Contrastive confirmation: some competing accounts

I outline four competing probabilistic accounts of contrastive evidential support and consider various considerations that might help arbitrate between these. The upshot of the discussion is that the so-called ??Law of Likelihood?? is to be preferred to any of the alternatives considered.     

The Psychosocial Vulnerability Model of Hostility as a Predictor of Coronary Heart Disease in Low-income African Americans

The current study examined social support and stress as mediators of the hostility—coronary heart disease (CHD) relationship as suggested by the psychosocial vulnerability model in a sample of low-income African Americans. Among 95 CHD patients and 30 healthy controls, hostility was negatively correlated with social support, but was not related to minor stress. CHD patients endorsed higher levels of hostility; however, the relationship between hostility and CHD status was diminished once stress and social support were included in the model. This study lends partial support for the psychosocial vulnerability model of hostility in African Americans, but suggests that the relationship between hostility and stress may be impacted by socioeconomic status.     

Intergroup Contact,Prejudicial Attitudes,and Policy Preferences: The Case of the U.S. Military’s “Don’t Ask,Don’t Tell” Policy

Data from 115,052 active United States military personnel were analyzed to explore links between contact with gay people and attitudes about repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” Results showed that prejudice against homosexuals significantly mediated the association between contact and supporting repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”; quality of contact in the military was a stronger predictor than other measures of contact. Quality and quantity of contact interacted: more contact quantity had opposing statistical effects on policy attitudes for people experiencing high versus low quality contact. Findings are discussed in terms of contact theory, the association between intergroup attitudes and policy preferences, and practical implications for situations in which groups’ access to new positions or roles is limited, and hence contact opportunities are rare.     

Stressful work, psychological job strain, and turnover: a 2-year prospective cohort study of truck drivers

Based on a model that combines existing organizational stress theory and job transition theory, this 2-year longitudinal study examined antecedents and consequences of turnover among Dutch truck drivers. For this purpose, self-reported data on stressful work (job demands and control), psychological strain (need for recovery after work and fatigue), and turnover were obtained from 820 drivers in 1998 and 2000. In agreement with the model, the results showed that strain mediates the influence of stressful work on voluntary turnover. Also in conformity with the model, job movement to any job outside the trucking industry (i.e., interoccupational turnover) resulted in a larger strain reduction as compared to job movement within the trucking industry (intraoccupational turnover). Finally, strain was found to stimulate interoccupational turnover more strongly than it stimulated intraoccupational turnover. These findings provide a thorough validation of existing turnover theory and give new insights into the turnover (decision) process.     

Saying the right thing at the right time: a view through the lens of the analytic process scales (APS)

Skillful psychoanalytic technique presumably involves knowing what to say, and when and how to say it. Does skillful technique have a positive impact upon the patient? The study described in this article relied on ratings by experienced psychoanalysts using the Analytic Process Scales (APS), a research instrument for assessing recorded psychoanalyses, in order to examine analytic interventions and patient productivity (greater understanding, affective engagement in the analytic process, and so on). In three analytic cases, the authors found significant correlations between core analytic activities (e.g., interpretation of defenses, transference, and conflicts) and patient productivity immediately following the intervention, but only if it had been skillfully carried out. Findings were independently replicated by psychology interns.     

Story understanding and counterfactual reasoning

D. Kahneman and A. Tversky (1982), in a seminal study on counterfactual reasoning, claimed empirical support for a simulation heuristic wherein ease of converting unusual conditions determines their selection as causes over normal conditions. Discourse analysis of their stories revealed a confounding of explanation and normality. A connectionist simulation of online comprehension and memory access of alternative conditions without conversion accounted for their data. Normality and explanation were varied independently in 2 experiments. Explanation but not normality affected the rank ordering of counterfactual conditions after reading. Access of alternative conditions in simulation was again the best predictor of empirical findings. Comprehension and memory operate where stories communicate information for decision making such as counterfactual reasoning and hindsight bias.     

Influence of aerobic fitness on ratings of perceived exertion during light to moderate exercise

Based on scores from a maximal exercise test on a bicycle ergometer, 24 college-age women were classified into three aerobic-fitness groups. Each subject then completed two randomly ordered cycle exercise bouts at 1-wk. intervals. The exercise bouts required the subjects to pedal for 24 min. attaining and then maintaining a target heart rate of either 30% or 60% of heart-rate reserve. Ratings of perceived exertion (RPE) were reported at the end of each third minute of the exercise period. Repeated-measures analysis of variance indicated the RPE was significantly related to the exercise workload and duration of exercise. No main effect was found for fitness. Two-way interactions were detected for fitness x duration of exercise and for workload x duration of exercise.     

Relational Security Moderates the Effect of Serotonin Transporter Gene Polymorphism (5-HTTLPR) on Stress Generation and Depression among Adolescents

Previous research demonstrates that carriers of the short allele of the serotonin transporter gene (5-HTTLPR) show both greater susceptibility to depression in response to stressful life events and higher rates of generation of stressful events in response to depression. The current study examines relational security (i.e., self-reported beliefs about attachment security) as a moderator of these effects, building on emerging research suggesting that the short allele acts as a marker of sensitivity to the social environment. Participants were 354 Caucasian adolescents oversampled for maternal depression (137 male, 217 female), assessed at ages 15 and 20. Results indicated that the short allele predicted increased stress generation at age 20 among those with low age 15 security but decreased stress generation among those with high security, and revealed a three-way interaction between age 15 depression, age 15 security, and genotype, where depression predicted stress generation only among short allele carriers with low security. Further, among boys only, security interacted with genotype to predict longitudinal changes in depression diagnosis, with the s-allele predicting relative increases in probability of depression among boys with low security but decreases among boys with high security. Results support the notion of the short allele as a marker of social reactivity, and suggest that attachment security may buffer against the genetic vulnerability introduced by the short allele, in line with predictions of the differential susceptibility theory.