Cumulative culture and future thinking: Is mental time travel a prerequisite to cumulative cultural evolution?

Cumulative culture denotes the, arguably, human capacity to build on the cultural behaviors of one's predecessors, allowing increases in cultural complexity to occur such that many of our cultural artifacts, products and technologies have progressed beyond what a single individual could invent alone. This process of cumulative cultural evolution underlies human cultural success and has enabled us to reach and inhabit some of the most inhospitable environments on this planet. Why humans, but not other animals, have exhibited a cultural explosion has caused much deliberation. The human propensity to imitate, teach, “mind-read” and cooperate have all featured prominently in accounts of the prerequisites for cumulative culture. However, this may not represent the complete picture. In this article we consider whether there exists a link between future thinking, specifically prospective mental time travel, and the observed distribution of cumulative culture.     

The role of age and inhibitory efficiency in working memory processing and storage components

In this study, we examined the extent to which inhibitory efficiency accounted for age-related decline in the processing and storage components of working memory. Older and younger adults performed a sequential task, which served as an index of deletion-type inhibition (the ability to suppress no-longer-relevant information). The reading span task was used to measure working memory components by examining processing accuracy, processing time, and end-word recall of sentences presented. Reduced inhibitory efficiency, which was poorer in older adults, predicted age-related decline in recall, over and above the effects of processing speed. Similar results were observed for processing accuracy, although the age effect in this component was marginal. These results highlight the important role of deletion-type inhibition in explaining age-related decline in working memory performance, particularly in the storage component, and extend previous research by examining this relationship at a componential level.     

Having an open mind: the impact of openness to experience on interracial attitudes and impression formation

This article considers how Openness to Experience may mitigate the negative stereotyping of Black people by White perceivers. As expected, White individuals who scored relatively high on Openness to Experience exhibited less prejudice according to self-report measures of explicit racial attitudes. Further, White participants who rated themselves higher on Openness to Experience formed more favorable impressions of a fictitious Black individual. Finally, after observing informal interviews of White and Black targets, White participants who were more open formed more positive impressions of Black interviewees, particularly on dimensions that correspond to negative racial stereotypes. The effect of Openness to Experience was relatively stronger for judgments of Black interviewees than for judgments of White interviewees. Taken together these findings suggest that explicit racial attitudes and impression formation may depend on the individual characteristics of the perceiver, particularly whether she or he is predisposed to consider stereotype-disconfirming information.     

Black Americans reduce the racial IQ gap: evidence from standardization samples

It is often asserted that Black Americans have made no IQ gains on White Americans. Until recently, there have been no adequate data to measure trends in Black IQ. We analyzed data from nine standardization samples for four major tests of cognitive ability. These data suggest that Blacks gained 4 to 7 IQ points on non-Hispanic Whites between 1972 and 2002. Gains have been fairly uniform across the entire range of Black cognitive ability.     

Romantic involvement often reduces men's testosterone levels--but not always: the moderating role of extrapair sexual interest

Testosterone (T) appears to facilitate what biologists refer to as mating effort--the investment of time and energy into same-sex competition and mate-seeking behavior. Multiple studies show that men who are romantically involved (i.e., are paired) have lower T than single men, which may be due to a facultative adjustment by men of T levels in response to lower demands for mating effort. The authors proceeded on the basis of the idea that men who retain interests in sexual opportunities with women other than a primary partner continue to dedicate more time and energy to mating effort when romantically paired, and so they predicted that the association between relationship status and T depends on men's extrapair sexual interests. Study 1 used the Sociosexual Orientation Inventory to measure extrapair sexual interests, whereas Study 2 used a broader measure to examine this interaction. Both studies found support for it. These results have implications for an understanding of the biosocial regulation of men's behavior in romantic relationships.     

Comparison of group climate in an eating disorders partial hospital group and a psychiatric partial hospital group

Women in an eating disorders partial hospital program and a psychiatric partial hospital program were compared on a self-report measure of group climate following a psychodynamic-interpersonal therapy group. Those with eating disorders experienced their groups as more engaged and as more avoiding than those in the psychiatric partial hospital group. Therapists may be able to use initial heightened engagement in eating disorder groups to counteract the tendency to avoid content.     

Prospective relations between rejection and depression in young adolescents

The purpose of this longitudinal study was to examine the relations between rejection and depression across 3 years in young adolescents who varied with regard to their risk for depression. The sample consisted of 240 adolescents who were assessed in grades 6, 7, and 8. The assessment of rejection was based on adolescent-, mother-, and teacher-report, and depression assessment was based on adolescent- and mother-report and clinician ratings. Structural equation modeling indicated that rejection prospectively predicted depression. The authors did not find that depression prospectively predicted rejection, but such a relation cannot be ruled out because of strong cross-sectional correlations between depression and rejection.     

Reliability and validity of an auditing tool for person-centred psychotherapy and counselling for young people: The PCEPS-YP

The present study aimed to test the reliability and validity of the Person Centred and Experiential Psychotherapy Scale–Young Person version (PCEPS-YP). This is a newly developed and adapted 9-item scale which aims to measure counsellor competences in, and adherence to, person-centred practice, when working with adolescents. Counselling practice was assessed for 19 counsellors by randomly selecting 20-min audio segments from 142 recorded counselling sessions. Audio material was independently rated by eight raters using the PCEPS-YP to produce an average adherence rating per counsellor. Scale reliability was assessed via interrater reliability and internal consistency testing. Convergent validity was tested using ratings from the observer-rated Barrett-Leonard Relationship Inventory (BLRI Obs 40), and the scale was subjected to exploratory factor analysis. Results showed a high degree of internal consistency within raters (α = 0.95), marginally acceptable reliability across grouped raters (α = 0.58) and weaker reliability between pairs of raters (α = 0.50). Exploratory factor analysis revealed one strong factor for the scale with no subscales. Small-to-moderate correlations existed between the PCEPS-YP and the BLRI subscales and mean total score (rs = .12 to .40). Our findings suggest that the PCEPS-YP has potential as an effective, reliable and valid tool for assessing competence and adherence in person-centred practice with young people, both for research and for clinical purposes. However, training procedures need to be established that can enhance interrater reliability, and more evidence of convergent validity is needed.