BACKGROUND Identifying modifiable lifestyle correlates of cognitive decline and risk of dementia is complex, particularly as few population-based longitudinal studies jointly model these interlinked processes. Recent methodological developments allow us to examine statistically defined sub-populations with separate cognitive trajectories and dementia risks. METHODS Engagement in social, physi...

International mobility is a prevalent life event that particularly affects university students. The aim of this longitudinal study was twofold: First, we examined the impact of international mobility on personality (Big Five) change, separating self-selection effects from socialization processes. Second, we extended prior analyses on the association between life events and personality developme...

Recent revisions of cognitive dissonance theory no longer encompass some of the important examples, data, and hypotheses that were part of Festinger's original statement. Further, the psychological character of the motivation for cognitive change can be interpreted, in recent statements of the theory, as a need to preserve self-esteem rather than a need to maintain logic-like consistency among ...

OBJECTIVE Decompose cognitive change into influences unique to particular cognitive domains, and influences shared across different cognitive domains. METHOD A total of 2,546 adults between 18 and 95 years of age performed a battery of 12 cognitive tests on 2 occasions separated by an average of 3 years. An estimate of general cognitive functioning based on the first principal factor was regr...

Psychological change is difficult to assess, in part because self-reported beliefs and attitudes may be biased or distorted. The present study probed belief change, in an educational context, by using the hindsight bias to counter another bias that generally plagues assessment of subjective change. Although research has indicated that skepticism courses reduce paranormal beliefs, those findings...

Interpretation of cognitive change has been complicated because different influences on change are not easily distinguished. In this study, longitudinal cognitive change was decomposed into a component related to the length of the interval between test occasions (i.e., time-dependent change) and a component unrelated to the test-retest interval (i.e., time-independent change). Influences of age...

OBJECTIVES Personality traits predict numerous health outcomes, but previous studies have rarely used personality change to predict health. METHODS The current investigation utilized a large national sample of 3,990 participants from the Midlife in the U.S. study (MIDUS) to examine if both personality trait level and personality change longitudinally predict 3 different health outcomes (i.e.,...

In this report we analyzed genetically informative data to investigate within-person change and between-person differences in late-life cognitive abilities as a function of childhood social class. We used data from nine testing occasions spanning 28 y in the Swedish Adoption/Twin Study of Aging and parental social class based on the Swedish socioeconomic index. Cognitive ability included a gene...

Developmental change in children's number-line estimation has been thought to reveal a categorical logarithmic-to-linear shift in mental representations of number. Some have claimed that the broad and rapid change in estimation patterns that occurs with corrective feedback provides strong evidence for this shift. However, quantitative models of proportion judgment may provide a better account o...

In this paper it is argued that existing accounts of mechanisms of cognitive change in joint nroblem solvine: are inadequate for several reasons. In particular explanations based on sociocognitive conflict do not tell us how the resolution of inter individual conflicts leads to cognitive change. It is argued that a more effective approach is to analyse the dialogue processes involved. A model i...