Adolescent Self-Assessment of an Outdoor Behavioral Health Program: Longitudinal Outcomes and Trajectories of Change

Outdoor behavioral healthcare is an increasingly popular treatment modality for adolescents, and evidence suggests that it is effective for a wide range of complex issues. The outdoor behavioral healthcare literature still faces major limitations though, and one of these limitations is that outcomes are primarily measured at only admit and discharge. This study sought to explore the trajectory of change throughout treatment, and investigate outcomes up to 18?months post-discharge. Of the 659 adolescent participants from four outdoor behavioral healthcare programs, 29?% were female, 18?% were adopted, and the average age was 16?years old. Participants were invited to complete questionnaires four times during treatment, and at 6 and 18?months post-discharge. We used multilevel modeling to explore trajectories and predictors of change during treatment, and a regression and an ANOVA to examine outcomes post-discharge. Results of the multilevel modeling supported that adolescents make significant changes during outdoor behavioral healthcare, and also contributed new findings on demographic and diagnostic predictors. Gender and the presence of a mood or anxiety disorder predicted greater rates of change during treatment. Analysis of post-discharge data at six and 18?months post-discharge suggested that clients maintain treatment effects and that gender persists in influencing outcomes. This study is the first to examine trajectories of change in outdoor behavioral healthcare, to find diagnostic variables to be relevant, and to examine self-report outcomes past 12?months post-discharge.     

Conscientiousness and fruit and vegetable consumption: exploring behavioural intention as a mediator

Clear associations have emerged between conscientiousness and health behaviours, such that higher levels of conscientiousness are predictive of beneficial health behaviours. This study investigated the conscientiousness-fruit and vegetable consumption relationship and whether behavioural intention mediated this relationship. A large sample of adults (N = 2136) completed an online battery of questionnaires measuring conscientiousness, behavioural intentions to consume fruit and vegetables, together with self-reported behaviour. Correlation analysis revealed that conscientiousness and each of its facets were positively associated with behavioural intention and self-reported behaviour. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses revealed that after controlling for age, gender and education, total conscientiousness, and the facets of responsibility, industriousness, order and virtue predicted self-reported behaviour. Further analysis revealed that in line with the Theory of Planned Behaviour, behavioural intention fully mediated the conscientiousness-fruit and vegetable behaviour relationship. In conclusion, low levels of conscientiousness were found to be associated with lower fruit and vegetable intentions, with the latter also associated with fruit and vegetable consumption.     

Uncertainty-dependent activity within the ventral striatum predicts task-related changes in response strategy

Recent neuroimaging work has demonstrated that the ventral striatum (VS) encodes confidence in perceptual decisions. However, it remains unclear whether perceptual uncertainty can signal the need to adapt behavior (such as by responding more cautiously) and whether such behavioral changes are related to uncertainty-dependent activity within the VS. Changes in response strategy have previously been observed following errors and are associated with both medial frontal cortex (MFC) and VS, two components of the performance-monitoring network. If uncertainty can elicit changes in response strategy (slowing), then one might hypothesize that these changes rely on the performance-monitoring network. In the present study, we investigated the link between perceptual uncertainty and task-related behavioral adaptations (response slowing and accuracy increases), as well as how such behavioral changes relate to uncertainty-dependent activity within MFC and VS. Our participants performed a two-choice perceptual decision-making task in which perceptual uncertainty was reported on each trial while behavioral and event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging data were collected. Analysis of the behavioral data revealed that uncertain (but correct) responses led to slowing on subsequent trials, a phenomenon that was positively correlated with increased accuracy. Critically, post-uncertainty slowing was negatively correlated with the VS activity elicited by uncertain responses. In agreement with previous reports, increases in MFC activation were observed for uncertain responses, although MFC activity was not correlated with post-uncertainty slowing. These results suggest that perceptual uncertainty can serve as a signal to adapt one’s response strategy and that such behavioral changes are closely tied to the VS, a key node in the performance-monitoring network.     

Inspection Times and the Selection Task: Are They Relevant?

Five experiments are reported based upon Evans' (1996) inspection time paradigm in which subjects are required to solve computer-presented Wason Selection Task problems while simultaneously using a mouse to indicate which card is currently under consideration. It had previously been found that selected cards were inspected for considerably longer than were non-selected cards, and this was taken as support for the existence of pre-conscious heuristics that direct attention towards relevant aspects of a problem. The first experiment reported here fully replicated this effect. However, by systematically varying the task format in subsequent experiments, the effect was found to diminish, disappear, or even reverse. The change in effect size and direction was not accompanied by any systematic variations in the subjects' card choices, indicating that the changes in taskformat had not altered the operation of the relevance-determining heuristics. On balance, it is suggested that the inspection time effect appears to be artefactual, and the inspection time paradigm therefore does not constitute satisfactory evidence for the existence of pre-conscious heuristics.     

Predicting belief in paranormal phenomena: a comparison of conditional and probabilistic reasoning

Previous studies, using student participants, have investigated conditional reasoning (Wierzbicki, 1985) and probabilistic reasoning (Blackmore and Troscianko, 1985) separately as predictors of belief in paranormal phenomena. Findings show that the fewer reasoning errors made, the less likely people are to believe. The current study investigated both types of reasoning within the same analysis in order to find the extent to which each would predict paranormal belief by itself. Sixty‐five non‐undergraduate participants completed two self‐report questionnaires to ascertain their degree of belief in the paranormal, and a reasoning test. The expected negative correlation between reasoning ability and paranormal belief was found. However, while conditional reasoning scores predicted paranormal belief (r=−0.27), probabilistic reasoning scores did not (r=0.01). It was noted that the sample used was possibly biased, due to a lack of sufficiently sceptical participants, and that future studies may need to target people with different degrees of belief. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Linguistic Convergence to Observed Versus Expected Behavior in an Alien-Language Map Task

Individuals shift their language to converge with interlocutors. Recent work has suggested that convergence can target not only observed but also expected linguistic behavior, cued by social information. However, it remains uncertain how expectations and observed behavior interact, particularly when they contradict each other. We investigated this using a cooperative map task experiment, in which pairs of participants communicated online by typing messages to each other in a miniature “alien” language that exhibited variation between alien species. The overall task comprised three phases, in each of which participants were told that they would be paired with a different partner. One member of the pair was given explicit linguistic expectations in each phase, while the software controlled whether or not observed behavior from their partner would be consistent or inconsistent with these expectations. The other participant was given no such expectations, allowing us to control for the role of expectation. Participants converged to both observed and expected linguistic behavior, and convergence was boosted when observation and expectation were aligned. When expected and observed behavior were misaligned, participants updated their expectations, though convergence levels did not drop. Furthermore, participants generalized what they learned about one partner to apparent novel partners of the same alien species. We also discuss individual variation in convergence patterns and the lack of a relationship between linguistic convergence and success at the map task. Findings are consistent with observations outside the laboratory that language users converge toward expected linguistic behavior. They also have broader implications for understanding linguistic accommodation and the influence of social information on linguistic processing and production.     

Social roles and the moral judgement of acts and omissions

Three experiments investigated how moral judgements of harmful acts and omissions are affected by information about social roles. Subjects were given vignettes in which the relationship between an actor and victim was varied along the dimensions of solidarity (e.g. friends versus strangers) and hierachy (e.g. superior versus equal; the terms are from Hamilton & Sanders, 1981). Subjects were asked to judge the morality of the actor in each case, both for a harmful omission (e.g. intentionally withholding the truth) and for an equivalent act (e.g. actively lying). Subjects judged the behaviour worse in the act than the omission. Judgements were also affected by role relationships. The act–omission difference was also greater in the low-responsibility roles. Responses to the high-responsibility roles seem to reflect in a consequentialist perspective, focusing on outcomes rather than prohibitions.