In perfect harmony: synchronizing the self to activated social categories

The self-concept is one of the main organizing constructs in the behavioral sciences because it influences how people interpret their environment, the choices they make, whether and how they initiate action, and the pursuit of specific goals. Because belonging to social groups and feeling interconnected is critical to human survival, the authors propose that people spontaneously change their working self-concept so that they are more similar to salient social categories. Specifically, 4 studies investigated whether activating a variety of social categories (i.e., jocks, hippies, the overweight, Blacks, and Asians) increased associations between the self and the target category. Whereas Studies 1 and 2 focused on associations between stereotypic traits and the self, Studies 3 and 4 examined self-perceptions and self-categorizations, respectively. The results provide consistent evidence that following social category priming, people synchronized the self to the activated category. Furthermore, the findings indicate that factors that influence category activation, such as social goals, and factors that induce a focus on the interconnectedness of the self, such as an interdependent vs. independent self-construal, can impact this process. The implications of changes to the working self-concept for intergroup relations are discussed.     

The Influence of Prior Handling on the Effective CS-US Interval in Long-Trace Taste-Aversion Conditioning in Rats

The Psychological Record - In conditioned taste aversion (CTA), a taste, the conditioned stimulus (CS), is paired with an illness-inducing stimulus, the unconditioned stimulus (US), to produce...     

Priming correct information reduces the misinformation effect

The misinformation effect is a well-established phenomenon in the false memory literature, although the mechanisms that underlie it are debated. In the present study, we explored one aspect of the controversy, the fate of the original memory. We began from an activation-based view of memory, capitalizing on the well-understood processes of associative priming and spreading activation, to test the hypothesis that true and suggested information can coexist in memory. After exposure to misinformation, participants were unknowingly primed with associates of either the true or a suggested item. Misled participants who were primed for the true item performed better on a final memory test than did misled participants primed for neutral information. The results indicated that true and suggested information coexist and that retrieval is influenced by each concept's activation level at test. Implications for theories of the misinformation effect were discussed.     

The Effectiveness of Cultural Adjustment and Trauma Services (CATS): Generating Practice-Based Evidence on a Comprehensive, School-Based Mental Health Intervention for Immigrant Youth

A collaborative study of Cultural Adjustment and Trauma Services (CATS), a comprehensive, school-based mental health program for traumatized immigrant children and adolescents, was conducted to generate practice-based evidence on the service delivery model across two school districts. Program effectiveness was assessed by testing whether client functioning and PTSD symptoms improved as a result of 7 separate service elements. An array of clinical services including CBT, supportive therapy, and coordinating services were provided to all students, and an evidence-based intervention for trauma, TF-CBT, was implemented with a subset of students. Greater quantities of CBT and supportive therapy increased functioning, while greater quantities of coordinating services decreased symptoms of PTSD. TF-CBT services were associated with both improved functioning and PTSD symptoms, although TF-CBT was implemented with fidelity to the overall comprehensive service model rather than the structured intervention model. Results suggest the comprehensive school-based model was effective, though different service components affected different student outcomes. Implications of these findings for immigrant mental health interventions and implementing structured evidence-based practices into community mental health programs are discussed. Suggestions are made for future research on existing mental health practices with immigrants.     

Reply to Nagasawa on the Inconsistency Objection to the Knowledge Argument

Yujin Nagasawa has recently defended Frank Jackson’s knowledge argument from the “inconsistency objection.” The objection claims that the premises of the knowledge argument are inconsistent with qualia epiphenomenalism. Nagasawa defends Jackson by showing that the objection mistakenly assumes a causal theory of phenomenal knowledge. I argue that although this defense might succeed against two versions of the inconsistency objection, mine is unaffected by Nagasawa’s argument, in which case the inconsistency in the knowledge argument remains.     

Retrieval-induced forgetting of arithmetic facts

Retrieval-induced forgetting (RIF) is a widely studied phenomenon of human memory, but RIF of arithmetic facts remains relatively unexplored. In 2 experiments, we investigated RIF of simple addition facts (2 + 3 = 5) from practice of their multiplication counterparts (2 × 3 = 6). In both experiments, robust RIF expressed in response times occurred only for high-strength small-number addition facts with sums ≤ 10, indicating that RIF from multiplication practice was interference dependent. RIF of addition-fact memory was produced by multiplication retrieval (2 × 3 = ?) but not multiplication study (2 × 3 = 6), supporting an inhibitory mechanism of RIF in arithmetic memory. Finally, RIF occurred with multiplication practiced in word format (three × four) and addition tested later in digit format (3 + 4), which provides evidence that digit and written-word formats for arithmetic accessed a common semantic retrieval network. The results support the view that addition and multiplication facts are stored in an interrelated semantic network and that RIF of competing addition facts is an intrinsic process of multiplication fact retrieval.     

Errors in identifying and expressing emotion in facial expressions, voices, and postures unique to social anxiety

The purpose of the present study was to see if 7-10-year-old socially anxious children (n = 26) made systematic errors in identifying and sending emotions in facial expressions, paralanguage, and postures as compared with the more random errors of children who were inattentive-hyperactive (n = 21). It was found that socially anxious children made more errors in identifying anger and fear in children's facial expressions and anger in adults' postures and in expressing anger in their own facial expressions than did their inattentive-hyperactive peers. Results suggest that there may be systematic difficulties specifically in visual nonverbal emotion communication that contribute to the personal and social difficulties socially anxious children experience.     

Able but unintelligent: including positively stereotyped black subgroups in the stereotype content model

The stereotype content model (SCM) posits that warmth and competence are the key components underlying judgments about social groups. Because competence can encompass different components (e.g., intelligence, talent) different group members may be perceived to be competent for different reasons. Therefore, we believe it may be important to specify the type of competence being assessed when examining perceptions of groups that are positively stereotyped (i.e., Black athletes and musical Blacks). Consistent with the SCM, these subgroups were perceived as high in competence-talent but not in competence-intelligence and low in warmth. Both the intelligence and talent frame of competence fit in the SCM's social structural hypothesis.