Randomized Controlled Trial Testing the Effectiveness of a Depression Prevention Program (‘Op Volle Kracht’) Among Adolescent Girls with Elevated Depressive Symptoms

Depression rates rise dramatically from the early to late adolescence. Especially young adolescent girls with elevated depressive symptoms are at high risk for developing a depression during adolescence or adulthood. Therefore, the prevention of depression is important especially in this high-risk group. The aim of the present study was to examine the effectiveness of the Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) component of the depression prevention program ‘Op Volle Kracht’ (OVK) among Dutch adolescent girls with elevated depressive symptoms. In total, 102 adolescent girls (11–15 years) in the first and second year of secondary school participated in this study. The girls in the experimental group (n?=?50) followed the eight CBT-lessons of OVK and reported depressive symptoms 1 week prior to the start of the lessons, after every lesson, at one-month and 6-months follow-up. The girls in the control group (n?=?52) exclusively reported depressive symptoms at the same time points. Latent Growth Curve Modeling showed that the decrease in depressive symptoms was significantly larger for girls in the experimental group compared to the girls in the control group. Furthermore, it was found that at 6-months follow-up, the girls in the experimental group had significantly lower levels of depressive symptoms compared to the girls in the control group. These findings indicate that the CBT-component of OVK effectively reduces depressive symptoms in short term and possibly prevents the development of a clinical depression.     

Interest and Expertise Moderate the Relationship between Right‐Wing Attitudes,Ideological Self‐Placement and Voting

Previous research has suggested that the association between right‐wing authoritarianism (RWA) and social dominance orientation (SDO) is moderated by political interest and involvement. It is here hypothesized that interest also strengthens the association of authoritarianism with political self‐placement and that higher levels of interest in politics shape voting choices that are more strongly associated with authoritarianism. Authoritarianism was defined as a second‐order factor reflecting onto SDO and RWA in a structural equation modelling approach. In Study 1 (two samples, total N = 873), interest was found to moderate the impact of authoritarianism, as hypothesized. In Study 2 (N = 721), a higher order interaction involving interest and political expertise was detected. These results were obtained with different measures and in different electoral campaigns. The motivational and cognitive underpinnings of the moderating effects are discussed. Copyright © 2012 European Association of Personality Psychology.     

Religion insulates ingroup evaluations: the development of intergroup attitudes in India

Research on the development of implicit intergroup attitudes has placed heavy emphasis on race, leaving open how social categories that are prominent in other cultures might operate. We investigate two of India's primary means of social distinction, caste and religion, and explore the development of implicit and explicit attitudes towards these groups in minority‐status Muslim children and majority‐status Hindu children, the latter drawn from various positions in the Hindu caste system. Results from two tests of implicit attitudes find that caste attitudes parallel previous findings for race: higher‐caste children as well as lower‐caste children have robust high‐caste preferences. However, results for religion were strikingly different: both lower‐status Muslim children and higher‐status Hindu children show strong implicit ingroup preferences. We suggest that religion may play a protective role in insulating children from the internalization of stigma.     

Facilitating Game Play: How Others Affect Performance at and Enjoyment of Video Games

The current study implements the drive theory of social facilitation to explain the influence of audience presence in video game play. This integration is an important one for research aiming to understand the experience of video game play, as the social aspect of video game play is a relevant dimension of the technology often ignored in research on gaming experiences. The study finds a significant positive association between non-gaming cognitive abilities (such as hand–eye coordination and mental rotation ability) and performance at a first-person shooter. Data also support the social facilitation hypothesis: Game play in the presence of a physical audience significantly predicts increased game performance. Social facilitation effects are only found for low-challenge games where the drive-inducing capacity of task challenge is minimized. Resultant influences on game enjoyment are less clear.     

The Role of Social Presence in Interactive Agent-Based Persuasion

This investigation examines the extent to which interactive social agent technology can influence social presence, information processing, and persuasion. Specifically, it looks at how interactive media using virtual agents can increase the sensation of social presence, or the extent to which a person feels “with” a mediated being. Using logic based on the Heuristic Systematic Model (HSM), social presence is posited to impact indicators of heuristic and systematic processing, leading to changes in attitude and intention toward a health issue. A 2 × 2 between subjects experiment was conducted (N = 125) with manipulations of interactivity (interactive or not) and source attractiveness (attractive or unattractive). Results of causal model tests suggest that interactive agents facilitate social presence leading to increased message processing, which in turn affects both attitude and behavioral intentions toward the issue of healthy blood pressure. Contrary to expectations, however, social presence with an unattractive source did not impede attitude and intentions. These findings are interpreted in light of presence, new media, and HSM scholarship.     

Moderators of the association between exercise identity and obligatory exercise among participants of an athletic event

Previous research has connected exercise identity with obligatory exercise, yet to date no empirical studies have identified moderator variables of this association. The current study included participants of an athletic event (full marathon, n = 582; half marathon, n = 1,106; shorter distance, n = 733) who completed questionnaires about exercise behaviors, obligatory exercise, and internalization of both the thin-ideal and athletic-ideal body shapes. General linear model analyses were conducted to examine the exercise identity–obligatory exercise relationship; moderator variables included gender, internalization of the thin-ideal body shape, and internalization of the athletic-ideal body shape. After controlling for the effects of body mass index, age, and distance group, the three-way interaction of exercise identity, gender, and internalization of the athletic-ideal body shape predicted obligatory exercise. Findings suggest that women who report high identification with exercise and high value on having an athletic physique may be vulnerable to obligatory exercise.     

The epistemological status of a naturalized epistemology

Philosophically inclined psychologists and psychologically inclined philosophers often hold that the substantive discoveries of psychology can provide an empirical foundation for epistemology. In this paper it is argued that the ambition to found epistemology empirically faces certain unnoticed difficulties. Empirical theories concerned with knowledge‐gaining abilities have been historically associated with specific epistemological views such that the epistemology gives preferential support to the substantive theory, while the theory empirically supports the epistemology. Theories attribute to the subject just those epistemic abilities which associated epistemologies attribute to the scientist. The concept of epistemological significance is introduced as the significance a psychological theory can have for modifying the epistemological suppositions with which the theory was originally associated. Substantive psychological theories are strongly constrained by the epistemologies used in their development; the endorsement an epistemology receives from its associated theory should carry no weight. The alliance between psychology and epistemology is not progressive to the development of either field. Alternative sources of progress in epistemology and psychology are suggested.     

The effects of smoking norms and attitudes on quitting intentions in Malaysia,Thailand and four Western nations: A cross-cultural comparison

This research investigated the influence of smoking attitudes and norms on quitting intentions in two predominantly collectivistic countries (Malaysia and Thailand) and four predominantly individualistic Western countries (Canada, USA, UK and Australia). Data from the International Tobacco Control Project (N = 13,062) revealed that higher odds of intending to quit were associated with negative personal attitudes in Thailand and the Western countries, but not in Malaysia; with norms against smoking from significant others in Malaysia and the Western countries, but not in Thailand; and with societal norms against smoking in all countries. Our findings indicate that normative factors are important determinants of intentions, but they play a different role in different cultural and/or tobacco control contexts. Interventions may be more effective if they are designed with these different patterns of social influence in mind.