The own-age face recognition bias in children and adults

Children recognize children's faces more accurately than adult faces, and adults recognize adult faces more accurately than children's faces (e.g., Anastasi & Rhodes, 2005). This is the own-age bias. Research has shown that this bias is at least partially based on experience since trainee teachers show less of an own-age bias than do other adults (Harrison & Hole, 2009). The present research tested the own-age bias in three groups of children (age 4-6, 7-9, 10-12 years) and a group of adults in the recognition of three age groups of faces (age 7-9, 20-22, and 65-90 years). Results showed an own-age bias for 7- to 9-year-old children and adults. Specifically, children could recognize faces more accurately if they were less than two years different from their own age than if they were more than two years older or younger. These results are discussed in terms of short-term experience with faces creating biases, and this rapidly changes with age.     

Replicability and 40-year predictive power of childhood ARC types

We examined 3 questions surrounding the undercontrolled, overcontrolled, and resilient-or Asendorpf-Robins-Caspi (ARC)-personality types originally identified by Block (1971). In analyses of the teacher personality assessments of over 2,000 children in 1st through 6th grade in 1959-1967 and follow-up data on general and cardiovascular health outcomes in over 1,100 adults recontacted 40 years later, we found bootstrapped internal replication clustering suggesting that Big Five scores were best characterized by a tripartite cluster structure corresponding to the ARC types. This cluster structure was fuzzy rather than discrete, indicating that ARC constructs are best represented as gradients of similarity to 3 prototype Big Five profiles; ARC types and degrees of ARC prototypicality showed associations with multiple health outcomes 40 years later. ARC constructs were more parsimonious but, depending on the outcome, comparable or slightly worse classifiers than the dimensional Big Five traits. Forty-year incident cases of heart disease could be correctly identified with 67% accuracy by childhood personality information alone and stroke incidence with over 70% accuracy. Findings support the theoretical validity of ARC constructs, their treatment as continua of prototypicality rather than discrete categories, and the need for further understanding the robust predictive power of childhood personality for midlife health.     

Listening,Watching, and Reading: The Structure and Correlates of Entertainment Preferences

ABSTRACT People spend considerable amounts of time and money listening to music, watching TV and movies, and reading books and magazines, yet almost no attention in psychology has been devoted to understanding individual differences in preferences for such entertainment. The present research was designed to examine the structure and correlates of entertainment genre preferences. Analyses of the genre preferences of more than 3,000 individuals revealed a remarkably clear factor structure. Using multiple samples, methods, and geographic regions, data converged to reveal five entertainment‐preference dimensions: Communal, Aesthetic, Dark, Thrilling, and Cerebral. Preferences for these entertainment dimensions were uniquely related to demographics and personality traits. Results also indicated that personality accounted for significant proportions of variance in entertainment preferences over and above demographics. The results provide a foundation for developing and testing hypotheses about the psychology of entertainment preferences.     

Multicultural personality dispositions and trait emotional intelligence: an exploratory study

This study examined the relationship between multicultural personality dispositions and trait emotional intelligence. The sample included 152 graduate education students enrolled at a university in a large northeastern city of the United States. The multicultural personality dispositions of Cultural Empathy and Social Initiative predicted variance in trait emotional intelligence above and beyond the variance accounted for by gender and potential socially desirable responding. Study limitations are highlighted, and suggestions for follow-up quantitative and qualitative research are presented.     

Exchanging social positions: Enhancing perspective taking within a cooperative problem solving task

When people occupy different social positions within a cooperative task they experience discrepant role and situation demands and thus have divergent perspectives. The reported research predicts that exchanging social positions within a cooperative task can overcome divergences of perspective. This prediction was tested in two experiments using the Communication Conflict Situation. The first experiment (n = 88) found that position exchange increased the ability of dyads to solve a communication conflict arising through discrepant perspectives. The second experiment (n = 120) found that the effect of position exchange exceeds that of purely cognitive perspective taking, thus suggesting that it cannot be reduced to a purely cognitive process. Exchanging social positions is a newly identified and powerful social mechanism through which perspective taking, within a cooperative task, can be enhanced. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Community Gardening: A Parsimonious Path to Individual, Community, and Environmental Resilience

The goal of this paper is to introduce community gardening as a promising method of furthering well-being and resilience on multiple levels: individual, social group, and natural environment. We examine empirical evidence for the benefits of gardening, and we advocate the development and testing of social ecological models of community resilience through examination of the impact of community gardens, especially in urban areas. The definition of community is extended beyond human social ties to include connections with other species and the earth itself, what Berry (1988) has called an Earth community. We discuss the potential contribution of an extensive network of community gardens to easing the global climate change crisis and address the role of community psychologists in community gardening research and policy-oriented action.     

Understanding constricted affect in schizotypy through computerized prosodic analysis

Constricted affect (CA) is a cardinal negative symptom of schizophrenia-spectrum disorders. It is unclear whether behaviorally-defined CA occurs in individuals with schizotypy-those with the personality organization reflective of schizophrenia liability. Moreover, it is unclear whether CA contributes to real world dysfunction in this population. The present study employed computerized prosodic analysis of natural speech procured during a laboratory procedure. Subjects were 89 individuals with psychometrically-defined schizotypy and 26 controls. Groups did not differ in any of the prosody measures examined here. Within the schizotypy group, increased prosodic expression was associated with positive schizotypy traits while decreased prosodic expression was associated with negative schizotypy traits. Prosodic deficits were significantly associated with reduced prosocial behaviors (e.g., talking with friends) but were not associated with subjective social satisfaction. Prosodic deficits characterize a subset of individuals with schizotypy who show a schizoid-like reduction in social behaviors without a concomitant reduction in social satisfaction.     

Optimism facilitates the utilisation of prior cues

It has been shown that optimists tend to rely more on their prior expectations than sensory input when making decisions of an intense nature (Geers & Lassiter, 2002). We investigated the degree to which this tendency persists over a range of discrepancies between prior cues and actual stimuli. Eighty‐seven participants were shown a subset of happy, sad and fearful pictures drawn from the Ekman facial expressions of emotion (Ekman & Oster, 1979). Each picture was preceded by a verbal cue indicating the impending emotional expression and intensity. The displayed pictures were either in agreement, slightly discrepant or very discrepant with the cue. Participants rated the extent to which they agreed/disagreed with the expectation cue. Probit signal detection models were used to produce acquiescence for each subject at each level of discrepancy. Correlation analysis was performed on acquiescence and dispositional optimism scores. There was a significant correlation between all acquiescence scores for levels of discrepancies and dispositional optimism. Optimism appears to be a trait associated with acquiescence. The apparent tendency of optimists to comply may be due to a cognitive style that relies on expectations, such that it takes them longer to recognise the extent of discrepancy between expectations and incoming information. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

From left to right: how the personality system allows basic traits to influence politics via characteristic moral adaptations

Research on the association of personality to political orientation has suggested that direct influences are modest. Here we used a personality system model in which direct influences on political behaviour flow from moral values, with personality mostly acting on these characteristic moral adaptations, rather than directly affecting political attitudes. Study 1 in 447 subjects supported this model, with significant effects on political orientation flowing from four of the five-factor model personality domains, but largely mediated through moral values concerning the importance of group order and individual rights. This personality system model was replicated in an independent study (n= 476) using a US sample and including a different measure of politics. Both studies support predictions that personality has significant effects on political attitudes, but that these are exerted largely via moral values. These findings help to explain inconsistencies in previous studies attempting to link personality to political orientation that have not included the intermediary level of values.