Existential Beliefs,Social Satisfaction,and Well-Being Among Catholic,Jewish, and Protestant Older Adults

Religiousness, spirituality, and existential beliefs are important sources of well-being yet neither their specific effects nor group variation in them is well understood. In a sample of more than 1,000 older adults, we found that certain existential beliefs or concerns (fear of God, death anxiety, belief in life after death, concerns about being mourned) are correlates of well-being in older adults and differed across religious groups. Protestants reported better well-being than Catholics and Jews. Differences in social satisfaction and existential concerns partially explained these differences, which were not explained by demographics. These results suggest the importance of studying well-being and religion in a way that appreciates the differences among religious groups and further of looking at the specific beliefs of different groups.     

Evaluations of White American versus Black American discrimination claimants' political views and prejudicial attitudes

Although White Americans experience less frequent and less severe forms of discrimination than ethnic minorities (Schmitt & Branscombe, 2002), White Americans may actually be more likely to claim discrimination compared to ethnic minorities (Goldman, 2001). The present research investigated evaluations of White and Black American discrimination claimants' political views and prejudicial attitudes. Across two studies, a White American target was evaluated as more politically conservative when claiming discrimination compared to a control condition. In contrast, a Black American target was evaluated as more politically liberal when claiming discrimination compared to a control condition. Both the White and Black American target were evaluated as more prejudiced against the outgroup when claiming discrimination; however the increase in prejudice evaluations was more pronounced for the White American target. The present research suggests that lay people make distinct inferences about the political views and prejudicial attitudes of White versus Black American discrimination claimants.     

Comparing Delay Discounting Rates When Using the Fill-in-the-Blank and Multiple-Choice Methods

Several methods have been devised to measure delay discounting. The present study recruited university students to complete a delay-discounting task involving five different outcomes (finding a dating partner, free cigarettes, winning $100,000, being owed $100,000, and obtaining one's ideal body image) that was administered using either the fill-in-the blank (FITB) or multiple-choice (MC) method. Results showed that the different administration methods sometimes produced significantly different rates of discounting, the direction of which differed by outcome. Hyperbolic discounting and the area under the discounting curve were nearly always significantly correlated when the FITB method was used but were never significantly correlated when the MC method was used. Discounting across the five outcomes produced a two-factor solution when the FITB data were factor analyzed. The MC data were described by a one-factor solution. The present results illustrate that procedural variables have a potentially profound impact on delay-discounting data, and generalizing from studies on delay discounting should be done with caution until those variables are fully understood.     

The Semantics of Secrecy: Young Children's Classification of Secret Content

The authors explored whether young children can distinguish potential secrets from nonsecrets by their content, as can older children, adolescents, and adults. Ninety children, 4, 5, and 6 years old, rated the secrecy of items from an adult-validated list of personal information about an age- and gender-appropriate puppet. Two factors of the children's data corresponded to the adult categories of nonsecrets and secrets, and a third factor corresponded to surprises. All ages rated surprises as significantly more secret than nonsecret items; however, the surprise items contained linguistic cues to secrecy. A tendency to rate nonsecrets as secret decreased with age, but only the 6-year-olds rated secrets other than surprises as significantly more secret than nonsecrets. Thus, children acquire the implicit rules defining secret content from a somewhat later age than that reported for the cognitive or behavioral capacities for secrecy.     

Sequential Aiming with Two Limbs and the One-Target Advantage

Movement times to the first target in a 2-target sequence are typically slower than in 1-target aiming tasks. The 1-target movement time advantage has been shown to emerge regardless of hand preference, the hand used, the amount of practice, and the availability of visual feedback. The authors tested central and peripheral explanations of the 1-target advantage, as postulated by the movement integration hypothesis, by asking participants to perform single-target movements, 2-target movements with 1 limb, and 2-target movements in which they switched limbs at the first target. Reaction time and movement time data showed a 1-target advantage that was similar for both 1- and 2-limb sequential aiming movements. This outcome demonstrates that the processes underlying the increase in movement time to the 1st target in 2-target sequences are not specific to the limb, suggesting that the 1-target advantage originates at a central rather than a peripheral level.     

contextualizing the sexual assault event: images from police files

This study focuses on sexual assault from a criminal event perspective, using case files to examine why elements of a crime emerge. Beyond how elements of a crime converge, as proposed by routine activities theory, statements extracted from police files shed light on the precursors to the criminal transaction and contextual elements, allowing insight into questions such as: Why are the offenders motivated? Why are the victims vulnerable? And, why are guardians absent? Results show that actors bring with them unique sets of circumstances that influence the progression of the sexual assault event. Alcohol and/or drugs, broken relationships, and anger were common factors.     

Factorial validity of the Mental Toughness Questionnaire-48

The purpose of this study was to assess the factorial validity of the Mental Toughness Questionnaire-48 (Clough, Earle, & Sewell, 2002). In total, 8207 participants (male n = 4019, female n = 3922, unspecified = 266) aged between 16 and 68 years (M = 37.00, SD = 12.09) completed the MTQ48. Model fit was assessed using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and exploratory structural equation modeling, in addition to the robust maximum likelihood estimator. Overall, our results support the factorial validity of the MTQ48 and indicate that the MTQ48 is a robust psychometric measure of mental toughness. Along with previous data, which supports the internal validity of the MTQ48 in addition to results of this study, it would appear that the MTQ48 is an acceptable method of assessing mental toughness.     

Evaluating the effect of educational media exposure on aggression in early childhood

Preschool-aged children (M = 42.44 months-old, SD = 8.02) participated in a short-term longitudinal study investigating the effect of educational media exposure on social development (i.e., aggression and prosocial behavior) using multiple informants and methods. As predicted, educational media exposure significantly predicted increases in both observed and teacher reported relational aggression across time. Follow-up analyses showed that educational media exposure also significantly predicted increases in parent reported relational aggression across more than a two year period. Results replicate and extend prior research that has demonstrated links between educational media exposure and relational aggression, but not physical aggression, during early childhood.     

On the relative effectiveness of affect regulation strategies: A meta-analysis

To examine the effectiveness of various affect regulation strategies and categories of affect regulation strategies, a meta-analysis was conducted. Results generally indicate that reappraisal (d=0.65) and distraction (d=0.46 for all studies; d=0.95 for studies with a negative or no affect induction) are the most effective regulation/repair strategies, producing the largest hedonic shift in affect. The effectiveness of different categories of regulation/repair strategies depended on the valence of the preceding affect induction. Results also indicate that stronger affect inductions and the use of bivariate affect measures will provide a richer understanding of affect regulation. Additionally, not all specific strategies or categories of strategies have been researched and the impact of individual differences on affect regulation has received relatively little attention. Finally, results indicate that control conditions in affect regulation research may not provide a valid point for comparison, as they facilitate effective affect repair.     

Effects of 7.5% CO2 inhalation on allocation of spatial attention to facial cues of emotional expression

Increased vigilance to threat-related stimuli is thought to be a core cognitive feature of anxiety. We sought to investigate the cognitive impact of experimentally induced anxiety, by means of a 7.5% CO₂ challenge, which acts as an unconditioned anxiogenic stimulus, on attentional bias for positive and negative facial cues of emotional expression in the dot-probe task. In two experiments we found robust physiological and subjective effects of the CO₂ inhalation consistent with the claim that the procedure reliably induces anxiety. Data from the dot-probe task demonstrated an attentional bias to emotional facial expressions compared with neutral faces regardless of valence (happy, angry, and fearful). These attentional effects, however, were entirely inconsistent in terms of their relationship with induced anxiety. We conclude that the previously reported poor reliability of this task is the most parsimonious explanation for our conflicting findings and that future research should develop a more reliable paradigm for measuring attentional bias in this field.