Serious fun: preschoolers engage in more exploratory play when evidence is confounded

Researchers, educators, and parents have long believed that children learn cause and effect relationships through exploratory play. However, previous research suggests that children are poor at designing informative experiments; children fail to control relevant variables and tend to alter multiple variables simultaneously. Thus, little is known about how children's spontaneous exploration might support accurate causal inferences. Here the authors suggest that children's exploratory play is affected by the quality of the evidence they observe. Using a novel free-play paradigm, the authors show that preschoolers (mean age: 57 months) distinguish confounded and unconfounded evidence, preferentially explore causally confounded (but not matched unconfounded) toys rather than novel toys, and spontaneously disambiguate confounded variables in the course of free play.     

Losing a training analyst for ethical violations: A candidate's perspective

The author presents her experience as the analysand of a training analyst who was investigated and expelled for ethical violations with another patient, including sexual-boundary violations, during her analytic training. While boundary violations by training analysts are not uncommon, the particular trauma experienced by 'bystanders' such as candidates and supervisees is not discussed in the literature, nor the response of institutes to the educational problems that are generated. The author illustrates the complications for candidates that arise from the dual roles of training analyst as educator and analyst when he or she faces investigation or censure, including isolation and secrecy, which promote various splits in the candidate, analytic dyad and group, as well as loyalty conflicts. The discussion covers three phases of the author's experience as a candidate-analysand, namely the period encompassing the institute's ethics investigation, the announcement of findings to her and to the institute as a group, and the ensuing individual and group dynamics generated by her analyst's expulsion from the institute and revocation of his medical license. Theoretical perspectives are utilized to understand the group regression, including contamination and contagion fears, which occurred in the wake of the training analyst's expulsion, and the impact of these processes on the candidate, including the pressure to function as a 'container' for projections of the group. Implications and recommendations for candidates and institutes are made for dealing helpfully with trainees who are affected by the process of dealing with a training analyst's ethical violations. Short-term and longer-term outcomes of the experience are considered.     

Longitudinal factor structure of posttraumatic stress symptoms related to intimate partner violence

Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) studies have suggested that a model of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that is characterized by 4 factors is preferable to competing models. However, the composition of these 4 factors has varied across studies, with 1 model splitting avoidance and numbing symptoms (e.g., D. W. King, G. A. Leskin, L. A. King, & F. W. Weathers, 1998) and the other including a dysphoria factor that combines numbing and nonspecific hyperarousal symptoms (L. J. Simms, D. Watson, & B. N. Doebbeling, 2002). Using the PTSD Checklist (F. W. Weathers, B. T. Litz, D. S. Herman, J. A. Huska, & T. M. Keane, 1993) and CFA, the authors compared these models with competing models. A model of PTSD with 4 intercorrelated factors of Intrusions, Avoidance, Dysphoria, and Hyperarousal was found superior among 396 medical patients who screened positive for intimate partner violence (IPV) and 405 women seeking services for IPV. Structural invariance testing indicated that this 4-factor model remains stable across service setting and time.     

From Social Withdrawal to Social Confidence: Evidence for Possible Pathways

Children born with a possible predisposition toward shyness face many social challenges. Researchers over the past four decades have begun to identify specific factors that influence shy children’s social skill development and their level of peer acceptance. The purpose of this article is to review factors across each developmental stage that have been found to either promote or hinder the development of social competence and peer acceptance in shy children. These factors include physiological differences, caregiver influences, emotion socialization, friendships, general peer support, coping skills, organized social activities, and socioeconomic status.     

Demographic Indicators as Predictors of Future Time Perspective

The present investigation examined the relationships between five demographic variables (age, sex, income, marital status, and education) and future time perspective. From a theoretical perspective, these demographic indicators were conceptualized as proxy measures for the social forces that influence the adult expression of this personality dimension. Data were drawn from six investigations in which a brief measure of future time perspective (Hershey and Mowen in The Gerontologist 40:687–697, 2000) had been administered to one thousand four hundred and ninety eight individuals. Higher future time perspective scores (i.e., longer future orientations) were associated with being male, increased age, income, and educational level. These main effects, however, were mitigated by a significant three-way interaction among sex, age, and level of education. These findings suggest that a complex interplay of variables is responsible for the expression of personality traits at the individual level.     

Parent Beliefs about Treatment Credibility and Effectiveness: Assessment and Relation to Subsequent Treatment Participation

We assessed parents’ beliefs about treatment credibility and effectiveness and examined the influence of these beliefs on subsequent treatment participation. Seventy-six parents completed the Credibility/Expectancies Questionnaire—Parent Version (CEQ-P), and subsequently participated in treatment for their child's clinically referred conduct problems. The key findings were that: (a) the CEQ-P is composed of two components that measure parents’ treatment credibility and expectancies; (b) the total scale and each component are internally consistent and have strong test-retest reliability; (c) scores on the CEQ-P are significantly associated with scores on a measure of parent motivation for treatment, supporting the construct validity of this measure; and (d) scores on the CEQ-P at the first clinic visit significantly predict subsequent adherence to treatment procedures above and beyond demographic variables and parent motivation for treatment. This study provides an efficient and psychometrically sound measure of parent beliefs about treatment and demonstrates the importance of such beliefs for subsequent treatment adherence.     

Psychotropic placebos create resistance to the misinformation effect

Can a placebo for a psychotropic drug help participants resist the misinformation effect? To answer this question, we gave participants a mixture of baking soda and water and told half of them that the mixture was a cognition-enhancing drug called R273 and told the other half that it was an inactive version of the drug. Shortly thereafter, all participants took part in a three-stage misinformation experiment. Compared with participants who were told that they had taken the placebo, the participants who were told that they had taken the drug reported improved cognitive abilities and were less susceptible to the misinformation effect. We provide sourcemonitoring and mindfulness accounts of our findings.     

Adding up the effects of cultural experience on the brain

How does the brain represent number and perform mathematical calculations? According to a recent and provocative study by Tang and colleagues, it depends on which language you learn. They found that the divergent linguistic and cultural experiences of native Chinese and native English speakers are associated with distinct patterns of brain activity during mathematical processing. Their results raise important questions about the cognitive and neural specificity of cultural influences on mathematical processes and the core nature of mathematical cognition.     

How to Tell If a Particular Memory Is True or False

ABSTRACT— How can you tell if a particular memory belonging to you or someone else is true or false? Cognitive scientists use a variety of techniques to measure groups of memories, whereas police, lawyers, and other researchers use procedures to determine whether an individual can be believed or not. We discuss evidence from behavioral and neuroimaging studies and research on lying that have attempted to distinguish true from false memories.