Are the benefits of autonomy satisfaction and the costs of autonomy frustration dependent on individuals' autonomy strength?

OBJECTIVE: From a self-determination theory perspective, individuals are assumed to benefit and suffer from, respectively, the satisfaction and frustration of the psychological need for autonomy, even if they score low on autonomy strength. Yet, previous studies on need strength are scarce, operationalized need strength differently, and produced inconsistent findings. METHOD: In two studies among 224 South African adults (Mage = 24.13, SD = 4.25; 54.0% male) and 156 Belgian prisoners (Mage = 38.60, SD = 11.68; 88.5% male), we investigated the moderating role of autonomy valuation and desire in the relations of autonomy satisfaction and frustration with a variety of well-being and ill-being indicators. RESULTS: Study 1 provided some evidence for the moderating role of mostly explicit autonomy desire (rather than explicit autonomy valuation). In Study 2, neither explicit nor implicit autonomy desire played a consistent moderating role. CONCLUSIONS: Overall, these findings are congruent with a moderate (albeit not with a strong) interpretation of the universality claim made within self-determination theory, provide initial evidence for a differentiation between deficit-based and growth-oriented interpersonal differences in need strength, and indicate that the potential moderating role of need strength deserves continued attention before any firm conclusions can be drawn.

The Actual and Ideal Sexual Self Concept in the Context of Genital Pain Using Implicit and Explicit Measures.

BACKGROUND: The experience of pain during sexual intercourse generates significant distress and sexual impairments, which is likely to affect sexual identity and become a threat to the sense of self. AIM: To explore the role of the concept of the sexual self in the context of genital pain by measuring different states of self (ie, actual vs ideal) at different levels of responding (ie, explicit vs implicit) and examine their associations with sexual, emotional, and pain-related variables. METHODS AND MAIN OUTCOMES: Thirty young women who identified with genital pain and 29 women without pain completed (i) two versions of the Relational Responding Task as a measurement of implicit actual and ideal sexual self; (ii) explicit ratings of the actual and the ideal sexual self; and (iii) measurements of sexual self-esteem, global self-esteem, depression, sexual satisfaction, sexual distress or depression, sexual frequency, and pain experiences. RESULTS: Women with genital pain scored lower on the explicit and implicit actual-self measurements than women without pain but did not differ in their ideal self. Furthermore, the pain group reported higher ideal- than actual-self scores at the explicit level. Actual- and ideal-self measurements had differential effects on sexual, emotional, and behavioral outcome variables. In general, rating the ideal self higher than the actual self was related to more negative outcomes. Pain-related variables were predicted only by the implicit measurements, showing that the high pain group reported more pain, fear of pain, and a stronger tendency to continue with sex despite the pain when perceiving themselves as sexually less competent and when this perception did not match their ideal self. CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS: Therapeutic interventions might benefit from discussing women's internal guides for self, decreasing potential discrepancies, and developing identity-related motivational treatments that target the emotional discomfort and maladaptive behavioral strategies that result from trying to conform with their guides of self. Setting idealistically high sexual standards, feeling pressure to perform as a sexual partner, and fearing to be sexually unqualified could be key factors in developing, maintaining, and exacerbating sexual dysfunctions. STRENGTHS AND LIMITATIONS: This is the first study to systematically examine different components of the concept of the sexual self in the context of genital pain. Despite the small sample and the use of a non-clinical group of women, we found a theoretically and clinically interesting pattern of results. CONCLUSIONS: Differentiating between different components of the sexual self is relevant to explain sexual, emotional, and pain-related responses. Dewitte M, De Schryver M, Heider N, De Houwer J. The Actual and Ideal Sexual Self Concept in the Context of Genital Pain Using Implicit and Explicit Measures. J Sex Med 2017;14:702-714.

Obesity, food restriction, and implicit attitudes to healthy and unhealthy foods: Lessons learned from the implicit relational assessment procedure.

It has been argued that obese individuals evaluate high caloric, palatable foods more positively than their normal weight peers, and that this positivity bias causes them to consume such foods, even when healthy alternatives are available. Yet when self-reported and automatic food preferences are assessed no such evaluative biases tend to emerge. We argue that situational (food deprivation) and methodological factors may explain why implicit measures often fail to discriminate between the food-evaluations of these two groups. Across three studies we manipulated the food deprivation state of clinically obese and normal-weight participants and then exposed them to an indirect procedure (IRAP) and self-report questionnaires. We found that automatic food-related cognition was moderated by a person's weight status and food deprivation state. Our findings suggest that the diagnostic and predictive value of implicit measures may be increased when (a) situational moderators are taken into consideration and (b) we pay greater attention to the different ways in which people automatically relate rather than simply categorize food stimuli.

Suppressing the truth as a mechanism of deception: Delta plots reveal the role of response inhibition in lying.

Lying takes more time than telling the truth. Because lying involves withholding the truth, this "lie effect" has been related to response inhibition. We investigated the response inhibition hypothesis of lying using the delta-plot method: A leveling-off of the standard increase of the lie effect with slower reaction times would be indicative of successful response inhibition. Participants performed a reaction-time task that required them to alternate between lying and truth telling in response to autobiographical questions. In two experiments, we found that the delta plot of the lie effect leveled off with longer response latencies, but only in a group of participants who had better inhibitory skills as indexed by relatively small lie effects. This finding supports the role of response inhibition in lying. We elaborate on repercussions for cognitive models of deception and the data analysis of reaction-time based lie tests.

Differential roles of childhood adversities and stressful war experiences in the development of mental health symptoms in post-war adolescents in northern Uganda.

BACKGROUND: Previous studies have shown a relationship between stressful war experiences and mental health symptoms in children and adolescents. To date, no comprehensive studies on the role of childhood adversities have been conducted with war-exposed adolescents living in post-war, low-resource settings in Sub-Saharan Africa. METHODS: A cross-sectional study of 551 school-going adolescents aged 13-21 years old was undertaken four years post-war in northern Uganda. Participants completed self-administered questionnaires assessing demographics, stressful war experiences, childhood adversities, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and anxiety symptoms. RESULTS: Our analyses revealed a main effect of gender on all mental health outcomes except avoidance symptoms, with girls reporting higher scores than boys. Stressful war experiences were associated with all mental health symptoms, after adjusting for potential confounders. Childhood adversity was independently associated with depression symptoms but not PTSD, anxiety, and PTSD cluster symptoms. However, in situations of high childhood adversity, our analyses showed that stressful war experiences were less associated with vulnerability to avoidance symptoms than in situations of low childhood adversity. CONCLUSIONS: Both stressful war experiences and childhood adversities are risk factors for mental health symptoms among war-affected adolescents. Adolescents with histories of high childhood adversities may be less likely to develop avoidance symptoms in situations of high stressful war experiences. Further exploration of the differential roles of childhood adversities and stressful war experiences is needed.

Mental health of victims of sexual violence in eastern Congo: associations with daily stressors, stigma, and labeling.

BACKGROUND: The conflict-ridden context of eastern Congo has set the scene for grueling human rights violations, with sexual violence as one of the 'weapons of war'. Currently, sexual violence continues, with a considerable increase in civilian perpetrators. However, little is known regarding the particular impact of different experiences of sexual violence on adolescents' mental health. This study therefore investigates the impact of sexual violence on eastern Congolese adolescents' mental health and its differing associations with daily stressors, stigma, and the labeling of sexual violence (as 'rape' or 'non-consensual sexual experience'). METHODS: A cross-sectional, population-based survey design was implemented in 22 secondary schools, randomly selected from a stratified sample, in Bunia, eastern Congo, a region extensively affected by war. A total of 1,305 school-going adolescent girls aged 11 to 23 participated. Self-report measures of mental health symptoms, war-related traumatic events, experiences of sexual violence, daily stressors, and stigmatization were administered. Differences in sociodemographic characteristics, traumatic experiences and daily and social stressors between types of sexual violence (rape, non-consensual sexual violence, no sexual violence) were explored through statistical analysis. ANCOVA analyses investigated associations between those risk factors and adolescents' mental health. RESULTS: More than one third of eastern Congolese adolescent girls reported experiences of sexual violence. Elevated levels of daily stressors, experiences of stigmatization, and stressful war-related events were found amongst girl victims of sexual violence, with the highest levels for girls who labeled the sexual violence as rape. Daily stressors, stigmatization, and war-related events showed a large impact on the girls' mental health. Last, girls who labeled the sexual violence as non-consensual sexual experiences reported more post-traumatic hyper-arousal and intrusion symptoms compared to those labeling the sexual violence as rape. CONCLUSIONS: These findings point to the important association between how war-affected adolescent girls label sexual violence (rape or non-consensual sexual experiences) and their mental health. This study also documents the large impact of sexual violence on other stressors (daily stressors, stigmatization, and stressful war events) and the impact of these stressors on girl victims' mental health. It discusses important implications for addressing sexual violence and its consequences in war-affected contexts.

The Curve of Learning With and Without Instructions.

In skill acquisition, instructing individuals the stimulus-response mappings indicating how to perform and act, yields better performance. Additionally, performance is helped by repeated practice. Whether providing instructions and repeated practice interact to achieve optimal performance remains debated. This paper addresses that question by analyzing the learning curves of individuals learning stimulus-response mappings of varying complexity. We particularly focus on the question whether instructions lead to improved performance in the longer run. Via evidence accumulation modeling, we find no evidence for this assertion. Instructions seem to provide individuals with a head start, leading to better initial performance in the early stages of learning, without long-lasting effects on behavior. We discuss the results in light of related studies that do report long-lasting effects of instructions, and propose that the complexity of a skill determines whether long-lasting benefits of initial instructions exist.

Norms of valence, arousal, dominance, and age of acquisition for 4,300 Dutch words.

This article presents norms of valence/pleasantness, activity/arousal, power/dominance, and age of acquisition for 4,300 Dutch words, mainly nouns, adjectives, adverbs, and verbs. The norms are based on ratings with a 7-point Likert scale by independent groups of students from two Belgian (Ghent and Leuven) and two Dutch (Rotterdam and Leiden-Amsterdam) samples. For each variable, we obtained high split-half reliabilities within each sample and high correlations between samples. In addition, the valence ratings of a previous, more limited study (Hermans & De Houwer, Psychologica Belgica, 34:115-139, 1994) correlated highly with those of the present study. Therefore, the new norms are a valuable source of information for affective research in the Dutch language.

Informal and formal supports for former child soldiers in Northern Uganda.

This study aimed to evaluate the potential contribution of informal community initiatives and formal interventions in support of former child soldiers' resilience in the wake of armed conflict. Using a cross-sectional survey design, a stratified random sample of 330 formerly recruited and 677 nonrecruited young people was consulted about their perspective on desirable support for former child soldiers provided by close support figures, communities, humanitarian organizations, and governments. Data analysis occurred by conducting qualitative thematic analysis and statistical chi-square analysis to explore clusters, similarities, and variations in reported support across the different "agents," hereby comparing the perspectives of formerly recruited and non-recruited participants. The results indicated that formerly recruited and non-recruited participants had comparable perspectives that call for the contribution of various informal and formal support systems to former child soldiers' human capacities and the communal sociocultural fabric of war-affected societies. This highlights the importance of community-based, collective, and comprehensive support of formerly recruited young people and their surroundings in the aftermath of armed conflict.

The impact of COVID-19 measures on parent-reported restricted and repetitive behaviours in pre-school children with autism.

Background: COVID-19 restrictive measures have had a considerable impact on daily life routines, which may be especially challenging for families of children with autism. In pre-schoolers with autism, it is likely that the disruption of routines mainly impacts the presence of restrictive and repetitive behaviours (RRBs). Furthermore, influence of comorbid conditions, secondary behavioural difficulties and home environment characteristics on RRBs was explored. Method: A cross-sectional online survey design was used to collect parent-report data on 254 children with autism (2.5-6 years) during lockdown in the early months of the pandemic. RRBs were assessed using the Repetitive Behaviour Scale-Revised (RBS-R). Results: Parents reported a significant increase in stereotypic, self-injurious, compulsive and ritualistic behaviour, and restricted interests after implementation of COVID-19 restrictions. The presence of a co-occurring condition, such as language impairments or intellectual disability, was associated with more self-injurious and stereotypic behaviour. However, there was no effect of home environment on RRBs. Further, most children showed increases in internalising and/or externalising behaviour. Increased inattentive behaviour was associated with more ritualistic and stereotypic behaviour, and restricted interests. Decreases in hyperactivity were related to more restricted interests. Importantly, in a subset of children, parents reported less behavioural difficulties during the lockdown. Conclusions: Findings highlight the importance of flexible implementation and continuity of care for pre-schoolers with autism and support for parents. Further follow-up of children with autism and RRBs, and co-occurring behavioural difficulties is needed and could enhance our understanding of the long-term effects associated with sudden restrictive measures to daily routines.

A Pictorial Dot Probe Task to Assess Food-Related Attentional Bias in Youth With and Without Obesity: Overview of Indices and Evaluation of Their Reliability.

Several versions of the dot probe detection task are frequently used to assess maladaptive attentional processes associated with a broad range of psychopathology and health behavior, including eating behavior and weight. However, there are serious concerns about the reliability of the indices derived from the paradigm as measurement of attentional bias toward or away from salient stimuli. The present paper gives an overview of different attentional bias indices used in psychopathology research and scrutinizes three types of indices (the traditional attentional bias score, the dynamic trial-level base scores, and the probability index) calculated from a pictorial version of the dot probe task to assess food-related attentional biases in children and youngsters with and without obesity. Correlational analyses reveal that dynamic scores (but not the traditional and probability indices) are dependent on general response speed. Reliability estimates are low for the traditional and probability indices. The higher reliability for the dynamic indices is at least partially explained by general response speed. No significant group differences between youth with and without obesity are found, and correlations with weight are also non-significant. Taken together, results cast doubt on the applicability of this specific task for both experimental and individual differences research on food-related attentional biases in youth. However, researchers are encouraged to make and test adaptations to the procedure or computational algorithm in an effort to increase psychometric quality of the task and to report psychometric characteristics of their version of the task for their specific sample.

Substitute Behaviors following Residential Substance Use Treatment in the Western Cape, South Africa.

The dynamics of substitute behaviors and associated factors remain poorly understood globally, and particularly in low- and middle-income contexts. This prospective study describes the prevalence and types of substitute behaviors as well as predictors, correlates, and motivations associated with substitution in persons (n = 137) admitted to residential substance use treatment in the Western Cape province of South Africa. The brief assessment of recovery capital, overall life satisfaction scale, and an adapted version of the addiction matrix self-report measure were completed during and post-treatment. Results indicate that substitutes were employed consciously for anticipated appetitive effects, for time-spending, (re)connecting with others, and enjoyment. At follow-up, 36% of service users had substituted their primary substance(s) with another substance or behavior; 23% had relapsed and 40% had maintained abstinence. While some service users may be especially vulnerable to developing substitute behaviors, targeted prevention and intervention efforts can reduce this risk.

The Impact of Avoidant/Disengagement Coping and Social Support on the Mental Health of Adolescent Victims of Sexual Violence in Eastern Congo.

INTRODUCTION: Eastern Congo has been affected by armed conflict for decades while the rampant use of sexual violence has left many women and girls dealing with a wide range of consequences of sexual violence. For adolescent victims the psychosocial impact of sexual violence is devastating. However, the role of avoidant/disengagement coping and family support on the mental health impact of sexual violence remains unclear. METHODS: The study design was a cross-sectional, population-based survey in which 1,305 school-going adolescent girls aged 11 to 23 participated. Mental health symptoms (IES-R and HSCL-37A), family support (MSPSS), avoidant/disengagement (Kidcope), war-related traumatic events (ACEES), experiences of sexual violence, daily stressors, and stigmatization (ACEDSS) were administered through self-report measures. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis was carried out with mental health outcomes as dependent variables for different types of sexual violence. Finally, several ANCOVA models were defined to explore possible interaction effects of avoidant/disengagement coping and family support with stigmatization, daily stressors and war-related traumatic exposure. RESULTS: For girls who did not report sexual violence, avoidant/disengagement coping has a direct negative effect on all psychological symptoms. For victims of sexual violence, when high levels of stigma were reported, avoidant/disengagement coping possibly served as a protective factor, as shown by the interaction effect between avoidance/disengagement coping and stigmatization on mental health outcomes. In victims of sexual violence however, high levels of daily stressors combined with avoidant/disengagement strategies showed a strong increase in posttraumatic stress symptoms. Interestingly, the mental health impact of sexual violence was not mitigated by support by family members. For girls who reported a nonconsensual sexual experience without labelling it as rape and at the same time testified to have a lot of family support, there was a positive association between stressors (daily stressors, stigma, and war-related trauma) and posttraumatic stress symptoms. CONCLUSIONS: These results of this study underwrite to the importance of looking beyond the straightforward negative impact of avoidant/disengagement coping strategies on mental health in adolescent victims of sexual violence. While avoidant/disengagement coping can have a negative impact on psychosocial well-being on adolescent victims of sexual violence, in case of high levels of stigmatization it can as well protect them from posttraumatic stress or anxiety. Furthermore these findings speak to the importance of exploring the diversified relationship between risk and protective factors, such as avoidant/disengagement coping strategies and family support, that shape the mental health impact of sexual violence in adolescent victims.

Parental Injustice Appraisals in the Context of Child Pain: Examining the Construct and Criterion Validity of the IEQ-Pc and IEQ-Ps.

A growing pediatric and adult literature highlights the role of injustice appraisals in adjustment to pain. However, interpersonal injustice dynamics have remained largely unexplored. The present study investigated the factor structure and criterion validity of parentally adjusted versions of the Injustice Experience Questionnaire, assessing child-oriented (IEQ-Pc) and self-oriented appraisals (IEQ-Ps) in the context of child pain. Participants were triads of healthy children (N = 407, Mage = 12) and both their parents and dyads of children with chronic pain (N = 319, Mage = 14) and 1 parent. In both samples, children completed measures of functional disability and quality of life (physical, emotional, social, and academic); parents completed the IEQ-Pc, IEQ-Ps, and a measure of parental catastrophizing about child pain. Across samples, a confirmatory oblique two-factor model (Severity/Irreparability-Blame/Unfairness) provided a better fit to the data compared to a one-factor model; nevertheless, the two-factor solution was considered suboptimal. A post hoc exploratory factor analysis consistently revealed 1 factor. In terms of criterion validity, the IEQ-Pc and IEQ-Ps demonstrated differential associations depending on the child's pain versus healthy status, independent of parental catastrophizing. Further, findings in the healthy sample indicated that fathers' self-oriented injustice appraisals related to lower child social function. In the clinical sample, parental child-oriented injustice appraisals related to greater child functional disability and lower physical, emotional, social, and academic function. Current findings support the unique role of parental injustice appraisals, assessed by the IEQ-Pc and IEQ-Ps, in understanding child pain, but also suggest these may only partially capture the phenomenology of parental injustice appraisals in the context of child pain. PERSPECTIVE: This manuscript presents an examination of the construct and criterion validity of 2 parentally adjusted versions of the Injustice Experience Questionnaire. These measures could be valuable tools for clinicians in examining how parents respond to their child's pain as it impacts both the child's life and the parents'.

How many exemplars are used? Explorations with the Rex Leopold I model.

The goal of this research is to test the hypothesis that a category is not necessarily represented by all observed exemplars, but by a reduced subset of these exemplars. To test this hypothesis, we made use of a study reported by Nosofsky, Clark, and Shin (1989), and replicated their Experiment 1 in order to gather individual-participant data. Both a full exemplar model and a reduced exemplar model were fit to the data. In general, the fits of the reduced exemplar model were superior to those of the full exemplar model. The results suggest that only a subset of exemplars may be sufficient for category representation.

A tutorial on probabilistic index models: Regression models for the effect size P(Y1 < Y2).

The probabilistic index (PI), also known as the probability of superiority or the common language effect size, refers to the probability that the outcome of a randomly selected subject exceeds the outcome of another randomly selected subject, conditional on the covariate values of both subjects. This summary measure has a long history, especially for the 2-sample design where the covariate value typically refers to 1 of 2 treatments. Despite some of the attractive features of the PI, it is often not used beyond the 2-sample design. One reason is the lack of a flexible regression framework that embeds the PI and that allows the user to estimate it for more complicated designs. However, Thas, De Neve, Clement, and Ottoy (2012) recently developed such a regression framework, named probabilistic index models (PIMs). In this tutorial we provide an introduction to PIMs where we discuss several theoretical properties, motivate why we think PIMs could be useful for behavioral sciences, and illustrate how it can be used in practice using the R package pim. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Automatic stimulus evaluation depends on goal relevance.

To examine whether automatic stimulus evaluation is dependent upon goal relevance, participants were presented with a mixture of (a) goal-induction trials to create a set of goal-relevant and goal-irrelevant stimuli, and (b) evaluative priming trials to capture the automatic evaluation of these stimuli as good or bad. In line with our predictions, a reliable evaluative priming effect was obtained only for stimuli that were relevant for the goal-induction task. Implications for the use of the evaluative priming paradigm as an assessment tool and the replicability of the evaluative priming effect in the absence of dimensional overlap between the prime set and the target set are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record

The role of motor imagery in learning via instructions.

Learning via instructions and learning through physical practice are complementary pathways to obtain skilled performance. Whereas an initial task representation can be formed on the basis of instructions, physically practicing novel instructions leads to a shift in processing mode from controlled processing toward more automatic processing. This shift in processing mode is supposedly caused by the formation of a pragmatic task representation, which includes task parameters needed to attain skilled task execution. In between learning via instructions and physical practice, a third type of learning can be situated, motor imagery. Two experiments are reported that studied the extent to which motor imagery can enhance the application of novel instructions. A procedure was developed in which performance improvement after motor imagery could be measured for behavioral markers of processes underlying response selection (i.e., initiation time of a response sequence) and for behavioral markers of processes underlying movement execution (i.e., completion time of the response sequence). Our results suggest that whereas physical practice improves response selection and movement execution, motor imagery only improves response selection. We propose that motor imagery also leads to a shift in processing mode and to the formation of a pragmatic task representation, albeit a less detailed one as compared to the representation that is formed on the basis of physical practice.