Approach-avoidance,attentional and evaluation biases in hair pulling disorder and their relationship with symptom severity

The present study examined approach-avoidance, attentional and evaluation biases in Hair Pulling Disorder (HPD). Although none of the tasks showed indications of biased action tendencies in response to hair pulling-related pictures, or biased attention for hair pulling-related words, we found that patients were slower to react to hair pulling-related stimuli than to neutral stimuli. This slowing down may indicate that patients are ambivalent towards hair pulling. This “ambivalence” positively correlated with HPD symptom severity, but only on one of the three severity measures we assessed. Concerning action tendencies towards hair pulling-related words, patients were, however, faster to react to hair pulling-related words when compared to words related to resisting hair pulling. Future research is needed to disentangle this ambivalent response pattern in HPD.     

Naturalist Political Realism and the First Political Question

Many political realists reject the idea that the first task for political philosophy is to justify the existence of coercive political institutions (CPIs). Instead, they say, we should begin with the factual existence of CPIs, and ask how they ought to be structured. In holding this view, they adopt a form of political naturalism that is broadly Aristotelian in character. In this article, I distinguish between two forms that this political naturalism might take ‐ what I call a ‘strong’ form, and a ‘weak’ form ‐ and argue that both ought to be rejected. 1     

Young Children’s Physiological Reactivity during Memory Recall: Associations with Posttraumatic Stress and Parent Physiological Synchrony

Autonomic reactivity is implicated in stress response and social engagement – both key components of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) – but few studies have examined autonomic reactivity in pediatric samples, and no known studies have examined physiological synchrony among children with PTSD and caregivers. In a sample of 247 young children (94 girls, 153 boys), most (85%) of whom had exposure to trauma and 40% who met criteria for PTSD, we examined children’s patterns of respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) at baseline and in response to a memory recall task, as well as correspondence between parents’ and children’s RSA. Children with PTSD demonstrated significantly higher reactivity than other groups during their recollection of a traumatic memory, but not during other memory tasks. Regarding synchrony, caregivers’ and children’s RSA were more significantly and positively correlated during the trauma recall task among children who had had exposure to a potentially traumatic event but did not meet PTSD criteria, suggesting physiological synchrony may be protective in contexts of trauma. Overall, findings demonstrate physiological reactivity differences among young children with PTSD. While more work is needed to understand the meaning of parent-child physiological synchrony, these data suggest that children’s psychopathology is associated with physiological synchrony processes among young children with exposure to trauma.     

Unfamiliar face matching: Pairs out‐perform individuals and provide a route to training

Matching unfamiliar faces is known to be difficult. Here, we ask whether performance can be improved by asking viewers to work in pairs, a manipulation known to increase accuracy for low‐level visual discrimination tasks. Across four experiments we consistently find that face matching accuracy is higher for pairs of viewers than for individuals. This ‘pairs advantage’ is generally driven by adopting the response of the higher scoring partner. However, when the task becomes difficult, both partners' performance is improved by working in a pair. In two experiments, we find evidence that working in a pair can lead to subsequent improvements in individual performance, specifically for viewers whose accuracy is initially low. The pairs' technique therefore offers the opportunity for substantial improvements in face matching performance, along with an added training benefit.     

Proverb preferences across cultures: Dialecticality or poeticality?

Peng and Nisbett (1999) claimed that members of Asian cultures show a greater preference than Euro-Americans for proverbs expressing paradox (so-called dialectical proverbs; e.g.,Too humble is half proud). The present research sought to replicate this claim with the same set of stimuli used in Peng and Nisbett’s Experiment 2 and a new set of dialectical and nondialectical proverbs that were screened to be comparably pleasing in phrasing. Whereas the proverbs were rated as more familiar and (in Set 1) more poetic by Chinese than by American participants, no group differences were found in relation to proverb dialecticality. Both the Chinese and Americans in our study rated the dialectical proverbs from Peng and Nisbett’s study as more likable, higher in wisdom, and higher in poeticality than the nondialectical proverbs. For Set 2, both groups found the dialectical proverbs to be as likable, wise, and poetic as the nondialectical proverbs. When poeticality was covaried out, dialectical proverbs were liked better than nondialectical proverbs across both stimulus sets by the Chinese and the Americans alike, and when wisdom was covaried out, the effect of dialecticality was reduced in both sets and groups. Our findings indicate that caution should be taken in ascribing differences in proverb preferences solely to cultural differences in reasoning.     

From fear to love: individual differences in implicit spider associations

The Implicit Association Test (IAT) was used to investigate automatic fear associations in fear of spiders. Fear associations toward spiders were measured among spider fearful and nonfearful participants (Experiment 1) as well as among nonfearfuls and spider enthusiasts (Experiment 2). It was shown that the IAT is sensitive to personal automatic fear associations and therefore distinguishes between high-fearful, nonfearful, and enthusiastic participants. Moreover, implicit spider associations measured by the IAT predicted avoidance behavior beyond self-reports. The results of Experiment 2 provide additional support for the argument that implicit spider associations are different from general stereotypes or knowledge about spiders.     

Pursuing goals for us: relationally autonomous reasons in long-term goal pursuit

People pursue goals for a variety of reasons, including reasons that take into account close relationships (termed relationally autonomous reasons, or RARs). Two longitudinal studies examined the degree to which relational self-construal, RARs, and personally autonomous reasons (PARs) predicted goal attainment. In Study 1, 166 participants rated 7 goals on several goal outcomes at 2 sessions. Results revealed that self-construal was positively associated with RARs and that RARs predicted goal attainment, controlling for PARs. Study 2 (N = 177) added a 3rd follow-up to the Study 1 design, and results showed perceived progress toward one's goals predicted enhanced RARs but not enhanced PARs. Both studies showed that RARs are an effective motivational component in goal pursuit and attainment.     

A test of the tau-dot hypothesis of braking control in the real world

A controlled experiment used instrumented vehicles in a real-world driving task to compare D. N. Lee's (1976) tau-dot hypothesis of braking control with an alternative based on the direct estimation and control of ideal deceleration (T. Yates, M. Harris, & P. Rock, 2004). Drivers braked to stop as closely as possible to a visual target from different starting speeds and times-to-contact. The data provided little support for the tau-dot hypothesis, and analysis suggested that braking in the real world is better explained by a direct deceleration strategy.