Letting go of the present: Mind-wandering is associated with reduced delay discounting

The capacity to self-generate mental content that is unrelated to the current environment is a fundamental characteristic of the mind, and the current experiment explored how this experience is related to the decisions that people make in daily life. We examined how task-unrelated thought (TUT) varies with the length of time participants are willing to wait for an economic reward, as measured using an inter-temporal discounting task. When participants performed a task requiring minimal attention, the greater the amount of time spent engaged in TUT the longer the individual was prepared to wait for an economic reward. These data indicate that self-generated thought engages processes associated with the successful management of long-term goals. Although immersion in the here and now is undeniably advantageous, under appropriate conditions the capacity to let go of the present and consider more pertinent personal goals may have its own rewards.     

Sex differences in memory for landmark arrays in C57BL/J6 mice

The most robust sex differences in cognition across polygynous mammalian species are the sex-specific patterns of the use of spatial cues during encoding and orientation. In laboratory rats, wild rodents, and humans, females orient preferentially to the features and arrangement of local landmarks, while males preferentially attend to distant landmarks. Yet this sex-specific pattern is often absent or reversed in the laboratory mouse, a species representing a major laboratory model of neural mechanisms. We explored sex differences in the C57BL/J6 strain of laboratory mouse by employing tasks that were motivated by the natural patterns of exploration. We predicted that such tasks would unmask the predicted default polygynous patterns of cue use by females and males. We used two standard tasks, a novel object recognition task and a five-stage serial object dishabituation task. On the first task, the results showed a female advantage in detecting the novel object, as predicted by prior results from other polygynous species. In the second task, we found, also as predicted, a male advantage in performance when the polarization of the array was distorted and a female advantage in performance when the local array was re-arranged. The pattern of sex-specific advantages in performance in C57BL/J6 mouse is thus concordant with that found in other polygynous mammals.     

Who am I? Differential effects of three contemplative mental trainings on emotional word use in self-descriptions

In a large-scale longitudinal mental training study, we examined whether learning different contemplative practices can change the emotional content of people’s self-concept as assessed through emotional word use in the Twenty Statement Test. During three 3-month training modules, participants learned distinct practices targeting attentional, socio-affective, or socio-cognitive capacities, or were re-tested. Emotional word use specifically increased after socio-cognitive training including perspective-taking on self and others, compared to attentional and socio-affective compassion-based trainings, and retest-controls. Overall, our findings demonstrate training-induced behavioral plasticity of the emotional self-concept content in healthy adults and could indicate greater emotional granularity. These findings can inform future interventions in mental health, given that alterations in self-referential processing are a common contributing factor in psychopathology.     

Modalities of Generalization Through Single Case Studies

The value of case studies for theory building is still doubted in psychology. The paper argues for the importance of case studies and the possibility of generalizing from these for a specific sociocultural understanding of human development. The paper first clarifies the notion of abduction within case studies, drawing on pragmatists James and Peirce and expanding it with the work of Lewin, and argues that it is the core mechanism that allows generalization from case studies. The second section presents the possibility of generalizing from individual single case studies, for which not only the subjective perspective, but also the dynamics by which the social and cultural environment guide and enable the person’s development, have to be accounted for. The third section elaborates the question of institutional case studies, where the challenge is to account both for institutional dynamics, and for persons’ trajectories within; this is exemplified with an ongoing study on the process of obtaining citizenship in Switzerland. The paper briefly concludes by highlighting two possible implications of the paper, one concerning the process of theoretical reasoning, the other, the fact that sociocultural psychology could itself be seen as an institution in-the-making.     

Recognition of tactile relief by children and adults

This study was designed to compare tactile sensitivity of children and adults on printed target stimuli covering a wide range of elevations and requiring different resolutions. A recognition-relief task using 9 digits at 6 levels of elevation from a surface (0.5, 0.4, 0.3, 0.2, 0.1, and 0.05 mm) was presented to 24 young adults and 24 children. As predicted, relief elevations as low as 0.05 mm were recognized above chance. As predicted, children performed significantly more poorly than the adults on recognition at all elevations, although the difference increased as elevation increased. Adults performed significantly better than children on high-resolution digit 8, but there was no reliable age difference on low-resolution digit 1. Recognition difference between the high- and low-resolution digits decreased nonlinearly as elevation increased, irrespective of age. Overall, the findings support previous research indicating greater tactile sensitivity in adults than in children, but the superiority was moderated by the elevation and resolution requirements of the stimuli.     

The money attitude of covert and overt narcissists

The money attitude of covert and overt narcissists was studied. Both covert and overt narcissism predicted the power-prestige dimension of money attitude, which were both mediated by the need for social power. Interestingly, the relationship for covert narcissism was also mediated by the fear of negative social evaluation, confirming its socially vulnerable and hypersensitive features. In addition, the anxiety and distrust factors of money attitude were correlated with covert narcissism only. Anxiety was explained by the need for power and avoidance motivation, but no significant mediator was found for distrust. These findings provide evidence to the similarities and differences between the two types of narcissism. They also shed light on narcissists’ money-related behaviors, such as investment strategy and consumer behaviors.     

Is Fear of Others Linked to an Uncertain Sense of Self? The Relevance of Self-Worth, Interpersonal Self-Concepts, and Dysfunctional Beliefs to Paranoia

The assumption that a low sense of self-worth can give rise to paranoid delusions is relevant from a therapeutic perspective, but research has been inconsistent. The present study sought to investigate how interpersonal self-concepts and global self-worth relate to psychotic and depressive psychopathology in persons with psychosis. Participants with psychosis (n = 83) and healthy controls (n = 33) were assessed for global self-worth, interpersonal self-concepts, and dysfunctional beliefs using the Frankfurt Self-Concept Scale and the Dysfunctional Attitude Scale. Symptoms were assessed with the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale, the Peters et al. Delusions Inventory, the Paranoia Checklist, and the Beck Depression Inventory. We hypothesized that perceived threat to self-worth, as expressed in dysfunctional acceptance beliefs and negative interpersonal self-concepts, would be uniquely associated with persecutory delusions. In contrast, low global self-worth would be strongly associated with symptoms of depression. Multiple regression analyses were used to investigate the association between symptoms and self-concepts. As expected, low global self-worth was associated with depression, whereas the more specific perception of not being accepted by relevant others was most clearly related to psychotic symptoms. Almost half of the variance in paranoia scores was explained by negative interpersonal self-concepts and the interaction between negative interpersonal self-concepts and dysfunctional acceptance beliefs. Thus, cognitive interventions for delusions might be improved by focusing more on interpersonal self-concepts.     

Encouraging electricity savings in a university residential hall through a combination of feedback, visual prompts, and incentives

This experiment investigated the combined use of visual prompts, daily feedback, and rewards to reduce electricity consumption in a university residential hall. After a 17-day baseline period, the experimental intervention was introduced in the intervention hall, and no change was made in the control hall. Energy usage decreased in the intervention hall, but energy usage did not change appreciably in the control hall. In the intervention hall, mean daytime and nighttime savings were 16.2% and 10.7%, respectively, compared to savings of 3.8% (day) and 6.5% (night) in the control hall.     

The development of memory maintenance: Children’s use of phonological rehearsal and attentional refreshment in working memory tasks

Past research suggests that children begin to phonologically rehearse at around 7 years of age. Less is known regarding the development of refreshment, an attention-based maintenance mechanism. Therefore, the use of these two maintenance methods by 6- and 8-year-olds was assessed using memory span tasks that varied in their opportunities for maintenance activity. Experiment 1 showed that nonverbal processing impaired both groups’ performance to similar extents. Experiment 2 employed phonologically similar or dissimilar memory items and compared the effects of verbal versus nonverbal processing on recall. Both groups showed evidence of phonological maintenance under nonverbal processing but not under verbal processing. Furthermore, nonverbal processing again impaired recall. Verbal processing was also more detrimental to performance in 8-year-olds than in 6-year-olds. Together, the results suggest that nonverbal processing impairs recall by obstructing refreshment and that developmental change in maintenance between 6 and 8 years of age consists primarily of an increase in phonological rehearsal.     

Intersubjective cultural representations predicting behaviour: The case of political culture and voting

Research has shown that cultural identification is influenced by the congruence between people's personal values and intersubjectively represented cultural values. The current research extended this finding to voter choice and behaviour. We hypothesized that people whose values and attitudes are similar to the collective representations of the political party that an election candidate belongs to would be more likely to vote for that candidate. Also, this relationship would be mediated by party identification. We found support for our hypotheses in two studies, one on the Legislative Council election in Hong Kong and the other on the 2004 US presidential election.