Exploring the Generality of the Influence of Institutional Isolation among Youth on Crime

Prior research indicates that institutional isolation among youth is a strong correlate of levels of crime across large units of analysis. The generality and robustness of these findings, however, remain an open empirical question that requires drilling down to a smaller unit of analysis. The current study advances the extant literature by examining the salience of institutional attachments among youth to violent and property crime relying on a level of aggregation that more accurately estimates a “neighborhood effect.” Results of our census tract level analyses suggest that institutional isolation among youth explains 35–56% of variation in property and violent crime across neighborhoods.     

The Causal Structure of Evolutionary Theory

One contentious debate in the philosophy of biology is that between the statisticalists and causalists. The former understand core evolutionary concepts like fitness and selection to be mere statistical summaries of underlying causal processes. In this view, evolutionary changes cannot be causally explained by selection or fitness. The causalist side, on the other hand, holds that populations can change in response to selection—one can cite fitness differences or driftability in causal explanations of evolutionary change. But, on the causalist side, it is often not clear how, precisely, one should understand these causes. Thus, much more could be said about what sort of causes fitness and driftability are. In this paper, I borrow Dretske's distinction between structuring and triggering causes and I suggest that fitness and driftability are structuring causes of evolution.     

Guilt by association?

Recent evolutionary perspectives on guilt tend to focus on how guilt functions as a means for the individual to self-regulate behavior and as a mechanism for reinforcing cooperative tendencies. While these accounts highlight important dimensions of guilt and provide important insights into its evolutionary emergence, they pay scant attention to the large empirical literature on its maladaptive effects on individuals. This paper considers the nature of guilt, explores its biological function, and provides an evolutionary perspective on whether it is an individual-level or group selected trait. After surveying philosophical and psychological analyses of guilt, we consider which psychological mechanisms underlie the capacity to experience and act from guilt and whether they point to an emergence of guilt in early humans or to guilt having a longer phylogenetic history. Because guilt is a characteristically social emotion, we then examine its contemporary role in social and legal contexts, which may provide clues to its original biological function. Finally, we provide the outlines of two evolutionary explanations for guilt. We argue that group selection may have promoted the capacity to experience guilt, but that under certain conditions there may have been a positive individual selection force as well.     

National Culture,Creativity, and Productivity: What’s the Relationship with Student Achievement?

Using Hofstede’s culture dimensions and World Values Survey (WVS) dimensions, the study uses a series of multiple regressions to explore the relationship among national culture, creativity as measured by patents, economic productivity as measured by gross domestic product per capita, and student achievement as measured by Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study. The findings of this exploratory study highlight long-term orientation value from Hofstede’s national culture dimensions and tradition versus secular-rational values from the WVS as the most significant predictors of student academic achievement. A series of 12 regression analyses indicated significant relationships among student achievement, creativity, and economic productivity with models explaining between 19.9% and 76.0% of the variance among countries.     

Retrospective coping strategies during sexual identity formation and current biopsychosocial stress

Background: Lesbian, gay men, and bisexual individuals (LGBs) often experience distress related to the recognition, self-acceptance, and disclosure of their sexual orientation. Objectives and Design: Retrospectively reported coping strategies enacted during sexual identity formation among LGBs were assessed in relation to current stress indices measured using environmental (frequency of perceived daily hassles), psychological (perceived distress), and biological (allostatic load [AL] levels representing physiological dysregulations) perspectives. Methods: Forty-six healthy LGBs between the ages of 18 and 45 (M = 23.91, SE = .80) participated. Questionnaires included the Ways of Coping Checklist adapted to disclosure milestones, Daily Hassles Inventory, and Perceived Stress Scale. AL was calculated using 21 biomarkers of neuroendocrine, immune, cardiovascular, and metabolic functioning. Results: Avoidance coping during sexual identity formation was positively associated with frequency of daily hassles (β = .598, p < .001), perceived stress (β = .361, p = .015), and AL (β = .405, p = .006). By contrast, seeking social support was negatively associated with perceived stress (β = –.598, p = .048). Conclusions: Emotion-focused coping strategies during LGB sexual identity development are associated with current indices of biopsychosocial stress.     

The effects of self-focus on attentional biases in social anxiety:An ERP study

Cognitive theories of social anxiety disorder suggest that biased attention plays a key role in maintaining symptoms. These biases include self-focus and attention to socially threatening stimuli in the environment. The goal of this study was to utilize ERPs that are elicited by a change detection task to examine biases in selective attention (i.e., N2pc) and working memory maintenance (i.e., contralateral delay activity; CDA). Additionally, the effect of self-focus was examined using false heart rate feedback. In support of the manipulation, self-focus cues resulted in greater self-reported self-consciousness and task interference, enhanced anterior P2 amplitude and reduced SPN amplitude. Moreover, P2 amplitude for self-focus cues was correlated with reduced task performance for socially anxious subjects only. The difference in P2 amplitude between self-focus and standard cues was correlated with social anxiety independent of depression. As hypothesized, socially anxious participants (n = 20) showed early selection and maintenance of disgust faces relative to neutral faces as indicated by the N2pc and CDA components. Nonanxious controls (n = 22) did not show these biases. During self-focus cues, controls showed marginal evidence of biased selection for disgust faces, whereas socially anxious subjects showed no bias in this condition. Controls showed an ipsilateral delay activity after being cued to attend to one hemifield. Overall, this study supports early and persistent attentional bias for social threat in socially anxious individuals. Furthermore, self-focus may disrupt these biases. These findings and supplementary data are discussed in light of cognitive models of social anxiety disorder, recent empirical findings, and treatment.     

The Sounds of Sentences: Differentiating the Influence of Physical Sound,Sound Imagery,and Linguistically Implied Sounds on Physical Sound Processing

Both the imagery literature and grounded models of language comprehension emphasize the tight coupling of high-level cognitive processes, such as forming a mental image of something or language understanding, and low-level sensorimotor processes in the brain. In an electrophysiological study, imagery and language processes were directly compared and the sensory associations of processing linguistically implied sounds or imagined sounds were investigated. Participants read sentences describing auditory events (e.g., “The dog barks”), heard a physical (environmental) sound, or had to imagine such a sound. We examined the influence of the 3 sound conditions (linguistic, physical, imagery) on subsequent physical sound processing. Event-related potential (ERP) difference waveforms indicated that in all 3 conditions, prime compatibility influenced physical sound processing. The earliest compatibility effect was observed in the physical condition, starting in the 80–110 ms time interval with a negative maximum over occipital electrode sites. In contrast, the linguistic and the imagery condition elicited compatibility effects starting in the 180–220 ms time window with a maximum over central electrode sites. In line with the ERPs, the analysis of the oscillatory activity showed that compatibility influenced early theta and alpha band power changes in the physical, but not in the linguistic and imagery, condition. These dissociations were further confirmed by dipole localization results showing a clear separation between the source of the compatibility effect in the physical sound condition (superior temporal area) and the source of the compatibility effect triggered by the linguistically implied sounds or the imagined sounds (inferior temporal area). Implications for grounded models of language understanding are discussed.     

Purpose in life in emerging adulthood: Development and validation of a new brief measure

Accruing evidence points to the value of studying purpose in life across adolescence and emerging adulthood. Research though is needed to understand the unique role of purpose in life in predicting well-being and developmentally relevant outcomes during emerging adulthood. The current studies (total n = 669) found support for the development of a new brief measure of purpose in life using data from American and Canadian samples, while demonstrating evidence for two important findings. First, purpose in life predicted well-being during emerging adulthood, even when controlling for the Big Five personality traits. Second, purpose in life was positively associated with self-image and negatively associated with delinquency, again controlling for personality traits. Findings are discussed with respect to how studying purpose in life can help understand which individuals are more likely to experience positive transitions into adulthood.