Perceptual complexity,rather than valence or arousal accounts for distracter-induced overproductions of temporal durations

For humans and other species, the ability to estimate the physical passage of time is of fundamental importance for perceptual, cognitive or motor functions. Despite this importance, any subjective estimation of temporal durations not only depends on the temporal dynamics of the to-be-timed stimulus or event, but also can be distorted by non-temporal perceptual, cognitive, and emotional effects. This study aimed to further explore critical stimulus characteristics modulating distracter-induced distortions in human time-reproduction. To this end, we investigated whether subjectively rated distracter dimensions of arousal and valence (related to levels of emotionality), or rather stimulus complexity, as a confounder, produce distortions in participants' reproduction of a previously trained target interval. Accuracy and precision of time-reproduction have been measured in distracter-trials, and compared to timing performance in baseline-trials without any distraction. Results showed temporal overproductions in a magnitude of less than distracter duration only for complex distracters. Most importantly, arousal level and valence of distracters were not accountable for temporal distortions. Within an internal clock framework, our pattern of results can best be interpreted in the context of attention-, rather than arousal-based mechanisms of timing.     

Involvement of shared resources in time judgment and sequence reasoning tasks

Previous research suggests that time perception is supported by the same attentional resources involved in sequence processing. The present experiment was designed to clarify this connection by examining the relation between timing and reasoning tasks that involved either sequencing or non-sequencing judgments. For the timing task, subjects produced a series of 5-s intervals. For the reasoning tasks, subjects judged whether pairs of statements describing common actions either (a) were presented in the correct temporal order (sequencing), or (b) described similar actions or objects (similarity). Subjects performed the timing and reasoning tasks both separately and concurrently in a series of 3-minute trials. Comparisons of single-task and dual-task performance assessed interference patterns between concurrent tasks. Both reasoning tasks interfered with timing by making temporal productions longer and more variable. Timing had differential effects on the two reasoning tasks. Concurrent timing caused sequencing judgments to become slower, less accurate, and less sensitive relative to sequencing-only conditions. In contrast, similarity judgments were either unaffected or affected to a lesser degree by the concurrent timing task. These results support the notion that timing and sequencing are closely related processes that rely on the same set of cognitive resources or mechanisms.     

Enhancing the Benefits of Written Emotional Disclosure Through Response Training

Writing about a personal stressful event has been found to have psychological and physical health benefits, especially when physiological response increases during writing. Response training was developed to amplify appropriate physiological reactivity in imagery exposure. The present study examined whether response training enhances the benefits of written emotional disclosure. Participants were assigned to either a written emotional disclosure condition (n = 113) or a neutral writing condition (n = 133). Participants in each condition wrote for 20 minutes on 3 occasions and received response training (n = 79), stimulus training (n = 84) or no training (n = 83). Heart rate and skin conductance were recorded throughout a 10-minute baseline, 20-minute writing, and a 10-minute recovery period. Self-reported emotion was assessed in each session. One month after completing the sessions, participants completed follow-up assessments of psychological and physical health outcomes. Emotional disclosure elicited greater physiological reactivity and self-reported emotion than neutral writing. Response training amplified physiological reactivity to emotional disclosure. Greater heart rate during emotional disclosure was associated with the greatest reductions in event-related distress, depression, and physical illness symptoms at follow-up, especially among response trained participants. Results support an exposure explanation of emotional disclosure effects and are the first to demonstrate that response training facilitates emotional processing and may be a beneficial adjunct to written emotional disclosure.     

Early maladaptive schema and social and occupational functioning: The mediating role of psychiatric symptomatology

Early Maladaptive Schemas (EMS) are described as long‐held core beliefs which are dysfunctional to a significant degree. However, the supposition that schemas are dysfunctional by nature, while not isomorphic with psychiatric syndromes, is yet to be subjected to empirical review. The current study seeks to investigate the relationship between the Young Schema Questionnaire and the concept of ‘dysfunction’ in a community sample to determine the indirect effects of psychiatric symptomatology and validate current scoring guidelines with a convergent measure of dysfunction. A total of 464 people completed a survey online comprising of the YSQ‐Short Form, the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scales‐21, the Social and Occupational Functioning Assessment Scales, and the World Health Organization Quality of Life Scale. Multiple regression analyses revealed a moderate relationship between EMS categories and measures of dysfunction, however only six of eighteen EMS categories were significant predictors in this model. Mediation analyses further suggest that the relationship between EMS and dysfunction is partially mediated by psychiatric symptomatology. The current dichotomous clinical scoring guidelines were found to be invalid when measures of functioning were used as convergent measures for twelve of the EMS categories. These findings suggest the YSQ is best conceptualised as a general measure of schema as opposed to a measure of EMS categories.     

The Effect of Communication Change on Long‐term Reductions in Child Exposure to Conflict: Impact of the Promoting Strong African American Families (ProSAAF) Program

African American couples (n = 331) with children, 89% of whom were married, were assigned to either (a) a culturally sensitive couple‐ and parenting‐enhancement program (ProSAAF) or (b) an information‐only control condition in which couples received self‐help materials. Husbands averaged 41 years of age and wives averaged 39 years. We found significant effects of program participation in the short term on couple communication, which was targeted by the intervention, as well as over the long term, on self‐reported arguing in front of children. Long‐term parenting outcomes were fully mediated by changes in communication for wives, but not for husbands. For husbands, positive change depended on amount of wife reported change. We conclude that wives' changes in communication from baseline to posttest may be more pivotal for the couples' long‐term experience of decreased arguing in front of children than are husbands' changes, with wives' changes leading to changes in both partners' reports of arguments in front of children.     

Agency‐Communion and Interest in Prosocial Behavior: Social Motives for Assimilation and Contrast Explain Sociocultural Inconsistencies

Identifying the “prosocial personality” is a classic project in personality psychology. However, personality traits have been elusive predictors of prosocial behavior, with personality‐prosociality relations varying widely across sociocultural contexts. We propose the social motives perspective to account for such sociocultural inconsistencies. According to this perspective, a focal quality of agency (e.g., competence, independence, openness) is the motive to swim against the social tide—agentic social contrast. Conversely, a focal quality of communion (e.g., warmth, interdependence, agreeableness) is the motive to swim with the social tide—communal social assimilation. We report two cross‐sectional studies. Study 1 (N = 131,562) defined social context at the country level (11 European countries), whereas Study 2 (N = 56,395) defined it at the country level (11 European countries) and the city level (296 cities within these countries). Communion predicted interest in prosocial behavior comparatively strongly in sociocultural contexts where such interest was common and comparatively weakly where such interest was uncommon. Agency predicted interest in prosocial behavior comparatively strongly in sociocultural contexts where such interest was uncommon and comparatively weakly where such interest was common. The results supported the social motives perspective. Also, the findings help to reestablish the importance of personality for understanding prosociality.     

Toward a Model-Based Approach to the Clinical Assessment of Personality Psychopathology

Recent years have witnessed tremendous growth in the scope and sophistication of statistical methods available to explore the latent structure of psychopathology, involving continuous, discrete, and hybrid latent variables. The availability of such methods has fostered optimism that they can facilitate movement from classification primarily crafted through expert consensus to classification derived from empirically based models of psychopathological variation. The explication of diagnostic constructs with empirically supported structures can then facilitate the development of assessment tools that appropriately characterize these constructs. Our goal in this article is to illustrate how new statistical methods can inform conceptualization of personality psychopathology and therefore its assessment. We use magical thinking as an example, because both theory and earlier empirical work suggested the possibility of discrete aspects to the latent structure of personality psychopathology, particularly forms of psychopathology involving distortions of reality testing, yet other data suggest that personality psychopathology is generally continuous in nature. We directly compared the fit of a variety of latent variable models to magical thinking data from a sample enriched with clinically significant variation in psychotic symptomatology for explanatory purposes. Findings generally suggested a continuous latent variable model best represented magical thinking, but results varied somewhat depending on different indexes of model fit. We discuss the implications of the findings for classification and applied personality assessment. We also highlight some limitations of this type of approach that are illustrated by these data, including the importance of substantive interpretation, in addition to use of model fit indexes, when evaluating competing structural models.