Is a Manipulator's Externality Paradoxical? The Relationship Between Machiavellianism,Economic Opportunism,and Economic Locus of Control

Machiavellianism and economic opportunism are defecting strategies founded on manipulating information in order to maximize gain or power. This study investigated their relationship with economic internality. We hypothesized that individuals inclined to adopt defecting strategies would tend to have external economic locus of control (ELOC). A Greek sample of 175 participants completed the ELOC and Mach IV questionnaires and a scale of economic opportunism. Machiavellianism and opportunism were both positively correlated with the ELOC Chance factor. Opportunism was negatively correlated with the ELOC Internal factor. The findings confirmed the hypothesis and showed that this kind of defector overestimates the role of chance, uncertainty, and hazard as sources of economic reinforcements.     

Stereotypes: static abstractions or dynamic knowledge structures?

Stereotypes have been assumed to be long-lasting knowledge structures that persist even in the face of contrary evidence. However, there is almost no within-participant research relevant to this assumption. The authors describe 4 studies (N=267), the first 3 of which assessed within-participant stereotype stability over a few weeks with measures of stereotypic trait verification, typicality ratings of exemplar sets, and exemplar retrieval. In the 4th study, the authors manipulated context stability. Overall, results showed only low-to-moderate stereotype stability. The stability obtained was a function of the perceived centrality of traits or exemplars and of context constancy. The authors discuss the implications of these results for abstractionist, exemplar, mixed, and connectionist models and identify possible mechanisms that underlie within-participant stereotype instability.     

The experience of psychological therapies for people with multiple sclerosis: A mixed-methods study towards a patient-centred approach to exploring processes of change

Psychological therapies are effective for managing multiple sclerosis (MS) symptoms such as depression, pain and fatigue. Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), mindfulness and other theory-led approaches have been applied and were found to have moderate effects. The present study adopts a patient-led approach to investigate people with MS' (PwMS) experiences of psychological therapies and the change processes they identify. In this naturalistic, mixed-methods design, semistructured interviews were conducted and three questionnaires were administered to 20 PwMS at two different times. Qualitative data collection and analysis followed the interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) guidelines, and quantitative data were analysed using paired t tests. Four superordinate themes described the participants' experiences of change as related to their psychological therapy: from despair to relief; from feeling their body as alien to becoming acquainted with an unpredictable new body; from helplessness to empowerment; and from punishment to forgiveness. Quantitative results showed that physical function and general health perception improved, and anxiety was significantly reduced. Despite seeking help from diverse psychological therapy modalities, the analysis revealed common themes that the participants found significant in their therapy stories. Following a patient-centred approach, the development of psychological therapies for PwMS should focus on their relationships, everyday lives, body perception, losses, shame and guilt. PwMS also need to be understood and acknowledged beyond their condition.     

Implicit open-mindedness: Evidence for and limits on stereotype malleability

Although stereotypes have traditionally been regarded as stable, research has documented their considerable malleability. One potential source of such malleability is intrusion into the stereotype of other concepts also activated when the stereotype is activated. In three experiments we assessed the extent to which stereotypes were influenced by stereotypic, stereotype-unrelated, or counter-stereotypic traits activated in a completely unrelated context immediately prior to stereotype measurement. Across experiments, priming of stereotype-unrelated traits increased their inclusion in the stereotype, whereas priming of counter-stereotypic traits had no effect in the subsequently assessed stereotype. In Experiment 3 we collected perceived dispersion measures and showed that although priming counter-stereotypic traits had no effect on overall characterization of the target group, it boosted perceptions of the group's variability. We accounted for these results by extending Higgins' (1989) Synapse Model of knowledge accessibility to the stereotype domain.     

Ways of probing situated concepts

Two ways of eliciting conceptual content have been to instruct participants to list the intrinsic properties that concept exemplars possess or to report any thoughts that come to mind about the concept. It has been argued that the open, unconstrained probe is better able to elicit the situational information that concepts contain. We evaluated this proposal in two experiments comparing the two probes with regard to the content that they yield for object concepts at the superordinate and basic levels. The results showed that the open probe was better able to elicit situated conceptual knowledge and point out differences in the representations of superordinate and basic concepts.     

Vygotsky's Theory of Creativity

In Educational Psychology (1997/1926), Vygotsky pleaded for a realistic approach to children's literature. He is, among other things, critical of Chukovsky's story "Crocodile" and maintains that this story deals with nonsense and gibberish, without social relevance. This approach Vygotsky would leave soon, and, in Psychology of Art (1971/1925), in which he develops his theory of art, he talks about connections between nursery rhymes and children's play, exactly as the story of Chukovsky had done with the following argument: By dragging a child into a topsy-turvy world, we help his intellect work and his perception of reality. In his book Imagination and Creativity in Childhood (1995/1930), Vygotsky goes further and develops his theory of creativity. The book describes how Vygotsky regards the creative process of the human consciousness, the link between emotion and thought, and the role of the imagination. To Vygotsky, this brings to the fore the issue of the link between reality and imagination, and he discusses the issue of reproduction and creativity, both of which relate to the entire scope of human activity. Interpretations of Vygotsky in the 1990s have stressed the role of literature and the development of a cultural approach to psychology and education. It has been overlooked that Vygotsky started his career with work on the psychology of art.     

Development and content validity of a screening instrument for gaming addiction in adolescents: The Gaming Addiction Identification Test (GAIT)

This study describes the development of a screening tool for gaming addiction in adolescents – the Gaming Addiction Identification Test (GAIT). Its development was based on the research literature on gaming and addiction. An expert panel comprising professional raters (n = 7), experiential adolescent raters (n = 10), and parent raters (n = 10) estimated the content validity of each item (I‐CVI) as well as of the whole scale (S‐CVI/Ave), and participated in a cognitive interview about the GAIT scale. The mean scores for both I‐CVI and S‐CVI/Ave ranged between 0.97 and 0.99 compared with the lowest recommended I‐CVI value of 0.78 and the S‐CVI/Ave value of 0.90. There were no sex differences and no differences between expert groups regarding ratings in content validity. No differences in the overall evaluation of the scale emerged in the cognitive interviews. Our conclusions were that GAIT showed good content validity in capturing gaming addiction. The GAIT needs further investigation into its psychometric properties of construct validity (convergent and divergent validity) and criterion‐related validity, as well as its reliability in both clinical settings and in community settings with adolescents.     

Psychometric evaluation of the adolescent and parent versions of the Gaming Addiction Identification Test (GAIT)

The objective of the study is to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Gaming Addiction Identification Test (GAIT) and its parent version (GAIT‐P), in a representative community sample of adolescents and parents in Västmanland, Sweden. Self‐rated and parent‐rated gaming addictive symptoms identified by GAIT and GAIT‐P were analyzed for frequency of endorsement, internal consistency, concordance, factor structure, prevalence of Internet gaming disorder (IGD), concurrence with the Gaming Addiction Scale for Adolescents, 7‐item version (GAS) and the parent version of GAS (GAS‐P), and for sex differences. The 12‐month prevalence of IGD was found to be 1.3% with GAIT and 2.4% with GAIT‐P. Results also indicate promising psychometric results within this population, with high internal consistency, and high concurrent validity with GAS and GAS‐P. Concordance between adolescents and parents ratings was high, although moderate in girls. Although exploratory factor analysis indicated poor model fit, it also indicated unidimensionality and high factor loadings in all analyses. GAIT and GAIT‐P are suitable for continued use in measuring gaming addiction in adolescents, and, with the additional two items, they now cover all nine IGD criteria.     

Affective auditory stimuli: Adaptation of the International Affective Digitized Sounds (IADS-2) for European Portuguese

In this study, we present the normative values of the adaptation of the International Affective Digitized Sounds (IADS-2; Bradley & Lang, 2007a) for European Portuguese (EP). The IADS-2 is a standardized database of 167 naturally occurring sounds that is widely used in the study of emotions. The sounds were rated by 300 college students who were native speakers of EP, in the three affective dimensions of valence, arousal, and dominance, by using the Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM). The aims of this adaptation were threefold: (1)?to provide researchers with standardized and normatively rated affective sounds to be used with an EP population; (2)?to investigate sex and cultural differences in the ratings of affective dimensions of auditory stimuli between EP and the American (Bradley & Lang, 2007a) and Spanish (Fernández-Abascal et al., Psicothema 20:104–113 2008; Redondo, Fraga, Padrón, & Piñeiro, Behavior Research Methods 40:784–790 2008) standardizations; and (3)?to promote research on auditory affective processing in Portugal. Our results indicated that the IADS-2 is a valid and useful database of digitized sounds for the study of emotions in a Portuguese context, allowing for comparisons of its results with those of other international studies that have used the same database for stimulus selection. The normative values of the EP adaptation of the IADS-2 database can be downloaded along with the online version of this article.     

Imagining intergroup contact promotes projection to outgroups

Three studies investigated the conditions under which imagining intergroup contact would lead to greater projection of positive traits to outgroups. In Experiment 1 (Mexico) imagined contact predicted greater self-outgroup positive trait overlap for majority but not minority ethnic groups. In Experiment 2 (UK) imagined contact led to greater projection of positive traits to the outgroup for lower compared to higher identifiers. In Experiment 3 (UK) imagined contact led to greater projection of positive traits to the outgroup when the self was salient compared to when the outgroup was salient. These findings suggest that the social cognitive consequences of imagined contact are most favorable for intergroup relations when the personal self, but not social self, is salient. We discuss the implications of these findings for a developing model of imagined contact effects.