Predictors of loneliness among students and nuns in Angola and Portugal

The authors conducted 2 studies to examine the relationship between loneliness and psychosocial variables among people from Angola and Portugal. In the 1st study, the participants were 129 college students from Angola and 122 from Portugal, and in the 2nd study participants were 105 nuns from Angola and 74 from Portugal. The following instruments were administered to all participants in both studies: the Revised UCLA Loneliness Scale (D. Russell, L. Peplau, & C. Cutrona, 1980), the Neuroticism Scale (J. Barros, 1999), the Optimism Scale (J. Barros, 1998), and the Satisfaction With Life Scale (E. Diener, R. Emmons, R. Larsen, & S. Griffin, 1985). Ethnic differences were found in loneliness. The Angolan participants recorded higher scores for loneliness than did the Portuguese participants. For both samples the most prominent predictors of loneliness were neuroticism and dissatisfaction with life.     

A short-form measure of loneliness among second-generation migrants

The purpose of this study was to investigate the psychometric characteristics of a 6-item measure to assess loneliness among 109 second-generation adolescent migrants. Analysis supported the validity and reliability of the scale with this sample of acculturating adolescents.     

How Reliably Do Eye Parameters Indicate Internal Versus External Attentional Focus?

Eye behavior is increasingly used as an indicator of internal versus external focus of attention both in research and application. However, available findings are partly inconsistent, which might be attributed to the different nature of the employed types of internal and external cognition tasks. The present study, therefore, investigated how consistently different eye parameters respond to internal versus external attentional focus across three task modalities: numerical, verbal, and visuo-spatial. Three eye parameters robustly differentiated between internal and external attentional focus across all tasks. Blinks, pupil diameter variance, and fixation disparity variance were consistently increased during internally directed attention. We also observed substantial attentional focus effects on other parameters (pupil diameter, fixation disparity, saccades, and microsaccades), but they were moderated by task type. Single-trial analysis of our data using machine learning techniques further confirmed our results: Classifying the focus of attention by means of eye tracking works well across participants, but generalizing across tasks proves to be challenging. Based on the effects of task type on eye parameters, we discuss what eye parameters are best suited as indicators of internal versus external attentional focus in different settings.     

Asymmetric goal contagion: Social power attenuates goal contagion among strangers

Goal contagion is an important interpersonal process. As people spontaneously infer and adopt others' goals, goals can be said to “flow” among individuals. We find that possessing power attenuates goal contagion, especially for high perspective takers. In a pilot study (N = 157), we first affirmed the interpersonal nature of goal contagion by establishing that high (vs. low) perspective takers were more likely to engage in goal contagion. We then tested the moderating role of power in two studies. In both neutral (Study 1, N = 179) and low power (Study 2, N = 304) conditions, we replicated the pattern in the pilot study. In the high power conditions, however, neither low nor high perspective takers engaged in goal contagion. Our findings suggest that goals flow asymmetrically from the powerful to the powerless, which may constitute an important means through which power hierarchy and group cohesion are maintained.     

Effects of different training histories upon manufacturing a tool to solve a problem: insight in capuchin monkeys (Sapajus spp.)

Animal Cognition - The emergence of novel behavior is a multilayered phenomenon that comprehends distinct processes. One such process is known as insightful problem solving. “Insight”...     

Does the experience of presence restore self-control?

A wide range of research suggests that the exertion of self-control is a limited resource or constrained by a motivational shift. Less attention, however, has been given to the question how self-control capacity can be restored. This study examined whether this restoration can be achieved by “presence,” the perceptual illusion of non-mediation. We suggest that the adoption of the mediated reference systems creates a “holiday from self” and restores self-control capacity. Depleted participants who saw an immersive video clip performed better in a subsequent self-control task than participants who saw a non-immersive video clip or were in a waiting group. But the concrete mechanism remains open: Self reported presence did not serve as a mediator.     

Social Change: Toward an Informed and Critical Understanding of Social Justice and the Capabilities Approach in Community Psychology

Community psychology has long been concerned with social justice. However, deployments of this term are often vague and undertheorized. To address this weakness in the field's knowledge body we explored John Rawls's theory of social justice and Amartya Sen's economic theory of the capabilities approach and evaluated each for its applicability to community psychology theory, research, and action. Our unpacking of the philosophical and political underpinnings of Rawlsian theory of social justice resulted in identifying characteristics that limit the theory's utility in community psychology, particularly in its implications for action. Our analysis of the capability approach proposed by Amartya Sen revealed a framework that operationalizes social justice in both research and action, and we elaborate on this point. Going beyond benefits to community psychology in adopting the capabilities approach, we posit a bi‐directional relationship and discuss how community psychology might also contribute to the capabilities approach. We conclude by suggesting that community psychology could benefit from a manifesto or proclamation that provides a historical background of social justice and critiques the focus on the economic, sociological, and philosophical theories that inform present‐day conceptualizations (and lack thereof) of social justice for community psychology.