Seductive father-daughter relationships and sex roles in women

The present study evaluated the relationship of three variables reportedly characteristic of families in which father-daughter incest occurs to women's sex-role functioning and attitudes toward heterosexual interactions. The results showed that a sexualized father-daughter relationship was correlated with negative male traits (e.g., arrogance), low levels of positive female traits (emotionality), and negative attitudes toward male sexuality and female competitiveness. Discord in the parental marriage was associated with positive female traits and negatively with attributions of danger to male sexuality. Low levels of paternal encouragement of autonomy correlated with negative female traits (spinelessness, subordination to others) and low positive masculine traits (competitiveness). The implications of the findings to our understanding of incest are discussed.     

Self-Presentation Concerns May Contribute Toward the Understanding of Athletes' Affect When Trialing for a New Sports Team

A vignette-based experimental manipulation was used to examine the impact of self-presentation concerns on athletes' affect and cognitive appraisal. Others' reactions were described, so as to emphasize or deemphasize self-presentation concerns. Athletes given cause to believe that they were generating unfavorable impressions experienced more negative affect and reported more threat-based appraisal. Athletes exposed to information deemphasizing self-presentation concerns experienced more positive affect and reported more of a challenge-based appraisal. The findings indicate a potential opportunity (e.g., deemphasizing self-presentation concerns, providing a supportive interpersonal environment) that others (e.g., coaches and teammates) could act on to improve athlete experiences during sports trials.     

Confusions of self with close others

This article explores the cognitive underpinnings of interpersonal closeness in the theoretical context of "including other in the self" and, specifically, the notion of overlap between cognitive representations of self and close others. In each of three studies, participants first rated different traits for self, close others (e.g., romantic partner, best friend), and less close others (e.g., media personalities), followed by a surprise source recognition task (who was each trait rated for?). As predicted, in each study, there were more source confusions between traits rated for self and close others (e.g., a trait rated for self recalled as having been rated for the close other) than between self (or close others) and non-close others. Furthermore, several results suggest that the greater confusions between self and close others are due specifically to interpersonal closeness and not to greater familiarity or similarity with close others     

Improving Mental Health on College Campuses: Perspectives of Indian College Students

The mental health of college students is increasingly viewed as an important public health priority. However, there has been little attention paid specifically to college students’ perspectives on factors that contribute to mental health challenges or on potential initiatives that could address them. Even less research has focused on students in low- and middle-income countries. In an effort to better understand how to improve mental health and wellness on college campuses, we administered an open-ended survey to 141 Indian college students (M_age = 19.47, 65% female). We asked the students to identify: (a) issues that contribute to mental health problems among college students, (b) potential initiatives or strategies that could be used to improve mental health and wellness, and (c) topics that students would like to learn about in a course about mental health and wellness. Applying thematic analysis, we identified academic stressors (e.g., pressure to succeed, competitiveness) and social stressors (e.g., lack of community, party culture and substance abuse) that students reported as contributors to mental health problems. Students also described mental health promotion strategies that could be implemented by faculty members (e.g., providing academic accommodations for students with mental health concerns), the student body (e.g., establishing peer counseling groups), and individual students (e.g., checking in with others). Finally, they identified topics that they would like to learn about in mental health and wellness courses (e.g., how to identify mental health concerns, how to support friends). By raising several potential targets for mental health and wellness interventions for Indian college students, our study illustrates how open-ended surveys can be a useful and feasible way to solicit input from stakeholders in low- and middle-income countries. Future research will be needed to assess the effectiveness and feasibility of mental health promotion strategies, including those proposed by students.     

The female athletic role as a status determinant within the social systems of high school adolescents

This study examined the relationship between female athletic participation and status attainment within the social status systems of high school adolescents. Although earlier research has consistently demonstrated that the athletic role for males is associated with greatest status within the school, findings regarding the status of female athletes have been contradictory: Some studies have found high status rankings for female athletes while others have revealed negative results. It was therefore argued that current research go beyond the general construct of "female athlete" and consider the type of sport with which the adolescent female is associated as a possible status determinant. Employing a sport typology proposed by Metheny (1967), it was predicted that females associated with sex-appropriate or "feminine" sports (e.g., tennis) would receive significantly higher status ratings than those identified with sex-inappropriate or "masculine" sports (e.g., basketball). One hundred and twenty-one male subjects were asked to indicate which female athlete (associated with a sex-appropriate versus a sex-inappropriate sport) they would most like to date, while 111 female subjects were asked to choose which female athlete they would most like to have as a friend. Chi-square analyses revealed that, as predicted, females associated with sex-appropriate sports were given significantly greater status than females identified with sex-inappropriate sports by both male and female subjects. These results suggest that social assessments made about female sport participation within high school status systems remain heavily influenced by traditional beliefs regarding feminine, "ladylike" behavior.     

Think and act globally, think and act locally: Cooperation depends on matching construal to action levels in social dilemmas

The authors proposed and tested hypotheses that cooperation in social dilemmas depends on matching construal to action levels. Using a computerized resource dilemma that modeled fishing the oceans, when motives were framed at abstract levels, in terms of values (e.g., cooperation vs. competition), high construal levels produced more cooperativeness and competitiveness, respectively. Conversely, when motives were framed at concrete levels, in terms of actions (e.g., returning vs. taking), low construal levels produced more cooperativeness and competitiveness, respectively. Implications for integrating and extending research on construal levels in social dilemmas and increasing cooperation are discussed.     

Unmitigated agency and unmitigated communion: An analysis of the negative components of masculinity and femininity

The negative components of masculinity and femininity, conceptualized by Spence and her colleagues (1979) as unmitigated agency and unmitigated communion, were explored by examining dominant and submissive acts used in their expression. In three separate sessions, subjects (N=129) completed scales designed to measure these constructs, a Dominance Act Report, and a Submissiveness Act Report. Dominant acts used in the expression of unmitigated agency involved the formation of separations (e.g., making decisions without consulting the others involved in them), narcissistic self-assertion (e.g., telling others to perform one's menial tasks), and self-protection (e.g., bluffing one's way out of an embarrassing situation). Submissive acts used in the expression of unmitigated communion involved failing to make normatively appropriate agentic responses (e.g., walking out of a store knowing that one had been short-changed) and subjugating personal desires to group wishes (e.g., giving up vacation plans in deference to the preferences of others). Discussion focuses on elaborating the concepts of unmitigated agency and unmitigated communion.     

When is it wrong to eat animals? The relevance of different animal traits and behaviours

Research suggests that animals’ capacity for agency, experience, and benevolence predict beliefs about their moral treatment. Four studies built on this work by examining how fine‐grained information about animals’ traits and behaviours (e.g., can store food for later vs. can use tools) shifted moral beliefs about eating and harming animals. The information that most strongly affected moral beliefs was related to secondary emotions (e.g., can feel love), morality (e.g., will share food with others), empathy (e.g., can feel others' pain), social connections (e.g., will look for deceased family members), and moral patiency (e.g., can feel pain). In addition, information affected moral judgements in line with how it affected superordinate representations about animals’ capacity for experience/feeling but not agency/thinking. The results provide a fine‐grained outline of how, and why, information about animals’ traits and behaviours informs moral judgements.     

Cumulative Advantage: Conductors and Insulators of Heavy‐Tailed Productivity Distributions and Productivity Stars

We use the metatheoretical principle of cumulative advantage as a framework to understand the presence of heavy‐tailed productivity distributions and productivity stars. We relied on 229 datasets including 633,876 productivity observations collected from approximately 625,000 individuals in occupations including research, entertainment, politics, sports, sales, and manufacturing, among others. We implemented a novel methodological approach developed in the field of physics to assess the precise shape of the productivity distribution rather than relying on a normal versus nonnormal artificial dichotomy. Results indicate that higher levels of multiplicity of productivity, monopolistic productivity, job autonomy, and job complexity (i.e., conductors of cumulative advantage) are associated with a higher probability of an underlying power law distribution, whereas lower productivity ceilings (i.e., insulator of cumulative advantage) are associated with a lower probability. In addition, higher levels of multiplicity of productivity, monopolistic productivity, and job autonomy were associated with a greater proportion of productivity stars (i.e., productivity distributions with heavier tails), whereas lower productivity ceilings were associated with a smaller proportion of productivity stars (i.e., productivity distributions with lighter tails). Results serve as a building block for future theory development and testing efforts aimed at understanding why, when, and how the distribution of individual productivity may follow a nonnormal curve—and to what extent. We also discuss implications for organizations and management in terms of the design and implementation of human resource systems (e.g., selection, training, compensation), as well as for individuals interested in becoming productivity stars themselves.     

Walking with avatars: Gait-related visual information for following a virtual leader

Dynamic situations, such as interactive sports or walking on a busy street, impose high demands on a person’s ability to interact with (others in) its environment (i.e., ‘interact-ability’). The current study examined how distance regulation, a fundamental component of these interactions, is mediated by different sources of visual information. Participants were presented with a back and forwards moving virtual leader, which they had to follow by walking back and forwards themselves. We presented the leader in several appearances that differed in the presence of segmental (i.e., relative movements of body segments), cadence-related (i.e., sway and bounce), and global (i.e., optical expansion-compression) information. Results indicated that removing segmental motion information from the virtual leader significantly deteriorated both temporal synchronization and spatial accuracy of the follower to the leader, especially when the movement path of the leader was less regular/predictable. However, no difference was found between cadence-related and global motion information appearances. We argue that regulating distance with others effectively requires a versatile attunement to segmental and global motion information depending on the specific task demands. The results further support the notion that detection of especially segmental information allows for more timely ‘anticipatory’ tuning to another person’s locomotor movements and intentions.     

Executive functions in children engaging in open- and closed-skilled sports

Executive functions (EFs) are an important skill set for human cognition as well as achievement and can be separated into different components (inhibition, switching, updating). To date, it remains poorly understood whether the sport type children engage in is related to differences in their EFs. Thus, in the present study, we investigated whether children with regular engagement in open- and closed-skilled sports perform differently on tasks assessing inhibition, switching, and updating skills. Cross-sectional data from 113 children aged 8–13 years was used, of those 42 children engaged exclusively in open-skilled sports (e.g., soccer), 44 engaged exclusively in closed-skilled sports (e.g., swimming), and 27 engaged in both sport types as indicated by parental report. Children took part in three computerized tasks assessing their inhibitory, switching, and updating skills. Additionally, their verbal-reasoning skills, motor abilities, and aerobic fitness were assessed using acknowledged tasks. Results showed no differences with respect to children’s inhibitory and updating skills among the groups. However, it was found that children engaged in open-skilled sports showed lower switch costs in the switching task as compared to children engaged in closed-skilled sports. Follow-up analyses demonstrated that this held particularly true for children with a high level of engagement in open-skilled sports. Our findings indicate that children with a regular participation in open-skilled sports show higher switching skills as peers with a regular engagement in closed-skilled sports, suggesting that children’s experience in a dynamic, unpredictable sport exercise may be closely related to their EFs.     

Information Seeking and Avoiding in Health Contexts

Information management is an important component of coping with illness and illness‐related uncertainty. Normative theory and research on information seeking and avoiding in health contexts can help explain why some information management activities are more adaptive than others. Challenges and dilemmas of information management include relational demands (e.g., the need to coordinate the behaviors and goals of the participants) and contextual features (e.g., cross‐cultural considerations or channels available for information seeking and providing). Issues that need to be addressed in a normative approach include (a) how information management goals can be accomplished while still accounting for other goals (e.g., identity management or relational maintenance), (b) what roles interpreters can play to facilitate effective cross‐cultural information exchange (e.g., as cultural informants), and (c) how information seekers can best manage conflicting or overwhelming information when confronted with messages from multiple channels.     

Cognitive Functioning in Aging and Dementia: The Kungsholmen Project

The Kungsholmen Project (KP) is a community-based longitudinal study of aging and dementia targeting the 75+ population. In this article, we review empirical studies with a cognitive focus from the KP. The main findings indicate that (a) there is an age-related decline for some cognitive domains (e.g., episodic memory, verbal fluency, visuoconstructive skill, psychomotor speed), but not for others (e.g., primary memory, visuoperceptive skill, motor-hand coordination), (b) multiple individual-difference variables within demographic (e.g., sex, education) life-style (e.g., activity levels), genetic (e.g., apolipoprotein E genotype), and health-related (e.g., vitamin B deficiency, depression, diabetes) domains are related to late-life cognitive functioning, (c) a potential for improving cognitive performance – a reserve capacity – is present also among very old adults, (d) the 2 most common dementia diseases, Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and vascular dementia (VaD), affect cognition in a strikingly similar manner, (e) the role of individual-difference variables in cognitive functioning is markedly reduced in dementia – the pathogenesis itself may overshadow the influence of other variables, and (f) there is a long preclinical period in dementia during which cognitive deficits are detectable. As is true with the other projects represented in this issue, the KP portrays a rather diversified picture of cognitive aging, although systematic patterns are evident with regard to the variability of late-life cognitive functioning.     

Coaches' perceptions of athletes' stress-related growth following sport injury

ObjectiveThe objective of this study was to examine coaches' perceptions of athletes' stress-related growth following sport injury.DesignQualitative inquiry, grounded in a post-positivism paradigm was used to gain an in-depth understanding of the study's objective.MethodA purposeful sample of eight coaches (M age = 45.7; SD = 11.2) were interviewed across different sports and competitive standards. The semi-structured life world interviews were analysed using content analysis, and two trustworthiness procedures were employed to bolster the rigour of the findings (i.e., peer-debriefing and member checking).ResultsFindings revealed four general dimensions of stress-related growth: personal growth (e.g., beliefs), psychological growth (e.g., sporting qualities), social growth (e.g., social support), and physical growth (e.g., strength). The coaches also reported a number of behavioural indicators that reflected the four general dimensions (e.g., health and performance).ConclusionsFindings ‘validate’ or provide coherence with athletes' self-reports of stress-related growth in previous research and also extend the literature by identifying a number of novel types of growth and perceived behavioural correlates. Future avenues of research include the need to conduct prospective studies and explore related concepts (e.g., vicarious stress-related growth).     

A qualitative examination of body image threats using Social Self-Preservation Theory

This study sought to identify and describe comfortable and uncomfortable body-related situations of young women, as well as describe their responses to such situations and strategies they used to cope with body-related threats, using Social Self-Preservation Theory (SSPT) as a guiding framework. Interviews were conducted with college women (N = 23). A theoretical thematic analysis approach was taken to identify, code, and report themes. In general, participants found it difficult to identify specific comfortable situations and responses in those situations. Comfortable situations were characterized by the presence of supportive others and feelings of general calmness and lowered body awareness or self-presentational concerns. Findings regarding uncomfortable body-related situations indicated that the context (e.g., presence of others, body exposure), responses (e.g., embarrassment, inadequacy, awareness of others’ evaluations, faster heart rate), and coping strategies (e.g., avoidance, concealing behaviors) described by participants were consistent with SSPT.     

THE PERVERSITY OF INANIMATE OBJECTS: STIMULUS CONTROL BY INCIDENTAL MUSICAL NOTATION

Social cognition research suggests that incidental, environmental stimuli (e.g., business suits) can nonconsciously influence the degree to which behavioral dispositions (e.g., competitiveness) are expressed. Similarly, cognitive research suggests that incidental action-related objects (e.g., hammers) can prime action plans that then affect the speed with which a concurrent, intended action (e.g., power grip) is executed. However, whether incidental stimuli can instigate actions that run counter to one's current goals has yet to be determined. Moving beyond indirect effects, we show that such stimuli can directly cause the expression of undesired actions: Incidental stimuli resembling musical notation caused the systematic expression of unintended key presses in musicians, but not in nonmusicians. Moreover, the effect was found even when targets and distracters bore no apparent perceptual or semantic relation. We discuss the implications of these findings for models of action production and for social-cognitive concepts (e.g., applicability) regarding the limits of nonconscious processing.     

Understanding social networks and social support resources with sports coaches

ObjectivesResearch on social support with sports coaches is limited, yet the benefits of social support within other occupations have been widely reported. This study explored sports coaches’ social network structures, the social support resources available to coaches, and the situations in which coaches use social support.DesignCross-sectional.MethodData were collected with male (n = 6) and female (n = 7) British coaches (M_age = 34.20, SD = 13.37; M_experience = 13.20, SD = 10.41) using semi-structured interviews and interviewee-aided sociograms. Interview data and sociograms were analyzed using abductive thematic analysis and social network analysis to create ego-network diagrams. The ego-network diagrams were created to provide information on the locality and influence of coaches’ social network members.ResultsThe ego-network diagrams highlight that the structure of coaches’ social networks encompasses support from peers, friends, family, and miscellaneous (e.g., media). The diagrams also demonstrate that support from friends tended to be perceived as most influential. The coaches called on their network for appraisal (e.g., affirmation), emotional (e.g., venting), informational (e.g., training), and or instrumental support (e.g., cooking dinner) for a variety of situations, such as training (e.g., drill ideas) and issues with athletes (e.g., venting about a misbehaving player).ConclusionGiven the pertinence of coaches’ social networks and resources for performance and psychological well-being, coach education programs should include a focus on the importance of building relationships. Longitudinal research methods are warranted to, for example, explore the dynamic functions of coaches’ social support. This will develop a more comprehensive base from which interventions can be developed.     

High and low trait anger, and the recognition of anger problems

This study compared three groups of people: (a) high trait anger individuals who recognized personal anger problems (HR); (b) high trait anger individuals who did not recognize personal anger problems (HNR); and (c) low trait anger individuals not reporting personal anger problems (LNR). Compared to LNR participants, HR and HNR groups reported more anger-out (i.e., outward negative expression of anger such as arguing with others), anger-in (i.e., anger suppression and harboring grudges), greater desire to use and actual use of physically aggressive anger expression (e.g., pushing or shoving someone), and less anger control-in (i.e., emotionally focused strategies to lower anger such as relaxation) and anger control-out (i.e., behaviorally focused strategies such as being patient with others). HR individuals reported more trait anger (i.e., higher propensity to experience anger) and less anger control-out than the HNR group. Gender did not relate to the recognition of anger problems. Findings were discussed with regard to theory and clinical implications.     

Agentic and Communal Social Motives

People chart and navigate their social lives along two cardinal axes – agency and communion. The motives to approach communion (e.g., enhance closeness and cooperation), approach agency (e.g., gain status and control), avoid communion (e.g., limit vulnerabilities and obligations), and avoid agency (e.g., limit resentments and rivalries) can each be adaptive, depending on the person and situation. After reviewing common implicit and explicit measures of agentic and communal motives, I describe how these motives together shape (and are shaped by) diverse phenomena, such as individuals' involvements in mating and parenting and, concurrently, their testosterone and oxytocin levels. I also detail how normative models of development and maturation depict a shifting dynamic between communal and agentic motives over the lifespan: In childhood, secure attachments provide foundations for developing agency; in adulthood, the challenge becomes yoking agency (one's accumulated mental, physical, and social resources) to communal aims (nurturing others and prosocial endeavors).