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.     

Many-to-One Matching with Temporal and Hedonic Samples in Pigeons

Pigeons were initially trained with either temporal samples (2- and 8-s keylights) or hedonic samples (food and no food) mapped to line-orientation (horizontal and vertical) comparisons. Delay testing revealed marked retention asymmetries in both groups (i.e., a choose-short effect with temporal samples and a choose-no-food effect with hedonic samples). Next, while both groups continued training on the original task, a second set of samples was added, hedonic for birds originally trained with temporal samples and temporal for birds originally training with hedonic samples. For all birds, food and short samples were associated with one comparison, and no-food and long samples were associated with the alternative comparison (many-to-one, MTO, mapping). This time, delay testing revealed symmetrical retention functions in both groups with both sets of samples, and mediated-transfer testing revealed positive transfer. It was concluded that (1) a common code was used to represent samples associated with the same comparison in the MTO mapping and (2) the content of the codes was unrelated to the identity of the samples.     

An on-line exact small-sample test of significance for extended matching tasks

An extension of the traditional matching paradigm that enables researchers to test a variety of new experimental hypotheses is outlined. An on-line computer program that provides an exact small-sample test of hypotheses in the extended matching paradigm is described. The program, which has an intuitive graphical interface, may be accessed and executed via the Internet by using an ordinary browser.     

Improving forensic tribunal decisions: the role of the clinician

Three empirical investigations of forensic decision-making were conducted: a study of 104 hearings by a forensic tribunal; an evaluation of which aspects of forensic patients' clinical presentation were empirical predictors of violence; and a survey of forensic clinicians to determine which factors they said they used to assess risk of violent recidivism and which they actually used. Results showed a significant correlation between actuarial risk and clinical advice to the tribunal, and a nonsignificant trend for patients higher in actuarial risk to receive more restrictive dispositions. Psychotic diagnoses and symptoms were not indicators of increased risk of violent recidivism. Clinicians endorsed some empirically valid indicators of risk, but also relied on some invalid indicators. There was also inconsistency between factors clinicians said they used and factors actually related to their hypothetical decision-making. An automated system is presented as an illustration of how the consistency and validity of forensic decisions could be enhanced.