Spontaneous counterfactual thoughts and causal explanations

We report two Experiments to compare counterfactual thoughts about how an outcome could have been different and causal explanations about why the outcome occurred. Experiment 1 showed that people generate counterfactual thoughts more often about controllable than uncontrollable events, whereas they generate causal explanations more often about unexpected than expected events. Counterfactual thoughts focus on specific factors, whereas causal explanations focus on both general and specific factors. Experiment 2 showed that in their spontaneous counterfactual thoughts, people focus on normal events just as often as exceptional events, unlike in directed counterfactual thoughts. The findings are consistent with the suggestion that counterfactual thoughts tend to focus on how a specific unwanted outcome could have been prevented, whereas causal explanations tend to provide more general causal information that enables future understanding, prediction, and intervention in a wide range of situations.     

Pet dogs (Canis familiaris) re-engage humans after joint activity

Animal Cognition - Joint intentionality, the mutual understanding of shared goals or actions to partake in a common task, is considered an essential building block of theory of mind in humans....     

A retrospective longitudinal study of cognitive and language skills in poor reading comprehension

Fifty‐six specific poor reading comprehenders (SPRC) were selected in Grade 4 and retrospectively compared to good comprehenders at preschool (age 5) and at the end of kindergarten, Grade 1, and Grade 2. The results revealed deficits in vocabulary, grammar, verbal memory and early deficits in phonological awareness in most of the SPRC sample, beginning in preschool. The reading comprehension deficits in children with SPRC were not as marked in earlier assessments in Grade 1 and 2, probably because of the greater dependence on word decoding in reading comprehension in the early grades.     

Early Onset Binge Eating and Purging Eating Disorders: Course and Outcome in a Population-Based Study of Adolescents

This study aimed to describe the course of early onset eating disorders in a population-based sample followed from 14 to 20 years; identify variables that could account for the persistence of eating disorders from 14 to 20 years; and describe outcome of early onset eating disorders with reference to general and psychological functioning at age 20. Participants (N?=?1,383; 49 % male) were drawn from the Western Australian Pregnancy Cohort (Raine) Study, which has followed children from pre-birth to young adulthood. Eating disorder symptoms were assessed using an adapted version of the Eating Disorder Examination-Questionnaire, at ages 14, 17 and 20. At age 14, 70 participants met DSM-IV criteria for a binge eating or purging eating disorder. Nearly half (44 %) of these adolescents ceased to meet criteria for an eating disorders at ages 17 and 20, whilst one-quarter still met criteria for an eating disorder at age 20 and one-fifth met criteria for an eating disorder at all three time points. Purging at age 17 and externalising behaviour problems at age 14 were the strongest predictors of eating disorder persistence to age 20. Participants who experienced a persistent eating disorder were less likely to complete high school than other participants, and reported pronounced depressive and anxiety symptoms at age 20. This study provides new data the course and outcome of early onset eating disorders at a population level. Behavioural difficulties in early adolescence and purging in middle adolescence may predict persistent eating pathology to young adulthood.     

Inferences from semifactual 'even if' conditionals

We report three experiments on semifactual conditionals such as 'even if he had worn his seatbelt he would have been injured'. Semifactuals contain a counterfactual antecedent (the presupposed fact is, he did not wear a seatbelt) and a true consequent (the fact is, he was injured). The experiments show that from the denial of the antecedent, 'he did not wear his seatbelt', reasoners do not infer the standard conclusion 'he was not injured' but instead they infer the asymmetric conclusion, 'he was injured'. From the affirmation of the consequent, 'he was injured', they do not infer the standard conclusion 'he wore his seatbelt' but instead they infer that there is no valid conclusion. The first experiment shows this pattern for 'even if' subjunctive conditionals compared to 'if' indicative conditionals, the second extends it to 'even if' subjunctive conditionals compared to 'even though' indicative concessives, and the third extends it to 'if...also/still' subjunctive conditionals. The results suggest that people think about two possibilities to understand a semifactual: the conjecture, he wore his seatbelt and he was injured, and the presupposed facts, he did not wear his seatbelt and he was injured.     

Reasoning with deontic and counterfactual conditionals

We report two new phenomena of deontic reasoning: (1) For conditionals with deontic content such as, “If the nurse cleaned up the blood then she must have worn rubber gloves”, reasoners make more modus tollens inferences (from “she did not wear rubber gloves” to “she did not clean up the blood”) compared to conditionals with epistemic content. (2) For conditionals in the subjunctive mood with deontic content, such as, “If the nurse had cleaned up the blood then she must have had to wear rubber gloves”, reasoners make the same frequency of all inferences as they do for conditionals in the indicative mood with deontic content. In this regard, subjunctive deontics are different from subjunctive epistemic conditionals: reasoners interpret subjunctive epistemic conditionals as counterfactual and they make more negative inferences such as modus tollens from them. The experiments show these two phenomena occur for deontic conditionals that contain the modal auxiliary “must” and ones that do not. We discuss the results in terms of the mental representations of deontic conditionals and of counterfactual conditionals.     

Do narcissists make better decisions? An investigation of narcissism and dynamic decision-making performance

We investigated whether narcissism affected dynamic decision-making performance in the presence and absence of misleading information. Performance was examined in a two-choice dynamic decision-making task where the optimal strategy was to forego an option providing larger immediate rewards in favor of an option that led to larger delayed rewards. Information regarding foregone rewards from the alternate option was presented or withheld to bias participants toward the sub-optimal choice. The results demonstrated that individuals high in narcissistic traits performed comparably to low narcissism individuals when foregone reward information was absent, but high narcissism individuals outperformed individuals low in narcissistic traits when misleading information was presented. The advantage for participants high in narcissistic traits was strongest within males, and, overall, males outperformed females when foregone rewards were present. While prior research emphasizes narcissists’ decision-making deficits, our findings provide evidence that individuals high in narcissistic traits excel at decision-making tasks that involve disregarding ambiguous information and focusing on the long-term utility of each option. Their superior ability at filtering out misleading information may reflect an effort to maintain their self-view or avoid ego threat.     

Measuring patterns of change in personality assessments: an annotated application of latent growth curve modeling

Latent growth curve (LGC) modeling within the framework of structural equation modeling (SEM) is now highly regarded as one of the most powerful and informative approaches to the analysis of longitudinal data (see, e.g., Curran & Hussong, 2003). Whereas LGC modeling enables researchers to test for differences in developmental trajectories across time, conventional repeated measures analyses do not provide this opportunity. Nonetheless, a review of studies reported in most psychology journals reveals scant application of this methodological approach. One possible explanation for this limited use of LGC modeling is a lack of knowledge related to its application. The intent of this article, then, is to address this deficiency by presenting an annotated application of LGC modeling to health psychology data. Based on a sample of 405 Hong Kong Chinese women who recently underwent breast cancer surgery, we walk the readers through SEM modeling procedures that test for differences in both the initial status and rate of change in Psychological Morbidity and Social Adjustment at 1, 4, and 8 months postsurgery. We interpret findings from both a methodological and a substantive perspective.