Who shalt not kill? Individual differences in working memory capacity, executive control, and moral judgment

Recent findings suggest that exerting executive control influences responses to moral dilemmas. In our study, subjects judged how morally appropriate it would be for them to kill one person to save others. They made these judgments in 24 dilemmas that systematically varied physical directness of killing, personal risk to the subject, inevitability of the death, and intentionality of the action. All four of these variables demonstrated main effects. Executive control was indexed by scores on working-memory-capacity (WMC) tasks. People with higher WMC found certain types of killing more appropriate than did those with lower WMC and were more consistent in their judgments. We also report interactions between manipulated variables that implicate complex emotion-cognition integration processes not captured by current dual-process views of moral judgment.     

Self‐Representations in Immersive Virtual Environments1

This experiment varied whether individuals interacted with virtual representations of themselves or of others in an immersive virtual environment. In the self‐representation condition, half of the participants interacted with a self‐representation that bore photographic resemblance to them, whereas the other half interacted with a self‐representation that bore no resemblance to them. In the other‐representation condition, participants interacted with a representation of another individual. The experimental design was a 2 (Participant Gender) × 3 (Agent Identity: high‐similarity self‐representation vs. low‐similarity self‐representation vs. other representation). Overall, participants displayed more intimacy‐consistent behaviors for representations of themselves than others. Implications of using immersive virtual environment technology for studying the self are discussed.     

Unpacking outcome dependency: Differentiating effects of dependency and outcome desirability on the processing of goal-relevant information

Outcome dependency has been shown to have a substantial impact on impression formation. Perhaps because the outcome dependency variable is a composite variable (including variation in amount of dependency, desirability of outcome, or both), many different effects have been described by researchers. The current research unpacks the outcome dependency variable by separately examining effects of dependency (when outcome desirability is held constant) and effects of outcome desirability (when amount of dependency is held constant). Using research methods adapted from those used in the attitudes domain, variation in the amount of dependency on a target person influenced the level of objective processing of target information (when outcomes were not substantial, Experiment 1), but variation in the desirability of the outcomes influenced biases in the processing of information (when dependency was relatively high, Experiment 2). Furthermore, personal motivation mediated effects of desirable outcomes on positive biases in processing (Experiment 3).     

Eyberg Child Behavior Inventory (ECBI): Norwegian norms to identify conduct problems in children

This article presents the first Norwegian standardization of an assessment tool specifically designed to measure childhood conduct problems. Norwegian norms for the Eyberg Child Behavior Inventory (ECBI) based on data obtained from a random population sample (N= 4063) of children in the age range of 4 to 12 years are presented. The sample was drawn from rural and urban areas within three Norwegian town districts. Clinical and research advantages of having a properly standardized assessment tool for this specific subclass of childhood psychiatric problems in Norway are discussed.     

“You’re Just Saying That.” Contingencies of self-worth, suspicion, and authenticity in the interpersonal affirmation process

A model of the role and costs of contingent self-worth in the partner-affirmation process was tested. Actors whose self-worth was contingent on appearance or intelligence claimed to have expressed their particular heightened sensitivity to their romantic partners. Suggesting a cost to these reactions, actors’ beliefs about having expressed heightened sensitivity, in turn, predicted their doubts about the authenticity of partners’ positive feedback in the domain of contingency, independently of whether partners claimed to deliver inauthentic feedback. Suggesting a cost for partners, partners of contingent actors appeared to detect actors’ expressions of sensitivity in the domain of contingency and respond by delivering inauthentic feedback to actors in the domain, which in turn predicted partners’ increased relationship anxiety and decreased satisfaction. Results suggest that contingent self-worth may undermine the functioning of the partner-affirmation process through actors discrediting partners’ positive feedback and partners behaving in an inauthentic and controlled manner.     

Increasing on-task behavior in every student in a second-grade classroom during transitions: Validating the color wheel system

A single-case (B-C-B-C) experimental design was used to evaluate the effects of the Color Wheel classroom management system (CWS) on on-task (OT) behavior in an intact, general-education, 2nd-grade classroom during transitions. The CWS included three sets of rules, posted cues to indicate the rules students are expected to be following at that time, and transition procedures for altering activities and rules. Class-wide data analysis showed large, immediate, and sustained increases in OT behavior when the CWS was applied, with OT behavior returning to baseline levels when typical classroom management (TCM) procedures were reinstated. Each student's average phase data also showed increases in OT behavior when the CWS was applied and re-applied, and showed reductions when the CWS was withdrawn. Discussion focuses on evaluating the internal, external, and contextual validity of class-wide remediation and prevention procedures.     

The positives of negative emotions: willingness to express negative emotions promotes relationships

Four studies support the hypothesis that expressing negative emotion is associated with positive relationship outcomes, including elicitation of support, building of new close relationships, and heightening of intimacy in the closest of those relationships. In Study 1, participants read vignettes in which another person was experiencing a negative emotion. Participants reported they would provide more help when the person chose to express the negative emotion. In Study 2, participants watched a confederate preparing for a speech. Participants provided more help to her when she expressed nervousness. In Study 3, self-reports of willingness to express negative emotions predicted having more friends, controlling for demographic variables and extraversion. In Study 4, self-reports of willingness to express negative emotion measured prior to arrival at college predicted formation of more relationships, greater intimacy in the closest of those relationships, and greater received support from roommates across participants' first semester of college.     

Psychometric properties of the Escala de Autoeficacia para el Afrontamiento del Estrés (EAEAE)

This paper presents the theoretical construct of and an instrument for its assessment, the Escala de Autoeficacia para el Afrontamiento del Estrés (EAEAE; in English, Coping with Stress Self-Efficacy Scale), as well as the results obtained concerning its psychometric properties from an adult population. 812 individuals, aged 18 to 64 years old ( M = 26.46, SD = 9.93, 62.6% females and 37.4% males), recruited from various contexts, participated in this study. Participants completed the EAEAE along with other measures of constructs theoretically related to this specific self-efficacy. The EAEAE shows appropriate reliability in its complete form as well as in its two subscales of Efficacy Expectations and Outcome Expectations, and adequate factorial construct validity (which reveals the bi-dimensionality of the instrument), and convergent validity with the remaining measures. The characteristics of brevity and ease of application of the scale, in addition to its adequate psychometric properties, indicate that the EAEAE is an appropriate tool to assess and investigate coping with stress self-efficacy in research as well as clinical settings.     

Sociometric typologies during adolescence: contrasting different scoring techniques and formulas

Our aim in this work is to compare the different sociometric classification formulae and to analyze possible connections between each type of formula and each behaviour assessed by peers during adolescence. We classified a total of 1,009 Spanish fourth-grade secondary education students (15-year-olds) using four different systems: two were based on a nomination technique by Coie and Dodge, Newcomb and Bukowski, the third system was a modified version of the latter based on the revision of the neglected status, and a fourth system was based on the qualification scale by Maassen and Laandsheer. Results show a significant relation between all four classifications, but there are also differences among them. The classifications proceeding from the nomination technique share more similarities and also offer a better behavioural characterization of sociometric categories.     

The effects of curvature on haptic judgments of extent in sighted and blind people

A series of experiments was carried out to examine the effect of curvature on haptic judgments of extent in sighted and blind individuals. Experiment 1 showed that diameters connecting the endpoints of semicircular lines were underestimated with respect to straight lines, but failed to show an effect of visual experience on length judgments. In experiment 2 we tested are lengths. The effects of curvature on perceived path length were weaker, but were still present in this experiment. Visual experience had no effect on path length judgments. Another experiment was performed to examine the effect of repeated tracing (1, 5, 9, or unlimited number of traces) on judgments of the lengths of straight lines and diameters of semicircles. Judgments of extent were more accurate when subjects engaged in larger numbers of traces. There was no effect of number of traces on curve-height judgments, suggesting that subjects were not using height estimates to judge diameters of semicircles. In a further experiment we tested the effect of number of traces on curves that varied in height. Restricting subjects to a single trace magnified the effect of path length on judgments of the distance between the endpoints of curves. Additional experiments showed that curvature effects on diameter judgments were not eliminated when stimuli were in the frontal plane or when the curves were explored with the use of two hands. Arm support had no effect on judged length in experiment 7. A final experiment showed a robust horizontal vertical illusion in haptic perception of convex curves, with overestimation of the heights of the curves compared with their widths. The practical and theoretical implications of the results are discussed.