West vs. West like East vs. West? A comparison between Italian and US American context sensitivity and Fear of Isolation

Easterners tend to process information more holistically than Westerners. Kim and Markman (J Exp Soc Psychol 42(3):350–364, 2006) suggest that these differences are rooted in higher chronic levels of Fear of Isolation (FOI) for those cultures that process information more holistically. The goal of this study was to determine if these differences and their suggested cause could be found with two different Western cultures. Testing Italian (IT) and US American (US) adults, we found that IT participants processed information more holistically and had a higher chronic level of FOI than US participants; furthermore, the manipulation of FOI affected context sensitivity more for IT than for US participants. The results demonstrate that IT participants were more similar to previous research with Eastern populations than with Western populations (Kim and Markman in J Exp Soc Psychol 42(3):350–364, 2006) and indicate a within-Western culture difference for reasoning styles and support the hypothesis that this difference is due to different chronic levels of FOI.     

Signal detection and threshold models of source memory

Recently, several authors claimed that the curvilinear shape of rating-based source memory receiver operating characteristics (ROCs) refutes threshold models. However, rating-based ROCs are not diagnostic to disprove threshold models. Furthermore, source memory ROC-analyses ignore influences of other processes like old-new-detection and old-new-response-tendencies, so direct estimation of parameters is preferable. Five source monitoring experiments with different response bias manipulations and materials were conducted. We fitted the Two High Threshold Multinomial Model of Source Monitoring by Bayen, Murnane, and Erdfelder (1996) and the Multivariate Signal Detection Model for Selection DeCarlo (2003). We also included rating-based ROCs. The results suggest that both models are at least equally valid as measurement tools which capture bias processes in the corresponding parameters, and they can perhaps be integrated theoretically.     

Beyond procedure's content: the role of accessibility experiences and personal uncertainty in procedural justice judgements

Procedural justice concerns play a critical role in economic settings, politics, and other domains of human life. Despite the vast evidence corroborating their relevance, considerably less is known about how procedural justice judgments are formed. Whereas earlier theorizing focused on the systematic integration of content information, the present contribution provides a new perspective on the formation of justice judgments by examining the influence of accessibility experiences. Specifically, we hypothesize that procedural justice judgments may be formed based on the ease or difficulty with which justice-relevant information comes to mind. Three experiments corroborate this prediction in that procedures were evaluated less positively when the retrieval of associated unfair aspects was easy compared to difficult. Presumably this is because when it feels easy (difficult) to retrieve unfair aspects, these are perceived as frequent (infrequent), and hence the procedure as unjust (just). In addition to demonstrating that ease-of-retrieval may influence justice judgments, the studies further revealed that reliance on accessibility experiences is high in conditions of personal certainty. We suggest that this is because personal uncertainty fosters systematic processing of content information, whereas personal certainty may invite less taxing judgmental strategies such as reliance on ease-of-retrieval.     

Causal beliefs and empirical evidence

Causal beliefs often facilitate decision making. However, strong causal beliefs can also lead to neglect of relevant empirical evidence causing errors in risky decision making (e.g., medical, financial). We investigated the impact of pre-training and post-experience on the evaluation of empirical evidence in a two-alternative medical diagnostic task. Participants actively searched for information about two patients on the basis of four available cues. The first experiment indicated that pre-training can weaken the strong influence of causal beliefs reducing neglect of empirical evidence. The second experiment demonstrated that increasing amounts of empirical evidence can improve people's ability to decide in favor of a correct diagnosis. The current research converges with other recent work to clarify key mechanisms and boundary conditions shaping the influence of causal beliefs and empirical evidence in decisions and causal judgments.     

Psychometric properties of the Revised Male Body Attitudes Scale among Irish men

The psychometric properties of a revised version of the Male Body Attitudes Scale (Tylka, Bergeron, & Schwartz, 2005) were investigated using two independent online samples of Irish men (ns=241 and 253, respectively). Exploratory factor analyses suggested that a 15-item, 3-factor solution representing men's attitudes toward their body fat, muscularity, and height best described the data. The internal consistency and construct validity of scores on the Revised Male Body Attitudes Scale suggest that this measure holds promise as an indicant of men's attitudes toward their physical appearance. Limitations and strengths associated with the current research are discussed and directions for future research are outlined.     

Anforderungen an die Gestaltung des Vollzugs langer Freiheitsstrafen

Long-term imprisonment requires special attention concerning infrastructure, equipment and programs. The article deals with the danger of hospitalization and lack of perspectives of long-term prisoners and places a focus on the integration of difficult and dangerous inmates as well as drug addicts and mentally disturbed inmates. Programs are discussed on purposeful daily activities, prisoners with psychiatric diseases, behavioristic treatment and preparation for release. Furthermore, requirements for staff are stressed.     

Independence of serial position and response conflict in pre-planned manual response sequences

The present study investigates the effect of spatial stimulus–response correspondence (i.e. Simon effect) in pre-planned manual response sequences. Participants performed pre-cued response sequences consisting of three (Experiment 1) or four (Experiments 2 and 3) key-presses at different locations. Importantly, participants performed each response to a visual go signal, which appeared at a location corresponding to one response in the sequence. This task allowed investigating interference gradients across spatially noncorresponding conditions. We observed a Simon effect at each serial position, that is, RT for the corresponding condition was always shorter than RT for each noncorresponding condition. However, we failed to observe interference gradients from both preceding and subsequent responses in the sequence. These results are inconsistent with (1) a primacy gradient of activations representing serial order and (2) the temporary suppression of an executed response as a mechanism for preventing response repetitions. However, results provide indirect evidence for positional models of serial order.     

Dimension intertrial and cueing effects in localization: support for pre-attentively weighted one-route models of saliency

There are several alternative accounts of dimensional intertrial and cueing effects in singleton feature search tasks. Some accounts assume that these effects arise at post-selective processing stages; dual-route accounts assume them to be perceptual in nature, but coming into play only in non-spatial tasks (e.g., detection but not localization). By contrast, the Dimension Weighting Account (DWA) assumes dimensional effects to arise at pre-attentive processing stages of spatial as well as non-spatial tasks. The data available are ambiguous, permitting no clear-cut choice among these accounts. Therefore, the present study examined for early effects of dimensional weighting in a spatial task, the presence of which is only predicted by the DWA and not by post-selective or dual-route accounts. Salience is known to saturate for high feature contrast and long presentation times. Consequently, with lower bottom-up salience that still permits efficient search, dimensional weights would produce a greater modulation--if present at all. Thus, we examined localization accuracy under brief-presentation conditions in Experiment 1, and localization speed under conditions of low versus high feature contrast in Experiment 2. Both experiments revealed significant dimension intertrial and cueing effects. This strongly argues against dual-route accounts and strengthens evidence for a pre-attentive origin of these effects.     

Predicting premature termination within a randomized controlled trial for binge-eating patients

Understanding the dropout rates of efficacious forms of psychotherapy for patients with binge eating disorder (BED) is an unsolved problem within this increasing population. Up until now the role of psychotherapy process characteristics as predictors of premature termination has not been investigated in the BED literature. Within a randomized controlled trial (N=78) we investigated the degree to which early psychological process characteristics, such as components of the therapeutic relationship and the experiences of mastery and motivational clarification, predicted premature termination of treatment. We statistically controlled for the influences of covariates such as rapid response of treatment, treatment group, body mass index, Axis II disorder, and patients' preexisting generalized self-efficacy at baseline. Patients' postsession reports from Sessions 1 to 5 indicated that low self-esteem in-session experiences was a stable predictor of premature termination. Its predictive value persisted after controlling for the above-mentioned covariates. Exploratory analyses further revealed low self-esteem experiences, low global alliance, and low mastery and clarification experiences as predictors in those patients who explicitly specified discontentment with therapy as reason for premature termination. These results indicate that patients' self-esteem experiences may not be an epiphenomenon of their specific psychopathology but may represent general mechanisms on which remaining or withdrawing from psychotherapeutic treatment depends. Early psychotherapy process characteristics should therefore be considered in training and evaluation of psychotherapists carrying through BED treatments.