The rich are different: Unravelling the perceived and self‐reported personality profiles of high‐net‐worth individuals

Beyond money and possessions, how are the rich different from the general population? Drawing on a unique sample of high‐net‐worth individuals from Germany (≥1 million Euro in financial assets; N = 130), nationally representative data (N = 22,981), and an additional online panel (N = 690), we provide the first direct investigation of the stereotypically perceived and self‐reported personality profiles of high‐net‐worth individuals. Investigating the broad personality traits of the Big Five and the more specific traits of narcissism and locus of control, we find that stereotypes about wealthy people's personality are accurate albeit somewhat exaggerated and that wealthy people can be characterized as stable, flexible, and agentic individuals who are focused more on themselves than on others.     

Identification and location tasks rely on different mental processes: a diffusion model account of validity effects in spatial cueing paradigms with emotional stimuli

Spatial cueing paradigms are popular tools to assess human attention to emotional stimuli, but different variants of these paradigms differ in what participants’ primary task is. In one variant, participants indicate the location of the target (location task), whereas in the other they indicate the shape of the target (identification task). In the present paper we test the idea that although these two variants produce seemingly comparable cue validity effects on response times, they rest on different underlying processes. Across four studies (total N?=?397; two in the supplement) using both variants and manipulating the motivational relevance of cue content, diffusion model analyses revealed that cue validity effects in location tasks are primarily driven by response biases, whereas the same effect rests on delay due to attention to the cue in identification tasks. Based on this, we predict and empirically support that a symmetrical distribution of valid and invalid cues would reduce cue validity effects in location tasks to a greater extent than in identification tasks. Across all variants of the task, we fail to replicate the effect of greater cue validity effects for arousing (vs. neutral) stimuli. We discuss the implications of these findings for best practice in spatial cueing research.     

Erfahrungsorientiertes Lernen in der Psychotherapie

Background

Based on principles of experiential learning, psychophysical exposure (PPE) on a tightrope course offers a promising intervention in the treatment of patients with mental disorders. A PPE program conducted on a hospital tightrope course is presented as an adjunct in inpatient psychotherapy.

Methods

The acceptance and effectiveness of the PPE were evaluated in a prospective controlled naturalistic study. A total of 155 patients, who were exposed at least once during their inpatient therapy, were compared with 92 control patients, who did not participate in the tightrope course. The main outcome criteria were self-reported depressive symptoms, state anxiety, locus of control, self-efficacy, and trait anxiety.

Results

The PPE was highly accepted by the participants. Patients who attended the tightrope courses showed greater improvement in the outcome criteria than patients who received inpatient treatment as usual. Particularly better effects were found on the personality variables.

Conclusions

Psychophysical exposure can successfully and effectively be integrated into a psychosomatic inpatient treatment program. Methodological limitations of the study, especially threats to internal validity, are discussed.     

Working memory in wayfinding-a dual task experiment in a virtual city

This study examines the working memory systems involved in human wayfinding. In the learning phase, 24 participants learned two routes in a novel photorealistic virtual environment displayed on a 220° screen while they were disrupted by a visual, a spatial, a verbal, or—in a control group—no secondary task. In the following wayfinding phase, the participants had to find and to "virtually walk" the two routes again. During this wayfinding phase, a number of dependent measures were recorded. This research shows that encoding wayfinding knowledge interfered with the verbal and with the spatial secondary task. These interferences were even stronger than the interference of wayfinding knowledge with the visual secondary task. These findings are consistent with a dual-coding approach of wayfinding knowledge.     

Associative and strategic components of episodic memory: a life-span dissociation

The authors investigated the strategic component (i.e., elaboration and organization of episodic features) and the associative component (i.e., binding processes) of episodic memory and their interactions in 4 age groups (10-12, 13-15, 20-25, and 70-75 years of age). On the basis of behavioral and neural evidence, the authors hypothesized that the two components are functionally related but follow different life-span gradients. In a fully crossed design, age differences in recognition memory for single words versus word pairs (associative demand manipulation) were examined under instructions that emphasized item, pair, or elaborative-pair encoding (strategy manipulation). As predicted, the results showed that the strategic and associative components follow different life-span trajectories. Relative to younger adults, children's difficulties in episodic memory primarily reflected lower levels of strategic functioning. In contrast, older adults showed impairments in both strategic and associative components. The authors conclude that the comparison of strategic and associative components of episodic memory across the life span helps to delineate the two components' unique and interactive contributions to episodic memory performance.     

Genetic effects on male sexual coercion

The genetic and environmental influences on sexual coercion, and to what extent its associations with alcohol use and psychopathy depend on shared genetic and environmental effects, were explored in a Finnish population-based sample of 938 men, aged 33-43 years, using the classical twin study design. All three phenotypes were associated positively and affected by genes (sexual coercion 28%, alcohol use 60%, psychopathy 54%), with 46% of the correlation between sexual coercion and psychopathy, 89% of the correlation between alcohol use and psychopathy and 100% of the correlation between sexual coercion and alcohol use being explained by shared genetic effects. Further, the results showed that a proportion of the variance in sexual coercion was derived from a highly genetic source that was common with alcohol use and psychopathy. This latent factor was hypothesized to reflect a general tendency for antisocial behavior that is pervasive across different situations. Relevant theories on sexual coercion were discussed in light of the results.     

Neurocognitive aspects of pain perception

The perception of pain is sensitive to various mental processes such as the feelings and beliefs that someone has about pain. It is therefore not exclusively driven by the noxious input. Attentional modulation involving the descending pain modulatory system has been examined extensively in neuroimaging studies. However, the investigation of neural mechanisms underlying more complex cognitive modulation is an emerging field in pain research. Recent findings indicate an engagement of the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex during more complex modulation, leading to a change or reappraisal of the emotional significance of pain. Taking placebo-induced analgesia as an example, we discuss the contribution of attention, expectation and reappraisal as three basic mechanisms that are important for the cognitive modulation of pain.     

On the costs of refocusing items in working memory: a matter of inhibition or decay?

The present study investigates the mental processes that are applied to previously attended items of working memory. In an object-switching task, participants counted the number of sequentially presented objects. In Experiment 1 the processing time increased when the object category switched from the prior trial compared to a repetition. More importantly, the further in the past the last instance of a current category was presented, the more processing time was necessary - an observation suggesting passive decay rather than inhibition of previously attended items. However, results differed when only two object categories were employed. Experiment 2 suggests that the lack of a clear indication of decay with small numbers of categories was due to participants' expectancy of category switches rather than repetitions. Taken together, the results suggest that working memory items become less accessible the longer they have not been attended to, when strategic processes are controlled.     

链接权力关系——马库思·米尔森与尚塔尔·墨菲的对话

2006年12月,伦敦的建筑师、作家马库思·米尔森拜访了政治理论家、政治理论教授尚塔尔·墨菲.在威斯敏斯特的一系列谈话中,他运用他最近的研究--"作为一种替代的空间实践形式(spatial practice)的冲突性与非共识性参与"--作为他的出发点,询问墨菲关于民主生活以及她对她所谓的"矛盾性共识"的理解.     

Take The First: Option-generation and resulting choices

Experimental decision-making research often uses a task in which participants are presented with alternatives from which they must choose. Although tasks of this type may be useful in determining measures (e.g., preference) related to explicitly stated alternatives, they neglect an important aspect of many real-world decision-making environments—namely, the option-generation process. The goal of the present research is to extend previous literature that fills this void by presenting a model that attempts to describe the link between the use of different strategies and the subsequent option-generation process, as well as the resulting choice characteristics. Specifically, we examine the relationship between strategy use, number and order of generated options, choice quality, and dynamic inconsistency. “Take The First” is presented as a heuristic that operates in ill-defined tasks, based on our model assumptions. An experiment involving a realistic (sports) situation was conducted on suitable participants (athletes) to test the predictions of the model. Initial results support the model’s key predictions: strategies producing fewer generated options result in better and more consistent decisions.