Are intelligence and creativity really so different? : Fluid intelligence, executive processes, and strategy use in divergent thinking

Contemporary creativity research views intelligence and creativity as essentially unrelated abilities, and many studies have found only modest correlations between them. The present research, based on improved approaches to creativity assessment and latent variable modeling, proposes that fluid and executive cognition is in fact central to creative thought. In Study 1, the substantial effect of fluid intelligence (Gf) on creativity was mediated by executive switching, the number of times people switched idea categories during the divergent thinking tasks. In Study 2, half the sample was given an effective strategy for an unusual uses task. The strategy condition interacted with Gf: people high in Gf did better when given the strategy, consistent with their higher ability to maintain access to it and use it despite interference. Taken together, the findings suggest that divergent thinking is more convergent than modern creativity theories presume.     

Cantankerous creativity: Honesty-Humility, Agreeableness, and the HEXACO structure of creative achievement

Creativity research has suggested that creative people are low in agreeableness. To explore this issue, we applied the HEXACO model of personality structure, which offers an expanded representation of interpersonal traits, particularly a distinction between Honesty-Humility and Agreeableness. A sample of 1304 adults completed the HEXACO-60 and several measures of creative achievement and activities. Latent variable models found that Agreeableness had no relationship with creativity, but Honesty-Humility did: people lower in Honesty-Humility had higher creativity scores, consistent with past work on arrogance and pretentiousness among creative people.     

Psychoanalysts Working With Patients Who Have Been Subjected to Torture Due to Socio-Political Circumstances: Possible or Impossible Challenge?

This paper presents some comments about the clinical case treated by two Chilean psychoanalysts in the period of violation of human rights, Isidora and her son Martín. We should recognize the pain of listening as psychoanalysts to this kind of story reopens our own wounds, which reappear again, showing some of the toughest realities in the curtailment of personal freedoms like torture, abuse, and violence, which strip away the subject’s identity and any consideration of their selfhood. All therapists or analysts who work in such a situation, whether or not they have been through similar traumas, will be included, affected, and pierced by the social and cultural context. In these cases, it is not only the patient and her internal world that is being treated, but the analysts as well, as they are not outsiders to the conflict. Analyze patients like this case or similar cases could be a possible or sometimes an impossible challenge?     

Subjective and Objective Aspects of Free Time: The Italian Case

This study investigates two distinct but interrelated phenomena—that of experienced leisure and that of perceived leisure—in order to determine empirically whether and how the perception and use of free time affects an individual’s level of satisfaction. The analysis was conducted on a sample of approximately 50,000 individuals, representative of the Italian population. It focused on the person-centred sphere of leisure: both the objective aspect—that is, participation in leisure activities—and the subjective aspects—that is, the different meanings of leisure and levels of satisfaction or dissatisfaction expressed by the subjects—were investigated. By applying multivariate analytical techniques (Multiple Correspondence Analysis and Cluster Analysis), synthetic indices were calculated and subject typologies were developed. Logistic regression models were also used to investigate the relationship between perception, activity and satisfaction. The results confirmed that the objective and subjective aspects are interrelated: there are specific activities related to the type of perception of leisure activities which contribute significantly to making a person happy. There are other aspects, however, such as relational activities and sports, which are important for the satisfaction of those whose conception of leisure seems discordant with respect to such activities.     

Effort deficits and depression: The influence of anhedonic depressive symptoms on cardiac autonomic activity during a mental challenge

Motivational approaches to depression emphasize the role of dysfunctional motivational dynamics, particularly diminished reward and incentive processes associated with anhedonia. A study examined how anhedonic depressive symptoms, measured continuously across a wide range of severity, influenced the physiological mobilization of effort during a cognitive task. Using motivational intensity theory as a guide, we expected that the diminished incentive value associated with anhedonic depressive symptoms would reduce effort during a “do your best” challenge (also known as an unfixed or self-paced challenge), in which effort is a function of the value of achieving the task’s goal. Using impedance cardiography, two cardiac autonomic responses were assessed: pre-ejection period (PEP), a measure of sympathetic activity and our primary measure of interest, and respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), a measure of parasympathetic activity. As expected, PEP slowed from baseline to task as anhedonic depressive symptoms increased (as measured with the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale), indicating diminished effort-related sympathetic activity. No significant effects appeared for RSA. The findings support motivational intensity theory as a translational model of effort processes in depression and clarify some inconsistent effects of depressive symptoms on effort-related physiology found in past work.     

‘A nation of vicars and merchants’: religiosity and Dutch MEPs

Religion is a major driving force in the Dutch political system and as European integration has progressed, it is often argued that these national practices affect how national representatives act in the European Parliament (EP). Our aim in this study is to determine to what extent the religious divide impacts upon the work of Dutch MEPs in the European political arena. On the basis of the RelEP survey and interviews, we argue that religious or secular views are very salient to Dutch MEPs, but that their impact is largely indirect. Moreover, we find that Dutch MEPs actively use the EP and its committee system in an attempt to redefine the relationship between church and state in the Netherlands. And finally, we argue that the European arena offers new opportunities for mobilisation among those promoting secularist interests.     

Performance enhancement,elite athletes and anti doping governance: comparing human guinea pigs in pharmaceutical research and professional sports

In light of the World Anti Doping Agency’s 2013 Code Revision process, we critically explore the applicability of two of three criteria used to determine whether a method or substance should be considered for their Prohibited List, namely its (potential) performance enhancing effects and its (potential) risk to the health of the athlete. To do so, we compare two communities of human guinea pigs: (i) individuals who make a living out of serial participation in Phase 1 pharmacology trials; and (ii) elite athletes who engage in what is effectively ‘unregulated clinical research’ by using untested prohibited or non-prohibited performance enhancing substances and methods, alone or in combination. Our comparison sheds light on norms of research ethics that these practices exacerbate with respect to the concepts of multiplicity, visibility, and consistency. We argue for the need to establish a proper governance framework to increase the accountability of these unregulated research practices in order to protect the human guinea pigs in elite sports contexts, and to establish reasonable grounds for the performance enhancing effects, and the risks to the health of the athlete, of the methods and substances that might justify their inclusion on the Prohibited List.     

Shared Communities: A Multinational Qualitative Study of Immigrant and Receiving Community Members

Community psychology is central to understanding how immigrants and more established residents of their new settings join together to develop a shared sense of community and membership. In our present study, we explored how newer (i.e., first‐ and second‐generation immigrants) and more established community members form multiple positive psychological sense of community (PSOC) with one another. We conducted a multinational, qualitative study of PSOC through interviews with 201 first‐ and second‐generation immigrants and third generation or more “receiving community members” in three contexts (Baltimore‐Washington corridor of the U.S.; Torino, Italy; Lecce, Italy). Results indicated numerous similarities among the ways in which participants constructed PSOC in shared and nonshared communities, regardless of immigration/citizenship status, length of community residence, city, country, age, or gender. Small, proximal, and salient communities were often particularly important to building positive PSOC, which was formed around diverse membership boundaries. As intersectional beings, members converged and diverged on many characteristics, providing multiple opportunities for members to bring diversity to their communities while sharing other characteristics deemed essential to membership. Nonetheless, findings point to significant, structural challenges rooted in power and privilege that must be confronted to bridge the community‐diversity dialectic and build strong, shared sense of community.     

Self‐concept clarity and relationship satisfaction at the dyadic level

Self‐concept clarity is an individual resource that is associated with couple relationship well‐being. In two dyadic studies, the authors investigated whether and how self‐concept clarity has implications for both partners' relationship satisfaction. Study 1 tested and supported the hypothesis that self‐concept clarity concurrently predicts own and partner's relationship satisfaction through couple identity in a sample of 202 dating couples. Study 2 tested and supported the hypothesis that self‐concept clarity predicts longitudinal change in own and partner's relationship satisfaction through positive (i.e., supportive and common) dyadic coping behaviors in a sample of 97 married couples. The findings clarify and expand the benefits of self‐concept clarity for partners' relational well‐being.