Positive memory enhancement training for individuals with major depressive disorder

When in a negative mood state, individuals with major depressive disorder (MDD) may have difficulties recalling positive autobiographical memories in a manner that repairs that negative mood. Using cognitive bias modification techniques, investigators have successfully altered different aspects of cognition among individuals with MDD. However, little has been done to investigate the modification of positive autobiographical memory recall. This study examined the impact of a novel positive memory enhancement training (PMET) on the memories and subjective affective experiences of individuals with MDD (N = 27). Across a series of trials, participants first recalled a sad memory to elicit a negative mood state. They then recalled a happy memory and completed procedures to elicit a vivid, here-and-now quality of the memory. PMET procedures were hypothesized to promote mood repair via the recall of increasingly vivid and specific positive memories. PMET participants demonstrated improved memory specificity and greater perceived ability to “relive” positive memories. The procedures also repaired mood; PMET participants’ affect following recall of positive memories did not differ from control participants’ affect following recall of neutral memories. Results provide preliminary support for PMET as a method to improve the quality of positive memories and facilitate emotion regulation in MDD.     

材料生态性和性别因素对理解友好与敌对意图的影响

为考察材料生态性、被试性别和角色性别对理解友好与敌对意图的影响,分析了100名被试观察由2名男性或2名女性表演的三类互动意图的照片或卡通时的正确率和反应时。结果：理解真实人物的正确率高于虚拟角色;女性被试理解虚拟角色的反应时长于真实人物,而男性被试却未出现材料生态性差异;理解男性角色敌对意图的反应时短于女性角色的,而理解友好意图时却未出现角色性别差异。研究为负性偏向等理论提供实证证据,揭示材料生态性、角色性别对理解友好和敌对意图的影响机制。     

Support for Leader's Decisions in Conflict and Negotiation: Women Do Not Benefit From Relevant Expertise While Men Do

In the present research, we examined the role of leaders' domain‐specific expertise and gender as affecting individuals' evaluation of proposals related to intergroup conflict. Across three studies, conducted in two different conflict‐related contexts (Israeli‐Palestinian conflict and the refugee crisis in Europe), we showed that men and women do not equally benefit from domain‐specific expertise. Having high (compared to low) domain‐specific expertise positively affected participants' attitudes towards the proposal when its author was a man but not when she was a woman. We further demonstrate that specific characteristics of the proposal (i.e., security relevance) and of the participants (i.e., level of sexism) affect reactions to different negotiation proposals. Our findings suggest that even when women acquire relevant knowledge and experience, they do not benefit from them as much as men. One implication of these findings is that training and enhancing women's expertise may not be enough to eliminate gender bias.     

Introduction: education and migration

ABSTRACT

This introduction expounds educational problems that arise from transnational migration. It argues that it is high time to critically analyze normative issues of and in education under conditions of globalization because dominant approaches in normative philosophy of education tend to suffer from both a nationalist bias and a sedentary bias. The contributions to this special issue address normative problems pertaining to migration-related education from a variety of ethical and philosophical perspectives, including analytic applied ethics, continental philosophy, care ethics, Hegelian philosophy, the capability approach and theories of distributive justice. They discuss the education of both citizens and migrants in the receiving society as well as in the country of origin, focusing on ethical issues pertaining to access to education as well as to the content of educational programs.     

Approach-avoidance,attentional and evaluation biases in hair pulling disorder and their relationship with symptom severity

The present study examined approach-avoidance, attentional and evaluation biases in Hair Pulling Disorder (HPD). Although none of the tasks showed indications of biased action tendencies in response to hair pulling-related pictures, or biased attention for hair pulling-related words, we found that patients were slower to react to hair pulling-related stimuli than to neutral stimuli. This slowing down may indicate that patients are ambivalent towards hair pulling. This “ambivalence” positively correlated with HPD symptom severity, but only on one of the three severity measures we assessed. Concerning action tendencies towards hair pulling-related words, patients were, however, faster to react to hair pulling-related words when compared to words related to resisting hair pulling. Future research is needed to disentangle this ambivalent response pattern in HPD.     

Prototypes and same-gender bias in perceptions of hiring discrimination

The present study investigated the relative importance of two explanations behind perceptions of gender discrimination in hiring: prototypes and same-gender bias. According to the prototype explanation, people perceive an event as discrimination to the extent that it fits their preconceptions of typical discrimination. In contrast, the same-gender bias explanation asserts that people more readily detect discrimination toward members of their own gender. In four experiments (n = 797), women and men made considerably stronger discrimination attributions, and were moderately more discouraged from seeking work, when the victim was female rather than male. Further, a series of regressions analyses showed beliefs in discrimination of women to be moderately correlated with discrimination attributions of female victims, but little added explanatory value of participant gender, stigma consciousness, or feminist identification. The results offer strong support for the prototype explanation.     

Attentional bias during emotional processing: evidence from an emotional flanker task using IAPS

Attention is biased towards threat-related stimuli. In three experiments, we investigated the mechanisms, processes, and time course of this processing bias. An emotional flanker task simultaneously presented affective or neutral pictures from the international affective picture system database either as central response-relevant stimuli or surrounding response-uninformative flankers. Participants’ response times to central stimuli was measured. The attentional bias was observed when stimuli were presented either for 1500?ms (Experiment 1) or 500?ms (Experiment 2). The threat-related attentional bias held regardless of the stimuli competing for attention even when presentation time was further reduced to 200?ms (Experiment 3). The results indicate that automatic and controlled mechanisms may interact to modulate the orientation of attention to threat. The data presented here shed new light on the mechanisms, processes, and time course of this long investigated by still largely unknown processing bias.     

Examining the visual processing patterns of lonely adults

Prior research has shown that loneliness is associated with hypervigilance to social threats, with eye‐tracking research showing lonely people display a specific attentional bias when viewing social rejection and social exclusion video footage (Bangee, Harris, Bridges, Rotenberg & Qualter, 2014; Qualter, Rotenberg, Barrett et al ., 2013). The current study uses eye‐tracker methodology to examine whether that attentional bias extends to negative emotional faces and negative social non‐rejecting stimuli, or whether it could be explained only as a specific bias to social rejection/exclusion. It is important to establish whether loneliness relates to a specific or general attention bias because it may explain the maintenance of loneliness. Participants (N = 43, F = 35, M age = 20 years and 2 months, SD = 3 months) took part in three tasks, where they viewed different social information: Task 1 – slides displaying four faces each with different emotions (anger, afraid, happy and neutral), Task 2 – slides displaying sixteen faces with varying ratios expressing happiness and anger, and Task 3 – slides displaying four visual scenes (socially rejecting, physically threatening, socially positive, neutral). For all three tasks, eye movements were recorded in real time with an eye‐tracker. Results showed no association between loneliness and viewing patterns of facial expressions, but an association between loneliness and hypervigilant viewing of social rejecting stimuli. The findings indicate that lonely adults do not have a generalised hypervigilance to social threat, but have, instead, a specific attentional bias to rejection information in social contexts. Implications of the findings for interventions are discussed.     

Effects of exposure to alcohol‐related cues on racial discrimination

Prior research has shown that exposure to alcohol‐related images exacerbates expression of implicit racial biases, and that brief exposure to alcohol‐related words increases aggressive responses. However, the potential for alcohol cue exposure to elicit differential aggression against a Black (outgroup) relative to a White (ingroup) target—that is, racial discrimination—has never been investigated. Here, we found that White participants (N = 92) exposed to alcohol‐related words made harsher judgments of a Black experimenter who had frustrated them than participants who were exposed to nonalcohol words. These findings suggest that exposure to alcohol cues increases discriminatory behaviors toward Blacks.     

情绪背景和社会预期对社会经济决策行为的影响

采用最后通牒博弈范式,探讨不同情绪背景对社会经济决策中社会预期效应的影响。以90名大学生为被试,利用不同效价的电影片段(正性、负性和中性)诱发相应的目标情绪。通过操作社会规范性信息启动被试对分配方案公平性的不同预期。结果发现:在负性和中性情绪背景下,高预期组更倾向于拒绝接受不公平分配。在正性情绪背景下,高预期组和低预期组面对不公平提议时的接受率没有显著差异。结果表明正性情绪背景使社会预期效应发生改变,回应者对分配方案的高预期不再对决策结果产生显著影响。