Trajectories of change in dimensions of forgiveness among older adults and their association with religious commitment

Forgiveness is a complex construct with an important role in religious traditions worldwide, and is associated with mental and physical health outcomes. This seven-year longitudinal study examined changes within individuals during, and differences based on birth cohort, in forgiveness during late life. Growth curve analysis was used to analyse the general pattern of change across the course of older adulthood in eight dimensions related to forgiveness. Increases over time were observed in forgiveness of others, conditionality of forgiveness of others, forgiveness of self, feelings of being forgiven by God, and feelings of being forgiven by others. Decreases over time were observed in difficulty forgiving oneself, and perceptions of conditionality in God's forgiveness. Religious commitment was related to reporting more a more forgiving attitude on seven of these dimensions, but also to more perceived conditionality in God's forgiveness. Finally, differences in mean levels of forgiveness emerged between birth cohorts.     

Happiness and despair on the catwalk: Need satisfaction,well-being,and personality adjustment among fashion models

According to self-determination theory, well-being and healthy personality development depend on the fulfillment of three basic psychological needs: autonomy, relatedness, and competence. However, various contextual features can interfere with need satisfaction and undermine well-being. We hypothesized that fashion models, who are often valued for superficial reasons (i.e., their looks) and who may not have regular opportunities to cultivate deep relationships or exercise personal control on the job, might experience lower psychological need satisfaction, less well-being, and less optimal personality adjustment. Two studies were conducted in which professional fashion models (N?=?56 in Study 1; N?=?35 in Study 2) were compared to approximately equally large groups of non-models. Fashion models reported slightly lower need satisfaction and well-being but greater personality maladjustment (personality disorder features). Mediation analyses in Study 1 suggested that the lower well-being among models was explained via unfulfilled basic needs. These findings further substantiate the importance of basic need satisfaction for well-being and optimal adjustment.     

Programming of time-to-peak force for brief isometric force pulses: Effects on reaction time

According to the parallel force unit model (PFUM) the programming of an isometric force pulse requires the specification of the number of force units and force unit duration. The programming of a force pulse with minimal time-to-peak force is an exception, however, as force unit duration is limited by the minimal possible value, which should be easier to adjust than larger force unit durations. Therefore, the duration of the programming process should be shorter for these force pulses and hence should result in shorter reaction time (RT). Four experiments assessed this prediction using a response precueing procedure. In each experiment the participants produced isometric flexions with their left or right index finger, and time-to-peak force was manipulated within a block. The results are consistent with the predictions of PFUM. The results, however, are at variance with alternative accounts which assume that RT depends primarily on response duration or rate of force production.     

Response demands and the recruitment of heuristic strategies in syllogistic reasoning

Two experiments investigated whether dealing with a homogeneous subset of syllogisms with time-constrained responses encouraged participants to develop and use heuristics for abstract (Experiment 1) and thematic (Experiment 2) syllogisms. An atmosphere-based heuristic accounted for most responses with both abstract and thematic syllogisms. With thematic syllogisms, a weaker effect of a belief heuristic was also observed, mainly where the correct response was inconsistent with the atmosphere of the premises. Analytic processes appear to have played little role in the time-constrained condition, whereas their involvement increased in a self-paced, unconstrained condition. From a dual-process perspective, the results further specify how task demands affect the recruitment of heuristic and analytic systems of reasoning. Because the syllogisms and experimental procedure were the same as those used in a previous neuroimaging study by Goel, Buchel, Frith, and Dolan (2000), the result also deepen our understanding of the cognitive processes investigated by that study.     

Are phonological influences on lexical (mis)selection the result of a monitoring bias?

A monitoring bias account is often used to explain speech error patterns that seem to be the result of an interactive language production system, like phonological influences on lexical selection errors. A biased monitor is suggested to detect and covertly correct certain errors more often than others. For instance, this account predicts that errors that are phonologically similar to intended words are harder to detect than those that are phonologically dissimilar. To test this, we tried to elicit phonological errors under the same conditions as those that show other kinds of lexical selection errors. In five experiments, we presented participants with high cloze probability sentence fragments followed by a picture that was semantically related, a homophone of a semantically related word, or phonologically related to the (implicit) last word of the sentence. All experiments elicited semantic completions or homophones of semantic completions, but none elicited phonological completions. This finding is hard to reconcile with a monitoring bias account and is better explained with an interactive production system. Additionally, this finding constrains the amount of bottom-up information flow in interactive models.     

Choosing optimal causal backgrounds for causal discovery

In two experiments, we studied the strategies that people use to discover causal relationships. According to inferential approaches to causal discovery, if people attempt to discover the power of a cause, then they should naturally select the most informative and unambiguous context. For generative causes this would be a context with a low base rate of effects generated by other causes and for preventive causes a context with a high base rate. In the following experiments, we used probabilistic and/or deterministic target causes and contexts. In each experiment, participants observed several contexts in which the effect occurred with different probabilities. After this training, the participants were presented with different target causes whose causal status was unknown. In order to discover the influence of each cause, participants were allowed, on each trial, to choose the context in which the cause would be tested. As expected by inferential theories, the participants preferred to test generative causes in low base rate contexts and preventative causes in high base rate contexts. The participants, however, persisted in choosing the less informative contexts on a substantial minority of trials long after they had discovered the power of the cause. We discuss the matching law from operant conditioning as an alternative explanation of the findings.     

Stimulus type and the list strength paradigm

In recognition memory, increasing the strength of studied items does not reduce performance on other items, an effect dubbed the null list strength effect (LSE). While this finding has been replicated many times, it has rarely been tested using stimuli other than single words. Kinnell and Dennis (2012 Kinnell, A., & Dennis, S. (2012). The role of stimulus type in list length effects in recognition memory. Memory & Cognition, 40, 311–325. doi: 10.3758/s13421-011-0164-2[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) recently tested for the presence of list length effects using non-word stimulus classes while controlling for the confounds that are present in list length designs. Small list length effects were found for fractal and face images. We adopted the same paradigm and stimuli used by Kinnell and Dennis to test whether these stimuli would be susceptible to list strength effects as well. We found significant LSEs for fractal images, but null LSEs for face images and natural scene photographs. Stimuli other than words do appear to be susceptible to list strength effects, but these effects are small and restricted to particular stimulus classes, as is the case in list length designs. Models of memory may be able to address differences between these stimulus classes by attributing differences in representational overlap between the stimulus classes.     

Good Athlete – Bad Athlete? on the ‘Role-Model Argument’ for Banning Performance-Enhancing Drugs

The paper critically discusses a role-model argument (RMA) in favour of banning performance-enhancing drugs in sport. The argument concludes that athletes should be banned from using performance-enhancing drugs because if they are allowed to use such drugs they will encourage, or cause, youngsters who look up to them to use drugs in a way that would be harmful. In Section 2 the structure of the argument and some versions of it are presented. In Section 3 a critical discussion of RMA is presented. It is argued that we should be reluctant to accept the argument as it stands for at least three reasons: (i) it rests on an unsupported empirical claim; (ii) it also makes a false empirical claim; and (iii) the normative premise of the argument is too demanding morally. Further objections to the RMA are also discussed, but argued to be beside the point