Competitive Memory Training for treating depression and rumination in depressed older adults: a randomized controlled trial

Although rumination is an important mediator of depressive symptoms, there is insufficient proof that an intervention that specifically targets rumination ameliorates the clinical condition of, depressed patients. This study investigates whether a time-limited cognitive behavioral intervention (Competitive Memory Training, or COMET for depressive rumination) is an effective treatment for depression and rumination. This intervention was tested in older adult depressed outpatients. A total of 93 patients (aged ≥65 years with major depression and suffering from rumination) were treated in small groups according to the COMET protocol in addition to their regular treatment. Patients were randomized to two treatment conditions: 7 weeks of COMET + treatment-as-usual (TAU) versus TAU only. COMET + TAU showed a significant improvement in depression and rumination compared with TAU alone. This study shows that the transdiagnostic COMET protocol for depressive rumination might also be successful in treating depression and rumination in older adults.     

Should I save or should I not kill? How people solve moral dilemmas depends on which rule is most accessible

The literature on how people solve moral dilemmas often focuses on situations in which individuals have to make a decision where different moral rules are in conflict. In some of these situations, such as in footbridge dilemmas, people have to choose between sacrificing a few people in order to save many. The present research focuses on how people decide what to do in dilemmas involving conflicting moral rules. We propose that the rule that is cognitively most accessible during the decision making process (e.g., “Save lives” or “Do not kill”) will influence how people solve these moral dilemmas. Three studies are reported that indeed demonstrate that the most accessible rule influences willingness to intervene within footbridge dilemmas. This effect is found even when the accessibility of the rule is induced subliminally.     

Guiding trustful behavior: The role of accessible content and accessibility experiences

Trust has been identified as a key ingredient to the prosperity of close relationships, organizations, and societies. While research mainly focused on the antecedents and consequences of trust, much less is known about how individuals assess whether there are enough reasons to warrant trustful action. Two experiments explored the how and when of this assessment, suggesting that antecedents may not only be integrated as content information per se (as generally assumed), but in a feeling‐based summary form. Specifically, our results show that the ease or difficulty associated with the identification of antecedents to trust may guide trustful behavior. Furthermore, it is shown that such a feeling‐based influence is particularly likely to occur in conditions of personal certainty. Together these results extend prior research in the domains of trust and economic games, and further attest to the fundamental role cognitive feelings play in social life. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On the role of attention and emotion in morality: attentional control modulates unrelated disgust in moral judgments

The emotion of disgust can influence people's moral judgments, even if this emotion objectively is unrelated to the moral judgment in question. The present work demonstrates that attentional control regulates this effect. In three studies, disgust was induced. In an unrelated part of the studies, participants then judged a moral transgression. Disgust resulted in more severe moral judgments when attentional control (either measured by means of individual predisposition or manipulated with experimental control) was weak as opposed to strong (Studies 1-3). Findings further showed that attentional control mediated the positive relation between the intensity of participants' disgust responses and the severity of their moral judgments (Study 2). Moreover, attentional control has its effects through the regulation of affective processing (Study 3). Taken together, the findings suggest that unrelated influences of disgust on moral judgments are contingent on the attention system.     

Assessing the Incremental Algorithm: A Response to Krahmer et al.

This response discusses the experiment reported in Krahmer et al.’s Letter to the Editor of Cognitive Science. We observe that their results do not tell us whether the Incremental Algorithm is better or worse than its competitors, and we speculate about implications for reference in complex domains, and for learning from ‘‘normal” (i.e., non‐semantically‐balanced) corpora.     

Model-guided implementation of an instrument for program evaluation: The use of social policy and innovation models

A research program in the Netherlands is aimed at the implementation of an instrument for program evaluation in organizations for intramural treatment of juveniles with psychosocial and/or behavioral problems. The basis and guide for the implementation is a sequence of three complementary models, each model being more specific than its predecessor. The results of the research program in nine organizations suggest that the choice of an adequate guiding model depends on the policy level at which the organization is operating, the number of persons involved in the implementation, and the culture of decision-making in the organization. K. Mesman Schultz is senior investigator at the Leyden Institute for Social Policy Research (LISPOR) and director of the Research Centre for Youth-at-Risk (RCY) at the State University of Leyden, Rijnsburgerweg 100, 233 AE Leiden The Netherlands. His research mainly refers to diagnosis, decision-making and social policy in the field of youth care. W.I. Poot is investigator at LISPOR and RCY. She is in charge of the execution of utilization and implementation research projects in the field of youth care. P.H.M. van den Bogaart is senior investigator at LISPOR and RCY. He has wide experience in educational research and youth care research.     

Culture and Gender Differences in the Perception of Friendship by Adolescents

This study examines personal collectivism and individualism (or allocentrism and idiocentrism) in relation to the perception of same-sex friendships among adolescents living in a multi-ethnic context in the Netherlands. Respondents originally from collectivist cultures were more allocentric than respondents originally from individualist cultures. Among the former group allocentrism was unrelated to idiocentrism, whereas a negative relation was found among the latter group. Allocentrism was related to a greater sensitivity to friends, using more ascribed features in describing friends, having fewer friends but seeing their relationship as closer, perceiving less intimacy with other-than-best-friends, and endorsing rules about relations with third parties more. Idiocentrism was related to less sensitivity to friends, using more personal characteristics in describing friends, but also to having fewer friends, talking less intimately with others, and endorsing friendship rules about intimacy less. Additionally, gender had independent effects on the perception of friendship, suggesting that cultural and gender differences cannot be characterized by the same set of features.     

The Sharing of Risks and the Risks of Sharing: Solidarity and Social Justice in the Welfare State

Solidarity as a social phenomenon means a sharing of feelings, interests, risks and responsibilities. The Western-European Welfare State can be seen as an organized system of solidarity, historically grown from group solidarity among workers, later between workers and employers, moving towards solidarity between larger social groups: between healthy people and the sick, between the young and the elderly, between the employed and the unemployed. This sharing of risks at a societal level however, has revealed the risks of sharing. In the postwar development of the welfare state, solidarity has been organized mainly in administrative forms, run by anonymous bureaucracies and giving way to free riders and calculative citizens. This article describes this development and provides arguments for a reorientation of the welfare state and for the re-allocation of rights, risks and responsibilities.     

Appropriateness of decisions as a moderator of the psychology of voice

This paper focuses on the psychology of the voice effect (the effect that people show more positive reactions when they are allowed an opportunity to voice their opinion in the decision‐making process than when they are denied such an opportunity). It is argued that it is important to ask about what decisions people are allowed voice. More specifically, results of two experiments suggest that when participation in decision making is appropriate (i.e. voice is allowed about decisions that are relatively important to participants) the voice effect is found: People's procedural judgements and other reactions are more positive following voice as opposed to no‐voice procedures. However, when participation in decision making is inappropriate (i.e. voice is allowed about decisions that are unimportant to participants) no effect or even a reversal of the voice effect is found. These people do not react differently or even react more negatively following voice as opposed to no‐voice procedures. It is concluded that these results further our insights into the psychology of procedural justice in general and voice in particular. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.