A Theory of Regret Regulation 1.1

We use this opportunity to respond to the issues raised by Inman (2007), and Roese, Summerville, and Fessel (2007) by addressing four broad topics that embrace the most important comments on our regret regulation theory. These topics are the feeling‐is‐for‐doing approach on which regret regulation theory rests, the importance of emotion specificity, factors that modulate the intensity of regret, and the focus on action, inaction and choice in the elicitation of regret. Together this results in a first update, version 1.1.     

Uncertainty about perception and dissociation after compulsive-like staring: Time course of effects

Repeated and compulsive-like checking reduces confidence in memory for the last check. Obsessive-compulsive (OC) patients are not only uncertain about memory, but may also be uncertain about perception, while this perceptual uncertainty may be associated with prolonged visual fixation on the object of uncertainty. It was reported earlier that, among healthy participants, prolonged staring at light bulbs or gas rings induces OC-like uncertainty about perception and feelings of dissociation [van den Hout, M. A., Engelhard, I. M., de Boer, C., du Bois, A., & Dek, E. (2008). Perseverative and compulsive-like staring causes uncertainty about perception. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 46, 1300–1304]. In that study, staring continued for 10 min. For patients, however, staring intervals seem to be considerably shorter. To test the clinical credibility of the paradigm as a model of the maintenance of OC perceptual uncertainty, we investigated whether the effects of staring materialize long before 10 min. Five groups of 16 undergraduates participated: one group did not stare at a gas stove while the others stared for 7.5, 15, 30 or 300 s. In the absence of staring, no pre-to-post increase in dissociation/uncertainty was reported, but after staring it was. The larger part of the observed dissociation/uncertainty after 5 min had occurred within 30 s, and around 50% of this maximal increase was reported between 7.5 and 15 s. Thus, even relatively short intervals of staring induce uncertainty about perception and dissociative experiences. Perseverative looking at objects may be a counter-productive OC strategy, which increases uncertainty about perception and may serve to maintain the disorder.     

Concurrent associations between anxiety sensitivity and perceived health and health disability among young adult daily smokers

The aim of this investigation was to evaluate the incremental validity of anxiety sensitivity (fear of arousal-related physical and psychological sensations) relative to health factors (smoking variables, alcohol use and exercise level), in predicting perceived health and disability among a sample of 225 young adult daily smokers (102 females; M(age) = 23.9 years, SD = 8.8). Consistent with prediction, anxiety sensitivity, relative to smoking-relevant variables, alcohol consumption (a single frequency by quantity composite) and exercise activity, predicted lower perceived general health and impairments in mental health and social functioning; no incremental effects were evident for anxiety sensitivity for predicting impairments in physical functioning, role functioning, or increased healthcare usage. These findings are discussed with respect to better understanding cognitive factors that affect perceptions of health status and functioning among daily smokers.     

On becoming neutral: effects of experimental neutralizing reconsidered

Behaviour Research and Therapy 34 (1996) 889–898 found that writing out a negative thought produced anxiety and an urge to neutralize the thought, that instructing participants to neutralize the thought reduced anxiety/neutralization urge in the short run (i.e. within 2 min), but that in the control group 20 min without instruction was attended by the same reduction in anxiety/urge to neutralize (“natural decay”). The observations were made with pariticipants who scored high on “thought action fusion” and the experiment was set up as exerimental model of obsessions. We repeated the study with participants that were not selected on thought action fusion. All the findings reported by Behaviour Research and Therapy 34 (1996) 889–898 were replicated. Correlational analysis indicated that the strength of the effect was not related to scores on scales measuring “thought action fusion”. Behaviour Research and Therapy 34 (1996) 889–898 did not assess whether non-neutralizing was followed by immediate reductions in distress. We did assess this and found that the larger part of the immediate reduction of distress after neutralization also occurs when no neutralization instruction is given. The effects of neutralization instructions in the present type of experiment are considerably less powerful than suggested earlier.     

Author Correction: Social Job Stressors can Foster Employee Well-Being: Introducing the Concept of Social Challenge Stressors

Journal of Business and Psychology - In the published article “Social Job Stressors Can Foster Employee Well-Being: Introducing the Concept of Social Challenge Stressors”, there was an...     

How do conspiratorial explanations differ from non-conspiratorial explanations? A content analysis of real-world online articles

The present research aims to identify unique characteristics of written conspiracy theories. In two pre-registered quantitative human-coded content analyses, we compared 36 pairs of conspiratorial and non-conspiratorial online articles about various events. As predicted, conspiratorial articles—compared to non-conspiratorial articles—contained less factual, more emotional and more threat-related information. Also, we predicted and found that conspiratorial articles presented more argumentation against the opposing standpoint and that they provided explanations that were more dispositional and less falsifiable. Contrary to our predictions, we did not consistently observe that conspiratorial articles presented less argumentation for their own standpoint. Also, we did not find consistent support that conspiratorial articles provided less information about the specific process or more information about the underlying goals of the respective events, or that conspiratorial explanations attributed the events to a lesser extent to situational factors. We discuss the relevance of our findings for the understanding of conspiracy theories.     

Parent–offspring similarity in personality and adolescents' problem behaviour

Similarity in personality between adolescents and their parents may have considerable implications for adolescent well‐being. We studied how the similarity in personality between 288 adolescents and their parents is linked to adolescent problem behaviour, and whether this link is mediated by warmth and control in the parent–child relationship and moderated by the personality type of the adolescent. Similarity in personality between adolescents and their parents was negatively related to internalizing and externalizing problem behaviour, both concurrently and over time. This relation was not mediated by the parent–child relationship. The effects were present for overcontrolled but not for resilient or undercontrolled adolescents. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Some comments on the projectibility of anthropological hypotheses: Samoa briefly revisited

The purpose of this article is to examine the applicability of the theory of projection for Anthropological hypotheses. The claim is made that Goodman's classic statement of the problem does not apply in its entirety to actual Anthropological hypotheses. The recent Freeman-Mead debate is employed as a framework for the discussion, illustrating that the issue of projectibility, while central for the social sciences, is best used as a backdrop to illustrate several important methodological problems. For Anthropology, and other related social sciences, the central methodological problem, which is directly related to the projectibility one, is the development and justification of evidence-rules that can be used for a theory of confirmation. A preliminary attempt is then made to articulate the nature of these rules within the general Hempelian framework of qualitative confirmation.     

Hemispheric control of spatial attention

According to the activation-orienting hypothesis the distribution of attention in space is biased in the direction contralateral to the more activated hemisphere. The present investigation tested this proposal and evaluated the nature of hemispheric differences in orienting control. Activation imbalance was produced by a unilateral visual stimulus. The distribution of attention was measured using a modified line bisection task in which subjects judged the location of an intersect on a tachistoscopically presented horizontal line. The first three experiments suggest that (a) attention is biased in the direction contralateral to the stimulated hemisphere, and (b) the biases do not depend on the task relevance or hemispatial position of the stimulus producing the activation imbalance. The final three experiments suggest that when orienting conflict is introduced the rightward bias becomes more robust than the leftward bias. The findings are consistent with the activation-orienting hypothesis. Each hemisphere generates a contralateral attentional bias and the rightward bias of the left hemisphere is stronger. The relevance of these findings to understanding unilateral neglect resulting from parietal damage is discussed.