A demonstration of the costs and benefits of expertise in recognition memory

In their area of expertise experts know more potentially interfering facts than nonexperts do, yet their memory IS superior to that of nonexperts. This has been termed the “paradox of interference.” We proposed that the ability of experts to go beyond the information given allows them to infer the presence of items that might not otherwise be remembered. However, such inferences can also be detrimental to accurate recognition memory in that such inferences might become confused with actual targets. We examined the benefits and costs of expertise in two recognition memory experiments In which experts and nonexperts participated. Experts in Ex-penment 1 were knowledgeable about baseball; those in Experiment 2 were knowledgeable about Ohio geography. Distractors in both studies bore a synonymous, an inferential, or no special relation to the targets. In the last instance, experts had recognition memory superior to that of the nonexperts. When the distractors were related to the targets, however, the non-experts were superior. We proposed that experts' inferential behavior is a contributor to their generally superior memory, but that task demands can convert this asset into a liability.     

Effects of family therapy for substance abuse: A systematic review of recent research

One of the most serious psychosocial problems worldwide is substance abuse because of its repercussions not only on the physical and psychological health of the abuser but also on their relational functioning. Among the well-established therapeutic approaches for the treatment of substance abuse is family therapy, which, in addition to influencing personal variables, promotes changes in family dynamics. The main objective of this study is to review the scientific literature published from 2010 to the present on the efficacy and effectiveness shown by family-based treatment approaches for substance use problems both in adolescent and adult samples. In addition, the effect on secondary variables such as family functioning and behavioral problems is evaluated. The empirical evidence accumulated in the last decade and reviewed in the present study indicates that the incorporation of family members in the treatment of substance abuse produces benefits by diminishing consumption and improving family functioning. Limitations of this study and of the research reviewed are discussed and directions for future research are provided.     

Exploring the Context-Sensitivity of Collective Action Motivations and the Mobilizing Role of Social Media: A Comparative Interview Study With Activists in Germany and Turkey

Western scholarship has underlined the relevance of social identity, perceived efficacy, emotions, and cost–benefit assessments as central catalysts of collective action. Little has been done to understand the context-sensitivity of these catalysts by means of cross-culturally comparative designs. The current study explores their context-sensitivity. It aims to find out whether existing opportunity structures in a democratic, nonrepressive country like Germany produce catalysts of collective action different from those produced in an autocratic, repressive country like Turkey. It also aims to understand the role of social media in mobilizing people in these two contexts. Semistandardized interviews with activists were carried out in both countries (n = 18 in Germany and n = 15 in Turkey) and analyzed by means of a cross-culturally comparative inductive coding procedure including initial and focused coding. Results show that collective action is related to different configurations of collective-action catalysts in the two countries. Solidarity concerns at the face of existential risks are more pronounced in Turkey, whereas political-change concerns are more important in Germany. The role of social media accordingly differs, adhering to the different activist goals. Theoretical implications for the role of context in studying collective action are discussed.     

“Put a Little Love in Your Heart”: Acceptance of Paternalistic and Ally Political Discourses Both Predict Pro-Roma Solidarity Intentions Through Moral Inclusion

The way politicians talk about minorities institutes the normative context of intergroup relations. We investigated how endorsement of different political discourses predicts donation and collective action intentions by majority members toward the Roma in five European countries. The survey was conducted online using samples demographically similar to the populations of Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, France, and Ireland (N = 5,054). First, results showed that accepting paternalistic discourse versus discourse promoting allyship were not distinguishable; both promoted higher moral inclusion which in turn predicted higher prosocial intentions. Second, donations (i.e., immediate relief) and collective action (i.e., social change action) were driven by identical factors. Third, acceptance of openly hostile political discourse neither predicted moral exclusion, nor lower prosocial intentions. In summary, our research provides important evidence that when it comes to Roma—non-Roma relations, the previously established distinction between solidarity intentions that aim to solidify status relations versus bring about social change is completely blurred, presumably because of the social context in which any positive message communicates moral inclusion challenging the hostile status quo.     

Visual context processing and its development in gamers and non-gamers

Visual context processing was investigated in both action video game players and nonplayers using the Ebbinghaus illusion task (N = 312, 39.4% female) in a cross-sectional study design. When presented in context, players showed markedly poorer target size discrimination accuracy compared with nonplayers in the 6-, 7-, 8-, and 9-years old age groups, but this difference was reduced in 10-years old group and diminished in adults. When presented in isolation (no-context), the two groups displayed similar performance in all age groups. Furthermore, nonplayers (linear) and players (bell curve) showed profoundly different age-related differences in context processing. These findings provide evidence that players might have enhanced perceptual bias to process visual context in the transition from early childhood to early adolescence, and the differences between the two groups start at early ages and continue with distinct developmental profiles.     

Worldviews about change: Their structure and their implications for understanding responses to sustainability,technology, and political change

People hold different perspectives about how they think the world is changing or should change. We examined five of these “worldviews” about change: Progress, Golden Age, Endless Cycle, Maintenance, and Balance. In Studies 1–4 (total N = 2733) we established reliable measures of each change worldview, and showed how these help explain when people will support or oppose social change in contexts spanning sustainability, technological innovations, and political elections. In mapping out these relationships we identify how the importance of different change worldviews varies across contexts, with Balance most critical for understanding support for sustainability, Progress/Golden Age important for understanding responses to innovations, and Golden Age uniquely important for preferring Trump/Republicans in the 2016 US election. These relationships were independent of prominent individual differences (e.g., values, political orientation for elections) or context-specific factors (e.g., self-reported innovativeness for responses to innovations). Study 5 (N = 2140) examined generalizability in 10 countries/regions spanning five continents, establishing that these worldviews exhibited metric invariance, but with country/region differences in how change worldviews were related to support for sustainability. These findings show that change worldviews can act as a general “lens” people use to help determine whether to support or oppose social change.     

The effect of the two-chair dialogue intervention on self-compassion - adding an emotional evocative component to a basic Rogerian condition

Objective

How people relate to themselves when facing distress or failure influences general psychological well-being and vulnerability to psychological disorders. The aim of the present study was to explore the effect of an emotionally evocative intervention on self-compassion.

Methods

The data were retrieved from a larger study of Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT) utilising a multiple baseline design comparing two treatment phases. The baseline phase consisted of 5, 7 or 9 therapy sessions where the therapist solely adhered to Rogerian relational conditions, as prescribed in EFT. A two-chair dialogue intervention was then added for five sessions. The sample consisted of 18 self-critical clients with clinically significant symptoms of depression and/or anxiety. The “Self-Compassion Scale” (SCS) was administered pre, mid and post therapy.

Results

The baseline phase did not lead to significant changes in self-compassion. However, the addition of the two-chair dialogue was associated with a significant increase in self-compassion. This increase was due to reductions in the negative subscales, especially the isolation subscale.

Conclusion

The emotionally evocative two-chair dialogue was associated with a significant change in self-to-self relating, compared to relational conditions alone. The two-chair dialogue, thus, seems to be a promising intervention for promoting healthier self-to-self relating.     

Penalized optimal scaling for ordinal variables with an application to international classification of functioning core sets

Ordinal data occur frequently in the social sciences. When applying principal component analysis (PCA), however, those data are often treated as numeric, implying linear relationships between the variables at hand; alternatively, non-linear PCA is applied where the obtained quantifications are sometimes hard to interpret. Non-linear PCA for categorical data, also called optimal scoring/scaling, constructs new variables by assigning numerical values to categories such that the proportion of variance in those new variables that is explained by a predefined number of principal components (PCs) is maximized. We propose a penalized version of non-linear PCA for ordinal variables that is a smoothed intermediate between standard PCA on category labels and non-linear PCA as used so far. The new approach is by no means limited to monotonic effects and offers both better interpretability of the non-linear transformation of the category labels and better performance on validation data than unpenalized non-linear PCA and/or standard linear PCA. In particular, an application of penalized optimal scaling to ordinal data as given with the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) is provided.     

Influencing prior knowledge through a short reading impacts curiosity and learning

Curiosity predicts memory performance and it is influenced by prior knowledge. Reading a well-organized text can increase curiosity in a classroom setting, however it is not clear if reading a short text written in an encyclopedic style can increase curiosity and learning without explicit educational goals. We presented participants with a short text and examined if questions related to this reading could elicit higher curiosity ratings and better recall in a thematized version of the trivia task. In the first experiment, participants subjectively judged their prior knowledge of trivia questions. The curiosity of the participants was not influenced by the reading, but the memory effect of curiosity was amplified for the questions related to it. In the second experiment, we objectively verified whether the participants knew the answers. The curiosity ratings were higher for the questions related to the reading, but only the curiosity ratings influenced recall performance. These results show that prior knowledge induced by reading can have an effect on curiosity and learning, but it depends on how this knowledge is assessed by the learner.