Fertile green: green facilitates creative performance

The present research sought to extend the nascent literature on color and psychological functioning by examining whether perception of the color green facilitates creativity. In four experiments, we demonstrated that a brief glimpse of green prior to a creativity task enhances creative performance. This green effect was observed using both achromatic (white, gray) and chromatic (red, blue) contrast colors that were carefully matched on nonhue properties, and using both picture-based and word-based assessments of creativity. Participants were not aware of the purpose of the experiment, and null effects were obtained on participants' self-reported mood and positive activation. These findings indicate that green has implications beyond aesthetics and suggest the need for sustained empirical work on the functional meaning of green.     

Dealing with Dynamic Decision Problems when Knowledge of the Environment Is Limited: An Approach Based on Goal Systems

We experimentally analyzed decision procedures for dealing with a dynamic decision‐making problem in which only qualitative information about the deterministic dynamics of the environment was available to participants. A participant's task was to maximize long‐term profit in a computer‐simulated monopoly market featuring delays and inertia. The design enabled a goal‐system‐based procedure, whereby a participant could select one or several short‐term variables to be controlled (goal variables) and chose target values (aspiration levels) for each of them over a total of 50 periods. We report results based on a sample of 63 participants on the formation of goal systems and the process of aspiration adaptation. Our main findings are, first, that more frequently selecting goal systems that adequately reflect the causal structure of the underlying model is positively correlated with long‐term profit; second, that goal persistence, a measure of a participant's tendency to stick to the current goal system, is positively correlated with long‐term profit; and third, that aspiration levels tend to be adapted in strong agreement with certain basic principles of a benchmark model of aspiration adaptation. Our study thus suggests and provides empirical foundation for an approach to dealing with complex dynamic decision problems based on neither optimization nor learning. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Severe Sexual Sadism Scale: cross-validation and scale properties

The Severe Sexual Sadism Scale (SSSS) is a screening device for the file-based assessment of forensically relevant sexual sadism. The SSSS consists of 11 dichotomous (yes/no) items that code behavioral indicators of severe sexual sadism within sexual offenses. Based on an Austrian sample of 105 sexual offenders, the present study replicated the 1-dimensional scale structure of the SSSS, as evidenced by confirmatory factor analysis. More specifically, the scale was commensurate with the 1-parameter logistic test model (Rasch model). Reliability was estimated to be good. Criterion validity for the clinical diagnosis of sexual sadism was good. With a cutoff value of 7 points, sensitivity and specificity were estimated at 56% and 90%, respectively.     

Linguistic stress, within-word position, and grammatical class in relation to early childhood stuttering

The purpose of the present study was to investigate whether the link that has been established between stuttering and linguistic stress in adolescents and adults (the so-called stress effect) can also be observed in childhood stuttering. To account for confounding variables, both within-word position and grammatical class were measured, because these factors covary with linguistic stress. Speech samples of 22 preschool children (mean time of 9 months since onset of stuttering) were analyzed. The relative stress of each syllable was rated and syllables were categorized into long and short stressed, unstressed, and intermediately stressed syllables. Results showed that 97.8% of stuttering events occurred on first syllables of words and 76.5% on the first sound of syllables, that means a clear word-initial effect. Stuttering frequency on first syllables of function words was 16.9% and significantly higher than the frequency of stuttered first syllables of content words (11.5%). In function words short stressed syllables and intermediately stressed syllables were stuttered more often than unstressed syllables. The analysis for individual disfluency types revealed that, for function words, stuttering on short stressed syllables was associated with prolongations and syllable repetitions. However, in intermediately stressed syllables stuttering coincided most often with one-syllable word repetitions. This differentiation of the stress effect may suggest different causal mechanisms underlying these disfluency types. Educational objectives: The reader will learn about and be able to: (1) describe how within-word position, grammatical class, and linguistic stress effect stuttering frequency in preschool children who stutter; (2) explain how the occurrence of individual disfluency types depends on linguistic stress; (3) discuss how patterns of adults and preschool children who stutter differ in regard to these aspects.     

Physical exercise and anxiety as moderators of the stress-illness relationship

This study examines the interplay of unemployment stress, trait anxiety and physical exercise in the development of physical health. Longitudinal data were taken from a sample of East German migrants (N = 330) who were confronted with the potentially stressful demand of finding a job in the Western society. Unemployment stress was found to exert a main effect on illness level. Trait anxiety was a moderator of the stress-illness relationship, but exercise was not. As indicated by a three-way interaction involving exercise, anxiety, and stress, exercise was most beneficial among high-anxious subjects who were not exposed to unemployment stress. Results of this study suggest that exercise may not buffer the deleterious effects of stressful situational conditions (unemployment), but may effectively mitigate the health-damaging consequences of lacking personal resources, such as high dispositional anxiety.     

Über die Treffsicherheit der standardisierten Risikoeinschätzungsverfahren Static-99 und Stable-2007 bei aus einer Sicherungsmaßnahme entlassenen Sexualstraftätern

The accuracy of the recidivism risk assessment instruments Static-99 and Stable-2007 for sexual offenders was examined in a population of released male forensic sexual offenders hospitalized under mandatory treatment in Austria (N?=?96). The Static-99 with an area under the curve (AUC) ?value of 0.86 and the Stable-2007 (AUC?=?0.71) were significantly related to sexual reoffending after nearly 7 years time at risk, thus revealing a predictive power comparable with offenders released from prison (N?=?274). Also the Stable-2007 incrementally supplemented the predictive accuracy of the Static-99. Static-99/Stable-2007 risk/need categories identified a high risk group with a 50?% chance for sexual reconviction within 5 years after release despite a favorable risk assessment as the precondition for release and post-release risk management. On the other hand, there was virtually no relapse in the three lowest risk categories suggesting a specific effect of the mandatory treatment at least in these offender categories. The data suggest that the instruments are valid not only for offenders released from prison but also for forensic sexual offenders.     

The association of sleep disturbances with endocrine and perceived stress reactivity measures in male employees

Evidence on the relationship between stress reactivity and sleep is conflicting. This study examined the association between disturbed sleep and perceived and endocrine stress reactivity independently of age, body mass index (BMI), and chronic stress. One hundred and twenty middle-aged men were exposed to the Trier Social Stress Test for Groups. The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index and the Perceived Stress Reactivity Scale were used to assess sleep and perceived stress reactivity, respectively. Endocrine stress reactivity was examined by assessing salivary cortisol levels. Regression analyses showed that men with disturbed sleep had blunted overall cortisol responses (b = −18.246, p = .044), but the association did not survive adjustment for age, BMI, and chronic stress. In contrast, poor sleep was associated with heightened perceived stress reactivity independently of age and BMI (b = 0.235, p = .005), but additional adjustment for chronic stress attenuated the relationship and only chronic stress remained a significant predictor of perceived stress reactivity (b = 0.470, p < .001). Cortisol and perceived stress reactivity were uncorrelated. In summary, our study indicates associations between sleep disturbances and stress reactivity were not independent of BMI and chronic stress levels, and endocrine and perceived stress reactivity were dissociated.