Investigating the link between validation seeking and lay dispositionism

In this study, the authors investigated the relationship between validation seeking (VS; Dykman, 1998) and lay dispositionism, the use of personality traits as the basis for social inference (Chiu, Hong, & Dweck, 1997). Specifically, the authors sought to empirically address three questions: (a) Does VS predict the tendency to make dispositional inferences and, if so, do social comparison tendencies mediate this relationship? (b) Does VS mediate the association between implicit person theories and lay dispositionism? and (c) Does contingent parental regard indirectly predict lay dispositionism via its effects on VS and/or implicit person theories? Results suggest that both VS and entity person theories facilitate lay dispositionism, yet do so via distinct processes. Both processes are driven at least partly by contingent parental regard; however, their effects on lay dispositionism differ in scope and in the extent to which they entail social comparison.     

The Flexible Correction Model: Bias Correction Guided by Naïve Theories of Bias

Psychological researchers have examined a broad array of biases and shortcomings of social perceivers. Less attention has been paid to how people react when they become concerned about the possibility of bias and attempt to correct or overcome the potential for bias. An early approach was to think of bias correction as “subtracting” information or reactions that are identified as coming from the biasing factor instead of the target. An alternative approach is to conceptualize bias correction as guided by social perceivers' naïve theories or perceptions of the bias at work. The subtraction theories were designed to deal with the assimilative biases typical of early priming experiments, but theory‐based corrections can readily deal with either assimilative or contrastive biases. We describe both types of correction theories, with a focus on the empirical support for theory‐based correction (and especially for the Flexible Correction Model). We also identify future directions for research on theory‐based correction.     

Understanding the Relationship of Trauma,Substance Use,and Resilience Among Religiously Affiliated University Students

This study examined patterns of association between experiencing 12 traumatic life events, resilience, and substance use at a conservative church-affiliated university. The authors used data (N?=?278) from a Health Risk and Protective Factors Study that was conducted during the 2012 spring semester. Initial bivariate analysis indicated several significant positive and negative associations between three of the traumatic life event variables and alcohol, marijuana, and tobacco use within the past year and between two of the traumatic life event variables and alcohol use within the past 30 days. Preliminarily, resilience was only inversely associated with amphetamine use within the past year for men. When examined further using partial correlations to clarify these relationships while controlling for resilience, strong significant positive associations were found specifically between experiencing a disaster-type event and alcohol use within the past year and within the past 30 days for men only. Overall significant moderate positive associations were found between experiencing parental divorce and alcohol use within the past year, and between experiencing a disaster-type event and alcohol use within the past year and within the past 30 days. Use of two-way between-groups ANOVA found no significant interaction among these variables. Results may suggest that experiencing certain traumatic life events and male gender are more likely connected to alcohol use behaviors, whereas resilience may have multiple pathways for adaptive coping.     

A failure to replicate rapid syntactic adaptation in comprehension

Language comprehension requires successfully navigating linguistic variability. One hypothesis for how listeners manage variability is that they rapidly update their expectations of likely linguistic events in new contexts. This process, called adaptation, allows listeners to better predict the upcoming linguistic input. In previous work, Fine, Jaeger, Farmer, and Qian (PLoS ONE, 8, e77661, 2013) found evidence for syntactic adaptation. Subjects repeatedly encountered sentences in which a verb was temporarily ambiguous between main verb (MV) and reduced relative clause (RC) interpretations. They found that subjects who had higher levels of exposure to the unexpected RC interpretation of the sentences had an easier time reading the RC sentences but a more difficult time reading the MV sentences. They concluded that syntactic adaptation occurs rapidly in unexpected structures and also results in difficulty with processing the previously expected alternative structures. This article presents two experiments. Experiment 1 was designed as a follow-up to Fine et al.’s study and failed to find evidence of adaptation. A power analysis of Fine et al.’s raw data revealed that a similar study would need double the items and four times the subjects to reach 95% power. In Experiment 2 we designed a close replication of Fine et al.’s experiment using these sample size guidelines. No evidence of rapid syntactic adaptation was found in this experiment. The failure to find evidence of adaptation in both experiments calls into question the robustness of the effect.     

The question shapes the answer: the neural correlates of task differences reveal dynamic semantic processing

Task effects in semantic processing were investigated by contrasting the neural activation associated with two semantic categorization tasks (SCT) using event-related fMRI. The two SCTs involved different decision categories: is it an animal? vs. is it a concrete thing? Participants completed both tasks and, across participants, the same core set of items were presented in both tasks. Results showed task differences in the neural activation associated with these items: in the animal SCT there was greater activation in a number of frontal and temporal regions, including left superior and middle temporal gyri, while in the concrete SCT there was greater activation in left medial frontal gyrus and bilaterally in the precentral gyri. These results are interpreted as evidence of top-down modulation of semantic processing; participants make adjustments to optimize performance in a given task and these adjustments have consequences for the activation observed.     

Reasons for Exercise and Body Esteem: Men's Responses to Self-Objectification

In this study, we applied the construct of self-objectification to men, specifically to examine the role of reasons for exercise in men's responses to objectification. A questionnaire that assessed self-objectification, reasons for exercise, body esteem, and self-esteem was voluntarily completed by 153 Australian participants between the ages of 18 and 35 years (82 men and a comparison group of 71 women). Self-objectification and appearance-related reasons for exercise were significantly negatively related to body esteem for both men and women. Self-objectification was also positively related to appearance-related reasons for exercise. The latter was found to mediate the relationship between self-objectification and body esteem for both men and women. Men were just as likely as women to exercise for appearance-related reasons. Together, the results suggest that objectification may be sensibly applied to men and that exercising for appearance-related reasons appears to exacerbate the negative impact that self-objectification has on both men's and women's esteem.     

Feasibility of a Telephone Intervention for HIV Patients and Their Informal Caregivers

Objectives: To assess the feasibility of a telephone intervention for HIV-positive patients and their caregivers. Methods: HIV-positive participants, some co-enrolled with their informal caregiver, enrolled in this randomized study. Intervention-arm participants (124 patients and 76 caregivers; dyads assigned to same arm) received up to 12 scheduled calls from an interventionist over 6 months. Results: An average of 7.6 (SD = 3.0) calls to each participant was completed; 66.5% received at least 6 calls; 43.0% received more than 75% of the intervention (defined as ‘study adherent’). Having a higher T-cell count was associated with call adherence (p = .014); cocaine use was associated with reduced call adherence for both patients (p = .019) and caregivers (p = .083). Common telephone themes included problems with mood, relationships, finances, housing, and work; interventions (e.g., referral for mental health care) were initiated in response to these. Participant satisfaction was high, and many reported benefits from the intervention. Conclusions: Using a telephone intervention with HIV-positive patients and their caregivers is a feasible and potentially beneficial intervention.