Europe’s Journal of Psychology (PsychOpen)
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Human Responses to Disasters: A Pilot Study on Peritraumatic Emotional and Cognitive Processing
No full textThis research article presents the qualitative development and cross-cultural pilot testing of a new instrument measuring emotional and cognitive processing during disasters. The instrument was developed according to a theoretical framework based on narratives from survivors of different types of disaster across Europe. Peritraumatic emotions and cognitions were assessed at three different stages of a disaster. The pilot study consisted of 311 participants responding to the questionnaire using scenario versions of disasters as well as 25 survivors working through the questionnaire using their experiences of real disasters. Both types of analysis were performed across seven countries. Differences in emotions and cognitions during the course of a disaster were displayed. Also, gender, the type of scenario participants were allocated to, and professional experience of emergencies led to differences in item response. As there was little difference between survivors’ and scenario participants’ responses, the use of a scenario in order to test pilot forms of questionnaires for purposive samples with certain characteristics such as limited sizes or access can be supported. For future research, the instrument should be field tested. It is envisaged it will be beneficial for a cross-cultural understanding of the influence of peritraumatic emotions and cognitions not only on posttraumatic psychological outcomes but also on related behavioural responses displayed during disasters
Updating Ebbinghaus on the Science of Memory
No full textOf all the higher mental processes, memory ranks up there as one of the most crucial. It helps us do rudimentary tasks such as turning on the toaster in the morning, grinding our coffee and meeting a friend at the right time. But it also helps us do more sophisticated things too: like solving complex problems, feeling love, reminiscing with family and telling stories about our lives. Without memory, we wouldn’t be able to do these things very well, if at all
Making up History: False Memories of Fake News Stories
No full textPrevious research has shown that information that is repeated is more likely to be rated as true than information that has not been heard before. The current experiment examines whether familiarity with false news stories would increase rates of truthfulness and plausibility for these events. Further, the experiment tested whether false stories that were familiar would result in the creation of a false memory of having heard the story outside of the experiment. Participants were exposed to false new stories, each portrayed by the investigator as true news stories. After a five week delay, participants who had read the false experimental stories rated them as more truthful and more plausible than participants who had not been exposed to the stories. In addition, there was evidence of the creation of false memories for the source of the news story. Participants who had previously read about the stories were more likely to believe that they had heard the false stories from a source outside the experiment. These results suggest that repeating false claims will not only increase their believability but may also result in source monitoring errors
Unconscious Plagiarism in Recall: Attribution to the Self, but not for Self-Relevant Reasons
No full textPrevious research has shown that if people improve other’s ideas, they subsequently unconsciously plagiarise them at a dramatically higher rate than if they imagine them, or simply hear them again. It has been claimed that this occurs because improvement resembles the process of generation, and that these are confused during retrieval. However, an alternate possibility is tested here: plagiarism may increases because improvement increases personal relevance of the ideas. Two studies were conducted in which there was an initial generation phase, followed by an elaboration phase in which participants imagined the previous ideas, improved them for their own use, or improved them for an older adult’s use. One week later, participants attempted to recall their own ideas, and generated new solutions to the previous problems. In both studies, improvement of doubled the rate of subsequent plagiarism in the recall own task, but this effect was not mediated by whether people improved ideas for their own use, of for use by someone else. Improvement had no effect on plagiarism in the generate-new task. These studies therefore rule out personal relevance, or personal semantics as the source of the improvement effect in unconscious plagiarism
Extraordinary Memories for Exceptional Events: Essays in Cognitive Psychology
No full textThe Apollo 11 moon landings. The Challenger space shuttle disaster. The 9/11 World Trade Centre attacks. Depending on your age, there’s a good chance you have a particularly vivid and highly detailed memory of at least one of these events. At the same time, your memory for the days immediately preceding, and following, these events is probably poor. Why is it that we are able to remember momentous events better than mundane events? And just how accurate are these exceptional memories that we create? These are the central questions addressed in ‘Extraordinary Memories for Exceptional Events’, by Stephen R. Schmidt, a timely consideration of the vast body of theoretical and empirical evidence that underpins our understanding of memory for exceptional events
Recent changes to the ethical review process is good news for psychologists and health researchers in Europe, especially in the UK
No full textAmid the doom and gloom surrounding the European Union‟s (EU) economic situation, one stream of activity gives cause for optimism: health research. Not only have recent changes made life much easier for health psychologists, but also the UK government wants to streamline all health research in the UK to make it more cost effective, if not profitable (Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, 2011). These improvements have been applauded by the research community. Indeed these improvements might even make the UK the country of choice for health-related research in the EU, something that would have been unthinkable six or seven years ago
Media Representations of Youth Violence in Bulgaria
No full textThis paper presents a study of media representations of youth violence. The way by which media presents the young generation is a reflection of and influence on the development of identity by youth and society’s attitude towards youth. No previous studies have been conducted on this topic in Bulgaria, but the ones carried out in some other countries (including the USA and Australia) revealed an ambiguous image of young people with an important emphasis on violence as a part of youth life. 159 news items concerning young people from September 2010 issues of the Bulgarian newspapers “Telegraph” and “Sega” were coded. 21.4% of the news items dedicated to young people dealt with violence. Young people as committing an act of violence or as victims of violence were described with some neutral labels indicating their social group membership (gender, ethnic, territorial, etc.) or with some negative labels describing them as criminals. Young people violence in these two Bulgarian newspapers was associated with sexual issues, medical issues and family issues in more than 30% of the cases, as well as with educational issue in more than 20% of the news items. The image of young people reflected by the Bulgarian media was not only a negative one. 4/5 of the news items in the newspapers described young people as successful students, sportsmen, politically engaged, doing cultural activities, prepared for business, etc. Adults were advised by the media on how to understand teenagers and how to help young people – having a positive outlook on youth, expressing their love and concern for young people, communicating with them, giving them support (including financial, medical, and educational) by means of the state and different institutions
Memory, History and Narrative: Shifts of Meaning when (Re)constructing the Past
No full textThis paper is devoted to the examination of some socio-cultural dimensions of memory, focusing on narratives as a meditational tool (Vygotsky, 1978) for the construction of past events and attribution of meaning. The five elements of Kenneth Burke’s Grammar of Motives (1969) are taken as a framework for the examination of reconstructions of the past and particularly of histories, namely: 1) the interpretative and reconstructive action of 2) a positioned agent operating 3) through narrative means 4) addressed to particular purposes 5) within a concrete social and temporal scenery. The reflexive character of such approach opens the ground for considering remembering as one kind of act performed within the context of a set of on-going actions, so that remembrances play a directive role for action and so have an unavoidable moral dimension. This is particularly relevant for some kinds of social memory such as history teaching and their effects upon identity
"Fuelling" Cognitive Judgments: Worry as a Mediator Between Risk Perceptions and Intentions to Quit Smoking
No full textThe aim of the present study was to assess the importance of cognitive and affective risk perceptions along with measures of self-prediction of future smoking status and confidence in one’s ability to quit on intentions to quit smoking. Additionally, the purpose was to explore the mediating effect of worry on the relation between risk perception and quitting smoking intentions. The data consist of 415 participants defined as daily and “sometimes” smokers who were interviewed by telephone. The results showed significant direct effects of risk perception, worry, confidence, and self-prediction of future smoking status on intentions to quit smoking. Furthermore, the results showed a significant mediating effect of worry on the relation between risk perception and quitting intentions. The results are discussed in relation to the general role of cognitive and affective processes in influencing behavioural decisions. The implications and limitations of the present analysis are also discussed
Behavioral Correlates of Coping Strategies in Close Relationships
No full textThe main objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between specific coping strategies and problem-solving/communication behaviors in close relationships. The sample consisted of 72 couples who completed the Dyadic Adjustment Scale and the Marital Coping Questionnaire and who also participated in a filmed 30-minute discussion where they had to solve a relational problem. Observed behaviors were coded using a macroscopic coding system for dyadic interactions. For both men and women, results show significant relationships between coping strategies, marital interaction, and marital adjustment. For women, coping strategies and behavioral dimensions independently accounted for observed fluctuations in marital satisfaction scores. Theoretical implications of these results are discussed