A gentle reminder that mean does not imply modal behavior: Few are in-group biased in minimal groups

Previous research reports that people organized into newly formed, arbitrary groups (i.e., minimal groups) are on average in-group biased. However, that people on average behave in a certain way does not imply that most people behave that way. Here, I report four studies (n = 224) demonstrating in-group biased average behaviors driven by a minority of about 30% participants. Further, only 14% reported allocating resources in a group-biased manner because they “favored the in-group.” I investigate and discuss how methodological issues related to non-normally distributed data, not taking participants’ intentions into account, and using fixed response matrices can lead to overestimations of how widespread in-group bias is in minimal groups.     

La reprise d’études universitaires : entre continuité et rupture

The presented study pursued the objective to analyze the dialectic break/continuity susceptible to cross the transition of resumption of studies to the university, of the decision-making in the real-life experience of the first one-month of training. For that purpose, two models were summoned, that of motivations Push/Pull, Antipush/Antipull of Mullet, Lunch, Lemaire, Raiff and Barthorpe (2000) and that of the transitional processes proposed by Perret-Clermont and Zittoun (2002), as well as the concept of perceived social support completed of the notion of perceived social brake. The analysis of semi-directive conversations led with 10 adults in resumption of studies in a university of Île-de-France first brought to the foreground four motivational, certain dynamics more marked with the seal of the break (early or consummate), others more registered in a professional continuity (to develop or to install). Then, the analysis identified the most notable upheavals of the experience of the first months of training (identity plan and management of the various spheres of activity). Finally, it appeared that the social supports perceived, although important throughout the transition, vary in nature and function in each of the two periods of transition studied (decision, beginning of training). The results are particularly discussed in terms of Amartya Sen's capability approach.     

Unrealistic representations of “the self”: A cognitive neuroscience assessment of anosognosia for memory deficit

Three cognitive components may play a crucial role in both memory awareness and in anosognosia for memory deficit (AMD): (1) a personal data base (PDB), i.e., a memory store that contains “semantic” representations about the self, (2) monitoring processes (MPs) and (3) an explicit evaluation system (EES), or comparator, that assesses and binds the representations stored in the PDB with information obtained from the environment.We compared both the behavior and the functional connectivity (as assessed by resting-state fMRI) of AMD patients with aware patients and healthy controls. We found that AMD is associated with an impoverished PDB, while MPs are necessary to successfully update the PDB.AMD was associated with reduced functional connectivity within both the default-mode network and in a network that includes the left lateral temporal cortex, the hippocampus and the insula. The reduced connectivity between the hippocampus and the insular cortex was correlated with AMD severity.     

Working psychodynamically and psychosocially with women who have been raped

In this paper, I analyse aspects of the experience of some female University students who have been raped drawing on a Kleinian psychoanalytic perspective and Layton’s concept of ‘normative unconscious processes’. I suggest that Klein’s writing provides a theoretical basis for thinking about the projective and introjective processes that may be at play between perpetrator and ‘victim’. Here, I focus upon Kleinian conceptualisations of castration anxiety, fragmentation, envy, greed and guilt. In terms of ‘normative unconscious processes’, I explore how castration anxiety (in a more symbolic sense of powerlessness), fragmentation, envy, greed and guilt may also operate within social discourses around sexual violence. Specifically, I draw upon Freyd’s concept of DARVO and Payne’s Rape Myth Acceptance Scale which both explain ‘victim blaming’ in terms of the social reversal of the positions of perpetrator and ‘victim’. I illustrate this social process with reference to representations of rape within the mainstream media. My hypothesis is that, although the ‘psychic’ and the ‘social’ are two contrasting positions theoretically, it is possible to draw on both of them to make sense of the experience of working with rape clinically.

The clinical context of this paper is my work as a psychodynamic counsellor at a modern London-based University. I draw on composite case studies of women who have been raped, drawing on both ‘psychic’ and ‘social’ perspectives. I seek to explore how the ‘psychic’ and the ‘social’ can be integrated in different ways depending upon the clinical situation. I suggest that they can be mutually enriching ways of working. Through approaching how the ‘psychic’ and the ‘social’ might interrelate from a clinical viewpoint, I conclude that the idea of ‘working psychosocially’ is of most use when approached as a flexible concept that different clinicians may draw on in different ways with different patients.     

The distinct contributions of cause–effect order and reasoning type in judgments of causality

ABSTRACT

People generally perceive a stronger link between smoking and cancer than between cancer and smoking. Generally, prior research on asymmetrical causal reasoning has not distinguished predictive (searching for effects) and diagnostic reasoning (searching for causes) from the order in which causes and effects are presented. Across 6 studies (overall N = 627), we show that order and reasoning have an additive influence on the causality perception: causes, spatially or temporally presented before the effect, strengthen the causality attribution associated to predictive (vs. diagnostic) frames. Moreover, we show that order and reasoning frame are bi-directionally related, as the cause-first order triggers predictive reasoning and vice versa, and people mentally maintain the cause-first order when envisaging a causal relation. Besides its methodological contribution to the causal reasoning literature, this research demonstrates the powerful role of word order in causal reasoning. Implications for the role of word order in communication and risk prevention are discussed.     

Estimating Age-Based Developmental Trajectories Using Latent Change Score Models Based on Measurement Occasion

Abstract

Accelerated longitudinal designs (ALDs) are designs in which participants from different cohorts provide repeated measures covering a fraction of the time range of the study. ALDs allow researchers to study developmental processes spanning long periods within a relatively shorter time framework. The common trajectory is studied by aggregating the information provided by the different cohorts. Latent change score (LCS) models provide a powerful analytical framework to analyze data from ALDs. With developmental data, LCS models can be specified using measurement occasion as the time metric. This provides a number of benefits, but has an important limitation: It makes it not possible to characterize the longitudinal changes as a function of a developmental process such as age or biological maturation. To overcome this limitation, we propose an extension of an occasion-based LCS model that includes age differences at the first measurement occasion. We conducted a Monte Carlo study and compared the results of including different transformations of the age variable. Our results indicate that some of the proposed transformations resulted in accurate expectations for the studied process across all the ages in the study, and excellent model fit. We discuss these results and provide the R code for our analysis.