Adolescents’ Endorsement of Communal and Agentic Conflict-Management Strategies with Friends and Romantic Partners

To investigate contextual influences on gender differences and similarities, we compared adolescents’ endorsement of gender-typed communal/other-focused and agentic/self-focused conflict-management strategies in three relationship contexts: same-gender friends, other-gender friends, and other-gender heterosexual romantic partners. Our 2 Participant Gender (between-subjects) × 3 Relationship Context (within-subjects) mixed factorial design addressed whether findings of prior research (Keener and Strough 2017) with college-aged participants would generalize to adolescents. Participants (n?=?103; 47 male adolescents; 56 female adolescents, 14–17 years-old) from the U.S. South Atlantic and Middle Atlantic regions read nine hypothetical conflict scenarios (three per each relationship context) and rated their likelihood of using gender-typed strategies. Young women and men endorsed communal and agentic strategies significantly more in same- and other-gender friendships than in romantic relationships. Across all three relationship contexts, young women reported using significantly more agentic strategies than young men did. In contrast to previous research on college students (Keener and Strough 2017), the predicted Participant Gender x Relationship Context interaction was not significant in the present study. Our findings suggest that developmental processes such as age differences in gender socialization and lack of experience with romantic relationships might explain why findings from college students did not generalize to adolescents.

     

Putting on Virtue Without Putting Off Feminists

Mary Wollstonecraft's account of virtue discourse and formation, which deploys ancient and medieval ethical resources for modern purposes, challenges a prevalent narrative in Christian ethics today. Several prominent Christian virtue ethicists have left the false impression that serious reflection on the virtues depends on pre‐modern traditions and the eschewal of modern resources. Troubled by skeptical quandaries and the difficulty of adjudicating conflicting claims about virtue, they are concerned with securing a pre‐modern court of appeals. Many feminists worry that these appeals unduly constrain because they naturalize what is contingent and fix what should be open to debate. Wollstonecraft does not share the skeptical concerns and so has no need for metaethical appeals. Adapting Edmund Burke's moral philosophy, her use of virtue discourse deploys his metaphor of “the wardrobe of the moral imagination” to more religious, radical, and democratic ends. This way of proceeding signals the possibility of a rapprochement between feminists of various stripes and those interested in deploying the discourse of the virtues for contemporary Christian ethics.     

Distinguishing Between Subgroups of Adolescents Who Self‐Harm

The differences in factors associated with subgroups of adolescents in the continuum of deliberate self‐harm (DSH) phenomena were investigated. In an anonymous self‐report survey of 6,020 adolescents aged 15 and 16 years, 3.2% of adolescents (5.3% females, 1.3% males) reported DSH with intent to die, 2.8% (4.3% females; 1.5% males) reported DSH without intent to die, and 15% (22.4% females; 8.5% males) reported thoughts of DSH without acts. Regression analysis indicated considerable overlap in vulnerability factors along the spectrum of DSH thoughts and acts. A uniquely distinct relationship was found between DSH of a friend and DSH without intent to die on one hand and DSH of a family member with DSH with intent to die on the other. Results indicate that familial and nonfamilial social influences on DSH behavior may be important in designing prevention programs and that educational programs for the promotion of psychological well‐being may be helpful for adolescents at any point along the spectrum of DSH that was examined.     

The impact of novel labels on visual processing during infancy

The impact of novel labels on visual processing was investigated across two experiments with infants aged between 9 and 21 months. Infants viewed pairs of images across a series of preferential looking trials. On each trial, one image was novel, and the other image had previously been viewed by the infant. Some infants viewed images in silence; other infants viewed images accompanied by novel labels. The pattern of fixations both across and within trials revealed that infants in the labelling condition took longer to develop a novelty preference than infants in the silent condition. Our findings contrast with prior research by Robinson and Sloutsky (e.g., Robinson & Sloutsky, 2007a ; Sloutsky & Robinson, 2008 ) who found that novel labels did not disrupt visual processing for infants aged over a year. Provided that overall task demands are sufficiently high, it appears that labels can disrupt visual processing for infants during the developmental period of establishing a lexicon. The results suggest that when infants are processing labels and objects, attentional resources are shared across modalities.     

Candidate Vulnerability and Exposure to Counterattitudinal Information: Evidence From Two U.S. Presidential Elections

Politically motivated selective exposure has traditionally been understood through the lens of long‐standing attitudes and beliefs, but the role of environment in shaping information exposure practices merits further consideration. Citizens might respond to the political environment in their information‐seeking behavior for numerous reasons. Citizens who believe their position is politically vulnerable have specific cognitive and affective needs that may make them uniquely attuned to counterattitudinal information. In the context of a presidential election, this means that as the defeat of a supported candidate appears more likely, attention to counterattitudinal content will increase. Data collected in the 2008 and 2012 U.S. Presidential elections support this prediction, although this relationship was observed primarily among supporters of the Republican candidate in both elections.     

Is there a temporal basis of the word length effect? A response to Service (1998)

Service (1998) carried out a study of the word length effect with Finnish pseudowords in which short and long pseudowords were identical except for the inclusion of certain phonemes differing only in pronunciation length, a manipulation that is impossible in English. She obtained an effect of phonemic complexity but little or no word duration effect per se - a discrepancy from the expectations generated by the well-known working memory model of Baddeley (1986). In the present study using English words, we controlled for phonemic complexity differences by using the same words for the short- and long-word sets, but with instructions inducing shorter or longer pronunciation of the words. We obtained substantial word duration effects. Concerns raised by Service are addressed, and we conclude that both duration and complexity are likely to contribute to the word length effect in serial recall.     

“Baba Has Come to Civilize Us”: Developmental Idealism and Framing the Strict Demands of the Brahma Kumaris

This article extends and complicates the theory that “strict churches are strong” based on the strict demands that were followed and not followed by the Brahma Kumaris in Nepal. To be successful, strict religious groups must not only be strict, but also frame their strictness in ways that resonate with the everyday experiences and commonly held beliefs of their members. Nepali women involved with the Brahma Kumaris tend to accept and follow the group's demands when those demands have been framed as modern, and that framing is resonant with the prevailing definitions of modernity offered by Western development agencies. When the modern framing is not resonant, as with the case of framing celibacy as “spiritual birth control,” the strict demand is not followed, and the frame itself is rejected in favor of the practice being defined in different terms.