When Effort is Threatening: The Influence of the Belief in a Just World on Americans' Attitudes Toward Antipoverty Policy

In the political context of the reauthorization of federal welfare reform legislation, a nationally representative sample of 1,570 adults in the United States completed a survey examining the factors that affect attitudes and policy preferences with regard to aid for low-income individuals and families in the United States. This study utilized an innovative survey technique, the factorial survey methodology (Rossi & Nock, 1982), which allows for the simultaneous experimental manipulation of a large number of factors through the use of a vignette. This research demonstrates how the portrayal of difficulties faced by people in need and the ways in which they attempt to overcome these difficulties affect support for policies designed to aid low-income individuals and families. In addition, this study of public attitudes considers the role that psychological orientations of the evaluators play in judgments of families in need. In this case, we examined how the evaluators' belief that the world is a just place influences their evaluations of deservingness. Consistent with our expectations, we found that the more efforts the vignette subject engaged in improving her situation, the less deserving of government benefits she was judged to be by respondents with a strong belief in a just world. The reverse was found among respondents with a weaker belief: more efforts were associated with greater judgments of deservingness.     

Stripes within words affect reading

In a series of eight studies it is shown that the first peak in the horizontal autocorrelation of the image of a word (which captures the similarity in shape between the neighbouring strokes of letters) determines (i) the appearance of the words as striped; (ii) the speed with which the words are read, both aloud and silently; and (iii) the speed with which a paragraph of text can be searched. By subtly distorting the horizontal dimension of text, and thereby reducing the first peak in the horizontal autocorrelation, it is shown that the speed of word recognition can be increased. The increase in speed is greater in poor readers.     

Associations between childhood trauma and emotion-modulated psychophysiological responses to startling sounds: a study of police cadets

Childhood trauma may confer risk for adult psychopathology by altering emotional and physiological responses to subsequent stressors. Few studies have distinguished effects of childhood trauma from effects of current Axis I psychopathology on adult psychophysiological reactivity. The authors exposed 90 psychiatrically healthy police cadets to startling sounds under increasing threat of shock while assessing their eyeblink electromyogram (EMG), skin conductance (SC), and heart rate responses. When compared with those who did not endorse early trauma (n = 65), cadets reporting childhood trauma (n = 25) reported less positive emotion and showed greater SC responses across all threat levels. They also showed threat-dependent elevations in reported negative emotions and EMG responses. Results suggest that childhood trauma may lead to long-lasting alterations in emotional and psychophysiological reactivity even in the absence of current Axis I psychopathology.     

Surviving the Kosovo Conflict: A Study of Social Identity, Appraisal of Extreme Events, and Mental Well-Being

Our study examined the role of social identity processes in determining how individuals evaluate, deal with, and are affected by severe events of war. We reasoned that for those who experience such events collectively and who identify strongly with their group, primary appraisal will be filtered through the prism of social identity. In a sample of Kosovo Albanians who had survived the armed conflict in 1999, we found that those who were able to evaluate the war as affirming their group identity presented lower levels of depressive mood and anxiety and higher levels of self-efficacy. Furthermore, this process of war appraisal affected the process of secondary appraisal. Specifically, positive war appraisal increased availability of support from close others and reduced the importance of positive individual coping strategies in dealing with extreme events. Conversely, negative war appraisal reduced availability of support from close others and reduced the importance of negative coping strategies in dealing with extreme events.     

Evaluating the two-component inspection model in a simplified luggage search task

Visual inspection of X-ray images of luggage is a time-pressured task that typically shows large initial training effects, but there exists a paucity of models capable of evaluating performance and speed concurrently. In the present study, visual inspection ability during learning was modeled using Drury’s two-component inspection model (TCM; Drury, 1975) in a laboratory experiment involving 12 younger (mean age = 20.8 years) and 12 older (mean age = 60.0 years) naive participants undertaking a simplified luggage search task. Model fits and assumptions were found to be reliable and accurately reflected improvement with training for decision time, although neither search nor decision components of the model individually showed a significant effect of age. The decision component of the model showed larger improvement with training than did the search component, and stopping-time policy accurately reflected the improvements found between ages and within training levels. The TCM is a useful supplement to detection theory when speed of performance is a factor.     

Helping to improve the group stereotype: on the strategic dimension of prosocial behavior

Three studies consider a basis for intergroup helping. Specifically, they show that group members may help others to disconfirm a stereotype of their own group as mean. Study 1 shows that Scots believe they are seen as mean by the English, resent this stereotype, are motivated to refute it, and believe out-group helping is a particularly effective way of doing so. Study 2 shows that increasing the salience of the English stereotype of the Scottish as mean leads Scots to accentuate the extent to which Scots are depicted as generous. Study 3 shows that increasing the salience of the stereotype of the Scots as mean results in an increase in the help volunteered to out-group members. These results highlight how strategic concerns may result in out-group helping. In turn, they underscore the point that helping others may be a means to advance a group's interest.     

Computer games,self-esteem and gratification of needs in adolescents

Playing computer games has become an increasingly popular leisure time activity amongst adolescents, but concerns have been expressed over possible associated consequences. One research area has investigated reasons for playing, and two prior explanations relate it to the functional concepts of ‘electronic friendship’ and ‘self-esteem’. A questionnaire study was conducted among 120 adolescents to obtain information on a number of measures including gratification of needs and self-esteem. Results showed that playing computer games is equally popular with males and females, but males spend more time on it. Positive correlations between playing and items on the needs scales were obtained. In particular males who were heavy players scored highly on the ‘preference to friends’ need, but interestingly they were also likely to see their friends more often outside school, thus providing no support for the theory that computer games are taking the place of normal social interaction. For females there was evidence of a negative relationship between self-esteem and need gratification through playing computer games. However more adolescents spend much more time watching television than playing computer games. These results are discussed in the context of previous research.     

Is menopause depressing? An investigation of three perspectives

This study examines three perspectives in the literature about menopausal depression. According to one, the physiological changes of menopause result in increased psychological distress. Another approach proposes that menopause is most depressing for women who occupy traditional female gender roles. The third asserts that menopause is not especially depressing for most women. This study empirically examines three perspectives using data from two community surveys. These analyses suggest menopausal status may not be associated with depressive symptomatology, either directly or indirectly through traditional gender roles.This research was supported in part by PHS grant numbers 5T32MH13043, 5T32MH16373, and 5T32MH15774. I appreciate the helpful comments I received from Janet Berkeley, Bruce Link, and an anonymous reviewer on earlier versions of this paper. I also am grateful to Lenore Radloff and NIMH for providing the CMHA data and to Harold Dupuy and NCHS for the HANES data.