Self-Attitudes and Suicidal Behavior

Findings are reported concerning the hypothesized relationship between adoption of suicidal responses (ideation, threats, attempts) and antecedent negative self-attitudes. Data were provided by junior high school student (N = 3,148) responses to questionnaires administered three times at annual intervals. Antecedent negative self-attitudes were measured by a seven-item self-derogation scale at the first testing. Adoption of suicidal responses was indicated by earlier denial and subsequent affirmation of the response (self-reports). Findings indicate that suicidal behaviors are responses (whether or not subsequently continued) to experiences of negative self-attitudes in the more recent past. However, whether or not suicidal behaviors are related to self-derogating feelings in the more remote past can be seen as a function of a sex-social-class-mode of suicidal response interaction.     

Do Not Revise Ockham's Razor Without Necessity

Ockham's razor asks that we not multiply entities beyond necessity. The razor is a powerful methodological tool, enabling us to articulate reasons for preferring one theory to another. There are those, however, who would modify the razor. Schaffer (2010: 313—our italics), for one, tells us that, ‘I think the proper rendering of Ockham's razor should be ‘Do not multiply fundamental entities without necessity’’. Our aim, here, is to challenge such re‐workings of Ockham's razor.     

Surveying the forest: A meta‐analysis,moderator investigation,and future‐oriented discussion of the antecedents of voluntary employee turnover

Recent narrative reviews (e.g., Hom, Mitchell, Lee, and Griffeth, 2012; Hom, Lee, Shaw, and Hausknecht, 2017) advise that it is timely to assess the progress made in research on voluntary employee turnover so as to guide future work. To provide this assessment, we employed a three‐step approach. First, we conducted a comprehensive meta‐analysis of turnover predictors, updating existing effect sizes and examining multiple new antecedents. Second, guided by theory, we developed and tested a set of substantive moderators, considering factors that might exacerbate or mitigate zero‐order meta‐analytic effects. Third, we examined the holistic pattern of results in order to highlight the most pressing needs for future turnover research. The results of Step 1 reveal multiple newer predictors and updated effect sizes of more traditional predictors, which have received substantially greater study. The results of Step 2 provide insight into the context‐dependent nature of many antecedent–turnover relationships. In Step 3, our discussion takes a bird's‐eye view of the turnover “forest” and considers the theoretical and practical implications of the results. We offer several research recommendations that break from the traditional turnover paradigm, as a means of guiding future study.     

Stereotypes,Prejudice, and the Taxonomy of the Implicit Social Mind1

How do cognition and affect interact to produce action? Research in intergroup psychology illuminates this question by investigating the relationship between stereotypes and prejudices about social groups. Yet it is now clear that many social attitudes are implicit (roughly, nonconscious or involuntary). This raises the question: how does the distinction between cognition and affect apply to implicit mental states? An influential view—roughly analogous to a Humean theory of action—is that “implicit stereotypes” and “implicit prejudices” constitute two separate constructs, reflecting different mental processes and neural systems. On this basis, some have also argued that interventions to reduce discrimination should combat implicit stereotypes and prejudices separately. We propose an alternative (anti‐Humean) framework. We argue that all putative implicit stereotypes are affect‐laden and all putative implicit prejudices are “semantic,” that is, they stand in co‐activating associations with concepts and beliefs. Implicit biases, therefore, consist in “clusters” of semantic‐affective associations, which differ in degree, rather than kind. This framework captures the psychological structure of implicit bias, promises to improve the power of indirect measures to predict behavior, and points toward the design of more effective interventions to combat discrimination.     

MEDIATING ROLE OF MATERNAL SENSITIVITY: ENHANCING LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT IN AT‐RISK FAMILIES

Home‐visiting programs have gained increasing importance in family‐centered prevention and intervention. However, few studies have examined the mechanisms underlying early intervention treatment effects. The goal of this study is to analyze the mediating role of maternal sensitivity in enhancing language development with the home‐visiting program Parents as Teachers (PAT). Data were collected and analyzed within the ongoing, long‐term ZEPPELIN study, a randomized controlled trial with 251 participating at‐risk families. Via longitudinal mediation analysis, we examined whether effects of the PAT on receptive and expressive language outcomes at 24 and 36 months were mediated by maternal sensitivity at 12 months. Within a moderated mediation framework, we investigated whether the level of family psychosocial stress affects this mediation. Results showed that intervention effects on language outcomes are mediated by maternal sensitivity—weakly and through specific pathways. Moderation and moderated mediation analyses indicated that effects of the PAT and also specific mediation effects increase with the level of psychosocial stress. Implications of the results for practice are discussed.     

Foundations of infants' social group evaluations

Previous research has suggested that infants exhibit a preference for familiar over unfamiliar social groups (e.g., preferring individuals from their own language group over individuals from a foreign language group). However, because past studies often employ forced‐choice procedures, it is not clear whether infants' intergroup preferences are driven by positivity toward members of familiar groups, negativity toward members of unfamiliar groups, or both. Across six experiments, we implemented a habituation procedure to independently measure infants' positive and negative evaluations of speakers of familiar and unfamiliar languages. We report that by 1 year of age, infants positively evaluate individuals who speak a familiar language, but do not negatively evaluate individuals who speak an unfamiliar language (Experiments 1 and 2). Several experiments rule out lower‐level explanations (Experiments 3–6). Together these data suggest that children's early social group preferences may be shaped by positive evaluations of familiar group(s), rather than negative evaluations of unfamiliar groups.