When past meets present: the relationship between website‐induced nostalgia and well‐being

The present research examined whether social media websites increase feelings of nostalgia, and whether this nostalgic reverie promotes psychological and social health. Specifically, in comparison to control conditions, participants exposed to the websites Dear Old Love and Dear Photograph reported greater feelings of nostalgia (Studies 1–3), positive affect (Studies 1 and 3), life satisfaction (Study 1), and relationship need satisfaction (Study 2). Further, mediational analyses revealed that increased thoughts of nostalgia heightened subjective well‐being and social connectedness. Study 3 showed that the relationship between nostalgia and positive affect was specific to the Dear Photograph website and did not generalize to any website focused on close relationships. The implications of this research for nostalgia, internet use, and well‐being are further discussed.     

Do We Know Where We Stand? Neighborhood Relative Income,Subjective Social Status,and Health

Bridging research on relative income and subjective social status (SSS), this study examines how neighborhood relative income is related to ones' SSS, and in turn, physical and mental health. Using a survey sample of 1807 U.S. adults, we find that neighborhood median income significantly moderates the relationship between household income and self‐reported physical and mental health. Low‐income individuals living in high‐income neighborhoods (i.e., relative disadvantage) report better physical and mental health than low‐income individuals living in low‐income neighborhoods. In addition, high‐income individuals living in low‐income neighborhoods (i.e., relative advantage) report higher SSS (relative to neighbors), whereas low‐income individuals living in high‐income neighborhoods (i.e., relative disadvantage) also report higher SSS. We draw from social comparison theory to interpret these results positing that downward comparisons may serve an evaluative function while upward comparisons may result in affiliation with better‐off others. Finally, we demonstrate that SSS explains the relationship between neighborhood relative income and health outcomes, providing empirical support for the underlying influence of perceived social position.     

The Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale Short Form (DERS-SF): Validation and Replication in Adolescent and Adult Samples

Emotion dysregulation often emerges early in development and is a core feature of many psychological conditions. The Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS) is a well validated and widely used self-report measure for assessing emotion regulation problems among adolescents and adults. The DERS has six subscales with five to eight items each (36 total), suggesting multiple questions may assess similar underlying constructs. In an effort to reduce respondent burden and streamline this widely-used instrument, we created a short-form version of the DERS (DERS-SF) using confirmatory factor analysis on data from three adolescent (n?=?257) and two adult samples (n?=?797). Scores on the DERS-SF yielded similar correlation patterns relative to the full measure, ranging from .90 to .98 and reflecting 81–96 % shared variance. This instrument maintains the excellent psychometric properties and retains the total and subscale scores of the original measure with half the items.     

Faith is Confidence: The Implication of Psychosocial Components in Faith-Based Educational Programs on Expressive Communication Skills of Adult Learners

Faith-based programs for adult learners have environmental factors that differentiate them from non-faith based programs, but explicit empirical studies evaluating the impact of the psychosocial factors have been lacking in the literature. This study comparatively examines the achievement level of expressive communication skills as measured through writing in general education development (GED) program participants who were adult learners in faith-based and non-faith based programs. The article will discuss the context of faith from the literature, impact of psychosocial environmental factors, and provide implications for curriculum design for faith-based academic programs while addressing the research question of whether faith-based GED programs have an impact on the achievement of expressive communication levels of students compared to non-faith-based GED programs.     

Discriminated Functional Communication for Attention: Evaluating Fixed and Varied Durations of Reinforcer Availability

Discriminated functional communication (DFC) training has been used to teach children to attend to naturally occurring discriminative stimuli when manding for attention. In this study, the participant was taught to only mand for attention during experimenter non‐busy periods. The participant could only discriminate busy and non‐busy activities during more naturalistic varied reinforcer availability periods following prior exposure to a fixed duration of availability. These data suggest that DFC may first have to be taught under more predictable conditions prior to transitioning to more naturalistic conditions. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The relationship between shame and perceived biological origins of mental illness among South Asian and white American young adults

Mental illness (MI) affects one in four people in their lifetime and a failure to seek help for MI can have grave consequences. To decrease stigma and increase help seeking, prior campaigns have promoted the biological origins of MI. Even though some research supports the efficacy of this approach, other research does not. We propose cultural differences as a partial explanation for these inconsistent results. The current study assessed ethnic differences in the relationship between perceived causes of MI, shame associated with MI and perceived family support for help seeking. White and South Asian American (SAA) undergraduate students completed an online survey (n = 177). Results indicated that SAAs were significantly more likely than whites to perceive character deficits as the cause of MI. Further, among those who had sought help for MI, ethnic differences emerged in perceptions of MI based on perceived cause. SAAs who believed that MI had biological origins perceived more shame and less family support for seeking help compared to SAAs who believed MI was due to character deficits. The converse was true for whites – those who believed that MI had biological origins perceived less shame and more family support for help seeking compared to whites who believed MI was due to character deficits. The results of the current study illuminate the role that culture plays in perceptions of MI. Further, these results have implications for interventions targeting South Asian populations and for mental health outreach in general.     

An examination of within-person variance in contextual display rules and deviation from display rules

Contextual display rules refer to perceptions of the particular emotions that should be displayed in a specific set of circumstances. As such, it is important to examine within-person variance in such perceptions within the dynamic context of real-life organizations. To this end, experience sampling methodology was used to highlight within-person variance in display rules and examine event-level predictors of these contextual display rules. Thirty-nine university staff members were surveyed four times per day about their most recent interaction. Employee momentary affect (pleasantness and activation) and relationship with the interaction target (solidarity and relative power) were examined as predictors of both contextual display rule perceptions and deviation from those display rules. Pleasantness of affect related positively to the level of expression allowed by the display rule, whereas activation of affect and target solidarity related positively to deviation from display rules. Complex interactions were also found between the predictors, further highlighting the complexity of the emotional labour process.     

Variations in an African Grey parrot’s speech patterns following ignored and denied requests

Communicative competence is one measure of an individual’s ability to navigate conversations with social partners. The current study explored the possibility of basic communicative competence in a non-mammal speaker, a speech-using African Grey parrot. Spontaneous conversations between one Grey named Cosmo and her caregiver were recorded, from which three corpora (i.e., bodies of text) of Cosmo’s vocalizations were developed: (1) Baseline: Vocalizations containing no requests, (2) Ignored Requests: Vocalizations immediately following Cosmo’s caregiver ignoring Cosmo’s requests, and (3) Denied Requests: Vocalizations immediately following Cosmo’s caregiver denying Cosmo’s requests. The distributions of social (e.g., “I love you,” kiss sounds) and nonsocial (e.g., answering machine beeps, “That’s squirrel”) vocalizations, as well as speech and nonword vocalizations, were statistically different across the three corpora. Additionally, qualitative analysis of the datasets indicated Cosmo was persistent in repeating vocalizations when denied and ignored, and interrupted her caregiver more often when requests were denied compared to ignored. Neither repetition nor interruption occurred during the Baseline conversations. The data indicate that despite the outcome being the same (i.e., request was unmet), Cosmo treated an ignored request differently than a denied request, modifying her vocalizations in accord with the specific context. Such modification is evidence of basic communicative competence.     

Numerical Estimation in Children for Both Positive and Negative Numbers

Numerical estimation has been used to study how children mentally represent numbers for many years (e.g., Siegler & Opfer, 2003). However, these studies have always presented children with positive numbers and positive number lines. Children’s mental representation of negative numbers has never been addressed. The present study tested children in the 2nd, 4th, and 6th grades to assess their mental representations of both positive and negative numbers using a standard numerical estimation task. We replicated the shift from a logarithmic to linear representation for positive numbers (0–1,000 scale) in that 2nd graders represented positive numbers logarithmically, but 4th and 6th graders represented the numbers linearly. Furthermore, children’s representation of negative numbers paralleled their representations of positive numbers and showed the same shift from a logarithmic representation at Grade 2 to linear representations at Grades 4 and 6. This is the first study to provide data on children’s representation of negative numbers, and the implications of these findings are discussed.