Patterns of Responding on a Balloon Analogue Task Reveal Individual Differences in Overall Risk-Taking: Choice Between Guaranteed and Uncertain Cash

ABSTRACT. We explored the utility of analyzing within- and between-balloon response patterns on a balloon analogue task (BAT) in relation to overall risk scores, and to a choice between a small guaranteed cash reward and an uncertain reward of the same expected value. Young adults (n = 61) played a BAT, and then were offered a choice between $5 in cash and betting to win $0 to $15. Between groups, pumping was differentially influenced by explosions and by the number of successive unexploded balloons, with risk takers responding increasingly on successive balloons after an explosion. Within-balloons, risk takers showed a characteristic pattern of constant high rate, while non-risk takers showed a characteristic variable lower rate. Overall, results show that the higher number of pumps and explosions that characterize risk takers at a molar level, result from particular forms of adaptation to the positive and negative outcomes of choices seen at a molecular level.

Color versions of one or more of the figures in the article can be found online at www.tandfonline.com/vgen.     

Client as Expert: Incorporating Spirituality Using the Tree Ring Technique

Addressing spirituality with clients from diverse spiritual backgrounds is a facet of culturally competent and ethical practice, yet various obstacles contribute to spirituality being overlooked. This article features a counseling technique used with clients who are experiencing difficulty with issues of a spiritual nature. Based on constructivist principles, the tree ring technique provides a context and process for examining clients’ spiritual conflicts, whereby the client is the expert and the counselor adopts a not‐knowing stance.     

Acceptability of virtual reality interoceptive exposure for the treatment of panic disorder with agoraphobia

Interoceptive exposure (IE) is a standard component of cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) for panic disorder and agoraphobia. The virtual reality (VR) program ‘Panic-Agoraphobia’ has several virtual scenarios designed for applying exposure to agoraphobic situations; it can also simulate physical sensations. This work examines patients' acceptability of the IE component as applied in two different ways: using VR versus traditional IE. Additionally, it explores the relationship between users' treatment expectations and satisfaction and clinically significant change. Results showed that VR and traditional IE were well accepted by all participants. Furthermore, treatment expectations predicted efficacy.     

Do Women Accommodate More Than Men? Gender Differences in Perceived Social Support and Negotiation Behavior by Spanish and Dutch Worker Representatives

Historically, the role of worker representatives (WRs) is traditionally perceived as masculine. With an increasing participation of women in the workforce, the number of female WRs grows all over Europe. WRs’ main task is to negotiate on behalf of the constituency. We explore how male and female WRs perceive support from their constituency and how this perceived support is related to their negotiation behavior. We test hypotheses about the impact of gender and societal culture on perceived support and accommodating behavior in negotiations. The hypotheses are tested using a quantitative approach among 219 female and 495 male WRs in Spain and 166 female and 398 male WRs in the Netherlands. Following the research question there was no evidence indicating gender differences in accommodating behavior. Results show that a) WRs accommodate less to management in Spain than in the Netherlands; b) female WRs perceive less social support than their male counterparts in Spain, but not in the Netherlands; c) social support is negatively related to accommodating behavior only for female WRs in Spain, but not in the Netherlands. We discuss theoretical and practical implications.     

Older Workers with Disabilities: Job Satisfaction Differences in the Public and Private Sectors in Europe

This study analyzes the differences in job satisfaction of older European people (aged 50-64), with or without disabilities, who are employed in either the public or the private sector. Using the data taken from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) for the years 2004, 2007 and 2011, job satisfaction equations are estimated for workers from both the public and private sectors, with panel data techniques that include variables related to the worker's degree of disability (nondisabled, non-limited disabled, and limited disabled), among others. The results show that the disabled workers who are limited in their everyday activities are less satisfied in both the public and private sectors than those who are non-disabled and non-limited. In addition, the levels of job satisfaction for non-limited disabled people are higher than their non-disabled counterparts but only in the public sector. From a point of view of public policies, it is necessary to design and undertake measures and actions that would contribute to improving the levels of job satisfaction of older workers with disabilities, especially among those who are limited in their everyday activities.     

The update of semantic memories in amnestic mild cognitive impairment

It is still controversial to what extent neocortical consolidated memories are susceptible of change by processes of reconsolidation and transformation throughout experience, and whether the medial temporal lobes are necessary for this update of semantic consolidated memories, as they are for episodic remembering. We hypothesize that patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) who have deficits in episodic memory may also have difficulties in updating information on added new features of objects. Sixteen participants with aMCI and 20 healthy control participants performed a semantic word-to-picture task, in which they were asked to identify as belonging to a given semantic category NEW objects, that have incorporated novel features, as well as OLD items, semantically and visually SIMILAR items and UNRELATED items. Patients with aMCI made a greater percentage of errors than healthy controls. Participants globally made greater percentages of errors in difficult types of items, namely NEW and SIMILAR, as compared to easier ones, OLD and UNRELATED. Importantly, an item by diagnostic group interaction effect was observed, and post hoc analysis showed that patients with aMCI made a higher percentage of errors than controls in NEW items only. In conclusion, patients with aMCI had a particular difficulty in identifying the NEW items of the word-to-picture task as compared to the control participants, supporting the concept of a flexible and dynamic conceptual knowledge system, involving the update of semantic memories and the integration of new attributes in a constant transformation process, which is impaired in these patients.     

Around the world,adolescence is a time of heightened sensation seeking and immature self‐regulation

The dual systems model of adolescent risk‐taking portrays the period as one characterized by a combination of heightened sensation seeking and still‐maturing self‐regulation, but most tests of this model have been conducted in the United States or Western Europe. In the present study, these propositions are tested in an international sample of more than 5000 individuals between ages 10 and 30 years from 11 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas, using a multi‐method test battery that includes both self‐report and performance‐based measures of both constructs. Consistent with the dual systems model, sensation seeking increased between preadolescence and late adolescence, peaked at age 19, and declined thereafter, whereas self‐regulation increased steadily from preadolescence into young adulthood, reaching a plateau between ages 23 and 26. Although there were some variations in the magnitude of the observed age trends, the developmental patterns were largely similar across countries.     

Family conflict is associated with longitudinal changes in insular‐striatal functional connectivity during adolescent risk taking under maternal influence

Maternal presence has marked effects on adolescent neurocognition during risk taking, influencing teenagers to make safer decisions. However, it is currently unknown whether maternal buffering changes over the course of adolescence itself, and whether its effects are robust to individual differences in family relationship quality. In the current longitudinal study, 23 adolescents completed a risk‐taking task under maternal presence during an fMRI scan before and after the transition to high school. Behavioral results reveal that adolescent risk taking increased under maternal presence across a one‐year period. At the neural level, we found that adolescents reporting higher family conflict showed longitudinal increases in functional coupling between the anterior insula (AI) and ventral striatum (VS) when making safe decisions in the presence of their mother, which was associated with increased real‐world risk taking. These findings show that individual differences in family relationship quality undermine effective development of AI‐VS connectivity resulting in increased risk taking.     

Psychological Change in Everyday Life: An Exploratory Study

The innovative moments model was used in a pilot study that aimed to explore the change processes involved in everyday change outside psychotherapy. According to this model, the emergence and development of innovative moments (IMs) as exceptions to a problematic pattern are closely associated with psychological change. A longitudinal design covering 4 months of interviews was implemented with 13 adults who were coping with significant personal problems without clinical psychopathological complaints. Semistructured interviews were used to explore participants' personal accounts of their problems, and change was assessed using a scaling task at the end of the study. A total of 114 interviews were analyzed using the innovative moments coding system. A general linear model showed that higher levels of change were associated with higher proportions of complex IMs over time. Moreover, lower levels of change were associated with an increase in elementary IMs. These results support the idea that successful psychological change in everyday life shares similarities with the change pattern found in psychotherapy using the innovative moments model.