Implicit psychologists' estimates of attitude-behaviour consistencies

To investigate the relationship between implicit psychological hypotheses and explicit empirical findings, summaries of twenty published studies on attitude-behaviour consistency were presented to a sample of forty-eight psychology undergraduates. Subjects were asked to estimate the percentage of agreement between attitudes and behaviour obtained by each study. Correlations between subjects' covariation judgements and empirically obtained attitude-behaviour consistencies were minimal and nonsignificant. Results are discussed in the light of more recent research on attitude-behaviour relationship.     

“Put a Little Love in Your Heart”: Acceptance of Paternalistic and Ally Political Discourses Both Predict Pro-Roma Solidarity Intentions Through Moral Inclusion

The way politicians talk about minorities institutes the normative context of intergroup relations. We investigated how endorsement of different political discourses predicts donation and collective action intentions by majority members toward the Roma in five European countries. The survey was conducted online using samples demographically similar to the populations of Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, France, and Ireland (N = 5,054). First, results showed that accepting paternalistic discourse versus discourse promoting allyship were not distinguishable; both promoted higher moral inclusion which in turn predicted higher prosocial intentions. Second, donations (i.e., immediate relief) and collective action (i.e., social change action) were driven by identical factors. Third, acceptance of openly hostile political discourse neither predicted moral exclusion, nor lower prosocial intentions. In summary, our research provides important evidence that when it comes to Roma—non-Roma relations, the previously established distinction between solidarity intentions that aim to solidify status relations versus bring about social change is completely blurred, presumably because of the social context in which any positive message communicates moral inclusion challenging the hostile status quo.     

Sense of purpose and food insecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic brought new attention to the issues of food insecurity faced by individuals throughout the United States, a stressor exacerbated by disruptions to work status and supply chains. The burden of food insecurity likely carries consequences for whether individuals feel capable of pursuing their broad goals and life engagements; put differently, food insecurity may pose a threat to people perceiving a sense of purpose in life. The current study tested this claim across three samples taken during 2020 (n = 2009), 2021 (n = 1666), and 2022 (n = 1975). Participants completed inventories for perceived food insecurity, sense of purpose, depressive symptoms, and anxiety, among other measures. Results found consistent negative associations between food insecurity and sense of purpose across all three samples. In addition, food insecurity moderated associations between sense of purpose and depressive or anxiety symptoms. Sense of purpose was more strongly negatively associated with depressive and anxiety symptoms for those participants who reported no food insecurity. That said, sense of purpose remained negatively associated with psychological distress even among those reporting food insecurity.     

Visual backward masking as measured by voice reaction time

Instead of using percent correct identifications or detections as the dependent variable, latency in voicing the target stimulus was measured in a backward masking paradigm. Reaction time (RT) to target letters was reliably increased when they were simultaneously encircled by a black ring mask of a size found to produce masking using an identification or detection criterion. The masking function in terms of RT was typical in shape, a decreasing function of stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) over an interval of 150 msec. Since the target remained “on” when the mask appeared, the results are incompatible with an erasure interpretation of masking effects. Analyses of the variances of the RTs supported an interpretation of a progressive decrease in masking effects as SOA increased.     

Pictorial and verbal encoding in a short-term memory task

The present research attempted to manipulate the encoding modality, pictorial or verbal, of schematic faces with well-learned names by manipulating S’s expectations of the way the material was to be used. On every trial, a single name or face was presented, followed by another one; the S was asked to respond “same” if the stimuli had the same name, and “different” otherwise. The majority of second stimuli of any session was either names or faces. It was hypothesized that if S had encoded the first stimulus in the modality of the second, his judgment would be faster than if he had not appropriately encoded the first stimulus. Significantly slower reaction times were obtained to stimulus pairs where the second stimulus modality was infrequent. Further evidence that encoding of the first stimulus was in the frequent second stimulus modality comes from the finding that “different” responses were shorter when the stimuli differed on more than one attribute in the encoding (second stimulus) modality, regardless of the modality of the stimuli. Thus, evidence is presented that not only can verbal material be pictorially encoded (and vice versa), but that whether either verbal or pictorial material is verbally or pictorially encoded depends on S’s anticipation of what he is to do with the material.     

Historical perspectives on near-death phenomena

The authors present an introductory overview of the history of near-death phenomena, followed by a synopsis of near-death research representative of three historical eras: 1880s–1930; 1930s–1960; and 1960 to the present.     

The International Student: Female Circumcision Issues

The authors describe the process and practice of female circumcision, the impact it may have on circumcised female international college students, and some counseling strategies for the college counselor.     

A survey of reimbursement for cystic fibrosis carrier testing

To assess the current status of reimbursement for cystic fibrosis (CF) carrier testing, we surveyed individuals tested in the Mid-Atlantic region. Results show that CF testing was covered by insurance in part or in full for greater than 50% of respondents. The test was nearly always covered when performed during pregnancy because of a positive family history, but it was also covered for more than 50% of pregnant respondents with a negative family history. There were no significant differences in coverage by type of insurance. Many respondents needed to supply additional information about the testing to their insurance company before a coverage decision could be made. Before population-based CF screening programs are initiated, more data are needed on insurance reimbursement for testing, especially when performed pre-conceptually.     

Linguistic Phenomena and Language Selection in the REM Dreams of German-English Bilinguals

Sixteen German-English bilinguals were studied in a sleep laboratory for four nonconsecutive nights each. Half were native English speakers living in Zürich, and half native German speakers living in Atlanta. Presleep thought samples were solicited each evening and REM dream reports each night; subjects judged the waking appropriateness of their imagined speech and language phenomena, and also identified waking sources of their dream imagery, the following mornings. Incidences of dreaming and of speech therein generally were similar to those of monolinguals. Whether sessions were conducted in German (two nights) or English (two nights) did directly influence language selection in subjects' dreams. Judged appropriateness of language selection to imagined events was very high for thought samples, and high for REM dreams. Sources for thought samples were generally consonant with the language dominant at study site; for REM dreams this relationship was considerably weaker. Judged waking appropriateness to imagined situations was more strongly related to language selection than was the language reference of the supposed sources of those situations.