The impact of perceived self-efficacy on memory for aversive experiences

Self-efficacy is a key construct underlying healthy functioning and emotional well-being. Perceptions of uncontrollability, unpredictability, and low self-efficacy are consistently associated with negative mental health outcomes, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). To test the causal relation between perceived coping self-efficacy and stress responses we employed a trauma film paradigm in which college students (N=33) viewed a graphic film of the aftermath of a motor vehicle accident following a high (HSE) or low self-efficacy (LSE) induction. Participants were tested for intrusions, distress, and memory recall for the film over the following 24 hours. LSE participants recalled more central details than HSE participants. Further, HSE participants reported fewer negative intrusions immediately following the film and at 24 hours. These findings suggest that strategies that increase perceived coping self-efficacy may reduce intrusive recollections of an aversive event, and also reduce the attentional bias associated with remembering aversive stimuli.     

Mind Perception Is the Essence of Morality

Mind perception entails ascribing mental capacities to other entities, whereas moral judgment entails labeling entities as good or bad or actions as right or wrong. We suggest that mind perception is the essence of moral judgment. In particular, we suggest that moral judgment is rooted in a cognitive template of two perceived minds-a moral dyad of an intentional agent and a suffering moral patient. Diverse lines of research support dyadic morality. First, perceptions of mind are linked to moral judgments: dimensions of mind perception (agency and experience) map onto moral types (agents and patients), and deficits of mind perception correspond to difficulties with moral judgment. Second, not only are moral judgments sensitive to perceived agency and experience, but all moral transgressions are fundamentally understood as agency plus experienced suffering-that is, interpersonal harm-even ostensibly harmless acts such as purity violations. Third, dyadic morality uniquely accounts for the phenomena of dyadic completion (seeing agents in response to patients, and vice versa), and moral typecasting (characterizing others as either moral agents or moral patients). Discussion also explores how mind perception can unify morality across explanatory levels, how a dyadic template of morality may be developmentally acquired, and future directions.     

The impact of perceived self-efficacy on mental time travel and social problem solving

Current models of autobiographical memory suggest that self-identity guides autobiographical memory retrieval. Further, the capacity to recall the past and imagine one's self in the future (mental time travel) can influence social problem solving. We examined whether manipulating self-identity, through an induction task in which students were led to believe they possessed high or low self-efficacy, impacted episodic specificity and content of retrieved and imagined events, as well as social problem solving. Compared to individuals in the low self efficacy group, individuals in the high self efficacy group generated past and future events with greater (a) specificity, (b) positive words, and (c) self-efficacious statements, and also performed better on social problem solving indices. A lack of episodic detail for future events predicted poorer performance on social problem solving tasks. Strategies that increase perceived self-efficacy may help individuals to selectively construct a past and future that aids in negotiating social problems.     

Power and consumer behavior: How power shapes who and what consumers value

The current paper reviews the concept of power and offers a new architecture for understanding how power guides and shapes consumer behavior. Specifically, we propose that having and lacking power respectively foster agentic and communal orientations that have a transformative impact on perception, cognition, and behavior. These orientations shape both who and what consumers value. New empirical evidence is presented that synthesizes these findings into a parsimonious account of how power alters consumer behavior as a function of both product attributes and recipients. Finally, we discuss future directions to motivate and guide the study of power by consumer psychologists.     

Direct and vicarious conspicuous consumption: Identification with low‐status groups increases the desire for high‐status goods

The current research examines whether direct and vicarious identification with a low-status group affects consumers' desire for objects associated with status. Experiment 1 found that individuals who belonged to and identified with a status social category associated with relatively lower status (Blacks) exhibited an enhanced desire for high-status products compared to Blacks who did not identify with their race or individuals who belonged to a social category associated with higher status (Whites). In Experiments 2 and 3, White participants led to vicariously identify through perspective taking with Blacks (Experiment 2), or a low-status occupational group (Experiment 3) exhibited an increased desire for high-status products. Experiment 4 provided meditational evidence for a status based explanation for the relationship between identification with a low-status group and a desire for high-status products. The present work makes new inroads into understanding one factor that might lead minorities to engage in greater conspicuous consumption and provides evidence that conspicuous consumption can be elicited vicariously.     

The moderating role of emotional differentiation on satiation

People tend to like experiences less the more they repeat them, a process commonly referred to as satiation. Despite an increasing interest in satiation among consumer researchers, we still know very little about the role that emotions play in the process. Through a series of three experiments, we show paradoxically that when individuals differentiate between the positive and negative emotions that arise during repeated consumption, they satiate at a slower rate. We show that a cognitive re‐appraisal process drives this emotional differentiation effect, whereby, when individuals focus on negative emotions they exhibit increased enjoyment of repeated consumption sequences. We demonstrate these effects for both trait and state emotional differentiation and across both continued and repeated consumption contexts. Theoretical implications of these findings for satiation, emotional differentiation, and emotion regulation literatures are then discussed.     

Phosphorylation of mitogen-activated protein kinase in the medial prefrontal cortex and the amygdala following memory retrieval or forgetting in developing rats

We examined neuronal correlates of forgetting in rats by detection of phosphorylated mitogen-activated protein kinase (pMAPK) in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and amygdala. In Experiment 1, postnatal day (P)23 and P16 rats received paired noise CS-shock US presentations. When tested immediately after conditioning, P23 and P16 rats exhibited similar levels of conditioned fear; when tested after 2 days, however, P16 rats showed poor CS-elicited freezing relative to P23 rats. In Experiment 2, P16 and P23 rats received either paired or unpaired CS-US presentations, and then were tested 48 h later. Consistent with Experiment 1, P16 rats showed forgetting whereas P23 rats exhibited good retention at test. Additionally, unpaired groups showed poor CS-elicited freezing at test. Immunohistochemistry showed that P23 and P16 rats given paired presentations exhibited significant elevation of pMAPK-immunoreactive (ir) neurons in the amygdala compared to rats given unpaired presentations. That is, MAPK phosphorylation in the amygdala tracked learning history rather than behavioral performance at test. In contrast, only the P23-paired group showed an elevated number of pMAPK-ir neurons in mPFC, indicating that MAPK phosphorylation in the mPFC tracks memory expression. Different test-perfusion intervals were employed in Experiment 3, which showed that the developmental dissociation in the pMAPK-ir neurons observed in the mPFC in Experiment 2 was not due to age differences in the rate of phosphorylation of MAPK. These findings provide initial evidence suggesting that while the mPFC is involved in memory retrieval, MAPK phosphorylation in the amygdala may be a persisting neural signature of fear memory.     

Working With the Suicidal Client Who Also Abuses Substances

Substance use disorders and suicidal thoughts and behaviors commonly co-occur in adolescent and adult psychiatric populations and are often functionally interrelated. Although the evidence base for treatment of this population is sparse, integrated cognitive behavioral treatment (CBT) protocols, or those that rely heavily on CBT techniques, hold promise. In this paper, we provide an overview of the evidence-based literature for interventions that target suicidal behavior and substance use disorders with adults and adolescents. We then discuss the manner in which these behaviors may be functionally interrelated and offer a conceptual framework (S-O-R-C) to guide case conceptualization and treatment planning for clients with co-occurring suicidality and substance use disorders. Next, we provide a case example of a client with suicidal behavior and an alcohol use disorder and demonstrate how to apply an integrated CBT treatment protocol to this case. This case example is followed by a more general discussion about the potential advantages of integrated CBT protocols for suicidality and substance use disorders, guidelines for prioritizing treatment targets and skill selection for each individual client, and other important treatment considerations. We conclude with recommendations for future research in this area.     

Local and global effects of motivation on cognitive control

Motivation has been found to enhance cognitive control, but the mechanisms by which this occurs are still poorly understood. Cued motivational incentives (e.g., monetary rewards) can modulate cognitive processing locally??that is, on a trial-by-trial basis (incentive cue effect). Recently, motivational incentives have also been found to produce more global and tonic changes in performance, as evidenced by performance benefits on nonincentive trials occurring within incentive blocks (incentive context effect). In two experiments involving incentivized cued task switching, we provide systematic evidence that the two effects are dissociable. Through behavioral, diffusion-modeling, and individual-differences analyses, we found dissociations between local and global motivational effects that were linked to specific properties of the incentive signals (i.e., timing), while also ruling out alternative interpretations (e.g., practice and speed??accuracy trade-off effects). These results provide important clues regarding the neural mechanisms by which motivation exerts both global and local influences on cognitive control.     

Making Sense of Animal Disenhancement

In this paper I look at moral debates about animal disenhancement. In particular, I propose that given the particular social institutions in which such disenhancement will operate, we ought to reject animal disenhancement. I do this by introducing the issue of animal disenhancement and presenting arguments in support of it, and showing that while these arguments are strong, they are unconvincing when we look at the full picture. Viewing animal disenhancement in a context such as high intensity food production, we see that the arguments in support of it fall short of other ethical considerations, leading me to conclude that the moral and pragmatic reasons weigh against animal disenhancement.