Becoming More Conscientious or More Open to Experience? Effects of a Two-Week Smartphone-Based Intervention for Personality Change

Research indicates that it might be possible to change personality traits through intervention, but this clinical research has primarily focused on changing neuroticism. To date, there are no established, proven techniques for changing other domains of personality, such as conscientiousness and openness. This research examined the effects of a two-week smartphone-based intervention to either change one facet of conscientiousness (i.e. self-discipline) or one facet of openness to experience (i.e. openness to action). Two intervention studies (total N = 255) with two active intervention groups for mutual comparisons were conducted. Results of self-reports and observer reports showed that people who wanted to become more self-disciplined were less self-disciplined at pretest. Similarly, people who wanted to become more open to action were less open to action at pretest. The results showed that people who chose the self-discipline intervention showed greater increases in self-discipline, and people who chose the openness to action intervention showed greater increases in openness to action compared with the other group. Changes were maintained until follow-up two and six weeks after the end of the intervention. Future work is needed to examine whether these personality changes are enduring or reflect temporary accentuation as a result of participation in the intervention. © 2020 European Association of Personality Psychology     

What Is Rational About Nash Equilibria?

Nash Equilibrium is a central concept ingame theory. It has been argued that playing NashEquilibrium strategies is rational advice for agentsinvolved in one-time strategic interactions capturedby non-cooperative game theory. This essaydiscusses arguments for that position: vonNeumann–Morgenstern's argument for their minimaxsolution, the argument from self-enforcingagreements, the argument from the absence ofprobabilities, the transparency-of-reasons argument,the argument from regret, and the argument fromcorrelated equilibrium. All of these argumentseither fail entirely or have a very limited scope.Whatever the use of Nash Equilibrium is, therefore,it is not useful as a rational recommendation inone-time strategic interactions. This is good newsfor Bayesians: although this discussion does notargue directly for the Bayesian idea of rationalityas expected utility maximization, it argues againsta position that has been regarded as a contender insituations of strategic interaction.     

Comparisons of women with high and low trait impulsivity using behavioral models of response-disinhibition and reward-choice

Two types of behavioral models of impulsive behavior, response-disinhibition/attentional and reward-choice response models, were used to compare women grouped by high (Impulse+, n=43) and low (Impulse−, n=43) self-reported impulsive behavior on the Eysenck I₇ Questionnaire. Two of the four different tasks tested were response-disinhibition/attentional models; these included the Immediate and Delayed Memory Task and the GoStop Task. The other two tasks were based on the reward-choice model of impulsivity and included the Single Key Impulsivity Paradigm and the Two-Choice Reward Task. Of particular interest was whether commission errors (response-disinhibition/attentional paradigms) or a preference for smaller–sooner rewards over larger–later rewards (reward-choice) would differ between the groups. Participants completed one session of each task in a single day. The most significant findings were that the Impulse+ group had: (1) elevated commission errors; (2) lower stimulus discriminability (between target and catch stimuli); and (3) poorer response inhibition to a stop signal. Responding on the response-disinhibition/attentional tasks distinguished between the impulsivity groups while the reward-choice tasks did not. These results demonstrate that women who report higher levels of trait impulsivity respond in a manner consistent with previous studies examining impulsive behavior.     

Chimpanzee (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Pan troglodytes</Emphasis>) and orangutan (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Pongo abelii</Emphasis>) forethought: self-control and pre-experience in the face of future tool use

Planning for future needs has traditionally been considered to be restricted to human cognition. Although recent studies on great ape and corvid cognition challenge this belief, the phylogenesis of human planning remains largely unknown. The complex skill for future planning has not yet been satisfactorily established in any other extant primate species than our own. In humans, planning for future needs rely heavily on two overarching capacities, both of which lie at the heart of our cognition: self-control, often defined as the suppression of immediate drives in favor of delayed rewards, and mental time travel, which could be described as a detached mental experience of a past or future event. Future planning is linked to additional high complexity cognition such as metacognition and a consciousness usually not attributed to animals. In a series of four experiments based on tool use, we demonstrate that chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and orangutans (Pongo abelii) override immediate drives in favor of future needs, and they do not merely rely on associative learning or semantic prospection when confronted with a planning task. These results suggest that great apes engage in planning for the future by out competing current drives and mentally pre-experiencing an upcoming event. This suggests that the advanced mental capacities utilized in human future planning are shared by phylogenetically more ancient species than previously believed.     

Extracting Dirt From Water: A Strengths-Based Approach to Religion for African American Same-Gender-Loving Men

Religion is one of the most powerful and ubiquitous forces in African American same-gender-loving (SGL) men’s lives. Research indicates that it has both positive and negative influences on the health behaviors and outcomes of this population. This paper presents a review of the literature that examines religion as a risk and protective factor for African American SGL men. A strengths-based approach to religion that aims to utilize its protective qualities and weaken its relation to risk is proposed. Finally, recommendations are presented for the use of a strengths-based approach to religion in clinical work and research.