Infants' use of social partnerships to predict behavior

The experiences of social partners are important motivators of social action. Can infants use such experiences to make predictions about how social agents will behave? Sixteen‐month‐old infants were introduced to two social pairs. Initial events established within‐pair cooperation as well as between‐pair conflict involving an individual from each pair. Following these events, infants looked longer when between‐pair members who had never previously interacted now cooperated – instead of conflicted – with each other. Thus, infants tracked the third‐person allegiances and inferred that the conflict would generalize across social partnerships. These findings demonstrate a critical feature of early social cognition and promote needed, further research on the role of social allegiances in social cognition across development.     

Attitude alignment increases trust,respect, and perceived reasoning ability to produce attraction

When others disagree with us, we like them more if they shift their attitude toward ours (i.e., engage in attitude alignment), but why? This article examined the effects of partner attitude alignment on dyadic (trust, inferred attraction) and personal (respect, perceived reasoning ability) evaluations. In two experiments, participants received feedback that imagined (Experiment 1) or real (Experiment 2) partners engaged (vs. did not engage) in attitude alignment; rated partners on trust, inferred attraction, respect (Experiments 1 and 2), and perceived reasoning ability (Experiment 2); and reported attraction. Individuals were more attracted to partners who engaged in attitude alignment because they viewed them as more trustworthy and worthy of respect and as possessing greater reasoning ability. The role of inferred attraction was unclear.     

Detecting Curvilinear Relationships: A Comparison of Scoring Approaches Based on Different Item Response Models

There is a growing use of noncognitive assessments around the world, and recent research has posited an ideal point response process underlying such measures. A critical issue is whether the typical use of dominance approaches (e.g., average scores, factor analysis, and the Samejima's graded response model) in scoring such measures is adequate. This study examined the performance of an ideal point scoring approach (e.g., the generalized graded unfolding model) as compared to the typical dominance scoring approaches in detecting curvilinear relationships between scored trait and external variable. Simulation results showed that when data followed the ideal point model, the ideal point approach generally exhibited more power and provided more accurate estimates of curvilinear effects than the dominance approaches. No substantial difference was found between ideal point and dominance scoring approaches in terms of Type I error rate and bias across different sample sizes and scale lengths, although skewness in the distribution of trait and external variable can potentially reduce statistical power. For dominance data, the ideal point scoring approach exhibited convergence problems in most conditions and failed to perform as well as the dominance scoring approaches. Practical implications for scoring responses to Likert-type surveys to examine curvilinear effects are discussed.     

Actor–partner interdependence of humility and relationship quality among couples transitioning to parenthood

The transition to parenthood is a challenging experience that often strains relationships, but perceiving one’s partner as humble (actor relational humility) and being perceived by one’s partner as humble (partner relational humility) were hypothesized to benefit couples during this transition. Married couples (N = 69) were tracked from the third trimester of pregnancy through 21 months postpartum. Husbands and wives provided ratings of relational humility and dyadic adjustment. Actor–partner interdependence models tested actor and partner effects of relational humility on dyadic adjustment across the transition. Although couples declined in dyadic adjustment over the transition at the same rate regardless of relational humility (counter to Hypothesis 2), those higher in relational humility reported greater dyadic adjustment at each time point during the transition (consistent with Hypothesis 1). These findings support the benefits of relational humility to relationship quality, and we call for further research into humility’s benefits during times of relationship transition.     

Posttraumatic Stress Related to Hyperglycemia: Prevalence in Adults with Type I Diabetes

Prevalence of hyperglycemia-related posttraumatic stress (PTS) was assessed in 239 adults with type 1 diabetes using the posttraumatic stress diagnostic scale (PDS; Foa, Posttraumatic stress diagnostic scale manual, National Computer Systems, Inc., Minneapolis, 1995) by an anonymous online survey. Additionally, this study aimed to identify variables related to hyperglycemia-related PTS. Over 30 % of participants reported symptoms consistent with PTSD related to hyperglycemia with standard PDS scoring, and 10 % with more conservative scoring. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses indicated that diabetes self-management behavior and perceived helplessness about hyperglycemia predicted PTSD with standard scoring. Perceived death threat, self-management behavior, helplessness about hyperglycemia, and severity of hypoglycemia in past month predicted PTSD using more conservative scoring. Perceived helplessness, hypoglycemia severity, perceived death-threat, HbA1c, and self-management behavior predicted PTS severity. When fear, helplessness, and perceived death-threat were combined to represent an overall cognitive appraisal factor, this variable was the strongest predictor of PTSD and PTS severity. Scores for PTSD symptom clusters appeared similar to data on hypoglycemia-related PTS.     

The Visual Guide to Morality: Vision as an Integrative Analogy for Moral Experience,Variability and Mechanism

Analogies help organize, communicate and reveal scientific phenomena. Vision may be the best analogy for understanding moral judgment. Although moral psychology has long noted similarities between seeing and judging, we systematically review the “morality is like vision” analogy through three elements: experience, variability and mechanism. Both vision and morality are experienced as automatic, durable and objective. However, despite feelings of objectivity, both vision and morality show substantial variability across biology, culture and situation. The paradox of objective experience and cultural subjectivity is best understood through constructionism, as both vision and morality involve the flexible combination of more basic ingredients. Specifically, both vision and morality involve a mechanism that demonstrates Gestalt, combination and coherence. The “morality is like vision” analogy not only provides intuitive organization and compelling communication for moral psychology but also speaks to debates in the field, such as intuition versus reason, pluralism versus universalism and modularity versus constructionism.     

Parent Socialization of Coping and Child Emotion Regulation Abilities: A Longitudinal Examination

This study examined the hypothesis that parent socialization of coping (SOC) would have a longitudinal relation with child emotion regulation abilities. Participants included a sample of 256 parents of 5- to 12-year-old children (child M age = 8.36, SD = 2.03, 54.7% male; parent M age = 34.49, SD = 6.20, 59% female). Data on demographic information, parenting behaviors, and child emotion regulation abilities were collected via online questionnaires at baseline and 12 months. Results from longitudinal structural equation modeling (SEM) analyses suggested that parent SOC, measured at baseline, predicted child adaptive and maladaptive emotion regulation, measured 12 months later. More specifically, parental engagement coping suggestions predicted child's adaptive emotion regulation, whereas parental disengagement coping suggestions predicted child's maladaptive emotion regulation. Further, child gender emerged as a moderator in the longitudinal association between socialization of engagement coping and child adaptive emotion regulation: Whereas this association was small and marginally significant for girls, it was large and statistically significant for boys. Results highlight the importance of parent SOC as potentially contributing to emotion regulation abilities of 5- to 12-year-olds.     

Motor learning-dependent synaptogenesis is localized to functionally reorganized motor cortex.

The regional specificity and functional significance of learning-dependent synaptogenesis within physiologically defined regions of the adult motor cortex are described. In comparison to rats in a motor activity control group, rats trained on a skilled reaching task exhibited an areal expansion of wrist and digit movement representations within the motor cortex. No expansion of hindlimb representations was seen. This functional reorganization was restricted to the caudal forelimb area, as no differences in the topography of movement representations were observed within the rostral forelimb area. Paralleling the physiological changes, trained animals also had significantly more synapses per neuron than controls within layer V of the caudal forelimb area. No differences in the number of synapses per neuron were found in either the rostral forelimb or hindlimb areas. This is the first demonstration of the co-occurrence of functional and structural plasticity within the same cortical regions and provides strong evidence that synapse formation may play a role in supporting learning-dependent changes in cortical function.