When forewarning backfires: Paradoxical effects of elaborating social feedback on entrapment in a losing course of action

Entrapment occurs if people persist with losing courses of action. In two experiments, we show how elaborating social feedback (i.e., premature praise or forewarning regarding the chosen course of action) can have paradoxical effects on entrapment. The participants acted as head of a translation department and had to choose one out of four possible translation strategies for their employees. After choosing, they read four arguments (presumably written by former participants) which were either all in favor of the strategy chosen, all against it, or mixed. Half of the participants only read these arguments, whereas the other half elaborated on them by providing written comments (Experiment 1). The results showed that elaborating on other persons' arguments led to stronger entrapment, independently of whether the arguments were positive or negative. This pattern was due to biased argument processing: Whereas confirming thoughts were generated for positive arguments, negative arguments were refuted. Experiment 2 confirmed that this biased argument processing caused subsequent entrapment. These results indicate that elaborating any type of argument can lead to heightened entrapment and, hence, forewarning can backfire. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Mother–Child Agreement on Reports of Internalizing Symptoms Among Children Referred for Evaluation of ADHD

The effects of maternal (bias), child (age, severity of behavior problems), and measurement characteristics (similarity of parent and child measures; types of internalizing symptoms) on mother–child agreement on reports of children's internalizing symptoms were examined for 65 children referred for evaluation of ADHD. Agreement was low and did not improve when parents and children completed parallel measures. Mothers and children were more likely to agree on severity of internalizing symptoms rated as behavioral than those rated as ideational. The majority of discordant reports were of the type that mothers, but not children, reported clinically elevated symptoms. This type of discordance appeared to be a function of maternal negative bias rather than underreporting of symptoms by children.     

Assessing and interpreting personality change and continuity in patients treated for major depression

Structural, mean- and individual-level, differential, and ipsative personality continuity were examined in 599 patients treated for major depression assigned to 1 of 6 forms of a 6-month pharmaco-psychotherapy program. Covariation among traits from the Five Factor model remained invariant across treatment, and patients described themselves as slightly more extraverted, open to experience, agreeable and conscientious, and substantially more emotional stable after treatment. Trait changes were only to a small extent explained by changes in depression severity. There was evidence for differential, individual-level, and ipsative stability, with stable personality profiles in terms of shape and to a lesser extent in terms of scatter and elevation. Traits remain relatively stable, except for emotional stability, despite the depressive state and the psychopharmacological interventions.     

The structure of maladaptive personality traits in childhood: a step toward an integrative developmental perspective for DSM-V

The present study describes the construction of a taxonomy of trait-related symptoms in childhood, the Dimensional Personality Symptom Item Pool (DIPSI), and examines the replicability of the taxonomy's higher order structure across maternal ratings of referred (N = 205) and nonreferred (N = 242) children and self-ratings of adolescents (N = 453). The DIPSI's 4 higher order factors--that is, Emotional Instability, Disagreeableness, Introversion, and Compulsivity--showed clear correspondence with the dimensions of personality pathology found in adulthood (Dimensional Assessment of Personality Pathology-Basic Questionnaire; W. J. Livesley, 1990; Schedule for Nonadaptive and Adaptive Personality; L. A. Clark, 1993). These 4 factors can be further organized into 2 superfactors, representing Internalizing and Externalizing Traits, demonstrating empirical and conceptual relationships with psychopathology models in childhood and adulthood. The implications for the assessment and conceptualization of early trait pathology are discussed in the context of an integrative developmental perspective on the construction of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-Fifth Edition.     

Gender Stereotypes in Portuguese Television Advertisements

This study examined the portrayal of men andwomen in a sample of Portuguese television commercials,attempting to replicate and extend past investigationsdone in America, Australia, Britain, and Italy. The aim was to update Portuguese research andto compare findings across cultures. Three hundred andfour evening commercials were content analyzed by tworaters, one male and the other female, to check reliability. The attributes of each of theircentral figures were classified into 11 categories:gender, mode of presentation, credibility, role,location, age, argument, reward type, product type,background, and end comment. Strong evidence of differencesin the presentation of male and female characteristicswas obtained. The implications of results for thedevelopment and maintenance of gender roles arediscussed.     

USE OF NEGATIVE REINFORCEMENT IN THE TREATMENT OF SELF-INJURIOUS BEHAVIOR

Behavioral assessment procedures were used to determine the maintaining conditions of self-injury exhibited by 2 children with severe multiple handicaps. For both children, negative reinforcement (escape from grooming activities) was determined to be the maintaining reinforcer for self-injury (hand/arm biting) within an alternating treatments design. The treatment packages involved the use of negative reinforcement (brief escape from grooming activities) contingent upon a behavior that was incompatible with self-injury (reaching and pressing a microswitch that activated a prerecorded message of “stop”). Treatment was evaluated with a reversal design for 1 child and with a multiple baseline across grooming activities for the 2nd child. The treatment led to a marked decrease in self-injury for both children. At follow-up, high rates of self-injury were reported for the 1st child, but low rates of self-injury and an increase in task-related appropriate behavior were observed for the 2nd child.     

The effects of basal readers on oral language structures: A description of complexity

This report describes preliminary results of a research project to determine the effects of basal readers on productive and responsive (P/R) language. The research population consisted of 25 kindergarten and first-grade children, average age 6 years 4 months. Each child met with the interviewer three times: (1) to elicit a natural language sample, (2) to elicit (P/R) language following oral reading of a basal text, and (3) to elicit (P/R) language following oral reading of a story whose language matched, in complexity and length, their natural language sample. Results indicated that after children read a basal text, P/R language was significantly lower than their natural language. After children read a story whose language matched their natural language, P/R language was not significantly different from their natural language sample. The study implies that basal readers' language structures have a deleterious effect on (P/R) language of readers in their oral reactions to text.     

SELF-REPORTED EXPRESSION AND CONSEQUENCES OF EMBARRASSMENT IN PORTUGAL AND THE U.K.

Data was collected by questionnaire from Portuguese and U.K. college students in order to compare self-reports of the physiological/behavioural response associated with embarrassment, coping attempts and observer reactions to the actor's embarrassment in the two cultures. Blushing/increased temperature, increased heart rate and smiling/grinning characterised embarrassment in both cultures, although blushing was referred to with less frequency by the Portuguese sample; gaze aversion was a response specific to the U.K. sample. Smiling/grinning as a method of coping with embarrassment and as a reported reaction from an observer was reported with similar frequency by both samples; gaze aversion as a method of coping with embarrassment was referred to with greater frequency by the U.K. sample; staring by observers was mentioned with greater frequency by the Portuguese sample. More intense experiences of embarrassment were reported by the Portuguese sample who also reported being more successful in attempts to control their embarrassment. The results are discussed in relation to national stereotypes. Un questionnaire a été utilisé pour ramasser des données chez des étudiants portugais et britanniques, afin de comparer leurs auto-évaluations de la réaction psychologique/comportementale associée i rembarras, avec les tentatives d'adaptation et les réactions des observateurs à l'embarras de l'acteur dans les deux cultures. Le fait de rougir associé à une élévation de la température, la tachycardie, ainsi que le sourire caractérisaient l'embarras dans les deux cultures, bien que le fait de rougir était moins souvent mentionné par les sujets portugais; détourner le regard était une réponse particulière des sujets britanniques. Le sourire comme façon d'éviter l'embarras et en tant que réaction d'un observateur était rapporté tout aussi fréquemment par les deux échantillons de sujets; détourner le regard comme façon de se sortir d'embarras était rapporté beaucoup plus fréquemment par les sujets britanniques; par contre, fixer quelqu'un du regard était mentionné plus fréquemment par les observateurs portugais. Des expériences embarrassantes plus intenses étaient rapportées par les sujets portugais, qui ont aussi rapporté un succès plus grand pour ce qui est du contrôle de leur embarras. Les résultats sont discutés en relation avec des stéréotypes nationaux.     

Der Foto-Hand-Test

Projective psychological techniques might be useful for measuring forensically relevant constructs in the context of a multimodal assessment strategy but are often considered to be deficient concerning reliability and validity. The Photo Hand Test (FHT), a German version of the Hand Test, is a diagnostic tool aimed at measuring aggressive dispositions. It uses photographs of hand gestures which test persons are required to interpret. The answers are coded and an acting-out score is computed from diverse categories.A study on the reliability and validity of the FHT protocols from 98 offenders and a comparison group of 55 non-offenders was carried out. Internal consistency coefficients of the FHT scores were low and unsatisfactory. Offenders had higher acting-out scores than non-offenders, they did not give more aggression-prone interpretations but more interpretations coded as aggression-inhibiting. Correlations of the FHT scores with self-report scales from the Antisocial Personality Questionnaire did not show the expected patterns; however, they did suggest effects of a hostility bias: persons who interpreted many hand gestures as aggression-prone did not describe themselves as highly aggressive or impulsive but were more distrustful and paranoid. This indicates a projection mechanism different from the one postulated by the FHT authors.The results suggest that FHT measures should be interpreted with caution in forensic evaluations.