How do I feel about the behavior? The interplay of affective associations with behaviors and cognitive beliefs as influences on physical activity behavior.

Individuals have affective associations with health behaviors. In other domains such associations have been shown to influence behavior, but affective associations with health behaviors are not included in current health decision-making models. The authors examined whether affective associations with exercise predicted individuals' activity behavior and, if so, how they interfaced with other decision-making constructs to influence behavior. Adult participants (N = 433) reported their current physical activity behavior and affective associations with physical activity. Health belief model and theory of planned behavior constructs were also assessed. More positive affective associations with activity significantly predicted greater activity behavior. Moreover, the influence of the health belief model and theory of planned behavior constructs on activity behavior was mediated through affective associations. Affective associations were shown to play a central role in individuals' activity behavior, both as a mediator of the effects of cognitively based decision-making factors and as an independent predictor of activity behavior. The results suggest the need to include affective influences on behavior in formal models of health decision making and, potentially, to explore affectively based intervention routes to change behaviors.     

Book Review of Sattler and Ryan,Assessment With the WAIS–IV

The Rorschach and Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) are among the most widely used personality assessment tools. However, there is little guidance in the literature about their combined use. In this article, I discuss conceptual and methodological issues of combining these widely used psychological tests, including the use of the test battery and the necessity of rationales for test utilization. Methodological approaches to integrating the test findings are discussed, including score, construct, test by test, and theory-based integrative approaches. The value of a person-centered interpretive and integrative focus is affirmed.     

Sexism,rape myths and feminist identification explain gender differences in attitudes toward the #metoo social media campaign in two countries

ABSTRACT

On October 15, 2017, actress Alyssa Milano popularized the #metoo campaign, which sought to expose the prevalence of sexual harassment and assault in public domains by encouraging victims to share their experiences on social media using the hashtag metoo. The online campaign rapidly grew to a global phenomenon, which was generally well supported. However, some criticized the campaign online as a battle of the sexes, which pits men against women. Our cross-cultural research investigated whether gender differences in attitudes and feelings toward #metoo are due to underlying differences in ideologies and experiences that only partly overlap with gender. We surveyed respondents in the United States, where the campaign began, and in Norway, a highly gender-egalitarian country. In both countries, men expressed less positivity toward #metoo than women and perceived it as substantially more harmful and less beneficial. These gender differences were largely accounted for by men being higher than women in hostile sexism, higher in rape myth acceptance, and lower in feminist identification. The results, hence, suggest that gender differences in attitudes to social media campaigns such as #metoo might be best characterized as dimensional ideological differences rather than fundamental group differences.     

Vocal emotions influence verbal memory: Neural correlates and interindividual differences

Past research has identified an event-related potential (ERP) marker for vocal emotional encoding and has highlighted vocal-processing differences between male and female listeners. We further investigated this ERP vocal-encoding effect in order to determine whether it predicts voice-related changes in listeners’ memory for verbal interaction content. Additionally, we explored whether sex differences in vocal processing would affect such changes. To these ends, we presented participants with a series of neutral words spoken with a neutral or a sad voice. The participants subsequently encountered these words, together with new words, in a visual word recognition test. In addition to making old/new decisions, the participants rated the emotional valence of each test word. During the encoding of spoken words, sad voices elicited a greater P200 in the ERP than did neutral voices. While the P200 effect was unrelated to a subsequent recognition advantage for test words previously heard with a neutral as compared to a sad voice, the P200 did significantly predict differences between these words in a concurrent late positive ERP component. Additionally, the P200 effect predicted voice-related changes in word valence. As compared to words studied with a neutral voice, words studied with a sad voice were rated more negatively, and this rating difference was larger, the larger the P200 encoding effect was. While some of these results were comparable in male and female participants, the latter group showed a stronger P200 encoding effect and qualitatively different ERP responses during word retrieval. Estrogen measurements suggested the possibility that these sex differences have a genetic basis.     

Impact of Abuse History on Adolescent African American Women's Current HIV/STD-Associated Behaviors and Psychosocial Mediators of HIV/STD Risk

This study examined if relationship power, sex refusal self-efficacy, or fear of condom negotiation mediated the relationship between abuse history and consistent condom use (CCU) among African American female adolescents (N?=?593). Participants with an abuse history (58%) were less likely to report CCU. Women with an abuse history reported less relationship power and self-efficacy for refusing sex and more fear of condom negotiation, none of which independently or jointly mediated the association between abuse and CCU. Notably, history of abuse was associated with CCU across mediator models despite inclusion of psychosocial mediators. This study demonstrates the importance of understanding adolescents' condom use behaviors within the context of their life experiences, especially past abuse history.     

Romantic relationships in early adulthood: Influences of family,personality, and relationship cognitions

Two hundred and sixty‐five participants and their romantic partners were involved in a prospective, longitudinal, and multimethod study during the transition from adolescence to adulthood. Guided by the development of the early adult romantic relationships (DEARR) model (Bryant & Conger, 2002), the research (a) investigated mid‐adolescent family experiences and individual differences in personality as predictors of qualities in the early adult romantic union and (b) evaluated the degree to which marital beliefs mediated these associations. Structural equation modeling partially supported the mediating effects of marital beliefs. The findings were generally consistent with the DEARR model, suggesting that it is informative to study early adult romantic relationship functioning within a developmental‐contextual framework, while simultaneously considering the unique effects of personality and relationship cognitions.     

National Trends in Implementing Wraparound: Results from the State Wraparound Survey

The wraparound process has been promoted in the children’s services field as a mechanism to achieve collaborative service planning and delivery for families of young people with complex emotional and behavioral needs that span multiple agencies. We compared results of two surveys of state children’s mental health directors, completed in 1998 and 2008, to derive estimates of the extent of wraparound implementation in the United States and to better understand trends in how wraparound has been implemented and supported over time. Results from 2008 found that 88% of states reported having some type of wraparound program that conformed to the definition and provided an estimate of 100,000 children and families served via wraparound in that year. Between 1998 and 2008, states reported increased application of wraparound standards, a greater number of agencies involved in wraparound initiatives, and more formal evaluations of wraparound initiatives. Results provide substantiation of the widespread implementation of wraparound implementation in the United States, and evidence that the model is becoming more consistently supported by formal implementation structures over time.     

When story characters communicate: readers’ representations of characters’ linguistic exchanges

Klin, Ralano, and Weingartner (2007) found transfer effects when a phrase, described as part of a note one character had left for another, was repeated across two passages. However, when the phrase was part of a note in story A and part of a conversation in story B, transfer effects were eliminated (Klin & Drumm, 2010). Klin and Drumm concluded that readers encoded the perceptual features of story characters’ linguistic exchanges and that the mismatch (visual vs. auditory) eliminated transfer effects. The present experiments support this conclusion and also demonstrate that readers encode details of the social interaction that surrounds the characters’ linguistic exchanges: Effects were reduced when the phrase in story A was part of a direct social interaction between the characters (e.g., phone conversation), whereas in story B, the interaction was indirect (e.g., voicemail). More generally, readers are exquisitely tuned to subtle aspects of characters’ linguistic exchanges.