Middle School as a Developmental Niche for Civic Engagement

The present study investigated how school climate, school connectedness and academic efficacy beliefs inform emergent civic engagement behaviors among middle school youth of color. These associations were examined both concurrently and longitudinally using a developmentally appropriate measure of civic engagement. Data were drawn from two subsamples of a larger study of social/emotional development in middle school (cross‐sectional sample n = 324; longitudinal sample n = 232), M = 12 years old, 46 % female, 53 % male. Forty‐two percent (42.2 %) of the sample self‐identified as African American, 19.8 % as Multiracial or Mixed, 19.4 % as Latino, 11.6 % as Asian American or Pacific Islander, 11.6 % identified as Other, and 5.2 % as Native American. The study tested and found support for a latent mediation model in which more positive perceptions of school climate were positively related to school connectedness, and this in turn, was positively associated with civic engagement; school climate was also positively associated with academic‐self‐efficacy beliefs, but such beliefs did not mediate the climate‐civic engagement association. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.     

Speaking two languages at once: Unconscious native word form access in second language production

Bilingualism research has established language non-selective lexical access in comprehension. However, the evidence for such an effect in production remains sparse and its neural time-course has not yet been investigated. We demonstrate that German-English bilinguals performing a simple picture-naming task exclusively in English spontaneously access the phonological form of –unproduced– German words. Participants were asked to produce English adjective-noun sequences describing the colour and identity of familiar objects presented as line drawings. We associated adjective and picture names such that their onsets phonologically overlapped in English (e.g., green goat), in German through translation (e.g., blue flower – ‘blaue Blume’), or in neither language. As expected, phonological priming in English modulated event-related brain potentials over the frontocentral scalp region from around 440 ms after picture onset. Phonological priming in German was detectable even earlier, from 300 ms, even though German was never produced and in the absence of an interaction between language and phonological repetition priming at any point in time. Overall, these results establish the existence of non-selective access to phonological representations of the two languages in the domain of speech production.     

Dyadic Cross-Sectional Associations Between Negative Mood,Marital Idealization,and Relationship Quality

This study aimed to evaluate (a) dyadic associations between relationship quality (RQ) and both depressive and anxious mood (DM and AM), (b) reciprocity hypotheses of negative mood within dyadic interactions, and (c) mediational role of marital idealization between negative mood and relationship quality. Actor-partner interdependence models (APIMs) were performed using data from a sample of 198 dyads. Our results showed that (a) these two facets of negative mood did not have the same weight on RQ and that they had a gender-specific effects pattern, and (b) there was no support for the mood transmission hypothesis. Men's DM displayed direct and indirect (via marital idealization) actor as well as partner effects on RQ, whereas women's DM displayed only a direct actor effect on RQ. There were no significant direct actor effects of AM on RQ, meaning that this link is fully mediated by marital idealization. However, only women's AM showed such indirect effects on RQ.     

Children's memory distortions following social contact with a co-witness: Disentangling social and cognitive mechanisms

This study examined whether recalling an event with a co-witness influences children's recall. Individual 3-5-year-olds (n = 48) watched a film with a co-witness. Unbeknown to participants, the co-witness was watching an alternative version of the film. Afterwards both the co-witness and the participant answered questions about the film together (public recall), and the degree to which children conformed to the co-witness's alternative version of events was measured. Subsequently participants were questioned again individually (private recall). Children also completed false belief and inhibitory control tasks. By separating errors made in public and private, the results indicated that both social conformity (32% of errors) and memory distortion (68% of errors) played a role in co-witness influence. Inhibitory control predicted the likelihood of retracting errors in private, but only for children who failed (r=.66) rather than passed false belief tasks (r=-.10). The results suggest that children with a theory of mind conform in the company of the co-witness to avoid social embarrassment, while those a poor theory of mind conform on the basis of an inability to inhibit the co-witness's response. The findings contribute to our understanding of the motivations responsible for co-witness conformity across early childhood.     

Directedness and engagement in chimpanzee vocal ontogeny

Directedness and engagement during pre-verbal vocal communication play a major role in language development. What was their role in the evolution of language? This question invites us to examine these behaviours in chimpanzee vocal ontogeny. We collected observational data on infant (N = 15) and juvenile (N = 13) chimpanzees at Chimfunshi Wildlife Orphanage, Zambia. We examined the impact of age and vocalization type (grunts, whimpers, laughs and screams) on directed cues (gaze directedness and face directedness) and engagement (mutual face directedness) during vocal communication. We also assessed the impact of directed cues and engagement on social interactions by coding the behaviour of social partners before, during and after a vocalisation, and examining whether they contingently changed their behaviour in response to the vocalisation if it was directed or if engagement occurred. We found that face directed vocalisations showed a general increase during ontogeny and we observed call-type dependent effects of age for mutual face directedness. Only face directed vocalisations were significantly predictive of behavioural responses in social partners. We conclude that like young humans, young chimpanzees routinely exhibit directed behaviours and engagement during vocal communication. This social competency improves during ontogeny and benefits individuals by increasing the chances of eliciting behavioural responses from social partners. Directedness and engagement likely provide a foundation for language phylogenetically, as well as ontogenetically.

Research Highlights

• We show that directedness and engagement routinely occur during early chimpanzee vocalisations.
• Directedness increases throughout chimpanzee vocal ontogeny, similar to human infants.
• Directedness enhances social partner responsiveness, demonstrating a direct benefit to this style of communication.
• Directedness and engagement could provide a route towards language phylogenetically as well as ontogenetically.

     

Exploring the Role of Sport Sense of Community in Perceived Athlete Burnout,Sport Motivation,and Engagement

The main purpose of this work was to examine the relationships between the sport sense of community, athlete burnout, engagement, and motivation in adolescent athletes, adopting a longitudinal perspective, and using both person- and variable-centred approaches. A total of 250 adolescent athletes were involved in the study. Athletes' perceptions of burnout, engagement and motivation significantly differed across two different clusters: high and low sport sense of community profiles. Consistent with our hypothesis, sport sense of community dimensions (i.e., satisfaction of needs and influence) negatively predicted athlete burnout and controlled motivation, and positively predicted engagement and autonomous motivation six months later.

Lay Summary: Athlete burnout is associated with negative consequences for athletes’ well-being, whereas engagement reflects a positive state. The sport sense of community refers to the athletes’ relationship with their sport environment. In this study, we provided preliminary evidence of the protective role of the sport sense of community on athlete burnout.