Causal beliefs and empirical evidence

Causal beliefs often facilitate decision making. However, strong causal beliefs can also lead to neglect of relevant empirical evidence causing errors in risky decision making (e.g., medical, financial). We investigated the impact of pre-training and post-experience on the evaluation of empirical evidence in a two-alternative medical diagnostic task. Participants actively searched for information about two patients on the basis of four available cues. The first experiment indicated that pre-training can weaken the strong influence of causal beliefs reducing neglect of empirical evidence. The second experiment demonstrated that increasing amounts of empirical evidence can improve people's ability to decide in favor of a correct diagnosis. The current research converges with other recent work to clarify key mechanisms and boundary conditions shaping the influence of causal beliefs and empirical evidence in decisions and causal judgments.     

The Association Between Physical Functioning and Self-rated General Health in Later Life: The Implications of Social Comparison

Self-rated general health has been used widely in health surveys as a single-item measurement of health-rated quality of life. Heterogeneity in self-evaluation of health has been well documented, yet the causes of this heterogeneity are poorly understood. This study evaluated the moderating effects of age, aging, gender, race, education and income on the relationship between physical functioning and self-rated general health using social comparison theory as a guiding framework. A longitudinal mixed-effects regression model was used to analyze a cohort enrolled into the Health and Retirement Study in 1993 that was interviewed at baseline and during four subsequent waves. The results revealed that the association between physical functioning and self-rated general health is weaker among subgroups that tend to have lower health status; i.e., older individuals, non-Caucasians and less educated individuals. These findings suggest the usefulness of social comparison theory in explaining self-rated general health and provide the basis for future research.     

Integration of the pleasant events and activity restriction models: development and validation of a "PEAR" model of negative outcomes in Alzheimer's caregivers

This study examined an activity restriction/pleasurable activities mismatch model for psychosocial and health-related outcomes. A total of 108 spousal caregivers of patients with Alzheimer's Disease (AD) were assessed for their experience of social and recreational activities over the past month as well as their perception of how restricted they were for engaging in social and recreational activities. Participants were divided into three groups based on their reported activities and activity restriction: HPLR = High Pleasant Events + Low Activity Restriction (i.e., reference group; N = 28); HPHR/LPLR = Either High Pleasant Events + High Activity Restriction or Low Pleasant Events + Low Activity Restriction (N = 43); LPHR = Low Pleasant Events + High Activity Restriction (N = 37). We hypothesized that participants reporting low pleasant events combined with high activity restriction (LPHR) would demonstrate greater disturbance relative to other two groups in multiple outcome domains, including: (a) greater mood disturbance, (b) greater use of negative coping factors, (c) reduced use of positive coping strategies, (d) reduced report of psychological resource factors (e.g., personal mastery, self-efficacy), and (e) increased report of subjective health difficulties (e.g., sleep disturbance). Results generally supported our hypotheses, suggesting that assessment of both constructs is important for best predicting quality of well-being in AD caregivers, and potentially for establishing maximal effect in behavior therapy for caregivers.     

Individual differences in children's mathematical competence are related to the intentional but not automatic processing of Arabic numerals

In recent years, there has been an increasing focus on the role played by basic numerical magnitude processing in the typical and atypical development of mathematical skills. In this context, tasks measuring both the intentional and automatic processing of numerical magnitude have been employed to characterize how children’s representation and processing of numerical magnitude changes over developmental time. To date, however, there has been little effort to differentiate between different measures of ‘number sense’. The aim of the present study was to examine the relationship between automatic and intentional measures of magnitude processing as well as their relationships to individual differences in children’s mathematical achievement. A group of 119 children in 1st and 2nd grade were tested on the physical size congruity paradigm (automatic processing) as well as the number comparison paradigm to measure the ratio effect (intentional processing). The results reveal that measures of intentional and automatic processing are uncorrelated with one another, suggesting that these tasks tap into different levels of numerical magnitude processing in children. Furthermore, while children’s performance on the number comparison paradigm was found to correlate with their mathematical achievement scores, no such correlations could be obtained for any of the measures typically derived from the physical size congruity task. These findings therefore suggest that different tasks measuring ‘number sense’ tap into different levels of numerical magnitude representation that may be unrelated to one another and have differential predictive power for individual differences in mathematical achievement.     

The validity and incremental validity of knowledge tests, low-fidelity simulations, and high-fidelity simulations for predicting job performance in advanced-level high-stakes selection

In high-stakes selection among candidates with considerable domain-specific knowledge and experience, investigations of whether high-fidelity simulations (assessment centers; ACs) have incremental validity over low-fidelity simulations (situational judgment tests; SJTs) are lacking. Therefore, this article integrates research on the validity of knowledge tests, low-fidelity simulations, and high-fidelity simulations in advanced-level high-stakes settings. A model and hypotheses of how these 3 predictors work in combination to predict job performance were developed. In a sample of 196 applicants, all 3 predictors were significantly related to job performance. Both the SJT and the AC had incremental validity over the knowledge test. Moreover, the AC had incremental validity over the SJT. Model tests showed that the SJT fully mediated the effects of declarative knowledge on job performance, whereas the AC partially mediated the effects of the SJT.     

Provider Perspectives about Latino Patients: Determinants of Care and Implications for Treatment

Primary care settings are the gateway through which the majority of Latinos access care for their physical and mental health concerns. This study explored the perspectives of primary care providers regarding their Latino patients, particularly, issues impacting their patients' access to and utilization of services. Interviews were conducted with eight primary care providers-and analyzed using consensual qualitative research methods. In addition, observations were conducted of the primary care setting to contextualize providers' perspectives. Providers indicated that care for Latinos was impacted by several domains: (a) practical/instrumental factors that influence access to care; (b) cultural and personal factors that shape patients' presentations and views about physical and mental health and treatment practices; (c) provider cultural competence; and (d) institutional factors which highlight the context of care. In addition to recommendations for research and practice, the need for interdisciplinary collaboration between psychology and medicine in reducing ethnic minority disparities was proposed.     

Counseling Adult Clients Experiencing Chronic Pain

Chronic pain affects 35% to 57% of the adult population in the United States and results in billions of dollars spent annually in direct health‐care costs and lost productivity. Extensive research confirms the considerable role psychological factors play in the experience and expression of chronic pain. The author discusses implications for counseling adult clients experiencing chronic pain, specifically interventions, interdisciplinary treatment approaches, treatment planning, diversity, and ethical/legal considerations.     

Integrating physical constraints in statistical inference by 11-month-old infants

Much research on cognitive development focuses either on early-emerging domain-specific knowledge or domain-general learning mechanisms. However, little research examines how these sources of knowledge interact. Previous research suggests that young infants can make inferences from samples to populations (Xu & Garcia, 2008) and 11- to 12.5-month-old infants can integrate psychological and physical knowledge in probabilistic reasoning (Teglas, Girotto, Gonzalez, & Bonatti, 2007; Xu & Denison, 2009). Here, we ask whether infants can integrate a physical constraint of immobility into a statistical inference mechanism. Results from three experiments suggest that, first, infants were able to use domain-specific knowledge to override statistical information, reasoning that sometimes a physical constraint is more informative than probabilistic information. Second, we provide the first evidence that infants are capable of applying domain-specific knowledge in probabilistic reasoning by using a physical constraint to exclude one set of objects while computing probabilities over the remaining sets.     

Paranormal Encounters as Eyewitness Phenomena: Psychological Determinants of Atypical Perceptual Interpretations

Many people who report paranormal sightings (e.g., Bigfoot and UFO aliens) are apparently sincere. This places many such sightings in the category of eyewitness errors, rather than of deliberate deception. Recent research has supported this idea; in an earlier paper, we demonstrated that paranormal beliefs are facilitated by tendencies toward attention deficit hyperactive disorder, dissociation, and depression. These characteristics predicted specific patterns of beliefs in several paranormal phenomena. The present research addressed the question of whether such psychological tendencies would tend to create bias in perception and interpretation as well as in belief- in whether a person’s identification of a given stimulus as paranormal in nature would be influenced by the same factors previously demonstrated to influence paranormal beliefs. This hypothesis was supported. Specifically, those with dissociative tendencies were significantly more likely to identify given stimulus items as paranormal in nature than were those with lower dissociation scores. Dissociation was further shown to be related to paranormal beliefs, consistent with earlier findings. Results are discussed in terms of the reconfigurative dynamics known to operate in areas of human cognition such as eyewitness identification, and in terms of the generality of those effects to the realm of paranormal sightings.