Illusion of control in Internet users and college students.

When people try to obtain a desired event and this outcome occurs independently of their behavior, they often think that they are controlling its occurrence. This is known as the illusion of control, and it is the basis for most superstitions and pseudosciences. However, most experiments demonstrating this effect had been conducted many years ago and almost always in the controlled environment of the psychology laboratory and with psychology students as subjects. Here, we explore the generality of this effect and show that it is still today a robust phenomenon that can be observed even in the context of a very simple computer program that users try to control (and believe that they are controlling) over the Internet. Understanding how robust and general this effect is, is a first step towards eradicating irrational and pseudoscientific thinking.     

Web-based experiment control software for research and teaching on human learning

In this article we describe some of the experimental software we have developed for the study of associative human learning and memory. All these programs have the appearance of very simple video games. Some of them use the participants' behavioral responses to certain stimuli during the game as a dependent variable for measuring their learning of the target cue-outcome associations. Some others explicitly ask participants to rate the degree of relationship they perceive between the cues and the outcomes. These programs are implemented in Web pages using JavaScript, which allows their use both in traditional laboratory experiments as well as in Internet-based experiments.     

The Complex Use of Religion in Decisions on Organ Transplantation

Because of its existential character, organ transplantation is strongly connected to a person’s view of life. This article describes how participants in a focus group use religious elements in decision-making on transplantation medicine in four European countries. Further these findings are related to two influential theologians: James Gustafson and Paul Ramsey, and their thinking on the role of religion in medical ethics. Both participants’ and theologians’ use of religious elements is complex, and show significant variety in regard to both content and form. Decisions in transplantation medicine would benefit from considering the complexity of religious views when striving for informed consent as participative involvement.     

Autistic traits in mentalization-based treatment for concurrent borderline personality disorder and substance use disorder: Secondary analyses of a randomized controlled feasibility study

Autism is suggested to be a dimensional construct and often represents a comorbid state. However, research on the clinical implications of the presence of autistic traits is scarce. This study aimed to investigate the impact of subclinical autistic traits in mentalization-based treatment (MBT) for concurrent borderline personality disorder (BPD) and substance use disorder (SUD). Based on the data of a randomized controlled feasibility study by Philips, Wennberg, Konradsson, and Franck (2018), secondary analyses were conducted. It was tested, if patients’ (N = 46) levels of autistic traits were associated with treatment outcome measured in the course of and after treatment using interviews and self-report measures. Participants’ autistic traits were not associated with the change in the severity of BPD throughout and at the end of the treatment. However, results showed associations between autistic traits and the change in patients’ consumption of alcohol in the course of MBT. Furthermore, there was an association between autistic traits and the change in mentalizing capacity at the end of MBT, indicating that elevated autistic traits were associated with an improvement in mentalizing capacity. Autistic traits on a subclinical level do not appear to be a complicating factor in MBT for concurrent BPD and SUD. On the contrary, in terms of mentalizing capacity autistic traits might be associated with a larger potential for improvement or facilitate treatment outcome. Further research is needed to explore the role of higher autistic traits in treatment of this special patient group.     

A Forward Bias in Human Profile-Oriented Portraits

The spatial composition of human portraits obeys historically changing cultural norms. We show that it is also affected by cognitive factors that cause greater spontaneous attention to what is in front rather in the back of an agent. Scenes with more space in front of a directed object are both more often produced and judged as more aesthetically pleasant. This leads to the prediction that, in profile-oriented human portraits, compositions with more space in front of depicted agents (a “forward bias”) should be over-represented. By analyzing a large dataset (total N of 1,831 paintings by 582 unique identified European painters from the 15th to the 20th century), we found evidence of this forward bias: Painters tended to put more free space in front of, rather than behind, the sitters. Additionally, we found evidence that this forward bias became stronger when cultural norms of spatial composition favoring centering became less stringent.     

Studying psychotherapy change in narrative terms: The innovative moments method

This paper aims to describe the Innovative Moments (IM) Coding System (IMCS), an idiographic and transtheoretical methodology that allows the identification of IMs—markers of changes in the client's initial maladaptive framework of meaning—throughout psychotherapy. The present study introduces the theoretical background underlying this methodology, along with the main empirical findings resulting from former studies that have applied this tool to clinical data. The IMCS application is also detailed: the coding phases, the training steps and inter‐rater agreement measures. In order to illustrate the application of IM coding, a case study is presented. Although a partial coding was used, the results are in line with previous research. Discussion is centred on the usefulness of the IMCS for the advance of process research in psychotherapy, and the potential use of this methodology in group format.     

Augmentation in contingency learning under time pressure

Recent research suggests that cue competition effects in human contingency learning, such as blocking, are due to higher‐order cognitive processes. Moreover, some experimental reports suggest that the effect opposite to blocking, augmentation, could occur in experimental preparations that preclude the intervention of reasoning mechanisms. In the present research, we tested this hypothesis by investigating cue interaction effects in an experimental task in which participants had to enter their responses under time pressure. The results show that under these conditions, augmentation, instead of blocking, is observed.