Intoxicated eyewitnesses: The effect of a fully balanced placebo design on event memory and metacognitive control

Few studies have examined the impact of alcohol on metacognition for witnessed events. We used a 2 × 2 balanced placebo design, where mock witnesses expected and drank alcohol, did not expect but drank alcohol, did not expect nor drank alcohol, or expected but did not drink alcohol. Participants watched a mock crime in a bar‐lab, followed by free recall and a cued‐recall test with or without the option to reply “don't know” (DK). Intoxicated mock witnesses' free recall was less complete but not less accurate. During cued‐recall, alcohol led to lower accuracy, and reverse placebo participants gave more erroneous and fewer correct responses. Permitting and clarifying DK responses was associated with fewer errors and more correct responses for sober individuals; and intoxicated witnesses were less likely to opt out of erroneous responding to unanswerable questions. Our findings highlight the practical and theoretical importance of examining pharmacological effects of alcohol and expectancies in real‐life settings.     

The “analysis of competing hypotheses” in intelligence analysis

The intelligence community uses “structured analytic techniques” to help analysts think critically and avoid cognitive bias. However, little evidence exists of how techniques are applied and whether they are effective. We examined the use of the analysis of competing hypotheses (ACH)—a technique designed to reduce “confirmation bias.” Fifty intelligence analysts were randomly assigned to use ACH or not when completing a hypothesis testing task that had probabilistic ground truth. Data on analysts' judgement processes and conclusions were collected using written protocols that were then coded for statistical analyses. We found that ACH‐trained analysts did not follow all of the steps of ACH. There was mixed evidence for ACH's ability to reduce confirmation bias, and we observed that ACH may increase judgement inconsistency and error. It may be prudent for the intelligence community to consider the conditions under which ACH would prove useful and to explore alternatives.     

The Gift of the Non aliud: Creation from Nothing as a Metaphysics of Abundance

Although the doctrine of creation from nothing may seem to instantiate a metaphysics of privation, in which the creature’s existence is ultimately one of humiliation, further reflection shows that this conclusion is not justified. For God to be over against the creature as an other who might threaten its autonomy in this way would imply a gap between God’s will and creaturely substance that is inconsistent with creation ex nihilo, according to which creatures are other than God, but God, as the exclusive ground of creaturely existence, is ‘Not other’ than they. This point disrupts the relationships of privation or dependence that mark inner‐worldly acts of creating. To be (always only partly) dependent on a created other is indeed to be revealed as less than sufficient unto oneself; but to be (wholly) dependent on the ‘Not other’ is to be fully sufficient to fulfil the promise of one’s existence.     

Publication patterns in developmental psychology: Trends and social networks

Interest in publication patterns has been steady. Journals have instituted policies in an effort to curb bias and provide globally representative research. This study aimed to examine if publication patterns were present in two developmental psychology journals. It also explored the social networks of prominent authors and the prevalence of informal author–editor relationships, searching for any potential power groups. Data were taken from empirical articles published between 2005 and 2014 in Child Development (CD) and The International Journal of Early Childhood (IJEC) data points were geographical authorship affiliation, informal author relationships as established by co‐publishing, and connections to journal editors via identical affiliation. Results confirmed the previously established North American dominance in published research. In CD a strongly interlinked social network was identified between authors over the 10 years, with 15 chief influentialists binding groups of authors together. Results suggest that patterns are still present in published research in the realm of developmental psychology. To conclude, the potential implications of these patterns within developmental psychology are presented.     

Within or without: negotiating psychic space with an adolescent at risk of developing a narcissistic personality structure

This paper examines a 22-month once weekly psychotherapy with an adolescent young man. My patient was one of a group of adolescents who, due in part to excessive aggression, envy, anxiety or confusion, has chronically evaded the intimate and dependent psychic contact with others that is necessary for psychological development. In my view, this comes about through a combination of external factors and internal predisposition, with the quality of care received during infancy playing a crucial role. These adolescents appear to be developing narcissistic modes of being in the world which if allowed to persist into adulthood would be seen as deeply entrenched clinical psychopathology. Managing separation and loss is one of the central aspects of adolescence, but these young people tend to intrude or merge with others with such aggressive force that recognising difference between self and other becomes difficult. In psychotherapy, this often takes the form of the patient’s inability to tolerate experiencing the therapist as a separate person, and when knowledge of the therapist as separate impinges on their view, they frequently react in a variety of primitively destructive ways. This paper seeks to explore these central ideas through a detailed examination of psychotherapy with a young man in whom such struggles predominate.     

Perceptions of Engaging With a Super-Strengths Approach in Elite Sport

Strengths-based approaches (underpinned by positive psychology) are scarcely documented in sport. This study explored perceptions of a strengths-based approach (termed super-strengths) on psychological characteristics and performance in elite sport. Semistructured interviews were conducted with athletes (N = 12) who had previous experience of working with a sport psychology practitioner on super-strengths. Thematic analysis of the data indicated that super-strengths had a positive influence on athletes’ mind-set, confidence (e.g., self-belief), clarity of purpose (e.g., goal direction), drive, coping ability, and performance. Findings highlight the potential benefits of adopting strengths-based approaches in sport, and recommendations for future research are provided.     

The Effect of Manipulating Training Demands and Consequences on Experiences of Pressure in Elite Netball

Testing the efficacy of a pressure training framework (Stoker, Lindsay, Butt, Bawden, &; Maynard, 2016 Stoker, M., Lindsay, P., Butt, J., Bawden, M., &; Maynard, I. (2016). Elite coaches' experiences of creating pressure training environments. International Journal of Sport Psychology, 47(3), 262–281.[Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), the present study investigated whether manipulating training demands and consequences altered experiences of pressure. Elite Netballers (M_age = 26.14 years) performed a Netball exercise in a randomized, within-subject design with four conditions: a control, consequences, demands, and demands plus consequences condition. Compared with the control, self-reported pressure was significantly higher in the consequences and demands plus consequences condition but not in the demands condition. The findings provide mixed support for manipulating demands and strong support for manipulating consequences as a means for producing pressure.