A Friend in Creed: Does the Religious Composition of Geographic Areas Affect the Religious Composition of a Person's Close Friends?

Numerous theories of religion rest on the assumption that the religious composition of local populations influences the religious identities of a person's close friends, but there have been few empirical tests of this assumption. Using a combination of data on the religious identity of close friends (from the 1988 and 1998 General Social Survey) and information on the religious composition of counties (from the U.S. Religious Congregations and Membership Study) we find that despite tendencies toward religious homogeneity, the religious composition of the surrounding population has an effect on the proportion of a respondent’s same‐religion friends and on the proportion of friends belonging to specific other religious groups. Local population characteristics are unrelated to the proportion of respondents’ friends known in congregational settings. Results have implications for a broad range of sociological theories of religion as well as research examining the impact of same‐congregation and same‐religion friends (e.g., health and well‐being).     

In‐group and role identity influences on the initiation and maintenance of students' voluntary attendance at peer study sessions for statistics

Background. Although class attendance is linked to academic performance, questions remain about what determines students' decisions to attend or miss class. Aims. In addition to the constructs of a common decision‐making model, the theory of planned behaviour, the present study examined the influence of student role identity and university student (in‐group) identification for predicting both the initiation and maintenance of students' attendance at voluntary peer‐assisted study sessions in a statistics subject. Sample. University students enrolled in a statistics subject were invited to complete a questionnaire at two time points across the academic semester. A total of 79 university students completed questionnaires at the first data collection point, with 46 students completing the questionnaire at the second data collection point. Method. Twice during the semester, students' attitudes, subjective norm, perceived behavioural control, student role identity, in‐group identification, and intention to attend study sessions were assessed via on‐line questionnaires. Objective measures of class attendance records for each half‐semester (or ‘term’) were obtained. Results. Across both terms, students' attitudes predicted their attendance intentions, with intentions predicting class attendance. Earlier in the semester, in addition to perceived behavioural control, both student role identity and in‐group identification predicted students' attendance intentions, with only role identity influencing intentions later in the semester. Conclusions. These findings highlight the possible chronology that different identity influences have in determining students' initial and maintained attendance at voluntary sessions designed to facilitate their learning.     

The role of familiarity in daily well-being: developmental and cultural variation

The present study examined life stage and cultural differences in the degree to which familiarity of one's physical location and interaction partner is associated with daily well-being. Participants reported all the activities they engaged in and how they felt during these activities on a previous day using the Day Reconstruction Method (Kahneman, Krueger, Schkade, Schwarz, & Stone, 2004). Both Korean and American retirees were happier when in a familiar place than in an unfamiliar place, whereas the reverse was true for both Korean and American working adults. In addition, we found cultural differences in the role of familiarity of the interaction partner. Specifically, Koreans (both retirees and working adults) were substantially happier when they interacted with a familiar person than when they interacted with an unfamiliar person. In contrast, Americans (both retirees and working adults) were no happier with a familiar person than with an unfamiliar person.     

Trajectories of emotional well-being in mothers of adolescents and adults with autism

Raising an adolescent or adult child with a developmental disability confers exceptional caregiving challenges on parents. We examined trajectories of 2 indicators of emotional well-being (depressive symptoms and anxiety) in a sample of primarily Caucasian mothers (N = 379; M age = 51.22 years at Time 1) of adolescent and adult children with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD; M age = 21.91 years at Time 1, 73.2% male). We also investigated within-person associations of child context time-varying covariates (autism symptoms, behavior problems, residential status) and maternal context time-varying covariates (social support network size and stressful family events) with the trajectories of emotional well-being. Data were collected on 5 occasions across a 10-year period. Average patterns of stable (depressive symptoms) and improved (anxiety) emotional well-being were evident, and well-being trajectories were sensitive to fluctuations in both child and maternal context variables. On occasions when behavior problems were higher, depressive symptoms and anxiety were higher. On occasions after which the grown child moved out of the family home, anxiety was lower. Anxiety was higher on occasions when social support networks were smaller and when more stressful life events were experienced. These results have implications for midlife and aging families of children with an ASD and those who provide services to these families.     

Thinking about representations: the case of opaque contexts

To address the question of whether young children are differentially sensitive to referential opacity, an advanced Theory of Mind skill, we assessed 4-, 6-, and 8-year-olds on three types of opaque contexts: epistemic, quotational, and intentional. Children’s performance improved as a function of age and varied significantly by opacity type. Performance was best for epistemic opacity (using the verb “know”) and poorest for intentional opacity (using “mean to”), with quotational opacity (using “said”) falling in-between. Importantly, the current results suggest that children’s sensitivity to referential opacity is not an all-or-nothing competence but rather one that varies across the contexts examined. Possible reasons for this variability are discussed.     

EFFECTS OF MATERNAL DEPRESSION AND PANIC DISORDER ON MOTHER-INFANT INTERACTIVE BEHAVIOR IN THE FACE-TO-FACE STILL-FACE PARADIGM

The present study evaluated the interactive behavior of three groups of mothers and their 3-month-old infants in the Face-to-Face Still-Face paradigm. The mothers had either a clinical diagnosis of major depressive disorder (MDD, n = 33) with no comorbidity, a clinical diagnosis of panic disorder (PD, n = 13) with no comorbidity, or no clinical diagnosis (n = 48). The sample was selected to be at otherwise low social and medical risk, and all mothers with PD or MDD were in treatment. The findings indicated that (a) infants of mothers with PD or MDD displayed the traditional still-face and reunion effects described in previous research with nonclinical samples; (b) the 3-month-old infants in this study showed similar, but not identical, gender effects to those described for older infants; and (c) there were no patterns of maternal or infant interactive behavior that were unique to the PD, MDD, or control groups. These results are discussed in light of mothers' risk status, receipt of treatment, severity of illness, and comorbidity of PD and MDD.     

Motor asymmetry and substantia nigra volume are related to spatial delayed response performance in Parkinson disease

Studies suggest motor deficit asymmetry may help predict the pattern of cognitive impairment in individuals with Parkinson disease (PD). We tested this hypothesis using a highly validated and sensitive spatial memory task, spatial delayed response (SDR), and clinical and neuroimaging measures of PD asymmetry. We predicted SDR performance would be more impaired by PD-related changes in the right side of the brain than in the left. PD (n = 35) and control (n = 28) participants performed the SDR task. PD participants either had worse motor deficits on the right (RPD) or left (LPD) side of the body. Some participants also had magnetic resonance imaging for measurement of their substantia nigra (SN) volumes. The LPD group performed worse on the SDR task than the RPD and control groups. Right SN volume accounted for a unique and significant portion of the variance in SDR error, with smaller volume predicting poorer performance. In conclusion, left motor dysfunction and smaller right SN volume are associated with poorer spatial memory.     

A Longitudinal Analysis of Psychiatric Severity upon Outcomes Among Substance Abusers Residing in Self-Help Settings

A longitudinal analysis of psychiatric severity was conducted with a national sample of recovering substance abusers living in Oxford Houses, which are self-run, self-help settings. Outcomes related to residents' psychiatric severity were examined at three follow-up intervals over one year. Over time, Oxford House residents with high versus low baseline psychiatric severity reported significantly more days using psychiatric medication, decreased outpatient psychiatric treatment, yet no significant differences for number of days abstinent and time living in an Oxford House. These findings suggest that a high level of psychiatric severity is not an impediment to residing in self-run, self-help settings such as Oxford House among persons with psychiatric comorbid substance use disorders.     

A Blueprint for Social Cognitive Development

ABSTRACT— The field of social cognitive development (SCD) has historically failed to emerge as a dominant approach in developmental psychology. We take this opportunity to articulate the assumptions, goals, and contributions of SCD with the aim of invigorating research from this perspective. We begin by describing the current landscape of social and cognitive development, suggesting what they have and have not given us. We then outline major goals of the social cognitive developmental approach and walk through examples of successful SCD research. Finally, we examine the unique potential of the social cognitive approach to cross-fertilize social and cognitive development (as well as related fields such as social psychology and neuroscience) and to answer new questions about development.     

When rejection by one fosters aggression against many: Multiple-victim aggression as a consequence of social rejection and perceived groupness

Two experiments examined the hypothesis that social rejection and perceived groupness function together to produce multiple-victim incidents of aggression. When a rejecter’s group membership is salient during an act of rejection, the rejectee ostensibly associates the rejecter’s group with rejection and retaliates against the group. Both experiments manipulated whether an aggregate of three persons appeared as separate individuals or members of an entity-like group and whether one of those persons rejected the participant. Consistent with the hypothesis, participants who experienced both rejection and perceived groupness behaved more aggressively against the aggregate (Experiment 1) and evidenced less favorable affective associations toward the aggregate (Experiment 2) than did participants who did not experience both rejection and perceived groupness.