Inferring the popularity of an opinion from its familiarity: a repetitive voice can sound like a chorus

Despite the importance of doing so, people do not always correctly estimate the distribution of opinions within their group. One important mechanism underlying such misjudgments is people's tendency to infer that a familiar opinion is a prevalent one, even when its familiarity derives solely from the repeated expression of 1 group member. Six experiments demonstrate this effect and show that it holds even when perceivers are consciously aware that the opinions come from 1 speaker. The results also indicate that the effect is due to opinion accessibility rather than a conscious inference about the meaning of opinion repetition in a group. Implications for social consensus estimation and social influence are discussed.     

Is Psychology Based on a Methodological Error?

It is believed a proven fact that variables in social and personality psychology match to normal distribution with its single peak. Multiple peaks are explained by independent variables. However, after a comprehensive data analysis of more than 8.000 patients and on the basis of a bio-psycho-social model with 27 scales, we arrived at the conclusion that normal distribution and the psychometric error theory cannot withstand critical analysis in large samples. Beyond the “truth” that is proved by distribution-dependent statistical inferences, there exists another “truth” that is denied by the empirical doctrine. This “truth” is influenced by compensatory belief systems and explains paradoxes in quality of life research. We hypothesize that items, referred to life risks are micro-stressors, triggering self-regulatory processes as a humanly inherent response, deeply anchored in human evolution. Especially when exposed to threatening experiences, self-focused attention generates amplified multimodal distributions and subverts the methodological premises by an ambivalence-bias between thrill and threat, hopes and fears, pleasure and pain, success and failure, etc. In this article we want to focus attention to the incommensurability between test theoretical axioms and the way people usually respond to self-focused items. We discuss basic distribution patterns and approach to an evolutionary theory of fluctuation of validity.

If It's Difficult to Pronounce, It Must Be Risky

ABSTRACT— Low processing fluency fosters the impression that a stimulus is unfamiliar, which in turn results in perceptions of higher risk, independent of whether the risk is desirable or undesirable. In Studies 1 and 2, ostensible food additives were rated as more harmful when their names were difficult to pronounce than when their names were easy to pronounce; mediation analyses indicated that this effect was mediated by the perceived novelty of the substance. In Study 3, amusement-park rides were rated as more likely to make one sick (an undesirable risk) and also as more exciting and adventurous (a desirable risk) when their names were difficult to pronounce than when their names were easy to pronounce.     

„Da wirst du ja auch bekloppt bei“

Given a growing demand of psychotherapeutic care the interest of students in a psychotherapeutic occupation is gaining relevance. At the same time psychoanalytic training institutions and societies have been confronted with a continuous decrease of candidates over the last decades. Psychology students, medical students and students of educational sciences (the latter only in the child and adolescent treatment sector) are admitted for a psychotherapeutic training approved by the health care insurances in Germany and have the possibility to choose between a behavioral or a psychodynamic oriented training. In the present multimethodological cross-sectional study those student groups (N?=?679) were questioned about their interest in a psychotherapeutic training in general and, if they proved to be interested, about their specific choice of training. Amongst psychology students the largest group of those interested in a psychotherapeutic training would opt for a behavioral education. Amongst medical students and students of pedagogy and social pedagogy a psychotherapeutic training is less frequently an option for their future career plans. Amongst the students of educational sciences, for those interested in training, psychodynamic methods are more often of interest. Possible reasons for the students' decisions in the context of the specific German legal situation are discussed.     

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Anxiety Disorders: Three Case Studies Exemplifying a Unified Treatment Protocol

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is an innovative acceptance-based behavior therapy that has been applied broadly and successfully to treat a variety of clinical problems, including the anxiety disorders. Throughout treatment ACT balances acceptance and mindfulness processes with commitment and behavior change processes. As applied to anxiety disorders, ACT seeks to undermine excessive struggle with anxiety and experiential avoidance––attempts to down-regulate and control unwanted private events (thoughts, images, bodily sensations). The goal is to foster more flexible and mindful ways of relating to anxiety so individuals can pursue life goals important to them. This article describes in some detail a unified ACT protocol that can be adapted for use with persons presenting with any of the major anxiety disorders. To exemplify this approach, we present pre- and posttreatment data from three individuals with different anxiety disorders who underwent treatment over a 12-week period. The results showed positive pre- to posttreatment changes in ACT-relevant process measures (e.g., reductions in experiential avoidance, increases in acceptance and mindfulness skills), increases in quality of life, as well as significant reductions in traditional anxiety and distress measures. All three clients reported maintaining or improving on their posttreatment level of functioning.     

Das Ausmaß von Müdigkeit und Erschöpfbarkeit in der über 60-jährigen Normalbevölkerung in Deutschland

In a community-based random sample of 622 elderly persons over 60 years of age, fatigue was assessed by means of the multidimensional fatigue inventory (MFI; a self-assessment measure). Higher fatigue values were found with increasing age, particularly physical feelings of fatigue, reduced activity and reduced motivation. Fatigue was associated with depression, with a low health-related quality of life and with subjective physical complaints. Distinct fatigue symptoms in the elderly should therefore be regarded as possible indicators for somatic and/or psychological burdens and should receive diagnostic and therapeutic attention. In the present paper, mean values and percentiles for different age groups over 60 years are given as norm values for the normal population over 60 years of age.     

Service Experiences and Satisfaction Judgments: The Use of Affect and Beliefs in Judgment Formation

Recalling a service experience may increase the accessibility of relevant beliefs and affect an individual's temporary mood. We examine the interplay of mood and accessible beliefs in the construction of satisfaction judgments. We find that episodically recounting the specific service encounter results in assimilation effects on the satisfaction ratings of both the service provider and a competitive company. Analytically recounting the service encounter, on the other hand, results in assimilation effects for judgments of the service provider and effects in the direction of contrast for judgments of the competitive company. In this case, beliefs about the service provider appear to provide a comparison standard against which the competitive company is judged. Implications of these findings for measuring and managing consumer satisfaction are discussed.     

Masculinity and femininity: The role of desirability in the relationships among measures based on self-concept and personality traits

With data gathered from 96 female college students, intercorrelations were examined among self-concept ratings of masculinity and femininity, and scales from two personality-trait measures of masculinity and femininity—the Adjective Check List (ACL) and the Extended Personal Attributes Questionnaire (EPAQ). The sign and magnitude of the correlations between pairs of measures were successfully predicted on the basis of the congruence between measures of both the gender relevance and the desirability of the self-rated traits comprising each measure. The desirability of the trait items employed in self-report personality-trait scales of masculinity and femininity evidently introduces methods variance that can either inhibit or potentiate the relationship with other scales composed predominantly of either desirable or undesirable traits. When balanced for the desirability of trait items, personality-trait scores of masculinity and femininity were substantially inversely correlated with each other, and only marginally correlated with self-concept ratings of masculinity and femininity, but these correlations remained in the anticipated directions. This result is consistent with the findings of Pedhazur and Tetenbaum (“Bem Sex Role Inventory: A Theoretical and Methodological Critique,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1979, 37, 996–1016), and supports Spence's (Masculinity, Femininity, and Gender-Related Traits: A Conceptual Analysis and Critique of Current Research,” In B. A. Maher and W. B. Maher (Eds.), Progress in Experimental Research, Vol. XIII, Normal Personality Processes, New York: Academic Press, 1984) position that personality traits should be viewed as only one of many possible referents for gender/sex role identity.     

Behaviorally treated irritable bowel syndrome patients: a four-year follow-up

Nineteen of 27 patients suffering from Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) who had completed a multicomponent treatment involving progressive muscle relaxation, thermal biofeedback, cognitive therapy and IBS education were located and evaluated 4 yr posttreatment. Seventeen of 19 (89.5, or 63% of the total original sample) rated themselves as more than 50% improved. Six of the 12 patients (50%) who submitted symptom monitoring diaries met our criteria for clinical improvement, i.e. achieving at least a 50% reduction in primary IBS symptom scores. The means on all measures at long-term follow-up were lower than those obtained prior to treatment. When follow-up symptom means were compared with pretreatment means, significant (P less than 0.05) reductions were obtained on abdominal pain/tenderness, diarrhea, nausea, and flatulence.