Geographic patterns of implicit age bias and associations with state-level health outcomes across the United States

Negative attitudes toward aging are pervasive in society and may be detrimental to people's health as they become older. Older people tend to report feeling significantly younger than their chronological age, often as a way of psychologically distancing themselves from the stigma of old age. However, attitudes and behaviors toward aging may differ across regional contexts. We examined associations among state-level patterns of bias against older adults and state-level health outcomes across the United States. Data from 803,009 respondents (ages: 15–94) across 50 U.S. states (and the District of Columbia) revealed geographic variation in implicit age bias. Higher state-level implicit age bias was associated with poorer state-level health outcomes among adults ages 65+. Older adults living in states high in implicit age bias showed greater age-group dissociation compared to older adults living in states low in implicit age bias. Findings highlight potential consequences of implicit age bias and invite further research on the long-term health implications of individual age-group dissociation in response to regional age bias.     

Searching for Prosociality in Qualitative Data: Comparing Manual,Closed-Vocabulary,and Open-Vocabulary Methods

Although most people present themselves as possessing prosocial traits, people differ in the extent to which they actually act prosocially in everyday life. Qualitative data that were not ostensibly collected to measure prosociality might contain information about prosocial dispositions that is not distorted by self-presentation concerns. This paper seeks to characterise charitable donors from qualitative data. We compared a manual approach of extracting predictors from participants' self-described personal strivings to two automated approaches: A summation of words predefined as prosocial and a support vector machine classifier. Although variables extracted by the support vector machine predicted donation behaviour well in the training sample (N = 984), virtually, no variables from any method significantly predicted donations in a holdout sample (N = 496). Raters' attempts to predict donations to charity based on reading participants' personal strivings were also unsuccessful. However, raters' predictions were associated with past charitable involvement. In sum, predictors derived from personal strivings did not robustly explain variation in charitable behaviour, but personal strivings may nevertheless contain some information about trait prosociality. The sparseness of personal strivings data, rather than the irrelevance of open-ended text or individual differences in goal pursuit, likely explains their limited value in predicting prosocial behaviour. © 2020 European Association of Personality Psychology     

The Participation and Motivations of Grant Peer Reviewers: A Comprehensive Survey

Science and Engineering Ethics - Scientific peer reviewers play an integral role in the grant selection process, yet very little has been reported on the levels of participation or the motivations...     

Idiographic network analysis of discrete mood states prior to treatment

Idiographic network models based on time‐series data have received recent attention for their ability to model relationships among symptoms and behaviours as they unfold in time within a single individual (cf. Epskamp, Borsboom, & Fried, 2018; Fisher, Medaglia, & Jeronimus, 2018). Rather than examine the correlational relationships between variables in a sample of individuals, an idiographic network examines correlations within a single person, averaged over many time points. Because the approach averages over time, the data must be stationary (i.e. relatively consistent over time). If individuals experience varying states over time—different mixtures of symptoms and behaviours in one moment or another—then averaging over categorically different moments may undermine model accuracy. Fisher and Bosley (2019) address these concerns via the application of Gaussian finite mixture modelling to identify latent classes of time points in intraindividual time‐series data from a sample of adults with major depressive disorder and/or generalised anxiety disorder (n = 45). The present paper outlines an extension of this work, wherein network analysis is used to model within‐class covariation of symptoms. To illustrate this approach, network models were constructed for each intraindividual class identified by Fisher and Bosley (137 networks across the 45 participants, mean classes/person = ~3, range = 2–4 classes/person). We examine the relative consistency in symptom organisation between each individual's multiple mood state networks and assess emergent group‐level patterns. We highlight opportunities for enhanced treatment personalisation and review nomothetic patterns relevant to transdiagnostic conceptualisations of psychopathology. We address opportunities for integrating this approach into clinical practice and outline potential shortcomings.     

Framing and Group Decision-Making: Do Cognitive Changes Parallel Preference Changes?

Subjects had their initial frames of reference concerning a decision problem (Asian Disease problem; Tversky & Kahneman, 1981, Science,211, 453–458) manipulated in order to compose four-person groups containing members with different frames of reference. Three different group compositions (number of members with "gain-oriented" vs "loss-oriented" frames) were used: three gain-oriented and one loss oriented (3–1), two gain-oriented and two loss-oriented (2–2), and one gain-oriented and three loss-oriented (1–3). Results indicated a postgroup discussion choice shift toward the risk alternative in the 2–2 and the 1–3 composition conditions. However, changes in members′ frames of reference were unrelated to preference changes. Group composition also affected group decision processes. Implications for future theory and research in small group decision-making are discussed.     

Mediating factors in chick social pecking: II. effects of exposure to movement

Unfamiliarity with movement may lead isolated chicks to respond aggressively when tested with live, moving conspecifics. This hypothesis was tested by comparing the number and locus of pecks by isolated chicks to a stationary or moving model of a chick, and to a live chick. In a second test of the hypothesis chicks that viewed a moving object during isolation and chicks isolated without movement were tested with a live con-specific and their number and locus of pecks were compared. Neither experiment supported the hypothesis. Movement alone failed to excite aggressive pecks and prior experience with movement failed to suppress aggressive pecks. In the first experiment imlated chicks treated the live testmate more aggressively than the moving or stationary model. In the second experiment aggressive pecking of chicks was unaffected by prior experience with movement, These fmdmgs do not support the hypothesis that movement excites aggression in isolated chicks. Nonetheless the results focus attention on the generally neglected problem of emotional and motivational states produced by isolation.     

The convergent and discriminant validity of subjective fit perceptions

This study examined whether employees develop perceptions about 3 different types of fit: person-organization fit, needs-supplies fit, and demands-abilities fit. Confirmatory factor analyses of data from 2 different samples strongly suggested that employees differentiate between these 3 types of fit. Furthermore, results from a longitudinal design of 187 managers supported both the convergent and discriminant validity of the different types of fit perceptions. Specifically, person-organization fit perceptions were related to organization-focused outcomes (e.g., organizational identification, citizenship behaviors, turnover decisions), whereas needs-supplies fit perceptions were related to job- and career-focused outcomes (e.g., job satisfaction, career satisfaction, occupational commitment). Although demands-abilities fit perceptions emerged as a distinct construct, they were not related to hypothesized outcomes (e.g., job performance, raises).     

Automaticity and eyewitness accuracy: a 10- to 12-second rule for distinguishing accurate from inaccurate positive identifications

Eyewitness researchers have shown that witnesses accurately choosing the culprit out of a lineup reach their decisions more quickly than those erroneously choosing an innocent individual. However, this research is silent regarding how quickly or slowly witnesses must be, in absolute terms, to indicate that they are accurate or inaccurate. Across 4 studies, the authors discovered that a time boundary of roughly 10 to 12 s best differentiated accurate from inaccurate positive identifications. Witnesses making their identification faster than 10 to 12 s were nearly 90% accurate; those taking longer were roughly 50% accurate. This finding is consistent with previous research showing that accurate witnesses are more likely than inaccurate witnesses to reach their decisions automatically, that is, quickly, without conscious thought or effort.     

Molecular analyses of the principal components of response strength

Killeen and Hall (2001) showed that a common factor called strength underlies the key dependent variables of response probability, latency, and rate, and that overall response rate is a good predictor of strength. In a search for the mechanisms that underlie those correlations, this article shows that (a) the probability of responding on a trial is a two-state Markov process; (b) latency and rate of responding can be described in terms of the probability and period of stochastic machines called clocked Bernoulli modules, and (c) one such machine, the refractory Poisson process, provides a functional relation between the probability of observing a response during any epoch and the rate of responding. This relation is one of proportionality at low rates and curvilinearity at higher rates.     

Effects of caffeine on performance of low intensity tasks

31 college age men and women who consume less than three caffeinated beverages per week agreed to participate as subjects in research on the effects of acute caffeine intake on low intensity task performance. All subjects performed two randomly administered test conditions: (1) caffeine (5 mg/kg) and (2) placebo on separate visits following an initial 1-hr. orientation visit. Subjects were administered the beverage 30 min. prior to performing 12 separate tests assessing basic mathematics, simple response, logical reasoning, hand-eye coordination, and spatial and assembly skills. The Spielberger State Anxiety test was administered immediately after consuming the test beverage and once again at posttest. Analysis showed that caffeine did not significantly affect performance on all tests with the exception of the peripheral awareness (hand-eye coordination) test on which performance was higher after ingesting caffeine. The placebo treatment produced no effect on state anxiety, which contrasted with a significant rise in anxiety after caffeine consumption. State anxiety values were significantly greater after caffeine treatment relative to the placebo at pretest, and this difference persisted at posttest. These results demonstrated that the dose of caffeine increased scores on state anxiety for individuals who consumed less than three caffeinated beverages weekly but had very little effect on performance of low intensity tasks, except for a hand-eye coordination test involving peripheral awareness. Perhaps longer continuous performance of more demanding tasks would be more sensitive.