Children's verbalizations and cheating behavior during game playing: the role of sociometric status,aggression, and gender

The first goal of this study was to investigate sociometric status, aggression, and gender differences in children's verbalizations and cheating behavior during game playing using a fine-grained observational coding system. The second goal was to control for the effects of differential peer treatment and bias on children's behavior by observing children in a standardized procedure with unfamiliar peer confederates. Participants were 111 second-grade African American children, half average and half rejected sociometric status, half aggressive and half nonaggressive based on peer nominations, and half boys and half girls. Rejected children engaged in more cheating behavior and made more negative and argumentative verbalizations than average status children. Boys made more negative and argumentative verbalizations than girls. Aggressive children did not differ from nonaggressive children, in terms of either verbalizations or cheating behavior.     

The role of junctions in surface completion and contour matching

It has been suggested that contour junctions may be used as cues for occlusion. Ecologically, T-junctions and L-junctions are concurrent with situations of occlusion: they arise when the bounding contour of the occluding surface intersects with that of the occluded surface. However, there are other image properties that can be used as cues for occlusion. Here the role of junctions is directly compared with other occlusion cues--specifically, relatability and surface-similarity--in the emergence of amodal completion and illusory contour perception. Stimuli have been constructed that differ only in the junction structure, with the other occlusion cues kept unchanged. L-junctions and T-junctions were eliminated from the image or manipulated so as to be locally inconsistent with the (still valid) global occlusion interpretation. Although the other occlusion cues of relatability and surface similarity still existed in the image, subjects reported not perceiving illusory contours or amodal completion in junction-manipulated images. Junction manipulation also affected the perceived stereoscopic depth and motion of image regions, depending on whether they were perceived to amodally complete with a disjoint region in the image. These results are interpreted in terms of the role of junctions in the processes of surface completion and contour matching. It is proposed that junctions, being a local cue for occlusion, are used to launch completion processes. Other, more global occlusion cues, such as relatability, play a part at a later stage, once completion processes have been launched.     

On the Inadmissibility of Some Historical Information

I argue—from a Humean perspective—for the falsity of what I call the “Admissibility of Historical Information Thesis” (AHIT). According to the AHIT, propositions that describe past events are always admissible with respect to propositions that describe future events. I first demonstrate that this thesis has some counter‐intuitive implications and argue that a Humean can explain the intuitive attractiveness of the AHIT by arguing that it results from a wrong understanding of the concept of chance. I then demonstrate how a Humean “best system” analysis of chance predicts the existence of inadmissible historical information and discuss the implications of this conclusion to the debate between Humeans and non‐Humeans.     

Emergent social identities in a flood: Implications for community psychosocial resilience

Although the mobilization of pre‐existing networks is crucial in psychosocial resilience in disasters, shared identities can also emerge in the absence of such previous bonds, due to survivors sharing a sense of common fate. Common fate seems to operate in sudden‐impact disasters (e.g., bombings), but to our knowledge, no research has explored social identity processes in “rising‐tide” incidents. We interviewed an opportunity sample of 17 residents of York, United Kingdom, who were involved in the 2015–2016 floods. Using thematic and discourse analysis, we investigated residents' experiences of the floods and the strategic function that invocations of community identities perform. We show how shared community identities emerged (e.g., because of shared problems, shared goals, perceptions of vulnerability, and collapse of previous group boundaries) and show how they acted as a basis of social support (both given and expected). The findings serve to further develop the social identity model of collective psychosocial resilience in rising‐tide disasters. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.     

Graduate education in qualitative methods in U.S. psychology: current trends and recommendations for the future

The visibility of qualitative research methods (QRM) in U.S. psychology has increased with the dissemination of qualitative research in journals and books, formation of professional and scientific organizations, and recognition in educational institutions. While gains have been made, the current state of doctoral training in qualitative methods remains uncertain. It is unclear what training graduate students receive in U.S. psychology programs about qualitative methodologies and how further gains can be made in expanding visibility of QRM in graduate education. In this mixed-methods study, we surveyed a sample of faculty in U.S. psychology graduate programs about the frequency of QRM course offerings, graduate training, and students’ use of QRM in their dissertation research. We also explored qualitative responses from faculty regarding their attitudes about QRM and how these attitudes might help increase or diminish the frequency of methods training available to students. We found that even within graduate programs where there was support for QRM, enduring perceptions about the value of qualitative research limit faculty and graduate students’ use of qualitative methodologies in their research. With these findings in mind, we offer several recommendations for increasing the visibility of QRM in U.S. graduate education and the discipline of psychology as a whole.     

MEDITATIVE PSYCHOANALYSIS

Psychoanalysis and meditation not only compensate for the other’s blind spots, but also, when practiced together, can provide a richer experience than either discipline pursued alone. After considering the way meditation cultivates heightened attentiveness, refines sensory clarity, lessens self-criticism, and increases affect tolerance, thereby deepening psychoanalytic listening, I’ll examine how psychoanalytic perspectives on unconscious communication and meaning illuminate and transform the nearsightedness of meditation, aiding therapists and clients in understanding troubling thoughts, feelings, and behavior. This helps therapists deepen their capacity to help those people with whom they work. The paper also attempts to illuminate how the therapeutic relationship, conceived of in a freer and more empathic way—as the vehicle for both validating a person’s experience and providing opportunities for new forms of relatedness and self-transformation—provides a crucible in which old and dysfunctional ways of caring for oneself and relating to other people emerge and new patterns of self-care and intimacy can be established. In the concluding section, I will delineate meditative psychoanalysis, my own integration of meditation and psychoanalysis. Clinical material will illustrate my theoretical reflections.     

Graph‐Theoretic Properties of Networks Based on Word Association Norms: Implications for Models of Lexical Semantic Memory

We compared the ability of three different contextual models of lexical semantic memory (BEAGLE, Latent Semantic Analysis, and the Topic model) and of a simple associative model (POC) to predict the properties of semantic networks derived from word association norms. None of the semantic models were able to accurately predict all of the network properties. All three contextual models over‐predicted clustering in the norms, whereas the associative model under‐predicted clustering. Only a hybrid model that assumed that some of the responses were based on a contextual model and others on an associative network (POC) successfully predicted all of the network properties and predicted a word's top five associates as well as or better than the better of the two constituent models. The results suggest that participants switch between a contextual representation and an associative network when generating free associations. We discuss the role that each of these representations may play in lexical semantic memory. Concordant with recent multicomponent theories of semantic memory, the associative network may encode coordinate relations between concepts (e.g., the relation between pea and bean, or between sparrow and robin), and contextual representations may be used to process information about more abstract concepts.     

Kill or cure? Different types of social class identification amplify and buffer the relation between social class and mental health

The present research investigated different types of social class identification as moderators of the negative relation between social class and mental health problems. Psychology undergraduates (N = 355) completed an online survey that included measures of social class, mental health and well-being, and three aspects of social class identification: importance of identity, salience of identity, and perceived self-class similarity. Perceived self-class similarity buffered the negative association between social class and depressive symptoms. However, importance and salience of social class identity amplified the associations between social class and anxiety and life satisfaction. These findings contribute to a more sophisticated understanding of the way in which social identification may operate as a social cure.     

Stretching the boundaries: strategic perceptions of intragroup variability

We hypothesised that people would strategically alter their perceived intragroup variability on ingroup‐threatening traits in order to maintain positive perceptions of their self and their ingroup. Specifically, we predicted that people would perceive (1) greater relative outgroup homogeneity and (2) greater general intragroup variability on ingroup negative and outgroup positive traits. We confirmed the outgroup homogeneity prediction in a minimal group experiment (N=80) and a gender group experiment (N = 164). In a second gender group experiment (N = 137), we found that ingroup size moderated this effect: only minority group members showed the predicted pattern of outgroup homogeneity. Evidence for the general intragroup variability prediction was less conclusive. We discuss the results in terms of variability strategies. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Flashbulb memories are special after all; in phenomenology,not accuracy

Consistency of flashbulb memories (FBMs) of the 11th September terrorist attacks and of everyday memories (EDMs) of the preceding weekend do not differ, in both cases declining over the following year for a group of Duke University undergraduates. However, ratings of recollection, vividness and other phenomenological properties were consistently higher for FBMs than for EDMs across time. Belief in the accuracy of memory was initially high for both memories, but declined over time only for EDMs. These findings confirm that FBMs are not extraordinarily accurate, but they may systematically differ from EDMs in other meaningful ways. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.