Are Collective Efficacy,Disorder and Social Support Associated with One’s Quality of Life? Evidence from the Multilevel SWING Study in Belgium

The current study assesses the evidence for the association between several neighborhood social processes (collective efficacy and social disorder) and two important individual-level quality of life indicators, which are avoidance behaviour and mental health. In addition to these neighborhood characteristics, the study also assesses the impact of an individual’s social support network on these two outcomes. Hypotheses are derived from a theoretical framework that integrates insights from social capital theory, collective efficacy theory and broken windows theory. Hypotheses about both neighborhood- and individual-level effects are tested by applying multilevel analyses to data from the ‘Social capital and Well-being In Neighborhoods in Ghent’ (SWING) survey of 2011, which consists of face-to-face interviews among the adult population in the second largest municipality of Belgium. Results suggest that individuals living in neighborhoods with lower levels of social trust and higher levels of disorder report more avoidance behaviour. Neighborhood effects on mental health are rather negligible. Individuals who experience more social support report both a better mental health and fewer avoidance behaviour.     

Testing Mean Differences among Groups: Multivariate and Repeated Measures Analysis with Minimal Assumptions

To date, there is a lack of satisfactory inferential techniques for the analysis of multivariate data in factorial designs, when only minimal assumptions on the data can be made. Presently available methods are limited to very particular study designs or assume either multivariate normality or equal covariance matrices across groups, or they do not allow for an assessment of the interaction effects across within-subjects and between-subjects variables. We propose and methodologically validate a parametric bootstrap approach that does not suffer from any of the above limitations, and thus provides a rather general and comprehensive methodological route to inference for multivariate and repeated measures data. As an example application, we consider data from two different Alzheimer’s disease (AD) examination modalities that may be used for precise and early diagnosis, namely, single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) and electroencephalogram (EEG). These data violate the assumptions of classical multivariate methods, and indeed classical methods would not have yielded the same conclusions with regards to some of the factors involved.     

The influence of articulation,self‐monitoring ability,and sensitivity to others on creativity

Although it is often recommended to think aloud to solve problems and to become more creative, cognitive and social psychological research suggests thinking aloud may actually produce less creative ideas than thinking in silence. The results of two experiments indeed showed that thinking aloud hinders creativity—although people produced the same amount of new uses for an object, these were judged to be less original in the thinking aloud condition. Experiment 2 further showed that this effect was particularly pronounced for individuals with high sensitivity to what other's think of them and low ability to adapt to these expectations. From this, we conclude that the felt presence of an actual or implied audience when thinking aloud, reduces creative idea generation especially among those having difficulty adapting to others. Implications for creativity research, and for promoting creativity in applied settings such as organizational teams are discussed. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Rapid Automatized Naming (RAN) Taps a Mechanism That Places Constraints on the Development of Early Reading Fluency

ABSTRACT— Previous studies have shown that rapid automatized naming (RAN) is a correlate of early reading skills; however, the interpretation of this finding remains controversial. We present the results from a 3-year longitudinal study. RAN, measured with nonalphabetic stimuli before reading instruction has begun, is a predictor of  later growth in reading fluency. After reading instruction has started, RAN continues to exert an influence on the development of reading fluency over the next 2 years. However, there is no evidence of a reciprocal influence of reading fluency on the growth of RAN skill. We suggest that RAN taps the integrity of left-hemisphere object-recognition and naming circuits that are recruited to function as a critical component of the child's developing visual word-recognition system.     

Some animal specific fears are more specific than others: Evidence from attention and emotion measures

Using a visual search methodology we investigated the effect of feared animal stimuli on attention. Our results confirmed the important role of emotion on attention. All participants detected fear-relevant stimuli (snakes and spiders) faster than neutral (mushrooms) ones against a background of fruits. In addition, spider fearful participants were sensitized specifically to detect their feared stimulus (spiders), compared to their fear-relevant but non-feared (snakes) and neutral stimuli. However, for participants fearful of snakes there was no significant difference in detection latencies between the feared (snakes) and the fear-relevant but non-feared animal stimuli (spiders). The results from the attention task were mirrored in the emotional ratings, which showed that spider fear was highly specific, whereas snake fear was associated with a more generalized enhanced evaluation of all negative stimuli.     

The Need for Inclusion: The relationships between Relational and Collective inclusion needs and psychological well-and ill-being

The Need to Belong concept encompasses the need for inclusion and the discomfort with exclusion. The Need to Belong Scale of Leary, Kelly, Cottrell, and Schreindorfer (2013, p. 610), however, primarily probes into the discomfort aspect, and it does not distinguish between relational and collective self-levels. Two studies (total N = 429) provided evidence of the reliability, distinctiveness, and validity of the newly developed Need for Inclusion scale. The results revealed that Relational Need for Inclusion positively contributes to psychological well-being and negatively to ill-being. Collective Need for Inclusion was distinctively related to collective and group-level outcomes of self, such as social trust and collective self-esteem. Need to Belong yielded a reversed pattern of results for the studied outcomes. It is concluded that inclusion needs and discomfort with exclusion are positively related but clearly distinct, and that future studies should investigate their joint effects in a single research design.     

Emotion regulates attention: The relation between facial configurations,facial emotion,and visual attention

We used threatening, friendly, and neutral schematic facial stimuli, in which three, two, or one feature(s) conveyed emotion, to test the hypothesis that humans preferentially orient attention towards threat, and to examine the relation between facial features, emotional impression, and visual attention. Using a visual search paradigm, participants searched for discrepant faces in arrays of otherwise identical faces. Subsequently they also rated their emotional impression of the involved stimuli. Across four experiments, we found faster and more accurate detection of threatening than friendly faces, even when only one feature conveyed the emotion. Facial features affected both attention and emotion in the rank order eyebrows > mouth > eyes. Finally, the emotional impression of a face predicted its effect on attention.     

Was sagen „objektive“ Messverfahren über Sexualstraftäter?

A great deal of effort has been made to use so-called objective measurements in men convicted of child sexual abuse in recent years. The aim of using these procedures is to measure sexual preference for children more effectively while being less vulnerable for deception and to add information to subjective reports. In this paper it was investigated why research activities in this area have increased and what so-called “objective” measurements can reveal about sexual offenders. This article will discuss possible pros and cons of the use of such procedures for forensic court reports or in the context of therapy in a forensic setting.     

Eye movements during recall of aversive memory decreases conditioned fear

Cognitive-behavioral therapy for anxiety disorders typically involves exposure to the conditioned stimulus (CS). Despite its status as an effective and primary treatment, many patients do not show clinical improvement or relapse. Contemporary learning theory suggests that treatment may be optimized by adding techniques that aim at revaluating the aversive consequence (US) of the feared stimulus. This study tested whether US devaluation via a dual task – imagining the US while making eye movements – decreases conditioned fear. Following fear acquisition one group recalled the US while making eye movements (EM) and one group merely recalled the US (RO). Next, during a test phase, all participants were re-presented the CSs. Dual tasking, relative to the control condition, decreased memory vividness and emotionality. Moreover, only in the dual task condition reductions were observed in self-reported fear, US expectancy, and CS unpleasantness, but not in skin conductance responses. Findings provide the first evidence that the dual task decreases conditioned fear and suggest it may be a valuable addition to exposure therapy.