Correlates of Dispositional and State Flow in Tennis Competition

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between psychological correlates and flow in tennis competition. Using a cross-sectional design, the sample of 261 junior tennis athletes showed moderate-to-strong correlations between flow (dispositional and state) and confidence (r _disp = .59; r _state = .35), imagery use (r _disp = .58; r _state = .32), and action control (r _disp = .41; r _state = .40), whereas absorption was orthogonal to flow. Commonality analysis revealed that imagery and confidence accounted for 34.2% of the variance in dispositional flow. The results are discussed for the development of intervention studies in order to enhance flow in competition.     

How to achieve synergy in group decision making: Lessons to be learned from the hidden profile paradigm

Based on over 25 years of research on hidden profiles and information sharing in groups, and particularly our own work in this area, we outline a general model of how groups can achieve better decisions in a hidden profile situation than their individual members would have been capable of (i.e., synergy). At its core the model defines intensity and bias as the two key parameters that have to be optimised with regard to both the discussion of information and the processing of information in order to ensure synergy in group decision making. We review the empirical literature on information sharing and group decision making in the hidden profile paradigm (with a particular focus on our own studies) to illustrate how group decision quality can be enhanced by increasing intensity and decreasing bias in the discussion and processing of information. Finally we also outline why we think that the lessons learned from research using the hidden profile paradigm can be generalised to group decision-making research in general, and how these lessons can stimulate studies in other fields of group decision-making and group performance research.     

Examining the Dynamics of the Implicit and the Explicit Self-Concept in Social Anxiety: Changes in the Implicit Association Test–Anxiety and the Social Phobia Anxiety Inventory Following Treatment

Data from the first two childhood memories was used to distinguish 15 delinquents from 18 nondelinquent controls. Subjects were male, middle class, 15-17 years of age, and equated for verbal IQ. All delinquents were property offenders. A coding system, devised from the memories of the delinquents and nondelinquents, successfully identified 80% of the delinquents and 100% of the nondelinquents. These prediction rates exceeded those from three clinicians experienced in working with a comparable delinquent population The coding system was then discussed in terms of the axioms and presuppositions which are suggested by the memories of the delinquent sample.     

Retrieval practice in motor learning

In this study we sought to determine whether testing promotes the generalization of motor skills during the process of encoding and/or consolidation. We used a dynamic arm movement task that required participants to reproduce a spatial-temporal pattern of elbow extensions and flexions with their dominant right arm. Generalization of motor learning was tested by the ability to transfer the original pattern (extrinsic transformation) or the mirrored pattern (intrinsic transformation) to the unpractised left arm. To investigate the testing effects during both encoding and consolidation processing, participants were administered an initial testing session during early practice before being evaluated on a post-practice testing session administered either 10 min (Testing-Encoding group) or 24 hr apart (Testing-Consolidation group), respectively. Control groups were required to perform a post-practice testing session administered after either a 10-min (Control-Encoding group) or 24-hr delay (Control-Consolidation group). The findings revealed that testing produced rapid, within-practice skill improvements, yielding better effector transfer at the 10-min testing for the Testing-Encoding group on both extrinsic and intrinsic transformation tests when compared with the Control-Encoding group. Furthermore, we found better performance for the Testing-Consolidation group at the 24-hr testing for extrinsic and intrinsic transformations of the movement pattern when compared with the Control-Consolidation group. However, our results did not indicate any significant testing advantage on the latent, between-session development of the motor skill representation (i.e., from the 10-min to the 24-hr testing). The testing benefits expressed at the 10-min testing were stabilised but did not extend during the period of consolidation. This indicates that testing contributes to the generalisation of motor skills during encoding but not consolidation.     

Effects of Consensus Information and Task Demonstrability on Preference-Consistent Information Evaluation and Decision Quality in Group Decision Making

Groups often fail to solve hidden profiles even when all information is exchanged. This is partly due to biased evaluation of information. We examined the effects of consensus information and task demonstrability on preference-consistent information evaluation and decision quality. The results showed that the evaluation of unshared but not shared information was moderated by consensus information and task demonstrability. For unshared information, majority members exhibited a higher evaluation bias favoring preference-consistent information than minority members. Task demonstrability reduced the evaluation bias only when group members received no information about the other members' preferences. Finally, majority members were less likely to solve the hidden profile than minority members, and this was partially mediated by the evaluation bias favoring preference-consistent unshared information.     

Attentional bias in high- and low-anxious individuals: Evidence for threat-induced effects on engagement and disengagement

Attentional bias to threatening visual stimuli (words or pictures) is commonly present in anxious individuals, but not in non-anxious people. There is evidence to show that attentional bias to threat can be induced in all individuals when threat is imposed by threat not of symbolic nature, but by cues that predict aversive stimulation (loud noise or electric shock). However, it is not known whether attentional bias in such situations is still influenced by individual differences in anxiety. This question was addressed in two experiments using a spatial cuing task in which visual cues predicted the occurrence of an aversive event consisting of a loud human scream. Speeded attentional engagement to threat cues was positively correlated with trait anxiety in Experiment 1. Experiment 2 showed that speeded attentional engagement was present only in participants selected for high anxiety but not in low-anxious participants. In both experiments, slower disengagement from threat cues was found in all participants, irrespective of their trait anxiety levels.     

Vigilant Self‐regulation and Costly Punishment in Public Goods Situations

Applying regulatory focus theory to the context of social dilemma situations, the present research demonstrates that individual differences in vigilant, prevention‐focused self‐regulation predict the tendency to invest private resources to punish uncooperative interaction partners (costly punishment), a behaviour that typically has strong positive effects on the collective level of cooperation. Analyses further support the distinctiveness of the vigilance system proposed in regulatory focus theory (prevention focus) in comparison with general defensive inhibitory tendencies (measured with Carver and White's Behavioral Inhibition System scale). Results document that individual differences in prevention‐focused self‐regulation but not differences in general defensive inhibitory tendencies are positively related to costly punishment. In sum, the findings indicate that vigilant, prevention‐focused self‐regulation plays a crucial role in the context of sanctions that enforce cooperation. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Conditional automaticity in subliminal morphosyntactic priming

We used a gender-classification task to test the principles of subliminal morphosyntactic priming. In Experiment 1, masked, subliminal feminine or masculine articles were used as primes. They preceded a visible target noun. Subliminal articles either had a morphosyntactically congruent or incongruent gender with the targets. In a gender-classification task of the target nouns, subliminal articles primed the responses: responses were faster in congruent than incongruent conditions (Experiment 1). In Experiment 2, we tested whether this congruence effect depended on gender relevance. In line with a relevance-dependence, the congruence effect only occurred in a gender-classification task but was absent in another categorical discrimination of the target nouns (Experiment 2). The congruence effect also depended on correct word order. It was diminished when nouns preceded articles (Experiment 3). Finally, the congruence effect was replicated with a larger set of targets but only for masculine targets (Experiment 4). Results are discussed in light of theories of subliminal priming in general and of subliminal syntactic priming in particular.     

Enhanced Cardiac Perception Is Associated With Increased Susceptibility to Framing Effects

Previous studies suggest in line with dual process models that interoceptive skills affect controlled decisions via automatic or implicit processing. The “framing effect” is considered to capture implicit effects of task‐irrelevant emotional stimuli on decision‐making. We hypothesized that cardiac awareness, as a measure of interoceptive skills, is positively associated with susceptibility to the framing effect. Forty volunteers performed a risky‐choice framing task in which the effect of loss versus gain frames on decisions based on identical information was assessed. The results show a positive association between cardiac awareness and the framing effect, accounting for 24% of the variance in the framing effect. These findings demonstrate that good interoceptive skills are linked to poorer performance in risky choices based on ambivalent information when implicit bias is induced by task‐irrelevant emotional information. These findings support a dual process perspective on decision‐making and suggest that interoceptive skills mediate effects of implicit bias on decisions.