The Influence of Avoidance Temperament and Avoidance‐Based Achievement Goals on Flow

In the present research, we conducted two studies designed to examine the joint influence of avoidance temperament and avoidance‐based achievement goals on the experience of flow on a creativity task. In both a laboratory study (N = 101; M_age = 22.61, SD_age = 4.03; 74.3% female) and a naturalistic study (N = 102; M_age = 16.23, SD_age = 1.13; 48% female), participants high in avoidance temperament were shown to experience greater flow when performance‐avoidance goals were induced; no differences were found in any of the other three achievement goal conditions from the 2 × 2 achievement goal framework. These findings reveal a short‐term benefit for a disposition‐goal match grounded in avoidance motivation, and point to the need for more research on both avoidance‐based matches and the short‐term versus long‐term implications of such matches.     

Generalizability theory: A practical guide to study design,implementation, and interpretation

Generalizability Theory (GT) offers increased utility for assessment research given the ability to concurrently examine multiple sources of variance, inform both relative and absolute decision making, and determine both the consistency and generalizability of results. Despite these strengths, assessment researchers within the fields of education and psychology have been slow to adopt and utilize a GT approach. This underutilization may be due to an incomplete understanding of the conceptual underpinnings of GT, the actual steps involved in designing and implementing generalizability studies, or some combination of both issues. The goal of the current article is therefore two-fold: (a) to provide readers with the conceptual background and terminology related to the use of GT and (b) to facilitate understanding of the range of issues that need to be considered in the design, implementation, and interpretation of generalizability and dependability studies. Given the relevance of this analytic approach to applied assessment contexts, there exists a need to ensure that GT is both accessible to, and understood by, researchers in education and psychology. Important methodological and analytical considerations are presented and implications for applied use are described.     

The affect heuristic,mortality salience,and risk: Domain‐specific effects of a natural disaster on risk‐benefit perception

We examine how affect and accessible thoughts following a major natural disaster influence everyday risk perception. A survey was conducted in the months following the 2004 south Asian Tsunami in a representative sample of the Swedish population (N = 733). Respondents rated their experienced affect as well as the perceived risk and benefits of various everyday decision domains. Affect influenced risk and benefit perception in a way that could be predicted from both the affect‐congruency and affect heuristic literatures (increased risk perception and stronger risk‐benefit correlations). However, in some decision domains, self‐regulation goals primed by the natural disaster predicted risk and benefit ratings. Together, these results show that affect, accessible thoughts and motivational states influence perceptions of risks and benefits.     

The effects of environmental support and secondary tasks on visuospatial working memory

In the present experiments, we examined the effects of environmental support on participants’ ability to rehearse locations and the role of such support in the effects of secondary tasks on memory span. In Experiment 1, the duration of interitem intervals and the presence of environmental support for visuospatial rehearsal (i.e., the array of possible memory locations) during the interitem intervals were both manipulated across four tasks. When support was provided, memory spans increased as the interitem interval durations increased, consistent with the hypothesis that environmental support facilitates rehearsal. In contrast, when environmental support was not provided, spans decreased as the duration of the interitem intervals increased, consistent with the hypothesis that visuospatial memory representations decay when rehearsal is impeded. In Experiment 2, the ratio of interitem interval duration to intertrial interval duration was kept the same on all four tasks, in order to hold temporal distinctiveness constant, yet forgetting was still observed in the absence of environmental support, consistent with the decay hypothesis. In Experiment 3, the effects of impeding rehearsal were compared to the effects of verbal and visuospatial secondary processing tasks. Forgetting of locations was greater when presentation of to-be-remembered locations alternated with the performance of a secondary task than when rehearsal was impeded by the absence of environmental support. The greatest forgetting occurred when a secondary task required the processing visuospatial information, suggesting that in addition to decay, both domain-specific and domain-general effects contribute to forgetting on visuospatial working memory tasks.     

Criterion Validity is Maintained When Items are Evaluatively Neutralized: Evidence from a Full‐scale Five‐factor Model Inventory

The original version and an evaluatively neutralized version (with items rephrased to reduce popularity) of a personality inventory were compared. The results revealed (i) similar criterion validity across three different sets of self‐rated behaviours, (ii) stronger relations to the rated social desirability of criteria for the original version and (iii) less correlation between factors for the neutralized version. We take the results to indicate that evaluative neutralization is a viable technique for reducing social desirability in self‐ratings. Implications for test construction are discussed. Copyright © 2014 European Association of Personality Psychology     

Individual Differences in Antisocial Punishment in Public Goods Situations: The Interplay of Cortisol with Testosterone and Dominance

This research investigates which endocrinological and psychological factors are associated with individuals' tendency to engage in destructive antisocial punishment, that is, to costly punish cooperative individuals in public goods situations. In this work, we focus on the interplay of endogenous cortisol with testosterone and dominance. We applied the dual‐hormone hypothesis according to which testosterone is positively associated with destructive and dominant behavior but only in individuals with low levels of cortisol. Study 1 shows that individuals are more likely to engage in destructive antisocial punishment in a public goods game with the option to punish when their testosterone level is high, given that their level of cortisol is low, which bolsters the dual‐hormone hypothesis. In contrast, no significant interaction effect of testosterone and cortisol emerges for the punishment of uncooperative free‐riders (altruistic punishment). In a second study, we build on these findings and document that self‐reported dominance is only positively associated with antisocial punishment (but not with altruistic punishment) when cortisol is low. In sum, the results indicate the importance of taking endocrinological and psychological factors (and their interactions) into account in order to reach a comprehensive understanding of individuals' behavior in social dilemma situations. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Influence of emotional valence and arousal on the spread of activation in memory

Controversy still persists on whether emotional valence and arousal influence cognitive activities. Our study sought to compare how these two factors foster the spread of activation within the semantic network. In a lexical decision task, prime words were varied depending on the valence (pleasant or unpleasant) or on the level of emotional arousal (high or low). Target words were carefully selected to avoid semantic priming effects, as well as to avoid arousing specific emotions (neutral). Three SOA durations (220, 420 and 720 ms) were applied across three independent groups. Results indicate that at 220 ms, the effect of arousal is significantly higher than the effect of valence in facilitating spreading activation while at 420 ms, the effect of valence is significantly higher than the effect of arousal in facilitating spreading activation. These findings suggest that affect is a sequential process involving the successive intervention of arousal and valence.     

Representing part–whole relations in conceptual spaces

In this paper, we propose a cognitive semantic approach to represent part–whole relations. We base our proposal on the theory of conceptual spaces, focusing on prototypical structures in part–whole relations. Prototypical structures are not accounted for in traditional mereological formalisms. In our account, parts and wholes are represented in distinct conceptual spaces; parts are joined to form wholes in a structure space. The structure space allows systematic similarity judgments between wholes, taking into consideration shared parts and their configurations. A point in the structure space denotes a particular part structure; regions in the space represent different general types of part structures. We argue that the structural space can represent prototype effects: structural types are formed around typical arrangements of parts. We also show how structure space captures the variations in part structure of a given concept across different domains. In addition, we discuss how some taxonomies of part–whole relations can be understood within our framework.     

A model‐based approach to limb apraxia in Alzheimer's disease

Limb apraxia is a neurological deficit characterized by an inability to pantomime and/or imitate gestures, which can result from neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's disease (AD). The major goal of the study was to describe comprehensively the apraxia deficits observed in AD patients and to relate those deficits to general cognitive status, measures of daily activity, and other neuropsychological measures. Limb apraxia was assessed on a variety of conceptual and gesture production tasks in 30 AD patients. As a group, AD patients were impaired across gesture production tasks: of note was the greater impairment in imitation, as opposed to pantomime, which was especially pronounced when patients were imitating with a delay. Imitation performance was best predicted by measures of visuospatial processing, while imitation with delay was best predicted by measures of working memory. In addition, pantomime in response to pictures of tools was less accurate than Pantomime to Verbal Command and holding the tool during performance did not decrease the participants' impairment, while introducing a verbal cue during imitation increased the severity of deficits. Furthermore, investigation into patterns of deficits clearly demonstrated that the nature of limb apraxia deficits observed in AD can be quite heterogeneous and that dissociations between the conceptual and the production system exist. Finally, we also report on significant correlations between general cognitive status and limb apraxia.