Neuroimaging research has demonstrated that mentalizing about false beliefs held by other people recruits the temporo-parietal junction (TPJ). However, earlier work was limited to a single agent that held a false belief. We investigated the effect of two agents that held similar or mixed false and/or true beliefs. Participants saw animated stories with two smurfs holding true or false beliefs (Story phase). At the end of each trial, they were requested to take the perspective of the self or one of the smurfs (Question phase). We predicted that an increasing number of smurfs holding a false belief would increase activation in the TPJ when participants have to report the belief of the smurf, because the incongruent belief should have a stronger influence if it is held by two compared with one agent. This prediction was confirmed as activation in the TPJ during the Story and Question phase increased when more smurfs held a false belief. Taking the perspective of the self led to stronger activation of the TPJ in the two conditions that involved a true belief and weakest activation in the condition of two false beliefs. These data suggest that activation in TPJ depends on the perspective participants take, and that the number of agents holding a false belief influences activation in the TPJ only when taking the agent’s perspective.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.3758/s13415-019-00714-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Heart rate variability (HRV) is an index that has been extensively used in fields such as clinical cardiology, psychiatry, and psychology to assess affective experiences. Although traditionally The European Society of Cardiology and The North American Society of Pacing and Electrophysiology recommended to use either a recording length of 24-h (long-term) or five minutes (short-term), recent advances in the field have suggested the use of ultra-short term (< 5 min) HRV measurements. In this study, we investigated whether ultra-short term HRV measurements can be used to investigate the temporal dynamics of experimentally induced emotions using pictures from the International Affective Picture System. We took electrocardiogram recordings from thirty-nine participants, and analyzed the root mean square of the successive differences of the R-R interval using a thirtysecond moving window. No significant differences in HRV during positive and negative emotion induction were found. These results call into question the use of ultra-short term HRV as a tool for psychologists to measure changes in valence in affective studies.

Background Workplace stress carries considerable costs for the employees’ wellbeing and for the organization’s performance. Recent studies demonstrate that perceptions of psychological contract breach are a source of stress for employees. That is, when employees notice that their employer does not fulfil certain obligations, they will perceive that certain resources are threatened or lost, which in turn translates into increased stress. In this study, we zoom in on how stress unfolds in the aftermath of breach, dependent on the organization’s reaction to the breach. More specifically, we examined the influence of different types of social accounts (i.e., denial, apology, blaming and exonerating justification) on individuals’ stress resolution process using physiological (i.e., heart rate) and psychological (self-report) data. Method We used an experimental design in which we manipulated psychological contract breach and social account type. To test our hypotheses, we performed two sets of functional Principal Component Analyses: first to examine the effects of breach and second to examine the effects of social accounts. Results Our results indicate that breach elicits a physiological stress reaction, reflected in a short-lived increase in heart rate. However, no increase in the self-reported stress measure was found. Further, we did not find a significant effect of social accounts on the psychological and physiological recovery process. Conclusions The current research allows us to demonstrate that psychological contract breach will trigger a short-lived increase in heart rate. Further research is needed to better understand unfolding trajectories of physiological reactions to contract breach and the effect of social accounts as organizational recovery efforts.

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