Psychological Questions Research Articles

The development of social brain functions in infancy.

One fundamental question in psychology is what makes humans such intensely social beings. Probing the developmental and neural origins of our social capacities is a way of addressing this question. In the last 10 years the field of social-cognitive development has witnessed a surge in studies using neuroscience methods to elucidate the development of social information processing during infancy. While the use of electroencephalography (EEG)/event-related brain potentials (ERPs) and functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) has revealed a great deal about the timing and localization of the cortical processes involved in early social cognition, the principles underpinning the early development of social brain functioning remain largely unexplored. Here I provide a framework that delineates the essential processes implicated in the early development of the social brain. In particular, I argue that the development of social brain functions in infancy is characterized by the following key principles: (a) self-relevance, (b) joint engagement, (c) predictability, (d) categorization, (e) discrimination, and (f) integration. For all of the proposed principles, I provide empirical examples to illustrate when in infancy they emerge. Moreover, I discuss to what extent they are in fact specifically social in nature or share properties with more domain-general developmental principles. Taken together, this article provides a conceptual integration of the existing EEG/ERPs and fNIRS work on infant social brain function and thereby offers the basis for a principle-based approach to studying the neural correlates of early social cognition.

Aspects of Learning in Didactics of Technical Subjects and Practical Training in the Context of Teaching Methods

Aim of this study is to introduce issue of employment of psychological knowledge in the process of teaching of technical subjects and practical training at secondary technical schools to the professional public. In these processes application of adequate teaching methods plays a key role. In the first part we defined the solved issue, we explained topicality and seriousness of this issue, we described the aims of the study, its content and we focused on current state of solution of this issue. In the following part attention is paid to two questions of learning and mastering of knowledge in the process of technical subjects teaching with gradation to creativity dimension. Next part focuses on psychological questions concerning practical training with emphasis on mastering the psychomotor skills and employment of creative approaches in the course of teaching. Also partial findings in the field of development of technical creativity of secondary school students are presented.

Сравнительный анализ диагностических методик, используемых в образовательных организациях г. Москвы при работе с детьми с расстройствами аутистического спектра

Currently one of the thorniest question of Russian education and psychology is the problem of diagnostics and functional assessment of skills in children with autism spectrum disorders since existing methods usually access one specific area of development or small set of skills. Urgency of this issue is explained by necessity of development for each of these children individual educational and treatment plan aimed at their socialization, raising their social adaptation, development and efficient education. Development of such plans is complicated due to lack of the unified approach to the issues of education and treatment of children with autism and may be based only on accurate data about developmental level of each child, that can be determined only through the use of special assessment tools. In the results of the research the diagnostics procedures that are used in the educational facilities of Moscow in order to develop individual educational plan for children with autistic spectrum disorders were determined and described, the comparative analysis of these diagnostics tools was accomplished, the areas of used of each method was determined. Methodical recommendations were completed within the framework of the research work of the professionals of the Center for Psychological, Medical and Social Support to Children and Adolescents of the Moscow State University of Psychology and Education.

Thinking in early modernity and the separation process between philosophy and psychology.

One of the big questions in psychology is when and how psychology disentangled from philosophy. Usually it is referred to the laboratory Wundt established in Leipzig in 1879 as the birth for psychology as an independent science. However this separation process can also be traced in other ways, like by focusing on how the two sciences approach and understand thinking. Although thinking and language were not included in the research in this laboratory, Wundt (1897) regarded thinking as the core of psychology. As a commentary to Papanicolaou (Integr Psychol Behav Sci doi:10.1007/s12124-014-9273-3, 2014), this paper investigates the differences in how psychology and philosophy conceptualized thinking in early Western modernity. Thus one of the findings is that the separation process between the two was more or less initiated by Immanuel Kant. By defining thinking in terms of the pure reason he excluded the psychological understanding of thinking because psychology basically defined thinking in terms of ideas derived from qualia and sensation. Another finding is that psychology itself has not completely realized the differences between the philosophical and the psychological understanding of thinking by having been influenced by Kant's ideal of the pure reason. This may also explain some of the crises psychology went through during the twentieth century.

L’élaboration de l’agressivité à l’adolescence : étude structurale comparée basée sur le test de Rorschach

In adolescence, a component of a successful identity quest consists in elaborating the aggressiveness, be it endured or acted out, in an imaginary and symbolic manner. We will present a comparative study between anxious and violent adolescents, based on the Rorschach test. As the handling of aggressiveness by means of various defense mechanisms and coping strategies contributes to the construction of a sense of reality and of coherent representations of oneself and the others, the Rorschach test is a pertinent tool to study the vicissitudes of the identity quest of medium adolescence. On the other hand, many studies demonstrate that it is also a precious tool allowing diagnosis of the risks of evolution towards character pathology and personality disorders belonging to cluster B of the DSM, or towards emotional disorders and suicidal tendencies. Thus, it can help initiating appropriate therapeutic measures in a spirit of tertiary prevention. We present a comparative study between a sample of 20 adolescents suffering from anxiety and inhibition of aggressiveness (subgroup anxiety) and a second sample of 20 adolescents suffering from exteriorized aggressiveness and violent behavior (subgroup violence). The inclusion into the subgroups was based on clinical interviews and a thorough psychological assessment, using the criteria of categorical psychopathology. The comparative study between the two subgroups is based on an original rating scale constructed in the phenomenological and structural tradition, reflecting the global judgment of the experienced clinical psychologist. It permits using the Rorschach test as a research tool by making the step from qualitative analysis towards quantification and the use of inferential and multidimensional statistics. It also allows computing correlations between the Rorschach test and psychometric scales or other projective tests, using specific rating scales of the same type. After showing the descriptive demographic data, we present the results of the comparative between groups study (computed by means of Mann-Whitney's U test) and those of the multidimensional study (computed by means of the optimal scaling procedure HOMALS). The comparative study indicates that, with adolescents suffering from anxiety and inhibition, the emotional and relational needs are much greater, as is the tendency to direct one's aggressiveness against one self. Mentalization, documented by the richness, the originality, the level of integration and the maturity of associations is better developed in this subgroup. In the subgroup of adolescents characterized by exteriorized aggressiveness and violent behavior, the ambiguity of the stimulus causes perplexity, slowing down executive functions. The latent dimensions, extracted with the help of optimal scaling procedures, are meaningful at the light of current clinical psychology and create a typology of the adjustment to aggressive drives. They tend to illustrate the pertinence of the rating scale as a research tool and contribute in demonstrating its construct validity. The data of the comparative and multidimensional study are discussed in relationship with open questions in developmental and clinical psychology of adolescence. They highlight the role of the Rorschach test as a means to differentiate between temporary and long-term difficulties related to aggressiveness, as well as to show similarities and differences at the structural level of personality functioning between subgroups with interiorized and exteriorized aggressiveness. The psychological meaning of the latent dimensions, extracted with the help of optimal scaling techniques, are discussed in light of the recent research literature. Rorschach profiles can help indicate risks of evolution towards personality pathology at adult age. Let us stress that our latent dimensions are not focused on aggressiveness itself but rather on control functions liable to modulate its expression. Using the Rorschach test in pretest and posttest situation and exploring the change occurring during the psychotherapeutic interventions with the help of the rating scale (application of optimal scaling on Delta values) could open interesting tracks for future research in the realm of outcome and process evaluation of psychotherapies.

South African psychology after 20 years of democracy: criticality, social development, and relevance

This article is a comment on the trajectory of South African psychology over the last 20 years. The case is made that psychology is integral to the developmental state and that empirical psychology has a role to play in fashioning social policy and interventions aimed at social development. Critical psychology as such can be defined not only as a critique of empirical science but also in terms of methodological critique of existing research studies. The emphasis on empirical science is discussed with reference to psychology’s role in the contemporary health care system and its relevance to the National Planning Commission and the Millennium Development Goals. Two issues pertaining to contemporary psychology are also discussed, namely, the influence of the positive psychology movement in South African psychology and the question of indigenous psychology. Psychology’s relevance and importance are emphasised in the context of economic disparity and the potential contributions it can make in helping to address various social problems that characterise South African society two decades after the beginning of the democratic era.

Realizing the Promise of Social Psychology in Improving Public Health

The theories, phenomena, empirical findings, and methodological approaches that characterize contemporary social psychology hold much promise for addressing enduring problems in public health. Indeed, social psychologists played a major role in the development of the discipline of health psychology during the 1970s and 1980s. The health domain allows for the testing, refinement, and application of many interesting and important research questions in social psychology, and offers the discipline a chance to enhance its reach and visibility. Nevertheless, in a review of recent articles in two major social-psychological journals (Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin and Journal of Personality and Social Psychology), we found that only 3.2% of 467 studies explored health-related topics. In this article, we identify opportunities for research at the interface of social psychology and health, delineate barriers, and offer strategies that can address these barriers as the discipline continues to evolve.

Youth political participation and gender constitution: a question for developmental psychology

Os modos predominantes da subjetividade, na juventude contemporânea, definidos em torno do consumo, podem colaborar para a preponderância de formas de organizacao subjetiva que nao se mostrem comprometidas com a participacao social e politica. Este trabalho concentra-se em discutir o papel da participacao politica para a constituicao subjetiva e construcao da cidadania de adolescentes e jovens. A relacao entre identidade e compromisso politico e discutida considerando-se dois estudos de caso extraidos de um projeto de pesquisa anterior no campo da diversidade de genero. O foco da analise e compreender o papel potencialmente desempenhado pela experiencia no ativismo politico sobre as trajetorias de desenvolvimento e constituicao da subjetividade de ativistas, tomando por base eventos de autoapresentacao narrativa, em situacao de entrevista.

Terms of the debate on the format and structure of visual memory.

Our ability to actively maintain information in visual memory is strikingly limited. There is considerable debate about why this is so. As with many questions in psychology, the debate is framed dichotomously: Is visual working memory limited because it is supported by only a small handful of discrete "slots" into which visual representations are placed, or is it because there is an insufficient supply of a "resource" that is flexibly shared among visual representations? Here, we argue that this dichotomous framing obscures a set of at least eight underlying questions. Separately considering each question reveals a rich hypothesis space that will be useful for building a comprehensive model of visual working memory. The questions regard (1) an upper limit on the number of represented items, (2) the quantization of the memory commodity, (3) the relationship between how many items are stored and how well they are stored, (4) whether the number of stored items completely determines the fidelity of a representation (vs. fidelity being stochastic or variable), (5) the flexibility with which the memory commodity can be assigned or reassigned to items, (6) the format of the memory representation, (7) how working memories are formed, and (8) how memory representations are used to make responses in behavioral tasks. We reframe the debate in terms of these eight underlying questions, placing slot and resource models as poles in a more expansive theoretical space.

User satisfaction with complete dentures made by the public network of a city in southern Santa Catarina

OBJECTIVE: To assess user satisfaction with complete dentures made and delivered in 2010 by the public health care network of a city in the south of Santa Catarina. METHODS: This cross-sectional, observational, descriptive study used the Oral Health Impact Profile - 14 questionnaire to collect data. The questionnaire contains 14 questions on functional limitation, psychological discomfort, physical disability, psychological disability, social disability, physical pain, and disability. The survey was done in a city in the south of Santa Catarina. The participants were chosen randomly and kept anonymous. The sample consisted of 247 complete dentures made by the public health network of the city in 2010 for patients aged more than 50 years. RESULTS: Based on the social and psychological questions, the upper complete denture have a small effect on the patient's quality of life, while the lower complete denture causes stress, self-consciousness, physical pain, and mastication problems. Therefore, the most severe problems were caused by lower complete dentures. CONCLUSION: Denture follow-up protocols should be created to minimize the damages they cause to patients' health and to reduce treatment loss.

Priming…Shmiming: It's About KnowingWhenandWhyStimulated Memory Representations Become Active

A funny thing happened along the way of researchers using priming techniques to study psychological questions. Rather than priming being just a tool to study mind—dealing with questions like the nature of and the mechanisms underlying mental representation, semantic organization and judgment—priming became the object of study. In other words, it morphed from being a stagehand to being the star of the show. People began to talk about, and currently worry about, the nature of “priming effects.” We selectively review some of this history and emphasize the importance of returning to trying to understand the psychological mechanisms that underlie what priming “does.” Adopting our own suggestion, we focus on accessibility and present a recent framework that links understanding of how accessibility (and priming) works. Further, we demonstrate how a focus on mechanism both unlocks and enables adding to a large body of knowledge; namely, research on human memory.

On the Aristotelian origins of higher education

The story of how the sciences began to understand themselves as independent fields of research starts by detaching them from philosophy. The identity of the science in question will then further develop as it writes its own history. Higher education studies are, in such reflections, understood as a relatively new field that has its beginnings in the 1970s in questions of psychology, sociology and educational studies. Recent discussions have pointed out that there is an identity crisis going on within this field. This study returns to the old tradition of how a science forms its identity with the help of philosophy. The study returns to the influential formulations of Aristotle. Olaf Pedersen writes in his book on the history of universities that “many of our present difficulties, on closer inspection, appear to have been built into the system right from the beginning”. Our aim is not primarily to study what Aristotle said about higher education but instead to understand our present views and problems better.

A fine is a more effective financial deterrent when framed retributively and extracted publicly

Introducing monetary fines to decrease an undesired behavior can sometimes have the counterintuitive effect of increasing the prevalence of the behavior being targeted. Such findings raise important social psychological questions in relation to both the way in which financial penalties are framed and the social contexts in which they are administered. In a field experiment (Study 1), we informed participants who had signed up for an experiment that they would be fined if they arrived late. This fine was presented as either compensatory or retributive in nature and as being administered either privately or publicly. We then observed participants' subsequent arrival time. In accordance with our hypotheses, participants' punctuality was only improved (relative to a no-fine control) in response to retributive rather than compensatory fines and when told that fines would be administered publicly rather than privately. In Study 2 we used a scenario method to demonstrate that the greater efficacy of retributively framed fines can be attributed to their presence being less likely to undermine the perceived immorality of transgression than is the case for compensatory fines. We propose a material promotion-moral prevention (MPMP) theory to account for our findings and consider its practical implications for the use of financial disincentives to encourage cooperative behavior through public policy in domains such as climate change.

Comparative Developmental Psychology: How is Human Cognitive Development Unique?

The fields of developmental and comparative psychology both seek to illuminate the roots of adult cognitive systems. Developmental studies target the emergence of adult cognitive systems over ontogenetic time, whereas comparative studies investigate the origins of human cognition in our evolutionary history. Despite the long tradition of research in both of these areas, little work has examined the intersection of the two: the study of cognitive development in a comparative perspective. In the current article, we review recent work using this comparative developmental approach to study non-human primate cognition. We argue that comparative data on the pace and pattern of cognitive development across species can address major theoretical questions in both psychology and biology. In particular, such integrative research will allow stronger biological inferences about the function of developmental change, and will be critical in addressing how humans come to acquire species-unique cognitive abilities.

Language learners privilege structured meaning over surface frequency.

Although it is widely agreed that learning the syntax of natural languages involves acquiring structure-dependent rules, recent work on acquisition has nevertheless attempted to characterize the outcome of learning primarily in terms of statistical generalizations about surface distributional information. In this paper we investigate whether surface statistical knowledge or structural knowledge of English is used to infer properties of a novel language under conditions of impoverished input. We expose learners to artificial-language patterns that are equally consistent with two possible underlying grammars--one more similar to English in terms of the linear ordering of words, the other more similar on abstract structural grounds. We show that learners' grammatical inferences overwhelmingly favor structural similarity over preservation of superficial order. Importantly, the relevant shared structure can be characterized in terms of a universal preference for isomorphism in the mapping from meanings to utterances. Whereas previous empirical support for this universal has been based entirely on data from cross-linguistic language samples, our results suggest it may reflect a deep property of the human cognitive system--a property that, together with other structure-sensitive principles, constrains the acquisition of linguistic knowledge.

Intelligence modulates neural responses to probabilistic feedback: A functional link between cognitive skills and risk attitudes

The nature of the relationship between cognitive skills and economic preferences - in particular risk aversion and impatience – remains a key question in economics and psychology. Here we investigate the functional relationship between intelligence (IQ) and preferences for risk, by examining subject’s evaluation of probabilistic feedback during a simple economic decision task. Combining neural imaging with behavioral modeling of experience-based decision making, we identify a distinct pattern of neural and behavioral responses linking higher IQs to richer mental models of reward contingencies: Higher IQs correlate with smaller neural reinforcement learning signals after unpredictable losses, but not after unpredictable gains. Our results signify a link between intelligence and choice behavior that extends beyond the ex ante comparison of decision options to include ex post evaluation of decision outcomes. These findings suggest that correlations between intelligence and preferences may be rooted in a unitary process of how decision outcomes are experienced.

Connectionism coming of age: legacy and future challenges.

Connectionism coming of age: legacy and future challenges.

Estilos de vinculação e percepções de satisfação com os papéis parental e conjugal em tríades de famílias intactas

O objectivo primordial de qualquer investigação psicológica é contribuir para que a intervenção do psicólogo se ajuste às necessidades e modo de funcionamento do sujeito em situação de consulta psicológica. Como a família é um contexto transversal e presente em todos os processos, este estudo procurou perceber o modo como os seus diferentes elementos constitutivos (utilizando uma amostra de 230 tríades familiares compostas por pai, mãe e respectivo filho(a) adolescente) percepcionam a satisfação decorrente dos papéis familiares e a sua relação com a vinculação aos pais. De facto, a forma como cada indivíduo atribui significado é única e contribui para a formação de expectativas relacionais que são incorporadas nos modelos de representação internos. Verificou-se que mais importante do que a forma como cada um dos pais retira satisfação do desempenho dos papéis conjugal e parental é a forma como os filhos o percebem, sendo os sujeitos seguros aqueles que percepcionam os seus pais como retirando mais satisfação do desempenho dos papéis familiares. À luz dos resultados obtidos, procurou-se sistematizar as principais questões de intervenção psicológica ao nível dos pais e do adolescente, de modo a possibilitar a construção de relações adultas seguras e satisfatórias.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17575/rpsicol.v18i2.430

Conceptual provisions of the technology of independent physical exercises in home conditions after myocardium heart attack

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Can Psychological Questions Help Predict Managed Lane Use?

Managed lanes (MLs) are being used in many congested cities across the United States. While the socioeconomic characteristics of travelers, along with their trip characteristics, are commonly used to model ML choice behavior, other variables—such as psychological characteristics of travelers—may be beneficial in improving the understanding of travel behavior on MLs. Preliminary research on this possibility collected psychological data from ML users and determined that, in their psychological-construct form, psychological traits provided little benefit in creating models that accurately predicted ML use. This paper uses those data to consider further their impact on discrete choice modeling when individual psychological variables are considered in a more disaggregate fashion, thus helping to uncover the information that may be masked when these data are considered only in the psychological-construct form. Among the important conclusions are that some of the psychological questions, working in tandem with typical socioeconomic and trip characteristic variables, indeed appear to contribute to the creation of improved models of ML choice. Specifically, questions taken from the constructs measuring (a) the personal need for structure and (b) driving risk perceptions and driving style appear most promising. The questions highlighted in this paper provide direction for development of psychological questions within the transportation framework.