Foundations of cooperation in young children

Observations and experiments show that human adults preferentially share resources with close relations, with people who have shared with them (reciprocity), and with people who have shared with others (indirect reciprocity). These tendencies are consistent with evolutionary theory but could also reflect the shaping effects of experience or instruction in complex, cooperative, and competitive societies. Here, we report evidence for these three tendencies in 3.5-year-old children, despite their limited experience with complex cooperative networks. Three pillars of mature cooperative behavior therefore appear to have roots extending deep into human development.     

Optimal Strategies in Couple Therapy: Treating Couples Dealing with the Trauma of Infidelity

Infidelity is one of the most difficult problems to address in couple therapy, most likely because it involves a traumatic relationship event that alters the ways in which couples process information about each other and established behavioral patterns. This article presents a three-stage treatment designed to address the cognitive, behavioral, and emotional sequelae of affairs that integrates cognitive-behavioral and insight-oriented strategies with the literatures on traumatic response and forgiveness. Critical and unique features of this treatment are discussed and a case study is presented to illustrate the treatment methods.     

Recognition of facial affect in Borderline Personality Disorder

Patients with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) have been described as emotionally hyperresponsive, especially to anger and fear in social contexts. The aim was to investigate whether BPD patients are more sensitive but less accurate in terms of basic emotion recognition, and show a bias towards perceiving anger and fear when evaluating ambiguous facial expressions. Twenty-five women with BPD were compared with healthy controls on two different facial emotion recognition tasks. The first task allowed the assessment of the subjective detection threshold as well as the number of evaluation errors on six basic emotions. The second task assessed a response bias to blends of basic emotions. BPD patients showed no general deficit on the affect recognition task, but did show enhanced learning over the course of the experiment. For ambiguous emotional stimuli, we found a bias towards the perception of anger in the BPD patients but not towards fear. BPD patients are accurate in perceiving facial emotions, and are probably more sensitive to familiar facial expressions. They show a bias towards perceiving anger, when socio-affective cues are ambiguous. Interpersonal training should focus on the differentiation of ambiguous emotion in order to reduce a biased appraisal of others.     

Different storage and retrieval deficits in normal aging and mild cognitive impairment: a multinomial modeling analysis

The authors compared patients with mild cognitive impairment with healthy older adults and young control participants in a free recall test in order to locate potential qualitative differences in normal and pathological memory decline. Analysis with an extended multitrial version of W. H. Batchelder and D. M. Riefer's (1980) pair-clustering model revealed globally decelerated learning and an additional retrieval deficit in patients with mild cognitive impairment but not in healthy older adults. Results thus suggest differences in memory decline between normal and pathological aging that may be useful for the detection of risk groups for dementia, and they illustrate the value of model-based disentangling of processes and of multitrial tests for early detection of dementia.     

The development and evaluation of the Harm Reduction Self-Efficacy Questionnaire.

The authors recruited 99 injection drug users to assess the psychometric properties of a new self-report questionnaire--the Harm Reduction Self-Efficacy Questionnaire (HRSEQ)--designed to measure injection drug users' confidence to employ 15 specific health-preserving coping skills in different types of high-risk situations (experiencing withdrawal, feeling depressed, and feeling social pressure to use drugs unsafely). Scores for each high-risk situation had good internal consistency (alphas = .89 -.92) and good 1-week test-retest reliability (rs = .70 -.85). Comparison with measures of drug-related problems, use of coping skills, and health self-efficacy supported both construct and discriminant validity of the HRSEQ. Exploratory factor analyses revealed 3 major themes (cleanliness precautions, overdose precautions, and safer injection practices) that summarized most, but not all, of the 15 items. Mean differences among the 3 situations suggest that harm reduction self-efficacy should be assessed in the context of specific high-risk situations.     

Kant’s Theory of Arithmetic: A Constructive Approach?

Kant’s theory of arithmetic is not only a central element in his theoretical philosophy but also an important contribution to the philosophy of arithmetic as such. However, modern mathematics, especially non-Euclidean geometry, has placed much pressure on Kant’s theory of mathematics. But objections against his theory of geometry do not necessarily correspond to arguments against his theory of arithmetic and algebra. The goal of this article is to show that at least some important details in Kant’s theory of arithmetic can be picked up, improved by reconstruction and defended under a contemporary perspective: the theory of numbers as products of rule following construction presupposing successive synthesis in time and the theory of arithmetic equations, sentences or “formulas”—as Kant says—as synthetic a priori. In order to do so, two calculi in terms of modern mathematics are introduced which formalise Kant’s theory of addition as a form of synthetic operation.

False memories of emotional and neutral words

This study used the Deese-Roediger-McDermott paradigm to investigate the direction and the extent to which emotional valence in semantic word lists influences the formation of false memories (FM). The experimental paradigm consisted of 1) a study phase (learning of neutral and negative lists of words semantically associated to a non-presented critical lure (CL), 2) a free recall phase, and 3) a recognition phase. Participants had to indicate whether the displayed item was "new" (new item or non-studied CL) or "old" (studied list item). CL associated with negative word lists elicited significantly more FM than CL associated with neutral word lists. This finding is in contrast to previous work showing that emotional words elicit fewer FM than neutral words. The results of our study also suggest that valence is capable of influencing emotional memory in terms of encoding and retrieval processes.     

Evaluation of a multicomponent appearance-based sun-protective intervention for young women: uncovering the mechanisms of program efficacy.

An appearance-based sun-protection intervention program was developed, implemented, and evaluated in a sample of 211 Caucasian women (ages 18-25) randomly assigned to the sun-protection program or to a stress management (control) program. The sun-protection program incorporated a novel construct of image norms of aspirational peers (i.e., female media figures, fashion models) approving paleness. The authors targeted these image norms as well as the advantages of tanning, health beliefs about photoaging and skin cancer, and self-efficacy for sun protection. The intervention produced significant differences across conditions favoring sun protection on all constructs but severity of skin cancer and barriers to sun protection. At follow-up, treatment participants exceeded controls both in intention to sun protect and sun-protective behavior and reported lower intention to sunbathe and fewer hours of sunbathing. A mediational model of intervention outcomes revealed distinct mediators for sun protection versus sunbathing.     

Making faces: Creating three-dimensional parameterized models of facial expression

Previous studies of the perceptual processing and dynamics of emotional expression in faces have been limited by the lack of realistic yet controlled stimuli. The present work offers researchers a method for creating such stimuli for exploring these phenomena. We describe the creation of the stimuli and a series of experiments testing the validity of these stimuli with respect to emotional expressions in humans. Participants evaluated synthesized facial images and standardized photographs of six basic emotional expressions for intensity and accuracy of perceived emotion. Comparisons of these measures were qualitatively similar for synthesized and photographed faces. A manipulation of the magnitude of the synthesized expressions yielded a significant effect on the perceived intensity of expression. In a subsequent multidimensional scaling study, no systematic differences were uncovered in the derived configurations of the synthesized expressions and the photographs. These results are discussed in the context of possible future research applications.     

Agreement by design: The effect of visual harmony on responses to surveys

The present study is one of the first to empirically examine how the visual harmony of a questionnaire can lead to measurement bias. Researchers often employ questionnaires with Likert scales to measure constructs. In this note, we examine how the design of the survey instrument, specifically, its visual harmony, can impair measurement accuracy. Two studies investigate effects of visual harmony in surveys on responses to Likert scales using paper and pencil surveys. Applying an established customer relationship management model, Study 1 employs a survey of female visitors to a grocery store (n = 115). Switching to a product and brand innovation context, Study 2 employs a survey of male and female members of a consumer panel (n = 180) to examine responses to a new e‐scooter. Across studies, results indicate that assessing important consumer response constructs through visually more harmonious surveys can lead to more positive response patterns, lower scale reliability, and questionable validity, especially with females. Although these effects do not occur uniformly across measures and samples, they occur regardless of consumers' past experience with completing questionnaires, their familiarity with questionnaire design, and the naturalness and elaborateness of the visual design. Relating specific elements (e.g., text boxes, type font, shapes, and images) and relational properties of design (e.g., balance, symmetry, and coherence) to consumers' overall perception of harmony aids marketers and researchers in achieving intermediate levels to obtain realistic, reliable, and valid results.