Arousing "gentle passions" in young adolescents: Sustained experimental effects of value affirmations on prosocial feelings and behaviors

When people reflect on their important values, they may become more attuned to the needs of others. Two longitudinal field experiments examined whether a subtle value-affirmation manipulation can initiate relatively enduring increases in young adolescents' prosocial feelings (Study 1; Mage = 12.9) and prosocial behaviors (Study 2; Mage = 12.9). Participants completed a brief writing exercise that affirmed the values they deemed either most important (value-affirmation group) or unimportant (control group). As predicted, the value affirmation, coupled with a booster affirmation 6 weeks later, caused increases in prosocial feelings and behaviors over the 3-month study period. Antisocial students who were value-affirmed showed especially strong increases in prosocial behavior. These results suggest that "gentle passions" can be aroused in youth by cost- and time-efficient means. The practical utility of value affirmations will need to be evaluated in future work.     

Parameter estimation of multiple item response profile model

Multiple item response profile (MIRP) models are models with crossed fixed and random effects. At least one between-person factor is crossed with at least one within-person factor, and the persons nested within the levels of the between-person factor are crossed with the items within levels of the within-person factor. Maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) of models for binary data with crossed random effects is challenging. This is because the marginal likelihood does not have a closed form, so that MLE requires numerical or Monte Carlo integration. In addition, the multidimensional structure of MIRPs makes the estimation complex. In this paper, three different estimation methods to meet these challenges are described: the Laplace approximation to the integrand; hierarchical Bayesian analysis, a simulation-based method; and an alternating imputation posterior with adaptive quadrature as the approximation to the integral. In addition, this paper discusses the advantages and disadvantages of these three estimation methods for MIRPs. The three algorithms are compared in a real data application and a simulation study was also done to compare their behaviour.     

The analysis of zero-inflated count data: beyond zero-inflated Poisson regression

Infrequent count data in psychological research are commonly modelled using zero-inflated Poisson regression. This model can be viewed as a latent mixture of an "always-zero" component and a Poisson component. Hurdle models are an alternative class of two-component models that are seldom used in psychological research, but clearly separate the zero counts and the non-zero counts by using a left-truncated count model for the latter. In this tutorial we revisit both classes of models, and discuss model comparisons and the interpretation of their parameters. As illustrated with an example from relational psychology, both types of models can easily be fitted using the R-package pscl.     

The Pedagogy of Self-Fashioning: A Foucaultian Study of Montaigne’s “On Educating Children”

In this paper I interpret Montaigne??s essay, ??On Educating Children??, as a pedagogical text through its performance of a distinct epistolary function, one that addresses the letter-recipient for the purpose of shaping the ideas, actions, and beliefs of that individual. At the same time, I also read ??On Educating Children?? within the context of the wider project of Montaigne??s Essays, which, as I suggest, is an ethical-aesthetic project of self-fashioning and self-cultivation. The net result is an interpretation of teaching as an ethical-aesthetic practice of the self, one that is in concert with the interpretation of Montaigne??s writing of the Essays as a similar practice of the self. In order to build this case, I employ Michel Foucault??s fourfold schema of ethical subjectivity, mapping that schema onto ??On Educating Children??, so as to reveal a unique pedagogy of self-formation??a pedagogy that works as much upon the self of the teacher as it does the self of the student.     

Predicting Transitions in Low and High Levels of Risk Behavior from Early to Middle Adolescence: The TRAILS Study

The present study examined the joint development of substance use and externalizing problems in early and middle adolescence. First, it was tested whether the relevant groups found in previous studies i.e., those with an early onset, a late onset, and no onset or low levels of risk behavior could be identified, while using a developmental model of a single, underlying construct of risk behavior. Second, departing from Moffitt's taxonomy of antisocial behavior, it was tested if early, but not late, onset risk behavior is predicted by a problematic risk profile in childhood. Data were used from TRAILS, a population based cohort study, starting at age 11 with two follow-ups at mean ages of 13.6 and 16.3 years. Latent transition analyses demonstrated that, both in early and middle adolescence, a single underlying construct of risk behavior, consisting of two classes (labeled as low and high risk behavior), adequately represented the data. Respondents could be clearly classified into four possible transition patterns from early to middle adolescence, with a transition from high to low being almost non-existent (2.5 %), low to low (39.4 %) and low to high (41.8 %) being the most prevalent, and high to high (16.2 %) substantial. As hypothesized, only the high-high group was characterized by a clear adverse predictor profile in late childhood, while the low-high group was not. This study demonstrates that the development of substance use is correlated with externalizing problems and underscores the theory that etiologies of early and later onset risk behavior are different.     

Legal Innovation for Social Change: Exploring Change and Resistance to Different Types of Sustainability Laws

In this article I argue that a desirable future direction for political psychology would be to pay more attention to social‐psychological processes involved in the response to innovative laws, in particular those devised with sustainability and environmental protection aims. This involves taking into account the following premises: (1) innovation and change are not unitary phenomena; instead there are different types of innovation; (2) legal and policy innovation is a specific type and is highly central in an era when global challenges are increasingly dealt with by global treaties which are then translated into national laws with a call to transform local practices; (3) offering attention to the reception of such innovation involves developing specific conceptual tools; (4) devising a typology of legal innovation is one step in this direction; (5) furthering our comprehension of how people, groups, and institutions receive—i.e., accept, contest—legal innovation for sustainability is important for helping to push forward sustainability goals, which are legislated but far from attained. The present article outlines theoretical tools for addressing psychosocial processes involved in the reception of legal innovation, drawing mostly on the approach of social representations and the literature of environmental psychology, and offers three criteria for a typology of laws. Finally I present some examples of responses to subtypes of legal innovation from the sustainability domain, taken as an illustrative case, and discuss differences and commonalities in the processes of acceptance and resistance that each mobilizes.     

Effect of auditory isolation on activity-based anorexia

The objective was to study male and female rats exposed to Activity-Based Anorexia (ABA; simultaneous exposition to food restriction and free access to an activity wheel) under two conditions of sound attenuation, by means of different arrangements of wheels (standard versus isolation) in the laboratory room. Regardless of the sound attenuation condition, all but one male and one female with access to wheels had to be removed from the experiment, but extended ABA endurance was found in rats in the sound attenuation condition. Furthermore, significantly lower levels of running were observed in both males and females under the sound attenuation arrangement in the isolation condition. The results suggest that external stimulation plays a role in the activity displayed by rats exposed to ABA, and that the reduction of external stimulation diminishes running but does not protect rats from developing ABA.     

The interaction between surface color and color knowledge: behavioral and electrophysiological evidence

In this study, we used event-related potentials (ERPs) to evaluate the contribution of surface color and color knowledge information in object identification. We constructed two color-object verification tasks - a surface and a knowledge verification task - using high color diagnostic objects; both typical and atypical color versions of the same object were presented. Continuous electroencephalogram was recorded from 26 subjects. A cluster randomization procedure was used to explore the differences between typical and atypical color objects in each task. In the color knowledge task, we found two significant clusters that were consistent with the N350 and late positive complex (LPC) effects. Atypical color objects elicited more negative ERPs compared to typical color objects. The color effect found in the N350 time window suggests that surface color is an important cue that facilitates the selection of a stored object representation from long-term memory. Moreover, the observed LPC effect suggests that surface color activates associated semantic knowledge about the object, including color knowledge representations. We did not find any significant differences between typical and atypical color objects in the surface color verification task, which indicates that there is little contribution of color knowledge to resolve the surface color verification. Our main results suggest that surface color is an important visual cue that triggers color knowledge, thereby facilitating object identification.     

An attentional approach to study mental representations of different parts of the hand

The aim of this study is to investigate whether the fingers are represented separately from the palm. An exogenous spatial orientation paradigm was used where participants had to detect a tactile stimulus that could appear on the palm, the middle finger or the ring finger of the left hand. The tactile target was preceded by a non-predictive cue using different stimulus-onset asynchronies (SOA). We observed a Facilitation Effect in the palm and Inhibition of Return (IOR) for fingers using a short cue-target SOA, whereas the IOR was found in fingers and palm in long cue-target SOA. Also we observed a ‘Cue above Target’ effect (facilitation effect when the Cue had appeared distal to the target location in a vertical line) at the long SOA. Together, we suggest that the general pattern of results supports the proposed hypothesis about the different mental representation of fingers and palms, but with a considerable and hierarchical interrelation between them.     

“It Depends on What You Mean by ‘Disagree’”: Differences between Parent and Child Perceptions of Parent–Child Conflict

We examined a new structured interview of parent?Cchild conflict that assesses parent and child perceptions of behavioral conflict about daily life topics (e.g., doing chores, homework), and whether discrepancies exist on beliefs about these topics. In a sample of 100 parents and children ages 10 to 17?years (M?=?13.5?years, 52 males, 57?% African-American), informants could reliably distinguish between perceived behavioral conflicts and perceived discrepant beliefs about topics. These scores were also significantly related to questionnaire reports of parent?Cchild conflict. Parent and child questionnaire reports did not significantly differ, yet on the structured interview, parents reported significantly greater levels of perceived conflict and discrepant beliefs relative to child reports. Additionally, structured interview reports of conflict demonstrated incremental validity by relating to child self-reports of delinquent behaviors, when accounting for questionnaire conflict reports. The findings have implications for increasing understanding of the links between parent?Cchild conflict and psychosocial outcomes.