A Comparison of Latent Inhibition and Learned Irrelevance Pre-Exposure Effects in Rabbit and Human Eyeblink Conditioning

The learning of an association between a CS and a US can be retarded by unreinforced presentations of the CS alone (termed latent inhibition or LI) or by un-correlated presentations of the CS and US (termed learned irrelevance or LIRR). In rabbit eyeblink conditioning, there have been some recent failures to replicate LI. LIRR has been hypothesized as producing a stronger retardation effect than LI based on both empirical studies and computational models. In the work presented here, we examined the relative strength of LI and LIRR in eyeblink conditioning in rabbits and humans. In both species, a number of preexposure trials sufficient to produce LIRR failed to produce LI (Experiments 1 & 3). Doubling the number of CS pre-exposures did produce LI in rabbits (Experiment 2), but not in humans (Experiment 4). LI was demonstrated in humans only after manipulations including an increased inter-trial interval or ITI (Experiment 5). Overall, it appears that LIRR is a more easily producible pre-exposure retardation effect than LI for eyeblink conditioning in both rabbits and humans. Several theoretical mechanisms for LI including the conditioned attention theory, stimulus compression, novelty, and the switching theory are discussed as possible explanations for the differences between LIRR and LI. Overall, future work involving testing the neural substrates of pre-exposure effects may benefit from the use of LIRR rather than LI.     

Configural face processing develops more slowly than featural face processing

Expertise in face processing takes many years to develop. To determine the contribution of different face-processing skills to this slow development, we altered a single face so as to create sets of faces designed to measure featural, configural, and contour processing. Within each set, faces differed only in the shape of the eyes and mouth (featural set), only in the spacing of the eyes and mouth (spacing set), or only in the shape of the external contour (contour set). We presented adults, and children aged 6, 8, and 10 years, with pairs of upright and inverted faces and instructed them to indicate whether the two faces were the same or different. Adults showed a larger inversion effect for the spacing set than for the featural and external contour sets, confirming that the spacing set taps configural processing. On the spacing set, all groups of children made more errors than adults. In contrast, on the external contour and featural sets, children at all ages were almost as accurate as adults, with no significant difference beginning at age 6 on the external contour set and beginning at age 10 on the featural set. Overall, the results indicate that adult expertise in configural processing is especially slow to develop.     

Do Middle-Class Students Perceive Poor Women and Poor Men Differently?

In this study, we examined attitudes toward poor women, stereotypes about them, attributions for their poverty, and whether these thoughts and feelings differ from those about poor men. In our Midwestern college students sample (n = 206), attitudes toward poor women were significantly more positive than attitudes toward poor men. In addition, stereotypes of poor women were both more positive and more consistent with gender stereotypes than were those of poor men. Participants endorsed internal attributions for the poverty of both women and men more strongly than external or cultural attributions. However, the content of these attributions was different for the two target groups. Poor women were held responsible for nontraditional familial and reproductive patterns, whereas poor men were held responsible for lack of initiative and self-improvement. For poor men, all types of attributions included references to ability or willingness to work. The three types of attributions were more conceptually distinct for poor women.     

A Socioecological Approach to Relational Demography: How Relative Representation and Respectful Coworkers Affect Job Attitudes

Purpose

This paper advances a socioecological perspective toward understanding the relationship between demography and job attitudes by considering the joint effects of individual ethnicity and ethnic group relative representation—the degree to which an individual’s own demographic group is represented similarly in their organization and the community in which the organization is located.

Design/Methodology/Approach

Hierarchical polynomial regression analyses of census and survey data from 57,000 employees of 142 hospitals in the United Kingdom suggest that ethnic group relative representation is related to ethnic minority employees’ job satisfaction and turnover intentions.

Findings

An asymmetric pattern emerged wherein the effect of under-representation on turnover intentions was stronger than the effect of over-representation. Moreover, the effects of relative representation varied with respectful treatment by coworkers; relative representation had little effect on attitudes of employees who reported low levels of coworker respect but generally enhanced attitudes when respect was high.

Originality/Value

This work points to the meaningful role that socioecological factors can play in what are typically considered to be intraorganizational phenomena, thereby highlighting the need for organizational research to assess relevant aspects of the communities in which organizations are embedded.

     

Positive and Negative Expectations of Hopelessness as Longitudinal Predictors of Depression,Suicidal Ideation,and Suicidal Behavior in High‐Risk Adolescents

The relationship between hopelessness and depression in predicting suicide‐related outcomes varies based on the anticipation of positive versus negative events. In this prospective study of adolescents at elevated risk for suicide, we used two Beck Hopelessness Scale subscales to assess the impact of positive and negative expectations in predicting depression, suicidal ideation, and suicidal behavior over a 2‐ to 4‐year period. In multivariate regressions controlling for depression, suicidal ideation, and negative‐expectation hopelessness, positive‐expectation hopelessness was the only significant predictor of depressive symptoms and suicidal behavior. Clinical interventions may benefit from bolstering positive expectations and building optimism.     

Encoding differences affect the number and precision of own-race versus other-race faces stored in visual working memory

Other-race faces are discriminated and recognized less accurately than own-race faces. Despite a wealth of research characterizing this other-race effect (ORE), little is known about the nature of the representations of own-race versus other-race faces. This is because traditional measures of this ORE provide a binary measure of discrimination or recognition (correct/incorrect), failing to capture potential variation in the quality of face representations. We applied a novel continuous-response paradigm to independently measure the number of own-race and other-race face representations stored in visual working memory (VWM) and the precision with which they are stored. Participants reported target own-race or other-race faces on a circular face space that smoothly varied along the dimension of identity. Using probabilistic mixture modeling, we found that following ample encoding time, the ORE is attributable to differences in the probability of a face being maintained in VWM. Reducing encoding time, a manipulation that is more sensitive to encoding limitations, caused a loss of precision or an increase in variability of VWM for other-race but not own-race faces. These results suggest that the ORE is driven by the inefficiency with which other-race faces are rapidly encoded in VWM and provide novel insights about how perceptual experience influences the representation of own-race and other-race faces in VWM.

     

Childhood fantasy play relates to adult socio-emotional competence

Childhood fantasy play and creation of imaginary companions are thought to confer socio-emotional benefits in children, but little is known about how they relate to socio-emotional competence in adulthood. A total of 341 adults (81 males) aged 18 and above (M = 31.47, SD = 12.62) completed an online survey examining their fantasy play as a child, their childhood imaginary companion status, and their adult socio-emotional competence. Adults who reported higher levels of childhood fantasy play were found to be significantly more prosocial, empathetic, and emotionally intelligent than their counterparts after controlling for demographic factors. Recall of a childhood imaginary companion, however, was significantly related only to higher scores for perspective-taking and did not explain unique variance in any adult competence measure. Findings suggest that engagement in fantasy play during childhood may be a precursor to later socio-emotional competence, while benefits previously associated with imaginary companions specifically may not extend into adulthood.     

A Goal‐Priming Approach to Cognitive Consistency: Applications to Judgment

A fundamental criterion of judgment is consistency among beliefs. To augment traditional methods for studying cognitive consistency, we treat it as a goal and present a priming method for increasing its activation. Three studies use three criteria to validate the method: an increase in the biased evaluation of incoming information, speed in a lexical decision task, and participants' direct reports of greater goal activation. The method is then used to verify the role of the consistency goal in three diverse judgment phenomena. Priming cognitive consistency increases the search for postdecisional supporting information (selective exposure to information), the agreement between preference and prediction (the desirability bias or wishful thinking), and the adjustment of a socially unacceptable implicit attitude to conform to the corresponding explicit attitude. One conclusion is that the cause of these phenomena is not only motivated reasoning (driven directionally by a desired outcome) but also the purely cognitive and nondirectional process of simply making beliefs more consistent. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Early Adolescent Growth in Depression and Conduct Problem Symptoms as Predictors of Later Substance Use Impairment

Most studies of adolescent substance use and psychological comorbidity have examined the contributions of conduct problems and depressive symptoms measured only at particular points-in-time. Yet, during adolescence, risk factors such as conduct problems and depression exist within a developmental context, and vary over time. Though internalizing and comorbid pathways to substance use have been theorized (Hussong et al. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors 25:390-404, 2011), the degree to which developmental increases in depressive symptoms and conduct problems elevate risk for substance use impairment among adolescents, in either an additive or potentially a synergistic fashion, is unclear. Using a school-based sample of 521 adolescents, we tested additive and synergistic influences of changes in depressive symptoms and conduct problems from 6th to 9th grade using parallel process growth curve modeling with latent interactions in the prediction of late adolescent (12th grade) substance use impairment, while examining gender as a moderator. We found that the interaction between growth in depression and conduct disorder symptoms uniquely predicted later substance use problems, in addition to main effects of each, across boys and girls. Results indicated that adolescents whose parents reported increases in both depression and conduct disorder symptoms from 6th to 9th grade reported the most substance use-related impairment in 12th grade. The current study demonstrates that patterns of depression and conduct problems (e.g., growth vs. decreasing) are likely more important than the static levels at any particular point-in-time in relation to substance use risk.