Controllability and hindsight components: Understanding opposite hindsight biases for self-relevant negative event outcomes

There is an anomaly in the hindsight bias literature with respect to hindsight effects obtained after self-relevant negative event outcomes: Whereas some studies have reported reduced hindsight bias, others have shown increases. This article contrasts two explanations for the anomaly. The first points to an influence of perceived control over the event outcome: In hindsight, people decrease foreseeability (and hence, responsibility and blame) for controllable events, but they increase the perceived inevitability of uncontrollable events for coping reasons. The second explanation, derived from a reconception of hindsight bias in terms of separate components (Blank, Nestler, von Collani, & Fischer, 2008), traces the anomaly to differences in the observed hindsight components: Hindsight decreases are to be expected for foreseeability, whereas increases are restricted to the inevitability component. Our experiment (N=210) manipulated controllability and the hindsight component orthogonally and showed strong support for the component explanation, but also some influence of perceived control.     

Action Emulation between Canonical Models

In this paper we investigate Kripke models, used to model knowledge or belief in a static situation, and action models, used to model communicative actions that change this knowledge or belief. The appropriate notion for structural equivalence between modal structures such as Kripke models is bisimulation: Kripke models that are bisimilar are modally equivalent. We would like to find a structural relation that can play the same role for the action models that play a prominent role in information updating. Two action models are equivalent if they yield the same results when updating Kripke models. More precisely, two action models are equivalent if it holds for all Kripke models that the result of updating with one action model is bisimilar to the result of updating with the other action model. We propose a new notion of action emulation that characterizes the structural equivalence of the important class of canonical action models. Since every action model has an equivalent canonical action model, this gives a method to decide the equivalence of any pair of action models. We also give a partial result that holds for the class of all action models. Our results extend the work in van Eijck et al. (Synthese 185(1):131–151, 2012).     

Improving the Assessment of Implicit Motives Using IRT: Cultural Differences and Differential Item Functioning

Summary: The possible relationship between masculinity and creativity in college women was investigated through a battery of masculinity-femininity scales that tapped both manifest and latent masculinity, factorially derived clusters, and an ipsative measure. Two samples (n = 45 each) of women who had scored above the 75th percentile and below the 25th percentile respectively on two measures of creativity were used. High creative subjects scored higher on activity and described themselves as more masculine; indications are that they possess a broader, less stereotyped sex-role identity.     

The Number of Distinct Basic Values and Their Structure Assessed by PVQ–40

Sixty-eight outpatients from a veterans' administration psychiatry clinic and community mental health center were assessed with 3 measures of depressive personality disorder (DPD)-the Diagnostic Interview for Depressive Personality Disorder (Gunderson, Phillips, Triebwasser, &; Hirschfeld, 1994), the Depressive Personality Disorder Inventory (Huprich, Margrett, Barthelemy, &; Fine, 1996), and the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis II Disorders (First, Gibbon, Spitzer, Williams, &; Benjamin, 1997a)-to evaluate their convergent and discriminant validity. Evidence supporting the measures' validity was mixed. The rate of convergence of depressive personality diagnoses across 3 measures was less than optimal, but the degree of intercorrelation among the measures was strong. Although depressive personality scores had moderate levels of intercorrelations with other personality disorders, the degree of intercorrelation decreased substantially after controlling for depressive symptoms. I conclude that further work is needed to strengthen the validity of measures of DPD.     

Multicultural Personality Questionnaire: Development of a Short Form

This study reports on the development of the Multicultural Personality Questionnaire–Short Form among 511 participants. Using a split-sample scale validation design, Study 1 (N = 260) employed a principal component analysis and rigorous item selection criteria to extract a 40-item short form (MPQ–SF) from the original 91-item Multicultural Personality Questionnaire (MPQ; van der Zee & van Oudenhoven, 2000, 2001). In Study 2 (N = 251), the MPQ–SF was subjected to confirmatory factor analysis and resulted in a reasonably good fit to the data (comparative fit index = .94; root mean squared error of approximation = .066). Satisfactory coefficient alphas and high correlations with the original scales were found. Moreover, relationships with related scales were largely in the predicted direction. Specific directions for follow-up research are posited.     

An 18-month follow-up investigation of motor coordination and working memory in primary school children

The aim of the current study was to examine the relationship between motor coordination and visual working memory in children aged 5–11 years. Participants were 18 children with movement difficulty and 41 control children, assessed at baseline and following an 18-month time period. The McCarron Assessment of Neuromuscular Development provided a measure of motor skills and the CogState One-Back task was used to assess visual working memory. Multi-level mixed effects linear regressions were used to assess the relationship between fine motor skills, gross motor skills, and visual working memory. The results revealed that for children with movement difficulty, better fine motor skills at baseline significantly predicted greater One-Back accuracy and greater (i.e., faster) speed at 18-month follow-up. Conversely, fine motor skills at baseline did not predict One-Back accuracy and speed for control children. However, for both groups, greater One-Back accuracy at baseline predicted better fine and gross motor skills at follow-up. These findings have important implications for the assessment and treatment of children referred for motor difficulties and/or working memory difficulties.     

The affective priming effect: Automatic activation of evaluative information in memory

Abstract

Fazio, Sanbonmatsu, Powell, and Kardes (1986) argued that affect may be activated automatically from memory on the mere observation of an affect-loaded stimulus. Using a variant of the standard sequential priming paradigm, it was demonstrated that the time needed to evaluate target words as positive or negative decreased if they were preceded by a similarly valenced prime word, but increased when preceded by a prime of opposite valence. Several aspects of their procedure, however, do not warrant their conclusion concerning the unconditionality of the effect. The present research investigated the generality of this affective priming effect. In Experiment 1, it was tested whether the effect can be generalised to more complex visual material. Stimulus pairs consisted of colour slides. Subjects had to evaluate the targets as quickly as possible. In Experiment 2, the standard word-word procedure was used, but target words had to be pronounced. In both experiments, significant affective priming effects were observed, supporting Bargh, Chaiken, Govender, and Pratto's (1992) assertion that the automatic activation effect is a pervasive and relative unconditional phenomenon. Implications for theories of affect and emotion are discussed.     

Effects of a Peer Engagement Program on Socially Withdrawn Children with a History of Maltreatment

Children with a history of child maltreatment often have limited social interactions with other children and adults. This study examined the effects of a Peer Engagement Program, consisting of peer mentoring and social skills training with positive reinforcement, in three children with low levels of oral and social interaction. A multiple baseline, single-subject research design was used to test whether introduction of the intervention was associated with increased, directly observed oral interaction and engagement in social activities with peers and adults. The Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) and the Social Skills Rating Scale (SSRS) were administered before and after intervention. All children showed increased levels of oral and social interaction and improved scores on the SSRS and the CBCL.     

Psychoanalysis and Human Values

Psychoanalysis can contribute quite a lot to the question of values and to a theory of ethics. While the first part of this presentation is focused on the impact psychoanalysis continues to exert on present day ethical theory, the second part discusses Erich Fromm's particular approach to psychoanalysis. Fromm was the first to reformulate in his psychoanalytic approach the idea of an ethic of the virtues. With his theory of character (and of social character) he made values an integral part of psychoanalytic theory. Hence, what matters most morally from a psychoanalytic stance is the quality of character orientation. Despite the fact that - in Fromm's own socio-psychoanalytic approach - man's character is the product of adaptation to the environment, morality for him is dictated by economic and social requirements - whatever common sense may tell us to the contrary. For Fromm there is an intrinsic primary tendency to growth in all human beings. Thus, morally good is whatever furthers the growth of our own powers by which we relate to the outside world and to ourselves in a loving, "sane" and creative way. The last section reflects some implications of Fromm's approach to understanding values as an integral part of psychoanalytic theory, and finally discusses whether the search for truth and human values is as obsolete as postmodern thinking claims.