Essentialising Rhetoric and Work on the Self

This paper is a response to recent student protests at South African universities, and the essentialising rhetoric and practices that characterise South African public debates. I explore the likely responses of white South Africans to views that seem to make their whiteness inescapable and necessarily morally bad.     

Exploring the associations shared by mood,pain-related attention and pain outcomes related to sleep disturbance in a chronic pain sample

Objective: Sleep disturbance in chronic pain is common, occurring in two-thirds of patients. There is a complex relationship between chronic pain and sleep; pain can disrupt sleep and poor sleep can exaggerate pain intensity. This may have an impact on both depressive symptoms and attention to pain. This study aims to evaluate the relationship between chronic pain and sleep, and the role of mood and attention.

Methods: Chronic pain patients, recruited from a secondary care outpatient clinic, completed self-report measures of pain, sleep, depressive symptoms and attention to pain. Hierarchical regression and structural equation modelling were used to explore the relationships between these measures. Participants (n = 221) were aged between 20 and 84 (mean = 52) years.

Results: The majority of participants were found to be ‘poor sleepers’ (86%) with increased pain severity, depressive symptoms and attention to pain. Both analytical approaches indicated that sleep disturbance is indirectly associated with increased pain severity Instead the relationship shared by sleep disturbance and pain severity was further associated with depressive symptoms and attention to pain.

Conclusions: Our results indicate that sleep disturbance may contribute to clinical pain severity indirectly though changes in mood and attention. Prospective studies exploring lagged associations between these constructs could have critical information relevant to the treatment of chronic pain.     

Effects of Gender,Socioeconomic Status,and Early Academic Performance on Postsecondary Educational Choice

National data were used to study the effects of gender, socioeconomic status (SES), and 4 types of eighth‐grade academic performance on postsecondary educational choices at late adolescence. Educational choices were classified by predominant Holland type (R, I, A, S, E, C). Gender had strongest independent influences on educational choice. Gender also interacted with SES and academic performance. Relationships between SES and educational choice were stronger for women than for men. For women, eighth‐grade reading scores were the strongest predictor of educational choice, whereas for men, mathematics scores were the strongest predictor. Implications for theory and counseling practice are discussed.     

Examining the effects of group‐based instruction on emergent second‐language skills in young children

The present study evaluated the emergence of second‐language intraverbals in typically developing young children following a small‐group teaching intervention. Choral responding was employed with a group of 6 primary school children (5‐6 years old) to teach first‐language tacts (e.g., “What is this in English?” [“Hospital”]) and related second‐language tacts (e.g., “What is this in Welsh?” [“Ysbyty”]). A multiple‐probe design across stimulus sets was used to evaluate subsequent emergence of untrained first‐to‐second‐language derived intraverbals (e.g., “What is hospital in Welsh?” [“Ysbyty”]) and untrained second‐to‐first‐language intraverbals (e.g.,”What is ysbyty in English?” [“Hospital”]). Data indicated that the choral responding intervention produced robust increases in derived intraverbal relations for 3 of the 6 participants.     

Cognitive predictors of parent-rated inattention in very preterm children: The role of working memory and processing speed

Inattention is one of the most common neurobehavioral problems following very preterm birth. Attention problems can persist into adulthood and are associated with negative socio-emotional and educational outcomes. This study aimed to determine whether the cognitive processes associated with inattention differ between term-born and very preterm children. Sixty-five children born very preterm (<33+0 weeks’ gestation) aged 8–11 years were recruited alongside 48 term-born controls (?37 20 +0 weeks’ gestation). Both groups included children with a wide spectrum of parent-rated inattention (above average attention to severe inattention) measured as a continuous dimension using the Strengths and Weaknesses of ADHD and Normal-Behavior (SWAN) scale. The children completed tests to assess basic cognitive processes and executive function. A hierarchical multiple regression analysis was implemented to assess which neurocognitive processes explained variance in parent-rated inattention and whether these differed between preterm and term-born children. In both groups, poorer verbal and visuospatial short-term memory and poorer visuospatial working memory independently explained variance in parent-rated inattention. Slower motor processing speed explained variance in inattention among very preterm children only. The cognitive mechanisms associated with parent-rated inattention were predominantly overlapping between groups, but relationships between motor processing speed and inattention were unique to very preterm children. These associations may reflect risk factors for inattention in term and very preterm children. Future research should assess the efficacy of these cognitive processes as potential targets for intervention     

Construct validity for the verbal associated pairs screen

The present study introduces the Verbal Associated Pairs Screen (VAPS) as a new measure for assessing performance validity in pediatric populations. This study presents initial data on psychometric properties and establishes construct validity for the VAPS in a sample of 30 adolescent healthy controls and 206 youths with traumatic brain injury (TBI: moderate/severe, N = 30; mild, N = 176). The control group’s age (M = 14.93, SD = 1.8) was significantly higher than the moderate/severe TBI (M = 13.9, SD = 2.8), t(68.508) = ?3.038, p = .003, and mild TBI (mTBI) groups (M = 14, SD = 2.8), t(54.147) = 2.038, p = .046. The TBI groups were administered the VAPS in accord with other established performance validity tests (PVTs) and well-established memory tests as part of routine clinical evaluations. The healthy control group was administered the VAPS only. VAPS score distributions for the control group were negatively skewed and highly kurtotic. VAPS scores from the moderate/severe TBI and control groups were indistinguishable for Trial 2 (U = 274, p < .01) and the Delay (U = 396, p = .218). In the mTBI group, convergent and divergent validity was established with other well-validated PVTs and memory tests, respectively. ROC curve analyses identified optimal cutoff scores for the VAPS Total Score, with acceptable sensitivity (55%) and excellent specificity (100%), as well as strong detectability (AUC = .829, 95% CI: 0.731 – 0.928, p < .001). Clinical applications, limitations, and directions for future research with the VAPS are discussed.     

Using the Reality Interview improves the accuracy of the Criteria‐Based Content Analysis and Reality Monitoring

Active interviewing approaches can exploit the verbal differences between truthtellers and liars, thus improving detecting deception. One such method is the Reality Interview (RI) aimed to facilitate recall from truthtellers, while increasing the difficulty for liars. This study investigated whether the RI could improve the diagnostic accuracy of the Reality Monitoring and the Criteria‐Based Content Analysis. Liars and truthtellers were either asked to freely recall an event or interviewed with the RI. As hypothesized, the RI improved the discriminability of Reality Monitoring and Criteria‐Based Content Analysis over Free Recall. Honest responses were longer, and the RI increased the word count difference between honest and false statements. However, after correcting for word count, results were no longer significant, showing its importance for deception detection. Nonetheless, the RI increased verbal differences between truthtellers and liars, demonstrating that using the RI with verbal credibility assessment tools is a powerful combination for investigative interviewing.     

Eliciting information and cues to deceit through sketching in interpreter‐based interviews

As interviewees typically say less when an interpreter is present, we examined whether this was caused by interpreters not interpreting everything interviewees says or by interviewees providing less information. We further examined (a) the effect of a model drawing on providing information and (b) the diagnostic value of total details and the proportion of complications as cues to deceit. Hispanic, Russian, and South Korean participants were interviewed by native interviewers or by a British interviewer through an interpreter. Truth tellers discussed a trip they had made; liars fabricated a story. Participants received no instruction (condition 1) or were instructed to sketch while narrating without (condition 2) or with (condition 3) being given examples of detailed sketches. Interviewees said less when an interpreter was present because they provided less information. Truth tellers gave more details and, particularly, obtained a higher proportion of complications than liars. The sketching manipulation had no effect.     

Rationality through the Eyes of Shame: Oppression and Liberation via Emotion*

Standard accounts of shame characterize it as an emotion of global negative self‐assessment, in which an individual necessarily accepts or assents to a global negative self‐evaluation. According to nonstandard accounts of shame, experiences of shame need not involve a global negative self‐assessment. I argue here in favor of nonstandard accounts of shame over standard accounts. First, I begin with a detailed discussion of standard accounts of shame, focusing primarily on Gabriele Taylor's standard account (Taylor 1985). Second, I illustrate how Adrian Piper's experience of groundless shame can be portrayed as 1) both a rational and an irrational experience of shame, in accordance with Taylor's account as a paradigm model of standard accounts of shame, and 2) as a rational experience of shame when taken in its own right as a legitimate, rational account of shame (Piper 1992/1996). Third, without denying that some experiences of shame either are or can be irrational experiences of shame, I elucidate how standard accounts of shame can act as mechanisms of epistemic injustice, and in doing so can transmute the righteous indignation of the marginalized by recasting them as shameful experiences (that is, by recasting them as experiences of the righteous shame of the marginalized).     

Using equivalence‐based instruction to teach the visual analysis of graphs

Previous research has demonstrated low rater agreement when visually inspecting trends in single‐subject design graphs (see Wolfe, Seaman, & Drasgow, 2016). Didactic instruction of visual analysis of practicing behavior analysts has resulted in generally poor and unreliable performances (Danov & Symons, 2008; Diller, Barry, & Gelino, 2016). Therefore, a refined instructional technology to improve the reliability among behavior analysts is warranted. Developing research has focused on the application of equivalence‐based instruction (Brodsky & Fienup, 2018; Rehfeldt, 2011) for a variety of complex human behaviors. In the current study, equivalence‐based instruction was used to train four participants to identify functional relations displayed in five different classes of graphs. Training resulted in the formation of five equivalence classes by all participants consisting of three members (graph, functional relation rule, and functional relation statement). In addition, the skills were maintained for up to 2 weeks and generalized to novel graphs.