Social anxiety and vulnerability for problematic drinking in college students: the moderating role of post-event processing

Socially anxious college students are at increased risk for engaging in problematic drinking (i.e. heavy or risky drinking) behaviors that are associated with the development of an alcohol use disorder. The present study examined whether post-event processing (PEP), repeatedly thinking about and evaluating one’s performance in a past social situation, strengthens the association between social anxiety and vulnerability to problematic drinking among college students. Eighty-three college drinkers with high or low social anxiety participated in a social interaction task and were exposed to a manipulation that either promoted or inhibited PEP about the social interaction. Among participants randomized to the PEP promotion condition, those with high social anxiety exhibited a greater urge to use alcohol after the social interaction and greater motivation to drink to cope with depressive symptoms over the week following the manipulation than did those with low social anxiety. These findings suggest that targeting PEP in college drinking intervention programs may improve the efficacy of such programs for socially anxious students.     

Discovery Through Writing: Relationships with Writing Processes and Text Quality

ABSTRACT

This study compares a problem-solving account of discovery through writing, which attributes discovery to strategic rhetorical planning and assumes discovery is associated with better quality text, to a dual-process account, which attributes discovery to the combined effect of 2 conflicting processes with opposing relationships to text quality. Low and high self-monitors were asked to write under 2 planning conditions. Keystroke-logging was used to assess the relationship of writing processes with discovery and text quality. The results support the dual-process account: Discovery was related to spontaneous sentence production and global revision of text, which had opposing relationships with text quality.     

Physical Attractiveness and Altruism in Two Modified Dictator Games

Several studies find that male individuals are more altruistic toward attractive women, suggesting altruism may serve as a courtship display. Many studies exploring this phenomenon have used vignettes and facial images. We tested the sexual selection hypothesis as an explanation for altruistic behavior, where players played the dictator game with “live” participants. Two studies were conducted (Study 1, n = 212; Study 2, n = 188) where we manipulated stakes and anonymity between participants to explore the relationship between the dictator’s allocations and their perceived attractiveness of the recipient. We found no relationship between attractiveness and altruism. Dictators were consistently fair when allocating stakes, irrespective of the recipients’ attractiveness.     

Social information processing and job characteristics.

This study simultaneously tested 2 theories that attempt to explain differences in job satisfaction: job characteristics theory (Hackman & Oldham, 1976) and social information processing theory (Salancik & Pfeffer, 1978). The theories were tested using data collected from the civilian employees of the public works division at a U.S. military base. The results indicated that individuals' social environments had significant effects upon their attitudes. Multiple social networks were used to operationalize individuals' social environments. The results also suggested that job characteristics had an independent main effect upon job satisfaction, in addition to the effects of the social environment. Based on prior research, employees' past experience and self‐monitoring were tested as moderators of the effects of the social environment, and growth need strength was tested as a moderator of the effects of job characteristics upon job satisfaction. Only self‐monitoring was found to have a significant moderating effect on the relationship between information from the social environment and job satisfaction, and growth need strength had no significant moderating effect.     

Havighurst’s Social Roles Revisited

The purpose of this exploratory research was to review, update, and revise Havighurst’s classic social role studies for their relevance in contemporary society. Based on the input of expert panels, 13 roles, Association/Club Member, Citizen, Daughter/Son, Friend, Grandparent, Home/Services Manager, Kin/Relative, Learner, Leisure Time Consumer, Parent, Religious Affiliate, Spouse/Partner, and Worker, were incorporated into an instrument to assess social role importance. The instrument was administered to a stratified, quota sample of 300 respondents. Univariate repeated-measures analysis and Dunn’s test for multiple comparisons were conducted. Perceived social role importance ratings were established for age, gender, and socio-economic status (SES) groupings. The Friend role and a cluster of family-associated roles received the highest overall ratings. Many roles appeared to have a distinct age-related factor. SES differences, particularly among the lowest level, were also significant in many roles.     

Encoding variability and the concreteness effect in paired-associate learning

In an attempt to explain the concreteness effect in PA learning, encoding variability (as measured by contextual variety) was manipulated factorially on the stimulus and response sides within abstract and within concrete noun pairs. The results showed a strong concreteness effect, with increasing encoding variability having no effect on the stimulus side, and a direct positive effect on the response side. The applicability of these results to the encoding-variability hypothesis was discussed.     

Individual differences in intelligence: A reappraisal of the confluence model

The confluence model posits that an individual's intellectual development is a function of the intellectual environment he or she is exposed to in the home. Families with many children spaced close together are presumed to have intellectual environments inferior to those of families with few children spaced far apart. To date, the major support for the confluence model has come from analyses of the family size-birth order means of large aggregate data sets. Analyses of the individual scores of some of those same aggregate data sets, however, do not substantiate the confluence model. Explained variance for the aggregate (90%+) reduce to less than 3% in the individual analyses. A recommendation is made to shift the focus of the confluence model from family configuration variables to family interaction varibles utilizing longitudinal data from individuals.