Establishing a Valid,Reliable, and Efficient Chart Review Process for Research in Pediatric Integrated Primary Care Psychology

Journal of Clinical Psychology in Medical Settings - Retrospective chart review is an accessible form of research that is commonly used across medical fields but is underutilized in behavioral...     

On self-referencing differences in judgment and choice

Compared to judgment, choice is argued to elicit more self-referent processing and thereby produce greater subsequent recall of evaluated information. This response mode effect is shown to be dependent upon sufficient visualization to overcome the use of heuristic processing during choice. When visualizing prior to the task, choice leads to increased thinking about personal consumption occasions relative to judgment, leading to enhanced recall of vivid (vs. non-vivid) attributes. This proposed interaction of task and visualization was found in two experiments that assessed incidental recall following a choice or judgment task. In experiment 1, participants recalled more vivid product attribute information after choosing between options than after rating each option separately, but only when instructed to visualize during evaluation. To eliminate a comparison-based explanation of this effect, a second experiment was conducted that presented only one option in each category. Participants who evaluated their intention to purchase the option (a judgment equivalent of choice) demonstrated greater recall of vivid product attribute information than did participants who rated their liking for the option, and this recall difference was again moderated by instructions to visualize.     

The Heart and the Head: On Choosing Experiences Intuitively and Possessions Deliberatively

An enduring question in the field of judgment and decision making is when people are likely to choose on the basis of intuition and when they are likely to pursue a more deliberative decision strategy. Here, we attempt to shed light on that question by examining whether people tend to weight intuition more heavily when making experiential purchases, and to weight deliberation more heavily when making material purchases. Results from seven studies indicate that they do. In Study 1 (and a replication), participants expressed an explicit preference for choosing experiential purchases intuitively and material purchases analytically. In Study 2 (and a replication), participants anticipated experiencing more regret after going against reason for material purchases and going against intuition for experiential purchases. Participants in Study 3 who were asked to think about an experiential purchase wanted to see the relevant information presented by alternative, which facilitates intuitive/holistic processing, more than did those who were asked to consider a material purchase. In two additional studies, participants who were induced to think intuitively chose experiential purchases more often (Study 4) and reported a higher willingness to pay for them (Study 5) compared with participants induced to think analytically. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Fatigue following Paediatric Acquired Brain Injury and its Impact on Functional Outcomes: A Systematic Review

Fatigue is a commonly reported sequela following an acquired brain injury (ABI), and can have a negative impact on many areas of a child’s life. However, there is minimal research that focuses on fatigue specifically, and so factors such as its occurrence, duration, and impact on functioning remain uncertain. This systematic review aims to provide a comprehensive summary of the research to date, bringing together a number of studies with a focus on paediatric ABI and fatigue. Terms were searched in relevant databases (PsycInfo, Medline, CINAHL), and articles were included or excluded based on specified criteria. Of the 1177 papers identified in the original search, a total of 9 papers met inclusion criteria, and were categorised as traumatic brain injury (TBI; n?=?4), meningitis and meningococcal disease (n?=?2), brain tumours (n?=?2), and mixed ABI group (n?=?1). Key findings suggest that fatigue is a problem encountered by a significant proportion of patients in all the studies reviewed, and often occurred regardless of the cause; fatigue was also associated with poor academic achievement, limited physical activity, and social and emotional problems. Injuries of greater severity were associated with higher levels of fatigue and worse outcomes. Several management options were suggested, though their efficacy was not reported. Future research is required with a suggested focus on using multiple time points to better understand the trajectories of fatigue following childhood ABI, and to build an evidence base to determine which management options are most suitable.     

Comparison, Grouping, and Preference

How does the attractiveness of a particular option depend on comparisons drawn between it and other alternatives? We observe that in many cases, comparisons hurt: When the options being compared have both meaningful advantages and meaningful disadvantages, comparison between options makes each option less attractive. The effects of comparison are crucial in choice problems involving grouped options, because the way in which options are grouped influences which comparisons are likely to be made. In particular, we propose that grouping focuses comparison, making within-group comparisons more likely than between-group comparisons. Consistent with this prediction, experimental results showed that grouping hurts: An option is more likely to be chosen when alone than when part of a group.     

Similarity between hypotheses and evidence

We explore two novel consequences of similarity-based likelihood judgment. In Section I, we distinguish between the evidence on which judgments are based and the hypotheses that serve as the objects of judgment. The location of a feature, whether in the evidence or the hypotheses, influences the perceived similarity between evidence and hypotheses and consequently yields judgments that are inconsistent with the requirements of probability theory. In Section II, we examine judgment of disjunctive hypotheses. For certain types of disjunctions, the assessment of similarity produces consistent nonmonotonicities: the support of a disjunction is smaller than that of one of its components. Finally, we discuss the implications of our findings in terms of support theory and the principle of context independence.     

The fine line between interrogation and retribution

The use of harsh interrogation techniques on terrorism suspects is typically justified on utilitarian grounds. The present research suggests, however, that those who support such techniques are fuelled by retributive motives. An experimental study conducted with a broad national sample of US residents found that the desire for harsh interrogation is largely isomorphic with the desire to punish, and that both effects are mediated by the perceived moral status of the target, but not the perceived effectiveness of the interrogation. Results are discussed with regard to retributive justice and the national policy on interrogation and torture.