Will you confess to what I did? Close relationships and in-group membership facilitate voluntary blame-taking

To learn more about why people falsely confess without external pressure, we examined voluntary blame-taking in three experiments. Drawing from theories of prosocial behavior and social identity, we investigated whether participants' blame-taking is influenced by (a) their relationship with the guilty person (Experiment 1) and (b) the group membership of the person asking to take the blame (Experiments 2a and 2b). In Experiment 1, participants (N = 130) considered whether they would take the blame for a small traffic violation for their best friend and a stranger in a vignette-scenario. As expected, intended blame-taking rates were higher for their best friend (60.8%) than for a stranger (8.5%). Reported reasons for taking the blame included reciprocity and empathy. In Experiments 2a and 2b (Ns = 60; 89), we tested actual blame-taking behavior in two field experiments, using a new experimental paradigm. An experimenter approached participants and asked them to commit insurance fraud for a broken camera. Participants who shared the same group as the person in need were more willing to take the blame (47%-48%) than participants who were from a different group (21%-23%). The most frequently listed reason for taking the blame was empathy. Implications for the occurrence of voluntary blame-taking behavior to protect someone else are discussed.     

Associating Ethos with Objects: Reasoning from Character of Public Figures to Actions in the World

Argumentation - Ethotic arguments, such as arguments from expert opinion and ad hominem arguments, play an important role in communication practice. In this paper, we argue that there is another...     

Family and food variables that influence life satisfaction of mother-father-adolescent triads in a South American country

This study explored the influence of each family member’s life satisfaction on the other family members’ life satisfaction in mother-father-adolescent triads. We also explored the influence of each family member’s satisfaction with food-related life and family life on their own life satisfaction (LS) as well as on the other family members’ LS in mother-father-adolescent triads. The influence of family eating habits, food-related parenting practices used by each parent and sociodemographic characteristics on each family member’s LS were also explored. A survey was applied to a sample of 300 two-parent families with one child between 10 and 17 years of age in Temuco, Chile. The questionnaire included the Satisfaction with Life Scale, Satisfaction with Food-related Life scale, Satisfaction with Family Life scale, Adapted Healthy Eating Index, Family Food Behavior Survey and Family Eating Habits Questionnaire. Frequency and sources of family meals as well as sociodemographic characteristics were also consulted. Three multivariate ordinal logit models were proposed, with the dependent variable LS in the three subsamples: mothers, fathers and adolescents. The three logit models were significant, but differed in the explanatory variables. Mothers’ LS was influenced by their children’s LS and vice versa. Mothers’ LS was positively influenced by both their own satisfaction with family life and the fathers’ satisfaction with family life and vice versa. Children’s LS was also positively influenced by their own satisfaction with food-related and family life. Both parents’ LS was influenced by eating habits, food-related parenting practices and sociodemographic characteristics, but in different ways. Therefore, different interventions should be implemented to improve each family member’s life satisfaction.

     

Examining the psychometric properties of the burnout clinical subtype questionnaire (BCSQ-12) in secondary school teachers

Current Psychology - Based on Farber’s burnout proposal, the first aim of this study was to examine the psychometric properties of the short version of the Burnout Clinical Subtype...     

Decisional forgiveness across spanish and american samples: Translation,validation, and measurement invariance of the decision to forgive scale

Current Psychology - More than twenty different models of how forgiveness occurs have been proposed within forgiveness literature. One idea highlighted in many of these models was that forgiveness...     

A Prospective Study of Maternal Exposure to Smoking during Pregnancy and Behavioral Development in the Child

Prenatal smoke exposure (PSE) is a risk factor for adverse outcomes in the offspring, including those affecting psychological development. However, it is uncertain whether these associations are the direct result of PSE or other confounding factors. The aim of this study was to examine the possible relationship between PSE and behavioral development in children at 7.5 years of age, considering several prenatal, neonatal and postnatal covariates. A cohort of 266 mother-child pairs was followed from the first trimester of pregnancy until the children reached 7.5 years of age. PSE was assessed using a questionnaire from prenatal clinical records and corroborated by plasma cotinine determinations in the first and second trimesters and in the cord. Mother-child pairs were classified into one of four groups: unexposed, exposed to passive smoking, first trimester active smoking only and active smoking throughout pregnancy. Child behavior was assessed using the Child Behavior Checklist for ages 6–18 and the Childhood Autism Spectrum Test. In multiple linear regression models, smoking during pregnancy was associated with higher scores in affective problems (β?=?0.298; p?=?0.004). No significant associations were found between smoking during pregnancy and externalizing problems. Findings indicate that PSE is negatively associated with behavioral development in childhood.

     

Coping strategies in obsessive-compulsive patients during Covid-19 lockdown

Background/ObjectiveThe main aim of this study was to compare coping strategies in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) patients and a healthy control group during COVID-19 lockdown and to analyze the relationship with some variables which may influence results (depression, anxiety, comorbidity, subtype of obsession-compulsion). Method: There were 237 participants, 122 OCD and 115 healthy controls, aged 17-61 years old (M = 33.48, SD = 11.13). Results: Groups showed differences in the use of some adaptive strategies (positive reinterpretation, acceptance, humor) and maladaptive (denial, self-blame). Within obsessive-compulsive group, comorbidity affected the greater use of inappropriate strategies (denial, substance abuse and self-blame) while type of obsession-compulsion did not influence use. Anxiety and depression levels were related to the use of less adaptive strategies. Conclusions: These findings strengthen the need for training in the use of effective and adaptive coping strategies, making it necessary to improve clinical follow-up of these patients. It is relevant to be in contact with healthcare professionals, review medication and observe the anxiety and depression levels.     

Early home intervention and socio-emotional development of preterm infants

In the present study, the effects of developmental intervention and parent-infant interaction intervention on the social competence and emotional development of preterm infants were assessed. The results suggest that early home intervention focused on the infant's development facilitates social competence and adaptation, whereas intervention focused on the parent-infant interaction resulted in greater emotional security on the part of the infant. Social competence during the second year of life was predicted by social competence at 8 months and emotional security at 12 and 16 months. These findings have implications for early identification of infants at risk of later socio-emotional difficulties and intervention with dysfunctional mother-infant dyads.     

Hubert's multi-rater kappa revisited

There is a frequent need to measure the degree of agreement among R observers who independently classify n subjects within K nominal or ordinal categories. The most popular methods are usually kappa-type measurements. When R = 2, Cohen's kappa coefficient (weighted or not) is well known. When defined in the ordinal case while assuming quadratic weights, Cohen's kappa has the advantage of coinciding with the intraclass and concordance correlation coefficients. When R > 2, there are more discrepancies because the definition of the kappa coefficient depends on how the phrase ‘an agreement has occurred’ is interpreted. In this paper, Hubert's interpretation, that ‘an agreement occurs if and only if all raters agree on the categorization of an object’, is used, which leads to Hubert's (nominal) and Schuster and Smith's (ordinal) kappa coefficients. Formulae for the large-sample variances for the estimators of all these coefficients are given, allowing the latter to illustrate the different ways of carrying out inference and, with the use of simulation, to select the optimal procedure. In addition, it is shown that Schuster and Smith's kappa coefficient coincides with the intraclass and concordance correlation coefficients if the first coefficient is also defined assuming quadratic weights.     

Causal illusion as a cognitive basis of pseudoscientific beliefs

Causal illusion has been proposed as a cognitive mediator of pseudoscientific beliefs. However, previous studies have only tested the association between this cognitive bias and a closely related but different type of unwarranted beliefs, those related to superstition and paranormal phenomena. Participants (n = 225) responded to a novel questionnaire of pseudoscientific beliefs designed for this study. They also completed a contingency learning task in which a possible cause, infusion intake, and a desired effect, headache remission, were actually non-contingent. Volunteers with higher scores on the questionnaire also presented stronger causal illusion effects. These results support the hypothesis that causal illusions might play a fundamental role in the endorsement of pseudoscientific beliefs.