Stereotype threat and working memory: mechanisms, alleviation, and spillover

Stereotype threat (ST) occurs when the awareness of a negative stereotype about a social group in a particular domain produces suboptimal performance by members of that group. Although ST has been repeatedly demonstrated, far less is known about how its effects are realized. Using mathematical problem solving as a test bed, the authors demonstrate in 5 experiments that ST harms math problems that rely heavily on working memory resources--especially phonological aspects of this system. Moreover, by capitalizing on an understanding of the cognitive mechanisms by which ST exerts its impact, the authors show (a) how ST can be alleviated (e.g., by heavily practicing once-susceptible math problems such that they are retrieved directly from long-term memory rather than computed via a working-memory-intensive algorithm) and (b) when it will spill over onto subsequent tasks unrelated to the stereotype in question but dependent on the same cognitive resources that stereotype threat also uses. The current work extends the knowledge of the causal mechanisms of stereotype threat and demonstrates how its effects can be attenuated and propagated.     

Contextual influences on the internal structure of phonetic categories: A distinction between lexical status and speaking rate

Previous research has shown that phonetic categories have a graded internal structure that is highly dependent on acoustic-phonetic contextual factors, such as speaking rate; these factors alter not only the location of phonetic category boundaries, but also the location of a category’s best exemplars. The purpose of the present investigation, which focused on the voiceless category as specified by voice onset time (VOT), was to determine whether a higher order linguistic contextual factor, lexical status, which is known to alter the location of the voiced—voiceless phonetic category boundary, also alters the location of the best exemplars of the voiceless category. The results indicated that lexical status has a more limited and qualitatively different effect on the category’s best exemplars than does the acousticphonetic factor of speaking rate. This dissociation is discussed in terms of a production-based account in which perceived best exemplars of a category track contextual variation in speech production.     

Parallel neural systems for classical conditioning: Support from computational modeling

Classical conditioning has been explained by two main types of theories that postulate different learning mechanisms. Rescorla and Wagner (1972) put forth a theory in which conditioning is based on the ability of the US to drive learning through error correction. Alternatively, Mackintosh (1973) put forth a theory in which the ability of the CS to be associated with the unconditioned stimulus is modulated. We have proposed a reconciliation of these two mechanisms as working in parallel within different neural systems: a cerebellar system for US modulation and a hippocampal system for CS modulation. We developed a computational model of cerebellar function in eyeblink conditioning based on the error correction mechanism of the Rescorla-Wagner rule in which learningrelated activity from the cerebellum inhibits the inferior olive, which is the US input pathway to the cerebellum (Gluck et al., 1994). We developed a computational model of the hippocampal region that forms altered representations of conditioned stimuli based on their behavioral outcomes (Gluck & Myers, 1993; Myers et al., 1995). Overall, computational modeling and empirical findings support the idea that, at least in the case of eyeblink conditioning, there may be two different neural systems: the cerebellum which mediates US-based error correction and hippocampus which alters representations of CSs.     

Building Collaborative Capacity in Community Coalitions: A Review and Integrative Framework

This article presents the results of a qualitative analysis of 80 articles, chapters, and practitioners' guides focused on collaboration and coalition functioning. The purpose of this review was to develop an integrative framework that captures the core competencies and processes needed within collaborative bodies to facilitate their success. The resulting framework for building collaborative capacity is presented. Four critical levels of collaborative capacity—member capacity, relational capacity, organizational capacity, and programmatic capacity—are described and strategies for building each type are provided. The implications of this model for practitioners and scholars are discussed.     

Cerebellar Substrates for Error Correction in Motor Conditioning

The authors evaluate a mapping of Rescorla and Wagner's (1972) behavioral model of classical conditioning onto the cerebellar substrates for motor reflex learning and illustrate how the limitations of the Rescorla-Wagner model are just as useful as its successes for guiding the development of new psychobiological theories of learning. They postulate that the inhibitory pathway that returns conditioned response information from the cerebellar interpositus nucleus back to the inferior olive is the neural basis for the error correction learning proposed by Rescorla and Wagner (Gluck, Myers, & Thompson, 1994; Thompson, 1986). The authors' cerebellar model expects that behavioral processes described by the Rescorla-Wagner model will be localized within the cerebellum and related brain stem structures, whereas behavioral processes beyond the scope of the Rescorla-Wagner model will depend on extracerebellar structures such as the hippocampus and related cortical regions. Simulations presented here support both implications. Several novel implications of the authors' cerebellar error-correcting model are described including a recent empirical study by Kim, Krupa, and Thompson (1998), who verified that suppressing the putative error correction pathway should interfere with the Kamin (1969) blocking effect, a behavioral manifestation of error correction learning. The authors also discuss the model's implications for understanding the limits of cerebellar contributions to associative learning and how this informs our understanding of hippocampal function in conditioning. This leads to a more integrative view of the neural substrates of conditioning in which the authors' real-time circuit-level model of the cerebellum can be viewed as a generalization of the long-term memory module of Gluck and Myers' (1993) trial-level theory of cerebellar-hippocampal interaction in motor conditioning.     

Research and Theory Religion and Spirituality in Coping With Stress

Relations among and between religion, spirituality, and the ability to cope with stress were examined using a sample of 115 graduate students in counseling. Religion and spirituality positively correlated with coping with stress. Counseling students who expressed spirituality through religious beliefs had greater spiritual health and immunity to stressful situations than counseling students who identified themselves as spiritual but not religious. Counseling students with a religious/spiritual affiliation indicated more discomfort counseling clients hostile to religion compared with counseling students with a spiritual‐only affiliation. The results have implications for preparing counseling students to work with clients with religious/spiritual issues.     

Examining legalism,scrupulosity, family perfectionism,and psychological adjustment among LDS individuals

This study examined the relationships and interactions between legalism, scrupulosity, family perfectionism, guilt, and shame among 421 Latter-Day Saints (LDS or Mormons). The results showed that scrupulosity fully mediated the links between legalism and guilt, as well as legalism and shame. A moderated-mediation effect was found, in which family discrepancy (maladaptive perfectionism) intensified the scrupulosity–shame association in the mediation model of legalism and shame by scrupulosity. Family discrepancy was not a significant moderator for the mediation model of legalism and guilt by scrupulosity. Additional results are provided and implications of these findings are outlined.