Is Fear of Crime Mainly Social and Economic Insecurity in Disguise? A Multilevel Multinational Analysis

Using the 2006 Eurobarometer data (representative sample of the European population, N = 16 306, 27 countries), we performed a multilevel analysis aimed at predicting fear of crime. A significant proportion of the variation in fear of crime was at country level. Of the individual predictors included, being a woman, being poorly educated, being unemployed, and being an urban dweller showed positive relations with fear of crime. Fear was highest among people who considered themselves to be socially marginal, among people with negative expectations regarding themselves and their country's future, and among people who considered their nation's welfare system to be unsatisfactory. Among the ecological predictors we took into consideration, nations' degree of economic inequality and low expenditure on education and on social protection showed a positive association with fear of crime, whereas the crime, immigration, and employment rates did not. Implications and limitations of this research are discussed. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Accuracy of the Life Orientation Test–Revised (LOT–R) in Measuring Dispositional Optimism: Evidence From Item Response Theory Analyses

The accuracy of the Life Orientation Test–Revised (LOT–R) in measuring dispositional optimism was investigated applying item response theory (IRT). The study was conducted on a sample of 484 university students (62% males, M age = 22.79 years, SD = 5.63). After testing the 1-factor structure of the scale, IRT was applied to evaluate the functioning of the LOT–R along the pessimism–optimism continuum. Item parameter estimates and the test information function showed that each item and the global scale satisfactorily measured the latent trait. Referring to the IRT estimated trait levels, the validity of the LOT–R was studied examining the relationships between dispositional optimism and psychological well-being, sense of mastery, and sense of coherence. Overall findings based on IRT analyses provide evidence of the accuracy of the LOT–R and suggest possible modifications of the scale to improve the assessment of dispositional optimism.     

Chameleonic social identities: Context induces shifts in homosexuals' self‐stereotyping and self‐categorization

Do people align their self‐concepts to the environment? It was predicted that low‐status (homosexuals), but not high‐status group members (heterosexuals), respond to environmental cues by shifting the type of self‐categorization and self‐stereotyping. In the presence (vs. absence) of environmental cues to sexual orientation, homosexual individuals felt more talented for typically homosexual jobs and showed greater self‐stereotyping on typically homosexual traits (Experiment 1). Using implicit measures of self‐categorization and self‐stereotyping, we observed parallel findings for homosexuals, but not for heterosexuals (Experiment 2). Results are discussed in relation to research on stigma, with particular attention to the potential benefits for low‐status group members of changing their implicit self‐concept flexibly across situations. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Verbal fluency and creativity: General and specific contributions of broad retrieval ability (Gr) factors to divergent thinking

The Cattell–Horn–Carroll (CHC) model of intelligence views creativity as a first-level factor within the second-level factor of broad retrieval ability (Gr), alongside other first-level abilities such as ideational fluency and word fluency. Traditional methods of measuring creativity, however, confound idea quality with idea quantity, which might exaggerate the relationship between creativity scores and verbal fluency factors. Participants (n = 131 adults) completed two divergent thinking tasks (unusual uses for a rope and a box), which were scored using newer methods that effectively separate creativity (scored via subjective ratings) and fluency (scored as number of responses). They then completed 16 verbal fluency tasks that assessed six lower-order Gr factors: word fluency, associational fluency, associative flexibility, ideational fluency, letter fluency, and dissociative ability. Viewed singly, many of the lower-order factors significantly predicted creative quality and fluency. General Gr had substantial effects on creative quality (standardized β = .443) and fluency (β = .339) in a higher-order model as well as in a bifactor model (quality β = .380, fluency β = .327). Moreover, general Gr was the only significant predictor in the bifactor model, suggesting that it, not the specific factors, was most important. All effects were essentially the same after controlling for typing speed and vocabulary knowledge. The findings thus support the CHC view of creativity/originality as a lower-order component of Gr, illuminate the relationships between creativity and first-level Gr factors, extend the study of creativity and intelligence beyond fluid intelligence, and further indicate that creativity is more closely tied to cognitive abilities than creativity research has yet recognized.     

Life Satisfaction and Cannabis Use: A Study on Young Adults

Cannabis is the illicit substance most used by young adults and adolescents in rich nations. Cannabis use may have negative consequences on mental and physical health and has been associated with low wellbeing indexes (i.e., life satisfaction). The present study aims to investigate the relationship of life satisfaction with cannabis use in young adults compared with personality and sociodemographic variables. Previous studies have found relationships between the Big Five traits and cannabis use as well as a gender gap. Males have been shown to have a higher consumption of cannabis than females. We conducted a survey by means of a self-report questionnaire on a sample of 600 young adults (average age 22.20 years) and performed a regression analysis to test the relationships of sociodemographic variables, personality, and life satisfaction with cannabis use. The results confirmed the gender gap and showed an association between cannabis use and conscientiousness, agreeableness, openness and life satisfaction. Life satisfaction was negatively related to cannabis use, which suggests that this behaviour may be motivated by coping with unsatisfactory life conditions.     

An Alternative Solution to Lifting the Ban on Doping: Breaking the Payoff Matrix of Professional Sport by Shifting Liability Away from Athletes

The persistence of doping in professional sports—either by individuals on an isolated basis and by whole teams as part of a systematic doping programme—means that professional sport today is rarely if ever untainted. There are financial incentives in place that incentivise doping and there are data that show that doping is often a systematic, organised enterprise (either at team-level, or at state-level). The main question to be answered today in professional sports is whether doping’s repressive anti-doping policies do not have greater negative consequences for society. Whilst some have suggested legitimising safe doping under medical control, in this paper, I argue that doing so will do little to prevent clandestine use of dangerous performance-enhancing substances, and suggest an alternative solution to lifting the ban on doping, i.e. starting from extending liability for doping in sport beyond athletes to those holding power and authority over athletes, to changing winning incentives for doping, to making sport sustainable in the longer time by devising ways of providing athletes with a steady income which is not linked to record breaking or sponsorships.     

Popular or unpopular? Therapists' use of structured interviews and their estimation of patient acceptance

An accurate diagnosis is an important precondition for effective psychotherapeutic treatment. The use of structured interviews provides the gold standard for reliable diagnosis. Suppiger et al. (2009) showed that structured interviews have a high acceptance among patients. On a scale from 0 (not at all satisfied) to 100 (totally satisfied) patients rated overall satisfaction with a structured interview at M = 86.55. Nevertheless, therapists rarely seem to use structured interviews in clinical practice. The aim of this study was to assess how frequently therapists use structured interviews in daily practice. Secondly, we hypothesized that therapists underestimate patient acceptance of structured interviews. As a third goal, we explored further reasons why therapists choose not to use structured interviews. We conducted an online survey of 1,927 psychiatrists and psychotherapists in Switzerland and asked them how frequently they used structured interviews and how they estimated patient satisfaction with these interviews. Furthermore, we asked therapists why they chose to use or not use structured interviews. Therapists reported using structured interviews on average with about 15% of their patients. Furthermore, therapists estimated significantly lower patient acceptance than patients themselves indicated (M_therapist = 49.41, M_patient = 86.55). Our data suggest lack of familiarity with these instruments as well as an overestimation of the utility of open clinical interviews as further reasons for not using structured interviews.     

Interactive context integration in children? Evidence from an action memory study

Action–object phrases (e.g., “lift the bottle”) are remembered better if they have been enacted rather than learned verbally. This enactment effect is largest in free recall for phrases with objects (e.g., “bottle”) present because these phrases can be interactively encoded with those context objects (interactive context integration) that serve as retrieval cues. The current study investigated whether 6- and 8-year-olds are already capable of interactive context integration. Experiment 1 demonstrated interactive context integration with 8-year-olds. This was hindered in a condition where attention was directed away from context objects. Experiment 2 demonstrated interactive context integration with 6-year-old kindergartners. Taken together, our findings show that even 6-year-olds are capable of incidental context integration through enactment and that this process is attention based.     

Aberrant asociality: how individual differences in social anhedonia illuminate the need to belong

The need to belong, a fundamental concept in psychology, organizes a wide range of findings in the study of interpersonal relationships. We suggest that human belongingness needs can be illuminated by examining when they go awry. We review research on social anhedonia, a trait that involves a marked disinterest in interpersonal contact. Social anhedonia has a long history in clinical psychology, particularly in the study of schizotypy and schizophrenia-spectrum disorders, but it is just starting to get attention from social and personality psychologists. Three lines of research-cross-sectional studies of individual differences, longitudinal studies of risk for psychopathology, and experience-sampling studies of interpersonal behavior-suggest that (1) social anhedonia represents genuine social disinterest, not merely shyness, introversion, or social anxiety, and (2) people high in social anhedonia have consistently poorer functioning, including a higher risk for developing schizophrenia-spectrum disorders. Just as satisfied relatedness needs promote flourishing, dysfunctional social needs promote psychopathology.