Behavioral genetic variation, adaptation and maladaptation: an evolutionary perspective

Evolutionary psychology seeks to understand the adaptive, evolved nature of humans by considering the forces of natural selection that gave rise to it. Individual humans also exhibit maladaptation, however, and some of the variation in maladaptive conditions is heritable. An evolutionary perspective can shed light on these phenomena too. Recent work suggests that developmental imprecision importantly affects the fitness of organisms and some of the genetic influences have been identified. Both theory and evidence that developmental imprecision underlies human cognitive maladaptation has begun to accumulate, although the manner in which the developing brain is affected remains largely unknown.     

Conscientiousness, procrastination, and person-task characteristics in job searching by unemployed adults

The study examined the job-search intentions and subsequent behavior of 32 unemployed males and 32 unemployed females, median age of 43 years, in relation to conscientiousness and the lower-order trait procrastination and to rated person-task characteristics of importance, pleasantness, and competence regarding 14 job-search activities. At Time 1, conscientiousness was positively related to each of the person-task characteristics and to intentions to engage in the composite of job-search activities; trait procrastination was not. At Time 2, two weeks later, trait procrastination predicted self-reported job-search behaviors, controlling for initial intentions, with pro-crastinators exhibiting less job-search activity in the two week interim, compared to nonprocrastinators. Both conscientiousness and trait procrastination were related to a direct self-report measure of dilatory behavior. The three person-task characteristics were found to mediate the relation of conscientiousness to job-search intentions and to dilatory behavior. In addition, perceived task pleasantness moderated the relation of conscientiousness to job-search behavior, controlling for intentions, such that higher levels of conscientiousness were associated with increases in behavior only under conditions of low task pleasantness. Discussion centered on the prominent role of the person-task characteristics and on the place of conscientiousness and trait procrastination in predicting intentions and behavior.     

Examiner differences on actual WISC protocols

Interrater differences in scoring actual WISC protocols were determined for three different IQ levels. In general, differences among the 94 examiners tended to be within an acceptable range as established by the SE_m; varince on two Verbal subtests occasionally exceeded their corresponding SE_m. Also, examiner's demographic characteristics were not a major consistent source of variance in scoring WISC protocols.     

Volumetric asymmetries of the human brain: intellectual correlates

Volumetric measures of the brain and ventricles were derived from CT films and related to intellectual variables from the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS). Subjects were patients referred for neurological examination for headache or somatic complaints, sometimes accompanied by anxiety or dysphoric affect (N = 41), for whom a comprehensive neurological work-up revealed no evidence of abnormality. The asymmetry of hemispheric volume (left minus right over total, times 100) was correlated (r = .57, p less than .001) with Verbal IQ minus Performance IQ within subjects. No relationship was observed between total brain or hemispheric volumes and IQ scores. Brain and ventricular volumes were larger for the left hemisphere than the right.     

The acquisition of conditioned suppression as a function of interstimulus interval duration

The effect of interstimulus interval (ISI) variation on the acquisition of a classically conditioned emotional response was investigated using a one-trial conditioning procedure. The optimum ISI was found to be 10 s with a bidirectional gradient for conditioned suppression at ISI above and below 10 s. Control groups demonstrated that conditioning was not a function of either pseudoconditioning, sensitization or stimulus novelty.     

Social influences on reality-monitoring decisions

A modified Asch (1951) conformity paradigm was used to study the impact of social influence on reality-monitoring decisions about new items. Subjects studied pictures of some objects and imagined others. In a later test phase, they judged whether items had been perceived in the study phase, had been imagined, or were new. Critically, for some items, the subjects were informed of a confederate's response before rendering a judgment. Although the confederate was always correct when they responded to old items, for new items, the confederate responded perceived, imagined, or new, or did not respond (baseline). In two experiments, we show that memory for new items was influenced by an erroneous response of the confederate. Social conformity was reduced by undermining the credibility of the confederate (Experiments 1A and 1B), and the confederate's influence was evident even after there was only a 20-min delay between study and test (Experiment 2), when the subjects were 87% accurate on new baseline items. These experiments reveal the power of social influence on reality-monitoring accuracy and confidence.     

Selective inactivation of the ventral hippocampus attenuates cue-induced and cocaine-primed reinstatement of drug-seeking in rats

Recent evidence suggests that the hippocampus may have a functional role in mediating relapse to cocaine-seeking behavior. Based on the importance of the ventral CA subfields in mediating reward, the present experiment determined the effects of temporary inactivation of the ventral hippocampus on reinstatement of cocaine-seeking in a rodent model of relapse. Male, Sprague-Dawley rats self-administered i.v. cocaine (0.6 mg/kg/infusion) in the presence of discrete conditioned cues (tone+light) in daily 2-h sessions for ten days. Following seven days of extinction sessions in which neither cues nor drug were available, rats underwent four reinstatement tests in a counterbalanced, within-subjects design. Bilateral microinjections of GABA receptor agonists (baclofen/muscimol (B/M; 1.0 mM/0.1 mM) [corrected] into the ventral hippocampus significantly attenuated cue-induced and cocaine-primed reinstatement compared with vehicle microinjections in the same rats. In contrast, injections just outside the ventral hippocampus did not block either form of reinstatement. Furthermore, inactivation failed to affect responding for food reinforcement, baseline extinction responding, or locomotor activity. These data indicate that the ventral hippocampus plays an important role in the relapse to cocaine-seeking behavior and may interact with key limbic structures previously implicated in cocaine addiction.     

Validation of the Adolescent Concerns Measure (ACM): evidence from exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis

This article reports the development and initial validation of scores obtained from the Adolescent Concerns Measure (ACM), a scale which assesses concerns of Asian adolescent students. In Study 1, findings from exploratory factor analysis using 619 adolescents suggested a 24-item scale with four correlated factors--Family Concerns (9 items), Peer Concerns (5 items), Personal Concerns (6 items), and School Concerns (4 items). Initial estimates of convergent validity for ACM scores were also reported. The four-factor structure of ACM scores derived from Study 1 was confirmed via confirmatory factor analysis in Study 2 using a two-fold cross-validation procedure with a separate sample of 811 adolescents. Support was found for both the multidimensional and hierarchical models of adolescent concerns using the ACM. Internal consistency and test-retest reliability estimates were adequate for research purposes. ACM scores show promise as a reliable and potentially valid measure of Asian adolescents' concerns.     

Perceptual symbols of creativity: Coldness elicits referential,warmth elicits relational creativity

Research in the cognitive and social psychological science has revealed the pervading relation between body and mind. Physical warmth leads people to perceive others as psychological closer to them and to be more generous towards others. More recently, physical warmth has also been implicated in the processing of information, specifically through perceiving relationships (via physical warmth) and contrasting from others (via coldness). In addition, social psychological work has linked social cues (such as mimicry and power cues) to creative performance. The present work integrates these two literatures, by providing an embodied model of creative performance through relational (warm = relational) and referential (cold = distant) processing. The authors predict and find that warm cues lead to greater creativity when 1) creating drawings, 2) categorizing objects, and 3) coming up with gifts for others. In contrast, cold cues lead to greater creativity, when 1) breaking set in a metaphor recognition task, 2) coming up with new pasta names, and 3) being abstract in coming up with gifts. Effects are found across different populations and age groups. The authors report implications for theory and discuss limitations of the present work.     

Mortality salience and evaluations of in‐group versus out‐group critics: The role of criticism legitimacy and perceived threat

Significant terror management research has examined the impact of mortality salience on evaluations toward in‐group versus out‐group and attitudinally similar versus dissimilar others. However, relatively little research has examined evaluations when group membership is disentangled from attitude similarity. The current research examined the impact of mortality salience on evaluations toward in‐group and out‐group critics when people are less likely to rely on group membership as a heuristic. In Experiment 1, the results showed that in the control condition, participants rated an in‐group member who provided unjustified criticism more positively than an out‐group member who provided the same criticism. Under mortality salience, the reverse occurred: An in‐group member who provided unjustified criticism was rated more negatively than an out‐group member. Experiment 2 showed that under mortality salience, the derogation of an in‐group critic who provided unjustified criticism was mediated by perceptions of threat. Implications for reactions to group‐directed criticism as well as mortality salience effects are discussed. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.