The unconscious side of Facebook: Do online social network profiles leak cues to users’ implicit motive dispositions?

In this study we investigated the links between motive dispositions and online social network (OSN) profile content. We assessed the achievement, affiliation and power motives via self- and peer-report. In addition, we used a projective test and two novel, affect based measures (involving affect ratings and EMG recordings) to assess implicit motives in the three content domains. Two observers independently coded motive-specific OSN content. Results showed that self-reports were linked to OSN content for the power domain. Peer-reports and measures of implicit motives were positively linked to OSN content across motive domains. In most cases, measures of implicit motives were still linked to OSN content after adjusting for self- and peer-reports. These results indicate that OSN profiles may leak cues to users’ implicit motives, which neither users themselves nor their peers are aware of. Implications for motive theory, motive assessment, and targeted online advertising will be discussed.     

Increased conspiracy beliefs among ethnic and Muslim minorities

In the present study, we tested whether Muslim minority members are more susceptible to conspiracy theories than majority members in the Netherlands. We examined conspiracy theories that are relevant (portraying the Muslim community as victim or Jewish people as perpetrators) and irrelevant for participants' Muslim identity (about the 2007 financial crisis, and other theories such as that the moon landings were fake). Results revealed that Muslims believed both identity‐relevant and irrelevant conspiracy theories more strongly than non‐Muslims. These differences could not be attributed to the contents of Muslim faith: Ethnic minority status exerted similar effects independent of Muslim identity. Instead, evidence suggested that feelings of both personal and group‐based deprivation independently contribute to belief in conspiracy theories. We conclude that feelings of deprivation lead marginalized minority members to perceive the social and political system as rigged, stimulating belief in both identity‐relevant and irrelevant conspiracy theories.     

Psychological Coping and Behavioral Adjustment Among Older Adults in Times of COVID-19: Exploring the Protective Role of Working Memory and Habit Propensity

Journal of Adult Development - The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health, well-being, and behavior is likely influenced by individual characteristics that determine one’s capacity...     

RD, ADHD, and their comorbidity from a dual route perspective

In order to achieve further insight into the comorbidity of reading disorder (RD) and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), lexical processing and rapid naming were studied in RD and ADHD. The Dual Route Cascaded model postulates that lexical processing contains two parallel processes: lexical route processing and sublexical route processing. An orthographic decision task and a phonological decision task were used to measure lexical and sublexical route processing, respectively. In addition, a rapid naming task was used to compare 27 children with RD, 18 children with ADHD, 20 children with ADHD+RD, and 29 controls. RD and ADHD shared impairments in accuracy of orthographic and phonological decision making as well as in rapid naming, which suggest that RD and ADHD may be overlapping disorders that share deficits in both lexical route and sublexical route processing. RD was dissociated from ADHD by being slower in both orthographical and phonological decision making that indicates unique deficits in RD on lexical and sublexical speed.     

Acts of betrayal. Reading the letters of Wilhelm Stekel to Sigmund Freud

Abstract

This paper presents a discussion of the previously unpublished correspondence between Stekel and Freud. The authors start with a brief overview of most important historic events and facts that constitute the context against which these letters should be read. The matters cover questions of publishing policy, personal priorities, and psychoanalytic principles. The authors suggest that the Stekel letters may have been preserved by Freud as evidence of the latter's estrangement from him, as tokens of betrayal. A minute discussion of the correspondence makes it possible to discuss day-to-day developments in this fateful relation, taking into account Stekel's side of the story for the first time as well, highlighting the backfiring of a strategic maneuver by Stekel to psychoanalyse the Freud family, which heralded his downfall, and also revealing the role that Victor Tausk played in this. The paper concludes with a discussion of the dialectics of estrangement.     

Brightness differences influence the evaluation of affective pictures

We explored the possibility of a general brightness bias: brighter pictures are evaluated more positively, while darker pictures are evaluated more negatively. In Study 1 we found that positive pictures are brighter than negative pictures in two affective picture databases (the IAPS and the GAPED). Study 2 revealed that because researchers select affective pictures on the extremity of their affective rating without controlling for brightness differences, pictures used in positive conditions of experiments were on average brighter than those used in negative conditions. Going beyond correlational support for our hypothesis, Studies 3 and 4 showed that brighter versions of neutral pictures were evaluated more positively than darker versions of the same picture. Study 5 revealed that people categorised positive words more quickly than negative words after a bright picture prime, and vice versa for negative pictures. Together, these studies provide strong support for the hypotheses that picture brightness influences evaluations.     

The reminiscence bump in autobiographical memory: Effects of age,gender, education,and culture

We investigated the age distribution of autobiographical memories with the Galton-Crovitz method through the Internet. Almost 2000 participants in the United States and the Netherlands aged between 11 and 70 years participated. They were presented with 10 cue words, and were asked to recall and date autobiographical memories. We found strong evidence for a “reminiscence bump” in all participant groups at all ages, with peaks at ages 15–18 for men and 13–14 for women. This peak could be localised more precisely than in previous studies due to our large sample size. We were able to remove the forgetting effect from the empirical age distribution with a method that allows separate estimation of memory encoding and forgetting. American participants showed a tendency to report older memories than the Dutch. Age group and level of education did not influence the lifetime encoding function.     

The role of self-evaluation and envy in schadenfreude

In this article we address why and when people feel schadenfreude (pleasure at the misfortunes of others) in both interpersonal and intergroup contexts. Using findings from our own research programmes we show that schadenfreude is intensified when people are chronically or momentarily threatened in their self-worth, whereas it is attenuated when their self-evaluation is boosted; that malicious envy, but not benign envy, intensifies pleasure at the misfortunes of others; that these emotional responses are manifested in intergroup contexts via the same mechanisms; and that mere stereotypes, in the absence of any interaction or overt competition, are sufficient to elicit schadenfreude via such mechanisms. Together, these findings suggest that self-evaluation and envy both play an important role in evoking schadenfreude; people feel pleasure at the misfortunes of others when these misfortunes provide them with social comparisons that enhance their feelings of self-worth or remove the basis for painful feelings of envy.     

Symptom-positive and symptom-negative items in the state-trait anxiety inventory: A comparison and replication

Substantially higher mean scores on symptom-negatively versus symptom-positively worded items have consistently been reported in the literature for the balanced Stait-Trait Anxiety Inventory. In this study we aimed at replicating and comparing these findings for the Dutch adaptation of the inventory. Results indicated significantly higher mean subscale scores for symptom-negative as opposed to symptompositive items of both the Trait and State version, across sexes and age groups as well as across different levels of distress in students, policemen and psychiatric out-patients. Positive-negative mean difference scores were consistently larger for the State than for the Trait version. State and Trait mean difference scores were found to be mainly confined to symptom-positive subscales. Scale intercorrelations were lowest between symptom-positive and symptom-negative subscales both within and across measures. Factor analyzing the combined versions identified separate symptom-negative and symptom-positive factors, tentatively labeled “absence of positive affect” and “presence of negative affect”. Several explanations of the findings among which item-intensity specificity, the response style of social desirability and the model of positive and negative affectivity are discussed.