British journal of psychology最新文献

The present study explores whether a particular style of placebo disclosure could serve as a tool to foster a renewed trust in one's own inherent resources and elicit a meaningful placebo effect. In a motor performance task, two placebo groups received inert transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) in each of four sessions along with information on its force-enhancing properties. Before the final session, one of the placebo groups was informed about the placebo, which was portrayed as a means to unleash an inherent potential. Along with force, we systematically monitored task-specific self-efficacy to test whether this variable would be differentially modulated in the two placebo groups. Compared to two control groups, placebo groups showed higher force and self-efficacy in the last session. No differences in self-efficacy were observed in the placebo groups even after revealing the placebo procedure, suggesting that the disclosure was effective in ‘safeguarding’ individuals' self-efficacy. These findings may have important implications, paving the way for the use of placebos that not only are ethically permissible but also support individuals' self-efficacy.

Uncertainty has been a central concept in psychological theories of anxiety. However, this concept has been plagued by divergent connotations and operationalizations. The lack of consensus hinders the current search for cognitive and biological mechanisms of anxiety, jeopardizes theory creation and comparison, and restrains translation of basic research into improved diagnoses and interventions. Drawing upon uncertainty decomposition in Bayesian Decision Theory, we propose a well-defined conceptual structure of uncertainty in cognitive and clinical sciences, with a focus on anxiety. We discuss how this conceptual structure provides clarity and can be naturally applied to existing frameworks of psychopathology research. Furthermore, it allows formal quantification of various types of uncertainty that can benefit both research and clinical practice in the era of computational psychiatry.

Recent work demonstrates that those who regularly play action video games (AVGs) consistently outperform non-gamer (NG) controls on tests of various cognitive abilities. AVGs place high demands on several cognitive functions and are often engaged with for long periods of time (e.g., over 2 h), predisposing players to experiencing cognitive fatigue. The detrimental effects of cognitive fatigue have been widely studied in various contexts where accurate performance is crucial, including aviation, military, and sport. Even though AVG players may be prone to experiencing cognitive fatigue, this topic has received little research attention to date. In this study, we compared the effect of a cognitively fatiguing task on the subsequent cognitive performance of action video game players and NG control participants. Our results indicated AVGs showed superior spatial working memory and complex attention abilities while showing no difference from NGs on simple attention performance. Additionally, we found that our cognitive fatigue and control interventions did not differentially affect the cognitive performance of AVGs and NGs in this study. This pre-registered study provides evidence that AVGs show superior cognitive abilities in comparison to a non-gaming population, but do not appear more resilient to cognitive fatigue.

Drawing on conservation of resources theory and job embeddedness, this study aims to investigate crossovers of positivity and negativiy between leaders and their followers with respect to work-related variables (i.e. work engagement, emotional exhaustion, job satisfaction and turnover intentions). Two waves of multisource data were collected from 244 leader–follower dyads. An actor–partner interdependence model extended to mediation (APIMeM) was used to test two mediation models and examine crossovers between leaders and their followers. Findings show that negative events are positively associated with emotional exhaustion of leaders (followers), which in turn is positively associated with leaders' (followers') own turnover intention as well as that of their followers (leaders). Positive events are positively associated with work engagement of leaders, which in turn is positively associated with leaders' own job satisfaction, but not with the job satisfaction of their followers. In other words, negative events have cross-over effects, while positive events do not. In essence, we found evidence of a crossovered negativity bias. This study is unique in using a dyadic approach to analyse leader–follower crossovers with respect to job satisfaction and turnover intention. This study reveals the mediating and cross-over effects of work engagement and emotional exhaustion on the links between positive (negative) events and work outcomes.

Although the perception of justice is a core need of all individuals, the adaptive value of belief in a just world (BJW)—in everyday life and when facing severe distress—has been typically investigated in separate studies. In this article, we tested, in only one study, the possibility that BJW can be a personal resource and a coping resource. We analysed data from the European Social Survey comprised of random representative samples of 27 European countries (N = 24,776 participants). We considered distressing circumstances both at an individual level (health impairment and financial difficulty) and at a macroeconomic contextual level. The results showed that for people both facing and not facing financial or health-related distress, BJW was positively associated with well-being, supporting BJW as a personal resource. Furthermore, we found that the decrease of well-being of people facing distress, both at an individual level and at a contextual level, compared to people not facing distress, was lower for individuals with higher BJW than for individuals with lower BJW, supporting BJW as a coping resource.

In three studies with Jewish participants, we explored the consequences of intergroup conspiracy theories on those targeted. In Study 1 (N = 250), perceived Jewish conspiracy theory popularity was positively associated with intergroup threat and negatively associated with the closeness of contact with non-Jewish people. Study 2 (n = 194) employed an experimental design where Jewish participants were exposed to the idea that many (vs. few) non-Jewish people believe in Jewish conspiracy theories. A path model demonstrated that exposure to the many (vs. few) manipulation increased intergroup threat, which was then positively associated with emotional reactions. Intergroup anxiety and ingroup anger were then positively associated with avoidance, whilst ingroup anxiety was positively associated with approach tendencies. Study 3 (n = 201) used the same experimental design, and a path model revealed that conspiracy popularity increased intergroup threat, which, in turn, was positively associated with ingroup anger and anxiety. Ingroup anxiety was then associated with intentions to help ingroup members. Notably, conspiracy popularity rendered participants less likely to interact with a non-Jewish partner in a behavioural task. Our work provides evidence that conspiracy beliefs, especially when perceived to be widely held, are likely to significantly impact targeted ingroup members.

As people age, they tend to spend more time indoors, and the colours in their surroundings may significantly impact their mood and overall well-being. However, there is a lack of empirical evidence to provide informed guidance on colour choices, irrespective of age group. To work towards informed choices, we investigated whether the associations between colours and emotions observed in younger individuals also apply to older adults. We recruited 7393 participants, aged between 16 and 88 years and coming from 31 countries. Each participant associated 12 colour terms with 20 emotion concepts and rated the intensity of each associated emotion. Different age groups exhibited highly similar patterns of colour–emotion associations (average similarity coefficient of .97), with subtle yet meaningful age-related differences. Adolescents associated the greatest number but the least positively biased emotions with colours. Older participants associated a smaller number but more intense and more positive emotions with all colour terms, displaying a positivity effect. Age also predicted arousal and power biases, varying by colour. Findings suggest parallels in colour–emotion associations between younger and older adults, with subtle but significant age-related variations. Future studies should next assess whether colour–emotion associations reflect what people actually feel when exposed to colour.

The purpose of this research is to examine gender differences in promotion/prevention self-regulatory focus, a dispositional motivational orientation with major implications for human functioning. First, a review of literature using social cognitive theory as a framework suggests that, driven by socialization processes, (1) women may on average be more prevention focused than men – meaning more vigilant to maintain a secure status quo, whereas (2) men may on average be more promotion focused than women – meaning more eager to advance to a better situation than their status quo. Second, we provide data to examine these possible gender differences in self-regulatory focus with secondary analyses of (a) our own existing data on dispositional regulatory focus and of (b) a large scale, representative panel study (LISS Survey). The data suggest a highly consistent difference with women being more prevention focused than men, while the difference in promotion focus is much smaller and is only found in European samples. Auxiliary data suggest promotion-focused women hold less traditional gender role beliefs as well as showing that regulatory focus partially explains examples of behavioural differences between men and women. The analysis of gender difference in regulatory focus sheds new light on gender differences and biases already known, and on regulatory focus, and as such opens up many new and important areas of future inquiry.

Research on gender-fair language aims to identify language inclusive to a multitude of individuals, for example, increasing the visibility of women by using paired pronouns (he/she) instead of generic masculine forms (he). However, binary presentations like he/she might come with unwanted side effects and evoke what we label as normative gender bias. A normative gender bias is defined as when words lead to stronger associations with individuals with normative gender expressions than with individuals with non-normative gender expressions, thus contributing to making non-normative individuals invisible. In three experiments, we compared the extent to which the paired pronoun he/she (Swedish and English), the neo-pronouns hen (Swedish), ze (English), and the generic pronoun singular they (English) evoked a normative gender bias. Swedish- (N = 219 and 268) and English- (N = 837, from the UK) speaking participants read about individuals referred to with the paired pronoun he/she or with hen, ze, or they. In Experiment 1 (Swedish), there was no main effect of condition on a normative bias, but in Experiment 2 (Swedish), the paired pronouns he/she evoked normative gender bias while hen did not. In Experiment 3 (English), both ze and singular they evoked normative gender bias, although normative associations were lower in these conditions compared to he/she. Furthermore, the normative bias was lower among participants who had knowledge about the use of ze as a nonbinary pronoun. Finally, neither ze nor they evoked a normative gender bias when their use was explicitly stated to be nonbinary. A potential explanation for why singular they did not generally result in less normative associations, despite almost all participants knowing about it, may include its more common use as a generic pronoun. Taken together, our results suggest that neo-pronouns, but not paired pronouns, have the potential to evoke less normative associations, but that they must be both (1) actively created new words and (2) well-known to language users as nonbinary pronouns.