This issue of Nordic Psychology features a selection of important and intriguing articles to be enjoyed during the stormy and rainy Nordic summer. The articles cover significant themes such as Attention Deficit and Reading Difficulty, Intellectual Humility, Consumer Choice, Overspending, Maternal Substance Misuse, and Trust.
In the first article of this issue “Linking aberrant pauses during object naming to letter and word decoding speed in elderly with attention complaints” Roger Carlsson, Idor Svensson, Christer Jacobson and Siegbert Warkentin tested whether the association between Attention deficit and reading difficulty are comorbid in neuropsychiatric disorders is also present in healthy elderly with undiagnosed attention problems. Thirty-two subjects (65+ years) with life-long complaints of attention and with a Mini Mental (MMSE) cutoff of 27 points were tested with MapCog Spectra (MCS), with a word recognition test (Word Chains test) and CANTAB subtests of attention. The study showed that attention was linked to decoding speed irrespective of intelligence and gender. The authors therefore suggest that a clinical assessment of attention deficit should also include an assessment of decoding ability, and vice versa, as these cognitive functions are strongly interdependent. In the second article of this issue “A Preliminary Investigation of Intellectual Humility as a Protective Factor for Maladaptive Personality Traits” Francesca Penner, Lauren Bowersox, Jacob Leavitt and Carla Sharp examined associations between intellectual humility (IH) and the five maladaptive traits outlined in the Alternative Model of Personality Disorders from Section III of the DSM-5: negative affect, detachment, antagonism, disinhibition, and psychoticism. The sample included 897 young adults between the ages of 18–25 (79.8% female), who completed the five-factor Personality Inventory for DSM-5 and the three-factor Intellectual Humility Scale as part of a cross-sectional online study. The results showed that five maladaptive traits were significantly and inversely predicted by at least one of the three IH domains, over and above age and gender. The authors discuss the clinical implications of the results, particularly for personality disorders that involve antagonism. In the third article of this issue “Descriptive social norms and resource cues influence choice by additive and separate effects” Magnus Bergquist and Lars-Olof Johansson assessed the unique and combined effects of social norm on both consumer choice and preferences. The study involved two experiments, including 384 and 724 participants, respectively. Results showed consistent effects of descriptive social norms, influencing both choice and preferences across the two experiments. When a resource cue was provided in Experiment 1, a small non-significant difference compared to the control condition indicated that information about resource states might affect choice. This effect was replicated with statistical significance in Experiment 2. No effect of such a cue was detected on preferences in either experiment. Present results suggest that the effects of descriptive social norms and resource cues are independent and additive. In the fourth article of this issue “Overspending on smartphone purchases among Swedish young adults” Tommy Gärling, Patrik Michaelsen and Amelie Gamble investigated whether retail offers of instalment payments of discounted cash prices tempt young adults to finance purchases of more expensive premium smartphones than they would purchase by cash payment. The results showed that although a majority chose the same smartphone twice seemingly not influenced by the retail offer, this was not the case for about one third of the young adults who despite a negative attitude to borrowing choose instalment payments of more expensive premium smartphones, and more than half of them at a price exceeding the regular cash price they choose to pay for a cheaper smartphone. The authors results suggest that regulation policies may need to be considered. In the fifth article of this issue “Preschool Children’s Coping and Caregiver Support in Families with Maternal Substance Misuse: A Qualitative Study” Noora Hyysalo, Minna Sorsa and Marjo Flykt studied coping and caregiver support among 29 children 4 years of age recruited from a children’s health clinic serving families with maternal substance misuse in Finland. Children completed a revised Attachment Story Completion Task that we examined with qualitative content analysis. The results identified children’s experiences with coping in stressful situations with optimal and non-optimal caregiver support. Experiences with optimal caregiver support included (a) empathy, (b) solicitude, (c) intimacy, (d) reassurance, (e) being a role model, (f) concrete help, and (g) shared joy. Ones with non-optimal caregiver support included (a) punishment, (b) abandonment, (c) unresponsiveness, (d) physical aggression, (e) aggressive protection, and (f) parentification. Children’s strategies for coping without caregiver involvement were (a) magic, (b) avoidance, (c) inappropriate laughing, (d) self-reliance, or (e) a lack of strategy. The authors findings highlight that preschool children of mothers with substance misuse employed various coping strategies in stressful situations that either include caregiver support or indicate non-optimal support.
In the sixth and final article of this issue “Trust in strangers and friends: The roles of agreeableness, open-mindedness, perspective taking, and trustworthiness” Martin Sedlár examined whether agreeableness and open-mindedness are indirectly related to trust in strangers and friends via self-focused and other-focused perspective taking, and subsequently via trustworthiness. A convenience sample of 217 Slovaks aged 20–37 years completed self-report scales measuring agreeableness, open-mindedness, self-focused perspective taking, other-focused perspective taking, trustworthiness of strangers, trustworthiness of friends, trust in strangers, and trust in friends. The results revealed that agreeableness and open-mindedness were indirectly related to trust in strangers via either self-focused perspective taking or via other-focused perspective taking, and then via trustworthiness of strangers. Importantly, indirect relationships via other-focused perspective taking were negative, while an indirect relationship via self-focused perspective taking was positive.
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