Integrating Cognitive Process and Descriptive Models of Attitudes and Preferences

Discrete choice experiments—selecting the best and/or worst from a set of options—are increasingly used to provide more efficient and valid measurement of attitudes or preferences than conventional methods such as Likert scales. Discrete choice data have traditionally been analyzed with random utility models that have good measurement properties but provide limited insight into cognitive processes. We extend a well‐established cognitive model, which has successfully explained both choices and response times for simple decision tasks, to complex, multi‐attribute discrete choice data. The fits, and parameters, of the extended model for two sets of choice data (involving patient preferences for dermatology appointments, and consumer attitudes toward mobile phones) agree with those of standard choice models. The extended model also accounts for choice and response time data in a perceptual judgment task designed in a manner analogous to best–worst discrete choice experiments. We conclude that several research fields might benefit from discrete choice experiments, and that the particular accumulator‐based models of decision making used in response time research can also provide process‐level instantiations for random utility models.     

American Indian Acculturation: Tribal Lands to Predominately White Postsecondary Settings

Grounded theory provided a framework for examining 25 acculturating American Indian college students, 12 relatives of acculturating American Indians, and 7 postsecondary administrators. Acculturation was defined as the transformative process resulting from the integration of tribal culture and predominately White culture. Data sources included individual interviews, focus groups, and artifact analysis. The 16 emergent themes form an acculturation theory centered on a strength‐based acculturation process affecting American Indians’ transition to predominately White postsecondary settings.     

Participating From the Comfort of Your Living Room: Feasibility of a Group Videoconferencing Intervention to Reduce Distress in Parents of Children With a Serious Illness or Injury

ABSTRACT

This study explored the feasibility and potential effectiveness of a videoconferencing group intervention for parents of children with a life-threatening illness. Parent functioning was assessed at pre, post, and 6-month follow-up (N?=?13). Semistructured interviews explored parent experiences of the program and clinicians’ experiences were systematically recorded. Attendance was high (92%) and parents reported comfort with the online delivery. Quantitative data revealed significant reductions on three of the nine measures examined (parent guilt/worry; unresolved sorrow/anger; lack of psychological flexibility). Clinician data are described and highlights the skills and program modifications required to adapt to the videoconferencing modality. A randomized controlled trial is now underway.     

Crossover from bulk to surface diffusion in the fluctuations of step edges on Pt(111)

Using low-energy electron microscopy we explore the fluctuations of step edges on Pt(111) in the temperature range 1190?K<T<1520?K. Below 1400?K the relaxation times vary with wave vector q as q ³, and above 1400?K as q ², while the observed activation energy changes from 1.25 to 2.75?eV. A discussion shows that surface diffusion is responsible for the rates at low temperatures, and that bulk vacancy diffusion becomes dominant above 1400?K. We infer that a similar crossover must occur for steps on most metal surfaces. The step stiffness is determined as 175 ± 20?meV?nm^?1 at 1500?K.     

Psychoanalytic aspects of inpatient treatment

This paper looks at the experience of inpatient hospital treatment at the Cassel Hospital and how formal psychoanalytic psychotherapy, with its emphasis on the transference and the inner world, fits into that context and orientates itself to some of the realities of the setting. It outlines how psychotherapy and nursing can work to inform and enrich each other, and what is psychoanalytic about the overall work. A bridge of understanding is built using the patients' perceptions of, adjustment to and conflict about the inpatient setting, and the affective impact of the processes on patients and staff alike. Two clinical examples of severe child abuse family cases are given, the first of Munchhausen syndrome by proxy, the second in which a baby sibling had been killed. They show how in-depth psychoanalytic work with mother and child and individual psychotherapy of the child can be combined with psychotherapy of the parents and intensive work in the therapeutic community. Such a combination can contribute, even in cases of severe pathology, to the development of the relationship between mother and child and promote successful rehabilitation in the outside community.     

Assessment of cognition in an adolescent Indigenous population

The assessment of cognition in Indigenous populations is often complicated by cultural and language differences and unfamiliarity with the assessment process. Cognitive tasks are being developed that reduce the impact of these factors. These processes need to be evaluated in different cultural and ethnic groups to determine whether they are appropriate. Such an assessment was recently used in two studies of cognition of 237 Indigenous Australian adolescents (age: M = 16.06 ± 2.16 years). The tasks were completed appropriately, with response times and error rates increasing for difficult tasks. Duration and error rates decreased for the round‐based tasks, in line with performance in non‐Indigenous samples. There were no gender effects. Age associations occurred in some tasks, but significant correlations were only of a small magnitude. Although the battery appeared to be completed appropriately in this study, more work needs to be conducted examining the influence of demographic factors to ensure that control data can be most appropriately matched in future studies.     

A practical variation of a multiple-schedule procedure: brief schedule-correlated stimuli

Multiple schedules using continuous discriminative stimuli have been used to minimize children's disruptive requesting for teacher attention (e.g., colored floral leis; Tiger & Hanley, 2004; Tiger, Hanley, & Heal, 2006). The present study evaluated the effectiveness of, and children's preferences for, two multiple-schedule arrangements in which brief experimenter vocalizations served as discriminative stimuli. Results showed that brief signals were highly effective discriminative stimuli for 3 of the 4 children, and that all children preferred one or both variations of the multiple schedule to a control arrangement. For 1 child, highly discriminated responding was achieved only when continuous signals were introduced.     

Imitation of hierarchical structure versus component details of complex actions by 3- and 5-year-olds

We investigated developmental changes in the level of information children incorporate into their imitation when a model executes complex, hierarchically organized actions. A total of 57 3-year-olds and 60 5-year-olds participated, watching video demonstrations of an “artificial fruit” box being opened through a complex series of nine different steps. Half of each sample observed the same nine steps performed through either of two different, hierarchically organized procedures, whereas half witnessed differing component action details. Children were found to imitate at both levels but were more likely to copy at the higher hierarchical level than at the level of specific action details. Fidelity to hierarchical organization, but not to the imitation of specific detail, increased with age. However, variation in imitativeness across children at one of these levels did not predict imitativeness at the other level.     

If you need help, just ask: underestimating compliance with direct requests for help

A series of studies tested whether people underestimate the likelihood that others will comply with their direct requests for help. In the first 3 studies, people underestimated by as much as 50% the likelihood that others would agree to a direct request for help, across a range of requests occurring in both experimental and natural field settings. Studies 4 and 5 demonstrated that experimentally manipulating a person's perspective (as help seeker or potential helper) could elicit this underestimation effect. Finally, in Study 6, the authors explored the source of the bias, finding that help seekers were less willing than potential helpers were to appreciate the social costs of refusing a direct request for help (the costs of saying "no"), attending instead to the instrumental costs of helping (the costs of saying "yes").