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
     

     

The communality-bonus effect for male transformational leaders – leadership style,gender, and promotability

Women have made considerable inroads into the workforce but remain underrepresented in leadership positions. Even though studies show that men and women hardly differ in their leadership behaviours, we argue that male and female leaders are evaluated differentially contingent on the gender-congruence of their leadership style. Drawing arguments from expectancy violation theory, we investigate evaluations of men and women who show transformational leadership (a style consisting of communal behaviours in line with stereotypes about women) and autocratic leadership (a style consisting of agentic behaviours in line with stereotypes about men). We employed a three-study research design combining two experimental studies and a two-wave field study with business leaders (overall N = 344). Overall transformational leadership resulted in higher evaluations of promotability due to higher perceptions of leaders’ communality and leadership effectiveness. Importantly, these effects were stronger for men, and men showing transformational leadership were evaluated to be more promotable than women. This implies a communality-bonus effect for male transformational leaders. There was no difference in promotability evaluations for women versus men showing autocratic leadership. This effect was mediated by agency and effectiveness perceptions for women but not for men. Implications are discussed.     

An exploration of cognitive appraisals following spinal cord injury

This study explored the cognitive appraisals that people make following spinal cord injury (SCI) about their situation and their ability to cope with it. Appraisals are thought to be important in determining individual responses to different events and have been shown to predict psychological well-being following injury. A cross-sectional interview study was used. Ten individuals who had recently started rehabilitation at the National Spinal Injuries Centre following an SCI were interviewed. Eight men and two women with a variety of injury level and completeness participated. Interviews were semi-structured and aimed to elicit participants' appraisals of their experiences and their ability to cope. Interviews were analysed qualitatively using interpretative phenomenological analysis. Four super-ordinate themes emerged from the interviews. These were making sense of a traumatic experience, impact of the SCI, coping and altered view of self and life. The interviews revealed that appraisals following SCI are complex and relate not only to the individual but also to their context, life stage, roles and relationships. The study adds to the theoretical understanding of the appraisal process following SCI. Ideas for further research are generated and clinical implications for improving patient experiences and developing appraisal-focused interventions are considered.     

Episodic retrieval processes take place automatically in auditory negative priming

Episodic retrieval processes involved in negative priming have been argued to be susceptible to the proportion of attended repetition trials. The more trials with the same prime and probe response, the more beneficial should it be to retrieve the prime episode, particularly its response. Retrieval of the prime episode, however, is task-inappropriate for ignored repetition trials, leading to negative priming. Correspondingly, visual negative priming increases with the proportion of attended repetition trials. We tested whether the same is true for the auditory modality. Three attended repetition proportion groups (0–25–50%) showed the same amount of negative priming. All groups committed more prime response errors in ignored repetition than in control trials, implying that prime response retrieval took place. Thus, retrieval processes in auditory negative priming appear to be automatic and cannot be influenced as easily as in the visual domain. In Experiment 2, the proportion of ignored repetition trials was manipulated (25–50–75%) to test whether auditory negative priming can be strategically manipulated at all. Similar to the visual modality negative priming was reduced with increasing proportion of ignored repetition trials. Differences between visual and auditory short-term memory are discussed to account for the results.     

Reminders of an agentic ingroup buffer disease uncontrollability

Chronic illness has negative impacts beyond those on physical health. In particular, because it is often experienced as uncontrollable, chronic illness might reduce people's general sense of personal control and, subsequently, personal well-being. Drawing on recent theory and research, we proposed and tested in four experiments (N_total = 1323) a potential buffer to these negative effects: thinking about an agentic social ingroup in one's life. In Study 1, patients suffering from a chronic illness that was either high or low in medical disease controllability were asked either to think about an agentic ingroup or a personal issue. Low perceived disease-related control was associated with low perceived personal control only when participants' personal self, but not when their ingroup, was salient. In three follow-up vignette studies, we asked participants to take the perspective of a person who suffered from a health problem of low medical disease controllability and attended a self-help group that was described as either high or low in agency. The findings supported the predicted buffering effect: participants who reflected on a target suffering from a low control disease thought that the target would experience more personal control when the agentic (vs. the nonagentic) self-help group was salient. These findings suggest ingroups can serve as a source of personal control in the context of health-related threats to the extent that they are perceived as agentic. Thus, focusing on agentic properties of (health-related) ingroups might be a promising novel strategy when designing effective group-based interventions to cope with chronic illness.     

Working memory and attention are still impaired after three years in patients with stress‐related exhaustion

Cognitive impairment is one of the most pronounced symptoms reported by patients with stress‐related mental health problems. Impairments related to executive function and to some extent speed and attention are therefore common in patients with stress‐related burnout/exhaustion. In this paper we present a follow‐up of cognitive performance in patients with stress‐related exhaustion several years after they initially sought medical care. Thirty patients and 27 healthy controls, mean age 49 years (SD 6.5) and 55 years (SD 6.7) respectively, were included, all of whom had undergone baseline measurements of neuropsychological functioning. The mean follow‐up time was three years. Half of the patients still reported mental health problems at follow‐up and over time no major changes in cognitive performance were noted. The patients still performed significantly poorer than controls with regard to cognitive functions, mainly related to speed, attention and memory function. Long‐lasting impairment of cognitive functions related to speed, attention and memory function noted in patients with stress‐related exhaustion should be acknowledged and taken into consideration during treatment and when discussing a return to work. Follow‐up periods longer than three years are needed to explore the persistence of the cognitive impairment.     

Neurocognitive impairment does not predict treatment outcome in obsessive-compulsive disorder

There is conflicting evidence pertaining to whether or not neurocognitive task performance at baseline predicts treatment response in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). In the present study, we administered a set of executive neurocognitive tests with a putative sensitivity for treatment outcome to a sample of 138 OCD patients. Additionally, subjective neurocognitive dysfunction was determined via a questionnaire. All patients participated in a cognitive-behavioural treatment program (CBT). Results showed that responders (n = 73) did not differ from non-responders (n = 65) on any of the parameters except for decreased performance on the delayed alternation test (p < .1, effect size: .61). A subsidiary analysis revealed that slowing on the Trail-Making Test A and an enhanced rate of perserveration errors on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test predicted poor outcome for the treatment of compulsions. It is concluded that neurocognitive impairment does not represent a reliable early warning sign for non-response to CBT.     

What do targeting positive views on ageing add to a physical activity intervention in older adults? Results from a randomised controlled trial

Objective: Physical activity is a key factor for healthy ageing, yet many older people lead a sedentary lifestyle. Traditional physical activity interventions do not consider the specific needs and views of older adults. As views on ageing are known to be related to health behaviours, the current study evaluates the effectiveness of prompting positive views on ageing within a physical activity intervention.

Design: Randomised controlled trial with three groups aged 65+: Intervention for physical activity with ‘views-on-ageing’-component (n?=?101; IGVoA), and without ‘views-on-ageing’-component (n?=?30; IG), and active control intervention for volunteering (n?=?103; CG).

Main outcome measures: Attitudes towards older adults and physical activity were assessed five weeks before intervention, two weeks, six weeks and 8.5?months after the intervention.

Results: Compared to the IG and CG, positive attitudes towards older adults increased in the IGVoA after the intervention. For IGVoA, the indirect intervention effect on change in activity via change in attitudes towards older adults was reliable.

Conclusion: A ‘views-on-ageing’-component within a physical activity intervention affects change in physical activity via change in views on ageing. Views on ageing are a promising intervention technique to be incorporated into future physical activity interventions for older adults.     

Presence/absence-sample matching by pigeons: divergent retention functions may result from the similarity of behavior during the absence sample and the retention interval

Divergent choose-absence retention functions typically found in pigeons following presence/absence-sample matching have been attributed to the development of a single-code/default coding strategy. However, such effects may result from adventitious differential responding to the samples. In Experiment 1, retention functions were divergent only when differential sample responding could serve as the basis for comparison choice. In Experiment 2, when pecking did not occur during the retention interval, a choose-absence bias was found, but when pecking occurred during the retention interval, a choose-presence bias resulted. In Experiment 3, positive transfer was found when a stimulus associated with the absence of pecking replaced the absence sample but not when a stimulus associated with pecking replaced the presence sample. Thus, presence/absence-sample matching may not encourage the development of a single-code/default coding strategy in pigeons.     

Ambiguous Communication of Sexual Intentions as a Risk Marker of Sexual Aggression

Three studies are reported that explored the role of ambiguous communication of sexual intentions as a risk factor for sexual aggression and victimization. Two main forms of ambiguous communication were distinguished: token resistance (saying no when you mean yes) and compliance (saying yes when you mean no). Two samples of heterosexual men and women and a sample of homosexual men with a total N of 1284 completed a measure of sexual victimization or aggression and indicated whether or not they had ever shown token resistance or compliance in a sexual encounter. Moreover, the heterosexual male respondents indicated whether they had ever perceived token resistance or compliance in a female partner. Logistic regression analyses revealed that the risk of experiencing sexual victimization was significantly increased as a function of token resistance. Two of the three studies also showed compliance to be a risk factor for sexual victimization. For the male respondents, token resistance was consistently linked to a higher likelihood of perpetrating sexually aggressive acts in the three studies. Perceived compliance was also found to increase the risk of sexual aggression in three of four analyses. Support for a link between perceived token resistance and sexual aggression was found in the first study only. Overall, the findings suggest that the use of ambiguous communication in negotiating sexual encounters is associated with an increased risk of sexual victimization as well as perpetration of sexually aggressive acts in both heterosexual and homosexual contacts. The implications of the findings are discussed with respect to the issue of rape prevention.