Reading as a source of knowledge

Synthese - This paper argues that reading is a source of knowledge. Epistemologists have virtually ignored reading as a source of knowledge. This paper argues, first, that reading is not to be...     

Motivation as a function of success frequency

Motivation and Emotion - It is well-established that intermediate challenge is optimally motivating. We tested whether this can be quantified into an inverted-U relationship between motivation and...     

Psychometric Properties of Two Implicit Associations Tests measuring Adult Attachment

Adult attachment style has consequences for mental health, interpersonal functioning and emotion regulation. This occurs partly deliberately, also referred to as explicit, and partly on an automatic level outside of conscious awareness, also referred to as implicit. Whereas explicit adult attachment can be assessed with self-report instruments, measurement of implicit adult attachment requires indirect methods. This paper describes the psychometric properties of two Implicit Association Tests measuring general adult attachment in a population sample. The study evaluated the reliability and the validity of the Avoidant Attachment IAT (ANX-IAT) and the Anxious Attachment IAT (AVOID-IAT). Validity was evaluated against self-report measures of adult attachment style (RQ), psychopathology (SQ-48), and well-being (MHC-SF). The split-half reliabilities of both IATs were good; the test-retest reliability of the ANX-IAT was adequate; however the AVOID-IAT had low test-retest reliability. Both IATs did not explain variance in psychopathology additional to explicit measures. The AVOID-IAT showed added value over explicit measurement of avoidant attachment in explaining variance in well-being, particularly regarding emotional and psychological well-being. The ANX-IAT did not explain variance in any measure of well-being additional to the explicit measure of anxious attachment. Our findings provide a basis from which more valid IATs measuring general adult attachment can be developed. Furthermore, they suggest that implicit avoidant attachment might be related to well-being, particularly emotional and psychological well-being. However, further research is needed to investigate the role of implicit general adult attachment in mental health and to optimize the two IATs in terms of validity before clinical use is recommended.     

Temporalizing ontology: a case for pragmatic emergence

Synthese - Despite an attempt to break with the hierarchical picture in traditional emergentist thought, non-standard accounts of emergence are often still committed to a premise that ontology is...     

Some recommendations for doing high‐impact research in social psychological science

In this article, I reflect upon my own career to distil some general recommendations for doing high‐impact social psychological research in the midst of a worldwide pandemic. My suggestions include (a) testing and deriving theories that can help explain real‐world human judgment and behaviour (answering questions that people care about), (b) preaching beyond the choir (communicating your research to audiences outside of social psychology), and (c) birds of a feather are stronger together (maximizing impact through strategic collaborations).     

Action representation deficits in adolescents with developmental dyslexia

Developmental dyslexia (DD), a severe and frequent disorder of reading acquisition, is characterized by a diversity of cognitive and motor deficits whose interactions still remain under debate. Although deficits in the automatization of sensorimotor control have been highlighted, internal action representation allowing prediction has never before been investigated. In this study, we considered action representation of 18 adolescents with pure DD and 18 age-matched typical readers. Participants actually and mentally performed a visually guided pointing task involving strong spatiotemporal constraints (speed/accuracy trade-off paradigm). While actual and mental movement times of typical readers were isochronous and both conformed to Fitts’ law, the movement times of dyslexics differed between conditions, and only the actual movement times conformed to Fitts’ law. Furthermore, the quality of motor imagery correlated with word reading abilities. This suggests that the process of action representation is impaired in pure DD and supports the sensorimotor perspective of DD. Theoretical implications are discussed.     

Temperamental Factors in the Execution of Interrupted Editing Tasks

The question investigated in this study is how the temperament traits of strength of excitation (SE), strength of inhibition (SI), and mobility (MO) affect behaviour during the execution of computer tasks and tasks interrupting them. Several hypotheses, partly derived from the regulative theory of temperament, were tested in an experiment in which the natural environment and the types of task commonly performed by secretaries were simulated. The sample consisted of 39 female secretaries (21–64 years old). It was found that individuals high on SE and MO needed less time to resume tasks after an interruption than individuals low on these temperament traits. Interruptions similar to the main task resulted in longer resumption times for low-SE individuals. MO was negatively related to the time needed to perform the main task. A model describing the relationship between the frequency of switches between tasks and the speed of task performance in low-MO and high-MO individuals is presented.