The Effect of Cognitive Complexity and Nature of the Outcome on Causal Attribution

Because even subtle forms of racial discrimination can damage well-being, identifying individual differences that shape this stress process is important. Dispositional forgiveness has been shown to influence how people perceive and react to interpersonal transgressions, yet its role in the context of racial discrimination has not received much research attention. In the current study, participants completed an initial measure of dispositional forgiveness and then considered a scenario that could be deemed racially discriminatory. Next, participants' perceptions of the scenario, negative affect, and cognitive performance were assessed. Dispositional forgiveness predicted all three outcomes such that more forgiving individuals were less likely to view the event as racially discriminatory and showed lower negative affect and greater cognitive performance after reading the scenario. Moreover, race moderated these relationships such that forgiveness played a more beneficial role for ethnic minorities than for whites.     

Long-term reduction in implicit race bias: A prejudice habit-breaking intervention

We developed a multi-faceted prejudice habit-breaking intervention to produce long-term reductions in implicit race bias. The intervention is based on the premise that implicit bias is like a habit that can be broken through a combination of awareness of implicit bias, concern about the effects of that bias, and the application of strategies to reduce bias. In a 12-week longitudinal study, people who received the intervention showed dramatic reductions in implicit race bias. People who were concerned about discrimination or who reported using the strategies showed the greatest reductions. The intervention also led to increases in concern about discrimination and personal awareness of bias over the duration of the study. People in the control group showed none of the above effects. Our results raise the hope of reducing persistent and unintentional forms of discrimination that arise from implicit bias.     

Response strength in extreme multiple schedules

Four pigeons were trained in a series of two-component multiple schedules. Reinforcers were scheduled with random-interval schedules. The ratio of arranged reinforcer rates in the two components was varied over 4 log units, a much wider range than previously studied. When performance appeared stable, prefeeding tests were conducted to assess resistance to change. Contrary to the generalized matching law, logarithms of response ratios in the two components were not a linear function of log reinforcer ratios, implying a failure of parameter invariance. Over a 2 log unit range, the function appeared linear and indicated undermatching, but in conditions with more extreme reinforcer ratios, approximate matching was observed. A model suggested by McLean (1991), originally for local contrast, predicts these changes in sensitivity to reinforcer ratios somewhat better than models by Herrnstein (1970) and by Williams and Wixted (1986). Prefeeding tests of resistance to change were conducted at each reinforcer ratio, and relative resistance to change was also a nonlinear function of log reinforcer ratios, again contrary to conclusions from previous work. Instead, the function suggests that resistance to change in a component may be determined partly by the rate of reinforcement and partly by the ratio of reinforcers to responses.     

Explaining Differences in Philanthropic Behavior Between Christians,Muslims, and Hindus in the Netherlands

Using survey data from the Netherlands, we find that Muslims have relatively high levels of religious philanthropic behavior and relatively low levels of secular philanthropic behavior, whereas Hindus have relatively low levels of religious philanthropic behavior and higher levels of secular philanthropic behavior. Results indicate that the community explanation and the conviction explanation of the relationship between religion and philanthropic behavior are both valid to some extent when it comes to differences in philanthropic behavior between Christians, Muslims, and Hindus. In addition, we find a relationship between group orientation in worship rituals on the relation between religion and philanthropic behavior. The more group-oriented the worship rituals, the stronger the relation between religion and philanthropic behavior. The results suggest that Durkheim’s theory (La Suicide: Etude de Sociologie. Presses Universitaires de France, Paris, 1897) may only be valid in a Christian context.     

Changing the System by Changing the Workforce: Employing Consumers to Increase Access, Cultural Diversity, and Engagement

Services to families have traditionally been delivered in a medical model. This presents challenges including workforce shortages, lack of cultural diversity, lack of training in strength-based work, and difficulty in successfully engaging and retaining families in the therapy process. The system of care (SOC) effort has worked to establish formal roles for caregivers in SOC to improve services. This paper provides an example of one community's efforts to change the SOC by expanding the roles available to caregivers in creating systems change. It describes the model developed by Communities of Care (CoC), a SOC in Central Massachusetts, and its evolution over a 10 year period. First person accounts by system partners, caregivers hired into professional roles as well as a family receiving services, demonstrate how hiring caregivers at all levels can change systems and change lives, not only for those being served but for the caregiver/professionals doing the work. It also demonstrates, however, that change at the system level is incremental, takes time, and can be fleeting unless an ongoing effort is made to support and sustain those changes.     

Age at injury and long-term behavior problems after traumatic brain injury in young children

Objective: This study examined the effects of age at injury on the persistence of behavior problems and social skill deficits in young children with complicated mild to severe traumatic brain injury (TBI). Method: A concurrent cohort/prospective research design was used with repeated assessments of children with TBI (n = 82) or Orthopedic Injury (OI) (n = 114). Parents completed the Child Behavior Checklist, the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Functions, and the Preschool and Kindergarten Behavior Scales or the Home and Community Social and Behavior Scales shortly after injury to assess preinjury functioning, and at an extended follow-up an average of 38 months postinjury. Generalized linear modeling was used to examine the relationship of age at injury to the maintenance of behavior problems, and logistic regression was used to examine the persistence of clinically significant behavior problems. Results: At the extended follow-up, severe TBI was associated with significantly greater anxiety problems relative to the Group OI. With increasing time since injury, children who sustained a severe TBI at an earlier age had significantly higher levels of parent-reported symptoms of ADHD and anxiety than children who were older at injury. Conclusions: Findings suggest that longer-term treatment for behavior problems may be needed after severe TBI, particularly for those injured at an earlier age. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

Simple geometric shapes are implicitly associated with affective value

Growing evidence suggests that the underlying geometry of a visual image is an effective mechanism for conveying the affective meaning of a scene or object. Indeed, even very simple context-free geometric shapes have been shown to signal emotion. Specifically, downward-pointing V??s are perceived as threatening and curvilinear forms are perceived as pleasant. As these shapes are thought to be primitive cues for decoding emotion, we sought to assess whether they are evaluated as affective even without extended cognitive processing. Using an Implicit Association Test to examine associations between three shapes (downward- and upward-pointing triangles, circles) and pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral scenes, in two studies we found that participants were faster to categorize downward-pointing triangles as unpleasant compared to neutral or pleasant. These findings were specific to downward-pointing shapes containing an acute angle. The present findings support the hypothesis that simple geometric forms convey emotion and that this perception does not require explicit judgment.     

Getting ready: Results of a randomized trial of a relationship‐focused intervention on the parent–infant relationship in rural early head start

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of a relational intervention (the Getting Ready intervention) on parenting behaviors supporting the parent–infant relationship for families enrolled in Early Head Start home‐based programming. Two‐hundred thirty‐four parents and their children participated in the randomized study, with 42% of parents reporting education of less than a high‐school diploma. Brief, semistructured parent–child interaction tasks were videotaped every 4 months over a16‐month intervention period. Observational codes of parent–infant relationship behaviors included quality of three parental behaviors: warmth and sensitivity, support for learning, and encouragement of autonomy; two appropriateness indicators: support for learning and guidance/directives; and one amount indicator: constructive behaviors. Parents who participated in the Getting Ready intervention demonstrated higher quality interactions with their children that included enhanced quality of warmth and sensitivity, and support for their children's autonomy than did parents in the control group. They also were more likely to use appropriate directives with their children and more likely to demonstrate appropriate supports for their young children's learning. Results indicate an added value of the Getting Ready intervention for Early Head Start home‐based programming for families of infants and toddlers.     

Arrogant or self-confident? The use of contextual knowledge to differentiate hubristic and authentic pride from a single nonverbal expression

Two studies tested whether observers could differentiate between two facets of pride-authentic and hubristic-on the basis of a single prototypical pride nonverbal expression combined with relevant contextual information. In Study 1, participants viewed targets displaying posed pride expressions in response to success, while causal attributions for the success (target's effort vs. ability) and the source of this information (target vs. omniscient narrator conveying objective fact) were varied. Study 2 used a similar method, but attribution information came from both the target and an omniscient narrator; the congruence of these attributions was varied. Across studies, participants tended to label expressions as authentic pride, but were relatively more likely to label them as hubristic pride when (a) contextual information indicated that targets were arrogant and (b) no mitigating information about the target's potential value as a hard-working group member (i.e., that success was actually due to effort) was presented.     

Reading in healthy ageing: the influence of information structuring in sentences

In three experiments, we investigated the cognitive effects of linguistic prominence to establish whether focus plays a similar or different role in modulating language processing in healthy ageing. Information structuring through the use of cleft sentences is known to increase the processing efficiency of anaphoric references to elements contained with a marked focus structure. It also protects these elements from becoming suppressed in the wake of subsequent information, suggesting selective mechanisms of enhancement and suppression. In Experiment 1 (using self-paced reading), we found that focus enhanced (faster) integration for anaphors referring to words contained within the scope of focus; but suppressed (slower) integration for anaphors to words contained outside of the scope of focus; and in some cases, the effects were larger in older adults. In Experiment 2 (using change detection), we showed that older adults relied more on the linguistic structure to enhance change detection when the changed word was in focus. In Experiment 3 (using delayed probe recognition and eye-tracking), we found that older adults recognized probes more accurately when they were made to elements within the scope of focus than when they were outside the scope of focus. These results indicate that older adults' ability to selectively attend or suppress concepts in a marked focus structure is preserved.