Young children's psychological explanations and their relationship to perception‐ and intention‐understanding

The present study examined two key aspects of young children's ability to explain human behaviour in a mentalistic way. First, we explored desires that are of a level of difficulty comparable with that of false beliefs. For this purpose, the so‐called ‘alternative desires’ were created. Second, we examined how children's psychological explanations are related to their understanding of perception and intention. A perception‐understanding task, an intention‐understanding task and a psychological‐explanation task were administered to 80 three‐year‐olds. Results offer support for the thesis that the level of difficulty of belief and desire explanations is comparable. Moreover, children's psychological explanations are related to their understanding of perception and intention. The results lend support to the idea that mentalistic explanations are an explicit manifestation of children's level of theory of mind. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Is pleasure all that is good about experience?

Philosophical Studies - Experientialist accounts of wellbeing are those accounts of wellbeing that subscribe to the experience requirement. Typically, these accounts are hedonistic. In this article...     

Robust dimensions of anxiety sensitivity: development and initial validation of the Anxiety Sensitivity Index-3

Accumulating evidence suggests that anxiety sensitivity (fear of arousal-related sensations) plays an important role in many clinical conditions, particularly anxiety disorders. Research has increasingly focused on how the basic dimensions of anxiety sensitivity are related to various forms of psychopathology. Such work has been hampered because the original measure--the Anxiety Sensitivity Index (ASI)--was not designed to be multidimensional. Subsequently developed multidimensional measures have unstable factor structures or measure only a subset of the most widely replicated factors. Therefore, the authors developed, via factor analysis of responses from U.S. and Canadian nonclinical participants (n=2,361), an 18-item measure, the ASI-3, which assesses the 3 factors best replicated in previous research: Physical, Cognitive, and Social Concerns. Factorial validity of the ASI-3 was supported by confirmatory factor analyses of 6 replication samples, including nonclinical samples from the United States and Canada, France, Mexico, the Netherlands, and Spain (n=4,494) and a clinical sample from the United States and Canada (n=390). The ASI-3 displayed generally good performance on other indices of reliability and validity, along with evidence of improved psychometric properties over the original ASI.     

The categorisation process in intergroup relations

In the first two parts of the paper a distinction is made between a ?conflict or convergence of interests' approach (Sherif) and a ?categorisation' approach (Tajfel) in the area of the experimental study of intergroup relations. Some recent experimental findings are mentioned, and a theoretical development of the categorisation approach is proposed. In the third part a new experiment illustrating the relevance of the categorisation approach is described.     

PET studies of language: An assessment of the reliability of the technique

In order to understand the basis of language in the brain, we must be able to describe the neurological systems that are used in language comprehension and production. In this paper, one technique for functional neuroimaging is discussed: measurement of blood flow change using positron emission tomography (PET). Two experiments were carried out investigating the usefulness of this method. One experiment examined the intrinsic time limitations of blood flow change as a measure of cognitive activity. A second issue considered is the replicability of the results obtained using this method. A comparison of two experiments containing the same conditions suggests that the results are replicable, when the experiments and method are similar. One case is discussed where the experiments differ; it is suggested that this is due to a difference in the materials used in the experiments, and that the difference has a principled basis.     

Towards a refined structure of personality traits

In this article we pursue two goals. The first is a further articulation of the dimensionality of the Dutch trait domain. The second is a detailed mapping of the factorial trait structure, one which includes intelligible and proper niches for various nuances of the trait language and for different interpretations of the main factors of personality language. In realizing these goals, we discuss the reliance on theory in structuring and modelling the domain in question, the type of model to be used, and the comprehensiveness versus the economy of domain representation. The advantages and disadvantages of the simple structure model and the circumplex model are commented upon, and a new framework that integrates these two models is presented. The present results provide confirmation of the existence of five major dimensions that cover the trait domain: (I) Extraversion or Surgency, (II) Agreeableness, (III) Conscientiousness, (IV) Emotional Stability, and (V) Intellect or Openness to Experience. The newly developed representational model, revealing a refined structure of personality characteristics, not only clarifies some of the problems faced in interpreting the Big Five factors, but also forms a starting point for applications.     

Hidden talents in harsh conditions? A preregistered study of memory and reasoning about social dominance

Although growing up in stressful conditions can undermine mental abilities, people in harsh environments may develop intact, or even enhanced, social and cognitive abilities for solving problems in high‐adversity contexts (i.e. ‘hidden talents’). We examine whether childhood and current exposure to violence are associated with memory (number of learning rounds needed to memorize relations between items) and reasoning performance (accuracy in deducing a novel relation) on transitive inference tasks involving both violence‐relevant and violence‐neutral social information (social dominance vs. chronological age). We hypothesized that individuals who had more exposure to violence would perform better than individuals with less exposure on the social dominance task. We tested this hypothesis in a preregistered study in 100 Dutch college students and 99 Dutch community participants. We found that more exposure to violence was associated with lower overall memory performance, but not with reasoning performance. However, the main effects of current (but not childhood) exposure to violence on memory were qualified by significant interaction effects. More current exposure to neighborhood violence was associated with worse memory for age relations, but not with memory for dominance relations. By contrast, more current personal involvement in violence was associated with better memory for dominance relations, but not with memory for age relations. These results suggest incomplete transfer of learning and memory abilities across contents. This pattern of results, which supports a combination of deficits and ‘hidden talents,’ is striking in relation to the broader developmental literature, which has nearly exclusively reported deficits in people from harsh conditions. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at: https://youtu.be/e4ePmSzZsuc .     

The Lawyer in the Dutch Interrogation Room: Influence on Police and Suspect

In many European countries, providing a suspect in custody with legal aid before the first police interrogation is a heavily debated issue. In this paper, we report on an exploratory study on the use of coercion by the police and the use of the right to silence by suspects in 70 Dutch homicide cases and their relation to prior consultation and presence of a lawyer. Analysis of the data indicates that there is a relation between the presence of a lawyer in the interrogation room and the way in which police interrogators use coercion. To gain insight into whether the police use coercion and how this is achieved, we looked at the extent to which the interrogators make use of certain interrogation techniques and how the interrogation techniques are used to exert coercion. We found that legal advice from a lawyer before and during the interrogation corresponds with suspects more often using their right to silence. It also appears that the police are inclined to use ‘hard coercion’ when confronted with a silent suspect. The research thus raises the question as to whether the presence of a lawyer is an adequate way to prevent false confessions. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Latent Class Multidimensional Scaling Model for Two-Way One-Mode Continuous Rating Dissimilarity Data

In this paper, we propose a cluster-MDS model for two-way one-mode continuous rating dissimilarity data. The model aims at partitioning the objects into classes and simultaneously representing the cluster centers in a low-dimensional space. Under the normal distribution assumption, a latent class model is developed in terms of the set of dissimilarities in a maximum likelihood framework. In each iteration, the probability that a dissimilarity belongs to each of the blocks conforming to a partition of the original dissimilarity matrix, and the rest of parameters, are estimated in a simulated annealing based algorithm. A model selection strategy is used to test the number of latent classes and the dimensionality of the problem. Both simulated and classical dissimilarity data are analyzed to illustrate the model.     

Cognitive therapy outcome: the effects of hopelessness in a naturalistic outcome study

This study prospectively examined the effect of hopelessness on outcome in cognitive therapy. Hopelessness has a central role in cognitive theories of depression, and consistently predicts suicide attempts and suicide completion. Furthermore, there is indirect evidence that hopelessness predicts cognitive therapy outcome, in terms of early termination of therapy, perhaps in part because theories of therapy change suggest that "remoralization" is a critical first phase of change. It was hypothesized that hopelessness non-responsiveness early in therapy would be predictive of eventual outcome, over and above hopelessness severity at intake. In a naturalistic study of 122 patients diagnosed with unipolar depression, it was found that non-responsive hopelessness predicted outcome in cognitive therapy, and this effect is over and above any effect of initial severity of hopelessness or depression. These findings suggest that patients whose level of hope is responsive to early interventions make more rapid and pronounced improvements during "real world" cognitive therapy.