Types of boredom: An experience sampling approach

The present study investigated different types of boredom as proposed in a four-categorical conceptual model by Goetz and Frenzel (2006; doi:10.1026/0049-8637.38.4.149). In this model, four types of boredom are differentiated based on degrees of valence and arousal: indifferent, calibrating, searching, and reactant boredom. In two studies (Study 1: university students, N = 63, mean age 24.08 years, 66 % female; Study 2: high school students, grade 11, N = 80, mean age 17.05 years, 58 % female), real-time data were obtained via the experience-sampling method (personal digital assistants, randomized signals). Boredom experiences (N = 1,103/1,432 in Studies 1/2) were analyzed with respect to the dimensions of valence and arousal using multilevel latent profile analyses. Supporting the internal validity of the proposed boredom types, our results are in line with the assumed four types of boredom but suggest an additional, fifth type, referred to as “apathetic boredom.” The present findings further support the external validity of the five boredom types in showing differential relations between the boredom types and other affective states as well as frequency of situational occurrence (achievement contexts vs. non-achievement contexts). Methodological implications as well as directions for future research are discussed.     

A Meta‐analysis of Letters of Recommendation in College and Graduate Admissions: Reasons for hope

Letters of recommendation are used extensively in academic admissions and personnel selection. Despite their prominence, comparatively little is known about their predictive power for multiple outcomes. This meta‐analysis combine the existing literature for college grade point average (GPA), academic outcomes of GPA, performance ratings, degree attainment, and research productivity for nonmedical school graduate programs, and GPA and internship performance ratings for medical school students. Intercorrelations with other commonly used predictors are also estimated and used to estimate incremental predictive power. Overall, letters of recommendation, in their current form, are generally positively but weakly correlated with multiple aspects of performance in post‐secondary education. However, letters do appear to provide incremental information about degree attainment, a difficult and heavily motivationally determined outcome.     

Aspects of identity: From the inner-outer metaphor to a tetrapartite model of the self

Abstract

We review a program of research on identity orientations – the relative importance or value that individuals place on various identity attributes when constructing their self-definitions. We first provide a brief history of the development of our measure of identity orientations – the Aspects of Identity Questionnaire (AIQ) – after which we present our tetrapartite model of the self that distinguishes among individual, relational, public, and collective aspects of identity. We then review previous research on how the four identity orientations uniquely influence cognition, emotion, and behavior, and close by highlighting what we see as interesting and important directions for future research.     

Bayes factors for the linear ballistic accumulator model of decision-making

Evidence accumulation models of decision-making have led to advances in several different areas of psychology. These models provide a way to integrate response time and accuracy data, and to describe performance in terms of latent cognitive processes. Testing important psychological hypotheses using cognitive models requires a method to make inferences about different versions of the models which assume different parameters to cause observed effects. The task of model-based inference using noisy data is difficult, and has proven especially problematic with current model selection methods based on parameter estimation. We provide a method for computing Bayes factors through Monte-Carlo integration for the linear ballistic accumulator (LBA; Brown and Heathcote, 2008), a widely used evidence accumulation model. Bayes factors are used frequently for inference with simpler statistical models, and they do not require parameter estimation. In order to overcome the computational burden of estimating Bayes factors via brute force integration, we exploit general purpose graphical processing units; we provide free code for this. This approach allows estimation of Bayes factors via Monte-Carlo integration within a practical time frame. We demonstrate the method using both simulated and real data. We investigate the stability of the Monte-Carlo approximation, and the LBA’s inferential properties, in simulation studies.     

Posttraumatic stress severity is associated with coping motives for alcohol use among in-patient and community recruited adolescents

Background and Objectives: A growing body of work suggests individuals with more severe post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) are at higher risk for developing problematic alcohol use outcomes. Extending work from the adult literature, the present study was the first to examine the extent to which PTSS is related to drinking motives for alcohol use in both clinical and non-clinical samples of adolescents.

Design: Hierarchical regression analyses were used to predict coping motives for alcohol use from PTSS, above and beyond demographic variables, alcohol use frequency, and other alcohol use motives.

Methods: Trauma-exposed adolescents before entering treatment (Sample 1 n?=?41) and recruited from the local community (Sample 2 n?=?55) self-reported on PTSS and alcohol use motives.

Results: PTSS positively predicted coping motives for alcohol use after controlling for age, gender, and alcohol use frequency.

Conclusions: The current study highlights the need to consider both PTSS severity, as well as underlying cognitive mechanisms (e.g., motives), to better understand the etiology of problematic alcohol use among trauma-exposed youth. Future work focused on clarifying the trajectory of alcohol use motives and problems as a function of PTSS is needed.     

Token Economies: Using Basic Experimental Research to Guide Practical Applications

This paper highlights the applicability of patterns seen within basic experimental research in relation to contemporary application of token economies. Token economies are one of the most widely used interventions to promote behavior change, and this procedure has evolved to be effective across many settings, behaviors, and individuals. Due to this widespread use, casual implementation of the token economy might result in inconsistencies in responding and therefore an overall skepticism in the procedure itself. We present multiple barriers that encumber practical application of token economies, including insufficient conditioning and pairing of tokens, determining quality of backup reinforcers, unforeseen effects of motivating operations, teaching the token exchange, effects of higher-order reinforcement schedules, ratio strain, and use of response cost procedures. To assist practitioners in implementing more effective treatments, for each barrier we revisit the often overlooked basic research involving features of conditioned reinforcement and reinforcement schedules. It is important to translate the often complex implications of basic research so that practitioners can use this information to improve their own practice as well as their confidence in disseminating use of this evidence-based treatment. To further guide practitioners in using this knowledge in everyday settings, we also provide recommendations specific to each barrier as well as relevant applied research and practical examples.     

Objects that induce face pareidolia are prioritized by the visual system

The human visual system has evolved specialized neural mechanisms to rapidly detect faces. Its broad tuning for facial features is thought to underlie the illusory perception of faces in inanimate objects, a phenomenon called face pareidolia. Recent studies on face pareidolia suggest that the mechanisms underlying face processing, at least at the early stages of visual encoding, may treat objects that resemble faces as real faces; prioritizing their detection. In our study, we used breaking continuous flash suppression (b-CFS) to examine whether the human visual system prioritizes the detection of objects that induce face pareidolia over stimuli matched for object content. Similar to previous b-CFS results using real face stimuli, we found that participants detected the objects with pareidolia faces faster than object-matched control stimuli. Given that face pareidolia has been more frequently reported amongst individuals prone to hallucinations, we also explored whether this rapid prioritization is intact in individuals with schizophrenia, and found evidence suggesting that it was. Our findings suggest that face pareidolia engages a broadly tuned mechanism that facilitates rapid face detection. This may involve the proposed fast subcortical pathway that operates outside of visual awareness.     

The Interaction Between Conscientiousness and General Mental Ability: Support for a Compensatory Interaction in Task Performance

Journal of Business and Psychology - We propose a compensatory interactive influence of conscientiousness and GMA in task performance such that conscientiousness is most beneficial to performance...     

Understanding Co-Occurring ADHD and Anxiety Symptoms within a Developmental Framework: Risk and Protective Factors of Early Temperament and Peer Relations

Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology - Symptoms of ADHD and anxiety often co-occur, yet we are limited in our understanding of which children with ADHD symptoms are more likely to...     

A diagnosis of conflict: theoretical barriers to integration in mental health services &; their philosophical undercurrents

This paper examines the philosophical substructure to the theoretical conflicts that permeate contemporary mental health care in the UK. Theoretical conflicts are treated here as those that arise among practitioners holding divergent theoretical orientations towards the phenomena being treated. Such conflicts, although steeped in history, have become revitalized by recent attempts at integrating mental health services that have forced diversely trained practitioners to work collaboratively together, often under one roof. Part I of this paper examines how the history of these conflicts can be understood as a tension between, on the one hand, the medical model and its use by the dominant profession of psychiatry, and on the other, those alternative models and practitioners in some way differentiated from the medical model camp. Examples will be given from recent policy and research to highlight the prevalence of this tension in contemporary practice. Part II of this paper explores the deeper commonalities that lay beneath the theoretical conflict outlined in Part I. These commonalities will be shown to be apart of a captivating framework that has continued to grip the conflict since its inception. By exposing this underlying framework--and the motivations inherent therein--the topic of integration appears in wholly different light, allowing a renewed philosophical basis for integration to emerge.