Emotional constraints on intentional forgetting

One way people control the contents of their minds is intentional forgetting—voluntarily forgetting events after they have happened. The events people would most like to forget are unpleasant and emotional. This study used a directed forgetting procedure with emotional and neutral pictures to examine whether people can intentionally forget emotional events as easily as mundane ones. When the to-be-forgotten list was neutral, participants showed successful intentional forgetting. But when the to-be-forgotten list was emotional, directed forgetting failed. Results contribute to understanding the ways that emotion constrains mental control by capturing mental processes including memory retrieval. Emotion may short-circuit attempts to forget those parts of the past people would most like to forget.     

The role of social class in the formation of identity: a study of public and elite private college students

The authors explored the influence of social class on identity formation in an interview study of 15 lower income students and 15 affluent students from a highly selective liberal arts school and 15 lower income students from a state college. Students ranked occupational goals as 1st in importance to identity and social class as 2nd. The affluent students regarded social class as significantly more important to identity than did the lower income students, were more aware of structural factors contributing to their success, and had higher occupational aspirations. Social class was an area of exploration for half the students, with higher levels of exploration shown by the lower income private school students than by the state college students. Lower income students developed an ideology that rationalized their social class position.     

False memories for end-of-life decisions

OBJECTIVE: To examine people's false memories for end-of-life decisions. DESIGN: In Study 1, older adults decided which life-sustaining treatments they would want if they were seriously ill. They made these judgments twice, approximately 12 months apart. At Time 2, older adults and their self-selected surrogate decision makers tried to recall the older adults' Time 1 decisions. In Study 2, younger adults made treatment decisions twice, approximately 4 months apart. At Time 2, younger adults tried to recall their Time 1 decisions. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Percentage of participants who falsely remembered that their original treatment decisions were the same as their current decisions. RESULTS: In Study 1, older adults falsely remembered that 75% of their original decisions were the same as their current decisions; surrogates falsely thought that 86% of older adults' decisions were the same. In Study 2, younger adults falsely remembered that 69% of their original decisions were the same as their current decisions. CONCLUSION: Age alone cannot account for people's false memories of their end-of-life decisions; we discuss other mechanisms. The results have practical implications for policies that encourage people to make legal documents specifying their end-of-life treatment decisions.     

Dichotomous Issues in Psychology: Intransigency or Developmental Phase?

Cet article est une étude de cas de la psychologie en tant que discipline et profession dans un jeune pays asiatique, Singapour. Il y est décrit les aspects les plus importants de sa courte histoire et de son actuel statut. On met en évidence l'apparence dichotomique de la psychologie, vu que les membres de cette discipline adoptent souvent des positions apparemment intransigeantes. Des points communs apparaissent avec le cycle de développement de la psychologie aux Etats-Unis. Il s'agit de la scission entre les approches pratique et scientifique (art ou science?), l'intérêt pour la recherche fondamentale ou appliquée, et une préférence tranchée pour la recherche de laboratoire ou de terrain. On conclut en réfléchissant sur l'avenir de la psychologie internationale et sur les conséquences d'une approche sceptique de cette discipline.
This is a case study of psychology as a discipline and a profession in a young Asian country, Singapore. Salient aspects of its brief history and present status are presented. The paper highlights what appear to be dichotomous issues in psychology, where members of the discipline often adopt seemingly intransigent positions. Parallels are drawn with similarities in the developmental cycle for psychology in the United States. These include divisions with regard to practitioner versus scientist approaches to the discipline (art or science?), commitment to basic versus applied research, and an entrenched preference for laboratory versus field research. The paper concludes by examining the future in international psychology, and the implications of a prevalent skeptical approach within the discipline.     

An Examination of Post-Traumatic Stress Symptoms and Aggression among Children with a History of Adverse Childhood Experiences

Childhood aggression is associated with many deleterious outcomes and is a common reason for psychiatric referral (Card & Little, 2006; Gurnani et al., 2016). One factor associated with childhood aggression is Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs; Felitti et al., 1998). However, existing research remains equivocal on which characteristics of ACEs (e.g., cumulative impact, typology, etc.) are significantly elated to aggression, especially when considering differential effects of ACEs on proactive aggression (PA) and reactive aggression (RA; Dodge & Coie, 1987). Post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) are a common negative sequalae of ACEs and are characterized by disruptions in several cognitive, emotional, and behavioral processes similar to those associated with both RA and PA (e.g., Marsee, 2008). As such, the examination of PTSS as an underlying mechanism of influence on the relation between ACEs, PA, and RA is warranted. The present study fills several gaps in the literature by examining ACE characteristics that might be related to PTSS, PA, and RA while also examining direct and indirect effects on the relation between ACEs, PTSS and PA and RA. Results indicated the type of ACE, specifically child maltreatment ACEs (CM-ACEs), was most strongly related to all outcome variables. Therefore, CM-ACEs were included in a path analysis with PTSS, PA, and RA. Results indicated a significant indirect effect for PTSS on the relation between CM-ACEs and RA (β?=?.18, p?<?.01) but not PA. Findings have several implications for future research and clinical practice, especially for children with an extensive history of CM-ACEs.

     

SEX SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES IN TYPES OF PLAY IN GAMES AND SPORTS

In two studies, 374 participants gave retrospective reports of their favorite games, toys, and hobbies (games) and of their favorite exercise and sports (sports) in elementary school, high school, and college. We tested Gilligan's (1982) expectation that more of males' play would be group activities played in public places, whereas more of females' games and sports would be home-based play in "intimate" dyads. Results showed that sex similarities and differences varied as a function of kind of play. For both sexes, games tended to be home-based and individual or dyadic play, however sports tended to be group, public-based play. Whereas team sports play was most frequent in childhood for both sexes and decreased in frequency from childhood into adulthood, the decrease in team, as compared to individual and dyadic, sports was significantly more dramatic for girls than for boys. The data indicated that whereas girls participate in a variety of types of play, boys' sports play is dominated by team activity across development. Thus, sex differences in the types of sports play provided the strongest support for Gilligan's hypothesis that socialization in team play may foster a reliance upon rights-based moral reasoning in boys.