Why People Join Terrorist Groups in Kuwait: A Qualitative Examination

Qualitative interviews were conducted with nine members of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and Al-Qaeda currently incarcerated in Kuwait's Central Prison. The semistructured interviews attempted to understand psychosocial factors in Kuwait that contributed to their decision to join extremist organizations. Interviews were analyzed using Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) and the emergent themes identified the following core themes explaining their involvement: (1) religious identity development; (2) personal connections; (3) propaganda; (4) defense of Islam; and (5) social marginalization. Participants described a process whereby their religion became a central part of their personal identity. As their religious identity developed, they became involved in Islamic organizations where they met people involved with ISIS or Al-Qaeda. These social connections exposed them to jihadi propaganda which, in addition to increased military conflict in the Middle East, crystallized their beliefs that Islam is under attack, and they were religiously obligated to defend it. The results also identified societal factors that increased the probability of engaging in terrorism including relatively low levels of education, coming from low socioeconomic groups in Kuwait, and feeling socially marginalized by broader Kuwaiti society.     

Agreeableness and the common core of dark traits are functionally different constructs

The Dark Factor of Personality (D) has been suggested as the basic disposition underlying dark traits, thereby representing their common core. However, it has also been argued that such commonalities reflect the low pole of Agreeableness. The present study (N = 729) employed five established inventories to model the Agreeableness construct and considered seven theoretically derived criterion variables, including one behavioral outcome. Results indicate that Agreeableness and D exhibit a substantial, but far from perfect, association of r = −.64. Further, D incrementally improved the prediction of all but one criterion measure. These results speak against the notion that the commonalities of dark traits can be reduced to low Agreeableness and rather support the contention to consider Agreeableness and D as functionally distinct constructs.     

Do incompatible alternatives in a testimony affect witness credibility?

The qualitative regulation of grain size allows witnesses to increase the accuracy of their reports by adding alternatives (e.g., “the robber concealed his face with a mask, with a stocking, or with a balaclava”). However, such answers may include incompatible alternatives which may make police officers and juries distrust witnesses. In four preregistered experiments, we tested the effect of information with incompatible alternatives on witness credibility. In Experiments 1a, 1b, and 1c, we presented two short testimonies, one with incompatible alternatives and another without and credibility was lower with incompatible alternatives. In Experiment 2, we told participants that witnesses could report several alternatives and the effect was reduced. We explain the effect of incompatible alternatives on credibility from participants' inferences that a witness producing an answer with incompatible alternatives is not confident in their memory and a failure to fully appreciate the advantages of adding alternatives.     

Memory distortions: When suggestions cannot be easily ignored

In the present study, the persistence of personal false memories (FMs) after social feedback that denies their truth was assessed. Participants imitated actions performed by the experimenter (Session 1) and watched a doctored video with performed and critical “fake” actions (Session 2), followed by a memory rating and a recognition task. A few days later (Session 3), participants were clearly told that some memories were false and received daily reminders of the correct list of objects/actions before testing their memory again in Session 4. Results of both memory ratings and recognition indicated effective FM implantation. Interestingly, response times for correct rejections were longer for fake than true objects, suggesting participants struggled to ignore false suggestions. Crucial for our aim, Session 4 showed that FM persisted also after the debriefing and repeated presentations of correct list of objects/actions, suggesting that FMs for actions are rather difficult to discard.     

New Directions in the Conceptualization and Assessment of Personality—A Dynamic Systems Approach

In this paper, we demonstrate how an integrative approach to personality—one that combines within-person and between-person differences—can be achieved by drawing on the principles of dynamic systems theory. The dynamic systems perspective has the potential to reconcile both the stable and dynamic aspect of personality, it allows including different levels of analysis (i.e. traits and states), and it can account for regulatory mechanisms, as well as dynamic interactions between the elements of the system, and changes over time. While all of these features are obviously appealing, implementing a dynamic systems approach to personality is challenging. It requires new conceptual models, specific longitudinal research designs, and complex data analytical methods. In response to these issues, the first part of our paper discusses the Personality Dynamics model, a model that integrates the dynamic systems principles in a relatively straightforward way. Second, we review associated methodological and statistical tools that allow empirically testing the PersDyn model. Finally, the model and associated methodological and statistical tools are illustrated using an experience sampling methodology data set measuring Big Five personality states in 59 participants (N = 1916 repeated measurements). © 2020 The Authors. European Journal of Personality published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of European Association of Personality Psychology     

Examining children's ability to delay reward: Is the delay discounting task a suitable measure?

Discounting the value of delayed rewards has primarily been measured in children with the delay of gratification task and in adolescents and adults with the delay discounting task. In the present study, we assessed the suitability of the delay discounting task as a measure of temporal discounting in children. A sample of 7- to 9-year-olds (N = 98) completed a delay discounting task, a delay of gratification task, a sensation seeking measure, and IQ measures. In addition, teacher-based assessments of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder traits were measured. The results indicated that the majority of children produced meaningful data on the discounting task and discounted rewards hyperbolically. Children with an elevated risk of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder showed a trend towards discounting future rewards on the delay discounting task more steeply than did those at low risk. However, delay discounting was unrelated to either delay of gratification or sensation seeking. We interpret these results as providing some support for the use of delay discounting as a measure of intertemporal choice in children, although the results also suggest that delay discounting and delay of gratification tasks may tap different processes in this population.     

The influence of biased exposure to forgone outcomes

After making decisions, we often get feedback concerning forgone outcomes (what would have happened had we chosen differently). Yet, many times, our exposure to such feedback is systematically biased. For example, your friends are more likely to tell you about a party you missed if it was fun than if it was boring. Despite its prevalence, the effects of biased exposure to forgone outcomes on future choice have not been directly studied. In three studies (five experiments) using a simplified learning task, we study the basic influence of biased exposure to forgone outcomes in the extreme case in which decision makers can easily infer the missing information such that the biased exposure carries almost no informational value. The results in all studies suggest that nevertheless, the biased exposure to forgone outcomes affected choice. Exposure to forgone outcomes only when they were better than the obtained outcomes (Only-Better-Forgone) increased selections of the forgone option compared with exposure to forgone outcomes only when they were worse than the obtained outcome (Only-Worse-Forgone). Moreover, relative to an unbiased exposure to all forgone outcomes, the effect of exposure to Only-Worse-Forgone was larger than the effect of exposure to Only-Better-Forgone feedback. However, these effects were not universal: In environments that include rare negative events (“disasters”), biased exposure to forgone outcomes had very little effect. We raise potential explanations and further discuss implications for marketing and risk awareness.     

Reexamining the demand for HR certification in the United States

Given the addition of new Human Resources (HR) certification offerings by the Society for Human Resource Management and the increase in HR certifications being awarded by the HR Certification Institute, it is necessary to investigate the current rate of demand for HR certification and explore practical implications for those within the field. The current study analyzed over 5,300 HR job announcements and found 20.7% demanded (preferred and/or required) HR certification with more requiring HR certification than before. Additionally, HR certification demand was positively related to salary, experience, education level, and job title with demand reaching 33.7% for managerial HR roles.     

“自爱”指标与维度的初探——《四库全书》中“自爱”的心理学研究

从《四库全书》中检索到1700部涉及“自爱”的古籍,形成包含2370条句段的语料库并逐条进行内容分析。结果发现,自爱包含自我珍重、自我接纳与自我约束三个主要指标以及个我自爱、小我自爱与大我自爱三个主要维度。未来研究将依据我国社会文化和历史的脉络,结合新时代人们对自爱的理解,编制相应的测量工具,从而为健全人格养成服务。     

熊十力《新唯识论》的易学渊源与理论创新

研究《周易》生命哲学,单向度地从宇宙论演绎太极阴阳变化,或从心性论凸显易道生命实践的主体能动性,都无法实证宇宙大生命一体贯通的诚明合一之境。在熊十力哲学多元文化渊源和思想元素中,《周易》无疑是其哲学创新的最深邃的理论源泉和精神根基。宇宙本体与生命主体圆融为一,以生生之道涵化主体心灵,用主体心灵担当天地之情,成为熊十力《新唯识论》生命哲学理论突破的关键所在。