An empirical analysis of lay conceptions of memory domains

Although experts consider memory in terms of different domains (e.g., short-term memory, spatial memory), little is known about the way in which lay people conceive memory domains. Study 1 addressed this issue by asking 79 French lay people to group together 125 memory situations (previously generated by lay people) according to their similarity. Study 2 used a similar procedure with 99 American lay people and 40 different memory situations. Hierarchical cluster analyses revealed five main memory domains common to the two studies: learn a set of things and recall them later, episodic and detailed memory, autobiographical memory, memory for day-to-day living, and failure to remember. Study 1 revealed a further domain: memory for intellectual and exact knowledge. Identifying these shared lay conceptions of memory provides insights into how lay people communicate about memory and will enable the construction of memory self-evaluation measures that are more representative of all memory domains.     

风险决策中的领域特异性

风险领域特异性指某特定领域内的风险决策和偏好可能会受到领域内特有的风险因素影响, 因而会导致领域特异性的行为。基于期望法则的风险决策理论认为, 风险倾向具有跨情境的稳定性。但近20年行为决策领域的证据表明, 风险倾向具有领域特异性, 其机制探索、测量工具和影响因素方面均取得了积极进展。从机制探索历程来看, 以往主流机制着重从风险−回报框架解构领域特异性的风险行为, 近年研究在丰富其机制检验证据的同时, 开始从进化、人格、动机等新的视角进行解读; 在测量工具层面, 领域特异性风险量表仍占主导地位, 并在多种文化、内容领域和群体间得到了进一步检验和扩展, 其他基于不同内容领域划分的风险领域特异性量表也具有较好的信效度; 在影响因素层面, 大量研究从遗传、环境、个体差异等角度探索了导致风险领域特异性的前因变量。未来研究方向应注重整合各风险内容领域, 在更加细化的风险领域检验现有理论, 并进一步探索个体层面的领域特异性规律。     

睡眠限制对认知功能的影响及其潜在作用机制

睡眠限制已然成为现代社会人们普遍面临的问题, 其对个体身心机能的影响备受研究者关注。众多研究表明, 睡眠限制会对注意功能、执行功能和长时记忆等不同认知领域的心理加工产生差异化影响, 且影响程度与任务类型、睡眠限制的严重程度、年龄和性别等因素相关。研究者们提出了4种主要的作用假说：唤醒假说、注意控制假说、警觉性假说以及前额皮层易感性假说。未来研究需要从关注个体间差异、使用动脉自旋标记灌注功能磁共振成像技术以及重视轻度睡眠限制的影响等角度进行深化和扩展。     

The Kaufman Domains of Creativity Scale: Turkish Validation and Relationship to Academic Major

One common self-assessment of creativity is the Kaufman Domains of Creativity Scale (K-DOCS). This article provides support for a Turkish translation of the instrument, offering exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis to determine whether the factors were consistent across cultures. The participants consisted of two groups. The first group consisted of 1,260 undergraduate students (912 females, 348 males) at a public university in Turkey and was utilized for the principal axis factoring analysis. Horn's parallel analysis, a robust statistical technique, was employed to determine the number of factors to be extracted from a scale. The second group consisted of 1,215 participants (885 females and 330 males) who were utilized for confirmatory factor analysis. Results supported a nine-factor solution as a better fit for this sample than the five-solution originally used by Kaufman. Of the original five factors, four factors were divided into two sub-factors, which were distinct although moderately correlated. Finally, we determined the relationship between K-DOCS factors and college major. We also found good evidence for the construct, discriminant, and convergent validity of the scale. Relationships between K-DOCS factors and college major were largely consistent with predictions, providing additional evidence for the construct validity of the scale.     

The structure of feared social situations among individuals with a lifetime diagnosis of social anxiety disorder in two independent nationally representative mental health surveys

The present study employed both exploratory and confirmatory factor analytic approaches with nationally representative samples of individuals with a lifetime diagnosis of social anxiety disorder (n=1123; n=3091, respectively) using split-halves of the National Comorbidity Replication Survey (n=9282) and cross-validated with the Canadian Community Health Survey on Mental Health and Wellbeing (n=36,984). Strong support was found for a three-factor solution. This model was obtained from exploratory factor analysis and was further evaluated using two confirmatory factor analytic investigations in the two national samples. The three social situational domains reflected (1) Social Interaction Fears, (2) Observation Fears, and (3) Public Speaking Fears. Individuals with generalized social anxiety disorder (i.e., those who endorsed 7 or more of 13 feared social situations assessed in the survey) were significantly more likely to report Social Interaction Fears and Observation Fears compared to individuals with non-generalized social anxiety disorder (i.e., those who endorsed only 6 or fewer of 13 feared social situations). Individuals with generalized social anxiety were particularly characterized by combinations of Public Speaking Fears plus Social Interaction Fears and Observation Fears. The clinical and classification implications of our study for DSM-V are discussed.     

VIOLENCE AND MORALITY: The Concession of Loss in A Ghanaian Fishing Village

When African migrants disappear on the Mediterranean going to Europe they often leave no trace—except for the occasional bodies that wash ashore on the beaches of southern Europe. In this essay, the urgent social and existential ramifications of migrant fatalities on the sea are explored. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in a small Ghanaian fishing village on the coast of the Gulf of Guinea, it is discussed how the bereaved struggle to make sense of these deaths to high‐risk migration—how they struggle to deal with devastating loss while retaining a sense of moral order.     

Collective Trauma From the Lab to the Real World: The Effects of the Holocaust on Contemporary Israeli Political Cognitions

This research tested whether chronic or contextually activated Holocaust exposure is associated with more extreme political attitudes among Israeli Jews. Study 1 (N = 57), and Study 2 (N = 61) found that Holocaust primes increased support for aggressive policies against a current adversary and decreased support for political compromise via an amplified sense of identification with Zionist ideology. These effects, however, were obtained only under an exclusive but not an inclusive framing of the Holocaust. Study 3 (N = 152) replicated these findings in a field study conducted around Holocaust Remembrance Day and showed that the link between Holocaust exposure, ideological identification, and militancy also occurs in real‐life settings. Study 4 (N = 867) demonstrated in a nationally representative survey that Holocaust survivors and their descendants exhibited amplified existential threat responses to contemporary political violence, which were associated with militancy and opposition to peaceful compromises. Together, these studies illustrate the Holocaustization of Israeli political cognitions 70 years later.     

Mood over matter: can happiness be your undoing?

Existing empirical literature has typically treated meaning and purpose as identical. Based on previous theoretical propositions of these two constructs as distinct, we hypothesized that meaning (defined as a sense of comprehension and significance in life) and purpose (defined as a sense of goals, aims, and direction in life) would have different predictors and correlates. We utilized a longitudinal design and collected data from 167 cancer survivors at two time points one year apart. Although meaning and purpose were strongly correlated, they had different predictors and correlates. Regression analyses showed Time 2 meaning was predicted by Time 1 spirituality, whereas Time 2 purpose was predicted by Time 1 social support. At Time 2, meaning was positively correlated with posttraumatic growth and negatively with posttraumatic depreciation, whereas purpose was negatively correlated with intrusive thoughts pertaining to cancer. Implications of an understanding of meaning and purpose as distinct constructs are discussed.