Familiarity with teammate's attitudes improves team performance in virtual reality.

Virtual reality (VR) is a potentially challenging social environment for effective communication and collaboration. Thus, we conducted a VR study to determine whether increased familiarity with a teammate would improve performance on a joint decision making task. Specifically, because attitude familiarity, or knowledge of another person's attitudes, has been correlated with better relationship functioning in the past, we anticipated that team performance would improve when teammates were first asked to discuss their task-relevant attitudes with one another. We also hypothesized that increased familiarity would be particularly useful in immersive VR, where typical social and other nonverbal cues were lacking. Twenty pairs recruited from a workplace environment were randomly assigned to either the Familiar or Control condition before completing a joint decision making task both in VR and on desktop monitors. The manipulation of attitude familiarity was successful: pairs in the Familiar condition were significantly more aware of their partners' unique task-relevant attitudes. Results found that in VR, Familiar pairs were more accurate at determining patterns to events. Additionally, for teams less experienced in VR, Familiar pairs were also more accurate at predicting future events. However, there was no meaningful statistical difference in pairs' ability to identify information. Familiar teams also took more time to answer questions, and we found no difference in self-reported communication quality. Overall, this was the first successful manipulation of attitude familiarity and results indicate that such an intervention may prove useful in a collaborative work environment, as Familiar teams demonstrated greater accuracy, especially in VR.

Interprofessional Healthcare Students' Perceptions of a Simulation-Based Learning Experience.

Academic healthcare programs are incorporating interprofessional education (IPE) into students' learning experiences in order to prepare students for optimal clinical practice. This paper describes a simulation-based learning experience (SBLE) designed to encourage students (n = 130) from six healthcare professions to learn more about interprofessional communication, roles and responsibilities of the healthcare team, and knowledge of interprofessional collaborative practice. Data analysis showed statistically significant differences in participants' perceptions of roles/responsibilities for collaborative practice (p = 0.001) and the patient outcomes from collaborative practice (p = 0.002). Additionally, participants identified the importance of holistic, patient-centered care, a greater understanding of the roles and responsibilities of healthcare team members, and a greater desire to participate in IPE activities. Utilizing SBLE with students in athletic training, nursing, occupational therapy, physical therapy, social work, and psychology led to positive perceptions of IPE and collaborative practice.

Attitude similarity and familiarity and their links to mental health: An examination of potential interpersonal mediators.

Similarity and familiarity with partner's attitudes are linked to positive relationship outcomes, while interpersonal variables have been linked to mental health. Using multilevel models (MLMs), we modeled the associations between these attitudinal variables and mental health outcomes in 74 married couples. We found that higher levels of attitude similarity in couples were linked to lower depression, while higher levels of attitude familiarity in couples were associated with greater satisfaction with life. Mediational analyses indicated marital satisfaction and interpersonal stress mediated the link between attitude similarity and depression. Marital satisfaction also mediated the link between familiarity and satisfaction with life. This study is the first linking attitude familiarity to mental health and provides evidence that familiarity and similarity have mental health effects partly due to their interpersonal consequences.

Cell-phone use diminishes self-awareness of impaired driving.

Multitasking diminishes the self-awareness of performance that is often essential for self-regulation and self-knowledge. Participants drove in a simulator while either talking or not talking on a hands-free cell phone. Following previous research, participants who talked on a cell phone made more serious driving errors than control participants who did not use a phone while driving. Control participants' assessments of the safeness of their driving and general ability to drive safely while distracted were negatively correlated with the actual number of errors made when they were driving. By contrast, cell-phone participants' assessments of the safeness of their driving and confidence in their driving abilities were uncorrelated with their actual errors. Thus, talking on a cell phone not only diminished the safeness of participants' driving, it diminished their awareness of the safeness of their driving.

Why a Confirmation Strategy Dominates Psychological Science.

Our research explored the incidence and appropriateness of the much-maligned confirmatory approach to testing scientific hypotheses. Psychological scientists completed a survey about their research goals and strategies. The most frequently reported goal is to test the non-absolute hypothesis that a particular relation exists in some conditions. As expected, few scientists reported testing universal hypotheses. Most indicated an inclination to use a confirmation strategy to test the non-absolute hypotheses that a particular relation sometimes occurs or sometimes does not occur, and a disconfirmation strategy to test the absolute hypotheses that a particular relation always occurs or never occurs. The confirmatory search that dominates the field was found to be associated with the testing of non-absolute hypotheses. Our analysis indicates that a confirmatory approach is the normatively correct test of the non-absolute hypotheses that are the starting point of most studies. It also suggests that the strategy of falsification that was once proposed by Popper is generally incorrect given the infrequency of tests of universal hypotheses.