Creative Thinking: Processes,Strategies, and Knowledge

Creative achievements are the basis for progress in our world. Although creative achievement is influenced by many variables, the basis for creativity is held to lie in the generation of high‐quality, original, and elegant solutions to complex, novel, ill‐defined problems. In the present effort, we examine the cognitive capacities that make creative problem‐solving possible. We argue that creative problem‐solving depends on the effective execution of a set of complex cognitive processes. Effective execution of these processes is, in turn, held to depend on the strategies employed in process execution and the knowledge being used in problem‐solving. The implications of these observations for improving creative thinking are discussed.     

Using Contextual Therapy to Treat Depression with Couples

Abstract

Though depression is one of the most common presenting problems treated by systemic therapists, there have been relatively few attempts to describe how specific systemic therapy models can be applied to treat couples dealing with depression. In this paper, we discuss how contextual therapy can be used to treat depression in couples therapy. We identify multidirected partiality as an intervention and as a characteristic. We introduce letter writing and internalized other interviewing as contextual interventions that help to facilitate partiality and understanding between clients. A clinical vignette illustrates our discussed concepts.     

Associations Between Sexual Orientation Discrimination and Depression Among Same-Sex Couples: Moderating Effects of Dyadic Coping

Drawing from minority stress theory and the systemic–transactional model, we examined whether perceptions of partner's dyadic coping behavior moderated the association between sexual orientation discrimination stress and symptoms of depression among individuals in a same-sex relationship. Data from 95 same-sex couples revealed that, overall, sexual orientation discrimination stress was positively associated with depressive symptoms; however, perceived partner emotion-focused supportive dyadic coping weakened this association. Specifically, higher sexual orientation discrimination stress was associated with greater depressive symptoms only for individuals perceiving low partner emotion-focused supportive dyadic coping. Implications for researchers and clinicians are presented.     

Effects of incidental positive emotion and cognitive reappraisal on affective responses to negative stimuli

Previous studies have identified two powerful ways to regulate emotional responses to a stressor: experiencing incidental positive emotions and using cognitive reappraisal to reframe the stressor. Several cognitive and motivational theories of positive emotion support the formulation that incidental positive emotions may facilitate cognitive reappraisal. To test the separate and interacting effects of positive emotions and cognitive reappraisal, we first adapted an established picture-based reappraisal paradigm by interspersing blocks of positive emotion inducing and neutral pictures. Across two pre-registered studies (Studies 1, 2), reappraisal effectively decreased self-reported negative emotions and increased self-reported positive emotions; however, experiencing incidental positive emotions did not facilitate reappraisal success. In another preregistered study (Study 3), we employed a more powerful positive emotion induction via virtual reality (VR), used a social stress anticipation task, and instructed participants to reappraise the anticipated stressor positively. Although there was a robust effect of the positive emotion induction (relative to the neutral induction) on feeling more positive emotions throughout stress anticipation, the results again indicated that incidental positive emotions did not facilitate cognitive reappraisal. We propose that incidental positive emotions and cognitive reappraisal may constitute separate pathways of influence when regulating one's responses to negative events.     

Human–dog relationships as a working framework for exploring human–robot attachment: a multidisciplinary review

Animal Cognition - Robotic agents will be life-long companions of humans in the foreseeable future. To achieve such successful relationships, people will likely attribute emotions and personality,...     

Empirical Investigation of the Relationships Between Irrationality,Self-Acceptance,and Dispositional Forgiveness

Milburn (J Ration Emot Cogn Behav Ther 33:325–340, 2015) recently suggested a theoretical link between REBT and forgiving, proposing that irrational beliefs, particularly demandingness and global evaluations of human worth, play a role in lack of forgiveness. The present study investigated a quantitative link between the concepts of irrationality, self-acceptance, and dispositional forgiveness. Four-hundred and thirty-three participants (70% female) participated in a 69-item online survey combining four previously validated scales: Shortened General Attitude and Belief Scale; Heartland Forgiveness Scale; Unconditional Self-Acceptance Questionnaire; and the Transgression Narrative Test of Forgivingness—(with revised response-options). Results indicated moderate and strong negative correlations between irrationality and dispositional forgiveness. Conversely, unconditional self-acceptance was significantly positively correlated with dispositional forgiveness. Regression analyses indicated that subtypes of irrationality and self-acceptance could predict dispositional forgiveness of self, other, and situation. No significant differences were found between sexes. These findings add empirical support to the hypotheses made by Milburn, suggesting that holding irrational beliefs impedes the process of forgiving, and one’s level of self-acceptance predicts one’s disposition to forgive.     

Adverse Effects of Childhood Emotional Maltreatment on Child Behavioral Outcomes

This study used a diverse community sample to test a moderated mediation model, investigating maternal depressive symptoms as a mediator of the relations between maternal emotional maltreatment and child behavior problems; we further tested the moderating effects of observed maternal hostility on these relations. Participants included 64 mother–child dyads (8–11 years old; 59.4% female), in which mothers completed self- and child-report measures and dyads completed a conflict resolution task. Results of a moderated mediation analysis (PROCESS; Hayes, 2013) indicated that the maternal history of emotional maltreatment was associated with increased maternal depressive symptoms, and subsequently with higher child externalizing problems. In addition, these relations were strongest at high levels of observed maternal hostility in the conflict task.     

Post-exercise pulse pressure is a better predictor of executive function than pre-exercise pulse pressure in cognitively normal older adults

Exercise “stress tests” are widely used to assess cardiovascular function and to detect abnormalities. In line with the view of exercise as a stressor, the present study examined the relationship between cognitive function and cardiovascular activity before and after light physical exercise in a sample of 84 non-demented community-dwelling older adults. Based on known relationships between hypertension, executive function and cerebral white matter changes, we hypothesized that greater post-exercise reactivity, as indexed by higher pulse pressure, would be more related to worse performance on frontal-executive tasks than pre-exercise physiologic measures. All participants were administered a comprehensive neuropsychological battery and underwent a Six Minute Walk Test (6MWT), with blood pressure (BP) measures obtained immediately before and after the walk. Pulse pressure (PP) was derived from BP as an indicator of vascular auto-regulation and composite scores were computed for each cognitive domain assessed. As predicted, worse executive function scores exhibited a stronger relationship with post-exercise PP than pre-exercise PP. Results suggest that PP following system stress in the form of walking may be more reflective of the state of vascular integrity and associated executive dysfunction in older adults than baseline physiologic measures.