Party Pooper or Life of the Party: Dampening and Enhancing of Positive Affect in a Peer Context

Dampening and enhancing responses to positive affect have been linked to depressive symptoms. The main aim of the present study was to examine such responses in an interpersonal peer context and to examine their relation with depressive symptoms. A community sample of 665 seventh-graders (52.0% girls, Mage = 12.7 years) took part in the study. Using a newly developed questionnaire, the Co-Dampening and Co-Enhancing Questionnaire (CoDEQ), a two-factor model distinguishing co-dampening and co-enhancing was validated. Relations with general depressive symptoms, anhedonic symptoms, and friendship quality were investigated. The direction of relations was examined over a 1-year interval using cross-lagged analyses. Cross-sectional results revealed that higher levels of co-dampening and lower levels of co-enhancing were associated with more depressive and anhedonic symptoms, while controlling for co-rumination levels. For anhedonic symptoms, this pattern also held over and above intrapersonal dampening and enhancing. Friendship quality was related to higher concurrent levels of co-enhancing and lower levels of co-dampening. The longitudinal results pointed towards a scar model, in that both depressive and anhedonic symptoms predicted relative increases in co-dampening over time; however, this did not hold in a model in which dampening and enhancing were included as control variables.     

Forming and updating vaccination beliefs: does the continued effect of misinformation depend on what we think we know?

Cognitive Processing - People may cling to false facts even in the face of updated and correct information. The present study confronted misconceptions about the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine...     

The Role of Art in Emotional-Moral Reflection on Risky and Controversial Technologies: the Case of BNCI

In this article, we explore the role that art can play in ethical reflection on risky and controversial technologies. New technologies often give rise to societal controversies about their potential risks and benefits. Over the last decades, social scientists, psychologists, and philosophers have criticized quantitative approaches to risk on the grounds that they oversimplify its societal and ethical implications. There is broad consensus amongst these scholars that stakeholders and their values and concerns should be included in decision-making about technological risks. It has also been argued that the emotional responses of people can shed important light on the ethical aspects of risk and uncertainty. However, people’s emotions can be narrowly focused and biased. This article therefore assesses the role that technology-inspired artworks can play in overcoming such biases, by challenging our imagination and providing us with different perspectives on possible technological developments and their implications for society. Philosophers have not yet studied such artworks, so this constitutes an entirely new field of research for scholars of risk and moral theory. In particular, we focus on the case of BNCI (Brain/Neural Computer Interface) technologies and related artworks. These technologies and artworks touch on questions of what it means to be human, thereby raising profound ethical and philosophical challenges. We discuss the experiences of artists, scientists, and engineers who are directly involved with BNCI technologies, and who were interviewed during a Hackathon at Amsterdam’s Waag Society in June 2016. Their views are analyzed in light of philosophical and aesthetic theories, which allows us to consider relevant ethical and conceptual issues as well as topics for further investigation.     

Etablierung einer ambulanten Psychotherapiegruppe in Niederösterreich

psychopraxis. neuropraxis - Gruppenpsychotherapie erzielt bei der Behandlung von unipolarer Depression mittlere bis große Effekte. Ein größeres Angebot an Gruppentherapie könnte...     

The Science and Art of Integrating Psychodrama and Bernard’s Discrimination Model

This article presents the useful technique of Jacob L. Moreno’s psychodrama in counselor education supervision training. This article addresses how psychodrama can be used with student supervisors who are not sure which of Bernard’s discrimination model roles they are using in supervision. Bernard’s model uses three roles that help supervisors function successfully in their relationships with supervisees. Psychodrama may help student supervisors decide what action would be the most appropriate in a given supervision session. Student supervisors may also benefit from psychodrama in processing internal conflict they may experience in their supervisory role. Faculty members training new supervisors may use these techniques to help their student supervisors gain more awareness on how they view their relationships with supervisees.     

The influence of in-group and out-group favouritism on the disciplinary practice of ethnic majority and minority preservice teachers

Social Psychology of Education - Teacher judgments and the disciplinary sanctioning of pupils can be understood as a function of the ethnic match, which means whether or not teachers and pupils...     

Valence, comparison focus and self-positivity biases: does it matter whether people judge positive or negative traits?

The present research questions whether mere valence affects self-other comparisons in the domain of trait characteristics. While some previous studies have reported greater positivity bias for the self when traits were positive than when traits were negative, we suggest that this is an ambiguous finding, because valence and content were confounded. When we unconfounded content and valence, valence had no effect on the magnitude of self-positivity bias displayed. We also replicate several findings for our unconfounded set of traits. Firstly, comparing others to the self, rather than comparing the self to others, lowered self-positivity for positive and negative traits (focus effect). Secondly, extremely positive and negative traits triggered greater positivity bias than did more moderately evaluated ones. Finally, we suggest that comparative self-positivity biases may be based on a general positivity bias.