Personality in Action: Assessing Personality to Identify an ‘Ideal’ Conscientious Response Type with Two Different Behavioural Tasks

Performance on achievement tests is characterized by an interplay of different individual attributes such as personality traits, motivation or cognitive styles. However, the prediction of individuals' performance from classical self-report personality measures obtained during large and comprehensive aptitude assessments is biased by, for example, subjective response tendencies. This study goes beyond by using behavioural data based on two different types of tasks, requiring different conscientious-related response behaviours. Moreover, a typological approach is proposed, which includes different behavioural indicators to obtain information on complex personality characteristics. © 2020 The Authors. European Journal of Personality published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of European Association of Personality Psychology     

Positive evidence for neonatal imitation: A general response,adaptive engagement

The study employed four gestural models using frame‐by‐frame microanalytic methods, and followed how the behaviours unfolded over time. Forty‐two human newborns (0–3 days) were examined for their imitation of tongue protrusion, ‘head tilt with looking up’, three‐finger and two‐finger gestures. The results showed that all three gesture groups were imitated. Results of the temporal analyses revealed an early and a later, second stage of responses. Later responses were characterized by a suppression of similar, but non‐matching movements. Perinatal imitation is not a phenomenon served by a single underlying mechanism; it has at least two different stages. An early phase is followed by voluntary matching behaviour by the neonatal infant.     

"It's led me astray": How Cognitive Behavioural Therapists experience personal therapy in clinical practice

Personal therapy is considered to be an essential component of most psychotherapeutic training programmes. However, it remains peripheral to cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) training courses. We present a subsection of results from a qualitative study that examines how CBT therapists use personal therapy in their clinical practice. Seven CBT therapists who have undergone personal therapy were interviewed. Participants were asked about how they used personal therapy in their clinical practice and their accounts were analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) to identify common themes. This article presents the results of the first master theme, “Personal therapy creates conflict”, which explores a paradox that arises between personal therapy and CBT clinical practice; participants suggest that personal therapy equips them with therapeutic tools that paradoxically hinder their capacity to practice a standardised protocol‐led CBT. Results show that participants found personal therapy created considerable internal conflict, where their use of technical evidence‐based treatment protocols as practitioners was experienced in tension with the relationally oriented therapy they had received as clients. We discuss results in the context of Gabriel Marcel's philosophical insights on the dehumanising effects of technology on human relationships. We conclude with a brief consideration of the current political climate that increasingly privileges short‐term technical solutions to psychological distress.     

机器学习在抑郁症领域的应用

抑郁症患者疾病意识的不足以及早期筛查方法的缺乏导致患者在被诊断时大多已发展至重性抑郁障碍。为改善现状, 近年来机器学习被逐渐应用到抑郁症的早期预测、早期识别、辅助诊断和治疗决策中。在应用中, 机器学习模型准确性的影响因素包括样本集种类及规模、特征工程、算法类型等。建议未来将机器学习进一步融入医疗健康系统及移动应用程序等, 不断优化机器学习模型, 通过充分挖掘患者健康数据来改善抑郁症的预防、识别、诊断和治疗等相关问题。     

Testing Clinical Intuitions About Barriers to Improvement in Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Panic Disorder

Although clinical intuitions influence psychotherapeutic practice and are a rich source of novel hypotheses for research, many remain to be empirically tested. This study evaluates whether clinicians’ beliefs about barriers to progress in cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) for panic disorder are supported by data. Data from a randomized-controlled trial comparing CBT to panic-focused psychodynamic psychotherapy (PFPP) for adults with primary panic disorder (N = 161) were used to evaluate 15 factors endorsed by clinicians as impediments to CBT in a recent survey. Panic severity was assessed before, during (at Weeks 1, 5, and 9), and at termination of treatment (Week 12) using the Panic Disorder Severity Scale. Hierarchical linear modeling revealed that none of the perceived barriers were predictive of poor outcome. Contrary to clinicians’ intuitions, dissociation during panic attacks was associated with greater symptomatic improvement in both treatment arms (β = ?0.69, p < .05), above the effect of established predictors. Moderation analyses revealed that when patients had PTSD diagnosed with the Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule (β = 1.71, p < .05) or less severe panic disorder (β = 0.45, p = .04), they changed more rapidly in CBT than in PFPP. Overall, clinician agreement was inversely related to the strength of a predictor (r = ?.24, p = .39). Although clinical intuitions can be useful as clinical and empirical signals, such beliefs should be critically examined before informing practice. Dialogue between academics and clinicians might be enhanced through research that incorporates input from front-line practitioners.     

Big Five facets' associations with pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors

Climate change mandates us to understand why individuals do (not) behave pro-environmentally and personality traits are well suited for this purpose. Past research has mostly focused on how broad domain-level personality traits were associated with pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors. In two datasets (N = 501 and 287), we examined whether personality facets provided a more detailed picture of how personality traits were associated with pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors. It was found that some facets were the main drivers of domain-level associations. Furthermore, it was found that facets, collectively, predicted pro-environmental attitudes (r = .50 to .52) and behaviors (r = .29 to .42) in holdout datasets. This predictive ability was on par with the predictive ability of domains. Therefore, facets provided a greater understanding of how personality traits were associated with pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors. Furthermore, facets provided a similar predictive ability of pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors to that of domains.     

Modeling dispositional and initial learned trust in automated vehicles with predictability and explainability

Technological advances in the automotive industry are bringing automated driving closer to road use. However, one of the most important factors affecting public acceptance of automated vehicles (AVs) is the public’s trust in AVs. Many factors can influence people’s trust, including perception of risks and benefits, feelings, and knowledge of AVs. This study aims to use these factors to predict people’s dispositional and initial learned trust in AVs using a survey study conducted with 1175 participants. For each participant, 23 features were extracted from the survey questions to capture his/her knowledge, perception, experience, behavioral assessment, and feelings about AVs. These features were then used as input to train an eXtreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) model to predict trust in AVs. With the help of SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP), we were able to interpret the trust predictions of XGBoost to further improve the explainability of the XGBoost model. Compared to traditional regression models and black-box machine learning models, our findings show that this approach was powerful in providing a high level of explainability and predictability of trust in AVs, simultaneously.