The influence of partial‐match cues on event‐based prospective memory

In event‐based prospective memory tasks people form an intention to respond when an environmental cue signals that conditions are appropriate to fulfil an intended activity. In the ongoing activity the authors embedded partial‐match cues that only partially, but not completely, satisfied the conditions required to make a prospective response. The consequence of encountering these partial‐match cues was to increase responses to appropriate prospective memory cues encountered later. This outcome occurred both with semantic and orthographic cues, but only the former led to longer processing latencies of the partial‐match cues. This asymmetry suggests that partial‐match cues may not need to be processed consciously in order to benefit event‐based prospective memory. A parametric manipulation of the number of partial‐match cues resulted in numerically but not statistically better prospective memory. Consequently, partial‐match cues may function as overt reminders of the intention to respond or they may serve to engage participants in self‐initiated remindings of the intention.     

Does the Optimism Bias Affect Help-Seeking Intentions for Depressive Symptoms in Young People?

Help-seeking is an adaptive means to address mental health difficulties, but sufferers often fail to seek assistance. This inaction may reflect optimism bias—that is, believing one is less susceptible to negative events than others. In the present study, the authors investigate optimism bias by presenting depressive symptoms in vignette form to 263 undergraduate participants. Participants were asked to imagine oneself or a peer-group friend suffering from presented symptoms and provide ratings of problem seriousness, help-seeking importance, and prognosis. Results supported the optimism bias hypothesis in that participants reported lower levels of seriousness, lower need for help, and anticipated a more favorable prognosis for themselves compared to others on equivalent sets of symptoms. A contextual effect may exist and influence the evaluation of medium-severity symptoms when symptoms were presented from most to least severe. As symptom severity increased, females were less optimistic than males about prognosis and placed greater importance on help-seeking. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

Randomized clinical trial of adapted mindfulness-based stress reduction versus group cognitive behavioral therapy for heterogeneous anxiety disorders

ObjectiveTo compare a mindfulness-based intervention with cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for the group treatment of anxiety disorders.MethodOne hundred five veterans (83% male, mean age = 46 years, 30% minority) with one or more DSM-IV anxiety disorders began group treatment following randomization to adapted mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) or CBT.ResultsBoth groups showed large and equivalent improvements on principal disorder severity thru 3-month follow up (ps < .001, d = ?4.08 for adapted MBSR; d = ?3.52 for CBT). CBT outperformed adapted MBSR on anxious arousal outcomes at follow up (p < .01, d = .49) whereas adapted MBSR reduced worry at a greater rate than CBT (p < .05, d = .64) and resulted in greater reduction of comorbid emotional disorders (p < .05, d = .49). The adapted MBSR group evidenced greater mood disorders and worry at Pre, however. Groups showed equivalent treatment credibility, therapist adherence and competency, and reliable improvement.ConclusionsCBT and adapted MBSR were both effective at reducing principal diagnosis severity and somewhat effective at reducing self-reported anxiety symptoms within a complex sample. CBT was more effective at reducing anxious arousal, whereas adapted MBSR may be more effective at reducing worry and comorbid disorders.     

Effects of Encoding Tasks on the Own-Age Face Recognition Bias

In the current study, we evaluated the own-age face recognition bias by using various encoding tasks to evaluate the robustness and potential limitations of the own-age bias. One hundred sixty young adults studied photographs of children, young adults, middle-aged adults, and older adults and were assigned to one of four encoding conditions (i.e., age estimate, attractiveness rating, friendliness rating, and a face search task). Subsequent recognition tests revealed a robust own-age bias such that participants recognized own-age faces better than other-age faces regardless of encoding task. The current study showed that encoding tasks that focus on socially relevant characteristics (i.e., attractiveness ratings and friendliness ratings) do not eliminate or weaken the own-age bias compared to tasks that specifically focus on the age of the face. These findings indicate that in-group/out-group categorization requires little conscious processing and may be automatic, which is consistent with Sporer's (2001) in-group/out-group model (IOM) of facial processing.     

Political pathology and societal creativity

Abstract

Complementing the hypothesized intimate relation between creativity and psycho‐pathology at the individual level are conjectures concerning the relation between creativity and pathology at the sociocultural level. This article reviews the empirical literature on the subject, with special focus on how societal creativity is affected by international war, external threat, political instability, and civil disturbances. Such events and circumstances are shown to affect both the quantity of creative activity and the form that any creativity takes. Although some of these effects are short‐term and transient, other influences operate after some delay and tend to be more lasting. There follows a discussion of what these results imply about how creativity at the individual level is shaped by the social context in which creative development and thought take place.     

Controversial and Volatile Flicks: Concurrent Dissension and Temporal Instability in Film Critic Assessments

Prior research has shown that the aesthetic assessments by film critics display a high level of concurrent consensus and temporal stability. However, neither the consensus nor the stability is so great as to preclude evaluative disagreements and reassessments (e.g., sleepers and faders). This investigation was designed to identify the predictors of these concurrent and temporal departures from critical congruence. The potential predictors were variables that emerged in previous research on the determinants of cinematic creativity: (a) financial data, such as production budget and box office performance; (b) movie awards and nominations in the major categories (viz. picture and the dramatic, visual, technical, and music clusters of honors); and (c) film attributes, such as the MPAA rating, running time, and screenplay characteristics like sequels, remakes, and adaptations (from plays, novels, nonfiction, etc.). Both simultaneous and stepwise regression analyses indicated that the cinematic exceptions to critical consensus and stability were predictable. However, because the predictors only accounted for between 10% and 15% of the variance and were not the same for dissent and instability, the departures cannot be said to contaminate the critics' evaluations in any systematic manner.     

Exploring patient perspectives of prediabetes and diabetes severity: a qualitative study

Abstract

Objective: This qualitative study sought to identify and describe patients’ variant perceptions of disease severity after receiving a type 2 diabetes (T2DM) or prediabetes (preDM) diagnosis.

Design: Researchers interviewed 29 patients from two US medical centers to ascertain perceptions of severity. We used the constant comparative method from a grounded theory approach to identify themes from patients’ perspectives that inform their disease severity. This approach was used to help translate research to practice and ultimately identify intervention strategies informed by authentic experiences of preDM and T2DM patients.

Results: Perceptions of disease severity fell into two groups: high and low severity. Patients diagnosed with T2DM and preDM emerged in both groups and were comparative in terms of sample size, gender, and ethnic diversity. Several factors contributed to patients’ beliefs, including what they were told about the disease, observations from experiences within their own social network, and information from formal diabetes classes and their own research. The two perspectives diverged when patients described how their belief was informed by three thematic properties or personal factors: (i) fears; (ii) clinician communication; and (iii) social comparisons.

Conclusions: Beliefs about severity are influenced by patients’ fears, interactions with clinicians, and experiences within their social networks. These findings show that when interacting with patients with T2DM or preDM, clinicians should elicit patient perceptions of disease severity so they may then tailor the discussion to address these perceptions and help patients grasp the severity of these conditions.     

Negative affectivity,perceived occupational stress,and health during organisational restructuring: A follow-up study

Abstract

This paper presents a survey of the relationships among multiple indicators of perceived occupational stress, trait negative affectivity, and later mental and physical health symptoms, among 157 Australian public servants during organisational restructuring. It was hypothesised that individual differences in negative affectivity would inflate the relationships between perceived stress and later strain as assessed by health symptoms in the follow-up phase. The possible role of negative affectivity in moderating the stress-strain relationships was also investigated. Multiple regression analyses conducted with depressive and physical health outcomes separately indicate that the only significant predictors of depressive symptoms were negative affectivity and role insufficiency, whereas the significant predictors of physical health symptoms were role ambiguity, physical environment, and negative affectivity. None of the interaction terms involving occupational stress and negative affectivity was found to be significant Implications of the findings are discussed in the context of the research literature on work stress, particularly the role of negative affectivity in inflating the stress-strain relationship and indications for future research.     

A scale to measure wisdom

Abstract

The present study's purpose was to refine and test a newly developed self‐report instrument to assess wisdom. The empirical study was based on a sample of undergraduates recruited at two universities and Buddhists recruited at two temples. This sample filled out 23 items of the wisdom scale and, in addition, several other psychological self‐report scales. Items from the wisdom scale were factor analyzed and the following seven factors emerged: Balance/Harmony, Flow, Spirituality, Warmth, Care for Environment, Appreciation, and Intelligence. These dimensions were statistically significantly related to various outcome measures such as depression, perceived stress, and optimism scales. Statistically significant differences were found between various religious and socio‐demographic groups on the different factor scores. This study suggests that wisdom is a multidimensional and complex construct worthy of scientific investigation.     

On Working Memory Capacity and Implicit Associations between Advanced Age and Dangerous Driving Stereotypes

Despite a large literature on implicit stereotypes, no one has scientifically documented the stereotype that older adults are dangerous drivers, even though its existence may impact older adults' driving performance through stereotype threat. The present studies are the first to use implicit tests to document the stereotype that older adult drivers are dangerous drivers. Experiment 1 (N = 159) documented a negative stereotype of older adult drivers in young and older adults by using a novel driving and age Implicit Association Test (IAT). Experiment 2 (N = 216) demonstrated that individual differences in working memory capacity moderate the degree to which young adults can willfully change this IAT score such that higher working memory capacity was associated with greater control of this negative stereotype of age and driving. This finding illustrates the potential utility of working memory capacity in interventions designed to reduce the impact of implicit stereotypes and negative attitudes. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.