Working with Research Integrity—Guidance for Research Performing Organisations: The Bonn PRINTEGER Statement

This document presents the Bonn PRINTEGER Consensus Statement: Working with Research Integrity—Guidance for research performing organisations. The aim of the statement is to complement existing instruments by focusing specifically on institutional responsibilities for strengthening integrity. It takes into account the daily challenges and organisational contexts of most researchers. The statement intends to make research integrity challenges recognisable from the work-floor perspective, providing concrete advice on organisational measures to strengthen integrity. The statement, which was concluded February 7th 2018, provides guidance on the following key issues:

1. § 1.
   Providing information about research integrity
    
2. § 2.
   Providing education, training and mentoring
    
3. § 3.
   Strengthening a research integrity culture
    
4. § 4.
   Facilitating open dialogue
    
5. § 5.
   Wise incentive management
    
6. § 6.
   Implementing quality assurance procedures
    
7. § 7.
   Improving the work environment and work satisfaction
    
8. § 8.
   Increasing transparency of misconduct cases
    
9. § 9.
   Opening up research
    
10. § 10.
    Implementing safe and effective whistle-blowing channels
     
11. § 11.
    Protecting the alleged perpetrators
     
12. § 12.
    Establishing a research integrity committee and appointing an ombudsperson
     
13. § 13.
    Making explicit the applicable standards for research integrity
     

     

Vocabulary growth rate from preschool to school‐age years is reflected in the connectivity of the arcuate fasciculus in 14‐year‐old children

The acquisition of language involves the functional specialization of several cortical regions. Connectivity between these brain regions may also change with the development of language. Various studies have demonstrated that the arcuate fasciculus was essential for language function. Vocabulary learning is one of the most important skills in language acquisition. In the present longitudinal study, we explored the influence of vocabulary development on the anatomical properties of the arcuate fasciculus. Seventy‐nine Chinese children participated in this study. Between age 4 and age 10, they were administered the same vocabulary task repeatedly. Following a previous study, children's vocabulary developmental trajectories were clustered into three subgroups (consistently good, catch‐up, consistently poor). At age 14, diffusion tensor imaging data were collected. Using ROI‐based tractography, the anterior, posterior and direct segments of the bilateral arcuate fasciculus were delineated in each child's native space. Group comparisons showed a significantly reduced fractional anisotropy in the left arcuate fasciculus of children in the consistently poor group, in particular in the posterior and direct segments of the arcuate fasciculus. No group differences were observed in the right hemisphere, nor in the left anterior segment. Further regression analyses showed that the rate of vocabulary development, rather than the initial vocabulary size, was a specific predictor of the left arcuate fasciculus connectivity.     

Stigma Consciousness and Subjective Well-Being in Lesbians and Gays

The stigma associated with sexual identity can affect an individual’s well-being. The main goal of this study was to analyse the role of a psychosocial variable, stigma consciousness, on the well-being of lesbian and gay (LG) individuals. For this purpose, a sample of 481 participants completed various questionnaires (M _age = 32.36, SD _age = 9.60). Analysis of these results using structural equations showed two different pathways to cope with the stigma. The first pathway consists of collective action, and the second consists of stigma concealment. Specifically, stigma consciousness positively predicts well-being through group identification and collective action. Stigma concealment, however, negatively predicts well-being through the perception of prejudice. In addition, this work has confirmed that concealment has a direct negative relationship with subjective well-being. These results are interpreted from a psychosocial perspective. Finally, based on our data, we propose future interventions that provide LG individuals with strategies to cope with their perceptions of stigma.     

Effective interactions: Communication and high levels of marital satisfaction

Of all the significant relationships in the lives of human-beings, the marital relationship remains one of the most central and important to their well-being. For this rapid review the authors accessed four online databases (PsycINFO, PsychARTICLES, JSTOR Journals, and ScienceDirect) to examine the evidence on aspects of communication which contribute to high levels of marital satisfaction and to synthesise these findings. The search yielded 103 unique articles, of which 15 were ultimately included. Principal results found the following activities to relate to high marital satisfaction: 1) communication activities such as engaging in small talk and providing verbal and non-verbal messages of affection; 2) “positive” exchanges which include any interactions perceived by both parties as constructive; 3) effective conflict management including the use of responses of recalibration and reaffirmation (R-R response), the use of we-pronouns, and the Listener-Speaker technique; 4) possessing and implementing effective communication skills such as using “I” instead of “you” messages; and 5) using “positive” communication skills such as clarification to elicit “positive” affect such as feeling understood. The evidence suggests that mental health professionals working with married couples should seek to promote quality dyadic communication as part of treatment interventions.     

Analyzing the kinematics of hand movements in catching tasks—An online correction analysis of movement toward the target’s trajectory

Free, 3-D interceptive movements are difficult to visualize and quantify. For ball catching, the endpoint of a movement can be anywhere along the target’s trajectory. Furthermore, the hand may already have begun to move before the subject has estimated the target’s trajectory, and the subject may alter the targeted position during the initial part of the movement. We introduce a method to deal with these difficulties and to quantify three movement phases involved in catching: the initial, non-goal-directed phase; the goal-directed phase, which is smoothly directed toward the target’s trajectory; and the final, interception phase. Therefore, the 3-D movement of the hand was decomposed into a component toward the target’s trajectory (the minimal distance of the hand to the target’s parabolic [MDHP] trajectory) and a component along this trajectory. To identify the goal-directed phase of the MDHP trajectory, we employed the empirical finding that goal-directed trajectories are minimally jerky. The second component, along the target’s trajectory, was used to analyze the interaction of the hand with the ball. The method was applied to two conditions of a ball-catching task. In the manipulated condition, the initial part of the ball’s flight was occluded, so the visibility of the ball was postponed. As expected, the onset of the smooth part of the movement shifted to a later time. This method can be used to quantify anticipatory behavior in interceptive tasks, allowing researchers to gain new insights into movement planning toward the target’s trajectory.     

Representational momentum in dynamic facial expressions is modulated by the level of expressed pain: Amplitude and direction effects

Humans have developed a specific capacity to rapidly perceive and anticipate other people’s facial expressions so as to get an immediate impression of their emotional state of mind. We carried out two experiments to examine the perceptual and memory dynamics of facial expressions of pain. In the first experiment, we investigated how people estimate other people’s levels of pain based on the perception of various dynamic facial expressions; these differ both in terms of the amount and intensity of activated action units. A second experiment used a representational momentum (RM) paradigm to study the emotional anticipation (memory bias) elicited by the same facial expressions of pain studied in Experiment 1. Our results highlighted the relationship between the level of perceived pain (in Experiment 1) and the direction and magnitude of memory bias (in Experiment 2): When perceived pain increases, the memory bias tends to be reduced (if positive) and ultimately becomes negative. Dynamic facial expressions of pain may reenact an “immediate perceptual history” in the perceiver before leading to an emotional anticipation of the agent’s upcoming state. Thus, a subtle facial expression of pain (i.e., a low contraction around the eyes) that leads to a significant positive anticipation can be considered an adaptive process—one through which we can swiftly and involuntarily detect other people’s pain.     

Multiple layers of information processing in deductive reasoning: combining dual strategy and dual-source approaches to reasoning

The idea that inferential performance cannot be analyzed within a single model has been suggested within two theoretical contexts. The dual strategy model suggests that people reason using different approaches to processing statistical information. The dual-source model suggests that people reason probabilistically using both statistical information and some intuition about logical form. Each model suggests that people have different approaches to processing information while making inferences. The following studies examined whether these different forms of information processing were equally present during reasoning. Participants were given a series of problems designed to distinguish counterexample from statistical reasoners. They were then given a series of MP or AC inferences for which identical statistical information was provided. Results show that MP inferences were considered to be deductively valid more often than equivalent AC inferences. The effect of logical form was independent of reasoning strategy, and of relatively equivalent size for both counterexample and statistical reasoners. The second study examined explicitly probabilistic inferences, and showed smaller effects of logical form and of reasoning strategy, although with a complex set of interactions. These results show that understanding the way that people use information when making inferences requires a multidimensional approach.     

Development and validation of a brief self-report measure of trauma exposure: the Trauma History Screen

Although information about individuals' exposure to highly stressful events such as traumatic stressors is often very useful for clinicians and researchers, available measures are too long and complex for use in many settings. The Trauma History Screen (THS) was developed to provide a very brief and easy-to-complete self-report measure of exposure to high magnitude stressor (HMS) events and of events associated with significant and persisting posttraumatic distress (PPD). The measure assesses the frequency of HMS and PPD events, and it provides detailed information about PPD events. Test-retest reliability was studied in four samples, and temporal stability was good to excellent for items and trauma types and excellent for overall HMS and PPD scores. Comprehensibility of items was supported by expert ratings of how well items appeared to be understood by participants with relatively low reading levels. In five samples, construct validity was supported by findings of strong convergent validity with a longer measure of trauma exposure and by correlations of HMS and PPD scores with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms. The psychometric properties of the THS appear to be comparable or better than longer and more complex measures of trauma exposure.