The development of analogy making in children: Cognitive load and executive functions

The aim of the current study was to investigate the performance of 6-, 8-, and 14-year-olds on an analogy-making task involving analogies in which there are competing perceptual and relational matches. We hypothesized that the selection of the common relational structure requires the inhibition of other salient features, in particular, perceptual matches. Using an A:B::C:D paradigm, we showed that children’s performance in analogy-making tasks depends crucially on the nature of the distractors. Children chose more perceptual distractors having a common feature with C compared with A or B (Experiment 1). In addition, they were also influenced by unstructured random textures. When measuring reaction times instead of accurate responses, only the 8-year-olds’ reaction times were significantly influenced by perceptual distractors. The 6-year-olds seemed to select the first match they noticed, and the 14-year-olds were not influenced (or much less influenced) by featural distractors. These results are compatible with an analogy-making account based on varying limitations in executive functioning at different ages.     

Predicting physically violent misconduct in prison: A comparison of four risk assessment instruments

Violence in correctional facilities is an important issue for both prisoners and prison staff. Risk assessment instruments have demonstrated their accuracy in predicting the risk of (re) offending and institutional violence in psychiatric settings, but less is known about their ability to predict violent misconduct in prison. The present study applied four risk assessment instruments (Structured Assessment of Protective Factors for violence risk, Historical Clinical Risk Management‐20, Psychopathy checklist – Revised, and Violent Risk Appraisal Guide) to 52 violent offenders in a Swiss prison in order to evaluate the instruments' predictive validities. Outcomes were instances of physically violent, other and any misconduct as recorded in prison files during the 12 months following the prisoners' assessments. Approximately 15% of offenders committed physically violent misconduct and approximately 42% committed any misconduct. The results show that mainly dynamic assessment tools are as good predictors of physically violent misconduct as mainly static assessment tools. Targeting dynamic factors could increase the effectiveness of interventions to reduce the risk of physical violence in prison.     

Transdiagnostic assessment of temporal experience (TATE) a tool for assessing abnormal time experiences

Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences - Currently, anomalous lived temporality is not included in the main diagnostic criteria or standard symptom checklists. In this article, we present the...     

From intentions via planning and behavior to physical exercise habits

ObjectivesIndividuals who enact a health behavior effortlessly with minimal conscious deliberation can be assumed to have formed a healthy habit. This can be reflected by increases in self-reported habit strength of a behavior. We examined whether physical exercise intentions facilitate changes in exercise habit strength by increasing the use of action planning and exercise.DesignTwo field studies investigated the effect of behavioral intentions on changes in habit strength through a sequential path from action planning to exercise.MethodExercise intentions, action planning, habit strength, and exercise were assessed at two measurement points in time in 231 university students (Study 1), and at four points in time in 134 rehabilitation patients (Study 2).ResultsIn multiple-step mediation models in both samples, there were indirect effects of intentions on habit strength through action planning and behavior.ConclusionAction planning and behavior operated as sequential mediators to bridge the gap between intentions and habit strength. Exercise habit strength may increase as a result of conscious action planning and frequent behavior enactment. Including these constructs jointly into behavior change models may improve the understanding of the mechanisms involved in behavior maintenance.     

Beliefs in the end of the world,justice, religiosity and system preservation: a psychological study of how the ‘end of the world’ could match common belief systems

While historical research has shown that Beliefs in the End of the World (BEW) are present in human culture, no psychological study has yet explored why people endorse one BEW rather than another. The aim of this study is to understand how the BEWs are linked to other beliefs. Three BEWs were studied: Human Deserved End of the World (HDEW) (ecological view of the end of the world); AOW (an external and total end of the world); and Religious End of the World (RSEW) (end of the world caused by a God). Several common beliefs were hypothetically linked to them: Immanent and Ultimate Justice (two dimensions of the Belief in a Just World [BJW]); System Justification (SJ); and Religiosity. Eight hundred and eighty-one participants answered our questionnaires on general Internet forums. Results showed that: (1) HDEW is explained positively by Immanent Justice and negatively by SJs; (2) Annihilation of the World (AOW) is explained negatively by Ultimate Justice and Religiosity, and positively by SJ; and (3) RSEW is explained positively by Religiosity and Ultimate Justice. Justice, Religiosity and preservation of one’s way of life (SJ) seem to be ways to cope with the symbolic threat that is represented by the End of the World. Some perspectives for a psychological study of BEWs are presented.     

Teacher-initiated Motivational Climate in Physical Education Questionnaire in an Italian sample

The purpose of the study was to translate and adapt in the Italian language a questionnaire that could effectively assess perceived motivational climate in physical education. An Italian version of the Teacher-initiated Motivational Climate in Physical Education Questionnaire proposed by Papaioannou (1998) was administered to 1,681 young students, 840 girls and 841 boys, ages 11 to 14 years. Data were subjected to confirmatory factor analysis to assess the goodness of fit of the expected two-factor solution constituted by a Mastery Climate scale (six items) and a Performance Climate scale (six items). A good fit was indicated between the observed data and theoretical model and supported the two-dimensional structure of the test. In the total sample, the Mastery factor accounted for 33.6% of the variance and the Performance factor accounted for 15.4%. Cronbach alpha of the Mastery and Performance scales were .79 and .70, respectively.     

Does Joining the EU Make You Happy? Evidence from Bulgaria and Romania

We examine the effect of joining the European Union on individual life satisfaction in Bulgaria and Romania in the context of the 2007 EU enlargement. Although EU membership is among the most important events in Bulgaria and Romania’s modern histories, there is no evidence on how it affected the subjective well-being of ordinary people in the two countries. Using a difference-in-differences strategy and Eurobarometer data, we provide some of the first evidence that joining the EU increased average life satisfaction in Bulgaria and had a positive but statistically insignificant effect in Romania. One explanation is that after both countries joined in 2007, trust towards the EU only increased in Bulgaria but not in Romania. Furthermore, Romania’s political war of 2007 may have mired the country’s positive life satisfaction experiences related to EU membership. We also show that the younger, the employed and those with a high-school education were the winners from EU integration. Our results are robust to two placebo tests, in which we use two fake entry dates to the EU, as well as an estimation using bootstrapped standard errors. Our findings have implications for EU integration policy and future enlargements.     

Empirical study of Kanji as archetypal images: understanding the collective unconscious as part of the Japanese language

Chinese characters originated as a semiotic system independent from spoken language and in the Japanese language they function non-phonetically with speakers exhibiting right-hemispheric advantage in their processing. We tested the hypothesis that Chinese characters are archetypal images and therefore part of our collective unconscious memory. Our study builds on the first empirical study of archetypal memory of Rosen et al. (1991) which demonstrated that archetypal symbols presented matched with their correct meaning were better learned and recalled. In a series of three experiments we used 40 Chinese characters instead of the archetypal symbols used by Rosen, et al. (1991). The results provided empirical evidence that Chinese characters matched with their correct meaning were significantly better recalled than the ones that were mismatched. Thus, we demonstrated that there appears to be unconscious knowledge of the meaning of the Chinese characters which was triggered as a result of priming when the characters were correctly matched with their meaning. On this basis, we suggest that Chinese characters exhibit the same cognitive qualities as archetypal symbols. Thus, in the Japanese language an archetypal image is integrated non-phonetically into the system of language and signifies the concept independent from the phonetic signifier and is equal to it.