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Background:
Cyberhate is a growing form of online aggression against a person or a group based on race, ethnicity, nationality, sexual orientation, gender, religion, or disability. The present study aims to examine psychometric properties of the Coping with Cyberhate Questionnaire, the prevalence of coping strategies in Spanish adolescents, differences in coping strategies based in sex, age, and victim status, and the association between coping with cyberhate and adolescents' mental well-being.
Method:
The sample consisted of 1,005 adolescents between 12 and 18 years old (Mage = 14.28 years, SD = 1.63; 51.9% girls) who completed self-report measures on coping strategies, victimization status, and mental well-being.
Results:
The results of confirmatory factor analyses showed a structure for the Coping with Cyberhate Questionnaire composed of six factors, namely Distal advice, Assertiveness, Helplessness/Selfblame, Close support, Technical coping, and Retaliation. It demonstrated acceptable internal consistency. The three most frequently endorsed coping strategies were Technical coping, Close support, and Assertiveness. In addition, lower Helplessness/Self-blame, and higher Close-support, Assertiveness, and Distal advice were significantly related to adolescents' better mental well-being.
Conclusion:
Prevention programs that educate adolescents about how to deal with cyberhate are needed.
"Left" and "right" coordinates control our spatial behavior and even influence abstract thoughts. For number concepts, horizontal spatial-numerical associations (SNAs) have been widely documented: we associate few with left and many with right. Importantly, increments are universally coded on the right side even in preverbal humans and nonhuman animals, thus questioning the fundamental role of directional cultural habits, such as reading or finger counting. Here, we propose a biological, nonnumerical mechanism for the origin of SNAs on the basis of asymmetric tuning of animal brains for different spatial frequencies (SFs). The resulting selective visual processing predicts both universal SNAs and their context-dependence. We support our proposal by analyzing the stimuli used to document SNAs in newborns for their SF content. As predicted, the SFs contained in visual patterns with few versus many elements preferentially engage right versus left brain hemispheres, respectively, thus predicting left-versus rightward behavioral biases. Our "brain's asymmetric frequency tuning" hypothesis explains the perceptual origin of horizontal SNAs for nonsymbolic visual numerosities and might be extensible to the auditory domain.
Children's participation in legal proceedings affecting them personally has been gaining importance. So far, a primary research concern has been how children experience their participation in court proceedings. However, little is known about the child's voice itself: Are children able to clearly express their wishes, and if so, what do they say in child protection cases? In this study, we extracted information about children's statements from court file data of 220 child protection cases in Germany. We found 182 children were asked about their wishes. The majority of the statements found came either from reports of the guardians ad litem or from judicial records of the child hearings. Using content analysis, three main aspects of the statements were extracted: wishes concerning main place of residence, wishes about whom to have or not contact with, and children granting decision-making authority to someone else. Children's main focus was on their parents, but others (e.g., relatives and foster care providers) were also mentioned. Intercoder agreement was substantial. Making sure that child hearings are as informative as possible is in the child's best interest. Therefore, the categories developed herein might help professionals to ask questions more precisely relevant to the child.
Author summary <br /> Switching between local and global attention is a general strategy in human information processing. We investigate whether this strategy is a viable approach to model sequences of fixations generated by a human observer in a free viewing task with natural scenes. Variants of the basic model are used to predict the experimental data based on Bayesian inference. Results indicate a high predictive power for both aggregated data and individual differences across observers. The combination of a novel model with state-of-the-art Bayesian methods lends support to our two-state model using local and global internal attention states for controlling eye movements. <br /> Understanding the decision process underlying gaze control is an important question in cognitive neuroscience with applications in diverse fields ranging from psychology to computer vision. The decision for choosing an upcoming saccade target can be framed as a selection process between two states: Should the observer further inspect the information near the current gaze position (local attention) or continue with exploration of other patches of the given scene (global attention)? Here we propose and investigate a mathematical model motivated by switching between these two attentional states during scene viewing. The model is derived from a minimal set of assumptions that generates realistic eye movement behavior. We implemented a Bayesian approach for model parameter inference based on the model's likelihood function. In order to simplify the inference, we applied data augmentation methods that allowed the use of conjugate priors and the construction of an efficient Gibbs sampler. This approach turned out to be numerically efficient and permitted fitting interindividual differences in saccade statistics. Thus, the main contribution of our modeling approach is two-fold; first, we propose a new model for saccade generation in scene viewing. Second, we demonstrate the use of novel methods from Bayesian inference in the field of scan path modeling.
Schema modes (ormodes) are a key concept in the theory underlying schema therapy. Modes have rarely been related to established models of personality traits. The present study thus investigates the associations between trait emotional intelligence (TEI) and 14 modes, and tests a global TEI-mode factors-general psychological distress mediation model. The study draws on self-report data from 173 inpatients from a German clinic for psychosomatic medicine. Global TEI correlated positively with both healthy modes (happy child and healthy adult) and negatively with 10 maladaptive modes. When modes were regressed on the four TEI factors, six (emotionality), five (well-being), four (sociability), and four (self-control) significant partial effects on 10 modes emerged. In the parallel mediation model, the mode factors internalization and compulsivity fully mediated the global TEI-general psychological distress link. Implications of the results for the integration of modes with traits in general and with TEI in particular as well as implications of low TEI as a transdiagnostic feature of personality malfunctioning are discussed.
The PhD thesis entitled “Actions through the lens of communicative cues. The influence of verbal cues and emotional cues on action processing and action selection in the second year of life” is based on four studies, which examined the cognitive integration of another person’s communicative cues (i.e., verbal cues, emotional cues) with behavioral cues in 18- and 24-month-olds. In the context of social learning of instrumental actions, it was investigated how the intention-related coherence of either a verbally announced action intention or an emotionally signaled action evaluation with an action demonstration influenced infants’ neuro-cognitive processing (Study I) and selection (Studies II, III, IV) of a novel object-directed action. Developmental research has shown that infants benefit from another’s behavioral cues (e.g., action effect, persistency, selectivity) to infer the underlying goal or intention, respectively, of an observed action (e.g., Cannon & Woodward, 2012; Woodward, 1998). Particularly action effects support infants in distinguishing perceptual action features (e.g., target object identity, movement trajectory, final target object state) from conceptual action features such as goals and intentions. However, less is known about infants’ ability to cognitively integrate another’s behavioral cues with additional action-related communicative cues. There is some evidence showing that in the second year of life, infants selectively imitate a novel action that is verbally (“There!”) or emotionally (positive expression) marked as aligning with the model’s action intention over an action that is verbally (“Whoops!”) or emotionally (negative expression) marked as unintentional (Carpenter, Akhtar, & Tomasello, 1998; Olineck & Poulin-Dubois, 2005, 2009; Repacholi, 2009; Repacholi, Meltzoff, Toub, & Ruba, 2016). Yet, it is currently unclear which role the specific intention-related coherence of a communicative cue with a behavioral cue plays in infants’ action processing and action selection that is, whether the communicative cue confirms, contrasts, clarifies, or is unrelated to the behavioral cue. Notably, by using both verbal cues and emotional cues, we examined not only two domains of communicative cues but also two qualitatively distinct relations between behavioral cues on the one hand and communicative cues on the other hand. More specifically, a verbal cue has the potential to communicate an action intention in the absence of an action demonstration and thus a prior-intention (Searle, 1983), whereas an emotional cue evaluates an ongoing or past action demonstration and thus signals an intention-in-action (Searle, 1983). In a first research focus, this thesis examined infants’ capacity to cognitively integrate another’s intention-related communicative cues and behavioral cues, and also focused on the role of the social cues’ coherence in infants’ action processing and action selection. In a second research focus, and to gain more elaborate insights into how the sub-processes of social learning (attention, encoding, response; cf. Bandura, 1977) are involved in this coherence-sensitive integrative processing, we employed a multi-measures approach. More specifically, we used Electroencephalography (EEG) and looking times to examine how the cues’ coherence influenced the compound of attention and encoding, and imitation (including latencies to first-touch and first-action) to address the compound of encoding and response. Based on the action-reconstruction account (Csibra, 2007), we predicted that infants use extra-motor information (i.e., communicative cues) together with behavioral cues to reconstruct another’s action intention. Accordingly, we expected infants to possess a flexibly organized internal action hierarchy, which they adapt according to the cues’ coherence that is, according to what they inferred to be the overarching action goal. More specifically, in a social-learning situation that comprised an adult model, who demonstrated an action on a novel object that offered two actions, we expected the demonstrated action to lead infants’ action hierarchy when the communicative (i.e., verbal, emotional) cue conveyed similar (confirming coherence) or no additional (un-related coherence) intention-related information relative to the behavioral cue. In terms of action selection, this action hierarchy should become evident in a selective imitation of the demonstrated action. However, when the communicative cue questioned (contrasting coherence) the behaviorally implied action goal or was the only cue conveying meaningful intention-related information (clarifying coherence), the verbally/emotionally intended action should ascend infants’ action hierarchy. Consequently, infants’ action selection should align with the verbally/emotionally intended action (goal emulation). Notably, these predictions oppose the direct-matching perspective (Rizzolatti & Craighero, 2004), according to which the observation of another’s action directly resonates with the observer’s motor repertoire, with this motor resonance enabling the identification of the underlying action goal. Importantly, the direct-matching perspective predicts a rather inflexible action hierarchy inasmuch as the process of goal identification should solely rely on the behavioral cue, irrespective of the behavioral cue’s coherence with extra-motor intention-related information, as it may be conveyed via communicative cues. As to the role of verbal cues, Study I used EEG to examine the influence of a confirming (Congruent) versus contrasting (Incongruent) coherence of a verbal action intention with the same action demonstration on 18-month-olds’ conceptual action processing (as measured via mid-latency mean negative ERP amplitude) and motor activation (as measured via central mu-frequency band power). The action was demonstrated on a novel object that offered two action alternatives from a neutral position. We expected mid-latency ERP negativity to be enhanced in Incongruent compared to Congruent, because past EEG research has demonstrated enhanced conceptual processing for stimuli that mismatched rather than matched the semantic context (Friedrich & Friederici, 2010; Kaduk et al., 2016). Regarding motor activation, Csibra (2007) posited that the identification of a clear action goal constitutes a crucial basis for motor activation to occur. We therefore predicted reduced mu power (indicating enhanced motor activation) for Congruent than Incongruent, because in Congruent, the cues’ match provides unequivocal information about the model’s action goal, whereas in Incongruent, the conflict may render the model’s action goal more unclear. Unexpectedly, in the entire sample, 18-month-olds’ mid-latency ERP negativity during the observation of the same action demonstration did not differ significantly depending on whether this action was congruent or incongruent with the model’s verbal action intention. Yet, post hoc analyses revealed the presence of two subgroups of infants, each of which exhibited significantly different mid-latency ERP negativity for Congruent versus Incongruent, but in opposing directions. The subgroups differed in their productive action-related language skills, with the linguistically more advanced infants exhibiting the expected response pattern of enhanced ERP mean negativity in Incongruent than Congruent, indicating enhanced conceptual processing of an action demonstration that was contrasted rather than confirmed by the verbal action context. As expected, central mu power in the entire sample was reduced in Congruent relative to Incongruent, indicating enhanced motor activation when the action demonstration was preceded by a confirming relative to a contrasting verbal action intention. This finding may indicate the covert preparation for a preferential imitation of the congruent relative to the incongruent action (Filippi et al., 2016; Frey & Gerry, 2006). Overall, these findings are in line with the action-reconstruction account (Csibra, 2007), because they suggest a coherence-sensitive attention to and encoding of the same perceptual features of another’s behavior and thus a cognitive integration of intention-related verbal cues and behavioral cues. Yet, because the subgroup constellation in infants’ ERPs was only discovered post hoc, future research is clearly required to substantiate this finding. Also, future research should validate our interpretation that enhanced motor activation may reflect an electrophysiological marker of subsequent imitation by employing EEG and imitation in a within-subjects design. Study II built on Study I by investigating the impact of coherence of a verbal cue and a behavioral cue on 18- and 24-month-olds’ action selection in an imitation study. When infants of both age groups observed a confirming (Congruent) or unrelated (Pseudo-word: action demonstration was associated with novel verb-like cue) coherence, they selectively imitated the demonstrated action over the not demonstrated, alternative action, with no difference between these two conditions. These findings suggest that, as expected, infants’ action hierarchy was led by the demonstrated action when the verbal cue provided similar (Congruent) or no additional (Pseudo-word) intention-related information relative to a meaningful behavioral cue. These findings support the above-mentioned interpretation that enhanced motor activation during action observation may reflect a covert preparation for imitation (Study I). Interestingly, infants did not seem to benefit from the intention-highlighting effect of the verbal cue in Congruent, suggesting that the verbal cue had an unspecific (e.g., attention-guiding) effect on infants’ action selection. Contrary, when infants observed a contrasting (Incongruent) or clarifying (Failed-attempt: model failed to manipulate the object but verbally announced a certain action intention) coherence, their action selection varied with age and also varied across the course of the experiment (block 1 vs. block 2). More specifically, the 24-month-olds made stronger use of the verbal cue for their action selection in block 1 than did the 18-month-olds. However, while the 18-month-olds’ use of the verbal cue increased across blocks, particularly in Incongruent, the 24-month-olds’ use of the verbal cue decreased across blocks. Overall, these results suggest that, as expected, infants’ action hierarchy in Incongruent (both age groups) and Failed-attempt (only 24-month-olds) drew on the verbal action intention, because in both age groups, infants emulated the verbal intention about as often as they imitated the demonstrated action or even emulated the verbal action intention preferentially. Yet, these findings were confined to certain blocks. It may be argued that the younger age group had a harder time inferring and emulating the intended, yet never observed action, because this requirement is more demanding in cognitive and motor terms. These demands may explain why the 18-month-olds needed some time to take account of the verbal action intention. Contrary, it seems that the 24-month-olds, although demonstrating their principle capacity to take account of the verbal cue in block 1, lost trust in the model’s verbal cue, maybe because the verbal cue did not have predictive value for the model’s actual behavior. Supporting this interpretation, research on selective trust has demonstrated that already infants evaluate another’s reliability or competence, respectively, based on how that model handles familiar objects (behavioral reliability) or labels familiar objects (verbal reliability; for reviews, see Mills, 2013; Poulin-Dubois & Brosseau-Liard, 2016). Relatedly, imitation research has demonstrated that the interpersonal aspects of a social-learning situation gain increasing relevance for infants during the second year of life (Gellén & Buttelmann, 2019; Matheson, Moore, & Akhtar, 2013; Uzgiris, 1981). It may thus be argued that when the 24-month-olds were repeatedly faced with a verbally unreliable model, they de-evaluated the verbal cue as signaling the model’s action intention and instead relied more heavily on alternative cues such as the behavioral cue (Incongruent) or the action context (e.g., object affordances, salience; Failed-attempt). Infants’ first-action latencies were higher in Incongruent and Failed-attempt than in both Congruent and Pseudo-word, and were also higher in Failed-attempt than in Incongruent. These latency-findings thus indicate that situations involving a meaningful verbal cue that deviated from the behavioral cue are cognitively more demanding, resulting in a delayed initiation of a behavioral response. In sum, the findings of Study II suggest that both age groups were highly flexible in their integration of a verbal cue and behavioral cue. Moreover, our results do not indicate a general superiority of either cue. Instead, it seems to depend on the informational gain conveyed by the verbal cue whether it exerts a specific, intention-highlighting effect (Incongruent, Failed-attempt) or an unspecific (e.g., attention-guiding) effect (Congruent, Pseudo-word). Studies III and IV investigated the impact of another’s action-related emotional cues on 18-month-olds’ action selection. In Study III, infants observed a model, who demonstrated two actions on a novel object in direct succession, and who combined one of the two actions with a positive (happy) emotional expression and the other action with a negative (sad) emotional expression. As expected, infants imitated the positively emoted (PE) action more often than the negatively emoted (NE) action. This preference arose from an increase in infants’ readiness to perform the PE action from the baseline period (prior to the action demonstrations) to the test period (following the action demonstrations), rather than from a decrease in readiness to the perform the NE action. The positive cue thus had a stronger behavior-regulating effect than the negative cue. Notably, infants’ more general object-directed behavior in terms of first-touch latencies remained unaffected by the emotional cues’ valence, indicating that infants had linked the emotional cues specifically to the corresponding action and not the object as a whole (Repacholi, 2009). Also, infants’ looking times during the action demonstration did not differ significantly as a function of emotional valence and were characterized by a predominant attentional focus to the action/object rather than to the model’s face. Together with the findings on infants’ first-touch latencies, these results indicate a sensitivity for the notion that emotions can have very specific referents (referential specificity; Martin, Maza, McGrath, & Phelps, 2014). Together, Study III provided evidence for selective imitation based on another’s intention-related (particularly positive) emotional cues in an action-selection task, and thus indicates that infants’ action hierarchy flexibly responds to another’s emotional evaluation of observed actions. According to Repacholi (2009), we suggest that infants used the model’s emotional evaluation to re-appraise the corresponding action (effect), for instance in terms of desirability. Study IV followed up on Study III by investigating the role of the negative emotional cue for infants’ action selection in more detail. Specifically, we investigated whether a contrasting (negative) emotional cue alone would be sufficient to differentially rank the two actions along infants’ action hierarchy or whether instead infants require direct information about the model’s action intention (in the form of a confirming action-emotion pair) to align their action selection with the emotional cues. Also, we examined whether the absence of a direct behavior-regulating effect of the negative cue in Study III was due to the negative cue itself or to the concurrently available positive cue masking the negative cue’s potential effect. To this end, we split the demonstration of the two action-emotion pairs across two trials. In each trial, one action was thus demonstrated and emoted (PE, NE action), and one action was not demonstrated and un-emoted (UE action). For trial 1, we predicted that infants, who observed a PE action demonstration, would selectively imitate the PE action, whereas infants, who observed a NE action demonstration would selectively emulate the UE action. As to trial 2, we expected the complementary action-emotion pair to provide additional clarifying information as the model’s emotional evaluation of both actions, which should either lead to adaptive perseveration (if infants’ action selection in trial 1 had already drawn on the emotional cue) or adaptive change (if infants’ action selection in trial 1 signaled a disregard of the emotional cue). As to trial 1, our findings revealed that, as expected, infants imitated the PE action more often than they emulated the UE action. Like in Study III, this selectivity arose from an increase in infants’ propensity to perform the PE action from baseline to trial 1. Also like in Study III, infants performed the NE action about equally often in baseline and trial 1, which speaks against a direct behavior-regulating effect of the negative cue also when presented in isolation. However, after a NE action demonstration, infants emulated the UE action more often in trial 1 than in baseline, suggesting an indirect behavior-regulating effect of the negative cue. Yet, this indirect effect did not yield a selective emulation of the UE action, because infants performed both action alternatives about equally often in trial 1. Unexpectedly, infants’ action selection in trial 2 was unaffected by the emotional cue. Instead, infants perseverated their action selection of trial 1 in trial 2, irrespective of whether it was adaptive or non-adaptive with respect to the model’s emotional evaluation of the action. It seems that infants changed their strategy across trials, from an initial adherence to the emotional (particularly positive) cue, towards bringing about a salient action effect (Marcovich & Zelazo, 2009). In sum, Studies III and IV indicate a dynamic interplay of different action-selection strategies, depending on valence and presentation order. Apparently, at least in infancy, action reconstruction as one basis for selective action performance reaches its limits when infants can only draw on indirect intention-related information (i.e., which action should be avoided). Overall, our findings favor the action-reconstruction account (Csibra, 2007), according to which actions are flexibly organized along a hierarchy, depending on inferential processes based on extra-motor intention-related information. At the same time, the findings question the direct-matching hypothesis (Rizzolatti & Craighero, 2004), according to which the identification (and pursuit) of action goals hinges on a direct simulation of another’s behavioral cues. Based on the studies’ findings, a preliminary working model is introduced, which seeks to integrate the two theoretical accounts by conceptualizing the routes that activation induced by social cues may take to eventually influence an infant’s action selection. Our findings indicate that it is useful to strive a differentiated conceptualization of communicative cues, because they seem to operate at different places within the process of cue integration, depending on their potential to convey direct intention-related information. Moreover, we suggest that there is bidirectional exchange within each compound of adjacent sub-processes (i.e., between attention and encoding, and encoding and response), and between the compounds. Hence, our findings highlight the benefits of a multi-measures approach when studying the development of infants’ social-cognitive abilities, because it provides a more comprehensive picture how the concerted use of social cues from different domains influences infants’ processing and selection of instrumental actions. Finally, this thesis points to potential future directions to substantiate our current interpretation of the findings.. Moreover, an extension to additional kinds of coherence is suggested to get closer to infants’ everyday-world of experience.
Number processing induces spatial attention shifts to the left or right side for small or large numbers, respectively. This spatial-numerical association (SNA) extends to mental calculation, such that subtractions and additions induce left or right biases, respectively. However, the time course of activating SNAs during mental calculation is unclear. Here, we addressed this issue by measuring visual position discrimination during auditory calculation. Thirty-four healthy adults listened in each trial to five successive elements of arithmetic facts (first operand, operator, second operand, equal and result) and verbally classified their correctness. After each element (except for the result), a fixation dot moved equally often to either the left or right side and participants pressed left or right buttons to discriminate its movement direction (four times per trial). First and second operand magnitude (small/large), operation (addition/subtraction), result correctness (right/wrong) and movement direction (left/right) were balanced across 128 trials. Manual reaction times of dot movement discriminations were considered in relation to previous arithmetic elements. We found no evidence of early attentional shifts after first operand and operator presentation. Discrimination performance was modulated consistent with SNAs after the second operand, suggesting that attentional shifts occur once there is access to all elements necessary to complete an arithmetic operation. Such late-occurring attention shifts may reflect a combination of multiple element-specific biases and confirm their functional role in mental calculation.
Early numeracy is one of the strongest predictors for later success in school mathematics (e.g., Duncan et al., 2007). The main goal of first grade mathematics teachers should therefore be to provide learning opportunities that enable all students to develop sound early numeracy skills. Developmental models, or learning progressions, can describe how early numerical understanding typically develops. Assessments that are aligned to empirically validated learning progressions can support teachers to understand their students learning better and target instruction accordingly. To date, there have been no progression-based instruments made available for German teachers to monitor their students’ progress in the domain of early numeracy. This dissertation contributes to the design of such an instrument. The first study analysed the suitability of early numeracy assessments currently used in German primary schools at school entry to identify students’ individual starting points for subsequent progress monitoring. The second study described the development of progression-based items and investigated the items in regards to main test quality criteria, such as reliability, validity, and test fairness, to find a suitable item pool to build targeted tests. The third study described the construction of the progress monitoring measure, referred to as the learning progress assessment (LPA). The study investigated the extent to which the LPA was able to monitor students’ individual learning progress in early numeracy over time. The results of the first study indicated that current school entry assessments were not able to provide meaningful information about the students’ initial learning status. Thus, the MARKO-D test (Ricken, Fritz, & Balzer, 2013) was used to determine the students’ initial numerical understanding in the other two studies, because it has been shown to be an effective measure of conceptual numerical understanding (Fritz, Ehlert, & Leutner, 2018). Both studies provided promising evidence for the quality of the LPA and its ability to detect changes in numerical understanding over the course of first grade. The studies of this dissertation can be considered an important step in the process of designing an empirically validated instrument that supports teachers to monitor their students’ early numeracy development and to adjust their teaching accordingly to enhance school achievement.
The decision to exercise is not only bound to rational considerations but also automatic affective processes. The affective–reflective theory of physical inactivity and exercise (ART) proposes a theoretical framework for explaining how the automatic affective process (type‑1 process) will influence exercise behavior, i.e., through the automatic activation of exercise-related associations and a subsequent affective valuation of exercise. This study aimed to empirically test this assumption of the ART with data from 69 study participants. A single-measurement study, including within-subject experimental variation, was conducted. Automatic associations with exercise were first measured with a single-target implicit association test. The somato-affective core of the participants’ automatic valuation of exercise-related pictures was then assessed via heart rate variability (HRV) analysis, and the affective valence of the valuation was tested with a facial expression (FE; smile and frown) task. Exercise behavior was assessed via self-report. Multiple regression (path) analysis revealed that automatic associations predicted HRV reactivity (β = −0.24, p = .044); the signs of the correlation between automatic associations and the smile FE score was in the expected direction but remained nonsignificant (β = −0.21, p = .078). HRV reactivity predicted self-reported exercise behavior (β = −0.28, p = .013) (the same pattern of results was achieved for the frown FE score). The HRV-related results illustrate the potential role of automatic negative affective reactions to the thought of exercise as a restraining force in exercise motivation. For better empirical distinction between the two ART type‑1 process components, automatic associations and the affective valuation should perhaps be measured separately in the future. The results support the notion that automatic and affective processes should be regarded as essential aspects of the motivation to exercise.
Process-oriented theories of cognition must be evaluated against time-ordered observations. Here we present a representative example for data assimilation of the SWIFT model, a dynamical model of the control of fixation positions and fixation durations during natural reading of single sentences. First, we develop and test an approximate likelihood function of the model, which is a combination of a spatial, pseudo-marginal likelihood and a temporal likelihood obtained by probability density approximation Second, we implement a Bayesian approach to parameter inference using an adaptive Markov chain Monte Carlo procedure. Our results indicate that model parameters can be estimated reliably for individual subjects. We conclude that approximative Bayesian inference represents a considerable step forward for computational models of eye-movement control, where modeling of individual data on the basis of process-based dynamic models has not been possible so far.
Procrastination is a self-regulatory problem of voluntarily and destructively delaying intended and necessary or personally important tasks. Previous studies showed that procrastination is associated with executive dysfunctions that seem to be particularly strong in punishing contexts. In the present event-related potential (ERP) study a monetary version of the parametric Go/No-Go task was performed by high and low academic procrastinators to verify the influence of motivational context (reward vs. punishment expectation) and task difficulty (easy vs. hard) on procrastination-related executive dysfunctions. The results revealed increased post-error slowing along with reduced P300 and error-related negativity (ERN) amplitudes in high (vs. low) procrastination participants-effects that indicate impaired attention and error-related processing in this group. This pattern of results did not differ as a function of task difficulty and motivation condition. However, when the task got more difficult executive attention deficits became even more apparent at the behavioral level in high procrastinators, as indexed by increased reaction time variability. The findings substantiate prior preliminary evidence that procrastinators show difficulties in certain aspects of executive functioning (in attention and error processing) during execution of task-relevant behavior, which may be more apparent in highly demanding situations.
Background:
Under the new psychotherapy law in Germany, standardized patients (SPs) are to become a standard component inpsychotherapy training, even though little is known about their authenticity.Objective:The present pilot study explored whether, followingan exhaustive two-day SP training, psychotherapy trainees can distinguish SPs from real patients.
Methods:
Twenty-eight psychotherapytrainees (M= 28.54 years of age,SD= 3.19) participated as blind raters. They evaluated six video-recorded therapy segments of trained SPsand real patients using the Authenticity of Patient Demonstrations Scale.
Results:
The authenticity scores of real patients and SPs did notdiffer (p= .43). The descriptive results indicated that the highest score of authenticity was given to an SP. Further, the real patients did notdiffer significantly from the SPs concerning perceived impairment (p= .33) and the likelihood of being a real patient (p= .52).
Conclusions:
The current results suggest that psychotherapy trainees were unable to distinguish the SPs from real patients. We therefore stronglyrecommend incorporating training SPs before application. Limitations and future research directions are discussed.
Increased N400 amplitudes on indefinite articles (a/an) incompatible with expected nouns have been initially taken as strong evidence for probabilistic pre-activation of phonological word forms, and recently been intensely debated because they have been difficult to replicate. Here, these effects are simulated using a neural network model of sentence comprehension that we previously used to simulate a broad range of empirical N400 effects. The model produces the effects when the cue validity of the articles concerning upcoming noun meaning in the learning environment is high, but fails to produce the effects when the cue validity of the articles is low due to adjectives presented between articles and nouns during training. These simulations provide insight into one of the factors potentially contributing to the small size of the effects in empirical studies and generate predictions for cross-linguistic differences in article induced N400 effects based on articles’ cue validity. The model accounts for article induced N400 effects without assuming pre-activation of word forms, and instead simulates these effects as the stimulus-induced change in a probabilistic representation of meaning corresponding to an implicit semantic prediction error.
Increased N400 amplitudes on indefinite articles (a/an) incompatible with expected nouns have been initially taken as strong evidence for probabilistic pre-activation of phonological word forms, and recently been intensely debated because they have been difficult to replicate. Here, these effects are simulated using a neural network model of sentence comprehension that we previously used to simulate a broad range of empirical N400 effects. The model produces the effects when the cue validity of the articles concerning upcoming noun meaning in the learning environment is high, but fails to produce the effects when the cue validity of the articles is low due to adjectives presented between articles and nouns during training. These simulations provide insight into one of the factors potentially contributing to the small size of the effects in empirical studies and generate predictions for cross-linguistic differences in article induced N400 effects based on articles’ cue validity. The model accounts for article induced N400 effects without assuming pre-activation of word forms, and instead simulates these effects as the stimulus-induced change in a probabilistic representation of meaning corresponding to an implicit semantic prediction error.
Sexual aggression is a problem among college students worldwide, and a growing body of research has identified variables associated with an increased risk of victimization and perpetration. Among these, sexuality-related cognitions, such as sexual scripts, sexual self-esteem, perceived realism of pornography, and acceptance of sexual coercion, play a major role. The current experimental study aimed to show that these cognitive risk factors of sexual aggression victimization and perpetration are amenable to change, which is a critical condition for evidence-based intervention efforts. College students in Germany (N = 324) were randomly assigned to one of three groups: a treatment group designed to change participants' sexual scripts for consensual sex with regard to the role of alcohol consumption, casual sex, and ambiguous communication of sexual intentions as risk factors for sexual aggression (EG1), a treatment group designed to promote sexual self-esteem, challenge the perceived realism of pornography, and reduce the acceptance of sexual coercion (EG2), and a non-treatment control group (CG). Baseline (T1), post-experimental (T2), and follow-up (T3) measures were taken across an eight-week period. Sexual scripts contained fewer risk factors for sexual aggression in EG1 than in EG2 and CG at T3. Sexual self-esteem was enhanced in EG2 at T2 relative to the other two groups. Acceptance of sexual coercion was lower in EG2 than in EG1 and CG at T2 and T3. No effect was found for perceived realism of pornography. The findings are discussed in terms of targeting cognitive risk factors as a basis for intervention programs.
While metacognitive interventions are gaining attention in the treatment of various mental disorders, a review of the literature showed that the term is often defined poorly and used for a variety of psychotherapeutic approaches that do not necessarily pursue the same goal. We give a summary of three metacognitive interventions which were developed within a sound theoretical framework-metacognitive therapy, metacognitive training, and metacognitively-oriented integrative psychotherapies-and discuss their similarities and distinctive features. We then offer an integrative operational definition of metacognitive interventions as goal-oriented treatments that target metacognitive content, which is characterized by the awareness and understanding of one's own thoughts and feelings as well as the thoughts and feelings of others. They aim to alleviate disorder-specific and individual symptoms by gaining more flexibility in cognitive processing.
Objective: The study replicated and extended a study by Peterson, Beagley, McCallum, and Artime (2019), who studied differences in sexual attitudes and behaviors in men who were both victims and perpetrators of sexual assault, only victims, only perpetrators, or neither. They found a heightened rate of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) and some evidence of greater traumatic sexualization in men who were both victims and perpetrators.
Method: Our sample consisted of 2,149 college students (39.6% male) in Germany. We measured sexual aggression perpetration and victimization, CSA, sexual self-esteem, depressive symptoms, risky sexual scripts, and risky sexual behavior.
Results: Perpetration rates were significantly higher among victims than among nonvictims, and the victim-perpetrator group scored highest on CSA. A significant effect of group membership was found on measures of depressive symptoms, risky sexual scripts, and risky sexual behavior in both sex groups, mainly due to differences of the victim-only, perpetrator-only, and victim-perpetrator groups from the nonvictim-nonperpetrator group. The effect on sexual self-esteem was found for women only. Few differences emerged between the victim-only, perpetrator-only, and victim-perpetrator groups. Most associations remained significant when controlling for CSA.
Conclusion: We found a substantial overlap between victimization and perpetration but no evidence for a special vulnerability of the victim-perpetrator group. Instead, experiences of victimization, perpetration, or both were linked to more negative correlates compared with individuals who were neither victims nor perpetrators. The findings need to be interpreted with caution due to the small number of individuals in the perpetrator-only and victim-perpetrator groups.
Understanding the association between autonomic nervous system [ANS] function and brain morphology across the lifespan provides important insights into neurovisceral mechanisms underlying health and disease. Resting-state ANS activity, indexed by measures of heart rate [HR] and its variability [HRV] has been associated with brain morphology, particularly cortical thickness [CT]. While findings have been mixed regarding the anatomical distribution and direction of the associations, these inconsistencies may be due to sex and age differences in HR/HRV and CT. Previous studies have been limited by small sample sizes, which impede the assessment of sex differences and aging effects on the association between ANS function and CT. To overcome these limitations, 20 groups worldwide contributed data collected under similar protocols of CT assessment and HR/HRV recording to be pooled in a mega-analysis (N = 1,218 (50.5% female), mean age 36.7 years (range: 12-87)). Findings suggest a decline in HRV as well as CT with increasing age. CT, particularly in the orbitofrontal cortex, explained additional variance in HRV, beyond the effects of aging. This pattern of results may suggest that the decline in HRV with increasing age is related to a decline in orbitofrontal CT. These effects were independent of sex and specific to HRV; with no significant association between CT and HR. Greater CT across the adult lifespan may be vital for the maintenance of healthy cardiac regulation via the ANS-or greater cardiac vagal activity as indirectly reflected in HRV may slow brain atrophy. Findings reveal an important association between CT and cardiac parasympathetic activity with implications for healthy aging and longevity that should be studied further in longitudinal research.
Purpose
To develop and validate the Expanded Mindful Eating Scale (EMES), an expanded mindful eating model created for the promotion of health and sustainability.
Design/methodology/approach
A cross-sectional study using self-administered questionnaire surveys on Ochanomizu Health Study (OHS) was conducted. The survey was provided to 1,388 female university students in Tokyo, Japan. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and a partial correlation analysis were used to confirm construct and criterion validity. Internal consistency of the EMES was confirmed to calculate Cronbach's alpha.
Findings
The response rate was 38.7 % (n = 537). Mean BMI was 20.21 +/- 2.12, and 18.8% of them were classified as "lean" (BMI < 18.5). The authors listed 25 items and obtained a final factor structure of five factors and 20 items, as a result of EFA. Through CFA, the authors obtained the following fit indices for a final model: GFI = 0.914, AGFI = 0.890, CFI = 0.870 and RMSEA = 0.061. The total EMES score was significantly correlated with BMI, mindfulness, body dissatisfaction, drive for thinness and life satisfaction (r = -0.138, -0.315, -0.339, -0.281 and 0.149,p < 0.01, respectively). Cronbach's alpha for all items in this scale was 0.687.
Practical implications
The authors suggest the possibility that practitioners and researchers of mindful eating that includes this new concept can use authors' novel scale as an effective measurement tool.
Originality/value
The EMES, which can multidimensionally measure the concept of the expanded model of mindful eating was first developed in this study.
Die Auswirkungen der reformierten Psychotherapierichtlinie auf die ambulante Patentenversorgung
(2020)
As research on sexual aggression has been growing, methodological issues in assessing prevalence rates have received increased attention. Building on work by Abbey and colleagues about effects of question format, participants in this study (1,253; 621 female; 632 male) were randomly assigned to one of two versions of the Sexual Aggression and Victimization Scale (SAV-S). In Version 1, the coercive tactic (use/threat of physical force, exploitation of the inability to resist, verbal pressure) was presented first, and sexual acts (sexual touch, attempted and completed sexual intercourse, other sexual acts) were presented as subsequent questions. In Version 2, sexual acts were presented first, and coercive tactics as subsequent questions. No version effects emerged for overall perpetration rates reported by men and women. The overall victimization rate across all items was significantly higher in the tactic-first than in the sexual-act-first conditions for women, but not for men. Classifying participants by their most severe experience of sexual victimization showed that fewer women were in the nonvictim category and more men were in the nonconsensual sexual contact category when the coercive tactic was presented first. Sexual experience background did not moderate the findings. The implications for the measurement of self-reported sexual aggression victimization and perpetration are discussed.
Alcohol use disorder (AUD) is the most common substance use disorder worldwide. Although dopamine-related findings were often observed in AUD, associated neurobiological mechanisms are still poorly understood. Therefore, in the present study, we investigate D2/3 receptor availability in healthy participants, participants at high risk (HR) to develop addiction (not diagnosed with AUD), and AUD patients in a detoxified stage, applying F-18-fallypride positron emission tomography (F-18-PET). Specifically, D2/3 receptor availability was investigated in (1) 19 low-risk (LR) controls, (2) 19 HR participants, and (3) 20 AUD patients after alcohol detoxification. Quality and severity of addiction were assessed with clinical questionnaires and (neuro)psychological tests. PET data were corrected for age of participants and smoking status. In the dorsal striatum, we observed significant reductions of D2/3 receptor availability in AUD patients compared with LR participants. Further, receptor availability in HR participants was observed to be intermediate between LR and AUD groups (linearly decreasing). Still, in direct comparison, no group difference was observed between LR and HR groups or between HR and AUD groups. Further, the score of the Alcohol Dependence Scale (ADS) was inversely correlated with D2/3 receptor availability in the combined sample. Thus, in line with a dimensional approach, striatal D2/3 receptor availability showed a linear decrease from LR participants to HR participants to AUD patients, which was paralleled by clinical measures. Our study shows that a core neurobiological feature in AUD seems to be detectable in an early, subclinical state, allowing more individualized alcohol prevention programs in the future.
This review summarizes the evidence of bereavement groups for symptoms of grief and depression. The literature search using Web of Science, EBSCO, PubMed, CINAHL, and MEDLINE yielded 14 studies (N = 1519) meeting the inclusion criteria (i.e., randomized-controlled trials, bereaved adults, bereavement group, validated measures). Overall, bereavement groups were marginally more effective than control groups post-treatment (gG = 0.33, gD = 0.22) but not at follow-up. Although tertiary interventions yielded larger effect sizes than secondary interventions, the difference was not significant. The results imply that the evidence for bereavement groups is weak, although the large heterogeneity of concepts for intervention and control groups limits the generalizability.
Behavioral research has shown that infants use both behavioral cues and verbal cues when processing the goals of others' actions. For instance, 18-month-olds selectively imitate an observed goal-directed action depending on its (in)congruence with a model's previous verbal announcement of a desired action goal. This EEG-study analyzed the electrophysiological underpinnings of these behavioral findings on the two functional levels of conceptual action processing and motor activation. Mid-latency mean negative ERP amplitude and mu-frequency band power were analyzed while 18-month-olds (N = 38) watched videos of an adult who performed one out of two potential actions on a novel object. In a within-subjects design, the action demonstration was preceded by either a congruent or an incongruent verbally announced action goal (e.g., "up" or "down" and upward movement). Overall, ERP negativity did not differ between conditions, but a closer inspection revealed that in two subgroups, about half of the infants showed a broadly distributed increased mid-latency ERP negativity (indicating enhanced conceptual action processing) for either the congruent or the incongruent stimuli, respectively. As expected, mu power at sensorimotor sites was reduced (indicating enhanced motor activation) for congruent relative to incongruent stimuli in the entire sample. Both EEG correlates were related to infants' language skills. Hence, 18-month-olds integrate action-goal-related verbal cues into their processing of others' actions, at the functional levels of both conceptual processing and motor activation. Further, cue integration when inferring others' action goals is related to infants' language proficiency.
Zusammenfassung
Theoretischer Hintergrund: Therapeutische Adhärenz ist eine zentrale Voraussetzung zur Sicherung der Validität von Psychotherapiestudien. Bisher existieren im deutschsprachigen Raum keine Skalen zur Erfassung der Adhärenz im Bereich der Akzeptanz- und Commitmenttherapie (ACT). Fragestellung: Ziel war es, Skalen zur Erfassung der Adhärenz von Therapeut_innen für ACT und der Kognitiven Verhaltenstherapie (KVT) zu entwickeln und deren Gütekriterien zu überprüfen.
Methode
Die Validierung der Adhärenzskalen basierte auf n=38 ACT- und n=31 KVT-Gruppentherapiesitzungen zur Behandlung von depressiven und gemischten Störungsbildern. Die Adhärenz wurde durch zwei Rater_innen anhand von Audioaufzeichnungen bewertet. Ergebnisse: Sowohl für die ACT-Adhärenzskala (ICC=.96) als auch für die KVT-Adhärenzskala (ICC=.98) konnten hohe Interraterreliabilitäten erreicht werden. Die konvergente Validität konnte anhand einer negativen Korrelation zwischen den beiden Skalen sichergestellt werden (r=-.95).
Schlussfolgerungen
Beide Adhärenzskalen bieten eine erste Möglichkeit, um manualgetreues Therapeut_innenverhalten in ACT- und KVT-Gruppentherapien für Patient_innen mit gemischten Störungsbildern zu erfassen. Zudem geben die Ergebnisse einen Hinweis darauf, dass sich die beiden Methoden voneinander differenzieren lassen.
Studies show relations between executive function (EF), Theory of Mind (ToM), and conduct-problem (CP) symptoms. However, many studies have involved cross-sectional data, small clinical samples, pre-school children, and/or did not consider potential mediation effects. The present study examined the longitudinal relations between EF, ToM abilities, and CP symptoms in a population-based sample of 1,657 children between 6 and 11 years (T1: M = 8.3 years, T2: M = 9.1 years; 51.9% girls). We assessed EF skills and ToM abilities via computerized tasks at first measurement (T1), CP symptoms were rated via parent questionnaires at T1 and approximately 1 year later (T2). Structural-equation models showed a negative relation between T1 EF and T2 CP symptoms even when controlling for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms and other variables. This relation was fully mediated by T1 ToM abilities. The study shows how children's abilities to control their thoughts and behaviors and to understand others' mental states interact in the development of CP symptoms.
During reading, rapid eye movements (saccades) shift the reader's line of sight from one word to another for high-acuity visual information processing. While experimental data and theoretical models show that readers aim at word centers, the eye-movement (oculomotor) accuracy is low compared to other tasks. As a consequence, distributions of saccadic landing positions indicate large (i) random errors and (ii) systematic over- and undershoot of word centers, which additionally depend on saccade lengths (McConkie et al.Visual Research, 28(10), 1107-1118,1988). Here we show that both error components can be simultaneously reduced by reading texts from right to left in German language (N= 32). We used our experimental data to test a Bayesian model of saccade planning. First, experimental data are consistent with the model. Second, the model makes specific predictions of the effects of the precision of prior and (sensory) likelihood. Our results suggest that it is a more precise sensory likelihood that can explain the reduction of both random and systematic error components.
Feministisches Spekulieren
(2020)
The aim of this article is to investigate the role of the grandiose and vulnerable narcissism in the economic game. One widely employed paradigm in this field of experimental economic games is the prisoner's dilemma-used to examine competitive versus cooperative behaviour. In the present study a prisoner's dilemma game was administrated to individuals (N = 320), along with measures of grandiose narcissism, vulnerable narcissism and impulsivity. Specifically, our results show that vulnerable narcissism has a significant positive effect on defecting behaviors, while grandiose narcissism has a significant positive effect on cooperation in the initial round. However, while the game proceeded, grandiose narcissism started to have a positive effect on defecting behaviors too. This suggests that grandiose narcissists have, at least initially, positive qualities to them which can make them popular, but in the long run they lose their positive reputation and their likeability and willingness to cooperate decrease.
How is intuitive eating related to self-reported and laboratory food intake in middle-aged adults?
(2020)
As intuitive eating (IE) is characterized by eating in response to internal cues of hunger and satiety and by monitoring the effect of food on the body, it has been hypothesized to lead to healthy food intake. Evidence concerning its link to food intake is scarce. This experimental study investigated the relationship between IE and food intake in middle-aged adults. Fifty-five participants aged 50-70 years completed the Intuitive Eating Scale 2 to measure IE. Usual consumption frequency of fruits, vegetables, snacks and sweets was assessed as a measure of healthy self-reported food intake. A taste test of apples, carrots, coated peanuts and chocolate was conducted as a measure of healthy and total laboratory food intake. Regression analyses were performed using Frequentist and Bayesian methods of inference. In line with our hypothesis, IE was associated with healthier self-reported food intake (medium effect size: f(2) = 0.24). The data were 49.80 times more likely under H-1 than under H-0. Contrary to our hypotheses, IE was neither associated with healthy nor total laboratory food intake in classical regression analyses. The accompanying Bayes factors revealed inconclusive evidence. Data only allow drawing cautious conclusions about the different relationship between IE and the self-reported consumption frequency of the foods vs. the amount of these foods consumed in a single test situation. Future studies combining different measures of IE (e.g., behavioral paradigms) and self-reported (e.g., diet quality, portion sizes) and laboratory (e.g., repeated taste tests with pre-selected foods) food intake are warranted to further explore their relationship.
When studying how people search for objects in scenes, the inhomogeneity of the visual field is often ignored. Due to physiological limitations, peripheral vision is blurred and mainly uses coarse-grained information (i.e., low spatial frequencies) for selecting saccade targets, whereas high-acuity central vision uses fine-grained information (i.e., high spatial frequencies) for analysis of details. Here we investigated how spatial frequencies and color affect object search in real-world scenes. Using gaze-contingent filters, we attenuated high or low frequencies in central or peripheral vision while viewers searched color or grayscale scenes. Results showed that peripheral filters and central high-pass filters hardly affected search accuracy, whereas accuracy dropped drastically with central low-pass filters. Peripheral filtering increased the time to localize the target by decreasing saccade amplitudes and increasing number and duration of fixations. The use of coarse-grained information in the periphery was limited to color scenes. Central filtering increased the time to verify target identity instead, especially with low-pass filters. We conclude that peripheral vision is critical for object localization and central vision is critical for object identification. Visual guidance during peripheral object localization is dominated by low-frequency color information, whereas high-frequency information, relatively independent of color, is most important for object identification in central vision.
Factorial experiments in research on memory, language, and in other areas are often analyzed using analysis of variance (ANOVA). However, for effects with more than one numerator degrees of freedom, e.g., for experimental factors with more than two levels, the ANOVA omnibus F-test is not informative about the source of a main effect or interaction. Because researchers typically have specific hypotheses about which condition means differ from each other, a priori contrasts (i.e., comparisons planned before the sample means are known) between specific conditions or combinations of conditions are the appropriate way to represent such hypotheses in the statistical model. Many researchers have pointed out that contrasts should be "tested instead of, rather than as a supplement to, the ordinary 'omnibus' F test" (Hays, 1973, p. 601). In this tutorial, we explain the mathematics underlying different kinds of contrasts (i.e., treatment, sum, repeated, polynomial, custom, nested, interaction contrasts), discuss their properties, and demonstrate how they are applied in the R System for Statistical Computing (R Core Team, 2018). In this context, we explain the generalized inverse which is needed to compute the coefficients for contrasts that test hypotheses that are not covered by the default set of contrasts. A detailed understanding of contrast coding is crucial for successful and correct specification in linear models (including linear mixed models). Contrasts defined a priori yield far more useful confirmatory tests of experimental hypotheses than standard omnibus F-tests. Reproducible code is available from https://osf.io/7ukf6/.
In five studies, we evaluated the psychometric properties of a revised German version of the State Self-Esteem Scale (SSES; Heatherton & Polivy, 1991). In Study 1, the results of a confirmatory factor analysis on the original scale revealed poor model fit and poor construct validity in a student sample that resembled those in the literature; thus, a revised 15-item version was developed (i.e., the SSES-R) and thoroughly validated. Study 2 showed a valid three-factor structure (Performance, Social, and Appearance) and good internal consistency of the SSES-R. Correlations between subscales of trait and state SE empirically supported the scale's construct validity. Temporal stability and intrapersonal sensitivity of the scale to naturally occurring events were investigated in Study 3. Intrapersonat sensitivity of the scale to experimentally induced changes in state SE was uncovered in Study 4 via social feedback (acceptance vs. rejection) and performance feedback (positive vs. negative). In Study 5, the scale's interpersonal sensitivity was confirmed by comparing depressed and healthy individuals. Finally, the usefulness of the SSES-R was demonstrated by assessing SE instability as calculated from repeated measures of state SE.
Influence of resting heart rate variability on affect processing in different induction contexts
(2020)
Intermittierendes Fasten
(2020)
A long-term positive energy balance leads to overweight and obesity. Adiposity is the main risk factor for cardiovascular diseases, type 2 diabetes and cancer and is often accompanied by depression. The increasing prevalence creates a major problem for the healthcare system. The conservative management of obesity strives for weight loss by reducing the daily caloric intake and increasing physical activity as well as an improvement in the quality of life supported by psychological interventions. For reducing body weight, intermittent fasting represents an alternative to continuous calorie restriction as it can be easily integrated into daily life. In this form of diet calorie intake is limited in time, i.e. on 2 days in the week or 6-10 h per day. Animal and human studies provide evidence that intermittent fasting over a longer time period is a suitable method to decrease body fat and to improve many metabolic parameters. Fasting alters metabolism and activates specific cellular pathways. These have not only cardioprotective effects but also neuroprotective and antidepressive effects. In this article the currently discussed mechanisms induced by intermittent fasting are highlighted and the essential observations from randomized controlled human trials are presented.
From the beginning of his work as a researcher, Heinz Heckhausen was interested in activities that are performed for their own sake and not only for some rewarding consequences-later addressed with the term "intrinsic motivation." One of his conceptual contributions to this area was the systematization of the bewildering heterogeneity of differentiations between various concepts of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. In the conception, he himself preferred, intrinsic motivation could include incentives of actions outcome if the goal is thematically identical with the action. Doing so the per se goal directed achievement motivation could be understood as intrinsically motivated. This understanding of achievement motivation was productively utilized in educational psychology. His interest in intrinsic motivation stimulated research on activity specific incentives. One of these incentives is the total emergence with a smooth-running activity-an incentive Csikszentmihalyi had already described as "flow experience."
Objective:
Rejection sensitivity and justice sensitivity are personality traits that are characterized by frequent perceptions and intense adverse responses to negative social cues. Whereas there is good evidence for associations between rejection sensitivity, justice sensitivity, and internalizing problems, no longitudinal studies have investigated their association with eating disorder (ED) pathology so far. Thus, the present study examined longitudinal relations between rejection sensitivity, justice sensitivity, and ED pathology.
Method:
Participants (N = 769) reported on their rejection sensitivity, justice sensitivity, and ED pathology at 9-19 (T1), 11-21 (T2), and 14-22 years of age (T3).
Results:
Latent cross-lagged models showed longitudinal associations between ED pathology and anxious rejection sensitivity, observer and victim justice sensitivity. T1 and T2 ED pathology predicted higher T2 and T3 anxious rejection sensitivity, respectively. In turn, T2 anxious rejection sensitivity predicted more T3 ED pathology. T1 observer justice sensitivity predicted more T2 ED pathology, which predicted higher T3 observer justice sensitivity. Furthermore, T1 ED pathology predicted higher T2 victim justice sensitivity.
Discussion:
Rejection sensitivity-particularly anxious rejection sensitivity-and justice sensitivity may be involved in the maintenance or worsening of ED pathology and should be considered by future research and in prevention and treatment of ED pathology. Also, mental health problems may increase rejection sensitivity and justice sensitivity traits in the long term.
Research suggested that justice sensitivity (JS)-the tendency to perceive and negatively respond to injustice-may already manifest in middle childhood, but empirical evidence is sparse. We, therefore, examined the measurement of JS in this age range and its associations with prosocial behavior, aggressive behavior, temperamental traits, and social skills. We had 361 children between 6 and 10 years of age and/or their parents rate the children's JS and its potential correlates. We replicated the JS-factor structure with three correlated subscales in both child and parent-ratings that showed strict measurement invariance. In line with previous findings in older age groups, victim JS positively predicted aggressive and negatively predicted prosocial behavior, whereas observer and perpetrator JS positively predicted prosocial and perpetrator JS negatively predicted aggressive behavior. The JS perspectives showed expected links with temperamental traits. All three subscales were positively related to empathy and theory of mind, but victim JS was negatively related to affective self-regulation. Findings suggest that interpersonal differences in JS may reliably and validly be measured in middle childhood and that JS is associated with aggressive and prosocial behavior already in childhood. Thus, future research should consider the role of JS for moral and personality development and developmental psychopathology.
Theoretischer Hintergrund: Als Medical Students’ Disease wird die Angst von Medizinstudierenden bezeichnet, unter Krankheiten zu leiden, mit denen sie sich im Studium auseinandersetzen. Fragestellung: Es wurde untersucht, ob ähnliche Phänomene vorübergehender Krankheitsängste auch bei Psychologiestudierenden existieren. Methode: Mittels etablierter Illness-Attitude-Scales (IAS) und einer eigens entwickelten Ergänzung wurden Ängste vor somatischen und psychischen Erkrankungen erhoben. Ergebnisse: Krankheitsängste bei Psychologiestudierenden waren nicht stärker ausgeprägt als bei Studierenden anderer Fachrichtungen. Ängste vor körperlichen Erkrankungen waren häufiger als Ängste vor psychischen Störungen, die keiner signifikanten zeitlichen Veränderung unterlagen. Schlussfolgerung: Die Beschäftigung mit psychischen Störungen geht nicht zwangsläufig mit einem Anstieg von Ängsten vor psychischen Erkrankungen unter Psychologiestudierenden einher. Erhöhte Belastungswerte bei allen Studierenden legen nahe, dass das Studium selbst eine Herausforderung darstellt, für deren Bewältigung Unterstützung angeboten werden kann. the same level of fear regarding health anxiety as students of other disciplines. Their anxiety about suffering from physical illnesses was also greater than their anxiety about suffering from mental disorders. Conclusion: Studying mental disorders does not necessarily result in an increase of related health anxiety. However, university studies seem to be a burdensome period of life in their own right, for which coping support can be provided.
Making sense of the world
(2020)
For human infants, the first years after birth are a period of intense exploration-getting to understand their own competencies in interaction with a complex physical and social environment. In contemporary neuroscience, the predictive-processing framework has been proposed as a general working principle of the human brain, the optimization of predictions about the consequences of one's own actions, and sensory inputs from the environment. However, the predictive-processing framework has rarely been applied to infancy research. We argue that a predictive-processing framework may provide a unifying perspective on several phenomena of infant development and learning that may seem unrelated at first sight. These phenomena include statistical learning principles, infants' motor and proprioceptive learning, and infants' basic understanding of their physical and social environment. We discuss how a predictive-processing perspective can advance the understanding of infants' early learning processes in theory, research, and application.
Minor cosmopolitan
(2020)
Cosmopolitanism is a theory about how to live together. The earliest formulation of cosmopolitanism in the West could be dated to as early as the fourth century BCE in ancient Greece by Diogenes, who famously said that he was a “citizen of the world – kosmopolitês,” an idea later picked up by Immanuel Kant, the German philosopher who proposed a philosophy of a world of “perpetual peace.” When cosmopolitanism first emerged as a political idea for modernity in the European Enlightenment, the project embraced the liberal promises of a globalizing economy, yet remained oblivious to, and even complicit with, capitalism, slavery and colonialism. It centered on the male, bourgeois, and white liberal subject, irrespective of the ongoing disenfranchisement, dehumanization, and extermination of its Others.
At the dawn of the 21st century, and in the wake of rapid globalization however, academics, politicians and other pundits enthusiastically declared cosmopolitanism to be no longer just a philosophical ideal, but a real, existing fact. Across the globe, they argued, people were increasingly thinking and feeling beyond the nation, considering themselves citizens of the world. Meanwhile, the global ecological crisis worsens, fascism with different outfits returns in many places of the world, the repression of women, sexual, racial, class and other minorities on a global scale persists; the so called “refugee crisis” inundates the mediascape and political spectacle. Not much of those cosmopolitan promises have left it seems. Perhaps precisely because of this, however, it seems to be an absolute necessity for scholars, activists, and artists today to face the complexities and promises cosmopolitanism has raised although not adequately answered. What has happened to the cosmopolitan promise, and who betrayed it?
“Minor cosmopolitanisms” wishes to challenge the underlying premises of ‘major’ cosmopolitanism without letting go of the unfulfilled emancipatory potential of the concept at large. It wants to rethink cosmopolitanisms in the plural, and trace multiple origins and trajectories of cosmopolitan thought from across the globe. Regarding cosmopolitanisms as emerging through diverse locally, historically and politically specific practices, minor cosmopolitanisms are predicated on difference without abandoning the quest for a shared vision of conviviality and justice. It seeks to answer: how to live at once with our difference and shared struggle? How to think our complicity with even those we most resist? Who sustains the world’s flourishing despite all this?
Lisa Schwetlick et al. present a computational model linking visual scan path generation in scene viewing to physiological and experimental work on perisaccadic covert attention, the act of attending to an object visually without obviously moving the eyes toward it. They find that integrating covert attention into predictive models of visual scan paths greatly improves the model's agreement with experimental data. <br /> How we perceive a visual scene depends critically on the selection of gaze positions. For this selection process, visual attention is known to play a key role in two ways. First, image-features attract visual attention, a fact that is captured well by time-independent fixation models. Second, millisecond-level attentional dynamics around the time of saccade drives our gaze from one position to the next. These two related research areas on attention are typically perceived as separate, both theoretically and experimentally. Here we link the two research areas by demonstrating that perisaccadic attentional dynamics improve predictions on scan path statistics. In a mathematical model, we integrated perisaccadic covert attention with dynamic scan path generation. Our model reproduces saccade amplitude distributions, angular statistics, intersaccadic turning angles, and their impact on fixation durations as well as inter-individual differences using Bayesian inference. Therefore, our result lend support to the relevance of perisaccadic attention to gaze statistics.
The interplay between cognitive and oculomotor processes during reading can be explored when the spatial layout of text deviates from the typical display. In this study, we investigate various eye-movement measures during reading of text with experimentally manipulated layout (word-wise and letter-wise mirrored-reversed text as well as inverted and scrambled text). While typical findings (e.g., longer mean fixation times, shorter mean saccades lengths) in reading manipulated texts compared to normal texts were reported in earlier work, little is known about changes of oculomotor targeting observed in within-word landing positions under the above text layouts. Here we carry out precise analyses of landing positions and find substantial changes in the so-called launch-site effect in addition to the expected overall slow-down of reading performance. Specifically, during reading of our manipulated text conditions with reversed letter order (against overall reading direction), we find a reduced launch-site effect, while in all other manipulated text conditions, we observe an increased launch-site effect. Our results clearly indicate that the oculomotor system is highly adaptive when confronted with unusual reading conditions.
In an influential theoretical model, human sensorimotor control is achieved by a Bayesian decision process, which combines noisy sensory information and learned prior knowledge. A ubiquitous signature of prior knowledge and Bayesian integration in human perception and motor behavior is the frequently observed bias toward an average stimulus magnitude (i.e., a central-tendency bias, range effect, regression-to-the-mean effect). However, in the domain of eye movements, there is a recent controversy about the fundamental existence of a range effect in the saccadic system. Here we argue that the problem of the existence of a range effect is linked to the availability of prior knowledge for saccade control. We present results from two prosaccade experiments that both employ an informative prior structure (i.e., a nonuniform Gaussian distribution of saccade target distances). Our results demonstrate the validity of Bayesian integration in saccade control, which generates a range effect in saccades. According to Bayesian integration principles, the saccadic range effect depends on the availability of prior knowledge and varies in size as a function of the reliability of the prior and the sensory likelihood.
Introduction:
The death of a significant person through suicide is a very difficult experience and can have long-term impact on an individual's psychosocial and physical functioning. However, there are only few studies that have examined the effects of interventions in suicide survivors. In the present study, we examine an online-group intervention for people bereaved by suicide using a group-webinar.
Methods:
The intervention was developed based on focus groups with the target group. The cognitive-behavioral 12-module webinar-based group intervention focuses on suicide bereavement-related themes such as feelings of guilt, stigmatization, meaning reconstruction and the relationship to the deceased. Further, the webinar includes testimonial videos and psychoeducation. The suicide survivors are randomized to the intervention or the waiting list in a group-cluster randomized controlled trial. Primary outcomes are suicidality (Beck Scale for Suicide Ideation) and depression (Beck Depression Inventory-II) and secondary outcomes are symptoms of prolonged grief disorder (Inventory of Complicated Grief-German Version ), posttraumatic stress disorder ( Revised Impact of Event Scale ), stigmatization (Stigma of Suicide and Suicide Survivor ) and posttraumatic cognitions (Posttraumatic Cognitions Inventory).
Discussion:
Previous studies of Internet-based interventions for the bereaved were based on writing interventions showing large treatment effects. Little is known about the use of webinars as group interventions. Advantages and challenges of this novel approach of psychological interventions will be discussed.
Although many studies have shown that victims of child abuse have an increased vulnerability to revictimization in intimate relationships, the underlying mechanisms are not yet sufficiently well understood. Therefore, this study aimed at examining this relationship for both sexual and physical forms of violence as well as investigating the potential mediating role of attitudes toward sexual and physical intimate partner violence (IPV). Also, the potential moderating role of gender was explored. Sexual and physical child abuse and IPV victimization in adulthood as well as attitudes toward the respective form of IPV were assessed among 716 participants (448 female) in an online survey. The path analyses showed that child sexual abuse was positively linked to sexual IPV victimization among both women and men, whereas child physical abuse was positively associated with physical IPV victimization among women only. Furthermore, the relationship between both forms of child abuse and IPV victimization was mediated through more supportive attitudes toward the respective forms of IPV, but only among men. This study provides novel insights regarding the links between sexual and physical child abuse and revictimization in adulthood, suggesting that supporting attitudes toward IPV may be seen as vulnerability factor for revictimization. The moderating role of gender is especially discussed.
In two eye-tracking experiments, we investigated the processing of information about phonological consistency of Chinese phonograms during sentence reading. In Experiment 1, we adopted the error disruption paradigm in silent reading and found significant effects of phonological consistency and homophony in the foveal vision, but only in a late processing stage. Adding oral reading to Experiment 2, we found both effects shifted to earlier indices of parafoveal processing. Specifically, low-consistency characters led to a better homophonic foveal recovery effect in Experiment 1 and stronger homophonic preview benefits in Experiment 2. These findings suggest that phonological consistency information can be obtained during sentence reading, and compared to the low-consistency previews the high-consistency previews are processed faster, which leads to greater interference to the recognition of target characters.
A growing body of research has demonstrated negative effects of sexualization in the media on adolescents' body image, but longitudinal studies and research including interactive and social media are scarce. The current study explored the longitudinal associations of adolescents' use of sexualized video games (SVG) and sexualized Instagram images (SII) with body image concerns. Specifically, our study examined relations between adolescents' SVG and SII use and appearance comparisons, thin- and muscular-ideal internalization, valuing appearance over competence, and body surveillance. A sample of 660 German adolescents (327 female, 333 male;M-age = 15.09 years) participated in two waves with an interval of 6 months. A structural equation model showed that SVG and SII use at Time 1 predicted body surveillance indirectly via valuing appearance over competence at Time 2. Furthermore, SVG and SII use indirectly predicted both thin- and muscular-ideal internalization through appearance comparisons at Time 1. In turn, thin-ideal internalization at Time 1 predicted body surveillance indirectly via valuing appearance over competence at Time 2. The results indicate that sexualization in video games and on Instagram can play an important role in increasing body image concerns among adolescents. We discuss the findings with respect to objectification theory and the predictive value of including appearance comparisons in models explaining the relation between sexualized media and self-objectification.