Sometimes,often, and always: Exploring the vague meanings of frequency expressions

The article describes a general two-step procedure for the numerical translation of vague linguistic terms (LTs). The suggested procedure consists of empirical and model components, including (1) participants’ estimates of numerical values corresponding to verbal terms and (2) modeling of the empirical data using fuzzy membership functions (MFs), respectively. The procedure is outlined in two studies for data from N = 89 and N = 109 participants, who were asked to estimate numbers corresponding to 11 verbal frequency expressions (e.g., sometimes). Positions and shapes of the resulting MFs varied considerably in symmetry, vagueness, and overlap and are indicative of the different meanings of the vague frequency expressions. Words were not distributed equidistantly across the numerical scale. This has important implications for the many questionnaires that use verbal rating scales, which consist of frequency expressions and operate on the premise of equidistance. These results are discussed for an exemplar questionnaire (COPSOQ). Furthermore, the variation of the number of prompted LTs (5 vs. 11) showed no influence on the words’ interpretations.     

Approaching Religiosity/Spirituality and Health from the Eudaimonic Perspective

Religiosity/spirituality (RS) has been linked to positive health outcomes across a large number of studies, with these effects seen most strongly among disadvantaged groups such as minorities, women, and those of lower socioeconomic status (SES). Given that disadvantaged groups typically have worse health outcomes and not better, it is not clear why the effects of RS are stronger for disadvantaged groups. A key difficulty in understanding the relationship between RS and health lies in the theoretical perspectives used in research. Health and well‐being is typically assessed from the hedonic perspective which emphasizes pleasure and happiness as important outcomes and assumes that difficult life situations contribute to negative health. The eudaimonic perspective, on the other hand, emphasizes meaning and relationships, and assumes that difficult life situations can contribute to increased meaning in life and stronger relationships. The eudaimonic perspective provides a better framework for understanding why RS leads to better health for disadvantaged groups for three reasons. First, having meaning in life and strong relationships are related to positive health outcomes and buffer the negative effects of stress. Second, in addition to being more religious, disadvantaged groups report lower hedonic well‐being and report higher eudaimonic well‐being. Third, low SES religious individuals have better than expected health outcomes and low SES materialistic individuals have worse than expected health outcomes. Overall, the eudaimonic perspective better accounts for the research findings in RS and health and provides a strong foundation for future research in this area.     

Psychosoziale Belastungen von Bahnpendlern

The increasing number of commuters in our society raises the question of the consequences, in particular of psychiatric and somatic symptoms and the quality of life. A total of 407 commuters at the main railway stations in Stuttgart and Ulm (southern Germany) were included in a study in order to assess the psychiatric symptoms of commuters and if they are able to make use of psychosocial care despite the long periods of time spent commuting to work. An important result was that especially long-term commuters pay a high price: 31.3% of male and 37.3% of female commuters exceeded the cut-off point for psychiatric illness in the Outcome Questionnaire (OQ-45.2). The high prevalence of psychiatric disorders coincides with a high rate of unmet needs so that a high rate of false and under-treatment for commuters can be assumed.     

Thinking About Your Thoughts: Investigating Different Cognitive Change Strategies

A mainstay technique of cognitive therapy is the cognitive error (CE) method, which aims to mitigate psychological distress by identifying logical errors in thinking and replacing them with alternative, adaptive cognitions. Monson and Fredman (2012) have developed a different cognitive change strategy, named the U.N.S.T.U.C.K., which is predicated on the notion of increasing cognitive flexibility to improve distress. This therapy analogue study (N?=?32) examined the emotional change produced by each strategy and initially tested each strategy??s underlying theory. Both strategies resulted in emotional change, and there was a marginally significant advantage of the U.N.S.T.U.C.K. in producing this change. The U.N.S.T.U.C.K. also resulted in a greater decline in belief in original thought over time. Finally, the interaction between level of belief in new thought and cognitive strategy was a marginally significant predictor of emotional change; there was a stronger relationship between belief in new thought and emotional change for those in the U.N.S.T.U.C.K. group. Limitations and future research directions are offered.     

Handedness differences in information framing

Previous research has shown that strength of handedness predicts differences in sensory illusions, Stroop interference, episodic memory, and beliefs about body image. Recent evidence also suggests handedness differences in the susceptibility to common decision biases such as anchoring and sunk cost. The present paper extends this line of work to attribute framing effects. Sixty-three undergraduates were asked to advise a friend concerning the use of a safe allergy medication during pregnancy. A third of the participants received negatively-framed information concerning the fetal risk of the drug (1–3% chance of having a malformed child); another third received positively-framed information (97–99% chance of having a normal child); and the final third received no counseling information and served as the control. Results indicated that, as predicted, inconsistent (mixed)-handers were more responsive than consistent (strong)-handers to information changes and readily update their beliefs. Although not significant, the data also suggested that only inconsistent handers were affected by information framing. Theoretical implications as well as ongoing work in holistic versus analytic processing, contextual sensitivity, and brain asymmetry will be discussed.     

Desire for social contact,not empathy,may explain “rescue” behavior in rats

Ben-Ami Bartal et al. (Science 334:1427–1430, 2011) showed that a rat in an open space (free rat) would touch the front door of a restraining tube to open its rear door, thereby enabling a rat trapped within (trapped rat) to enter a larger space that was farther away from the free rat. Since opening the rear door distanced the trapped rat from the free rat, Ben-Ami Bartal et al. argued free-rat behavior could not be motivated by the pursuit of social contact. Instead, this rat was empathically motivated, its goal being to reduce the presumed distress of the rat trapped in the restraining tube. In two experiments, we show that (a) a free rat will not learn to touch the front door to open the rear door when it is the first condition of the experiment; (b) over time, a trapped rat will often return to a restraining tube despite its presumed aversiveness; and (c) a free rat experienced in touching the front door will continue to touch it even if touching does not free the trapped rat. We explain these results and Ben-Ami Bartal et al.’s in terms of two processes, neophobia and the pursuit of social contact. When first placed in a restraining tube, neophobia causes the trapped rat to escape the tube when the rear door is opened. Across sessions, neophobia diminishes, permitting the rats’ pursuit of social contact to emerge and dominate free- and trapped-rat behavior.     

Why do People Disagree? Explaining and Endorsing the Possibility of Partiality in Judgments

The current study examines developing changes in children's intuitions about why disagreements about decisions might occur, focusing on what children understand about partiality and how it may vary depending on the context. Eighty children ages 6 to 13 years old and 20 adults were presented with stories in which there was a disagreement with the judge about who the winner of a contest should be. Participants were asked to generate their own explanations for why the disagreement may have occurred and to evaluate the plausibility of different explanations provided by the experimenter. Even 6-year-olds generated and endorsed partiality as a possible explanation for disagreement, although they did so at a lower rate than older children. A richer understanding of how context influences both the reasons for disagreement and the likelihood of partiality seems to develop over childhood.     

Imaginary Worlds in Middle Childhood: A Qualitative Study of Two Pairs of Coordinated Paracosms

Imagining alternatives to actual experiences is an important part of everyday life that can take many forms. One manifestation in middle childhood is the creation of elaborate imaginary worlds, called paracosms. Retrospective reports of adults indicate that having a childhood paracosm is more commonly reported in individuals acknowledged for being highly creative. In this study, we interviewed four children aged 10 to 12 years with interconnected paracosms about the details of their imagined worlds. Our findings indicated that paracosms served as a platform for social activity with friends, a way to explore real world interests (e.g., geography, language), and a vehicle for engaging in creative pursuits (e.g., drawing, storytelling).     

Limits of the Retrieval-Inhibition Construct: List Segregation in Directed Forgetting

The authors hypothesized that retrieval inhibition in list method directed forgetting could be improved by presenting a task that maximized the segregation step of the retrieval-inhibition process. In Experiment 1, they presented lists of semantically related words in a list method directed-forgetting task to maximize retrieval inhibition. Contrary to predictions, this manipulation eliminated the directed-forgetting effect. The authors further investigated the results of Experiment 1 in Experiments 2 and 3 by manipulating recall instructions and by presenting lists that contained both a categorized and an unrelated list-half. They found directed-forgetting effects for semantically related word lists when participants were asked to recall only the TBR (to-be-remembered) items but not when participants were asked to recall both the TBF (to-be-forgotten) and TBR items. They also found that directed-forgetting effects were not produced when categorized items were presented in the 1st list.     

Beyond emotional benefits: Physical activity and sedentary behaviour affect psychosocial resources through emotions

Physical activity is known to improve emotional experiences, and positive emotions have been shown to lead to important life outcomes, including the development of psychosocial resources. In contrast, time spent sedentary may negatively impact emotional experiences and, consequently, erode psychosocial resources. Two studies tested whether activity independently influenced emotions and psychosocial resources, and whether activity indirectly influenced psychosocial resources through emotional experiences. Using cross-sectional (Study 1a) and longitudinal (Study 1b) methods, we found that time spent physically active independently predicted emotions and psychosocial resources. Mediation analyses suggested that emotions may account for the relation between activity and psychosocial resources. The improved emotional experiences associated with physical activity may help individuals build psychosocial resources known to improve mental health. Study 1a provided first indicators to suggest that, in contrast, sedentary behaviour may reduce positive emotions, which could in turn lead to decrements in psychosocial resources.