Controlling anger in self-reported sober and alcohol intoxicated states: moderating effects of trait anger and alcohol consumption

Controlling anger in self-reported sober and alcohol intoxicated states: Moderating effects of trait anger and alcohol consumption. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology 52, 382-388. Retrospective self-reports about prior sober and alcohol intoxicated states were explored to reveal moderating effects of trait anger and alcohol consumption on anger control. The analyses were based on self-reports of trait anger and alcohol consumption as well as self-reports of the participants' typical levels of anger control in sober and alcohol intoxicated states in a population based sample of Finnish twins and their siblings (N = 4,852). The reported levels of anger control were lower regarding prior alcohol intoxicated states than sober states. A three-way interaction between alcohol consumption, trait anger and anger control was found. Whereas no interaction between alcohol consumption and trait anger was found in the self-reported sober state, there was an interactive effect of trait anger and alcohol consumption on anger control in the intoxicated state, indicating that the difference in anger control between those with high levels of alcohol consumption and those with low levels, was greater at higher levels of trait anger. Women had lower levels of anger control than men, but the relationship between trait anger, alcohol consumption and anger control was similar for both genders. In conclusion, the results showed that those with high levels of trait anger and alcohol consumption showed the lowest levels of anger control in self-reported alcohol intoxicated states, and indicate the importance of separating between anger control when sober and intoxicated since anger control seems to be differently related to at least trait anger and alcohol consumption in these states.     

Prospective linkages between peer victimization and externalizing problems in children: a meta-analysis

Previous meta-analytic research has shown both concurrent and prospective linkages between peer victimization and internalizing problems in youth. However, the linkages between peer victimization and externalizing problems over time have not been systematically examined, and it is therefore unknown if externalizing problems are antecedents of victimization, consequences of victimization, both, or neither. This study provides a meta-analysis of 14 longitudinal studies examining prospective linkages between peer victimization and externalizing problems (n = 7,821). Two prospective paths were examined: the extent to which peer victimization at baseline predicts future residualized changes in externalizing problems, as well as the extent to which externalizing problems at baseline predict future residualized changes in peer victimization. Results revealed significant associations between peer victimization and subsequent residualized changes in externalizing problems, as well as significant associations between externalizing problems and subsequent residualized changes in peer victimization. Hence, externalizing problems function as both antecedents and consequences of peer victimization.     

Of virtual victims and victimized virtues: differential effects of experienced aggression in video games on social cooperation

Two experimental studies were used to investigate how interacting with aggressive virtual characters in video games affects trust and cooperation of players. Study 1 demonstrates that experiencing virtual aggression from a victim's perspective can impair players' investments in a subsequent common goods dilemma situation. This effect is mediated by reduced expectations of trust in the cooperativeness of interaction partners. In Study 2 the same effect was replicated by using a different cooperation task and by investigating the moderating role of justice sensitivity from a victim's perspective as a dispositional factor. Participants transferred less money to an unknown partner in a trust game after exposure to aggressive nonplayer characters in a video game. This effect was stronger for people high in victim sensitivity. Results of both studies can be interpreted in line with the sensitivity to mean intentions model and add to the body of research on violent media effects.     

Anticipatory reaching of seven- to eleven-month-old infants in occlusion situations

The present study examined 7- to 11-month-old infants’ anticipatory and reactive reaching for temporarily occluded objects. Infants were presented with laterally approaching objects that moved at different velocities (10, 20, and 40 cm/s) in different occlusion situations (no-, 20 cm-, and 40 cm-occlusion), resulting in occlusion durations ranging between 0 and 4 s. Results show that except for object velocity and occlusion distance, occlusion duration was a critical constraint for infants’ reaching behaviors. We found that the older infants reached more often, but that an increase in occlusion duration resulted in a decline in reaching frequency that was similar across age groups. Anticipatory reaching declined with increasing occlusion duration, but the adverse effects for longer occlusion durations diminished with age. It is concluded that with increasing age infants are able to retain and use information to guide reaching movements over longer periods of non-visibility, providing support for the graded representation hypothesis (Jonsson &; von Hofsten, 2003) and the two-visual systems model (Milner &; Goodale, 1995).     

Development of social perception: a conversation study of 6-, 12- and 36-month-old children

A conversation is made up of visual and auditory signals in a complex flow of events. What is the relative importance of these components for young children's ability to maintain attention on a conversation? In the present set of experiments the visual and auditory signals were disentangled in four filmed events. The visual events were either accompanied by the speech sounds of the conversation or by matched motor sounds and the auditory events by either the natural visual turn taking of the conversation or a matched turn taking of toy trucks. A cornea-reflection technique was used to record the gaze-pattern of subjects while they were looking at the films. Three age groups of typically developing children were studied; 6-month-olds, 1-year-olds and 3-year-olds. The results show that the children are more attracted by the social component of the conversation independent of the kind of sound used. Older children find spoken language more interesting than motor sound. Children look longer at the speaking agent when humans maintain the conversation. The study revealed that children are more attracted to the mouth than to the eyes area. The ability to make more predictive gaze shifts develops gradually over age.     

Positive affect increases cognitive control in the antisaccade task

To delineate the modulatory effects of induced positive affect on cognitive control, the current study investigated whether positive affect increases the ability to suppress a reflexive saccade in the antisaccade task. Results of the antisaccade task showed that participants made fewer erroneous prosaccades in the condition in which a positive mood was induced compared to the neutral condition (i.e. in which no emotional mood was induced). This improvement of oculomotor inhibition was restricted to saccades with an express latency. These results are in line with the idea that enhanced performance in the positive affect condition could be caused by increased dopaminergic neurotransmission the brain.     

System Justification, Right-Wing Conservatism, and Internalized Homophobia: Gay and Lesbian Attitudes toward Same-Sex Parenting in Italy

Adopting a system justification perspective (Jost and Banaji 1994), we investigated the manner and extent to which gay men and lesbians might internalize a sense of inferiority when it comes to parenthood. In an Italian sample of gay and lesbian individuals, we found that gay men who scored high (versus low) on system justification and right-wing conservatism regarded same sex parents as less competent; these effects were mediated by internalized homophobia. Lesbian women, however, perceived lesbian parents as more competent than opposite sex parents, regardless of ideological orientations. For gay men the internalization of societal discrimination harms perceptions of parental competence, whereas for lesbians gender stereotypes about parenting trump the negative effects of bias related to sexual orientation. These findings suggest that men??s and women??s perceptions of their own bodies and capacities are strongly affected by sociocultural processes, including ideological processes.     

Self‐Ratings of Political Skill in Job Application: A within‐ and between‐subjects field experiment

Political skill is the ability to understand others and use that knowledge to influence others to act in ways that enhance one's personal and/or organizational objectives. The Political Skill Inventory ( Ferris et al., 2005 ) assesses this talent, and has potential for use in personnel decision making. However, central organizational stakeholders are concerned about the distortion of self‐rating scores in job application; consequently, we examined the effects of a job application situation on self‐ratings of political skill in a field experiment with 205 job incumbents. The findings showed consistently that the relationship of self‐ratings of political skill and job performance ratings by supervisors (ρ=.30, p<.01) were not distorted in job application. Implications and limitations are discussed.     

Cross-modal training induces changes in spatial representations early in the auditory processing pathway

In the ventriloquism aftereffect, brief exposure to a consistent spatial disparity between auditory and visual stimuli leads to a subsequent shift in subjective sound localization toward the positions of the visual stimuli. Such rapid adaptive changes probably play an important role in maintaining the coherence of spatial representations across the various sensory systems. In the research reported here, we used event-related potentials (ERPs) to identify the stage in the auditory processing stream that is modulated by audiovisual discrepancy training. Both before and after exposure to synchronous audiovisual stimuli that had a constant spatial disparity of 15°, participants reported the perceived location of brief auditory stimuli that were presented from central and lateral locations. In conjunction with a sound localization shift in the direction of the visual stimuli (the behavioral ventriloquism aftereffect), auditory ERPs as early as 100 ms poststimulus (N100) were systematically modulated by the disparity training. These results suggest that cross-modal learning was mediated by a relatively early stage in the auditory cortical processing stream.