Power at work: Linking objective power to psychological power

Experimental research conducted with student participants has documented that feeling powerful or powerless (psychological power) affects outcomes with high practical relevance for organizations. However, it is unclear how results from these studies can be generalized to organizational settings in which individuals have various roles that imply more or less objective power. To address this gap, we present a theoretical framework to aid in the understanding of how objective power in organizations affects psychological power. We assume that stable differences in organizational rank (i.e., structural power) determine the likelihood of interactions with superiors, subordinates, or peers. These interactions give rise to within-person variation in situational power which should lead to dynamic fluctuations of psychological power and eventually its outcomes. Results of a preregistered experiment (n = 190 participants) and a preregistered experience sampling study (n = 129 participants) conducted with working adults support our key predictions: Structural power was associated with the likelihood of being in a high power versus low power situation. Within-person differences in situational power were related to feelings of power such as judgments about (1) one's own ability to influence others in a given social situation (i.e., interpersonal power) and (2) one's own competence, agency, autonomy, and independence (i.e., personal power).     

Longitudinal Experience-Wide Association Studies—A Framework for Studying Personality Change

The importance of personality for predicting life outcomes in the domains of love, work, and health is well established, as is evidence that personality traits, while relatively stable, can change. However, little is known about the sources and processes that drive changes in personality traits and how such changes might impact important life outcomes. In this paper, we make the case that the research paradigms and methodological approaches commonly used in personality psychology need to be revised to advance our understanding of the sources and processes of personality change. We propose Longitudinal Experience-Wide Association Studies as a framework for studying personality change that can address the limitations of current methods, and we discuss strategies for overcoming some of the challenges associated with Longitudinal Experience-Wide Association Studies. © 2020 European Association of Personality Psychology     

Truthmakers and Normative Conflicts

Studia Logica - By building on work by Kit Fine, we develop a sound and complete truthmaker semantics for Lou Goble’s conflict tolerant deontic logic $$\mathbf {BDL}$$.     

Personal names and the human right hemisphere: an illusory link?

Names are thought to be represented in the brain differently from common nouns. Although this idea is supported by both theoretical and empirical arguments, the brain areas that are relevant for the recognition of personal names-and in particular the extent of right hemisphere involvement-remain controversial. We investigated the hypothesis that, unlike common nouns, personal names are represented preferentially by the right hemisphere (D. Van Lancker, 1991; D. Van Lancker et al., 1991; C. Ohnesorge & D. Van Lancker, 1999). Participants performed lexical decisions to common nouns and pseudowords (Experiment 1) or familiarity decisions to personal names (Experiment 2), which were presented briefly to the left or right visual fields. Asymmetries were small or absent for both pseudowords and unfamiliar names. For familiar names, both reaction times and error rates revealed strong advantages for the right visual field/left hemisphere (RVF/LH), which were comparable to the asymmetries for nouns. Familiar personal names may be represented by brain systems that differ from those representing common nouns, but current evidence does not suggest a distinct contribution of the right hemisphere to these brain systems.     

Loose but normal: a semantic association study

An abnormal facilitation of the spreading activation within semantic networks is thought to under-lie schizophrenics' remote associations and referential ideas. In normal subjects, elevated magical ideation (MI) has also been associated with a style of thinking similar to that of schizotypal subjects. We thus wondered whether normal subjects with a higher MI score would judge "loose associations" as being more closely related than do subjects with a lower MI score. In two experiments, we investigated whether judgments of the semantic distance between stimulus words varied as a function of MI. In the first experiment, random word pairs of two word classes, animals and fruits, were presented. Subjects had to judge the semantic distance between word pairs. In the second experiment, sets of three words were presented, consisting of a pair of indirectly related, or unrelated nouns plus a third noun. Subjects had to judge the semantic distance of the third noun to the word pair The results of both experiments showed that higher MI subjects considered unrelated words as more closely associated than did lower MI subjects. We conjecture that for normal subjects high on MI "loose associations" may not be loose after all. We also note that the tendency to link uncommon, nonobvious, percepts may not only be the basis of paranormal and paranoid ideas of reference, but also a prerequisite of creative thinking.     

Hispanic and non-Hispanic children's performance on PASS cognitive processes and achievement

Hispanics have become the largest minority group in the United States. Hispanic children typically come from working class homes with parents who have limited English language skills and educational training. This presents challenges to psychologists who assess these children using traditional IQ tests because of the considerable verbal and academic (e.g., quantitative) content. Some researchers have suggested that intelligence conceptualized on the basis of psychological processes may have utility for assessment of children from culturally and linguistically diverse populations because verbal and quantitative skills are not included. This study examined Hispanic children's performance on the Cognitive Assessment System (CAS; [Naglieri, J.A., and Das, J.P. (1997). Cognitive Assessment System. Itasca, IL: Riverside.]) which is based on the Planning, Attention, Simultaneous, and Successive (PASS) theory of intelligence. The scores of Hispanic (N = 244) and White (N = 1956) children on the four PASS processes were obtained and the respective correlations between PASS and achievement compared. Three complementary sampling methodologies and data analysis strategies were chosen to compare the Ethnic groups. Sample size was maximized using nationally representative groups and demographic group differences were minimized using smaller matched samples. Small differences between Hispanic and non-Hispanic children were found when ability was measured with tests of basic PASS processes. In addition, the correlation between the PASS constructs and achievement were substantial for both Hispanic and non-Hispanic children and were not significantly different between the groups.     

Nested incremental modeling in the development of computational theories: the CDP+ model of reading aloud

At least 3 different types of computational model have been shown to account for various facets of both normal and impaired single word reading: (a) the connectionist triangle model, (b) the dual-route cascaded model, and (c) the connectionist dual process model. Major strengths and weaknesses of these models are identified. In the spirit of nested incremental modeling, a new connectionist dual process model (the CDP+ model) is presented. This model builds on the strengths of 2 of the previous models while eliminating their weaknesses. Contrary to the dual-route cascaded model, CDP+ is able to learn and produce graded consistency effects. Contrary to the triangle and the connectionist dual process models, CDP+ accounts for serial effects and has more accurate nonword reading performance. CDP+ also beats all previous models by an order of magnitude when predicting individual item-level variance on large databases. Thus, the authors show that building on existing theories by combining the best features of previous models--a nested modeling strategy that is commonly used in other areas of science but often neglected in psychology--results in better and more powerful computational models.     

Patientenziele in der Psychotherapie

Zusammenfassung  Im vorliegenden Artikel wird ein Überblick zum Stand der Forschung zu Patientenzielen in der Psychotherapie gegeben. Auf vier Aspekte wird dabei besonders eingegangen: (1) auf grundlagenwissenschaftliche Modelle und Befunde zu Lebenszielen, (2) auf allgemeine Lebensziele von Patienten und deren Zusammenhang zu ihrem psychopathologischen Zustand, (3) auf explizite Therapieziele und (4) auf zielbezogene therapeutische Interventionen. Durch diesen Überblick soll zum einen deutlich gemacht werden, wie grundlagenwissenschaftliche Forschung zu persönlichen Zielen klinische Forschung beeinflusst und bereichert hat. Zum anderen werden die therapeutischen Implikationen der Zielforschung herausgearbeitet.

Orthographic facilitation and phonological inhibition in spoken word recognition: A developmental study

We investigated the extent to which learning to read and write affects spoken word recognition. Previous studies have reported orthographic effects on spoken language in skilled readers. However, very few studies have addressed the development of these effects as a function of reading expertise. We therefore studied orthographic neighborhood (ON) and phonological neighborhood (PN) effects in spoken word recognition in beginning and advanced readers and in children with developmental dyslexia. We predicted that whereas both beginning and advanced readers would show normal PN effects, only advanced readers would show ON effects. The results confirmed these predictions. The size of the ON effect on spoken word recognition was strongly predicted by written language experience and proficiency. In contrast, the size of the PN effect was not affected by reading level. Moreover, dyslexic readers showed no orthographic effects on spoken word recognition. In sum, these data suggest that orthographic effects on spoken word recognition are not artifacts of some uncontrolled spoken language property but reflect a genuine influence of orthographic information on spoken word recognition.