Same/different discrimination by bumblebee colonies

Bumblebees were exposed to a discrimination procedure in which reinforcement was contingent on choice of one of two spatial locations. The correct choice depended on whether a stimulus display contained two identical stimuli or two different stimuli. Some bees were trained with color stimuli and tested with line grating stimuli and others with the opposite arrangement. Four colonies of bumblebees produced more correct than incorrect choices to both identical and different stimuli during the transfer phase. This pattern of results is a signature of choices under control of an identity (“same/different”) concept. The results therefore indicate the existence of an identity concept in bumblebees.     

Psychological States Following Resistance Exercise of Different Workloads

This experiment was designed to examine the effect of resistance exercise of different workloads on subsequent psychological states. Participants, 54 undergraduate students (34 male, 20 female), were randomly assigned to one of three groups: (a) low workload resistance exercise (50% of 1 RM), (b) high workload resistance exercise (80% of 1RM), or (c) a no exercise control. Resistance exercise consisted of three sets of five repetitions for three free-weight exercises: the bench press, overhead press, and dumbbell row. Psychological state was indicated by the Exercise-Induced Feeling States Inventory (Gauvin & Rejeski, 1993) and was assessed prior to exercise and at 10, 25, and 40 min post exercise. Data were analyzed via a 3 (group) x 4 (time) ANOVA with repeated measures on the second factor. All exercise participants experienced an increased sense of revitalization, which persisted for a greater extent in low rather than high workload participants. None of the groups reported changes over time in positive engagement or tranquility. In addition, while exercise groups did report a reduction in physical exhaustion during recovery, this improvement did not differ from no exercise controls nor did it differ between exercise groups. Thus, weight lifting appears to result in a sense of revitalization, an effect whose duration may be impacted by exercise workload.     

Balancing Social Responsibility and Personal Autonomy: Adolescents’ Reasoning About Community Service Programs

Many jurisdictions in North America have implemented mandatory community service programs in high schools. However, little research exists examining the reasoning of youth themselves about such programs. This study examined how youth reason about community service programs, and how they balance the prosocial goals of these programs against their personal autonomy. Seventy-two participants between 10 and 18 years old evaluated voluntary community service along with 4 hypothetical mandatory programs that varied according to whether students or the government decided the areas in which students would serve, and whether a structured reflection component was included. The findings reveal that youth are not simply self-focused but rather balance and coordinate considerations of autonomy and community in their judgments and reasoning about community service.     

Regressive Imagery in Creative Problem‐Solving: Comparing Verbal Protocols of Expert and Novice Visual Artists and Computer Programmers

We applied computer‐based text analyses of regressive imagery to verbal protocols of individuals engaged in creative problem‐solving in two domains: visual art (23 experts, 23 novices) and computer programming (14 experts, 14 novices). Percentages of words involving primary process and secondary process thought, plus emotion‐related words, were tabulated. Visual art protocols were higher in primary process thought and emotion‐related words; those from programming were higher in secondary process thought. Almost no main effects of expertise or interactions were found. Correlations between the measures (particularly those involving emotion‐related words) also varied as a function of task. This pattern suggests cognitive processes vary considerably across different creative problem‐solving tasks or domains, and that a more domain‐specific approach to creative cognition may be advisable. Further implications for integrating and consolidating some extant lines of creativity research are discussed.     

Extending the Validity of the Personality Assessment Inventory's (PAI) Level of Care Index (LOCI) in Multiple Psychiatric Settings

The purpose of this study was to extend the validity and clinical application of the Level of Care Index (LOCI) from the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI) in 2 independent psychiatric samples. In Study 1 (N = 201), the LOCI effectively differentiated level of care (inpatients from outpatients), and was also meaningfully associated with risk factors for psychiatric admission (e.g., suicidal ideation, self-harming behavior, previous psychiatric admission, etc.), even after controlling for other demographic variables (range of Cohen's ds = 0.57–1.00). Likewise, the LOCI also incremented other risk indicators (suicide and violence history) and relevant PAI indexes (i.e., Mean Clinical Elevation, and Suicide and Violence Potential) in predicting level of care, and explained an additional 6% to 12% of variance in the target variable. Diagnostic efficiency analyses indicated LOCI scores in the range of 15 to 18 optimize positive and negative predictive power, and classification rate. In Study 2 (N = 96), the LOCI was found to be significantly higher in those with a recent psychiatric admission within the past 6 months (d = 0.64), as compared to those without an admission. Similarly, those who were admitted for suicide risk had significantly higher mean LOCI scores as compared to those who did not (d = 0.70). The clinical implications of these findings and potential application of the LOCI are discussed.     

Are Thoughtful People More Utilitarian? CRT as a Unique Predictor of Moral Minimalism in the Dilemmatic Context

Recent theorizing about the cognitive underpinnings of dilemmatic moral judgment has equated slow, deliberative thinking with the utilitarian disposition and fast, automatic thinking with the deontological disposition. However, evidence for the reflective utilitarian hypothesis—the hypothesized link between utilitarian judgment and individual differences in the capacity for rational reflection (gauged here by the Cognitive Reflection Test [CRT; Frederick, 2005]) has been inconsistent and difficult to interpret in light of several design flaws. In two studies aimed at addressing some of the flaws, we found robust evidence for a reflective minimalist hypothesis—high CRT performers’ tendency to regard utility‐optimizing acts as largely a matter of personal prerogative, permissible both to perform and to leave undone. This relationship between CRT and the “minimalist” orientation remained intact after controlling for age, sex, trait affect, social desirability, and educational attainment. No significant association was found between CRT and the strict utilitarian response pattern or CRT and the strict deontological response pattern, nor did we find any significant association between CRT and willingness to act in the utility‐optimizing manner. However, we found an inverse association between empathic concern and a willingness to act in the utility‐optimizing manner, but there was no comparable association between empathic concern and the deontological judgment pattern. Theoretical, methodological, and normative implications of the findings are discussed.     

Applicant Anxiety: Examining the sex‐linked anxiety coping theory in job interview contexts

The Sex‐linked Anxiety Coping Theory (SCT) suggests that anxiety should relate to performance more strongly for males than females. In Study 1, we examined how the theory applied to five interview anxiety dimensions (appearance anxiety, behavioral anxiety, communication anxiety, performance anxiety, and social anxiety) using actual job applicants. In general, females reported higher levels of each type of interview anxiety than did males. However, consistent with SCT, Overall Interview Anxiety, Appearance Anxiety, and Social Anxiety demonstrated stronger negative relations with interview performance for males than for females. Consistent with the SCT, in Study 2 we found that females had more effective coping orientations for job interviews than did males.     

Observational Effects on Preference Selection for Four Children on the Autism Spectrum: A Replication

Individuals with autism have been noted to have restricted interests and repetitive behavior such as nonfunctional manipulation of objects. In this study, we used an observational conditioning procedure to switch the preference of items for four individuals diagnosed with autism who are considered lower functioning. The procedure consisted of the participant observing an adult playing with toys that were initially non‐preferred by the participant in a functional and engaging manner. For two participants, results were similar to the findings by Leaf; one participant required additional conditioning procedures, and we were unable to switch the preference for the other participant. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.