A review of the experience and consequences of self-aspect activation,number, and distinctiveness

Abstract

The self-concept is an elaborate memory structure, but it operates under the same basic processes as all cognition. Within the self-concept, self-knowledge (e.g., traits, behavioral representations) is organized into self-aspects. Self-aspects vary in their momentary accessibility, and individual self-aspects can become connected through shared associations (e.g., overlapping traits). This paper reviews the author’s research on (1) the consequences and experience of activating specific self-aspects, and (2) outcomes and correlates of self-complexity, which is the number and interrelatedness of self-aspects. Important self-aspects are easier to activate and harder to inhibit, and active self-aspects moderate the accessibility of related self-knowledge with consequences for social judgment and memory. In addition, self-complexity influences emotions, self-regulation, well-being, and social perceptions, and it varies across cultures.     

Why are they being so nice to us? Social identity threat and the suspicion of Whites’ motives

Abstract

Stigmatizing racism has made Whites’ kindness attributional ambiguous to people of color (POC). When this ambiguity is experienced in domains where stereotypes are active, POC may experience praise from Whites as a form of social identity threat. The current article reviews how POC are predicted to respond to Whites’ positivity as a function of their beliefs about Whites’ motives. To the extent that POC are suspicious of Whites’ motives and chronically discount positivity from Whites, praise and positive overtures from Whites were predicted to be threatening. Evidence suggests that POC suspicious of Whites motives are the most sensitive to positive responses from Whites, reacting with both greater threat and social accuracy compared to non-suspicious POC. The current work reviews the empirical evidence on suspicion and highlights avenues for future research that explores suspicion’s origins and capacity to shape the academic and professional identities of POC.     

Healing the Heart: A Qualitative Study of Challenges and Motivations to Cardiac Rehabilitation Attendance and Completion among Women and Men

Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States. Given that cardiovascular rehabilitation (CR) participation is the best secondary prevention of cardiac mortality, it is important to understand the challenges and motivations people experience while taking part in rehabilitation. The present qualitative study explored the treatment experiences of 20 women and 20 men at urban and rural rehabilitation clinics in Minnesota. Participants were equally divided based on the number of CR session completed (less than or equal to 18 vs. more than 18). The study’s primary aim was to articulate similarities and differences in the CR treatment experiences by gender. Data were gathered from individual interviews and analyzed using an inductive content analysis. Findings revealed that both women and men view CR as a means to move forward from their cardiac incident and achieve good health. Women were more likely than were men to be motivated by a perceived obligation to CR staff and improved quality of life. Men, in comparison, identified their commitment to CR as a need to complete a task. The study findings can help inform the design of rehabilitation programs and strengthen patient-centered interventions to enhance participation in treatment.     

Understanding Adult Participant and Parent Empowerment Prior to Evaluation in the Undiagnosed Diseases Network

The burden of living with an undiagnosed condition is high and includes physical and emotional suffering, frustrations, and uncertainty. For patients and families experiencing these stressors, higher levels of empowerment may be associated with better outcomes. Thus, it is important to understand the experiences of patients with undiagnosed conditions and their families affected by undiagnosed conditions in order to identify strategies for fostering empowerment. In this study, we used the Genetic Counseling Outcome Scale (GCOS-24) to assess levels of empowerment and support group participation in 35 adult participants and 67 parents of child participants in the Undiagnosed Diseases Network (UDN) prior to their UDN in-person evaluation. Our results revealed significantly lower empowerment scores on the GCOS-24 in adult participants compared to parents of child participants [t(100)?=???3.01, p?=?0.003, average difference?=???11.12, 95% CI (??3.78, ??18.46)] and no significant association between support group participation and empowerment scores. The majority of participants (84.3%, 86/102) are not currently participating in any support groups, and participation rates were not significantly different for adult participants and parents of child participants (11.4 vs. 19.7%, respectively, FE p?=?0.40). Open-ended responses provided additional insight into support group participation, the challenges of living with undiagnosed conditions, and positive coping strategies. Future research will evaluate the extent to which empowerment scores change as participation in the UDN unfolds.     

Control by association: Transfer of implicitly primed attentional states across linked stimuli

Although cognitive control has traditionally been viewed in opposition to associative learning, recent studies show that people can learn to link particular stimuli with specific cognitive control states (e.g., high attentional selectivity). Here, we tested whether such learned stimulus-control associations can transfer across paired-associates. In the Stimulus-Stimulus (S-S) Association phase, specific face or house images repeatedly preceded the presentation of particular scene stimuli, creating paired face/house-scene associates in memory. The Stimulus-Control (S-C) Association phase then associated these scenes with different attentional control states by probabilistically biasing specific scenes to mostly precede either congruent or incongruent trials in a Stroop task. Finally, in the Stimulus-Control Transfer (S-CT) phase, the faces and houses from the S-S phase preceded Stroop trials but were not predictive of congruency, testing whether stimulus-control associations would transfer from scenes to their associated face/house stimuli. In Experiments 1 and 3, we found that learned implicit stimulus-control associations could transfer across closely linked cues, and in Experiment 2, we showed that this transfer depended on the memory associations formed in the S-S phase. While this form of transfer learning has previously been demonstrated for stimulus-reward associations, the present study provides the first evidence for the associative transfer of stimulus-control associations across arbitrarily linked stimuli. This work demonstrates how people can learn to implicitly adapt their processing strategies in a flexible context-dependent manner and establishes a novel learning mechanism supporting the generalization of cognitive control.     

Further evaluation of the use of preference categories to identify novel reinforcers: A systematic replication

Preference assessments are frequently used to identify reinforcers for individuals with autism spectrum disorder and intellectual and developmental disabilities. Although well‐established procedures have been shown to identify preferred stimuli for individual items that can be used in skill acquisition and behavior reduction programs, little research has been conducted on identifying categories of preferred items. In this study, paired‐stimulus preference assessments were conducted with 4 individuals with autism spectrum disorder. Researchers classified the edible stimuli as belonging to 1 of 4 categories: chocolate (e.g., chocolate chips and M&M's^®), salty/crunchy (e.g., chips and crackers), gummy (e.g., Swedish Fish^® and Starburst^®), or fruit/vegetable (e.g., grape and apple). Preference hierarchies were identified for individual stimuli and for categories of stimuli. For all participants, at least 3 of the 4 most preferred items came from the same category. Novel items (i.e., items not included in the preference assessments) identified by the researchers as belonging to the high‐preference category functioned as effective reinforcers during subsequent reinforcer assessments for all participants. This finding suggests that clinicians could identify likely effective edible reinforcers based on an individual's categorical preference without explicit testing.     

A Brief Alcohol Intervention During Inpatient Psychiatric Hospitalization for Suicidal Adolescents

Alcohol use and suicide-related thoughts and behaviors are common in psychiatrically hospitalized adolescents and each problem can exacerbate the other. Despite knowledge about the functional relationship between alcohol use and suicide-related thoughts and behaviors, inpatient psychiatric units only cursorily address alcohol use because suicide risk is considered primary. In this paper we provide theoretical and empirical rationale for the inclusion of brief motivational interventions for alcohol use in inpatient treatment settings for suicidal adolescents. We give a case example of the brief intervention in practice, including when and how to use specific techniques. Following the case example, we discuss the flexibility of this intervention and how it can be adapted for adolescents with varying risk profiles. We conclude with recommendations for future research, including the development and testing of technology-based boosters following hospital discharge.     

The Structure of Emotion Dialogues: Maternal Reminiscing Factors Differentially Relate to Child Language and Socio-Emotional Outcomes

Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology - Mother–child reminiscing about past emotional experiences is one aspect of emotion socialization that facilitates child socio-emotional and...     

Examining Gender-Specific Modeling in the Intergenerational Transmission of Parenting Style and Physical Child Abuse Risk

Journal of Child and Family Studies - Although research demonstrates intergenerational transmission of parenting attitudes and child abuse risk, greater clarity on the potential mechanisms in this...     

The Relative Effectiveness of External, Peer, and Self-Coaches

Deux recherches poursuivies sur deux continents ont fait appel à deux variables dépendantes différentes pour étudier l’efficacité relative du coach externe, du pair coach et de l’autocoaching sur la performance des participants (maîtrise de gestion). La première investigation concernait trente étudiants en gestion canadiens. Ceux qui étaient suivis par un coach extérieur présentaient une meilleure adaptation au travail collectif que ceux qui avaient un pair pour coach. La seconde recherche portait sur 23 managers en gestion australiens. Ceux qui étaient suivis soit par un coach externe, soit par eux‐même, ont obtenu des résultats significativement plus élevés que ceux qui étaient accompagnés par un pair. Dans les deux études, le coach externe avait aux yeux de l’intéressé une plus grande crédibilité que le pair. Dans la seconde étude, l’autocoaching était mieux vu que le coaching du pair. La satisfaction relative à l’ensemble du processus était plus forte chez les managers pourvus d’un coach externe. Two studies in two different continents using two different dependent variables examined the relative effectiveness of external, peer, and self‐coaches on the performance of participants in two MBA programs. The first study involved MBA students in Canada (n= 30). Those who were coached by an external coach exhibited higher teamplaying behavior than did those who were coached by peers. The second study involved EMBA managers in Australia (n= 23). Those who were either coached by an external coach or who were self‐coached had significantly higher grades than those who were coached by a peer. In both studies, an external coach was perceived by the participants to have higher credibility than their peers. In the second study, self‐coaching was perceived to be more credible than coaching from peers. Satisfaction with the coaching process was highest among the managers who had an external coach.