A Study of the Opinions of College Students

ABSTRACT

When judging whether a relationship partner can be counted on to “be there” when needed, people may draw upon knowledge structures to process relevant information. We examined one such knowledge structure using the prototype methodology: indicators of a partner who is likely to be there when needed. In the first study (N = 91), the structure, content, and reliability of the prototype of indicators were examined. Then, using a false recognition study (N = 77), we demonstrated that once activated, the prototype of indicators of a partner who is likely to be there when needed affects information processing. Thus, the prototype of indicators may shape how people process support-relevant information in everyday life, affecting relationship outcomes. Using this knowledge structure may help a person process relevant information quickly and with cognitive economy. However, it may also lead to biases in judgments in certain situations.     

Forms of Reflection,Imagination, and the Love of Wisdom

This article reflects upon the relationship between philosophy and theology. It further considers the persisting relevance of the specifically Hellenic inheritance of philosophy as contemplation and the Delphic exhortation, “Know thyself!” It concludes with reflections upon the role of imagination in relation to the philosophical idea of God as the supreme and transcendent causal principle of the physical cosmos.     

Resisting Everything Except Temptation: Evidence and an Explanation for Domain‐specific Impulsivity

We propose a model of impulsivity that predicts both domain‐general and domain‐specific variance in behaviours that produce short‐term gratification at the expense of long‐term goals and standards. Specifically, we posit that domain‐general impulsivity is explained by domain‐general self‐control strategies and resources, whereas domain‐specific impulsivity is explained by how tempting individuals find various impulsive behaviours, and to a lesser extent, in perceptions of their long‐term harm. Using a novel self‐report measure, factor analyses produced six (non‐exhaustive) domains of impulsive behaviour (Studies 1–2): work, interpersonal relationships, drugs, food, exercise and finances. Domain‐general self‐control explained 40% of the variance in domain‐general impulsive behaviour between individuals, r_effect = .71. Domain‐specific temptation (r_effect = .83) and perceived harm (r_effect = ?.26) explained 40% and 2% of the unique within‐individual variance in impulsive behaviour, respectively (59% together). In Study 3, we recruited individuals in special interest groups (e.g. procrastinators) to confirm that individuals who are especially tempted by behaviours in their target domain are not likely to be more tempted in non‐target domains. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

When promoting a charity can hurt charitable giving: A metacognitive analysis

Charities need to come to mind to enter a potential donor's consideration set. However, feeling familiar with a charity and its cause can facilitate or impair giving. In most cases, perceived good memory for details of the cause fosters the impression of personal importance, which increases giving (Studies 1 and 3). But when the charity aims to increase awareness of a cause, good memory for the cause suggests that awareness is already high, which impairs giving (Studies 2 and 3). Hence, promotions for awareness-raising charities can actually have negative consequences, confirming the predictions of a metacognitive analysis.     

Data-driven sequence learning or search: What are the prerequisites for the generation of explicit sequence knowledge?

In incidental sequence learning situations, there is often a number of participants who can report the task-inherent sequential regularity after training. Two kinds of mechanisms for the generation of this explicit knowledge have been proposed in the literature. First, a sequence representation may become explicit when its strength reaches a certain level (Cleeremans, 2006), and secondly, explicit knowledge may emerge as the result of a search process that is triggered by unexpected events that occur during task processing and require an explanation (the unexpected-event hypothesis; Haider & Frensch, 2009). Our study aimed at systematically exploring the contribution of both mechanisms to the generation of explicit sequence knowledge in an incidental learning situation. We varied the amount of specific sequence training and inserted unexpected events into a 6-choice serial reaction time task. Results support the unexpected-event view, as the generation of explicit sequence knowledge could not be predicted by the representation strength acquired through implicit sequence learning. Rather sequence detection turned out to be more likely when participants were shifted to the fixed repeating sequence after training than when practicing one and the same fixed sequence without interruption. The behavioral effects of representation strength appear to be related to the effectiveness of unexpected changes in performance as triggers of a controlled search.     

Children's Causal Explanations of Psychogenic Bodily Reactions

In Experiment 1, 4‐, 5‐, 8‐ and 11‐year‐old Japanese children (n = 69) and adults (n = 21) explained their reasons for bodily induced reactions (e.g. overeating leads to vomiting) and psychogenic bodily reactions (bodily outcomes originating in the mind, e.g. frustration leads to vomiting). Children gave vitalistic explanations, that is, explaining causal connections by referring to a vital force, in responses concerning bodily induced reactions, whereas adults typically gave these explanations in responses concerning psychogenic bodily reactions. In Experiment 2, 5‐, 8‐ and 11‐year‐old children (n = 96) and adults (n = 24) explained bodily induced and psychogenic bodily reactions, and psychological behaviour, for example, that frustration leads to nail biting. As in Experiment 1, vitalistic explanations tended to be found for psychogenic tasks but were seldom found in either children's or adults' explanations of psychological behaviour. The findings suggest that with age vitalistic causality obtains cross mind‐body implications. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Cognitive-behavioural Anger Management Training for Adults with Mild Intellectual Disability

Although people with intellectual disabilities often display anger control problems, little research has been conducted on the development and evaluation of cost-effective anger management training programs for this special population. This study evaluated the efficacy of cognitive-behavioural anger management for 11 adults with mild intellectual disabilities in a group therapy format. Improvements were evident on self-report measures of anger and self-esteem. Additionally, caregiver reports indicated general improvements in emotional and behavioural adjustment. Limitations of the study are acknowledged, including the absence of a control condition.     

Dichotomous perception of animal categories in infancy

ABSTRACT

Although there is a wealth of knowledge on categorization early in life, there are still many unanswered questions about the nature of category representation in infancy. For example, it is unclear whether infants are sensitive to boundaries between complex categories, such as types of animals, or whether young infants exhibit such sensitivity without explicit experience in the lab. Using a morphing technique, we linearly altered the category composition of images and measured 6.5-month-olds’ attention to pairs of animal faces that either did or did not cross the categorical boundary, with the stimuli in each pair being equally dissimilar from one another across the two types of image pairs. Results indicated that infants dichotomize the continua between cats and dogs and between cows and otters, but only when the images are presented in their canonical, upright orientations. These findings demonstrate a propensity to dichotomize early in life that could have implications for social categorizations, such as race and gender.     

Ex cathedra : Teaching,transference and knowledge 1

This paper explores the ex cathedra effect in psychoanalysis. It starts with the impact of the analyst's chair (cathedra) on the ‘knowledge’ derived from the analytic exchange–in particular, the structural alignment between the analyst and the client, and the ex cathedra authority transferred to analytic interpretations. It is argued that this authority–and the compulsion to ‘know’ that underlies it–is inevitably subverted by the unconscious processes it attempts to capture (through knowledge), in particular by transference, whose embossed and hollowed out forms, and various contusive elaborations (the bezoaric, caddis, karaoke and medusa effects), vitiate the linearity and closure of a set cognitive system (knowledge). The paper then moves on to examine how this ex cathedra effect has impacted on teaching–the transferral of this knowledge in trainings, notably in universities, where psychoanalysis has become a ‘discipline’, and how transference effects have inevitably and variously subverted (some may say corrupted) the teaching process. In particular, it suggests that the academic validation of clinical trainings hides an ex cathedra dogmatism–a pretence of formal knowledge and critical assessment which forecloses creative engagement with the unconscious.