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Frequency of behaviors or amounts of variables of interest are essential topics in many surveys. The use of heuristics might cause rounded answers, resulting in the increased occurrence of end-digits (called heaping or digit-preference). For web surveys (or CASI), we propose using a conditional prompt as input validation if digits indicating heaping are entered. We report an experiment, where respondents in an online access panel (n = 2,590) were randomly assigned to one of three groups: (1) no input validation; (2) conditional input validation if rounding was presumed; and (3) input validation every time a numerical value was entered. Conditional input validation reduces heaping for variables with high proportions of heaped values. Unconditional input validation seems to be less effective.

When looking at career interventions, one-on-one career counseling is one of the most effective and firmly established types of intervention. Furthermore, career counseling process quality has been validated as a predictor of job seekers' reemployment. To elucidate the underlying components of a high-quality counseling process, the effects of counselor behavior in mandatory counseling sessions at three Swiss job centers are investigated. Based on a transfer of psychotherapeutic effectiveness research into the domain of career counseling, three behavior categories are proposed as components of a high-quality counseling process: providing structured guidance during the counseling process, providing personalized support, and activating job seekers' resources. Scientific observers rated these counselor behavior categories in 32 counseling sessions. The ratings of "providing structured guidance" predicted job seekers' reemployment speed at a correlation of 0.58. The measured effect equals yearly savings of 831 million Swiss Francs CHF (US$839) in Swiss unemployment benefits. The correlations with the other two behavior category ratings were in the same direction but nonsignificant.

One-on-one career counseling has been established as the most effective type of career intervention. Prior research results have suggested that process quality determines counseling success. In this multilevel study, career counseling process quality is validated as a predictor of job seekers' reemployment at three Swiss job centers. Supervisors' evaluations of the process quality of mandatory counseling sessions predicted faster reemployment of the 444 counseled job seekers by 18.9 working days on average. This effect equals yearly savings of 418 million Swiss Francs CHF (US$ 422 million) in Swiss unemployment benefits. While in many countries, the counseling of the unemployed is predominantly an administrative process, the findings should encourage investments in process quality of career counseling to promote reemployment. Furthermore, the study calls for further research on the underlying factors of career counseling process quality and the respective career counselor behaviors.

Introduction: Videoconferencing psychotherapy (VCP) delivers treatment to individuals with limited access to face-to-face mental healthcare. VCP's effectiveness has been demonstrated for various disorders and therapeutic interventions. However, there is contradictory evidence regarding the therapeutic alliance in VCP as compared to psychotherapy in person (PIP). This meta-analysis examines whether therapeutic alliance differs by psychotherapy's delivery format, namely VCP versus PIP. Methods: We searched five databases for trials comparing the therapeutic alliance in VCP and PIP, wherein the therapeutic alliance was rated by either patients or therapists or both. Eighteen publications were included, and the difference between VCP and PIP was assessed. Furthermore, we tested possible moderators of the difference in therapeutic alliance between VCP and PIP by meta-regression, and we assessed the risk of bias of this meta-analysis. Results: The meta-analysis revealed no statistically significant difference in the therapeutic alliance between VCP and PIP for alliance ratings by patients (SMD = −0.09; 95% CI = −0.26; 0.07) as well as by therapists (SMD = 0.04; 95% CI = −0.17; 0.25). No significant moderators were found. Discussion: In this meta-analysis, VCP and PIP did not differ with respect to the therapeutic alliance as rated by either patients or therapists. Further research is required into mechanisms driving the therapeutic alliance in VCP and PIP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Greed, the insatiable and excessive desire and striving for more even at the expense of others, may be directed toward various goods. In this article, we propose that greed may be conceptualized as a domain-specific construct. Based on a literature review and an expert survey, we identified 10 domains of greed which we operationalized with the DOmain-SPEcific Greed (DOSPEG) questionnaire. In Study 1 (N = 725), we found support for the proposed structure and convergent validity with related constructs. Bifactor-(S-1) models revealed that generic greed is differentially related to the greed domains, indicating that generic greed primarily captures a striving for money and material things. In the second study (N = 591), we found that greed domains had incremental validity beyond generic greed with regard to corresponding criteria assessed via self- and other-reports. We conclude that greed can be conceptualized as a domain-specific construct and propose an onion model reflecting this structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increased hygiene behavior may be a factor in the development of contaminationrelated obsessive-compulsive symptoms (C-OCS). We aimed at investigating (1) the course of C-OCS over 1 year after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and (2) the effects of changes in hand hygiene (i.e., duration and frequency of handwashing) and related distress regulation on the long-term course of C-OCS. In a longitudinal study, we assessed 1,220 individuals from the German general population at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic (t1), 3 months later (t2), and 12 months later (t3). Pre-pandemic data were available in a subsample from 2014 (n = 430). A decrease in C-OCS over the first year of the pandemic emerged with a small effect size. Thirty-six percent of the participants scored above the clinical cut-off score at t1, 31% at t2, and 27% at t3. In 2014, only 11% scored above the clinical cut-off score. Hierarchical regression showed that C-OCS at t1 was the strongest predictor of a long-term increase in C-OCS. With small effect sizes, change in the duration (not frequency) of handwashing from t1 to t2, as well as the distress-reducing effect of handwashing served as additional predictors. Implications for information on hand hygiene guidelines are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the COVID‐19 pandemic, a sizable proportion of employees conducted home‐based telework to contain virus spreading. This situation made it possible to investigate the relationship between telework and job characteristics. Many positive and negative associations between telework and job characteristics have been proposed in the literature, but most studies relied on cross‐sectional data as well as narrow samples (e.g. employees voluntarily choosing to telework). Repeated measures designs investigating the association between telework intensity and job characteristics using less selective samples are currently rare. To address this research gap, we collected data at two time points in Germany during the COVID‐19 pandemic (n = 479) and investigated if change in telework intensity was associated with change in 19 job characteristics using structural equation modeling. Our analyses showed that—in contrast to several prior cross‐sectional studies—telework intensity had a small to moderate association with only two out of the 19 job characteristics: Work scheduling and decision‐making autonomy. Hence, the study challenges the previously assumed manifold positive and negative associations between telework intensity and job characteristics and adds to the debate about the role of telework intensity as an antecedent of work design. Future studies should investigate the generalizability of the findings to non‐pandemic work contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present web-based study (N = 840) aimed to illuminate the cognitive mechanisms underlying self-disorders in autism. Initially, participants selected three self-defining memories. Then, we assessed their capacity to give meaning to these events (i.e., meaning making), their tendency to scrutinize autobiographical memory to better understand themselves (i.e., self-continuity function of autobiographical memory) and their clarity of self-concept. The results showed that individuals with high autistic traits (ATs) had a lower clarity of self-concept than control participants. Meaning making was also reduced in AT individuals and mediated the relation between AT and self-concept clarity. Our results suggest that the reduced clarity of self-concept in AT individuals is related to an impaired capacity to make meaning of important past life events.