingly, 4 studies show that emphasizing to-date information increases goal adherence when commitment is uncertain--that is, when participants study for a relatively unimportant exam, consume luxuries, fulfill a desire, and make first-time contributions to a charity. Conversely, emphasizing to-go information increases goal adherence when commitment is certain--that is, when participants study for an important exam, consume necessities, fulfill a need, and make repeated contributions to a charity.     

An ironic effect of monitoring closeness

Most theories of goal pursuit underscore the beneficial consequences of monitoring progress towards goals. However, effects of affect labelling and dissociations between experience and meta-consciousness suggest that monitoring may not always facilitate goal pursuit. We predicted that in the case of pursuing interpersonal closeness, intense monitoring of progress would have a detrimental effect. We tested this hypothesis with the intimate conversation procedure, adapted from Aron, Melinat, Aron, Vallone, and Bator (1997). Participants in the closeness-monitoring condition asked themselves every five minutes in the course of a 45-minute interaction with a partner whether they felt any closer to their partner, whereas participants in the control condition monitored the room temperature. As predicted, intense monitoring interfered with achieving a feeling of closeness, as measured by sitting distance between pair members following the intimate conversation procedure. We discuss the possibility that monitoring would also be detrimental for achieving other goals that are internal states.     

Perseverative thought: a robust predictor of response to emotional challenge in generalized anxiety disorder and major depressive disorder

Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and major depressive disorder (MDD) frequently co-occur, yet the reasons for their comorbidity remain poorly understood. In the present experiment, we tested whether a tendency to engage in negative, repetitive thinking constitutes a common risk process for the two disorders. A mixed sample of adults with comorbid GAD–MDD (n = 50), GAD only (n = 35), MDD only (n = 34), or no lifetime psychopathology (n = 35) was administered noncontingent failure and success feedback on consecutive performance tasks. Perseverative thought (PT), measured by negative thought intrusions during a baseline period of focused breathing, emerged as a powerful prospective predictor of responses to this experimental challenge. Participants reporting more frequent negative thought intrusions at baseline, irrespective of thought content or diagnostic status, exhibited a stronger negative response to failure that persisted even after subsequent success. Higher PT over the course of the experiment was associated with later behavioral avoidance, with negative affect and other traits closely linked to anxiety and depression, and with the presence and severity of GAD and MDD. These findings provide evidence for a broadly-defined PT trait that is shared by GAD and MDD and contributes to adverse outcomes in these disorders.     

A meta-analysis of the effect of cognitive bias modification on anxiety and depression

Cognitive biases have been theorized to play a critical role in the onset and maintenance of anxiety and depression. Cognitive bias modification (CBM), an experimental paradigm that uses training to induce maladaptive or adaptive cognitive biases, was developed to test these causal models. Although CBM has generated considerable interest in the past decade, both as an experimental paradigm and as a form of treatment, there have been no quantitative reviews of the effect of CBM on anxiety and depression. This meta-analysis of 45 studies (2,591 participants) assessed the effect of CBM on cognitive biases and on anxiety and depression. CBM had a medium effect on biases (g = 0.49) that was stronger for interpretation (g = 0.81) than for attention (g = 0.29) biases. CBM further had a small effect on anxiety and depression (g = 0.13), although this effect was reliable only when symptoms were assessed after participants experienced a stressor (g = 0.23). When anxiety and depression were examined separately, CBM significantly modified anxiety but not depression. There was a nonsignificant trend toward a larger effect for studies including multiple training sessions. These findings are broadly consistent with cognitive theories of anxiety and depression that propose an interactive effect of cognitive biases and stressors on these symptoms. However, the small effect sizes observed here suggest that this effect may be more modest than previously believed.     

The end justifies the means, but only in the middle

Achieving goals often requires the completion of sequential actions, such as finishing a series of assignments to pass a class. In the course of pursuing such goals, people can decide how closely to follow their personal standards for each action. We propose that actions at the beginning and end of a sequence appear more diagnostic of the pursuer's personal standards than do actions in the middle. Therefore, people are more likely to adhere to their standards at the beginning and end of goal pursuit-and slack in the middle. We demonstrate this pattern of judgment and behavior in adherence to ethical standards (e.g., cheating), religious traditions (e.g., skipping religious rituals), and performance standards (e.g., "cutting corners" on a task). We also show that the motivation to adhere to standards by using proper means is independent and follows a different pattern from the motivation to reach the end state of goal pursuit.     

What we talked about at the pediatrician's office: Exploring differences between healthy steps and traditional pediatric primary care visits

Healthy Steps for Young Children (HS) is a program designed to enhance pediatric primary care experiences for children birth to 3 years and their families by pairing a developmental specialist with a pediatric provider during well‐child visits. This study examined the impact of HS on content discussed during well‐child visits by providers, HS Specialists, and families. The impact of HS on pediatric outcomes, including timeliness of well‐child visits and immunizations, also was examined. Using retrospective medical review, records of 40 children enrolled in HS were compared with records of 36 demographically matched controls. A developmental topics checklist was used to analyze content of well‐child visits. Attendance at well‐child visits, receipt of immunizations, and healthcare utilization also was evaluated. Important developmental topics were discussed more often during well‐child visits of children enrolled in HS than for children who were not enrolled. Children enrolled in HS received timelier well‐child visits and immunizations. No differences between groups were found in the number of sick or emergency room visits. Integrating HS Specialists into pediatric primary care well‐child visits allows for discussion of important developmental topics while also impacting pediatric health outcomes.     

Age-related changes in cognitive processing of moral and social conventional violations

Moral and conventional violations are usually judged differently: Only moral violations are treated as independent of social rules. To investigate the cognitive processing involved in the development of this distinction, undergraduates (N = 34), adolescents (N = 34), and children (N = 14) read scenarios presented on a computer that had 1 of 3 endings: moral violations, conventional violations, or neutral acts. Participants judged whether the act was acceptable or unacceptable in a condition in which social rules were assumed, or in a condition in which they imagined the absence of rules (rule-removed condition). At all ages reaction times (RTs) were faster for moral than conventional violations when a rule was assumed. RTs in the rule-removed condition were longer than in the rule-assumed condition, only for adults’ moral judgments. In addition to this age difference, adolescents made more normative judgments than children. These findings extend previous work by showing different time courses of processing conventional versus moral violations and revealing age-related differences in the tendency to make normative judgments.     

Together or apart: when goals and temptations complement versus compete

This research examined how the presentation of items related to goals and temptations influences the dynamic of self-regulation, as reflected in evaluation and choice. The authors found that when items, such as healthy and unhealthy foods or academic and leisure activities, are presented together in a unified choice set (e.g., in 1 image) and seem to complement each other, people express a positive evaluation of and a preference for tempting items. Conversely, when the items are presented apart from each other in 2 choice sets (e.g., 2 images) and seem to compete with each other, people express a positive evaluation of and preference for goal items.