Decision-making in healthy children, adolescents and adults explained by the use of increasingly complex proportional reasoning rules

In the standard Iowa Gambling Task (IGT), participants have to choose repeatedly from four options. Each option is characterized by a constant gain, and by the frequency and amount of a probabilistic loss. Crone and van der Molen (2004) reported that school-aged children and even adolescents show marked deficits in IGT performance. In this study, we have re-analyzed the data with a multivariate normal mixture analysis to show that these developmental changes can be explained by a shift from unidimensional to multidimensional proportional reasoning (Siegler, 1981; Jansen & van der Maas, 2002). More specifically, the results show a gradual shift with increasing age from (a) guessing with a slight tendency to consider frequency of loss to (b) focusing on frequency of loss, to (c) considering both frequency and amount of probabilistic loss. In the latter case, participants only considered options with low-frequency loss and then chose the option with the lowest amount of loss. Performance improved in a reversed task, in which punishment was placed up front and gain was delivered unexpectedly. In this reversed task, young children are guessing with already a slight tendency to consider both the frequency and amount of gain; this strategy becomes more pronounced with age. We argue that these findings have important implications for the interpretation of IGT performance, as well as for methods to analyze this performance.     

Globalization, Neo-Liberalism and Community Psychology

A longitudinal analysis (1984–2005) of media language in Norway is presented, demonstrating how the current globalized capitalist market ideology is now permeating this long-established Scandinavian welfare state. This ideological shift carries powerful implications for community psychology, as traditional welfare state values of equal services based on a universalistic principle are set aside, and social and material inequalities are increasingly accepted. The methodology developed in the present study may serve as a “barometer of community changes”, to borrow a metaphor used by Sarason (2000).     

Changes in the visual threshold as a function of subception

In a previous paper (Dixon, 1958b) one of the authors reported an experiment which suggested that apparent changes in the threshold for one eye occur as a function of the emotionality of stimulus material presented below threshold to the other eye. The following experiment describes an attempt to investigate further the validity of this conclusion. The results are consistent with those from the previous research.     

Psychological characteristics of elderly insomniacs

Sixty insomniacs, aged 60 years or over, fulfilling the DSM-IV criteria for primary insomnia, completed a set of questionnaires measuring psychological distress. These included the Sleep Impairment Index (SIM), the Symptom Check List 90-Revised (SCL-90-R), the Penn State Worry Questionnaire (PSWQ), the Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20 (TAS-20) and the Elders Life Stress Inventory (ELSI). The insomniacs were compared on these measures with two contrast groups, one of elderly good sleepers and one an elderly community sample. As norms were developed for the SCL-90-R and PSWQ, insomniacs were also contrasted with the norm groups on these measures. In general, the results indicated a higher level of psychological distress among insomniacs than among the good sleepers, while there were negligible differences between insomniacs and the community sample on most measures. Overall, elderly insomniacs scored higher on measures of worry compared with the other groups, followed by measures of somatization, obsessive-compulsion and depression. It is concluded that excessive worrying was the most characteristic feature of elderly insomniacs.     

Preparatory processes in the task-switching paradigm: evidence from the use of probability cues

The purpose of the investigations was to dissociate processes of task preparation from task execution in the task-switching paradigm. The basic assumption was that task repetitions have 2 advantages over task shifts: an activation advantage as a result of the execution of the same task type in the pretrial, and an expectation advantage, because participants, in general, implicitly expect a repetition. In Experiments 1-3, the authors explicitly manipulated expectancies by presenting cues that announced a shift and/or a repetition with probabilities of 1.00, .75, .50, or .25. Increasing latencies with decreasing probability for shifts and repetitions show that the expectation advantage can be equalized by preparation. However, the activation advantage represented by constant shift costs between tasks of the same probability is not penetrable by preparation. In Experiments 4 and 5, the authors found evidence that preparation involves activation of the expected task and inhibition of distracting tasks.     

A forced-attention dichotic listening fMRI study on 113 subjects

We report fMRI and behavioral data from 113 subjects on attention and cognitive control using a variant of the classic dichotic listening paradigm with pairwise presentations of consonant-vowel syllables. The syllable stimuli were presented in a block-design while subjects were in the MR scanner. The subjects were instructed to pay attention to and report either the left or right ear stimulus. The hypothesis was that paying attention to the left ear stimulus (FL condition) induces a cognitive conflict, requiring cognitive control processes, not seen when paying attention to the right ear stimulus (FR condition), due to the perceptual salience of the right ear stimulus in a dichotic situation. The FL condition resulted in distinct activations in the left inferior prefrontal gyrus and caudate nucleus, while the right inferior frontal gyrus and caudate were activated in both the FL and FR conditions, and in a non-instructed (NF) baseline condition.     

Ideology and Social Psychology

This article takes as critical point of departure the currently individualized nature of mainstream social psychology. It is argued that by using the concept of ideology, social psychology may be transformed into a more societal social psychology and thereby a discipline more relevant to individual, society and social life. Based on the interplay between language usage and ideology, moreover, a methodology for assessing ideological changes in society by identifying shifts in language usage in the public discourse (newspapers) is presented. Research conducted by this methodology, including comparative studies of how the globalized neoliberalism with its strong individualism merges with local ideologies in various societies around the world is then reviewed. Finally, analyses of a society’s ideological reactions upon terrorism, is presented.     

Burnout in the information technology sector: Does leadership matter?

The aim of the study was to examine subordinates' level of burnout in relation to how they perceive the leadership style of their direct superior. Subordinates (n = 289) in an Information Technology firm completed Maslach Burnout Inventory – General Survey, and rated their superior on the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire. High subordinate burnout was defined as high exhaustion, high cynicism, and low professional efficacy. A structural equation model revealed that transformational leadership was significantly related to cynicism and professional efficacy, while passive-avoidance was significantly related to exhaustion and cynicism. Transactional leadership was not linked to burnout. Neuroticism in subordinates was directly related to all burnout components. The link between passive-avoidant leadership and burnout's key component exhaustion indicates perception of negative leadership behaviours is more important for burnout than perception of positive leadership styles.