In the Netherlands, more than 1 million people have accumulated debts. They can go to debt counseling to receive help for their financial problems. The current research investigated what type of...Show moreIn the Netherlands, more than 1 million people have accumulated debts. They can go to debt counseling to receive help for their financial problems. The current research investigated what type of help participants prefer to offer to a person in debt, focusing on two types of help: budget coaching, where debtors are being coached to keep their autonomy, and is often offered to people in early debt stages. We defined this as autonomy-oriented help. With budget management, the finances are taken off hands to relieve the debtor from stress, which is often offered to people in late debt stages. We defined this as dependency-oriented help. Previous research showed that people need dependency-oriented help when their financial stress causes cognitive impairments, we think this is also needed in an intermediate debt stage, than only in a late debt stage. We investigated if participants empathized with the help- seeker, would acknowledge the amount of stress, and would offer dependency-oriented help in an intermediate stage. Therefore, we manipulated the three debt stages; early, intermediate, and late, and manipulated perspective-taking. In this experiment, participants (N = 374) were randomly assigned to the manipulation conditions, read a scenario about a debtor in need, and filled out a questionnaire. We found that participants indicated acknowledging the stress of the help-seeker, but by taking perspective, participants indicated offering more autonomy- oriented help than dependency-oriented help. With this research, we suggest the debt counseling of the Netherlands to provide debt counselors the knowledge about debts, stress, and cognitive functioning.Show less
Financial scarcity forms a heavy burden, both on individuals and society. Being unable to meet your basic needs can threaten autonomy. Coping styles determine how individuals handle this adversity...Show moreFinancial scarcity forms a heavy burden, both on individuals and society. Being unable to meet your basic needs can threaten autonomy. Coping styles determine how individuals handle this adversity and contribute to the likelihood of help acceptance. The current study investigated the moderating effect of problem-focused coping on the association between implicit need for autonomy and help acceptance. British participants completed a survey consisting of the Picture Story Exercise, a help acceptance questionnaire and the Brief-Cope. The study showed that neither need for autonomy, nor problem-focused coping is predictive for help acceptance. Furthermore, problem-focused coping did not moderate the association between need for autonomy and help acceptance. Exploratory analyses indicated that emotion-focused or avoidant coping did not moderate this association. Future studies should include indebted participants to reliably investigate the complexity of financial scarcity. Such findings could provide insights for debt agencies on effective help for people facing (financial) adversity.Show less
Increasing attention is being paid to health inequalities in the Netherlands. Policymakers and government agencies are looking for methods to reduce the health gap, especially in order to increase...Show moreIncreasing attention is being paid to health inequalities in the Netherlands. Policymakers and government agencies are looking for methods to reduce the health gap, especially in order to increase the health of people in risk groups. People with a lower level of education and low food literacy appear to be an important risk group for food-related health issues. Nudging has been shown to be an easy and effective way to promote healthy behavior. For this reason, this study investigated whether the level of education and food literacy influence the effectiveness of default nudges in encouraging healthy food choices. An online supermarket experiment was used with a default and control condition. In the default condition, a healthy food product was displayed larger and preselected to investigate whether this option was chosen more often. A total number of 229 participants took part in the online supermarket experiment and completed the Self-Perceived food Literacy scale beforehand. Default nudges were found to have a positive effect on stimulating the proportion of nudged healthy products, but no interaction effect was found for different levels of education and food literacy. In conclusion, nudges can be used effectively, but no difference in effectiveness was found for different levels of education and food literacy. However, one nudge is not going to make the difference in reducing health inequalities. Yet, nudges do have promising effects and can contribute to stimulating healthy food choices one step at a time.Show less
The present research aims to examine the effect that different levels of perceived financial stress (PIFS) and trait hedonic capacity (THC) have on one's ability to enjoy a hedonic activity. We...Show moreThe present research aims to examine the effect that different levels of perceived financial stress (PIFS) and trait hedonic capacity (THC) have on one's ability to enjoy a hedonic activity. We examined (1) whether people with more perceived financial stress will prefer and enjoy hedonic activities, which are less expensive, and (2) we examined whether this effect is moderated by one's trait hedonic capacity. This moderation was thought to be present because THC explains our ability to block out intrusive thoughts (like financial stress) and successfully pursue a hedonic goal. In an exploratory analysis, we examined (3) people higher in trait hedonic capacity are less likely to have intrusive thoughts (cognitive conflict) and therefore enjoy a hedonic activity more than people low in trait hedonic capacity. The Participants (N = 129) were presented with The Trait Hedonic Capacity Scale (THC) and The Psychological Inventory of Financial Scarcity (PIFS) followed by two dinner situations, one being a cheap condition and a second being an expensive condition followed by 5 questions about their enjoyment of the activity and 2 questions about their intrusive thoughts. The results indicate no main effect of perceived financial stress on enjoyment. There was however a main effect of PIFS on the amount of intrusive thoughts, where higher PIFS resulted in more intrusive thoughts. THC was a strong predictor of enjoyment for those in the low PIFS group but not in the high PIFS group. There also was a significant main effect of THC on the amount of intrusive thoughts of a participant where higher THC resulted in people having less intrusive thoughts.Show less
Cooperation is an important part of living in a society and much research has been done to investigate the factors that promote cooperation between individuals. These studies report that...Show moreCooperation is an important part of living in a society and much research has been done to investigate the factors that promote cooperation between individuals. These studies report that cooperation could be influenced by factors like emotional facial expressions of happiness, and embarrassment, however, these are more for the adult population, and not enough for children. This study aimed to investigate the role of gender (boys and girls) as well as facial expressions of positive affect and embarrassment in the cooperative choices of children. To achieve these three hypotheses were drawn. Hypothesis one was cooperation would be higher among females than males. With the gender of the dyads randomized. Hypothesis two was, cooperation will be more when there are higher levels of positive affect. Hypothesis three was, cooperation will be more when there are higher levels of embarrassment. The participants were dyads of N = 80 children with ages ranging from 8 to 12 years old. They all performed an introduction task where half of them were asked to introduce themselves face-to-face and the other half with a black screen between them, thereby creating two visibility conditions: invisible and visible. Afterward, they played the modified version one-shot prisoner’s dilemma game. A chi-square test of independence was used to analyze hypothesis one. The results showed that there was no significant difference in cooperation between boys and girls, χ2 (1, N = 80) = .189, p = .664. A binomial logistic regression was used to analyze hypotheses two and three. The result showed that increased positive affect and embarrassment had no significant influence on the cooperative choices of children, with positive affect B=.05 SE=.18 OR = 1.06, p = .772 95% CI = [.74, 1.15] and embarrassment B=.05 SE=.07 OR = 1.05, p = .494, 95% CI = [0.91, 1.20] Therefore, it was concluded that although the results did not support the hypotheses, there may be several factors that could contribute to this, such as this study being done in real-life face-to-face settings versus the previous studies done with computer simulations or manipulations. Keywords: cooperation, emotional facial expression, positive affect, embarrassment, gender.Show less
The current study focuses on the influence of giftedness and pubertal phase on prosocial giving. Specifically, it was examined whether young adolescents differentiate between different targets in...Show moreThe current study focuses on the influence of giftedness and pubertal phase on prosocial giving. Specifically, it was examined whether young adolescents differentiate between different targets in prosocial giving, whether gifted young adolescents show more prosocial giving than non-gifted young adolescents and whether young adolescents in pubertal phase show more prosocial giving than young adolescents in pre-pubertal phase. The participants were 145 young adolescents (9-12 years old) who performed the Prosocial Donation Task (PDT) and filled out the Pubertal Development Scale (PDS). In the PDT participants divided ten coins between themselves and a specific target (friend, disliked peer, anonymous peer, father and mother). We measured their pubertal development with the PDS, after which we compared it to the Tanner Stages. This study found that young adolescents differentiate in prosocial giving towards the different targets, and that disliked peers and anonymous peers receive fewer coins than friends or parents. However, we did not find that gifted adolescents engage in more prosocial giving than non-gifted adolescents. The results of puberty showed that the pubertal phase itself does not affect prosocial giving, but that young adolescent girls do differentiate differently towards the targets than young adolescent girls in pre-pubertal phase do. For boys we found that young adolescent boys in pre-pubertal phase give fewer coins towards anonymous peers than young adolescent boys in pubertal phase. These findings suggest that targets influence young adolescents’ prosocial giving, which is insightful for social development in young adolescents. Young adolescents can act upon the person facing them and indicate that they show more prosocial giving towards their in-group than an out-group, which is in line with earlier research.Show less
Neural gain is the mechanism underlying the stability/flexibility trade-off, which is fundamental for goal-directed yet adaptive behavior. Inspired by the development of a computational model that...Show moreNeural gain is the mechanism underlying the stability/flexibility trade-off, which is fundamental for goal-directed yet adaptive behavior. Inspired by the development of a computational model that estimates gain, we assessed whether people rationally modulate gain to demands for stability and flexibility. We designed two task-switch digit-classification experiments with 60 participants each, in which we manipulated the proportion incongruency (PI) in experiment one and cue-to-stimulus interval (CSI) in experiment two. Our results indicated that PI manipulation did not significantly affect gain, yet incongruency costs and switch costs demonstrated an increase in stability in response to high PI. CSI manipulation significantly affected both gain and incongruency costs, demonstrating increased flexibility in response to a short preparation time. Furthermore, we used questionnaires to assess participants' ASD and ADHD trait scores and tested whether these predicted biases in gain and/or impairments in gain modulation. Despite the lack of conclusive findings, this study offers insight in the relation between ASD and ADHD and neural gain. More studies that overcome our limitations may discover the impairments in neurocognitive mechanisms underlying psychological disorders and inform treatment. Altogether, our results indicate that people rationally adapt to demands for stability and flexibility following an antagonistic trade-off. Therefore, this study contributes to the research on neuromodulation and adds to the general understanding of attention. Our findings may also help to inform applied research on the benefits and drawbacks of stability and flexibility in the workplace. Thereby, managers could be made aware of the number of tasks assigned to their employees and whether the demand to switch between them is proportional to their difficulty.Show less
The primary goal of the present study is to investigate whether reducing feelings of financial shame and financial stigma increases the willingness to seek financial support. To do so, two websites...Show moreThe primary goal of the present study is to investigate whether reducing feelings of financial shame and financial stigma increases the willingness to seek financial support. To do so, two websites from the same organization offering financial support were designed. The first used neutral wording, whereas the second included language that aimed to reduce feelings of financial shame and financial stigma. Although results showed that the willingness to contact the organization was not significant between conditions, we found that participants visiting the modified website were more willing to recommend the organization to relatives and friends experiencing financial hardship than those on the neutral condition. Additionally, we found that participants visiting the modified website perceived the organization as more supportive and trustworthy and showed more adaptive coping mechanisms regarding their own financial situation. Lastly, results revealed that participants experiencing higher feelings of financial stigma perceived the organization as less competent.Show less
One of the current challenges to increase patient safety is to improve the patient safety culture (Verbakel et al., 2014). An important factor in a good patient safety culture is psychological...Show moreOne of the current challenges to increase patient safety is to improve the patient safety culture (Verbakel et al., 2014). An important factor in a good patient safety culture is psychological safety (Edmondson & Lei, 2014). It is important that personnel feels free to speal up about mistakes or possible improvement to enhance patient safety. However, speaking up about mistakes may harm the perception towards your competence as an individual. Therefore, the perception of others is important when speaking up about mistakes, and may harm the psychological safety someone experiences. To increase the psychological safety it is therefore important to understand the influence of the perception of others on psychological safety. In this study two goals are formulated: 1) map the perception of others in the three departments in Hospital A. 2) Investigate the relation between the perception of others and psychological safety. The second goal is investigated with use of the following hypotheses: 1) Physician Assistants have a high perceived competence score, compared to Nurses, 2) Nurses have a high warmth score and low competence score, compared to Physician Assistants, 3) Specialists gave a high competence score, as perceived by Physician Assistants and Nurses, 4) The psychological safety level is lower in Nurses, compared to Physician Assistants. To answer these hypotheses mixed-methods design is used, gathering data from online questionnaires (N = 39), which were the SCM questionnaire (Fiske et al., 2002) and the Psychological safety questionnaire (Garvin et al., 2008), observations of quality meetings (N = 13) and semi-structured interviews (N = 3). The questionnaires were first tested on a M-Turk sample of healthcare personnel, to identify the internal consistency of the questionnaires in a healthcare setting. Results showed a significant difference in perception of the competence score of Physician Assistants, with Nurses perceiving the competence level lower than the Physician Assistants. Moreover, the perceived warmth score of Nurses were found to be significantly higher within Physician Assistants, compared to Nurses. This result was not found in the perceived competence score of the Nurses. Furthermore, the perceived competence score of Specialists was found to be non-significant when comparing the perception of Nurses and Physician Assistants. At last, the psychological safety level of Nurses and Physician Assistants did not differ significantly. These results indicate that the experienced hierarchy in Hospital A is less present than originally thought. Furthermore, no correlation was found between the perception of others and psychological safety within Hospital A. However, due to the small sample size we must be cautious with drawing conclusion of the results and more research is needed to gain more insight in the current situation at Hospital A.Show less
Background: During the COVID-19 pandemic, the accessibility of mental healthcare was severely disrupted. One specific part of psychological diagnostics that proved to be challenging without an in-...Show moreBackground: During the COVID-19 pandemic, the accessibility of mental healthcare was severely disrupted. One specific part of psychological diagnostics that proved to be challenging without an in- person visit, was the conductance of a neuropsychological assessment (NPA). NPAs are often performed using paper-and-pencil tasks, which leaves room for innovation in using digital tools, increasing accuracy of test scores. Therefore, the present study was aimed to investigate a small part of the remote and digital assessment of cognitive functioning, in specific: concept shifting. Usually, the Trail Making Task (TMT) is used to assess concept shifting, however, previous studies pointed out problems regarding the structural non-equivalence of the two trials in the TMT, resulting in inequal motor skills needed to complete the subtests. The current study aims to investigate whether an alternative task, the Concept Shifting Task (CST), might be a superior alternative for the TMT to measure concept shifting. The CST claims to be able to control for motor speed, and this claim was tested. To do so, a Finger Tapping Task (FFT) was included in the study as a measure of motor speed. Methods: A cross-sectional study, using a within-subject design was performed: all participants were asked to complete the FTT, the TMT and the CST. Thirty-two healthy adult participants completed these three tasks using software that allowed for digital and remote assessment. Linear regression models and correlation analyses were used to answer the research questions. Results: Motor speed did not explain a significant amount of variance in the TMT outcome measure (p = .821). Additionally, there was no significant correlation between the TMT and CST outcome measures (p = .68). A strong correlation between a CST motor variable and motor speed as measured through the FTT was found (r = -.70; p = <.001). Conclusions: There were no issues regarding the remote and digital testing set-up. The results revealed that, contrary to expectation, motor speed was not associated with TMT performance. Also, TMT performance and CST performance were not correlated, indicating that the tests are not interchangeable. The CST has, however, proven to be able to control for speed.Show less
Students with autism report higher rates of depression and anxiety and are more likely to drop out of higher education compared to their neurotypical peers. Students with autism can benefit from...Show moreStudents with autism report higher rates of depression and anxiety and are more likely to drop out of higher education compared to their neurotypical peers. Students with autism can benefit from support provided by the university, but effective support requires an understanding of their specific needs. Little is known about how the living situation of students with autism affects their well-being. The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between living situation and mental well-being of students with autism. Data were gathered using an online survey. Participants were 221 university students, 58 of whom reported a diagnosis of autism. They completed questionnaires regarding their living situation, and feelings of depression, anxiety, and loneliness. A relationship was found between living situation and loneliness. Students with autism reported feeling less lonely when living alone compared to living with flatmates, but not compared to living with parents. students without an autism diagnosis reported feeling less lonely when living alone, compared to both living with flatmates and living with their parents. The self-report nature of the questionnaire limits the validity of the gathered data. Selection bias as a result of the snowball sampling method make for limited generalisability: the members of the target population that are the most isolated may be more difficult to reach with this method. Another limitation is that the data only shows a correlation, not a causal effect between the studied variables. The study found that students with autism who live alone report less feelings of loneliness compared to living with flatmates. A future study that follows a cohort of autistic students before they enrol at a university and throughout their first years of university could provide insight into a possible causal relationship. If it is found that living alone improves the well-being of students with autism, accommodations could be provided.Show less
The human-canine bond exists for over 15,00 years ago, when humans began to socialize the European wolf-dogs. The influence of humans on the appearance of dogs created the extraordinary variety of...Show moreThe human-canine bond exists for over 15,00 years ago, when humans began to socialize the European wolf-dogs. The influence of humans on the appearance of dogs created the extraordinary variety of phenotypic diversity among the modern dog. Humans seem to be particularly interested in certain paedomorphic features in animals, such as a round face and large pupils, which is related to the Kindchenschema. Remarkably, one of the characteristics in dogs is an extra dark colouring around the pupil which seems to create an enlarging effect of the existing pupil. This so-called ring might be part of the human influence within the domestication of the modern dog. As well as a higher contrast between the iris and the ring, which creates a more visible ring and therefore strengthens the influence of the ring. The current study hypothesized and expected that 1) the ring is a predictor of the level of perceived cuteness in humans, 2) contrast is a moderator of this relationship and 3) attitude is correlated with the level of perceived cuteness. The 1100 participants were asked to rate 36 pictures of dogs on cuteness via an online questionnaire. The results showed that the larger the ring, the higher the level of perceived cuteness, as well as a positive correlation between attitude and the level of perceived cuteness. However, the contrast between the ring and the iris did not influence the relationship between the ratio ring/iris and the level of perceived cuteness. These results carefully confirm the influence of humans on a dog’s appearance. Future research could focus on gazing as a predictor of perceived cuteness, including isolating the eyes as presented stimuli.Show less
Background. This study was undertaken to determine whether symptoms of depression, stress and anxiety vary between naturally cycling (NC) women and women who use oral contraceptives (OCs), as well...Show moreBackground. This study was undertaken to determine whether symptoms of depression, stress and anxiety vary between naturally cycling (NC) women and women who use oral contraceptives (OCs), as well as the potential influence of personality traits, particularly emotional stability, on these variations. Methods. Standard psychological instruments assessing mood symptoms and personality traits, as well as a questionnaire regarding menstrual cycle and OC use were completed online by 266 women (133 OC, 133 NC) between the ages of 18 and 35. Correlation analyses and multivariate analyses of variance were used to determine the associations between these variables. Results. No statistically significant difference was found in scores of depression (D), stress (S) and anxiety (A) between OC and NC women (D; p=0.47, S; p=0.55, A; p=0.93). All three measures of mood showed a significant negative correlation with emotional stability (all p values <.001, D; r= -.32, S; r=-.44, S; r= -.46). However, no statistically significant difference was found between OC and NC women on the combined measures of depression, stress and anxiety when controlling for low emotional stability (p=.201). Conclusion. Low emotional stability is associated with heightened mood symptoms, however, there is no difference in these associations or mood symptom severity between NC women and OC women. This is in contrast with widespread beliefs and perceptions about OC use, as well as some scientific literature, although there still remains inconsistent evidence within the literature regarding which women experience negative side effects due to OC and why.Show less
Variants of exposure-based therapy have been found to be effective in ameliorating childhood abuse-related post-traumatic stress disorder (CA-PTSD). This study aims to investigate whether three...Show moreVariants of exposure-based therapy have been found to be effective in ameliorating childhood abuse-related post-traumatic stress disorder (CA-PTSD). This study aims to investigate whether three variants of Prolonged Exposure (PE) improve comorbid depressive symptoms, suicidality and personality disorders amongst patients with CA-PTSD. Data from the IMPACT study was used, which included 149 participants who were randomly assigned to one of three treatment conditions: PE, intensified PE (iPE) or Skills Training in Affective and Interpersonal Regulation followed by PE (STAIR+PE). Participants were assessed at multiple time points ranging from baseline to 12-month follow-up. Linear mixed effect models were utilized to test the effect of treatment on depressive symptoms, suicide risk, personality disorder symptom severity and the prevalence of diagnosed personality disorders. Such models were then extended to test whether the three variants of PE differed in their treatment effects. The findings demonstrated that treatment led to large improvements in depressive symptoms and suicide risk from baseline assessment to 12-month follow-up. Moreover, personality disorder symptom severity and the prevalence of diagnosed personality disorders significantly declined between baseline and 6-month follow-up. It was found that PE, iPE and STAIR+PE did not differ in their treatment effects, implying that deviations from the original PE protocol do not lead to superior treatment outcomes. In conclusion, variants of exposure- based therapy lead to sustained improvements in comorbid psychopathologies amongst patients with CA-PTSD.Show less
