This study investigated how automatically activated racial attitudes are affected by relatively long-term interracial relationships. A natural field experiment was conducted in a college dormitory system. Participants were White freshmen who had been randomly assigned to either a White or an African American roommate. Students participated in two sessions during the first 2 and last 2 weeks of their first quarter on campus. During these sessions, they answered questions about their satisfaction and involvement with their roommates and completed an inventory of intergroup anxiety and an implicit measure of racial attitudes. Participants in interracial rooms reported less satisfaction and less involvement with their roommates than did participants in same-race rooms. However, automatically activated racial attitudes and intergroup anxiety improved over time among students in interracial rooms, but not among students in same-race rooms. Thus, the results suggest that interracial roommate relationships, although generally less satisfying and involving than same-race roommate relationships, do produce benefits.

 

Kirsch, S. J., Mounts, J. R. W., & Olczak, P. V. (2006). Violent media consumption and the recognition of dynamic facial expressions. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 21, 571-584.  

 

This study assessed the speed of recognition of facial emotional expressions (happy and angry) as a function of violent media consumption. Color photos of calm facial expressions morphed to either an angry or a happy facial expression. Participants were asked to make a speeded identification of the emotion (happiness or anger) during the morph. Results indicated that, independent of trait aggressiveness, participants high in violent media consumption responded slower to depictions of happiness and faster to depictions of anger than participants low in violent media consumption. Implications of these findings are discussed with respect to current models of aggressive behavior.

 

Graves Jr., S. L., Blake, J., & Sook Kim, E. (2012). Differences in parent and teacher ratings of preschool problem behavior in a national sample: The significance of gender and SES. Journal of Early Intervention, 34, 151-165.  

 

Previous research has demonstrated that informant disagreement is common with the use of rating scales to assess problem behavior in school-age populations. However, much less is known about this phenomenon in preschool populations. This is important because the accurate assessment of problem behavior in preschool is complex due to the rapid developmental shifts during this period. As such, the purpose of this study was to assess the prevalence of students at risk of behavior problems and to see whether these problems varied as a function of informant and ecological characteristics. Using the Behavior Assessment System for Children–Second Edition, we analyzed parent and teacher ratings for 320 preschool children. Results indicated that parent and teacher ratings were very similar, with males being rated as more at risk of having attention problems and social skill deficits in comparison with females. No differences were noted in at-risk status by ethnic group membership. Conversely, significant and consistent parent and teacher ratings were noted by socioeconomic status (e.g., parent education level). Implications are discussed for the prevention of problem behavior in preschool.

 

Accuracy of recall of the number of sexual partners individuals had over a period of one month, three months, six months and one year was studied in a group of 285 young, single, heterosexual adults. Self-reports of the number of partners were obtained on a weekly basis and then compared with recall of behavior over longer time periods that overlapped the weekly measures. For individuals who claimed abstinence or who claimed to be monogamous, accuracy of recall was relatively high, especially at the shorter time frames. Level of education was related to accuracy for claimed abstainers, such that lower levels of education were associated with lower accuracy of recall. Accuracy rates for individuals who reported having multiple sexual partners tended to be lower and were found to be related to one’s propensity to engage in casual sex.

 

 

We explored the effect of attribute framing on choice, labeling charges for environmental costs as either an earmarked tax or an offset. Eight hundred ninety-eight Americans chose between otherwise identical products or services, where one option included a surcharge for emitted carbon dioxide. The cost framing changed preferences for self-identified Republicans and Independents, but did not affect Democrats’ preferences. We explain this interaction by means of query theory and show that attribute framing can change the order in which internal queries supporting one or another option are posed. The effect of attribute labeling on query order is shown to depend on the representations of either taxes or offsets held by people with different political affiliations.

 

Hutcheson, V. H., & Tieso, C. L. (2014). Social coping of gifted and LGBTQ adolescents. Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 37, 355-377.  

 

This qualitative study used critical ethnography as a theoretical framework to investigate the social coping strategies of gifted and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) students in middle and high school. Twelve LGBTQ college students from a selective Southeastern university were interviewed and asked to retrospectively describe their experiences, feelings, and behaviors from middle to high school. Their most common coping strategies included finding supportive groups of friends; hiding or downplaying their LGBTQ identity; participating in extracurricular activities; confiding in supportive teachers; developing their writing, musical, and leadership talents; and conducting research to understand and develop their identity. The implications of this study can help educators guide students in the use of positive coping strategies that facilitate both talent and identity development for this socially and politically marginalized group of gifted students.

 

Ottenbacher, K. J. (1993). The interpretation of averages in health professions research. Evaluation & The Health Professions, 16, 333-341.  

 

A potential misinterpretation regarding measures of central tendency was identified in several health sciences textbooks presenting basic statistical procedures. The misinter-pretation involves measures of central tendency derivedfrom skewed unimodal sample distributions. The reviewed textbooks state or imply that in asymmetrical distributions the median is always located between the mode and mean. An example is presented illustrating the fallacy of this assumption. The mean and median will always be to the right of the mode in a positively skewed unimodal distribution and to the left of the mode in a negatively skewed distribution, but the order of the mean and median is impossible to predict or generalize. The assumption that the median always falls between the mode and mean in the calculation of coefficients of skewness has implicationsfor the interpretation of health sciences research.

 

Sinacore, J. M., Chang, R. W., & Falconer, J. (1992). Seeing the forest despite the trees: The benefit of exploratory data analysis to program evaluation research. Evaluation & The Health Professions, 15, 131-146.  

 

In the present article, it is argued that there is a benefit to applying techniques of exploratory data analysis (EDA) to program evaluation. To exemplify this, an evaluation of a rehabilitation program for people with rheumatoid arthritis ispresented. The perceived health status of patients receiving intensive rehabilitation services from a major rehabilitation institute was compared with that of patients receiving customary office-based care over an 18-month period. The data were analyzed in a conventional way (analysis of variance) and then by way of EDA techniques (graphic display of medians and boxplots). The conventional analysis suggested that all patients improved over time and that intensive rehabilitation services provided no particular benefit or harm. The exploratory analysis showed that the distribution of the outcome variable was patently nonnormal, thus casting doubt on the validity of the conventional analysis. The EDA furthershowed that the rehabilitation group lagged behind the comparison group fora year, with a precipitious improvementat the 18-month period. Thissuggests that a selection factor was operating (i.e., those in the rehabilitation group could have been sicker) or that the patients in the rehabilitation group were made more aware of their condition by the intensive health services they received The EDA provided an important insight.

 

Hambrick, J. P., Rodebaugh, T. L., Balsis, S., Woods, C. M., Mendez, J. L., & Heimberg, R. G. (2010). Cross-ethnic measurement equivalence of measures of depression, social anxiety, and worry. Assessment, 17, 155-171.  

 

Although study of clinical phenomena in individuals from different ethnic backgrounds has improved over the years, African American and Asian American individuals continue to be underrepresented in research samples. Without adequate psychometric data about how questionnaires perform in individuals from different ethnic samples, findings from both within and across groups are arguably uninterpretable. Analyses based on item response theory (IRT) allow us to make fine-grained comparisons of the ways individuals from different ethnic groups respond to clinical measures. This study compared response patterns of African American and Asian American undergraduates to White undergraduates on measures of depression, social anxiety, and worry. On the Beck Depression Inventory—II, response patterns for African American participants were roughly equivalent to the response patterns of White participants. On measures of worry and social anxiety, there were substantial differences, suggesting that the use of these measures in African American and Asian American populations may lead to biased conclusions.

 

 

Syntheses of research on educational programs have taken on increasing policy importance. Procedures for performing such syntheses must therefore produce reliable, unbiased, and meaningful information on the strength of evidence behind each program. Because evaluations of any given program are few in number, syntheses of program evaluations must focus on minimizing bias in reviews of each study. This article discusses key issues in the conduct of program evaluation syntheses: requirements for research design, sample size, adjustments for pretest differences, duration, and use of unbiased outcome measures. It also discusses the need to balance factors such as research designs, effect sizes, and numbers of studies in rating the overall strength of evidence supporting each program.

 

Women are bombarded with images of women's sexual submission and subservience to male partners. The authors argue that women internalize this submissive role, namely, they associate sex implicitly with submission. The authors propose that this association leads to submissive sexual behavior, thereby reducing sexual autonomy and arousal. Study 1 found that women implicitly associated sex with submission. Study 2 showed that women's implicit association of sex with submission predicted greater personal adoption of a submissive sexual role. Study 3 found that men did not implicitly associate sex with submission. Study 4 demonstrated that women's adoption of a submissive sexual role predicted lower reported arousal and greater reported difficulty becoming sexually aroused; sexual autonomy mediated these effects.

 

Hibel, J., Farkas, G., & Morgan, P. L. (2010). Who is placed into special education? Sociology of Education, 83, 312-332.  

 

The authors use nationally representative data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998-1999 (ECLS-K) to identify variables measured in the fall of 1998 (when the sample’s students were in kindergarten) that predict special education placement by the spring of 2004 (when most students were finishing fifth grade). Placement’s strongest kindergarten predictor is a student’s level of academic achievement. Also important is the student’s frequency of classroom task engagement. There is a “frog-pond” contextual effect—attending an elementary school with high levels of overall student academic ability and behavior increases a student’s likelihood of special education placement. This is the case even after statistically controlling for a wide range of individual-, family-, and school-level characteristics. Social class background displayed a weak or statistically nonsignificant relation with special education placement. However, girls are placed less frequently than boys. African American, Hispanic, and Asian students are placed less frequently than non-Hispanic whites. The under- or equal-placement rates for racial/ethnic minorities are partially explained by their concentration in high-minority schools.

 

 

Purpose: This study explored binge eating among an adolescent obese population to ascertain the prevalence of bingeing, the relationship between binge eating and body mass index (BMI), and to evaluate significant relationships between binge eating, emotional/behavioral functioning, and health-related quality of life.

Methods: Participants included 102 overweight adolescents aged 12–17 years presenting to a multidisciplinary outpatient obesity clinic. Data obtained included height, weight, and self-report questionnaire data on emotional and behavioral functioning.

Results: Binge eating prevalence included 33% moderate to severe binge eating. Binge eating was significantly positively related to BMI and depression, negative mood, feelings of ineffectiveness, negative self-esteem and significantly negatively related to somatic complaints and all aspects of health-related quality of life. Important demographic differences emerged with regard to the impact of binge eating on health-related quality of life with Caucasians, females, and older groups experiencing more pervasive impact.

Conclusions: This research suggests that bingeing behaviors have pervasive and important implications for health-related quality of life for obese adolescents.

 

Many decisions related to cigarette smoking require people in an affectively neutral, or “cold,” state to predict how they will feel or behave when in a craving, or “hot,” state. Research in other domains has revealed that individuals in cold states often underestimate the impact of being in a hot state on their own future behavior. In a study testing whether this is true of cigarette craving, 98 smokers were assigned to one of three conditions: hot (during a high-craving first session, they made predictions about a high-craving state in a second session), cold (during a low-craving first session, they made predictions about a high-craving state in a second session), and comparison (they experienced a high-craving session only). As predicted, in contrast to smokers in the hot group, smokers in the cold group underpredicted the value they would place on smoking during the second session. Results support the existence of a cold-to-hot empathy gap in smokers and help to explain diverse aspects of tobacco addiction.

 

 

Sixty-six children between 4.5 and 6 years of age were tested in a resource-allocation game with three different recipients. When the recipient was a friend, children made equitable decisions and shared as much when there was a cost to themselves as when there was no cost. When the recipient was another familiar child who was not a friend, children were less likely to allocate resources to that child. When the recipient was a stranger, children allocated resources as much as with a friend and more than with a nonfriend when there was no cost to themselves. However, when there was a cost to themselves, children treated strangers like nonfriends. These results show that resource-allocation decisions made by young children depend on the recipient. Young children prefer equitable division of resources with friends, treat non-friends less well, and make prosocial moves with strangers when the cost to self is not high.

 

Zheng, C., Erickson, A. G., Kingston, N. M., & Noonan, P. M. (2014). The relationship among self-determination, self-concept, and academic achievement for students with learning disabilities. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 47, 462-474.   

 

Research suggests that self-determination skills are positively correlated with factors that have been shown to improve academic achievement, but the direct relationship among self-determination, self-concept, and academic achievement is not fully understood. This study offers an empirical explanation of how self-determination and self-concept affect academic achievement for adolescents with learning disabilities after taking into consideration the covariates of gender, income, and urbanicity. In a nationally representative sample (N = 560), the proposed model closely fit the data, with all proposed path coefficients being statistically significant. The results indicated that there were significant correlations among the three latent variables (i.e., self-determination, self-concept, and academic achievement), with self-determination being a potential predictor of academic achievement for students with learning disabilities.

 

Gigerenzer, G., Gaissmaier, W., Kurz-Milcke, E., Schwartz, L. M., & Woloshin, S. (2007). Helping doctors and patients make sense of health statistics. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 8, 53-96.  

 

Many doctors, patients, journalists, and politicians alike do not understand what health statistics mean or draw wrong conclusions without noticing. Collective statistical illiteracy refers to the widespread inability to understand the meaning of numbers. For instance, many citizens are unaware that higher survival rates with cancer screening do not imply longer life, or that the statement that mammography screening reduces the risk of dying from breast cancer by 25% in fact means that 1 less woman out of 1,000 will die of the disease. We provide evidence that statistical illiteracy (a) is common to patients, journalists, and physicians; (b) is created by nontransparent framing of information that is sometimes an unintentional result of lack of understanding but can also be a result of intentional efforts to manipulate or persuade people; and (c) can have serious consequences for health.  

 

 

Defining “emotion” is a notorious problem. Without consensual conceptualization and operationalization of exactly what phenomenon is to be studied, progress in theory and research is difficult to achieve and fruitless debates are likely to proliferate. A particularly unfortunate example is William James’s asking the question “What is an emotion?” when he really meant “feeling”, a misnomer that started a debate which is still ongoing, more than a century later. This contribution attempts to sensitize researchers in the social and behavioral sciences to the importance of definitional issues and their consequences for distinguishing related but fundamentally different affective processes, states, and traits. Links between scientific and folk concepts of emotion are explored and ways to measure emotion and its components are discussed.

 

 

Three studies tested whether mortality salience would lead men to be more sexually risky than women. In Study 1, men reported greater intentions to engage in risky sexual behaviors than did women after a mortality prime, but not after a control prime. In Study 2, men desired more future sexual partners and had a lower need for intimacy than did women, but again, only when mortality was salient. Furthermore, need for romantic intimacy mediated the relationship between mortality salience, gender, and desired number of future partners. Using a behavioral rather than a self-reported dependent measure, Study 3 showed that men primed with mortality were less likely than women to select a package of condoms (versus a pen) as a free gift after the experiment. Implications for gender differences in responses to mortality salience, as well as for how to design effective safe-sex interventions, are discussed.

 

 

This study compared 191 college students with learning disabilities (LD) and 190 students without LD in four main areas: academic difficulties, learning strategies, functioning during examinations, and students' perception of factors that help or impede their academic success. Analysis of the personal data of students with and without LD revealed no significant differences between groups on grade point average, number of courses taken, and family status, but students with LD reported having more difficulties in humanities, social sciences, and foreign language than students without LD. Regarding academic strategies, students with LD devised unusual strategies and preferred additional oral explanations or visual explanations, whereas nondisabled students preferred more written examples. These differences indicated that students without LD used more written techniques than did students with LD. During examinations, the students with LD had difficulty concentrating and were concerned about lack of time. They experienced stress, were nervous, and felt more frustrated, helpless, or uncertain during examinations than students without LD. The implications for college students with LD are discussed.

 

Hawley, P. H., Little, T. D., & Pasupathi, M. (2002). Winning friends and influencing peers: Strategies of peer influence in late childhood. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 26, 466-474.  

 

We divided children (N = 719, grades 3–6) into five control types based on the degree to which they reported employing prosocial (indirect, cooperative) and coercive (direct, hostile) strategies of control (prosocial controllers, coercive controllers, bistrategic controllers, noncontrollers, and typicals). We tested for differences across the five types on personal characteristics, friendship motivations, wellbeing, and social integration, expecting specific patterns according to whether control is wielded, and whether coercive or prosocial behaviour (or both) is employed. Prosocial controllers revealed positive characteristics (e.g., social skills, agreeableness), intrinsic friendship motivations, and positive wellbeing. In contrast, coercive controllers revealed negative characteristics (e.g., hostility), extrinsic friendship motivations, and ill-being. Bistrategic controllers, as expected, reported the highest control, and revealed characteristics associated with both prosocial and coercive orientations. Noncontrollers, in contrast, did not report having these characteristics and felt the least effective in the peer group. Our evolutionary perspective offers unique predictions of how prosocial and coercive children are similar in terms of their instrumental goals and the consequences of using both strategies or neither.

 

de Lisle, S. M., Dowling, N. A., & Allen, J. S. (2011). Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for problem gambling. Clinical Case Studies, 10, 210-228.   

 

This article describes treatment of a female problem gambler using mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT). The treatment protocol was adapted for problem gamblers from the manualized MBCT intervention developed by Segal, Williams, and Teasdale. Gambling behavior and mindfulness practice were monitored using daily diary entries maintained by the participant. The Beck Anxiety Inventory, Beck Depression Inventory—II, and the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire were administered at pretreatment, posttreatment, 4-week follow-up, and 10-week follow-up phases. The Client Satisfaction Questionnaire was also used to assess acceptability of the intervention. The participant abstained from gambling, and anxiety and depression scores significantly reduced to subclinical levels over the assessment period. Exploration of mindfulness facets revealed that MBCT for problem gambling (MBCT-PG) may be useful in promoting acceptance of distressing thoughts and emotions. However, the participant did not maintain an intensive mindfulness-meditation practice over the follow-up phase of the intervention. The clinical implications of this case study are discussed.

Hanson, M. D., & Chen, E. (2007). Socioeconomic status and substance use behaviors in adolescents: The role of family resources versus family social status. Journal of Health Psychology, 12, 32-35.   

 

The aims of this study were to test the associations among socio-economic status (SES) and substance use in adolescents, and to compare the relative strength of associations for different types of SES markers, including financial resources and family social status. A total of 113 teenagers reported their substance use, and parents reported family SES. High SES teens were more likely to use substances than low SES teens. Family financial resources were a stronger predictor of substance use than family status. Programs aimed at reducing teen substance use should be aware of these risk factors when developing substance use interventions. 

 

 

This study examined the relation between weight stigma, exercise motivation and exercise behavior. One hundred female undergraduates (BMIs [kg/m2] 17—38) completed measures of experiences with weight stigma, body dissatisfaction, self-esteem and exercise motivation, and reported on their exercise behavior. Stigma experiences were positively correlated with BMI and body dissatisfaction. Importantly, stigma experiences were related to increased desire to avoid exercise, even when controlling for BMI and body dissatisfaction. Exercise avoidance was in turn related to less frequent strenuous and moderate exercise. These findings suggest that weight stigma (through its impact on avoidance motivation) could potentially decrease physical activity levels.

 

Balcetis, E., & Dunning, D. (2007). Cognitive dissonance and the perception of natural environments. Psychological Science, 18, 917-921.   

 

Two studies demonstrated that the motivation to resolve cognitive dissonance affects the visual perception of physical environments. In Study 1, subjects crossed a campus quadrangle wearing a costume reminiscent of Carmen Miranda. In Study 2, subjects pushed themselves up a hill while kneeling on a skateboard. Subjects performed either task under a high-choice, low-choice, or control condition. Subjects in the high-choice conditions, presumably to resolve dissonance, perceived the environment to be less aversive than did subjects in the low-choice and control conditions, seeing a shorter distance to travel (Study 1) and a shallower slope to climb (Study 2). These studies suggest that the impact of motivational states extends from social judgment down into perceptual processes.

 

 

Bullying attitudes and behaviors and perceptions of peers were assessed in a case study experiment employing a social norms intervention in five diverse public middle schools in the State of New Jersey (Grades 6 to 8). Data were collected using an anonymous online survey (baseline n = 2,589; postintervention n = 3,024). In the baseline survey, students substantially misperceived peer norms regarding bullying perpetration and support for probullying attitudes. As predicted by social norms theory, they thought bullying perpetration, victimization, and probullying attitudes were far more frequent than was the case. Also as predicted, variation in perceptions of the peer norm for bullying was significantly associated with personal bullying perpetration and attitudes. Using print media posters as the primary communication strategy, an intervention displaying accurate norms from survey results was conducted at each of the five school sites. A pre-/postintervention comparison of results revealed significant reductions overall in perceptions of peer bullying and probullying attitudes while personal bullying of others and victimization were also reduced and support for reporting bullying to adults at school and in one’s family increased. The extent of reductions across school sites was associated with the prevalence and extent of recall of seeing poster messages reporting actual peer norms drawn from the initial survey data. Rates of change in bullying measures were highest (from around 17% to 35%) for the school with the highest message recall by students after a one-and-a-half-year intervention. Results suggest that a social norms intervention may be a promising strategy to help reduce bullying in secondary school populations.

 

Eye gaze is often a signal of interest and, when noticed by others, leads to mutual and directional gaze. However, averting one’s eye gaze toward an individual has the potential to convey a strong interpersonal evaluation. The averting of eye gaze is the most frequently used nonverbal cue to indicate the silent treatment, a form of ostracism. The authors argue that eye gaze can signal the relational value felt toward another person. In three studies, participants visualized interacting with an individual displaying averted or direct eye gaze. Compared to receiving direct eye contact, participants receiving averted eye gaze felt ostracized, signaled by thwarted basic need satisfaction, reduced explicit and implicit self-esteem, lowered relational value, and increased temptations to act aggressively toward the interaction partner.

 

Engelhardt, C. R., & Mazurek, M. O. (2014). Video game access, parental rules, and problem behavior: A study of boys with autism spectrum disorder. Autism, 18, 529-537.  

 

Environmental correlates of problem behavior among individuals with autism spectrum disorder remain relatively understudied. The current study examined the contribution of in-room (i.e. bedroom) access to a video game console as one potential correlate of problem behavior among a sample of 169 boys with autism spectrum disorder (ranging from 8 to 18 years of age). Parents of these children reported on (1) whether they had specific rules regulating their child’s video game use, (2) whether their child had in-room access to a variety of screen-based media devices (television, computer, and video game console), and (3) their child’s oppositional behaviors. Multivariate regression models showed that in-room access to a video game console predicted oppositional behavior while controlling for in-room access to other media devices (computer and television) and relevant variables (e.g. average number of video game hours played per day). Additionally, the association between in-room access to a video game console and oppositional behavior was particularly large when parents reported no rules on their child’s video game use. The current findings indicate that both access and parental rules regarding video games warrant future experimental and longitudinal research as they relate to problem behavior in boys with autism spectrum disorder.

 

This article reports on two experiments of exposure to music and cognitive performance. In Experiment 1, Canadian undergraduates performed better on an IQ subtest (Symbol Search) after listening to an up-tempo piece of music composed by Mozart in comparison to a slow piece by Albinoni. The effect was evident, however, only when the two pieces also induced reliable differences in arousal and mood. In Experiment 2, Japanese 5-year-olds drew for longer periods of time after singing or hearing familiar children's songs than after hearing Mozart or Albinoni, and their drawings were judged by adults to be more creative, energetic, and technically proficient. These results indicate that (1) exposure to different types of music can enhance performance on a variety of cognitive tests, (2) these effects are mediated by changes in emotional state, and (3) the effects generalize across cultures and age groups.

 

 

Objective: Effects of four types of automation support and two levels of automation reliability were examined. The objective was to examine the differential impact of information and decision automation and to investigate the costs of automation unreliability. Background: Research has shown that imperfect automation can lead to differential effects of stages and levels of automation on human performance. Method: Eighteen participants performed a “sensor to shooter” targeting simulation of command and control. Dependent variables included accuracy and response time of target engagement decisions, secondary task performance, and subjective ratings of mental workload, trust, and self-confidence. Results: Compared with manual performance, reliable automation significantly reduced decision times. Unreliable automation led to greater cost in decision-making accuracy under the higher automation reliability condition for three different forms of decision automation relative to information automation. At low automation reliability, however, there was a cost in performance for both information and decision automation. Conclusion: The results are consistent with a model of human-automation interaction that requires evaluation of the different stages of information processing to which automation support can be applied. Application: If fully reliable decision automation cannot be guaranteed, designers should provide users with information automation support or other tools that allow for inspection and analysis of raw data.

 

 

Body weight plays a significant role in attraction and relationship formation, but does it continue to shape more established relationships? The current 4-year longitudinal study of 169 newlywed couples addressed this question by examining the implications of own and partner body mass index (BMI) for the trajectory of marital satisfaction. In contrast to findings from studies of attraction and mate selection, own and partner BMI demonstrated inconsistent effects on the trajectory of satisfaction. However, consistent with predictions derived from interdependence theory, normative resource theories, and evolutionary perspectives, husbands were more satisfied initially and wives were more satisfied over time to the extent that wives had lower BMIs than their husbands, controlling for depression, income, education, and whether the relationship ended in divorce. These findings suggest that a dyadic perspective may be more appropriate than an individual one for understanding how partners' qualities shape established relationships such as marriage.

 

 

Communication and play skills are important aspects of development yet are largely uncharted in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). This exploratory study examined whether changes in pragmatic skills and problem-solving skills were observed in children with ADHD pre- and post-participation in a play-based intervention conducted by occupational therapists and speech-language pathologists. The study also investigated whether the presence of language difficulties affected the children’s play outcomes. Fourteen children with ADHD (5;0–10;7 years) participated in a 7-week, pilot intervention to address play and social skill deficits. Pre- and post-intervention testing included: (a) the assessment of play and problem-solving skills via standardized testing, and (b) pragmatic skills via parent report. The children’s language skills were also screened and compared with their play scores. Play skills significantly improved post-intervention. No significant differences were observed for pragmatic skills while prediction skills, an aspect of problem-solving, significantly improved pre- and post-play-based intervention. Fifty percent of children failed the language screener, yet separate paired t-tests identified significant play improvements irrespective of the presence or absence of language difficulty. Two independent t-tests revealed significant differences in play scores between these groups at pre- but not post-intervention.

While play and predicting skills significantly improved post-play-based intervention, other aspects of problem-solving and pragmatics did not. Reasons for the lack of change in these areas are discussed. The presence of language difficulties did not appear to affect the play outcomes of children with ADHD following a play-based intervention. A larger scale experimental trial investigating the play and language skills of children with ADHD is warranted, as is future collaborative research between occupational therapists and speech-language pathologists in the assessment and management of children with ADHD.

Okpala, C. O., Bell, G. C., & Tuprah, K. (2007). A comparative study of student achievement in traditional schools of choice in North Carolina. Urban Education, 42, 313-325.  

 

This policy study examined the differences in student achievement scores in reading and mathematics in selected public middle schools of choice and in traditional public middle schools with similar demographics and socioeconomic characteristics in a southeastern school district in North Carolina during the 1997-1998, 1998-1999, and 1999-2000 school years. The purpose was to determine whether there were significant differences in academic achievement between students in selected public middle schools of choice and students in traditional public middle schools as measured by the end-of-grade test scores in reading and mathematics. The result from the one-way ANOVA showed that there were significant differences in academic achievement between students in selected public middle schools of choice and students in traditional public middle schools as measured by the end-of-grade tests in reading and mathematics.

 

Whitchurch, E. R., Wilson, T. D., & Gilbert, T. D. (2011). “He loves me, he loves me not…”: Uncertainty can increase romantic attraction. Psychological Science, 22, 172-175.  

 

This research qualifies a social psychological truism: that people like others who like them (the reciprocity principle). College women viewed the Facebook profiles of four male students who had previously seen their profiles. They were told that the men (a) liked them a lot, (b) liked them only an average amount, or (c) liked them either a lot or an average amount (uncertain condition). Comparison of the first two conditions yielded results consistent with the reciprocity principle. Participants were more attracted to men who liked them a lot than to men who liked them an average amount. Results for the uncertain condition, however, were consistent with research on the pleasures of uncertainty. Participants in the uncertain condition were most attracted to the men—even more attracted than were participants who were told that the men liked them a lot. Uncertain participants reported thinking about the men the most, and this increased their attraction toward the men.

 

 

Despite disparities in the conceptualization of work–life balance (WLB) and work–life harmony (WLH) in the literature, there remains no evidence till date to validate these differences. Furthermore, there are currently no insights that shed light on the relationship between work–life initiatives and key business strategies of contemporary organizations. Hence, the current study investigated the differences between the constructs of WLB and WLH using a cognitive dissonance approach and assessed the impact of work–life interventions, based on these approaches, on individual creativity at work. Hundred participants, age ranging from 18 to 32 years (M = 23.94, SD = 3.87), with at least 6 months of working experience were recruited. Using an online questionnaire, participants were randomly assigned into WLB (n = 55) or WLH (n = 45) conditions. Participants were tasked to complete pre- and post-intervention measures of individual creativity, as well as a manipulation check using a cognitive dissonance scale. Results showed that participants in the WLB condition elicit higher levels of cognitive dissonance compared with participants in the WLH condition. This indicates an implicit difference in the constructs of WLB and harmony. Second, findings also suggest that work–life interventions adopting a WLH approach will have a more positive impact on individuals’ creativity at work compared with interventions targeted at achieving balance. Research, practical, and cultural implications of the findings are discussed in the article.

 

 

Parallel processing in the human brain is subject to severe attentional limits, but it is unclear whether such limits arise from a single attentional process or multiple distinct attentional processes We provide new evidence that two candidates, input attention and central attention, operate at different temporal stages of processing This conclusion is supported by chronometric analyses showing that the same reference stage (letter identification) operates after the stage at which input attention operates, but prior to the stage at which central attention operates The finding that attention operates at different temporal loci provides new support for the existence of distinct attentional processes.

 

Hanoch, Y., Johnson, J. G., & Wilke, A. (2006). Domain specificity in experimental measures and participant recruitment: An application to risk-taking behavior. Psychological Science, 17, 300-304.  

 

We challenge the prevailing notion that risk taking is a stable trait, such that individuals show consistent risk-taking/aversive behavior across domains. We subscribe to an alternative approach that appreciates the domain-specific nature of risk taking. More important, we recognize heterogeneity of risk profiles among experimental samples and introduce a new methodology that takes this heterogeneity into account. Rather than using a convenient subject pool (i.e., university students), as is typically done, we specifically targeted relevant subsamples to provide further validation of the domain-specific nature of risk taking. Our research shows that individuals who exhibit high levels of risk-taking behavior in one content area (e.g., bungee jumpers taking recreational risks) can exhibit moderate levels in other risky domains (e.g., financial). Furthermore, our results indicate that risk taking among targeted subsamples can be explained within a cost-benefit framework and is largely mediated by the perceived benefit of the activity, and to a lesser extent by the perceived risk.

 

 

Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate the feasibility of adapting group-based interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT-G) for patients with chronic post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Methods: Thirteen subjects with DSM-IV-defined PTSD, with symptom duration greater than 12 months, entered the study, an 8-week treatment programme conducted in a clinical setting using IPT-G modified for the treatment of PTSD. Data obtained were analysed qualitatively and quantitatively.

Results: All 13 subjects completed the treatment programme and showed significant improvement in social functioning, general wellbeing and depressive symptoms. Treatment completers demonstrated a moderate reduction in the avoidant symptom cluster of PTSD. These improvements appeared stable at 3-month follow-up. Benefits appeared to be associated with perceived intra-therapy progress in resolving identified IPT problem areas. Qualitative analysis found that themes of ‘reconnection’ and ‘interpersonal efficacy’ were core parts of the experience of the treatment.

Conclusion: IPT-G modified for PTSD appears to be of modest symptomatic benefit, but may lead to improvement in social functioning, general psychological wellbeing and enhanced interpersonal functioning. Further studies are indicated.

 

Building on recent work exploring metacognitive factors in minority/majority influence, three studies tested the hypothesis that when people receive persuasive messages from sources in the minority or majority, their attitude certainty can be determined by the extent to which source status and perceived argument quality match or mismatch. In Study 1, participants were presented with strong or weak arguments from a minority or majority source. Minority condition participants reported greater attitude certainty when arguments were weak rather than strong. Majority condition participants showed the opposite effect. Study 2 replicated this interaction using a manipulation of perceived rather than actual argument quality. In Study 3, these effects only emerged when message recipients' processing motivation was high. Taken together, the results suggest that attitude certainty can be high or low following minority or majority messages, depending on processing motivation and message recipients' assessments of other persuasive evidence.

 

Bodenhausen, G. V., Gabriel, S., & Lineberger, M. (2000). Sadness and susceptibility to judgmental bias: The case of anchoring. Psychological Science, 11, 320-323.  

 

In a wide range of empirical paradigms, sadness has been associated with more extensive and detail-oriented thinking than happiness, resulting in reductions in judgmental bias that arise from reliance on stereotypes and other simple decision heuristics. It was hypothesized that anchoring would constitute a significant exception to this general pattern. Recent research on anchoring indicates that an active thought process underlies the emergence of this bias. If sad people are likely to think more actively about the judgmental anchor than their neutral-mood counterparts, their subsequent judgments should be more likely to be assimilated toward this reference point. This prediction was confirmed in two experiments demonstrating that sad people are indeed more susceptible to anchoring bias than are people in a neutral mood. Moreover, this effect generalized over judgments in positive, neutral, and negative content domains.

 

 

Experimental studies show that violent video games cause people to behave more aggressively, but how long does the effect last? In most experiments, aggression is measured immediately after gameplay. The present experiment is the first to test the long-term causal effects of violent video games on aggression. By the flip of a coin, participants played a violent or nonviolent game for 20 min. Within each group, half ruminated about the game. The next day, participants competed with an ostensible opponent on a competitive task in which the winner could punish the loser with painful noise blasts through headphones. Results showed that violent video games increased aggression 24 hr later, but only among men who ruminated about the game. Rumination keeps aggressive thoughts, feelings, and behavioral tendencies active. If players ruminate about the violence in a game, the aggression-stimulating effects of the game persist long after it has been turned off.

 

Reeves, C., & O’Leary-Kelly, A. M. (2007). The effects and costs of intimate partner violence for organizations. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 22, 327-344.  

 

This study examines the productivity-related effects and costs of intimate partner violence (IPV) on the workplace. Specifically, it explores whether IPV victims and nonvictims differ in the number of work hours missed due to absenteeism, tardiness, and work distraction and the costs for employers from these missed work hours. The research involved a Web-based survey of 823 male and 1,550 female employees in three midsized organizations. Employees who reported lifetime IPV victimization, but not current victimization, missed more hours of work because of absenteeism than did nonvictims. Current victims, but not lifetime victims, were more likely to be distracted at work than nonvictims. Organization costs due to absenteeism and tardiness were greater for lifetime victims than nonvictims; however, no difference in costs was found for current victims. Overall, we found that IPV has negative effects on organizations, but that the nature and cost of these effects vary by type of victimization.

 

This study is part of a broader project aimed at developing cognitive and neurocognitive profiles of adolescent and young adult readers whose educational and occupational prospects are constrained by their limited literacy skills. We explore the relationships among reading-related abilities in participants ages 16 to 24 years spanning a wide range of reading ability. Two specific questions are addressed: (a) Does the simple view of reading capture all nonrandom variation in reading comprehension? (b) Does orally assessed vocabulary knowledge account for variance in reading comprehension, as predicted by the lexical quality hypothesis? A comprehensive battery of cognitive and educational tests was employed to assess phonological awareness, decoding, verbal working memory, listening comprehension, reading comprehension, word knowledge, and experience with print. In this heterogeneous sample, decoding ability clearly played an important role in reading comprehension. The simple view of reading gave a reasonable fit to the data, although it did not capture all of the reliable variance in reading comprehension as predicted. Orally assessed vocabulary knowledge captured unique variance in reading comprehension even after listening comprehension and decoding skill were accounted for. We explore how a specific connectionist model of lexical representation and lexical access can account for these findings.

 

 

This article introduces the N-effect—the discovery that increasing the number of competitors (N) can decrease competitive motivation. Studies 1a and 1b found evidence that average test scores (e.g., SAT scores) fall as the average number of test takers at test-taking venues increases. Study 2 found that individuals trying to finish an easy quiz among the top 20% in terms of speed finished significantly faster if they believed they were competing in a pool of 10 rather than 100 other people. Study 3 showed that the N-effect is strong among individuals high in social-comparison orientation and weak among those low in social-comparison orientation. Study 4 directly linked the N-effect to social comparison, ruling out ratio bias as an explanation of our results and finding that social comparison becomes less important as N increases. Finally, Study 5 found that the N-effect is mediated by social comparison. Limitations, future directions, and implications are discussed.

 

Quirk, M., Schwanenflugel, P. J., & Webb, M. (2009). A short-term longitudinal study of the relationship between motivation to read and reading fluency skill in second grade. Journal of Literacy Research, 41, 196-227.  

 

This short-term longitudinal study investigated the relationships between students' reading self-concept, goals for reading, and reading fluency skill over the course of the second grade year. Second-grade children (N = 185) were administered the Test of Word Reading Efficiency, the second-grade Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills, and an adapted version of Motivation to Read Profile at the beginning, middle, and end of the school year. Results showed that students' goals for reading were related to reading self-concept, but unrelated to reading fluency. In addition, reading self-concept was significantly related to reading fluency at each time point. Latent-variable path analysis was used to test four potential relationships between students' reading self-concept and reading fluency skill: (a) an independence model, (b) a skill development model, (c) a self-enhancement model, and (d) a reciprocal effects model. Support for a reciprocal model was found between students' reading fluency skill and reading self-concept over the second grade year. This finding also indicated that students' reading self-concept begins to influence their reading achievement earlier than previous research had indicated. Implications for educational practice and future research will also be discussed.

 

Sousa, P., Gaspar, P., Fonseca, H., & Gaspar, F. (2014). Lifestyle and treatment adherence among overweight adolescents. Journal of Health Psychology, 1-11.  

 

This study evaluated the influence of overweight adolescents’ lifestyle on the adherence to weight control, and identifies their predictors. Participants were 94 adolescents, aged 12–18 years, attending a Paediatric Obesity Clinic. Lifestyle was assessed using the “Adolescent Lifestyle Profile” and treatment adherence through the “Therapeutic Adherence to Weight Control Questionnaire.” Adherence to weight control was associated with various lifestyle domains. Several predictors were identified for lifestyle and adherence to weight control among overweight adolescents. A broad array of inter-correlations and predictors were identified and should be taken into account when designing adolescent weight control interventions.

 

Fleming, C. B., White, H. R., & Catalano, R. F. (2010). Romantic relationships and substance use in early adulthood. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 51, 153-167.  

 

This study used longitudinal data from 909 young adults to examine associations between substance use and the status and quality of romantic relationships. Heavy alcohol use, marijuana use, and cigarette smoking, as well as relationship status, relationship quality, partner substance use, and other salient life circumstances were assessed at four time points in the two years after high school. Marriage, cohabiting relationships, and noncohabiting dating relationships were associated with reductions in heavy drinking and marijuana use relative to non-dating, after adjusting for adolescent substance use; marriage compared to not dating was associated with reductions in cigarette smoking. For those in romantic relationships, partner substance use moderated the associations between relationship quality and substance use for heavy drinking and for marijuana use, supporting the hypothesis derived from the Social Development Model that the protective effect of stronger social bonds depends on the use patterns of the partner to whom an individual is bonded.

 

 

This study sought to determine the prevalence of suicidal ideation, plans, and attempts among 515 preadolescent (aged 9–11 years) maltreated children who entered foster care within the prior year. Over a quarter (26.4%) of the children had a history of suicidality according to their own and/or their caregiver’s report, 4.1% of whom were imminently suicidal. In bivariate analyses, children at higher risk of suicidality tended to be younger, non-Hispanic, abused, and to have experienced multiple types of maltreatment, more referrals to child welfare, more household transitions, and a longer length of time in foster care. There were no gender differences. Multiple regression analyses found physical abuse and chronicity of maltreatment to be the most robust predictors of suicidality. It is critically important that these high-risk children are screened for suicidality before adolescence and that caregivers and professionals are informed of their risk status so that they may implement mental health treatment, monitoring, and harm reduction measures.

 

Previous research has shown that exposure to various media is correlated to variations in human behaviour. Exposure to aggressive song lyrics increases aggressive action whereas exposure to songs with prosocial lyrics is associated with prosocial behaviour. An experiment was carried out where 18—20-year-old single female participants were exposed to romantic lyrics or to neutral ones while waiting for the experiment to start. Five minutes later, the participant interacted with a young male confederate in a marketing survey. During a break, the male confederate asked the participant for her phone number. It was found that women previously exposed to romantic lyrics complied with the request more readily than women exposed to the neutral ones. The theoretical implication of our results for the General Learning Model is discussed.

 

 

Here, the authors report a study in which they tested the hypothesis that prevalence information about cancer screening is causally linked to intention to participate in cancer screening.

 

Swanberg, J., Macke, C., & Logan, T. K. (2007). Working women making it work: Intimate partner violence, employment, and workplace support. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 22, 292-311.  

 

Partner violence may have significant consequences on women’s employment, yet limited information is available about how women cope on the job with perpetrators’ tactics and the consequences of her coping methods on employment status. This article investigates whether there is an association between workplace disclosure of victimization and current employment status; and whether there is an association between receiving workplace support and current employment status among women who disclosed victimization circumstances to someone at work. Using a sample of partner victimized women who were employed within the past year (N = 485), cross-tabulation and ANOVA procedures were conducted to examine the differences between currently employed and unemployed women. Binary logistic regressions were conducted to examine whether disclosure and receiving workplace support were significantly associated with current employment. Results indicate that disclosure and workplace support are associated with employment. Implications for clinical practice, workplace policies, and future research are discussed.