Brain, emotion and decision making: the paradigmatic example of regret

Human decisions cannot be explained solely by rational imperatives but are strongly influenced by emotion. Theoretical and behavioral studies provide a sound empirical basis to the impact of the emotion of regret in guiding choice behavior. Recent neuropsychological and neuroimaging data have stressed the fundamental role of the orbitofrontal cortex in mediating the experience of regret. Functional magnetic resonance imaging data indicate that reactivation of activity within the orbitofrontal cortex and amygdala occurring during the phase of choice, when the brain is anticipating possible future consequences of decisions, characterizes the anticipation of regret. In turn, these patterns reflect learning based on cumulative emotional experience. Moreover, affective consequences can induce specific mechanisms of cognitive control of the choice processes, involving reinforcement or avoidance of the experienced behavior.     

The criminal and personality profile of patients with schizophrenia and comorbid psychopathic traits

Sixty-one male forensic patients who met the DSM-IV criteria for schizophrenia were categorised into high and low psychopathic trait groups using the Psychopathy Checklist: Screening Version. The groups were compared on their criminal history, symptom profile, personality style, risk scores and subsequent institutional violence. Patients with high scores on the PCL:SV had a greater number of previous convictions and were more likely to have a family history of criminality. The high psychopathy-scoring group had higher levels of Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale grandiose and hostile symptomatology, and higher scores on trait impulsivity and aggression. They also had a more coercive, less compliant interpersonal style than the low-psychopathy scoring group. The high-psychopathy scoring group were more likely to be involved in institutional aggression and had higher levels of risk for violence. Patients with schizophrenia and high levels of comorbid psychopathy have a distinctive interpersonal style that may contribute to their greater risk of disruptive institutional behaviour.     

A systematic literature review of the average IQ of sub-Saharan Africans

On the basis of several reviews of the literature, Lynn [Lynn, R., (2006). Race differences in intelligence: An evolutionary analysis. Augusta, GA: Washington Summit Publishers.] and Lynn and Vanhanen [Lynn, R., & Vanhanen, T., (2006). IQ and global inequality. Augusta, GA: Washington Summit Publishers.] concluded that the average IQ of the Black population of sub-Saharan Africa lies below 70. In this paper, the authors systematically review published empirical data on the performance of Africans on the following IQ tests: Draw-A-Man (DAM) test, Kaufman-Assessment Battery for Children (K-ABC), the Wechsler scales (WAIS & WISC), and several other IQ tests (but not the Raven's tests). Inclusion and exclusion criteria are explicitly discussed. Results show that average IQ of Africans on these tests is approximately 82 when compared to UK norms. We provide estimates of the average IQ per country and estimates on the basis of alternative inclusion criteria. Our estimate of average IQ converges with the finding that national IQs of sub-Saharan African countries as predicted from several international studies of student achievement are around 82. It is suggested that this estimate should be considered in light of the Flynn Effect. It is concluded that more psychometric studies are needed to address the issue of measurement bias of western IQ tests for Africans.     

Parent Perspectives of Support Received from Physicians and/or Genetic Counselors Following a Decision to Continue a Pregnancy with a Prenatal Diagnosis of Trisomy 13/18

Families that choose to continue a pregnancy with a prenatal diagnosis of Trisomy 13/18 are a minority that present unique challenges for those in charge of their care. This study investigated the extent to which these patients felt supported by their healthcare providers, and any differences in the perceived level of support experienced by those working with a physician versus those working with a genetic counselor. Two online support groups, SOFT and Hope for Trisomy, distributed an online survey to their members. Means, standard deviations and chi-square analysis were calculated to describe their responses. One-hundred fourteen surveys were included in the final analysis. Respondents were more likely to agree that genetic counselors provided unbiased information in a way that they understood, compared to physicians. Review of qualitative responses found that portrayal of Trisomy 13/18 by healthcare providers used directive language when describing the lethality, morbidity and burden of the condition. Language included terms such as “incompatible with life” and comments on burden to other family members. Healthcare providers can assist families that receive a prenatal diagnosis of Trisomy 13 or 18 by providing up-to-date written resources and connecting them with support groups for parents who have received a similar diagnosis. Our study found that involving genetic counselors in the prenatal care of these patients is likely beneficial.     

Social discounting of pain

Impatience can be formalized as a delay discount rate, describing how the subjective value of reward decreases as it is delayed. By analogy, selfishness can be formalized as a social discount rate, representing how the subjective value of rewarding another person decreases with increasing social distance. Delay and social discount rates for reward are correlated across individuals. However no previous work has examined whether this relationship also holds for aversive outcomes. Neither has previous work described a functional form for social discounting of pain in humans. This is a pertinent question, since preferences over aversive outcomes formally diverge from those for reward. We addressed this issue in an experiment in which healthy adult participants (N = 67) chose the timing and intensity of hypothetical pain for themselves and others. In keeping with previous studies, participants showed a strong preference for immediate over delayed pain. Participants showed greater concern for pain in close others than for their own pain, though this hyperaltruism was steeply discounted with increasing social distance. Impatience for pain and social discounting of pain were weakly correlated across individuals. Our results extend a link between impatience and selfishness to the aversive domain.     

Fitting multivariage normal finite mixtures subject to structural equation modeling

This paper is about fitting multivariate normal mixture distributions subject to structural equation modeling. The general model comprises common factor and structural regression models. The introduction of covariance and mean structure models reduces the number of parameters to be estimated in fitting the mixture and enables one to investigate a variety of substantive hypotheses concerning the differences between the components in the mixture. Within the general model, individual parameters can be subjected to equality, nonlinear and simple bounds constraints. Confidence intervals are based on the inverse of the Hessian and on the likelihood profile. Several illustrations are given and results of a simulation study concerning the confidence intervals are reported.     

Counsellors' responses to clients' non-attendance at counselling sessions

Although there has been some study of clients who miss psychotherapy appointments, very little attention has been given to therapists' responses in such circumstances. A questionnaire survey of student counsellors working in British higher education institutions invited them to consider whether or not they would initiate any further contact with each of eight hypothetical non-attenders, described in case vignettes. It was predicted that responses would be influenced both by the subjects' theoretical approach to counselling and by their level of interpersonal dependency, as measured with the Interpersonal Dependency Inventory (Hirschfeld et al., 1977). It was found that the majority of counsellors were not subject to institutional guidelines about contacting non-attenders, and that responses ranged from contacting none to contacting all of the clients. Psychodynamic counsellors were found to be significantly more likely to initiate contact than were humanistic counsellors. There were no significant correlations between contact scores and intepersonal dependency scores but women were significantly more likely to initiate contact than were men. Many of the psychodynamic subjects had commented on their therapeutic use of written communications to interpret non-attendance to their clients.     

Does Repeated Exposure to Popular Media Strengthen Moral Intuitions?: Exploratory Evidence Regarding Consistent and Conflicted Moral Content

Previous studies have indicated that media consumption may influence moral intuition sensitivity. The present exploratory studies sought to expand on these findings by employing a three-phase, longitudinal experiment conducted over nine weeks, where participants were exposed to two genres of films (romance, action) mixed in various ratios (high = 100% romance, medium = 60% romance, low = 20% romance, none = 0% romance). Findings from the initial study indicate that repeated exposure to romantic films led to increases in sensitivity for four of the five moral intuitions (i.e., care, fairness, authority, purity); at the same time, any exposure to action films seemed to erode these changes. A follow-up post-hoc content analysis sought to confirm these findings and test an operationalization of “moral conditioning.” We discuss the results in regards to media entertainment theory and research, and the societal implications of the role of media entertainment to reinforce standards of moral judgment.     

The Price of Pain and the Value of Suffering

ABSTRACT— Estimating the financial value of pain informs issues as diverse as the market price of analgesics, the cost-effectiveness of clinical treatments, compensation for injury, and the response to public hazards. Such valuations are assumed to reflect a stable trade-off between relief of discomfort and money. Here, using an auction-based health-market experiment, we show that the price people pay for relief of pain is strongly determined by the local context of the market, that is, by recent intensities of pain or immediately disposable income (but not overall wealth). The absence of a stable valuation metric suggests that the dynamic behavior of health markets is not predictable from the static behavior of individuals. We conclude that the results follow the dynamics of habit-formation models of economic theory, and thus, this study provides the first scientific basis for this type of preference modeling.     

Heteroscedastic one‐factor models and marginal maximum likelihood estimation

In the present paper, a general class of heteroscedastic one‐factor models is considered. In these models, the residual variances of the observed scores are explicitly modelled as parametric functions of the one‐dimensional factor score. A marginal maximum likelihood procedure for parameter estimation is proposed under both the assumption of multivariate normality of the observed scores conditional on the single common factor score and the assumption of normality of the common factor score. A likelihood ratio test is derived, which can be used to test the usual homoscedastic one‐factor model against one of the proposed heteroscedastic models. Simulation studies are carried out to investigate the robustness and the power of this likelihood ratio test. Results show that the asymptotic properties of the test statistic hold under both small test length conditions and small sample size conditions. Results also show under what conditions the power to detect different heteroscedasticity parameter values is either small, medium, or large. Finally, for illustrative purposes, the marginal maximum likelihood estimation procedure and the likelihood ratio test are applied to real data.