Listening, not watching: situational familiarity and the ability to detect deception

In 4 experiments, the authors investigated the influence of situational familiarity with the judgmental context on the process of lie detection. They predicted that high familiarity with a situation leads to a more pronounced use of content cues when making judgments of veracity. Therefore, they expected higher classification accuracy of truths and lies under high familiarity. Under low situational familiarity, they expected that people achieve lower accuracy rates because they use more nonverbal cues for their veracity judgments. In all 4 experiments, participants with high situational familiarity achieved higher accuracy rates in classifying both truthful and deceptive messages than participants with low situational familiarity. Moreover, mediational analyses demonstrated that higher classification accuracy in the high-familiarity condition was associated with more use of verbal content cues and less use of nonverbal cues.     

Das „Good Lives Model“ (GLM)

The central idea of the good lives model (GLM) is that new criminal offences can be prevented above all by virtue of a satisfying way of life in the wake of the criminal offence. One important rehabilitation strategy is to support clients in this way of life. The aim of the article is to provide a concise overview of the criteria that define this kind of life from the point of view of the GLM, to evaluate the relationship of criminal behavior with regard to these criteria and to point out ways how the rehabilitation model can be fruitfully applied in practical and therapeutic terms. The article closes with a critical evaluation of the rehabilitation model.     

The relation between achievement goal and expectancy-value theories in predicting achievement-related outcomes: A test of four theoretical conceptions

Although achievement goal and expectancy-value theories are both dominant in the achievement motivation literature, the relation between goals and expectancy-value variables in predicting achievement-related behaviors remains unclear. The present study evaluated the empirical validity of four contrasting theoretical conceptions which posit that (1) goals and expectancy-value variables are independent predictors of achievement-related outcomes (2) goals predict expectancy-values, (3) goals mediate the relation between expectancies and task-values, and (4) goals partially mediate the relation between expectancy-values and achievement outcomes, in predicting course performance, career intentions and academic aspirations. Path models evaluating these conceptions were tested separately in mathematics and language arts domains among 697 6th and 8th grade students. Results supported the fourth theoretical approach suggesting that expectancy-value variables predict achievement-related outcomes both directly and indirectly through achievement goals. These findings provide insight about the relation between expectancy-value and achievement goal theories and highlight their complementary role in predicting achievement behaviors.     

The precuneus and the insula in self-attributional processes

Attributions are constantly assigned in everyday life. A well-known phenomenon is the self-serving bias: that is, people’s tendency to attribute positive events to internal causes (themselves) and negative events to external causes (other persons/circumstances). Here, we investigated the neural correlates of the cognitive processes implicated in self-serving attributions using social situations that differed in their emotional saliences. We administered an attributional bias task during fMRI scanning in a large sample of healthy subjects (n = 71). Eighty sentences describing positive or negative social situations were presented, and subjects decided via buttonpress whether the situation had been caused by themselves or by the other person involved. Comparing positive with negative sentences revealed activations of the bilateral posterior cingulate cortex (PCC). Self-attribution correlated with activation of the posterior portion of the precuneus. However, self-attributed positive versus negative sentences showed activation of the anterior portion of the precuneus, and self-attributed negative versus positive sentences demonstrated activation of the bilateral insular cortex. All significant activations were reported with a statistical threshold of p ≤ .001, uncorrected. In addition, a comparison of our fMRI task with data from the Internal, Personal and Situational Attributions Questionnaire, Revised German Version, demonstrated convergent validity. Our findings suggest that the precuneus and the PCC are involved in the evaluation of social events with particular regional specificities: The PCC is activated during emotional evaluation, the posterior precuneus during attributional evaluation, and the anterior precuneus during self-serving processes. Furthermore, we assume that insula activation is a correlate of awareness of personal agency in negative situations.     

Value Differentiation Between Enemies and Allies: Value Projection in National Images

The current study aimed to investigate value projection between Palestinians, Israelis, Americans, and Swiss as a function of their group's stance toward the Israeli‐Palestinian conflict. Drawing on image theory, we assumed that images—operationalized by value projection—would be a function not just of features of the target group, but of the rater group's relationship with the target group. Value projection can be seen as an indicator of (de)humanization as values represent goals and desirable behaviors of a person. We therefore expected higher projection to ally than to enemy groups, whereas we expected no difference in projection to out‐groups with neutral relations. Results show that allies did indeed project Security and Power to a higher degree to each other than to enemies, and enemies showed no, or even negative, projection onto each other. The ally of the enemy (Americans) was projected less negatively by Palestinians than vice versa, pointing to the higher complexity of third‐party images as opposed to the more classical ally and enemy images. As expected, Swiss students showed almost no difference in projection to the different out‐groups. These results confirm that the relationship between groups (e.g., alliance, enmity) rather than a consensual view of particular nations determines images.     

The distribution of influence in purchase decisions by male homosexual couples

The purchase decisions of families are of great interest to marketing researchers, yet families also have become increasingly multi‐faceted, especially in Western societies, where non‐traditional families are far more prevalent and evident in public and business life than they once were. Even as it attempts to adapt to some changes, marketing has not kept up with every development; homosexual couples in particular remain poorly researched. This article therefore examines which factors affect the distribution of influence between partners in male homosexual, long‐term relationships when they make purchase decisions. In line with some extant predictions, male homosexual families tend to use highly egalitarian processes to make purchase decisions. Sex‐role orientation generally does not significantly affect the distribution of influence. In contrast with prior work, this study also shows that a partner's resources affect his relative influence. The investigation demonstrates that some conflict resolution styles employed by partners have significant effects on influence distribution in the context of purchase decisions by male homosexual couples. By providing insights into the purchase decision‐making of male homosexual couples, this research broadens the understanding of homosexual consumers in general. Moreover, the findings about the effect of conflict resolution styles on the influence distribution in male homosexual couples adds significantly to consumer research. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The brunhilde fantasy freud's countertransference in the analysis of elma

Abstract

The authors start from the hypothesis that there existed a “blind-spot” in Freud's countertransference in his analysis of Elma, an ex-patient of Sandor Ferenczi. In their search for support for this idea, they review the correspondence between Freud and Ferenczi contemporary to Elma's treatment in addition to works by Freud on theory and technique. They believe to have found therein several facts which support the above idea: for instance, the diagnosis of “dementia praecox” that Freud formulated in his first interview with the patient; and some of the vicissitudes of the treatment, in particular, the circumstances which determined its termination. The Brunhilde fantasy, which Freud attributes to Elma in a letter to Ferenczi, enables them to penetrate further the possible relationship between this “blind-spot” and details of Freud's life and childhood as revealed in his self-analysis.     

Memories defining the self in Alzheimer’s disease

ABSTRACT

There is a debate over the extent to which personal identity or the self is preserved in patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Autobiographical memory deficits at early stages of AD could contribute to altering patients’ self. However, the nature of the relationship between autobiographical memory deficits and the self in AD has not been much investigated experimentally. In the present study, we aimed to investigate the integrative meaning of self-defining memories (SDMs) in early stages of AD and to analyse its relationship with the self-concept. The results showed that, when compared to the control group, AD patients less frequently extracted meaning from their SDMs and the meaning was less frequently tied to the self. Patients exhibited some altered aspects of the self-concept (i.e., complexity and strength), though some other components still persisted (i.e., valence and certainty). Correlation analyses showed that the impaired integrative meaning in the AD group was correlated with some changes in self-concept. We suggest that integrative meaning may act as a bridge between autobiographical memories and the self-concept, with reduced integration abilities appearing as a potential mechanism for the deterioration of the self-concept in AD.     

Comparación entre dos escalas de medida subjetiva: Thurstone y Anderson

RESUMEN

La autora comienza exponiendo una síntesis de los modelos de Thurstone y Anderson -Ley del Juicio Comparativo y Teoría de la Integración de la Información, respectivamente- los cuales, desde supuestos distintos, permiten establecer una escala de intervalos en la medición de estímulos subjetivos. En esta investigación el objetivo es descubrir la existencia de una transformación admisible para la escala de intervalos que permita pasar de la escala de medida proporcionada por un modelo a la proporcionada por el otro, utilizando los mismos estímulos y los mismos sujetos. El trabajo concluye considerando que los resultados son esperanzadores aunque se sugiere aceptarlos con cierta cautela ya que se utilizaron pocas categorías de estímulos.