Attitudes towards seeking psychological help among a sample of Turkish university students: the roles of rumination and internal working models

The current study investigates how attitudes towards seeking psychological help relate to internal working models of attachment (self-model and other-model) and ruminative tendencies. The study includes 589 Turkish university students (278 females, 308 males and 3 unknown) by implementing a convenient sampling procedure. The average age of the participants was 22.4 years (SD = 2.2). Participants were administered the Attitudes toward Seeking Psychological Help-Short, the Relationship Questionnaire and the Rumination Scale. The results of the study indicate that the other-model and rumination have a relationship to women's help-seeking attitudes whereas the self-model has a relationship to men's help-seeking attitudes. The results are discussed in light of the related literature.     

A critical review of the literature on academic self-handicapping: theory,manifestations, prevention and measurement

Academic self-handicapping is a very popular subject of research in educational psychology, in which a growing number of related findings are reported. However, apart from a recent meta-analysis (Schwinger et al. in J Educ Psychol 106(3):744–761, ref="#CR132">2014), the last comprehensive review of the subject was published 17 years ago (Urdan and Midgley in Educ Psychol Rev 13(2):115–138, ref="#CR168">2001). This paper integrates relevant findings accumulated since then, which are discussed in a coherent interpretive framework. The first part of the paper discusses the definition and theoretical grounds of academic self-handicapping, then its manifestations in an academic context are enumerated. The second part of the study focuses on the self-protective function of stereotypes based on self-handicapping as well as on the impressions self-handicapping students may make on others at school. A summary of the contributions of goal orientation theory is provided in relation to self-handicapping, and the effects of various goal orientations and goal structures on academic performance are analysed. Based on an analysis of interactions between self-handicapping and academic performance, the authors argue for the importance of prevention and suggest possible ways to prevent self-handicapping. In conclusion, measurement issues of academic self-handicapping and the methodological paradox inherent in questionnaire measures are discussed.     

Mimicry and Investigative Interviewing: Using Deliberate Mimicry to Elicit Information and Cues to Deceit

We examined the effect of deliberate mimicry on eliciting (accurate) information and cues to deceit. Mimicry is considered to facilitate cooperation and compliance in truth tellers, whereas liars are constrained to provide detail. We therefore expected truth tellers to be more detailed than liars, particularly after being mimicked. A total of 165 participants told the truth or lied about a meeting they attended. During the interview, an interviewer mimicked half of the participants. Truth tellers were more detailed than liars, but only in the ‘mimicry present’ condition. Truth tellers also gave more accurate units of information than liars, and the difference was most pronounced in the ‘mimicry present’ condition. Mimicry as a tool for eliciting information and cues to deceit fits well with the emerging ‘interviewing to detect deception’ literature, particularly in the ‘encouraging interviewees to say more’ approach. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Endogenous testosterone concentration, mental rotation, and size of the corpus callosum in a sample of young Hungarian women

In the present study brain laterality, hemispheric communication, and mental rotation performance were examined. A sample of 33 women were tested for a possible linear relationship of testosterone level and mental rotation with structural background of the brain. Subjects with a smaller splenial area of corpus callosum tended to have lower levels of testosterone (r =.37, p<.05). However, there were no significant differences in mean scores of mental rotation of object and hand between groups with high and low levels of testosterone. There was a significant difference in relative size of the 6th area (slice) of the corpus callosum between groups with good and poor scores on mental rotation of an object and also in relative size of the 4th and 5th slices of the corpus callosum between groups on mental rotation of the hand. The good and poor scorers' show different relations with the measures of the corpus. The mental rotation of hand was associated with the parietal areas of the corpus callosum, while the mental rotation of object was associated only with the occipital area. These observations suggest that higher testosterone levels may be associated with a larger splenial area, which represents an important connection between the parieto-occipitocortical areas involved in activation of mental images. Further srudy is encouraged.