Questioning the preparatory function of counterfactual thinking

Why do individuals mentally modify reality (e.g., “If it hadn’t rained, we would have won the game”)? According to the dominant view, counterfactuals primarily serve to prepare future performance. In fact, individuals who have just failed a task tend to modify the uncontrollable features of their attempt (e.g., “If the rules of the game were different, I would have won it”), generating counterfactuals that are unlikely to play any preparatory role. By contrast, they generate prefactuals that focus on the controllable features of their ensuing behavior (e.g., “If I concentrate more, I will win the next game”). Here, we test whether this tendency is robust and general. Studies 1a and 1b replicate this tendency and show that it occurs regardless of whether individuals think about their failures or their successes. Study 2 shows that individuals generate relatively few controllable counterfactuals, unless explicitly prompted to do so. These results raise some questions regarding the generality of the dominant view according to which counterfactuals mainly serve a preparatory function.     

The tracks of my years: Personal significance contributes to the reminiscence bump

Two studies investigated the role of the self in the reminiscence bump (heightened retrieval for events from young adulthood). Participants over the age of 40 years were presented with top-grossing films and songs, and were asked to select the five that were most personally significant. Study 1 produced reminiscence bumps for personally significant songs, when measured by both participants’ age at release (AaR) and age when songs were reported as most important (AaI). This effect was not shown for films. In Study 2, participants again selected their personally significant songs but also rated all songs for whether they were known, remembered (e.g., associated with an episodic memory), or not known. Personally significant songs were significantly more likely to be associated with episodic memories, compared to personally non-significant songs. Again, only personally significant songs formed a reminiscence bump. Findings underline a critical role of personal significance in the reminiscence bump, which we argue is consistent with the formation of identity in this lifetime period.     

Generativity and the U.S. Roman Catholic Bishops’ Responses to Priests’ Sexual Abuse of Minors

In this article, Erik Erikson’s and subsequent researchers’ ideas on generativity are applied to “the clerical abuse crisis,” in which 111 U.S. Roman Catholic bishops protected priests rather than safeguard children. The goal was to discover what psychological dispositions led bishops to act in the manner they did. A case is made that pre-existing tendencies coupled with an all-male, celibate environment and formation indoctrination led to deficits in psychological development, moral judgment and leadership capacity, revealing an Episcopal subculture characterized by pseudo-speciation and authoritism.     

Gender Segregation and Gender-Typing in Adolescence

We investigated correlates of gender segregation among adolescent (15–17 yrs) boys (N?=?60) and girls (N?=?85) from the Mid-Atlantic United States. Seventy-two percent of peers nominated for “hanging out” were the same gender as the adolescent. Girls’ gender segregation was correlated with gender reference-group identity and believing girls are more responsive communicative partners than boys. Girls were more likely to endorse feminine, expressive traits, a cooperative activity orientation, and to believe in the greater communicative responsiveness of same- vs. other-gender peers. Boys and girls were equally likely to endorse masculine, instrumental traits, competitive activity orientations, and to identify same-gender others as a reference group. We consider implications of the developmental persistence of gender segregation for gender-typing.     

Information search in heuristic decision making

Simple heuristics of the type introduced by Gigerenzer, Todd, and The ABC Research Group ( 1999 ) embody principles for information search, stop and decision making. These heuristics suggest that such processes are simple. In an analysis of general practitioners' (GPs) information search and decision‐making behaviour when prescribing a lipid lowering drug, we examined whether information search was simple, and whether a heuristic that predicts a simple decision‐making process was also accurate at describing information search. We found that GPs' information search behaviour was simple in that it demonstrated characteristics of the matching heuristic (e.g. stopping rule). In addition, although the matching heuristic which correctly predicted on average 75% of GPs' decisions used significantly fewer cues on average than the GPs did in the information search task, it was reasonably accurate in describing order of information search. These findings have implications for the validity of simple heuristics describing both information search and decision making. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Something Overlooked? How experts in change detection use visual saliency

How does expertise in the analysis of particular images influence the effects of visual saliency upon attention? Expert analysts of aerial photographs and untrained viewers undertook change‐detection and location memory tasks using aerial photographs with eye movements recorded throughout. Experts were more accurate in both tasks. Significant differences were also seen in the scanpaths: Untrained viewers fixated preferentially upon salient features throughout stimulus presentation whereas experts did not. However, both groups showed a strong influence of saliency in change detection and memory tasks. We interpret this apparent contradiction by: (i) assuming that the use of saliency in visual search is discretionary, and experts can use semantic information to prioritise where to fixate next; whereas, (ii) in tasks requiring spatial memory, analysis of visual saliency delivers easily acquired landmarks to reference the location of items in an image; a previously overlooked function used by expert and untrained viewers alike. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Between-subject or within-subject measures of regret: Dilemma and solution

The “action effect,” according to which actions produce more regret than failures to act, has been shown to disappear in between-subject designs. This phenomenon is replicated in a first study. It is then argued that this disappearance is due to the inability of regret scales to capture differences in perceived regret when used in between-subject designs, a difficulty that is highlighted by a second study. A new method, the common reference method, is proposed in order to overcome this problem. This method is demonstrated in a third and fourth study, and its boundary conditions are discussed, together with its possible extensions.     

Counsellor conflict in managing the frame: Dilemmas and decisions

An essential feature of psychodynamic counselling is a secure frame for the work that holds boundaries as sacrosanct, both to ensure ethical practice and to provide a vehicle through which unconscious processes can be recognized and understood. Conscious or unconscious attacks on the frame are inevitable in any therapeutic relationship, and provide an opportunity for exploration and insight. However such incidents also have an impact on the therapist who must decide how to respond. In order to understand more about the therapist process when there is an attack on the frame, an investigation was carried out into ways in which psychodynamic counsellors manage the difficulties and dilemmas that arise as they try to hold a secure therapeutic frame. Ten counsellors were interviewed using a semi‐ structured interview format during which they were asked about an instance when the frame was challenged and the process by which it was resolved. The resulting dilemmas were categorized using grounded theory. Three categories of dilemmas emerged a) prior to making a decision about how to deal with it, b) after making a decision, and c), as a result of the outcome of the action taken. The nature of the dilemmas and the process of resolving them are reported and discussed.     

Using temporal logics of knowledge for specification and verification—a case study

Temporal logics of knowledge are useful for reasoning about situations where the knowledge of an agent or component is important, and where change in this knowledge may occur over time. Here we use temporal logics of knowledge to reason about the game Cluedo. We show how to specify Cluedo using temporal logics of knowledge and prove statements about the knowledge of the players using a clausal resolution calculus for this logic. We discuss the advantages and disadvantages of using this logic to specify and verify the game Cluedo and describe related implementations.