Interactions between Callous Unemotional Behaviors and Executive Function in Early Childhood Predict later Aggression and Lower Peer-liking in Late-childhood

Callous unemotional (CU) behaviors are linked to aggression, behavior problems, and difficulties in peer relationships in children and adolescents. However, few studies have examined whether early childhood CU behaviors predict aggression or peer-rejection during late-childhood or potential moderation of this relationship by executive function. The current study examined whether the interaction of CU behaviors and executive function in early childhood predicted different forms of aggression in late-childhood, including proactive, reactive, and relational aggression, as well as how much children were liked by their peers. Data from cross-informant reports and multiple observational tasks were collected from a high-risk sample (N = 240; female = 118) at ages 3 and 10 years old. Parent reports of CU behaviors at age 3 predicted teacher reports of reactive, proactive, and relational aggression, as well as lower peer-liking at age 10. Moderation analysis showed that specifically at high levels of CU behaviors and low levels of observed executive function, children were reported by teachers as showing greater reactive and proactive aggression, and were less-liked by peers. Findings demonstrate that early childhood CU behaviors and executive function have unique main and interactive effects on both later aggression and lower peer-liking even when taking into account stability in behavior problems over time. By elucidating how CU behaviors and deficits in executive function potentiate each other during early childhood, we can better characterize the emergence of severe and persistent behavior and interpersonal difficulties across development.     

Does Acquisitive Self‐Presentation in Personality Self‐Ratings Enhance Validity? Evidence from two experimental field studies

The aim of the present research was to demonstrate that acquisitive self‐presentation in personality scales is not a barrier to their criterion‐related validities in human resource contexts, but rather a means to improve them. A pilot study (Study 1) with 96 job incumbents provided preliminary positive evidence. In Study 2, in the experimental group (n=99), the instructions asked job incumbents to work on a Big‐Five personality inventory (BFI‐K) as if they took part in a personnel selection procedure for a personally very attractive position. In the control group (n=93) of Study 2, job incumbents were asked to answer the inventory items honestly. As expected, the correlation between the self‐ratings of the motive to get along (i.e., which comprises emotional stability, conscientiousness, and agreeableness) and contextual performance assessments was significantly higher in the experimental group than in the control group in Study 2. Additionally, the correlation between the self‐ratings of the motive to get ahead (i.e., which comprises extraversion and openness to experience) and task performance and leadership assessments was significantly higher in the experimental group than in the control group in Study 2. It is proposed that responding to a personality inventory in a human resource decision situation should be conceptualized as a workplace simulation.     

Aggression Toward Gay Men as Gender Role Enforcement: Effects of Male Role Norms, Sexual Prejudice, and Masculine Gender Role Stress

ABSTRACT This study examined sexual prejudice and masculine gender role stress as mediators of the relations between male gender norms and anger and aggression toward gay men. Participants were 150 self-identified heterosexual men who completed measures of adherence to male gender role norms, sexual prejudice, masculine gender role stress, and state anger. Participants then viewed a video depicting intimate relationship behavior between 2 gay men, reported state anger a second time, and competed in a laboratory aggression task against either a heterosexual or a gay male. Results indicated that adherence to the antifemininity norm exerted an indirect effect, primarily through sexual prejudice, on increases in anger. Adherence to the status and antifemininity norms exerted indirect effects, also through sexual prejudice, on physical aggression toward the gay, but not the heterosexual, male. Findings provide the first multivariate evidence for determinants of aggression toward gay men motivated by gender role enforcement.     

Historical Knowledge: A Response to Hal Childs

In his book,The Myth of the Historical Jesus and the Evolution of Consciousness, Hal Childs undertakes to do something which is probably impossible. He wishes to show that my reconstruction of the historical Jesus is positivistic without becoming positivistic himself in his own reconstruction of the historical Crossan, a work which, unfortunately for him but fortunately for me, is still very much in process. Here I only use, as he does, publications up to 1995. That means, for example, that I do not cite either The Birth of Christianity or my recent memoir A Long Way from Tipperary. I discuss Hal's dissertation under three headings, moving from the less to the more fundamentally important.     

The ABCs of depression: integrating affective, biological, and cognitive models to explain the emergence of the gender difference in depression

In adulthood, twice as many women as men are depressed, a pattern that holds in most nations. In childhood, girls are no more depressed than boys, but more girls than boys are depressed by ages 13 to 15. Although many influences on this emergent gender difference in depression have been proposed, a truly integrated, developmental model is lacking. The authors propose a model that integrates affective (emotional reactivity), biological (genetic vulnerability, pubertal hormones, pubertal timing and development) and cognitive (cognitive style, objectified body consciousness, rumination) factors as vulnerabilities to depression that, in interaction with negative life events, heighten girls' rates of depression beginning in adolescence and account for the gender difference in depression.     

Context conditional flavor preferences in the rat based on fructose and maltodextrin reinforcers

In three experiments, rats were exposed to a flavor preference procedure in which flavor A was paired with the reinforcer and flavor B presented alone in Context 1, while in Context 2 flavor A was presented alone and flavor B with the reinforcer. With fructose as the reinforcer both two- and one-bottle training procedures produced a context-dependent preference (Experiments 1 and 2). With maltodextrin as the reinforcer two-bottle training produced a context-dependent preference (Experiment 1). Following one-bottle training with maltodextrin reinforcement rats demonstrated a context-dependent preference when the conditioned stimulus (CS)- was presented with a dilute solution of the reinforcer during training (Experiment 3B) but not when the CS- was presented alone (Experiments 2 and 3A). The pattern of results with maltodextrin reinforcement suggests that there was competition between the cue flavors and the taste of the maltodextrin as predictors of the postingestive consequences of the maltodextrin reinforcer. The fact that rats were able to display context-dependent flavor preferences is consistent with the idea that learned flavor preferences rely on the sort of cue-consequence associations that underpin other forms of conditioning which produce accurate performance on biconditional tasks. The differences between fructose- and maltodextrin-based preferences are discussed in terms of configural and elemental learning processes.     

Dissociable learning processes,associative theory,and testimonial reviews: A comment on Smith and Church (2018)

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review - Smith and Church (Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 25, 1565–1584 2018) present a “testimonial” review of dissociable learning processes...