Adolescents and sex: A structural theory of premarital sex in the United States

This article shows that the rising rate of premarital sex during this century can be accounted for by changes in American social structure. The gap between puberty and marriage has increased, allowing more time for sex to occur. The pervasiveness of sex in the media and at home provides young people with role models who teach about sex. The social antonomy of the young has increased, allowing more opportunity for sex. Medical advances and legal changes have made sex safe. Egalitarian sex role norms have eliminated the double standard, which means that sex need not be withheld during courtship. And the norm of premarital sexual abstinance has declined. It is argued that most of these changes reflect progress and that rising rates of premarital sex are unintended by products.     

The Illusion of Transparency: Assessment of Sex Differences in Showing and Hiding Disgust

The illusion of transparency occurs when one overestimates the ability of others to discern one's internal states, including emotions. Two experiments demonstrated this illusion using the emotion of disgust. Male and female tasters were given drinks, including one that was very unpleasant tasting. Tasters either displayed spontaneous facial expressions (Experiment 1) or tried to conceal their expressions (Experiment 2). Male and female observers rated tasters' expressions and tried to identify the disgusting drink based on the tasters' facial expressions. Results demonstrated the illusion of transparency (e.g., tasters overestimated the percentage of observers who correctly identified the disgusting drink) and suggested that the illusion was partly attributable to the inability of people to set aside their own knowledge when considering the perception of others who do not share this knowledge. Females were less successful than males at hiding their disgust but there was no sex difference in the susceptibility to the illusion.     

Representations in working memory yield interference effects found with externally-triggered representations

An act as simple as flicking a switch involves various stages of processing. Each stage is susceptible to interference from competing representations/processes. Interference at different stages of processing (e.g., perceptual stages versus response selection stages) leads to distinct behavioral, neural, and subjective effects. In the flanker task, for instance, one responds to a visual target and disregards flanking ‘distractors.’ Theoretically-predicted interference (increased response times, error rates, and subjective ‘urges to err’) is stronger when distractors and targets are associated with different actions (response interference) than when they look different but are associated with the same action (perceptual interference). Extant versions of the task tax working memory (WM) minimally, but many everyday actions (e.g., searching for keys or holding one's breath) require more WM-based control. To illuminate this uncharted area, we examined the nature of interference in delayed action tasks, which rely on WM. We found that systematic interference arises even when action-related representations are, not triggered solely by external stimuli, but actively held in WM. We discuss these findings with increased emphasis on the under-explored subjective effects of different kinds of interference. The implications of these findings for the study of action production, WM, and conscious processing are entertained.     

The Benefits of Stepping Into Others' Shoes: Perspective Taking Strengthens Transactive Memory

Perspective taking is an important requirement for effective communication. Teams working on knowledge-intensive tasks should benefit particularly. In a laboratory study, we examined whether perspective taking (vs. egocentrism) facilitated transactive memory when team members' knowledge was either different or similar. Perspective taking led teams to form more accurate transactive memory and agree more regarding each other's knowledge assessments. Corresponding effects were found when knowledge was similar. However, no interaction emerged. Our study shows that perspective taking is a cognitive state that can be induced with a short intervention and that can positively influence team-level outcomes such as transactive memory.     

Failing to Establish Evaluative Conditioning Effects for Indirect Intergroup Contact on Facebook

On Facebook, connections between users are published within “friends” lists. Therefore, ties between in- and outgroup members may be easily observed. We simulated this novel form of indirect intergroup contact through an evaluative conditioning (EC) procedure and tested if intergroup attitudes may be influenced positively. To be specific, we presented outgroup members as conditioned stimuli (CSs) and mutual friendship as positively valenced unconditioned stimulus (US). To test our hypotheses, we carried out eight studies measuring explicit and implicit attitudes as well as prosocial intentions toward a target outgroup. However, results demonstrate consistently that the EC procedure did not improve attitudes.     

Developing number–space associations: SNARC effects using a color discrimination task in 5-year-olds

Human adults’ numerical representation is spatially oriented; consequently, participants are faster to respond to small/large numerals with their left/right hand, respectively, when doing a binary classification judgment on numbers, known as the SNARC (spatial–numerical association of response codes) effect. Studies on the emergence and development of the SNARC effect remain scarce. The current study introduces an innovative new paradigm based on a simple color judgment of Arabic digits. Using this task, we found a SNARC effect in children as young as 5.5 years. In contrast, when preschool children needed to perform a magnitude judgment task necessitating exact number knowledge, the SNARC effect started to emerge only at 5.8 years. Moreover, the emergence of a magnitude SNARC but not a color SNARC was linked to proficiency with Arabic digits. Our results suggest that access to a spatially oriented approximate magnitude representation from symbolic digits emerges early in ontogenetic development. Exact magnitude judgments, on the other hand, rely on experience with Arabic digits and, thus, necessitate formal or informal schooling to give access to a spatially oriented numerical representation.     

Relationships Between Self-Determined Motivation and Developmental Outcomes in Sport-Based Positive Youth Development

Building on self-determination theory, this study examined the relationships between self-determined motivation toward sport participation and developmental outcomes in sport-based positive youth development. One hundred twenty participants in a sport-based positive youth development program designed to engage youth through running completed a postprogram survey measuring their self-determined motivation toward running and achievement of developmental outcomes. The results of regression analyses indicated that participants with higher self-determined motivation toward running reported higher general self-efficacy, more positive attitudes toward a healthy lifestyle, and lower engagement in threatening behavior. On the other hand, self-determined motivation was unrelated to self-reported academic performance.     

Corporate sponsorships may hurt nonprofits: Understanding their effects on charitable giving

While prior research suggests that corporate sponsorship can positively affect consumers' perceptions of sponsors, little research to date has investigated the impact of such sponsorships on an individual's willingness to support nonprofits. This paper investigates the psychological processes that underlie whether and how corporate sponsorship impacts an individual's willingness to support nonprofit organizations and suggests that unintended negative outcomes may emerge. Specifically, results from five studies suggest that exposure to sponsorship information can reduce prospective donors' willingness to support a nonprofit because people believe that their individual contributions will matter less. In addition, this research identifies a potential mechanism (i.e., donor-company identification) that can mitigate these negative effects.     

The fading affect bias across alcohol consumption frequency for alcohol-related and non-alcohol-related events

The Fading Affect Bias (FAB) is the tendency for unpleasant emotions to fade more over time than pleasant emotions (Walker, Vogl, & Thompson, 1997). The FAB is negatively related to dysphoria (Walker, Skowronski, Gibbons, Vogl, & Thompson, 2003), which led researchers to suggest that the FAB is a healthy coping mechanism that improves the overall positivity of life (Walker, Skowronski, & Thompson, 2003). The FAB may also reinforce certain maladaptive behaviors, such as drinking alcohol, as the unpleasant emotions associated with those behaviors quickly fade from memory, and increase the likelihood of those behaviors in the future. If the FAB increases the likelihood of maladaptive alcohol consumption, the FAB should be greatest for ordinary events at low alcohol consumption levels, whereas the FAB should be greatest for alcohol events at high alcohol consumption levels. The results of two studies provided support for the hypotheses. The implications are discussed.     

Towards a theory-based assessment of coping: The german adaptation of the strategic approach to coping scale

Although coping has become one of the central constructs in the area of research on life events, emotions, and health, it is yet not clear how to conceptualize coping in the most powerful way. Coping instruments often lack a clear underlying theory or are confounded with the stress process itself. Therefore, a theoretical as well as empirical framework is needed. The study at hand presents cross-sectional data from a German version of a coping scale that is constructed in line with the Strategic Approach to Coping Scale (SACS) developed by Hobfoll et al. The German scale findings support those of the original, US version, but also indicate potential cultural distinction. The findings suggest that the GSACS is theory syntonic and has potential for elaborating coping research.