“Playing by the Book”: Determinants of Children's Preference for Replicating and Originating Play

Play is children's most important daily behavior and when children play, they do so in multiple ways. With two studies, this paper explores how children perceive a continuum of two play types, namely replicating play (in which models, guidelines, and examples are used to reach an intended result) and originating play (in which children create something from the mind, think freely about how they will play, are less restricted by given models, etc.). Study 1 (N = 56, M_age = 9) quantitatively shows that both play types occur and tests if children also describe the play types as we define them. Results show that children who play originating (vs. replicating) believe they follow less (vs. more) rules and do their own thing more (vs. less), which verifies the definitions of both types of play. Study 2 includes 16 in-depth semi-structured interviews (M_age = 10) and shows which determinants children identify as triggers for engaging in play that has more replicating or more originating elements.     

Social anxiety and perceptions of likeability by peers in children

The current study aimed to investigate the discrepancy between self-reported and peer-reported likeability among children, and the relation with social anxiety, depression, and social support. In total, 532 children between 7 and 12 years completed questionnaires about social anxiety symptoms, depressive symptoms, and social support, estimated their own likeability, and indicated how much they liked their classmates. Children with higher levels of social anxiety or depression overestimated their likeability less or even underestimated their likeability. Social anxiety symptoms, but not depressive symptoms, were significant predictors of the discrepancy. Social support was positively related to likeability and negatively related to social anxiety, but did not moderate the association between social anxiety symptoms and perception accuracy of likeability. These results are in line with cognitive theories of childhood social anxiety, and they stress the importance of using multi-informant measures when studying the relation between social anxiety and social functioning in children.     

Sex-Stereotyped and Nonstereotyped Introductions of New Toys in the Preschool Classroom: An Observational Study of Teacher Behavior and Its Effects

In Study 1, the behavior of teachers in introducing sex-typed and nonsex-typed toys in the classroom was observed in nine preschool classes. Results indicated that teachers called on more boys to demonstrate a "masculine" toy than girls, p<01. No significant differences were found in the mean number of boys and girls called on to demonstrate "neutral" or "feminine" toys. However, teachers were more variable in demonstrating the sex-typed feminine toys than the nonstereotyped toy, p<05. In a second study, two sets of toys, each including five dolls and five trucks, were introduced using stereotyped and nonstereotyped introductions to two classes of 3- and 4-year-old children. No significant sex differences in toy choices were found following the nonstereotyped introductions. Following the stereotyped introductions, the children's toy choices were consistent with sex-role stereotypes. These results are consistent with laboratory studies suggesting that bias in the introduction of toys by adults may contribute to the sex-typing of specific activities.     

The Effect of PTSD Symptom Change on Suicidal Ideation in a Combined Military and Civilian Sample Engaged in Cognitive Processing Therapy

In light of the well-established relationship between posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and suicidal ideation (SI), there has been a push for treatments that simultaneously improve symptoms of PTSD and decrease SI. Using data from a randomized controlled hybrid implementation-effectiveness trial, the current study investigated the effectiveness of Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT; Resick, Monson, & Chard, 2016) on PTSD and SI. The patient sample (N = 188) was diverse in military and veteran status, gender, and comorbidity, and 73% of the sample endorsed SI at one or more points during CPT. Participants demonstrated significant improvement in SI over the course of CPT. Multilevel growth curve modeling revealed a significant association between PTSD symptom change and change in SI. Results from cross-lagged multilevel regressions indicated that PTSD symptoms predicted SI in the next session, yet SI in a given session did not predict PTSD symptoms in the next session. Potentially relevant clinical factors (i.e., military status, gender, depression diagnosis, baseline SI, study consultation condition) were not associated with the relationship between PTSD symptoms and SI. These results add to the burgeoning literature suggesting that evidence-based treatments for PTSD, like CPT, reduce suicidality in a range of individuals with PTSD, and that this reduction is predicted by improvements in PTSD symptoms.     

Reflective interventions: Enactivism and phenomenology on ways of bringing the body into intellectual engagement

Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences - When it comes to the body, the professional pedagogical field shows a paradoxical attitude: With regard to sense-oriented school subjects, educational...     

Essentialist Biases Toward Psychiatric Disorders: Brain Disorders Are Presumed Innate

A large campaign has sought to destigmatize psychiatric disorders by disseminating the view that they are in fact brain disorders. But when psychiatric disorders are associated with neurobiological correlates, laypeople's attitudes toward patients are harsher, and the prognoses seem poorer. Here, we ask whether these misconceptions could result from the essentialist presumption that brain disorders are innate. To this end, we invited laypeople to reason about psychiatric disorders that are diagnosed by either a brain or a behavioral test that were strictly matched for their informative value. Participants viewed disorders as more likely to be innate and immutable when the diagnosis was supported by a brain test as compared to a behavioral test. These results show for the first time that people spontaneously essentialize psychiatric conditions that are linked to the brain, even when the brain probe offers no additional diagnostic or genetic information. This bias suggests that people consider the biological essence of living things as materially embodied.     

Neurocognitive functioning in patients with conversion disorder/functional neurological disorder

Neurocognitive symptoms are common in individuals with somatic symptom and related disorders (SSRD), but little is known about the specific impairments in neurocognitive domains in patients with conversion disorder (CD)/functional neurological disorder (FND). This study examines neurocognitive functioning in patients with CD/FND compared to patients with other SSRD. The sample consisted of 318 patients. Twenty-nine patients were diagnosed with CD/FND, mean age 42.4, standard deviation (SD) = 13.8 years, 79.3% women, and 289 patients had other SSRD (mean age 42.1, SD = 13.3, 60.2% women). Patients completed a neuropsychological test battery that addressed a broad range of neurocognitive domains, including information processing speed, attention and executive functioning. Patients with CD/FND had clinically significant neurocognitive deficits in all neurocognitive domains based on normative data comparison. Patients with CD/FND also performed significantly worse than patients with other SSRD on information processing speed (Digit Symbol Substitution Test (V = .115, p = .035), Stroop Color–Word Test (SCWT) card 1 (V = .190, p = .006), and SCWT card 2 (V = .244, p < .001). No CD/FND vs. other SSRD differences were observed in other neurocognitive domains. These findings indicate the patients with CD/FND perform worse on information processing speed tests compared to patients with other SSRD.     

Humanistic psychology: Saybrook institute graduate school and research center

This article attempts to resolve the apparent tensions between humanistic and positive psychology regarding their respective notions of what constitutes a good life. It argues that an ethic of authenticity provides a unifying normative framework for both traditions, including interpretations of the various dimensions of authenticity and of the moral virtues and principles associated with this ethical ideal. The article provides a working definition of authentic selfhood that draws on both the existential-phenomenological tradition and the communitarian ethical framework associated with positive psychology. It demonstrates how these two very different philosophical traditions contribute to a shared, integrative theory of authentic self-development which, in turn, provides needed clarity to the normative framework of positive psychology.     

Power to the will: How exerting physical effort boosts the sense of agency

The sense of agency refers to the experience of being in control of one’s actions and their consequences. The 19th century French philosopher Maine de Biran proposed that the sensation of effort might provide an internal cue for distinguishing self-caused from other changes in the environment. The present study is the first to empirically test the philosophical idea that effort promotes self-agency. We used intentional binding, which refers to the subjective temporal attraction between an action and its sensory consequences, as an implicit measure of the sense of agency. Effort was manipulated independent of the primary task by requiring participants to pull stretch bands of varying resistance levels. We found that intentional binding was enhanced under conditions of increased effort. This suggests not only that the experience of effort directly contributes to the sense of agency, but also that the integration of effort as an agency cue is non-specific to the effort requirement of the action itself.     

On EMDR: Eye movements during retrieval reduce subjective vividness and objective memory accessibility during future recall

In eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR), a treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), patients make eye movements (EM) during trauma recall. Earlier experimental studies found that EM during recall reduces memory vividness during future recalls, and this was taken as laboratory support for the underlying mechanism of EMDR. However, reduced vividness was assessed with self-reports that may be affected by demand characteristics. We tested whether recall+EM also reduces memory vividness on a behavioural reaction time (RT) task. Undergraduates (N=32) encoded two pictures, recalled them, and rated their vividness. In the EM group, one of the pictures was recalled again while making EM. In the no-EM group one of the pictures was recalled without EM. Then fragments from both the recalled and non-recalled pictures, and new fragments were presented and participants rated whether these were (or were not) seen before. Both pictures were rated again for vividness. In the EM group, self-rated vividness of the recalled+EM picture decreased, relative to the non-recalled picture. In the no-EM group there was no difference between the recalled versus non-recalled picture. The RT task showed the same pattern. Reduction of memory vividness due to recall+EM is also evident from non-self-report data.