TickleFoot: Design, Development and Evaluation of a Novel Foot-Tickling Mechanism That Can Evoke Laughter

Tickling is a type of sensation that is associated with laughter, smiling, or other similar reactions. Psychology research has shown that tickling and laughter can significantly relieve stress. Although several tickling artifacts have been suggested in prior work, limited knowledge is available if those artifacts could evoke laughter. In this article, we aim at filling this gap by designing and developing a novel foot-tickling mechanism that can evoke laughter. We first developed an actuator that can create tickling sensations along the sole of the foot utilising magnet-driven brushes. Then, we conducted two studies to identify the most ticklish locations of the foot’s sole and stimulation patterns that can evoke laughter. In a follow-up study with a new set of participants, we confirmed that the identified stimuli could evoke laughter. From the participants’ feedback, we derived several applications that such a simulation could be useful. Finally, we embedded our actuators into a flexible insole, demonstrating the potential of a wearable tickling insole.

“I Heard That COVID-19 Was...”: Rumors, Pandemic, and Psychological Distance

The spread of misinformation through a variety of communication channels has amplified society’s challenge to manage the COVID-19 pandemic. While existing studies have examined how misinformation spreads, few studies have examined the role of psychological distance in people’s mental processing of a rumor and their propensity to accept self-transformed narratives of the message. Based on an open-ended survey data collected in the U.S. ( N = 621) during an early phase of the pandemic, the current study examines how psychological distance relates to the transformation and acceptance of conspiratorial narratives in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Two instances of misinformation are examined, both of which were widely heard at the time of data collection: the role of (a) Bill Gates and (b) government during the outbreak of the pandemic. This study uses topic modeling techniques to capture distinctive topical attributes that emerged from rumor narratives. In addition, statistical analyses estimate the psychological distance effects on the salience of topical attributes of a rumor story and an individual’s propensity to believe them. Findings reveal that psychological distance to the threats of COVID-19 influences how misinformation evolves through word-of-mouth, particularly in terms of who is responsible for the pandemic and why the world finds itself in the current situation. Psychological distance also explains why people accept the message to be true. Implications for misinformation and rumor psychology research, as well as avenues for future research, are discussed.

Construction and Validation of the Legitimizing Income Inequality Scale

Although income inequality has become a focus of political and social discourse, counseling psychology research examining correlates and consequences of legitimizing income inequality remains sparse. A significant barrier to the study of income inequality is the lack of available measures to assess attitudes toward socioeconomic inequality. The purpose of this study was to develop and provide initial validity evidence for the Legitimizing Income Inequality Scale (LIIS). Results supported a bifactor structure for the LIIS with a general factor (ω = .95) and subfactors measuring Social Welfare Beliefs (ω = .92), Economic Fatalism (ω = .87), and Economic Meritocracy Beliefs (ω = .90). The LIIS significantly correlated in theoretically consistent directions with scores on measures of classist attitudes, socioeconomic conservatism, impression management, and colorblind racial attitudes. Implications for future research and training using the LIIS are provided.

Advanced Training in Web-Based Psychology Research

This article describes Advanced Training Institutes (ATIs) and workshops on psychological experimentation conducted via the Internet. These programs, conducted since 2002, presented instruction that evolved over the decades to reflect changes in Web-based methods and techniques. The need for instruction in the methods and methodology of Web-based research has increased over the years, as more researchers adopted these methods without necessarily learning the methodological lessons developed from theory and experience. Links to instructional materials created for the workshops are provided. From events and trends that played out over time, including the story of methods that were once state-of-the-art and are no longer functional today, lessons hard-won from the past can be used to anticipate and plan future directions in Web-based experimentation.

Research in the Critical Care Environment

Research into the psychological impact of critical care has burgeoned over the past 20 years. This chapter outlines the major areas of psychological and rehabilitation research being conducted in critical care, as well as the gaps that remain to be filled. The authors review research areas corresponding to the early acute critical care phase, the in-hospital rehabilitation phase, and the post-hospital recovery period. The focus is on patient-centered research. The authors also review how clinicians can set themselves up to conduct psychological research, what kind of teams they need to assemble, and the challenges they could face working in critical care environments. The authors draw on their own experiences conducting linked, critical care psychology research studies, and compare this to methods used by other researchers.

Integrating Etic and Emic Approaches in Psychological Research

Amid an ever-expanding embrace of globalization,there is also a growing emphasis on understanding humanpsychology in a specific local context. Moberg cautionedthat any attempts to ignore particularities while favoringglobalization or universalim in psychology might notonly be unrealistic but probably dangerous [1]. To conductrealistic psychology research, it is necessary to integrateboth etic and emic approaches. The etic approach refersto global and universal aspects, while the emic approachrefers to subjective and contextualized aspects of humanpsychological functioning [2].

Evolúciós pszichológia – az elmúlt 30 év

Tanulmányunkban arra teszünk kísérletet, hogy áttekintsük a hazai pszichológiai életben megjelenő és egyre markánsabb szerepet játszó evolúciós megközelítéseket. Bemutatjuk a 30 évvel ezelőtti állapotokat és azokat a neves kutatókat, akik az evolúciós pszichológia magyarországi létrejötte mellett bábáskodtak. Ezt követően részletesen is beszámolunk azokról a kutatásokról, amelyek a két nagy hazai evolúciós kutatóműhelyben jöttek létre, nevezetesen a Pécsi Evolúciós Pszichológia Kutatócsoportban és az MTA–ELTE Összehasonlító Etológiai Kutatócsoportból kinőtt teamekben. Végül röviden bemutatjuk azokat az eredményeket, amelyek e két nagy műhelyen kívül születtek egy-egy pszichológiai jelenség evolúciós értelmezése kapcsán. In our paper, we make an attempt to overview those evolutionary approaches that have developed and become increasingly influencing in the Hungarian psychological life. We show the conditions 30 years ago, and those gifted scholars who contributed to the development of evolutionary psychology in Hungary. Then, we give a detailed review on the studies that have been fulfilled in the two basic research centers in Hungary: the Evolutionary Psychology Research Group of Pécs, and the MTA-ELTE Comparative Ethological Team. Finally, we describe the scientific results that have been achieved in the interpretation of specific psychological phenomena outside these main research centers.

The responsibility of communicating difficult truths about climate influenced societal disruption and collapse

This paper presents a review of psychology research that can help people begin to assess the different ways they can responsibly support each other to talk about their thoughts and feelings on their perceptions of societal disruption and collapse, at home and abroad, due to environmental and climate change. It includes a summary of a review of published studies in psychology on matters of anticipating difficult futures, including vulnerability, disruption, disaster, suffering and mortality. The claims by both specialists and non- specialists that collapse anticipation is necessarily harmful to mental health and social engagement is shown to be theoretically and empirically weak. Instead, the research suggests we engage each other on this upsetting topic to promote coping. It highlights the potential for that engagement to support people with processing difficult emotions and thus finding more pro-social and pro-environmental ways of responding to societal disturbances.