Depression Screening,Assessment, and Treatment for Patients with Coronary Heart Disease: A Review for Psychologists

Depression prevalence is between 15% and 20% in coronary heart disease patients, such as those with angina, or after a myocardial infarction or coronary artery bypass graft surgery. The presence of depression places a coronary heart disease patient at twofold higher risk for further major cardiac events and death, as well as poor quality of life and early exit from the labour force. As a consequence, several learned societies, including the National Heart Foundation of Australia, have published guidelines that recommend questionnaire screening to improve identification and management strategies for depression in coronary heart disease patients. Psychologists in hospitals, community settings, and private practice can have a key role in the realisation of the National Heart Foundation of Australia's aims. We review the recent guidelines and outline implications for psychologists to identify and manage depression in coronary heart disease patients. The evidence reviewed suggests that cognitive‐behavioural therapy and problem‐solving therapy are frontline non‐pharmacological interventions for depression in CHD patients.     

In which direction to move? Facilitative and interference effects of gestures on problem solver's thinking

Recent research shows that co-speech gestures can influence gesturers’ thought. This line of research suggests that the influence of gestures is so strong, that it can wash out and reverse an effect of learning. We argue that these findings need a more robust and ecologically valid test, which we provide in this article. Our results support the claim that gestures not only reflect information in our mental representations, but can also influence gesturer's thought by adding action information to one's mental representation during problem solving (Tower of Hanoi). We show, however, that the effect of gestures on subsequent performance is not as strong as previously suggested. As opposed to what previous research indicates, gestures' facilitative effect through learning was not nullified by the potentially interfering effect on subsequent problem-solving performance of incompatible gestures. To conclude, using gestures during problem solving seems to provide more benefits than costs for task performance.     

Parsing Heuristic and Forward Search in First‐Graders' Game‐Play Behavior

Seventy‐three children between 6 and 7 years of age were presented with a problem having ambiguous subgoal ordering. Performance in this task showed reliable fingerprints: (a) a non‐monotonic dependence of performance as a function of the distance between the beginning and the end‐states of the problem, (b) very high levels of performance when the first move was correct, and (c) states in which accuracy of the first move was significantly below chance. These features are consistent with a non‐Markov planning agent, with an inherently inertial decision process, and that uses heuristics and partial problem knowledge to plan its actions. We applied a statistical framework to fit and test the quality of a proposed planning model (Monte Carlo Tree Search). Our framework allows us to parse out independent contributions to problem‐solving based on the construction of the value function and on general mechanisms of the search process in the tree of solutions. We show that the latter are correlated with children's performance on an independent measure of planning, while the former is highly domain specific.     

The Impact of Analogies on Creative Concept Generation: Lessons From an In Vivo Study in Engineering Design

Research on innovation often highlights analogies from sources outside the current problem domain as a major source of novel concepts; however, the mechanisms underlying this relationship are not well understood. We analyzed the temporal interplay between far analogy use and creative concept generation in a professional design team's brainstorming conversations, investigating the hypothesis that far analogies lead directly to very novel concepts via large steps in conceptual spaces (jumps). Surprisingly, we found that concepts were more similar to their preceding concepts after far analogy use compared to baseline situations (i.e., without far analogy use). Yet far analogies increased the team's concept generation rate compared to baseline conditions. Overall, these results challenge the view that far analogies primarily lead to novel concepts via jumps in conceptual spaces and suggest alternative pathways from far analogies to novel concepts (e.g., iterative, deep exploration within a functional space).     

How great apes perform on a modified trap-tube task

To date, neither primates nor birds have shown clear evidence of causal knowledge when attempting to solve the trap tube task. One factor that may have contributed to mask the knowledge that subjects may have about the task is that subjects were only allowed to push the reward away from them, which is a particularly difficult action for primates in certain problem solving situations. We presented five orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus), two chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), two bonobos (Pan paniscus), and one gorilla (Gorilla gorilla) with a modified trap tube that allowed subjects to push or rake the reward with the tool. In two additional follow-up tests, we inverted the tube 180° rendering the trap nonfunctional and also presented subjects with the original task in which they were required to push the reward out of the tube. Results showed that all but one of the subjects preferred to rake the reward. Two orangutans and one chimpanzee (all of whom preferred to rake the reward), consistently avoided the trap only when it was functional but failed the original task. These findings suggest that some great apes may have some causal knowledge about the trap-tube task. Their success, however, depended on whether they were allowed to choose certain tool-using actions. Electronic Supplementary Material Supplementary material is available for this article at     

Ruminative and mindful self-focused processing modes and their impact on problem solving in dysphoric individuals

A mindful experiential rather than an analytical ruminative mode of information processing is beneficial in depression. However studies have not taken into account people’s trait mindfulness or trait rumination. This study aimed to examine the effects of state and trait analytical rumination and experiential mindfulness on affect and social problem solving (SPS). Participants filled in the trait mindfulness and trait rumination questionnaires. After mood induction, dysphoric participants with and without a history of depression were assessed for SPS and affect before and after induction of mindful (experiential) or ruminative (analytic) processing modes. Results showed trait mindfulness was negatively correlated with the BDI and trait rumination was positively correlated with the BDI. There was no significant difference between groups after the induced experiential mindful or analytical ruminative processing modes. However, participants who scored high on trait rumination showed significant improvement in SPS after induced mindfulness processing. No such effect was found on trait mindfulness. These findings suggest a useful way to prevent high trait ruminators from developing depressive symptoms or depression. Experiential mindful processing may help reduce the risk of developing depressive symptoms by increasing social problem solving ability in those with low mood and high levels of trait rumination.     

The Interactive Effects of Self‐Perceptions and Job Requirements on Creative Problem Solving

Over the years, researchers have focused on ways to facilitate creativity in the workplace by looking at individual factors and organizational factors that affect employee creativity (Woodman, Sawyer, & Griffin, 1993 ). In many cases, the factors that affect creativity are examined independently. In other words, it is uncommon for researchers to look at the interaction among individual and organizational factors. In this study, it is argued that to get a true understanding of how to maximize creativity in the workplace, organizational researchers must look at the interaction between organizational factors and individual factors that affect employee creativity. More specifically, the current study looked at an individual's perceptions about his or her ability to be creative (i.e., individual factor) and perceptions of requirements for creativity in the workplace (i.e., an organizational factor). The results indicated that individuals who have a high belief about their ability to be creative (an individual factor) were most creative when they also perceived requirements for creativity in the workplace (an organizational factor). Furthermore, individuals who had low perceptions of creative ability were still able to perform creatively when they had high perceptions of requirements for creativity. This suggests that, to maximize creativity, organizations should focus on both individual and organizational factors that affect employee creativity.     

Development of Social Problem Solving in Early Childhood: Stability,Change, and Associations With Social Competence

Kindergarten and 1st-grade boys were administered social cognitive interviews in 2 consecutive years to investigate the response-generation step of N. R. Crick and K. A. Dodge's (1994) social information processing model. Boys generated responses to 4 types of hypothetical social dilemmas. Responses to these situations were primarily prosocial, with a large minority of avoidant and antisocial solutions. In general, older boys provided more effective solutions than did their younger peers, and stabilities were modest but significant for subcategories of both prosocial and antisocial responses. Boys who were accepted by their peers provided more prosocial and effective solutions than did boys of lower peer status, but no status differences emerged for antisocial responses. The data also suggest that young children view aggression as an acceptable means to solving peer conflict.     

Effects of Emotional Factors Upon Recall

Bendig's (1) Pittsburgh Scales of Social Extraversion-Introversion (SEI) and Emotionality (Em) were translated so that they were of appropriate reading difficulty for children as well as for adults. The revised scales correlated highly (both .90) with the Pittsburgh scales, and they had high test-retest reliabilities (.92 and .89). Data from samples representing third grade to college ages were presented for the revised scales. SEI-Em correlations were nonsignificant for most subsamples, indicating that the revised SEI-Em scales are independent. Scale means were stable across ages. The revised scales should be considered as research instruments, since more representative normative data and validity data are still required. The scales should, though, facilitate developmental research in extraversion and emotionality.     

Social problem solving in early childhood: Developmental change and the influence of shyness

The purpose of this study was to examine developmental change and the influence of shyness on social problem-solving (SPS). At 24, 36, and 48 months, children (N = 570) were observed while interacting with an unfamiliar peer during an SPS task and at 24 months, maternal report of shyness was collected. Results showed that across the full sample, children displayed low but stable levels of withdrawn SPS and increasing levels of SPS competence over development. In addition, results showed multiple trajectories of withdrawn and competent SPS. Shyness was associated with high-increasing and high-decreasing withdrawn SPS trajectories compared with the low-increasing withdrawn SPS trajectory. Shyness was also associated with the low-increasing compared with the high-increasing SPS competence trajectory. Findings demonstrate the development of SPS competence over early childhood, and the influence of early shyness on this developmental course, with some shy children showing improvement in SPS skills and others continuing to show SPS difficulties over time.