Toward Developing Laboratory-Based Parent–Adolescent Conflict Discussion Tasks that Consistently Elicit Adolescent Conflict-Related Stress Responses: Support from Physiology and Observed Behavior

Parent–adolescent conflict poses risk for youth maladjustment. One potential mechanism of this risk is that stress in the form of increased arousal during conflict interactions results in adolescents’ impaired decision-making. However, eliciting consistent adolescent stress responses within laboratory-based tasks of parent–adolescent conflict (i.e., conflict discussion tasks) is hindered by task design. This limitation may stem from how conflict topics are assessed and selected for discussion. Within a sample of 47 adolescents (ages 14–17) and parents, we investigated whether a modified version of a conflict discussion task could elicit physiological (i.e., arousal) and behavioral (i.e., hostility) displays of adolescents’ conflict-related stress responses. We assessed parent–adolescent conflict via structured interview to identify topics for dyads to discuss during the task. We randomly assigned dyads to complete a 5-min task to discuss either a putatively benign topic (i.e., control condition) or a conflict topic while undergoing direct assessments of continuous arousal. Trained raters coded dyad members’ hostile behavior during the task. Adolescents in the conflict condition exhibited significantly greater levels of arousal than adolescents in the control condition. We observed an interaction between discussion condition and baseline conflict. Specifically, higher baseline conflict predicted greater hostile behavior for adolescents in the conflict condition, yet we observed the inverse relation for adolescents in the control condition. Our modified laboratory discussion task successfully elicited both physiological and behavioral displays of adolescent conflict-related stress. These findings have important implications for leveraging experimental paradigms to understand causal links between parent–adolescent conflict and adolescent psychopathology, and their underlying mechanisms.     

Friends with benefits: the evolved psychology of same- and opposite-sex friendship

During human evolution, men and women faced distinct adaptive problems, including pregnancy, hunting, childcare, and warfare. Due to these sex-linked adaptive problems, natural selection would have favored psychological mechanisms that oriented men and women toward forming friendships with individuals possessing characteristics valuable for solving these problems. The current study explored sex-differentiated friend preferences and the psychological design features of same- and opposite-sex friendship in two tasks. In Task 1, participants (N = 121) categorized their same-sex friends (SSFs) and opposite-sex friends (OSFs) according to the functions these friends serve in their lives. In Task 2, participants designed their ideal SSFs and OSFs using limited budgets that forced them to make trade-offs between the characteristics they desire in their friends. In Task 1, men, more than women, reported maintaining SSFs for functions related to athleticism and status enhancement and OSFs for mating opportunities. In Task 2, both sexes prioritized agreeableness and dependability in their ideal SSFs, but men prioritized physical attractiveness in their OSFs, whereas women prioritized economic resources and physical prowess. These findings suggest that friend preferences may have evolved to solve ancestrally sex-linked adaptive problems, and that opposite-sex friendship may directly or indirectly serve mating functions.     

Common Genetic and Environmental Influences on Major Depressive Disorder and Conduct Disorder

The evidence for common genetic and environmental influences on conduct disorder (CD) and major depressive disorder (MDD) in adolescents was examined. A sample of 570 monozygotic twin pairs, 592 dizygotic twin pairs, and 426 non-twin siblings, aged 12-18 years, was recruited from the Colorado Twin Registry. For the past year data, there was a significant correlation between the genetic influences on MDD and CD and, for the lifetime data, there was a significant correlation between the genetic influences on MDD and CD, and a significant correlation between the nonshared environmental influences on MDD and CD. Our results suggest that some genetic factors will increase an individual's vulnerability to both MDD and CD in adolescence.     

Aging and recognition memory for emotional words: A bias account

The present study investigated age-related differences in the locus of the emotional enhancement effect in recognition memory. Younger and older adults studied an emotion-heterogeneous list followed by a forced choice recognition memory test. Luce’s (1963) similarity choice model was used to assess whether emotional valence impacts memory sensitivity or response bias. Results revealed that the emotional enhancement effect in both age groups was due to a more liberal response bias for emotional words. However, the pattern of bias differed, with younger adults more willing to classify negative words as old and older adults more willing to classify positive words as old. The results challenge the conclusion that emotional words are more memorable than neutral words.     

Memory for information about sex differences

To test the selective recall hypothesis, male and female adolescents listened to a tape recording of 30 “findings” about sex differences. Fifteen of the findings were pro-female and 15 were anti-female. After being given free recall and then cued recall tests, the subjects completed the British version of the attitudes towards women scale. Multiple regression analysis supported the prediction that males, and those with more negative attitudes to wards women, recalled less pro- and more anti-female items, and vice versa. The importance of selective recall to studies of social cognition is discussed.     

Subordinate Performance, Leader-Subordinate Compatibility, and Exchange Quality in Leader-Member Dyads: A Field Study

A model examining factors related to quality of exchange in leader-member dyads was developed and tested. Subordinates and supervisors in 223 dyads in a manufacturing setting provided demographic data and completed measures of performance and attitude towards work. Results found organization citizenship behaviors, leader-member attitude similarity, and similarity of education to be related to quality of leader-member exchange.     

Pattern-directed attention in uncertain-frequency detection

The role of early pattern components as cues in uncertain frequency detection was investigated in four probe-signal experiments. Listeners heard two consecutive presentations of one of two 12-tone patterns in a noise background. One presentation of the pattern was complete, whereas the other was missing the 11th (primary) tone. Listeners were required to indicate which presentation was complete. On 20% of the test trials, the 11th component of the complete pattern was replaced with one of four probe tones. The results indicated that listeners were more sensitive to the primary tone than to probe tones, and this selective sensitivity changed on a trial-by-trial basis as a function of the attentional cues provided by early pattern components. The data suggested two cue functions: (1) an “informational” function in providing information regarding which of two primary tones is likely to occur on a given trial, and (2) a “frequency” function that “automatically” directs listening to an appropriate frequency range and narrows or “fine tunes,” the listening band.     

Individual differences,aging, and IQ in two-choice tasks

The effects of aging and IQ on performance were examined in three two-choice tasks: numerosity discrimination, recognition memory, and lexical decision. The experimental data, accuracy, correct and error response times, and response time distributions, were well explained by Ratcliff’s (1978) diffusion model. The components of processing identified by the model were compared across levels of IQ (ranging from 83 to 146) and age (college students, 60–74, and 75–90 year olds). Declines in performance with age were not significantly different for low compared to high IQ subjects. IQ but not age had large effects on the quality of the evidence that was obtained from a stimulus or memory, that is, the evidence upon which decisions were based. Applying the model to individual subjects, the components of processing identified by the model for individuals correlated across tasks. In addition, the model’s predictions and the data were examined for the “worst performance rule”, the finding that age and IQ have larger effects on slower responses than faster responses.     

Effect of Perceived Politics and Perceived Support on Bullying and Emotional Exhaustion: The Moderating Role of Type A Personality

Recognizing that bullying can occur in varying degrees of severity, the current study suggest the importance of individual traits in individual perceptions of being targets of bullying and ensuing emotional exhaustion. The present study extends the work environment hypothesis and trait activation theory by a joint investigation of the mediating role of (a) workplace bullying in linking perceived organization politics and perceived organization support with emotional exhaustion and (b) the moderating role of Type A behavioral pattern in influencing the mediation. Using a field sample of 262 employees working in different organizations of Pakistan, this study tested a moderated mediation model. Results were consistent with the hypothesized model, in that workplace bullying mediated the relationship of perceived organization politics and perceived organization support with emotional exhaustion. Type A behavior moderated the perceived politics—bullying, perceived support–bullying, and bullying—emotional exhaustion relationships. The mediation of bullying varied with levels of Type A behavior in these relationships.     

Learning a Phonological Contrast Modulates the Auditory Grouping of Rhythm

Perceptual grouping is fundamental to many auditory processes. The Iambic–Trochaic Law (ITL) is a default grouping strategy, where rhythmic alternations of duration are perceived iambically (weak‐strong), while alternations of intensity are perceived trochaically (strong‐weak). Some argue that the ITL is experience dependent. For instance, French speakers follow the ITL, but not as consistently as German speakers. We hypothesized that learning about prosodic patterns, like word stress, modulates this rhythmic grouping. We tested this idea by training French adults on a German‐like stress contrast. Individuals who showed better phonological learning had more ITL‐like grouping, particularly over duration cues. In a non‐phonological condition, French adults were trained using identical stimuli, but they learned to attend to acoustic variation that was not linguistic. Here, no learning effects were observed. Results thus suggest that phonological learning can modulate low‐level auditory grouping phenomena, but it is constrained by the ability of individuals to learn from short‐term training.