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The objective of this study is to understand the long-term mental sequelae for families over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic by longitudinally investigating the well-being of children with and without complex medical histories and their parents. Well-being of 200 children (between 7 and 18 years of age; 73 typically developing, 46 born very preterm, 73 with complex congenital heart disease) and 175 of their parents was assessed prior to and during the first (April–May 2020), second (October–November 2020), third (April–May 2021), and fourth wave (October–November 2021) of the pandemic with standardized questionnaires. Linear mixed models were used to investigate longitudinal changes in child and parent well-being compared to before the pandemic. Social and COVID-19-specific determinants were investigated as predictors of impaired well-being. To illustrate clinical relevance, the proportion of children and parents scoring > 1 SD below normative mean/median was reported. Compared to before the pandemic, child proxy-reported well-being was lower during the first but not the second, third, and fourth waves. Child self-reported well-being was not lower during the pandemic compared to before. Parent well-being dropped during the first wave and remained low throughout the subsequent waves. Proxy-reported child and self-reported parent well-being was lower in families with sparse social support and poor family functioning. Parents of typically developing children reported lower well-being than parents of children born very preterm or with a complex congenital heart disease. In November 2021, 20% of children (both self- and proxy-report) and 24% of parents scored below the normal range compared to 11% (child self-report), 10% (child proxy-report), and 16% (parent self-report), respectively, before the pandemic. The pandemic continues to impact the well-being of parents of school-aged children with and without complex medical histories more than 1 year after its outbreak. Children’s well-being was specifically affected during the first wave of the pandemic and has recovered thereafter. Families with sparse social support and poor family functioning are particularly at risk for compromised well-being and support should be provided to them.

Assessing our confidence in the choices we make is important to making adaptive decisions, and it is thus no surprise that we excel in this ability. However, standard models of decision-making, such as the drift-diffusion model (DDM), treat confidence assessment as a post hoc or parallel process that does not directly influence the choice, which depends only on accumulated evidence. Here, we pursue the alternative hypothesis that what is monitored during a decision is an evolving sense of confidence (that the to-be-selected option is the best) rather than raw evidence. Monitoring confidence has the appealing consequence that the decision threshold corresponds to a desired level of confidence for the choice, and that confidence improvements can be traded off against the resources required to secure them. We show that most previous findings on perceptual and value-based decisions traditionally interpreted from an evidence-accumulation perspective can be explained more parsimoniously from our novel confidence-driven perspective. Furthermore, we show that our novel confidence-driven DDM (cDDM) naturally generalizes to decisions involving any number of alternative options - which is notoriously not the case with traditional DDM or related models. Finally, we discuss future empirical evidence that could be useful in adjudicating between these alternatives., Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, ISSN:1531-5320, ISSN:1069-9384

Interleaved learning has been shown to be better for delayed memory performance than blocked learning. Nevertheless, people judge blocked learning to be more effective. In the present work, we tested different explanations for this metacognitive bias. Across three experiments, participants studied sequences of object-color associations for a final color-reproduction test. In Experiment 1, colors of a sequence were selected from one color category (blocked-study condition) or distinct color categories (interleaved-study condition). Participants gave higher judgements of learning (JOLs) for objects studied in the blocked condition, although performance was better for objects in the interleaved condition. In Experiment 2, participants’ immediate memory performance after each sequence was additionally measured. JOLs were again higher for objects in the blocked condition, and they mimicked participants’ immediate memory performance suggesting a link between participants’ evaluations of the learning strategies and their immediate memory effects. In Experiment 3, the objects of one sequence were either grouped by category (blocked-study condition) or derived from distinct categories (interleaved-study condition). Neither JOLs, nor immediate performance was affected by this manipulation of blocked learning, speaking against the possibility that people prefer blocked learning because of habit only. We conclude that people overestimate the effectiveness of blocked learning due to the immediate memory boost caused by blocked learning and not due to their previously acquired habit to study in blocks. This study provides insights into how people evaluate the effectiveness of learning strategies and why these evaluations are not always accurate.

The way people feel is important for how they behave and perform in the workplace. Experiencing more positive and less negative emotions at work is often associated with greater status and power. But there may be differences in how men and women feel at work, particularly at different levels in their organizations. Using data from a nation-wide sample of working adults, we examine differences in the emotions that men and women experience at work, how gender interacts with rank to predict emotions, if the association between gender and emotions is accounted for by emotional labor demands, and if this relationship differs according to the proportion of women in an industry or organizational rank. Results demonstrate that women experience emotions associated with disvalue and strain at work more frequently than men and that organizational rank moderates the relationship between gender and several discrete emotions. Some of the effects are partially accounted for by occupational emotion demands, differing by organizational rank and/or the proportion of women employed in an industry.

This study explored trajectories of marital adjustment, including overall, affection, satisfaction, cohesion and consensus, in 197 middle-aged Israeli spouses who had been married for an average of 34 years. As military conscription in Israel is mandatory, all men in this study are military veterans. The main aims of the study were to explore the trajectories of marital adjustment over time and to describe similarities and differences in the marital adjustment of husbands and wives. Assessments were done at three time points over 12 years and were analyzed using a latent growth mixture model. Findings showed that overall husbands and wives reported being generally satisfied in their marriage. Different trajectories for husbands and wives were found in most domains of marital adjustment. The majority of wives reported a sharper decline in satisfaction over time, while more husbands reported an increase in affection. The wives reported more variability, as well as higher levels of consensus than their husbands across the 12 years of the study and the three data collection points. The spouses’ high level of cohesion served to support their high levels of marital adjustment. Implications of these findings are discussed.

Objectives Numerous studies have confirmed robust relationships between general well-being and mindfulness or character strengths, respectively, but few have examined associations between mindfulness and character strengths. Two studies were carried out to explore these relationships comprehensively in the framework of the Values in Action (VIA) classification of character strengths. Methods In study 1, participants (N = 1335) completed validated assessments of mindfulness and character strengths, and the relationship between the two was investigated in a broad online sample. In study 2, the effect of a mindfulness training on specific character strengths was investigated using a randomized-control design (N = 42). Results The results of study 1 confirmed positive relationships between mindfulness and character strengths and further identified a list of character strengths that might overlap with mindfulness—i.e., creativity, curiosity, open-mindedness, love of learning, perspective, bravery, perseverance, zest, love, social intelligence, forgiveness, self-regulation, appreciation of beauty, gratitude, hope, and spirituality. The findings of study 2 provided further support for the hypothesis that mindfulness training could help cultivate certain character strengths. Compared with participants in the waitlist control condition, those who attended an 8-week mindfulness-based training program showed significant increases in the strengths of love, appreciation of beauty, gratitude, and spirituality, and a trend toward significant increases in the strengths of zest and bravery. Conclusions The results provide initial evidence for a mutual support model of mindfulness and character strengths.

This study investigated the role of trust beliefs (i.e., trustworthiness, trustfulness) on aggression trajectories in a four-wave longitudinal study using an ethnically diverse sample of 8- to 11-year-old children (N = 1,028), as well as the risk profiles of low trust beliefs and low socioeconomic status on aggression trajectories. At Time 1 to Time 4, teachers provided ratings of overt aggressive behavior. At Time 1, children’s trust beliefs were assessed by a sociometric peer nomination instrument and derived using social relations analysis. Latent growth curve analysis revealed five trajectories of aggressive behavior: high-stable, medium-stable, low-stable, increasing, and decreasing. As hypothesized, children in the high-stable trajectory were perceived as less trustworthy than children in the low-stable, medium-stable, and increasing trajectories. Children in the high-stable trajectory were less trustful than children in the low-stable trajectory and had a significantly higher risk profile (i.e., low trust beliefs and low SES) compared to children in the low-stable trajectory. Our findings indicate that the developmental course of aggression during middle childhood is predicted by children’s trustworthiness and trustfulness. A risk profile of low trust and low socioeconomic status contributes to high-stable aggression trajectories.

Three self-report measures of the broader autism phenotype (BAP) were evaluated in terms of their internal consistency, distribution of scores, factor structure, and criterion-related validity in a non-clinical sample. All measures showed a continuous distribution. The SRS-A and BAPQ showed expected sex differences and were superior to the AQ in terms of internal consistency. The proposed factor structure of the BAPQ replicated better than the proposed structures of the other measures. All measures showed evidence of criterion validity via correlations with related constructs and each measure incremented the others in predicting related constructs. However, the SRS-A and BAPQ were generally stronger in this domain. Recommendations for the use of these instruments for measuring the BAP in non-clinical populations are discussed.

Ostensible psychiatric comorbidity can sometimes be explained by shared relations between diagnostic constructs and higher order internalizing and externalizing dimensions. However, this possibility has not been explored with regard to comorbidity between personality pathology and other clinical constructs in adolescents. In this study, personality pattern scales from the Millon Adolescent Clinical Inventory in a sample of 492 adolescent inpatients were subjected to a principal components analysis to yield oblique internalizing and externalizing dimensions. Relations between personality dimensions and well-established measures of psychopathology (depression, alcohol abuse, drug abuse) and other indicators of clinical dysfunction (self-esteem, suicidality, violence) were assessed before and after controlling for these higher-order personality dimensions. Associations between personality scales and indicators of psychopathology and clinical dysfunction were minimal with these higher order components controlled. These results suggest that internalizing and externalizing personality dimensions explain most of the associations between personality patterns and indicators of psychopathology and clinical dysfunction in adolescent patients.

Increasing evidence from the empirical economic and psychological literature suggests that positive and negative well-being are more than opposite ends of the same phenomenon. Two separate measures of the dependent variable may therefore be needed when analyzing the determinants of subjective well-being. We investigate asymmetries in the effect of income on subjective well-being with a single-item measure of general life satisfaction. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel 1984–2004, and a flexible multiple-index ordered probit panel data model with varying thresholds, we find that income has only a minor effect on high satisfaction but significantly reduces dissatisfaction.

The analysis of eye movement parameters in visual neglect such as cumulative fixation duration, saccade amplitude, or the numbers of saccades has been used to probe attention deficits in neglect patients, since the pattern of exploratory eye movements has been taken as a strong index of attention distribution. The current overview of the literature of visual neglect has its emphasis on studies dealing with eye movement and exploration analysis. We present our own results in 15 neglect patients. The free exploration behavior was analyzed in these patients presenting 32 naturalistic color photographs of everyday scenes. Cumulative fixation duration, spatial distribution of fixations in the horizontal and vertical plane, the number and amplitude of exploratory saccades was analyzed and compared with the results of an age-matched control group. A main result of our study was that in neglect patients, fixation distribution of free exploration of natural scenes is not only influenced by the left-right bias in the horizontal direction but also by the vertical direction.

In the television show Deal or No Deal a contestant is endowed with a sealed box, which potentially contains a large monetary prize. In the course of the show the contestant learns more information about the distribution of possible monetary prizes inside her box. Consider two groups of contestants, who learned that the chances of their boxes containing a large prize are 20% and 80% correspondingly. Contestants in both groups receive qualitatively similar price offers for selling the content of their boxes. If contestants are less risk averse when facing unlikely gains, the price offer is likely to be more frequently rejected in the first group than in the second group. However, the fraction of rejections is virtually identical across two groups. Thus, contestants appear to have identical risk attitudes over (large) gains of low and high probability.