Intellectual humility and openness to the opposing view

Strong disagreements have stymied today’s political discourse. We investigate intellectual humility – recognizing the limits of one’s knowledge and appreciating others’ intellectual strengths – as one factor that can make disagreements more constructive. In Studies 1 and 2, participants with higher intellectual humility were more open to learning about the opposition’s views during imagined disagreements. In Study 3, those with higher intellectual humility exposed themselves to a greater proportion of opposing political perspectives. In Study 4, making salient a growth mindset of intelligence boosted intellectual humility, and, in turn, openness to opposing views. Results suggest that intellectual humility is associated with openness during disagreement, and that a growth mindset of intelligence may increase intellectual humility. Implications for current political polarization are discussed.     

The development of the first symbolic uses in Mexican children from the pragmatics of object / Desarrollo de los primeros usos simbólicos en niños mexicanos desde la pragmática del objeto

This paper longitudinally studies the emergence and evolution of the first symbolic uses of objects in Mexican children. We observed eight children in triadic interaction with one of their parents and 10 objects in a semi-structured situation at nine, 12, 15 and 18 months old. The children began to use objects symbolically at 12 months, and the duration and frequency increased with age. The highest percentage of the total frequency of symbolic uses, of the four levels identified, was level 1. The frequency of level 4, where two or more symbolic actions occur one after the other, giving rise to ‘symbolic narratives’, increased according to age. These data confirm that knowledge of the rules of canonical uses of objects are the meanings which first symbols base themselves on and that children use the symbolic uses that they are aware of to create ‘symbolic narratives’.     

Developing a Measure of the Impact of COVID-19 Social Distancing on Household Conflict and Cohesion

This report introduces the COVID-19 Family Environment Scale (CHES), which aims to measure the impact of social distancing due to COVID-19 on household conflict and cohesion. Existing measures do not capture household experiences relevant to the pandemic, in which families are largely confined to their homes while sharing a life-threatening situation. Using best practice guidelines, we developed a pool of items and revised them with review by a panel of experts, and cognitive interviewing with community respondents. We administered the CHES by online survey to 3,965 adults. The CHES consists of 15 items for each of two subscales, household conflict (α = .847) and household cohesion (α = .887). Exploratory factor analysis yielded two factors, corresponding to the intended conflict and cohesion items, which accounted for 29% of variance. Confirmatory factor analysis partially supported the 2-factor model (RMSEA = .057; CFI = .729, TLI = .708, and SRMR = .098). The CHES also contains 25 optional items to describe respondent and household characteristics, and household-level COVID-19 exposure. The CHES, publicly available at https://elcentro.sonhs.miami.edu/research/measures-library/covid-19/index.html , provides a tool for measuring the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on important determinants of resilience in the face of major stressful events. Further work is needed to address the factor structure and establish validity of the CHES.     

Regression I. Experimental approaches to regression

The concept of regression is considered with an emphasis on the differences between the positions of Freud and Jung regarding its significance. The paper discusses the results of experimental analyses of individual experience dynamics (from gene expression changes and impulse neuronal activity in animals to prosocial behaviour in healthy humans at different ages, and humans in chronic pain) in those situations where regression occurs: stress, disease, learning, highly emotional states and alcohol intoxication. Common mechanisms of regression in all these situations are proposed. The mechanisms of regression can be described as reversible dedifferentiation, which is understood as a relative increase of the representation of low-differentiated (older) systems in the actualized experience. In all of the cases of dedifferentiation mentioned above, the complexity of the systemic organization of behaviour significantly decreases.     

Trait anxiety focuses spatial attention

Some findings suggest that trait anxiety impairs selective attention (e.g., Fox, 1993) while others suggest the opposite (e.g., Murray & Janelle, 2003). Both views may hold some truth if trait anxiety affects different levels of selective attention in opposite directions: trait anxiety might improve spatial attention, or perceptual selection, but weaken postperceptual selection. We used an adaptation of the flanker task (Eriksen & Hoffman, 1973) which distinguishes between spatial attention and postperceptual selection (Caparos & Linnell, 2010) to test this hypothesis. Trait anxiety was found to improve spatial attention but not to affect post-perceptual selection. The latter null effect may have resulted from the relatively high perceptual load used in this study. The focusing effect of trait anxiety suggests that anxiety reduces perceptual resources or increases cognitive engagement.     

Organisational and individual strengths use as predictors of engagement and productivity

This study sought to determine whether Perceived Organisational Support for Strengths Use (POSSU) and Proactive Behaviour towards Strengths Use (PBSU) predict engagement and productivity in a sample of South African call centre operators. Participants were 218 call centre operators within the financial services sector (females=51%, males = 49%), representative of the South African population, and predominantly holding secondary educational qualifications. Information was gathered through a cross-sectional quantitative research design comprising self-report measures. The measures were administered on site within a call centre of one of the country's largest financial service providers. Structural equation modelling methods were implemented to establish the model fit of the constructs in the study and to explain structural paths between the variables. Findings showed that POSSU and PBSU are significant predictors of work engagement. PBSU predicted productivity. In addition, engagement mediated the relationship between POSSU/PBSU and productivity. This supports the theoretical context of the job demands-resources (JD-R) model and provides grounds for further exploration of the strengths-based approach (on both organisational and individual levels) as a developmental approach to utilise within organisations to enhance engagement and productivity.     

Cognitive load eliminates the global perceptual bias for unlimited exposure durations

In the present study, we used Navon-type Cognitive Psychology 9: 353–383 (1977) hierarchical patterns to demonstrate that cognitive load eliminates a global perceptual bias and enhances the representation of local elements at unlimited exposure durations. We added a cognitive-load manipulation to Kimchi and Palmer’s Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 8:521–535 (1982) similarity-matching experiment with hierarchical patterns, and presented the stimuli for either unlimited or limited exposure durations. When exposures were unlimited, we demonstrated that observers exhibited a global bias under low, but not under high, cognitive load (Exp. 2). When exposures were limited, however, cognitive load exerted no effect, and the global bias remained (Exp. 1). We suggest that (1) these findings are best reconciled by proposing two stages in the representation of global structure, namely construction and maintenance; (2) the construction and maintenance stages are isolated, respectively, by limited-duration and unlimited-duration paradigms; and (3) cognitive processes play an integral role only in the maintenance stage. Given that real-world vision is not driven by a series of brief stimulus exposures, and is therefore likely to reflect maintenance processes, we argue that unlimited-exposure paradigms are more suitable for addressing real-world perceptual biases. When unlimited-exposure paradigms are used, cognitive load eliminates the commonly reported global bias.     

Event-Based Prospective Memory in Children with Sickle Cell Disease: Effect of Cue Distinctiveness

Event-based prospective memory (EB-PM) is the formation of an intention and remembering to perform it in response to a specific event. Currently, EB-PM performance in children with sickle cell disease (SCD) is unknown. In this study, we designed a computer-based task of EB-PM; No-Stroke, Silent-Infarct, and Overt-Stroke groups performed significantly below the demographically similar control group without SCD. Cue distinctiveness was varied to determine if EB-PM could be improved. All groups, with the exception of the Overt-Stroke group, performed significantly better with a perceptually distinctive cue. Overall, these results suggest that EB-PM can be improved significantly in many children with SCD.     

How changes in subjective general health predict future time perspective,and development and generativity motives over the lifespan

In this study, we used the lifespan theories of selection optimization and compensation (SOC) and the socio‐emotional selectivity theory (SST) to integrate the disengagement and activity perspectives on aging and to explain intra‐individual changes in work motivation. A two‐wave longitudinal survey study was conducted among 600 Dutch university employees to test relations between intra‐individual changes in subjective general health, future time perspective (FTP), and generativity and development motives. In line with the two lifespan theories, two processes were found. First, consistent with the disengagement perspective on aging, losses in subjective general health negatively predicted open‐ended FTP, and open‐ended FTP was positively associated with an increase in growth motives. Secondly, consistent with the activity perspective on aging, losses in subjective general health positively predicted limited FTP, and limited FTP was positively associated with an increase in generativity motives. In addition, initial open‐ended FTP predicted future open‐ended FTP through a change in subjective general health. Finally, these relations were found to differ across age groups, and thus over the lifespan. More specifically, losses in subjective general health and increases in limited FTP particularly result in lower development motives and higher generativity motives among middle‐aged workers, indicating that interventions aimed at preventing losses in health are probably most effective for maintaining development motives in this group.