Increasing intolerance of uncertainty over time: the potential influence of increasing connectivity

Anxiety levels have increased for several decades, despite objective indicators of historically unprecedented safety. A perceived inability to tolerate uncertainty or distress motivates individuals experiencing anxiety to engage in safety behaviors. Mobile phones provide unrestricted access to safety cues intended to reduce uncertainty and therein anxiety; however, recurrent engagement in reassurance seeking behaviors paradoxically increases anxiety. The current research was designed to assess whether self-reported intolerance of uncertainty (IU) levels may have been increasing and, if so, whether the increases correlate positively with mobile phone penetration and Internet usage. A cross-temporal meta-analysis was conducted using data from 52 North American studies exploring IU as well as social indicator data from several public sources. A statistically significant increase in IU levels occurred from 1999 to 2014, correlated with increases in mobile phone penetration and Internet usage. As hypothesized, IU levels appeared to be increasing over time and the increases correlate positively with mobile phone penetration and Internet usage. The results support the possibility that mobile phones increase reassurance seeking, acting as safety cues, and reducing spontaneous, everyday exposures to uncertainty, which may ultimately potentiate psychopathology by increasing IU and anxiety. Subsequent experimental research to assess for causality appears warranted. Limitations and directions for future research are presented.     

Lessons for an Outsider:A Family Therapist's Experience in Bolivia

This is a reflection on cross-cultural therapy from the perspective of a practitioner and trainer who is an outsider to the culture in which she is working. The context is work in Bolivia. The therapist's own position, the process of interaction and the influences on the family of its context are considered. Cultural notes are provided to highlight what an outsider may represent, and the legitimacy of his involvement and intervention in family situations. Themes frequently encountered in therapy are reviewed including jealousy, violence and the changing societal relationship between men and women. The usefulness of getting to know the cultural background of such themes, including the possibility of exploring them anew in therapy, is examined. Finally, a case study is presented related to the themes which also illustrates the adaptation of process to fit patient's culturally related expectations.     

Age-related changes in verbal and nonverbal memory during early childhood

In the present experiment, age-related changes in verbal and nonverbal memory performance by 2- to 4-year-old children were assessed. All children participated in the same unique event, and their memory of that event was assessed after a 24-hr delay. Overall, children's performance on each memory measure increased as a function of age. Furthermore, children's performance on both the verbal and nonverbal memory tests was related to their language ability; children with more advanced language skills reported more during the verbal interview and exhibited superior nonverbal memory relative to children with less advanced language skills. Finally, children's verbal recall of the event lagged behind both their nonverbal recall and their general verbal skill. It is hypothesized that despite large strides in language acquisition. preschool-age children continue to rely primarily on nonverbal representations of past events. The findings have important implications for the phenomenon of childhood amnesia.     

Negative emotional appraisal selectively disrupts retrieval of expected outcome values required for goal-directed instrumental choice*

Stress induction reduces people's ability to modify their instrumental choices following changes in the value of outcomes, but the mechanisms underpinning this effect have not been specified because previous studies have lacked crucial control conditions. To address this, the current study had participants learn two instrumental responses for food and water, respectively, before water was devalued by specific satiety. Choice between these two responses was then measured in extinction, reacquisition and Pavlovian to instrumental transfer (PIT) tests. Concurrently during these tests, a negative emotional appraisal group evaluated aversive images (stress induction), whereas a control group evaluated neutral images, at the same time as choosing between the two instrumental responses. Negative emotional appraisal abolished the impact of water devaluation on instrumental choice in the extinction test, but did not affect instrumental choice in the reacquisition or PIT tests. These findings suggest that negative emotional appraisal selectively impaired participants’ ability to retrieve the expected value of outcomes required to make goal-directed instrumental choices in the extinction test, and that this effect was not due to task disengagement, nullification of the devaluation treatment or impaired knowledge of response-outcome relationships.     

The effects of intervening experiences on children's memory for a physical examination

To examine the extent to which children's long‐term retention is influenced (both positively and negatively) by intervening events, the impact of three programmed experiences on later recall of the details of a physical examination was explored. Four groups of 3‐ and 5‐year‐olds were established, with all children being interviewed immediately after their check‐ups and then again after 12 weeks. The groups, however, differed in terms of their experiences midway through the delay interval. At each age level, children in three experimental groups received either a complete interview about the physical examination, a return visit to the pediatrician's office, or an opportunity to view a videotape that showed a child receiving an actual check‐up. Children in a fourth group served as controls in that they were not seen during the delay period. Recall of standard features was scored, along with responses to questions concerning procedures that did not occur. The results indicated mixed mnemonic effects for the differential intervening experiences. In comparison to the control group, children at each age who had received an additional interview or who had observed the videotape showed elevated open‐ended recall at the 12‐week interview. In addition, the videotape manipulation, as well as the return visit to the doctor's office, was associated with a marked decrease in the 5‐ but not the 3‐year‐olds' accuracy regarding questions about activities not included in the physical examinations. The results are discussed in terms of factors that affect the facilitation and distortion of memory over long temporal delays. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An examination of behavioral consistency using individual behaviors or groups of behaviors in serial homicide

Establishing behavioral consistency in serial homicide offending behavior is essential when linking homicides together and to a common offender. An examination of 35 serial homicide behaviors utilized by 90 offenders in 450 serial homicide cases was carried out to identify whether these offenders consistently performed the same behaviors across their series of homicides and whether it is more effective to examine individual behaviors or groupings of behaviors in order to identify behavioral consistency. This study provides the first empirically based evidence testing the use of using single behaviors as linking factors in linking homicide cases in a series, and shows that this method has inherent difficulties in accomplishing this, thus providing the first wave of empirical testing that questions current theories in the literature on serial homicide, which has suggested that signatures or specific key behaviors are important in understanding the consistency in an offender's behavior across the crimes. Recommendations for future studies on linking using signatures are suggested, including a more in-depth qualitative empirical evaluation of individual series.     

Visual self-recognition in mirrors and live videos: Evidence for a developmental asynchrony

Three experiments (N = 123) investigated the development of live-video self-recognition using the traditional mark test. In Experiment 1, 24-, 30- and 36-month-old children saw a live video image of equal size and orientation as a control group saw in a mirror. The video version of the test was more difficult than the mirror version with only the oldest children's performance approaching ceiling. In Experiment 2, most 24-month-olds showed self-recognition when presented with a TV-set that featured a mirror in place of a screen. This finding does not substantiate the possibility that expectations about what appears on TV are responsible for the asynchrony. In Experiment 3, children were given a mark-test involving only their legs. Again, a video version was more difficult than previously reported performance with mirrors, suggesting that the impossibility of eye-contact in video cannot explain this developmental asynchrony. The findings suggest that self-recognition can be added to the growing list of contexts in which 2-year-olds display what has been called a “video deficit” [Anderson, D. R., & Pempek, T. A. (2005). Television and very young children. American Behavioral Scientist, 48, 505–532].     

Social contract theory and the ethics of deception in consumer research

Deception of research participants is a pervasive ethical issue in experimental consumer research. Content analyses find as many as three-fourths of published human participant studies in our field involved some form of deception, almost all of which employed experimental methodologies. However, researchers have little guidance on the acceptability of the use of deception, notwithstanding the codes of root disciplines. We turn to theories of moral philosophy and use social contract theory specifically to identify conditions under which deception may be justified as morally permissible. Seven guiding principles for research practice are formulated and their implications for consumer researchers are identified, together with practical recommendations for decision making on studies involving deception.     

Both trace and delay conditioned eyeblink responding can be dissociated from outcome expectancy

Squire and colleagues have proposed that trace and delay eyeblink conditioning are fundamentally different kinds of learning: trace conditioning requires acquisition of a conscious declarative memory for the stimulus contingencies whereas delay conditioning does not. Declarative memory in trace conditioning is thought to generate conditioned responding through the activation of a conscious expectancy for when the unconditioned stimulus (US) is going to occur. Perruchet (1985) has previously shown that in a 50% partial reinforcement design it is possible to dissociate single cue delay eyeblink conditioning from conscious expectancy for the US by examining performance over runs of reinforced and nonreinforced trials. Clark, Manns, and Squire (2001) claim that this dissociation does not occur in trace eyeblink conditioning. In the present experiment we examined the Perruchet effect for short, moderate, and long trace intervals (600, 1000, and 1400 ms) and for the equivalent interstimulus intervals (ISIs) in a delay conditioning procedure. We found evidence for a dissociation of eyeblink CRs and US expectancy over runs regardless of whether there was a delay or a trace arrangement of cues. The reasons for the Perruchet effect are still unclear, but the present data suggest that it does not depend on a separate nondeclarative system of the type proposed by Squire and colleagues.