Political mindset: Effects of schema priming on liberal-conservative political positions

Although stable factors play an important role in determining people’s political positions, most Americans also hold a mix of values and beliefs some congruent with political conservatism and some congruent with political liberalism. To investigate this more dynamic component of political thinking, two studies manipulated the relative salience of schemas about personal merit vs. good fortune as explanations for success in life. In Study 1, students at a highly selective university were asked to explain their academic success focusing either on the role of hard work, self-discipline and wise decision-making (Personal Merit condition) or that of chance, opportunity, and help from others (Good Fortune condition). In Study 2, personal merit vs. good fortune was primed through prior exposure to relevant questionnaire items. In both studies, participants in the Good Fortune condition subsequently indicated more support for liberal policies than did those in the Personal Merit condition.     

Assessing within-person personality variability via frequency estimation: More evidence for a new measurement approach

Variability in personality has been recognized in recent years as an important aspect of personality both conceptually and empirically. A relatively new and efficient method of obtaining variability information is frequency-based personality assessment (Edwards & Woehr, 2007). The purpose of the present research is to further examine the viability of frequency-based personality measurement as an alternative to traditional (Likert-type) measurement and to assess the usefulness of the variance-based parameters. Toward this end, three studies are presented. Specifically, Study 1 examined relationships between a frequency-based measure of the Big Five personality traits and several motivational variables. Study 2 examined the moderating role of temporal consistency information (provided by frequency-based measurement) on relationships between personality and peer ratings of task performance. Study 3 compared the frequency-based measure to a Likert-type measure with respect to each measure’s susceptibility to deliberate response distortion. Results indicated that consistency information increases the predictive validity of agreeableness and conscientiousness and that a frequency-based format is less susceptible to faking than a Likert-type format for conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness to experience.     

Calling and work-related outcomes: Career commitment as a mediator

The current study tested the hypothesis that experiencing a calling to a particular career would relate positively to work-related outcomes, and that these relations would be mediated by career commitment. Using a sample of 370 employees representing diverse occupations at a Western research university, results supported these hypotheses as calling moderately correlated with career commitment, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment and weakly correlated with withdrawal intentions. Career commitment was found to fully mediate the calling–job satisfaction relation, partially mediate the calling–organizational commitment relation, and act as a suppressor in the relation between calling and withdrawal intentions; calling was associated with somewhat greater withdrawal intentions once a person's level of career commitment was taken into consideration. These results suggest that career commitment may represent a critical link between calling and work-related well-being. Implications for research and practice are explored.     

Associations between types of combat violence and the acquired capability for suicide

Research suggests that combat exposure might increase risk for suicide. The interpersonal-psychological theory of suicide (IPTS) proposes that exposure to painful and provocative experiences such as combat contribute to fearlessness about death and increased pain tolerance, which serve to enhance the individual's capability to attempt suicide. Violent and aggressive combat experiences, in particular, should demonstrate relatively stronger associations to this capability. The current study tests this proposition in a sample of deployed active duty combatants. Results indicate that all types of combat exposure independently contribute to capability for suicide. Consistent with the IPTS, when considering all types of combat simultaneously, combat characterized by violence and high levels of injury and death are associated with relatively stronger associations to this capability.     

Self-Esteem, Teasing and Quality of Life: African American Adolescent Girls Participating in a Family-Based Pediatric Overweight Intervention

Two studies investigated overweight in African American girls. First, African American adolescent girls (BMI was ≥ 85th percentile) and their mothers participated in focus groups addressing weight and eating. Although mothers and daughters shared some similar views on these issues, there were important discrepancies, with mothers expressing greater doubt about the potential success of a healthy weight program. The second study evaluated baseline data from 39 African American girls participating in a weight management program; mothers' reports were also analyzed. In both studies, adolescents reported significant teasing, and in the second study, teasing was inversely associated with social quality of life (β=.55, t=3.01, p=.007). Motivation to participate was positively associated with teasing (r=.50, p < .01). Self-esteem was inversely related to positive health habits (all p < .05). Mothers who viewed their daughters as having higher self-esteem were less concerned about their daughters' weight. Differences in mothers' and daughters' perceptions highlight the importance of a family approach in pediatric overweight interventions. Results provide evidence that overweight African American girls face significant weight stigmatization and suggest areas to target regarding intervention implementation.

Priming effects on temporal order judgments about words: Perceived temporal priority or response bias?

In a temporal order judgment task, in which observers select which of two words appeared first, Stolz (1999) found that observers were more likely to select the word that had been semantically primed. Using repetition priming, we replicated Stolz’s finding and extended her results by demonstrating that the effect was due to both (1) repetition priming causing the primed item to be perceived as having occurred earlier and (2) a response bias to guess the repetition primed item as the correct response. We discuss our new finding that priming induces an attentional precedence effect in the context of previous research suggesting that exogenous spatial cuing induces an attentional precedence effect but identity or semantic priming may not.     

Emotional Word Detection and Adolescent Repressive–Defensive Coping Style

This study used a computer-based emotional word-recognition task to assess the emotional processing styles of repressive–defensive youth. A hypothesis was tested proposing that adolescent repressive–defensive coping style is associated with rapid engagement and disengagement of emotional stimuli (negative and positive). Data were collected on a male adolescent sample enrolled in a juvenile diversion program allowing for the comparison of anxious, low-anxious, and repressive–defensive youth. Consistent with prediction, repressive–defensive participants exhibited facilitated responding to emotional relative to neutral word stimuli across valence category (i.e., positive and negative). In contrast, anxious participants exhibited a unique pattern of facilitated responding to positive word stimuli. The current findings represent a first attempt at investigating the processing impairments of repressive–defensive coping style in a nonadult sample. Results are interpreted in light of broader adult and child research findings on emotional processing and affective disturbance.     

Evolution of kin recognition mechanisms in a fish

Animal Cognition - Both selection and phylogenetic history can influence the evolution of phenotypic traits. Here we used recently characterized variation in kin recognition mechanisms among six...     

Generalized others and imaginary audiences: A neo-Meadian approach to adolescent egocentrism

Piaget’s conception of adolescent egocentrism, as interpreted and extended by Elkind (1967) is discussed, and research that has related Elkind’s egocentric ideations of personal fable and imaginary audience to age and intellectual development is considered. Alternative theories of adolescent egocentrism and its decentration are examined, and a neo-Meadian framework is discussed that understands the imaginary audience ideation of adolescents as a possibly functional, highly variable response to the complex task of coordinating individual and social perspectives as part of the adolescent’s search for identity.     

When a Skeptical Hypothesis Is Live

I’m going to argue for a set of restricted skeptical results: roughly put, we don’t know that fire engines are red, we don’t know that we sometimes have pains in our lower backs, we don’t know that John Rawls was kind, and we don’t even know that we believe any of those truths. However, people unfamiliar with philosophy and cognitive science do know all those things. The skeptical argument is traditional in form: here's a skeptical hypothesis; you can’t epistemically neutralize it, you have to be able to neutralize it to know P; so you don’t know P. But the skeptical hypotheses I plug into it are “real, live” scientific‐philosophical hypotheses often thought to be actually true, unlike any of the outrageous traditional skeptical hypotheses (e.g., ‘You’re a brain in a vat’). So I call the resulting skepticism Live Skepticism. Notably, the Live Skeptic's argument goes through even if we adopt the clever anti‐skeptical fixes thought up in recent years such as reliabilism, relevant alternatives theory, contextualism, and the rejection of epistemic closure. Furthermore, the scope of Live Skepticism is bizarre: although we don’t know the simple facts noted above, many of us do know that there are black holes and other amazing facts.