An Ecological Approach to Conceptual Thinking in Material Engagement

Although post-cognitivist approaches have shaken the status quo by emphasising the dynamic interactions among the brain, the body, and the environment in cognition, mainstream psychological theories continue to view concepts as primarily representational or skull-bound mental phenomena. As a result, the dynamics of action and the possible impact of material culture on conceptual thinking are poorly understood. In this paper, we explore the process and meaning of conceptual thinking from a material engagement perspective. We argue that conceptual thinking is not a matter of forming representations in the head but something we do—a way of engaging with materiality. Conceptual thinking is conceptual thinging, namely a kind of unmediated practical knowledge that individuals put into play when they engage, in a general way, with and through the world. In this sense, we propose that conceptual thinking is instantiated in the dynamic coordination of bodily practices and artefacts in sociomaterial activities. To elucidate this perspective, we introduce seven principles defining conceptual thinking within an ecological-enactive framework of cognition

Shared Construction of Social Pretend Play Sequences at the Kindergarten

Pretend play is usually defined as an activity wherein objects and actions (but also affective expression, at times) are separated from their original meanings. Its developmental appearance is set around the second year of life, and increases dramatically in duration, frequency and quality when play episodes start becoming more complex, both linguistically and interactionally reaching its peak in preschool years. To date, however, little attention has been paid to how social pretend play emerges and develops before the age of three. Our study aims to investigate early spontaneous pretend play interactions between children aged 19 to 28 months attending the same kindergarten. We used micro-analytical coding of video-recorded interactions to explore sequences of interaction where children coordinated their actions to engage in social pretend play with objects. Our analyses showed that co-constructed sequences appeared organised by a turn-alternation structure already at 19 months, and children used embodied and material resources afforded by the sequential organisation of actions to dynamically manage their participation. Although explorative, our results seem in line with previous reports suggesting an early onset of social pretend play developing over a continuum from being predominately an individual activity to progressively becoming a co-constructed endeavour

Accuracy and Speed of Emotion Recognition With Face Masks

Wearing face masks is one of the important actions to prevent the spread of COVID-19 among people around the world. Nevertheless, social interaction is limited via masks, and this impacts the accuracy and speed of emotional perception. In the present study, we assess the impact of mask-wearing on the accuracy and speed of emotion recognition. Fifty people (female n = 39, male n = 11) aged 19–28 participated in the study (M = 21.1 years). We used frontal photos of a Kosova woman who belonged to the same participants’ age group, with a grey background. Twelve different pictures were used that showed the emotional states of fear, joy, sadness, anger, neutrality, and disgust, in masked and unmasked conditions. The experiment was conducted in a controlled laboratory setting. Participants were faster for identifying emotions like joy (1.507 ms) and neutral (1.971 ms). The participants were more accurate (emotions identification) in unmasked faces (M = 85.7%) than in masked faces (M = 73.8%), F(1,98) = 20.73, MSE = 1027.66, p ≤ .001, partial η² = 0.17. Masks make confusion and reduce the accuracy and speediness of emotional detection. This may have a notable impact on social interactions among peoples

The Helping by Clicking Types Questionnaire (HCTQ): The Development of a Measure to Assess Different Patterns of Helping by Clicking

Recently, there has been an increase in the number of aid campaigns launched via social media. The paper explores the phenomenon called “helping by clicking,” which consists in clicking “Like” to support a charitable campaign or cause. The main aim of the paper is to present a new measure: The Helping by Clicking Types Questionnaire (HCTQ), assessing the patterns of helping by clicking. In developing the questionnaire, we relied on the theory of reciprocal altruism. The study included two samples of n = 349 and n = 1,006 participants. The HTCQ consists of 19 items making up three subscales: People, Environment, and Animals. The present research included two independent studies. Study 1 was conducted to determine the psychometric properties of the questionnaire, while Study 2 was conducted to verify the previous results and to test the usefulness of the questionnaire in distinguishing individuals with different patterns of helping by clicking. The measure was designed to assess three aspects of helping: helping people, helping the environment, and helping animals via social media. The study showed that the HCTQ was suitable for measuring patterns of helping by clicking. All HCTQ factors had good Cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficients. The HCTQ concerns a new and largely unexplored area of helping that involves the use of modern technologies. It reveals people’s motivations for helping

Quality of Life and Body Dissatisfaction in Cisgender Men Reporting Sexual Attraction Toward Men or Women

Gay men report poorer body image than straight men, but no research has examined other dimensions of sexual identity (e.g., sexual attraction). Most research also focused on clinical outcomes of body dissatisfaction rather than subclinical influences on quality of life. We examined the association between sexual attraction (i.e., attraction to men or women), body dissatisfaction and quality of life in cisgender men. We hypothesised that: 1) men attracted to men would report higher body dissatisfaction, 2) men attracted to men would report lower quality of life (i.e., psychological, physiological, social, and environmental), 3) body dissatisfaction would be negatively associated with quality of life, and finally 4) body dissatisfaction mediates the association between sexual attraction and quality of life. A cross-sectional study (86 men attracted to men and 87 men attracted to women) supported these hypotheses but showed that sexual attraction was only associated with psychological quality of life. While sexual attraction was only associated with psychological quality of life, there were indirect associations with all quality of life domains acting through body dissatisfaction. Our findings emphasise that men attracted to men are at greater risk of poor body image and that body dissatisfaction is a pervasive health problem, negatively influencing subclinical health and well-being in cisgender men. We also highlight how body dissatisfaction may be one psychological process negatively influencing the psychological quality of life in men attracted to men. More resources should be directed toward preventing body dissatisfaction, particularly in sexual minoritised men

Growth Mindset Is Associated With Mastery Goals in Adulthood

Growth mindsets, the belief that intelligence can grow with effort and training, have been associated with the adoption of mastery goals in children and adolescents. However, it is unknown whether these two factors are also correlated in adults. We conducted two online studies among three hundred participants to challenge this association. Results from (1) zero-order correlations, (2) structural equation modeling and (3) out-of-sample predictions converged on the finding that growth mindset was associated with the adoption of mastery goals in mathematics. This association generalized across different ways of measuring mindsets. Taken together the results provided new evidence for the idea that mindset and goal achievement are intrinsically related concepts, which remain associated across different life stages and generalize across populations

Use It or Lose It: Facilitating the Use of Interactive Data Apps in Psychological Research Data Sharing

The value of open research data (ORD), a key feature of open science, lies in their reuse. However, the mere online availability of ORD does not guarantee their reuse by other researchers. Specifically, previous meta-scientific research has indicated that the underutilization of ORD is related to barriers at the level of the ORD themselves, potential reusers of ORD, and the broader academic ecosystem. At the same time, sharing large datasets in an understandable and transparent format that motivates researchers to explore these datasets remains a fundamental challenge. With the present work, we propose interactive data apps (IDAs) as innovative ORD supplements that provide a means to lower barriers of ORD reuse. We demonstrate the use of two open-source Python libraries (Dash, Gradio) for IDA development using two psychological research use cases. The first use case pertains to an experimental quantitative dataset acquired in a clinical psychology setting. The second use case concerns the familiarization with data analysis workflows that are characteristic of natural language processing (NLP). For both use cases, we provide easy-to-adapt Python code that can form the basis for IDA development in similar scenarios

Gestures, Objects, and Spaces: Exploring Teachers’ Multimodal Communication in Nursery Schools

This study builds on the increasing evidence that the multimodal nature of adult-child interactions and the use of objects play an important role in early linguistic development. Most of these studies analyzed dyadic interactions at home, whereas few research has been conducted in early childhood education and care settings. In this paper, we characterized the multimodal nature of teachers’ communicative bids during classroom-based group interactions in nursery schools. Observational data of circle-time activities was collected from 16 Spanish nursery school classrooms, comprising 16 teachers and 161 children between two and three years of age. We analyzed teachers’ communicative bids (i.e., verbal utterances and verbal-gestural bids) considering the frequency of use of different types of gestures, to whom are they addressed (i.e., the whole group or a single child), the extent to which they involve the use of objects, the classroom layout, and the relationship between the communicative bids and the number of children that participated in each classroom. Teachers’ communication with toddlers is highly multimodal and rely on different types of gestures, although the use of objects in our sample was scarce. Descriptive analysis suggest that certain classroom layouts may favor teachers’ use of some types of gestures over others. In this article, we discuss the implications of both the use of objects and space for understanding how adults shape the linguistic contexts of young children, and the potential opportunities and limitations they pose for classroom interactions

Social Support and Adherence to Self-Care Behavior Among Patients With Coronary Heart Disease and Heart Failure: A Systematic Review

Cardiovascular diseases stand out as the foremost cause of mortality on a global scale and encompass conditions that require long term self-care. Coronary heart disease and heart failure are two cardiovascular conditions that require significant lifestyle modifications. Adherence to self-care is a multifaceted phenomenon, and is influenced by various factors that include social, economic, disease-related and healthcare system-related factors. A key factor in adherence to self-care in chronic illnesses is social support. To explore this relationship between social support and adherence to self-care, a systematic review was carried out across Scopus, EBSCO host and ProQuest from October 2022 to February 2023 using predefined search criteria. Studies from inception to February 2023 were considered for the review, ultimately incorporating a total of 11 studies. Six studies had an adult population with coronary heart disease while the remaining five had adults with heart failure. All the studies reported a significant positive correlation between social support and adherence to self-care. Our findings revealed that social support plays a significant role in promoting self-care, emphasizing the need for a holistic understanding of self-care to develop effective interventions. Along with self-report measures, objective measures should be used to assess adherence accurately. There is a need for scales that assess all aspects of self-care, as well as the development of new interventions and teaching strategies to facilitate the individual’s self-care journey. In addition, family members and trusted resources should be involved in encouraging self-care, and interventions should target both patients and their family members

Conspiracy Mentality: How it Relates to Populism, Relative Deprivation, Mistrust of Expertise and Voting Behaviour

Background and research aims. Considering the high prevalence of conspiracy theories and misinformation, there is an urgent need to explain the tendency to adopt a conspiracy mentality and identify behavioural (including voting) outcomes of a high conspiracy mentality. The aims of the present paper are 1) the examination of populist attitudes dimensions, relative deprivation and mistrust of expertise as predictors of conspiracy mentality and 2) proposal of comprehensive models, that combine predictors of conspiracy mentality and its voting consequences. Methodology. Studies utilised OSL regression and structural equation modelling. Results. The overall regression was statistically significant. It was found that dimensions of populist attitudes (anti-elitism, sovereignty), relative deprivation and mistrust of expertise were significant predictors of conspiracy mentality. In line with the second research aim, the fitness of models was confirmed and results suggest mistrust of expertise is also a significant predictor of far-right voting. Discussion. The contribution of the paper lies in connecting conspiracy mentality with not only attitudes but also with important behaviour outcome - voting behaviour. We propose future research should experimentally examine whether the reduction of some of the identified predictors could possibly lower levels of conspiracy mentality and whether this reduction translates into voting behaviour