The development and validation of a measure of character: The CIVIC

The present research study sought to develop and validate a character scale – the Comprehensive Inventory of Virtuous Instantiations of Character using a total sample size of 3679 across five studies. In Study 1, character trait items were generated using an integrative classification system. In Study 2, character trait scales were further refined and their factor structure examined, revealing eight higher-order character dimensions or character cores: appreciation, intellectual engagement, fortitude, interpersonal consideration, sincerity, temperance, transcendence, and empathy. Study 3 established convergent validity of character traits with extant measures and discriminability from personality facets, social desirability, and moral cognitive development. Study 4 revealed that character cores were more strongly related to evaluative constructs than personality dimensions. Study 5 demonstrated that character cores predicted performance and psychological well-being outcomes above and beyond personality. The implications of our findings for the assessment and taxonomy of character are discussed.     

How social is social inhibition of return?

A number of studies have shown that the motor actions of one individual can affect the attention of an observer. In one notable example, “social inhibition of return,” observers are relatively slow to initiate a response to a location where another individual has just responded. In the present article we examine the degree to which this phenomenon can be considered a social effect. We find that unlike the related social, or “joint,” Simon effect, social inhibition of return is not influenced by competitive versus cooperative interaction, nor by live versus recorded interaction. We do find however that co-actors need to turn-take in order for the effect to occur. Thus, so-called “social” inhibition of return only reaches a minimal threshold to be considered a social phenomenon.     

Are you feeling successful?: Examining postsecondary student perceptions of success with an expectancy value theory lens

Expectancy Value Theory (EVT) is a prominent theory on student motivation. To add to the growing research in this area, we investigated students within a large, mandatory course outside of the STEM areas, to examine perceptions of success utilizing an EVT lens. The aim of our study was twofold. First, to examine students' open-ended responses about what makes them feel successful. Second, to determine if students’ indorsement of expectancy, value, and control could predict their feelings of success. The study consisted of 210 students who completed an online questionnaire with items related to demographics, EVT components, and questions about their success in the course. Deductive coding was utilized to examine their feelings of success based on the EVT components. Regression analysis was utilized to predict perceptions of success. Students identified several components of their course that were associated with expectancy, value, and cost. Students' perceptions of success were positively predicted by expectancy and negatively predicted by cost while value was not a significant predictor. Our results speak to the importance of expectancy, value, and cost when designing large, mandatory courses. We provided several recommendations for instructors when designing courses, and also highlight limitations and future research directions.

     

Is the Divide a Chasm?: Bridging Affective Science with Clinical Practice

This special section endeavors to facilitate the integration of biologically-based assessments of emotion into the clinical setting. This goal is consistent with the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) initiative, which aims to identify transdiagnostic biobehavioral mechanisms that underlie mental disorders. We focus on four challenges to applying biologically-informed research on emotion and emotion regulation to clinical contexts: (1) How do we assess emotion in an RDoC framework? (2) How do we integrate measures of emotion with other systems in a wider context? (3) What do physiological indices of emotion tell us about clinical phenomena? and (4) How do we integrate physiological assessments into clinical practice? Throughout this comment, we refer to the articles in this special section to make our points, and, when possible, offer suggestions for future work to continue to address these challenges.     

A Brief Report on the Assessment of Distress Tolerance: Are We Measuring the Same Construct?

Distress tolerance (DT) refers to an individual’s capacity to cope with aversive internal (e.g., physical, cognitive, emotional) states. A growing body of evidence suggests that there is a relationship between DT and the development and maintenance of problematic behavioral patterns. Despite emerging evidence for such associations, a number of issues remain unresolved. The results of recent studies suggest problems with the convergent validity of the primary measures used to assess DT, despite the fact that these measures are used interchangeably in the DT literature. In order to further examine the relationships among DT assessments, we evaluated intercorrelations among various self-report and behavioral measures of DT in an unselected undergraduate sample (n = 83). Results indicate that two self-report measures of DT were highly correlated with one another, but that neither measure was significantly correlated with the behavioral measures. The relationships among the behavioral measures and between self-report and behavioral measures were weak and non-significant. Correlations between self-report measures only were strong. The findings partially replicate prior research indicating weak correlations between certain, commonly used measures of DT, and raise questions about the current conceptualization of the construct.     

Ostracism Reduces Reliance on Poor Advice from Others during Decision Making

Decision making is rarely context‐free, and often, both social information and non‐social information are weighed into one's decisions. Incorporating information into a decision can be influenced by previous experiences. Ostracism has extensive effects, including taxing cognitive resources and increasing social monitoring. In decision making situations, individuals are often faced with both objective and social information and must choose which information to include or filter out. How will ostracism affect the reliance on objective and social information during decision making? Participants (N = 245) in Experiment 1 were randomly assigned to be included or ostracized in a standardized, group task. They then performed a dynamic decision making task that involved the presentation of either non‐social (i.e. biased reward feedback) or social (i.e., poor advice from a previous participant) misleading information. In Experiment 2, participants (N = 105) completed either the ostracism non‐social condition or social misleading information condition with explicit instructions stating that the advice given was from an individual who did not partake in the group task. Ostracized individuals relied more on non‐social misleading information and performed worse than included individuals. However, ostracized individuals discounted misleading social information and outperformed included individuals. Results of Experiment 2 replicated the findings of Experiment 1. Across two experiments, ostracized individuals were more critical of advice from others, both individuals who may have ostracized them and unrelated individuals. In other words, compared with included individuals, ostracized individuals underweighted advice from another individual but overweighed non‐social information during decision making. We conclude that when deceptive objective information is present, ostracism results in disadvantageous decision making. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Mutual Vulnerability: Intimacy,Psychic Collisions,and the Shards of Trauma

In this paper, I explore the profound potential, and the challenges, of mutual vulnerability in psychoanalysis. I describe ways in which analysts are penetrated by shards of our patients’ trauma, and how this interpenetrates with our own vulnerabilities and ungrieved losses (Harris, 2009; Levine, 2016). In my patient Lisa’s fierce determination to come into being, and in our mutual efforts to survive each other’s ruthlessness (Winnicott, 1969) we each struggle to recognize and own malignant “not-me” versions of ourselves (Bromberg, 1998), as we reach toward reparation, mutual recognition, and healing.     

Examining the Efficacy of Parent–Child Interaction Therapy with Children on the Autism Spectrum

Externalizing behaviors are a common component of the clinical presentation of autism spectrum disorders. Although traditionally used with typically-developing children, parent–child interaction therapy (PCIT) is one behaviorally-based parent training program that has demonstrated success in increasing child compliance, reducing problem behavior, and improving parent–child communication. The study examined the efficacy of PCIT as a treatment for children with autism spectrum disorders by employing a single subject, non-concurrent multiple baseline design across three subjects. Primary findings revealed increases in child compliance, reductions in child disruptive behavior, and improved parenting skills across participants. In addition, each caregiver reported high levels of satisfaction with the intervention. Results suggested that PCIT may be a treatment option for children on the autism spectrum with co-occurring behavioral difficulties. Although the non-concurrent nature of the multiple baseline design is a limitation, this study replicates and extends previous research investigating the efficacy of PCIT with children with autism and their parents.     

Interactive effects of subjective memory complaints and hypertension on learning and memory performance in the elderly

This study evaluated whether the relation between subjective memory complaints and cognitive performance is influenced by the presence of hypertension in the elderly. One hundred and five healthy older adults, 70–89 years of age, with and without hypertension treatment or diagnosis, completed a scale of subjective memory complaints. Participants were divided into those with mild memory concerns and those with minimal or no complaints. All participants completed a battery of neuropsychological tests including measures of verbal and nonverbal memory. After controlling for differences in age, gender, education, and overall intellectual ability, there were significant main effects for memory concerns and significant interactions for memory complaints and hypertension on several measures of memory performance. There were no main effects for hypertension on memory performance. Simple effects analyses of the interactions showed that the hypertensive complainers demonstrated poorer performance on measures of long-term memory and greater reliance on short-term recall than the hypertensive non-complainers. There were no differences in memory performance for the non-hypertensive groups. Among healthy elderly community-dwelling adults, those with mild subjective memory complaints in the context of hypertension demonstrated greater objective cognitive difficulties than those without hypertension as well as a greater reliance on a less efficient learning strategy. These findings suggest that memory concerns in the presence of hypertension may be important when evaluating treatment efficacy in these individuals and for identifying differences in cognitive aging.