Using time‐lagged panel data analysis to study mechanisms of change in psychotherapy research: Methodological recommendations

The introduction of novel methodologies in the past decade has advanced research on mechanisms of change in observational studies. Time‐lagged panel models allow us to track session‐by‐session changes and focus on within‐patient associations between predictors and outcomes. This shift is crucial as change in mechanisms inherently takes place at a within‐patient level. These models also enable preliminary casual inferences, which can guide the development of effective personalised interventions that target mechanisms of change, used at specific treatment phases for optimal effect. Given their complexity, panel models need to be implemented with caution, as different modelling choices can significantly affect results and reduce replicability. We outline three central methodological recommendations for use of time‐lagged panel analysis to study mechanisms of change: (a) taking patient‐specific effects into account, separating out stable between‐person differences from within‐person fluctuations over time; (b) properly controlling for autoregressive effects; and (c) considering long‐term time trends. We demonstrate these recommendations in an applied example examining the session‐by‐session alliance–outcome association in a naturalistic psychotherapy study. We present limitations of time‐lagged panel analysis and future directions.     

Imagining better societies: A social psychological framework for the study of utopian thinking and collective action

We present an integrative theoretical model that specifies social psychological mechanisms by which utopian thinking, which activates the social imagination, may enhance collective action intentions oriented toward social change and human progress. The model synthesizes complementary insights from interdisciplinary research programs on utopianism, hope, construal level, and system justification to identify mechanisms by which imagining better societies: (a) increases social hope, (b) yields an abstract mindset that bridges the psychological distance between the status quo (“here and now”) and a better possible future, (c) decreases system justification motivation, and (d) promotes social justice‐oriented forms of collective action.     

Choice patterns reveal qualitative individual differences among discounting of delayed gains,delayed losses,and probabilistic losses

A new probabilistic losses questionnaire as well as Kirby's delayed gains questionnaire and a previously developed delayed losses questionnaire were administered to a large online sample. Almost all participants showed the positive discounting choice pattern expected on the Kirby questionnaire, decreasing their choice of a delayed gain as time to its receipt increased. In contrast, approximately 15% of the participants showed negative discounting on the delayed losses questionnaire and/or the probabilistic losses questionnaire, decreasing their choice of an immediate loss as time to a delayed loss decreased and/or decreasing their choice of a certain loss as likelihood of the probabilistic loss increased. Mixture model analysis confirmed the existence of these negative discounting subgroups. The inconsistent findings observed in previous research involving delayed/probabilistic losses may be due to differences in the proportion of negative discounters who participated in previous studies. Further research is needed to determine how negative discounting of delayed and probabilistic losses manifests itself in everyday decisions. It should be noted that the presence of individuals who show atypical choice patterns when losses are involved may pose challenges for efforts to modify discounting in order to ameliorate behavioral problems, especially because many such problems concern choices that have negative consequences, often delayed and/or probabilistic.     

John Macmurray,Spirituality, Community and Real Schools

This paper suggests that the work of the Scottish philosopher John Macmurray provides a valuable contribution to debates on spirituality, education, and schools as communities. In particular by recognizing the nature of the spiritual in everyday activities of people in communities, by focusing on the overall aims of schooling, and by rejecting dualism, idealism and materialism, Macmurray was able to describe how schools might properly be organized. The paper aims to investigate some of Macmurray's insights, to see how they might help transform one's vision of schooling.     

Psychological distress: A hierarchical factor model of the Multiple Affect Adjective Check List (MAACL)

Recent investigations of the structure of psychological distress have indicated that hierarchical models can accommodate both unitary and multifaceted conceptions of distress. The present study tested the hierarchical framework suggested by Zuckerman, Lubin, and Rinck (1983) for the Multiple Affect Adjective Check List (MAACL), a commonly used measure of psychological distress. One- and two-factor models were estimated using maximum-likelihood methods. Results indicated that the two-factor solution, with correlated positive and negative affect factors, provided a significantly better fit to the data than did the omnibus one-factor solution. These results provide further support for hierarchical models of distress.     

Relinquishment of control and the type A behavior pattern: the role of performance evaluation

We investigated the role of information processing in the control relinquishment decisions of Type As and Bs. Pairs of subjects worked independently on a task and received feedback indicating that their partner had performed at a comparable or superior level. On a second task, subjects combined their efforts and made decisions concerning who would work on different parts of that task. One third of the subjects made this decision before completing an evaluation of the initial performances. Another third completed the evaluation without knowing that they would subsequently make a control decision. The final third of the subjects completed their evaluations knowing that a control decision would follow. Results indicated that when the evaluations were completed last, or when the evaluations were completed first but without knowledge of the impending decision, Type As relinquished less control to a superior partner than did Type Bs. When the evaluations were completed with knowledge of an impending control decision, Type As and Bs did not differ in their decisions. These results suggest that under certain conditions, Type As use an automatic or mindless decision style with potentially maladaptive consequences.