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The night before or the morning after: Coup risk, failed coup attempts, and minister removals in autocracies
No full textWhen do autocrats replace their ministers? Research suggests that failed coup attempts lead autocrats to remove disloyal ruling elites. While this is an important and intuitive finding, failed coup attempts are very rare events and hence leave large amounts of variation in minister removal unexplained. Autocrats are reactionary when a rare window of opportunity, such as a failed coup attempt, occurs. However, previous work also suggests that they are anticipatory and survival-seeking. We argue that autocratic leaders are strategic actors who take preemptive action against potentially disloyal elites, rather than risking a coup attempt being realized. Using structural coup risk as a lower estimate of a leader's own perception of coup risk, we find that it significantly contributes to the prediction of minister removals. Compared to failed coup attempts, we find that it substantially improves predictive performance across a number of metrics. Our findings contribute to nascent research on government stability and the survival of autocratic leaders
Word reuse and combination support efficient communication of emerging concepts
No full textAn efficiency-based analysis of reuse items (or word meaning extensions) and compound
Virtual Kids - A Training Study With Experienced Investigators
No full textInvestigators who interview children in cases of suspected sexual abuse bear a great responsibility and are under extreme pressure during these interviews. At the same time, they are not adequately trained, either in their daily work or in their training. In the current project, we have developed AI-driven virtual characters that are based on a LLM and represent children in order to train interview performance in cases of suspected sexual abuse. In the planned study, we would like to test whether one session of 5 interview trainings with different virtual characters improves interview performance of experienced investigators and whether potential effects are related to personal characteristics
Psychological Correlates of Hearing Protective Behaviors in Adolescents and Young Adults: A Systematic Review
No full textBackground
Noise-induced hearing loss is both irreversible and preventable. However, only a minority of adolescents and young adults engage in hearing protective behaviors (HPBs) that reduce their exposure to noise, such as wearing earplugs at music venues. To promote HPBs it is imperative to know the most influential, and potentially modifiable, psychological factors that in this age group stimulate or hinder these protective behaviors.
Objective
The present study aims to offer a systematic literature overview of psychological correlates of HPBs in persons aged 12 to 25 years, and identify the correlates with most potential as behavioral intervention targets.
Conclusions
A total of 82 studies were included in the present review, of which data of 24 studies could be used to assess the strength of the association between one or more psychological factors and HPB. Heterogeneity between studies hindered synthesis. In particular, psychological constructs and HPBs were rarely defined and measured in a uniform manner. Studies were further characterized by a lack of research on psychological factors related to other HPBs than earplug use, such as sound volume control (e.g., the use of a volume limiter). Due to this relative absence of data, associations could not be assessed for specific HPB, and HPBs were aggregated in one variable. Taking into account both the strength of their associations with HPB and their univariate distributions, five psychological factors possessed the greatest potential as behavioral intervention targets: attitude toward recreational noise, perceived barriers, capacity, perceived norms, and perceived threat susceptibility. These results can help the development of new interventions. Additional research is however needed
Subjective valuation as a domain-general process in creative thinking
No full textIs a talented painter also a proficient writer? The ongoing discourse on whether creativity operates through domain-general or domain-specific mechanisms has led to challenges in our understanding of the creative process. Prior research suggests that creativity comprises two phases: idea generation and evaluation. A recent framework has proposed that the evaluation phase involves a valuation process which occurs upstream of the selection of an idea. In this framework, the value assigned to an idea, i.e., how much one likes an idea, energizes its production and drives its selection. While the role of valuation has been demonstrated in verbal semantic creativity, its domain generality remains to be tested. In this study, we assessed whether valuation is a domain-general or domain-specific process. Seventy-three participants engaged in three creativity tasks (producing semantic associations, alternate object uses, and drawings) followed by rating tasks. Using computational modeling, we found that a consistent valuation mechanism governs idea valuation across different domains. Specifically, the same value function and value parameters were shared across the evaluation of word associations, object uses and drawing completions. These findings advance our understanding of the evaluation phase of creativity, portraying the valuation component as inherently domain-general. Identifying such core components of creative ideation contributes to elucidating the cognitive mechanisms underlying creativity and provides empirical support for including valuation as a core process in creativity
From Real-Time Measures to Real World Differences: New [and Old] Statistical Approaches to Individual Differences in Real-Time Language Processing
No full textPilot Data
No full textThis research project examines attitudes towards digital devices and media consumption in relation to attention spans. We will employ qualitative surveys, experience sampling methods and an online cognitive test of attention control to provide a rich dataset to better understand the factors that influence attention in the current digital age
Exploring Interdisciplinary Research Trends through Critical Years for Interdisciplinary Citation
No full textSI Dataset S1 to S3 and code
Estimating death rates in complex humanitarian emergencies using the network survival method
No full textReliable estimates of death rates in complex humanitarian emergencies are critical
for assessing the severity of a crisis and for effectively allocating resources. However,
in many humanitarian settings, logistical and security concerns make conventional
methods for estimating death rates infeasible. We develop and test a new method
for estimating death rates in humanitarian emergencies using reports of deaths in
survey respondents’ social networks. To test our method, we collected original data in
Tanganyika Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a setting where reliable
estimates of death rates are in high demand. Qualitative fieldwork suggested testing
two different types of personal networks as the basis for death rate estimates: deaths
among immediate neighbors and deaths among kin. We benchmarked our network
estimates against a standard retrospective household mortality survey, which estimated
a crude death rate nearly twice as high as our network-based methods. Given both
methods are equally plausible, our findings underscore the need for further validation
and development of both methods