Age effects in emotional prospective memory: cue valence differentially affects the prospective and retrospective component

While first studies suggested that emotional task material may enhance prospective memory performance in young and older adults, the extent and mechanisms of this effect are under debate. The authors explored possible differential effects of cue valence on the prospective and retrospective component of prospective memory in young and older adults. Forty-five young and 41 older adults performed a prospective memory task in which emotional valence of the prospective memory cue was manipulated (positive, negative, neutral). The multinomial model of event-based prospective memory was used to analyze effects of valence and age on the two prospective memory components separately. Results revealed an interaction indicating that age differences were smaller in both emotional valence conditions. For older adults positive cues improved the prospective component, while negative cues improved the retrospective component. No main effect of valence was found for younger adults on an overt accuracy measure, but model-based analyses showed that the retrospective component was enhanced in the positive compared with the negative cue condition. The study extends the literature in demonstrating that processes underlying emotional effects on prospective memory may differ depending on valence and age.     

Age Differences in Processes Underlying Hindsight Bias: A Life-Span Study

Hindsight bias is the tendency to overestimate one’s prior knowledge of a fact or event after learning the actual fact. Recent research has suggested that age-related differences in hindsight bias may be based on age-related differences in inhibitory control. We tested whether this explanation held for 3 cognitive processes assumed to underlie hindsight bias: recollection bias, reconstruction bias, and the tendency to adopt newly acquired knowledge as old. We performed a typical hindsight-bias study with 9-year-olds, 12-year-olds, young adults, and older adults. Participants first gave numerical judgments to difficult almanac questions. They later received the correct judgments for some of the questions while trying to recall their own earlier judgments. To experimentally test the impact of inhibitory control, the correct judgment was presented either in a weak or in a strong manner that was difficult to ignore. Hindsight bias was larger in the strong condition than in the weak condition and followed a U-shaped life-span pattern with young adults showing the least hindsight bias in line with an inhibitory-control explanation. Yet, the mixture of underlying processes differed considerably between age groups, so inhibitory control did not suffice as a sole explanation of age differences.     

Exploring cross-task compatibility in perceiving and producing facial expressions using electromyography

Using a dual-task methodology we examined the interaction of perceiving and producing facial expressions. In one task, participants were asked to produce a smile or a frown (Task 2) in response to a tone stimulus. This auditory-facial task was embedded in a dual-task context, where the other task (Task 1) required a manual response to visual face stimuli (visual-manual task). These face stimuli showed facial expressions that were either compatible or incompatible to the to-be-produced facial expression. Both reaction times and error rates (measured by facial electromyography) revealed a robust stimulus–response compatibility effect across tasks, suggesting that perceived social actions automatically activate corresponding actions even if perceived and produced actions belong to different tasks. The dual-task nature of this compatibility effect further testifies that encoding of facial expressions is highly automatic.     

Range Shrinkage of Cognitive Ability Test Scores in Applicant Pools for German Governmental Jobs: Implications for range restriction corrections

Range restriction corrections require the predictor standard deviation in the applicant pool of interest. Unfortunately, this information is frequently not available in applied contexts. The common strategy in this type of situations is to use national‐norm standard deviation estimates. This study used data from 8,276 applicants applying to nine jobs in German governmental organizations to compare applicant pool standard deviations for two cognitive ability tests with national‐norm standard deviation estimates, and standard deviations for the total group of governmental applicants. Results revealed that job‐ and organizational context‐specific applicant pool standard deviations were on average about 10–12% smaller than estimates from national norms, and about 4–6% smaller than standard deviations for the total group of governmental applicants.     

Beziehungsorientierte Prävention und Intervention in der frühen Kindheit

Zusammenfassung Präventions- und Interventionsansätze in der frühen Kindheit messen der Beziehung zwischen Eltern und Kind entscheidende Bedeutung bei. Forschungsbefunde, insbesondere aus der Bindungstheorie, belegen einen Zusammenhang zwischen früher Bindungsunsicherheit oder Störungen in der Eltern-Kind-Interaktion und späteren Verhaltensproblemen beim Kind. Dabei gilt frühe (hoch-) unsichere Bindung dann als Risikofaktor, wenn sie in Kumulation und in Wechselwirkung mit anderen psychosozialen Risiken auftritt. Diese Befunde, ebenso wie jüngere Forschungsergebnisse über die Bedeutung sensibler Perioden in der Gehirnentwicklung, sprechen für die Notwendigkeit beziehungsorientierter und früher Intervention, besonders in Familien mit psychosozialen Risiken. Dabei wird frühe und präventive Intervention in Anlehnung an Stern als ein klinisches Feld mit qualitativ neuen Anforderungen diskutiert. Diese lassen sich aus den Besonderheiten der Entwicklungspsycho(patho)logie der frühen Kindheit ableiten. Es werden beispielhaft Interventionsansätze vorgestellt, die den Prinzipien von theoretischer Konzeptualisierung und Wirksamkeitsüberprüfung entsprechen, wie sie in Leitlinien für präventive Intervention gefordert werden. Aspekte der nachhaltigen Einbindung präventiver Interventionsansätze in bestehende Hilfesysteme werden abschließend diskutiert.     

Behavioral inhibition and amplification during emotional arousal: a comparison of two age groups

This study investigated age differences in the ability to suppress and amplify expressive behavior during emotional arousal. Young and old participants viewed 3 film clips about medical procedures while their behavioral, autonomic, and subjective responses were recorded. Half of the participants viewed all 3 films without additional instructions; the other half was asked to suppress and amplify their behavioral expression during the 2nd and 3rd films. Except for heart rate, suppression and amplification produced similar patterns of autonomic activation. Neither suppression nor amplification had effects on self-reported emotion. There were no age differences in the ability to suppress or amplify emotional expression or in their physiological or subjective consequences. Considering that older people's unregulated reactivity was lower than that of young adults, suppression may have been easier and amplification more difficult for older adults. Voluntary emotion regulation might be one domain of human performance that is spared from age-related losses.     

Beyond Abstinence: An Examination of Psychological Well-Being in Members of Narcotics Anonymous

While a growing body of literature supports the role of mutual help organizations in helping members achieve abstinence, fellowships other than Alcoholics Anonymous and outcomes beyond abstinence have been studied far less often. The current study examined recovery-related correlates of psychological well-being in a sample of Narcotics Anonymous (NA) members. Participants (N = 128) were self-identified NA members from across the United States who completed an online survey assessing an array of psychosocial outcomes. Hierarchical regression models assessed whether abstinence duration and other recovery-related variables accounted for significant incremental variance in psychological well-being, over and above several covariates. As a block, abstinence duration and the recovery predictors accounted for significant incremental variance in three of four psychological well-being domains. As a complement to studies on short-term benefits of mutual help organizations, these data suggest ongoing recovery involvement may be positively associated with subjective psychological well-being in NA members.     

Dissociating Indifferent,Directional, and Extreme Responding in Personality Data: Applying the Three‐Process Model to Self‐ and Observer Reports

Research suggests that respondents vary in their tendency to use the response scale of typical (Likert‐style) questionnaires. We study the nature of the response process by applying a recently introduced item response theory modeling procedure, the three‐process model, to data of self‐ and observer reports of personality traits. The three‐process model captures indifferent, directional, and extreme responding. Substantively, we hypothesize that, and test whether, trait Honesty‐Humility is negatively linked to extreme responding. We applied the three‐process model to personality data of 577 dyads (self‐ and observer reports of the HEXACO Personality Inventory‐Revised; Lee & Ashton, 2006 ) of Dutch and German undergraduate respondents. First, we provide evidence that indifferent, directional, and extreme responding can be separated from each other in personality data through the use of the three‐process model. Second, we show that the various response processes show a pattern of correlations across traits and rating sources which is in line with the idea that indifferent and extreme responding are person‐specific tendencies, whereas directional responding is content‐specific. Third, we report findings supporting the hypothesis that Honesty‐Humility is negatively linked to extreme responding. In Likert‐based personality data, applying the three‐process model can unveil individual differences in the response process.     

Aktuelle Entwicklung in der Transaktionsanalyse

Zusammenfassung Die Transaktionsanalyse (Berne 1958) sollte vom ursprünglichen Konzept her dazu dienen, personale Strukturen und psychodynamische Prozesse auch dem Laien verstehbar und nutzbar zu machen. Obwohl dieser Anspruch bei manchen Autoren zu Oberfl?chlichkeit und „happy-go-lucky” Sicht verw?sserte, zeigt die vor allem unter europ?ischen Transaktionsanalytikern übliche Rückbesinnung auf die ursprünglichen Inhalte den Umfang klinischer Relevanz der Konzepte für Verst?ndnis und Behandlung der verschiedensten St?rungen. Dies anhand einer sog. frühen St?rung, dem Borderlinesyndrom, aufzuzeigen, ist Anliegen des vorliegenden Beitrags. Das Strukturmodell der Ich-Zust?nde dient dabei als Beschreibungsansatz für die Borderlinestruktur, Bezugsrahmen und Skript als Muster für die Entstehung und Aufrechterhaltung der Pathologie, Transaktionen, Spiele, Symbiosen und Passivit?t als Merkmale stabiler Instabilit?t der Beziehungen und Abwertungen und Grandiosit?ten als Beispiele für Abwehrmuster. Es folgen praxisorientierte überlegungen und Hinweise zum therapeutischen Vertrag als Grundlage des Arbeitsbündnisses, zu Methoden der Ent?ngstigung im Therapieproze?, zu Begegnung und Beziehung als Substrat für korrigierende Erfahrungen, heilendes Klima und Entdramatisierung des realen Geschehens. Die Ausführungen enden mit transaktionsanalytischen überlegungen zu übertragung, Gegenübertragung und dem Umgang mit Regressionsprozessen.