Feeling like you know who you are: perceived true self-knowledge and meaning in life

The essence of who a person really is has been labeled the "true self," and an emerging area of research suggests that this self-concept plays an important role in the creation of a fulfilling existence. Three studies investigate the role of the subjective feeling that one possesses knowledge of one's true self in meaning in life judgments. Consistently, the perception of availability of true self-knowledge (operationalized as the metacognitive experience of ease in describing one's true self) predicted meaning in life judgments over and above other potentially related constructs such as mood and self-esteem. Conversely, the subjective availability of knowledge of how one actually behaves (i.e., one's actual self) was unrelated to meaning in life judgments. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.     

Passion, craving, and affect in online gaming: Predicting how gamers feel when playing and when prevented from playing

According to the Dualistic Model of Passion, two forms of passion can motivate a behavior: harmonious passion and obsessive passion. Across various life activities, studies have found that the two forms of passion show different relationships with affect, linking harmonious passion to positive affect and obsessive passion to negative affect. To investigate if this pattern also holds for online gaming, the present study investigated 160 gamers involved in playing massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMOs) and examined positive and negative affect (a) when playing and (b) when prevented from playing. In addition, the effects of general affect and craving for playing MMOs were controlled for. Results were as expected from the Dualistic Model of Passion: harmonious passion for online gaming predicted positive affect when playing whereas obsessive passion predicted negative affect when playing and when prevented from playing. Moreover, these effects remained unchanged when general affect and craving were controlled for. With this, the present research shows that individual differences in passion for online gaming explain unique variance in gaming-related emotions. Moreover, the present findings suggests that craving is a variable that future research on positive and negative affect in online gaming should pay closer attention to.     

THE DEVELOPMENT OF FALSE‐POSITIVE OUTCOMES DURING FUNCTIONAL ANALYSES OF PROBLEM BEHAVIOR

False‐positive outcomes of functional analyses exist when exposure to the consequences in a condition strengthens a relation that did not previously exist. Two functional analyses (aggression and spitting) were conducted with a child with an intellectual disability. High rates of problem behavior occurred immediately in the attention condition of the functional analysis across response topographies, suggesting a clear functional response class. However, rates of aggression and spitting increased in the demand condition, following the initial block of sessions, indicating the possible creation of a novel contingent relation for spitting. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Toward a ‘Catholic’ Reading of Kierkegaard

Historically, some Catholic readers have been suspicious of Kierkegaard's writings; viewing him as an irrational Protestant irreconcilably at odds with Catholic thought. Nevertheless, the unexpected yet favorable mention of Kierkegaard in John Paul II's Fides et Ratio is an indication that Kierkegaard's writings are not so easily dismissed. One may be justified in asking: what account can be given to explain such a shift in how the Catholic reception of Kierkegaard changes from a polemical rejection to a papal endorsement during the 20th century? In this review essay, I will explore some recent Kierkegaard research that provides – or at least, provides some of the groundwork for – a positive ‘Catholic’ reading of Kierkegaard. Space does not permit an exhaustive exposition of each book, so I will highlight the salient features of each to underscore a new trend that is emerging in Kierkegaard studies.     

Coping with COVID-19: Longitudinal Impact of the Pandemic on Adjustment and Links with Coping for Adolescents with and without ADHD

Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology - Understanding factors that foster resilience and buffer against the negative psychological impact of COVID-19 is critical to inform efforts to...     

Longitudinal Association of Sluggish Cognitive Tempo with Depression in Adolescents and the Possible Role of Peer Victimization

Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology - It is unknown whether sluggish cognitive tempo (SCT) is prospectively associated with depression in adolescence, and possible processes linking...     

Purity matters more than harm in moral judgments of suicide: Response to Gray (2014)

Many people judge suicide to be immoral. We have found evidence that these moral judgments are primarily predicted by people’s belief that suicide taints the soul and by independent concerns about purity. This finding is inconsistent with accounts that define morality as fundamentally based upon harm considerations. In this commentary, we respond to a critique of our finding, and we provide further support for our original conclusions. Even when applying new exclusion criteria to our data, an examination of effect sizes demonstrates that concerns about purity robustly and meaningfully explain variance in moral judgments of suicide. While harm concerns sometimes predict moral judgments of suicide alongside purity concerns, they reliably explain a much smaller proportion of the variance than do purity concerns. Therefore, data from six studies continue to suggest that the relevance of harm concerns for moral judgments of suicide is substantially overshadowed by the contribution of purity concerns.