Parental Monitoring,Association with Externalized Behavior,and Academic Outcomes in Urban African‐American Youth: A Moderated Mediation Analysis

African‐American adolescents exposed to neighborhood disadvantage are at increased risk for engaging in problem behavior and academic underachievement. It is critical to identify the mechanisms that reduce problem behavior and promote better academic outcomes in this population. Based on social disorganization and socioecological theories, the current prospective study examined pathways from parental monitoring to academic outcomes via externalizing behavior at different levels of neighborhood disadvantage. A moderated mediation model employing maximum likelihood was conducted on 339 African‐American students from 9th to 11th grade (49.3% females) with a mean age of 14.8 years (SD ± 0.35). The results indicated that parental monitoring predicted low externalizing behavior, and low externalizing behavior predicted better academic outcomes after controlling for externalizing behavior in 9th grade, intervention status, and gender. Mediation was supported, as the index of mediation was significant. Conversely, neighborhood disadvantage did not moderate the path from parental monitoring to externalizing behavior. Implications for intervention at both community and individual levels and study limitations are discussed.     

Sex,Education, Age,and Cautiousness: Implications for Counselors

A cross‐sectional study of educated men and women showed that cautiousness, as measured by perceived problem‐solving ability, does not increase with age. Sex differences were nonsignificant. The results are discussed in terms of R. Schultz and J. Heckhausen's (1996) Life Span Model of Successful Aging.     

Client perspectives on counselling: Before,during and after

This four‐year study investigated the under‐researched area of first‐time users’ perceptions of counselling and how these evolved over time. Research participants were drawn from six settings within university counselling services, the voluntary sector and primary care. Using an interpretive hermeneutic framework based on thematic analysis, 30 interviews were carried out. Results revealed that before counselling, participants were uncertain about the nature of counselling and what to expect, described stigma associated with peer influence and varying levels of confusion about specialist language. During counselling, participants experienced some level of positive change. At the same time, divergences of counsellor and client perception highlighted theoretical issues concerning counsellor approach and the exploration of emotions. Post‐counselling interviews revealed further positive change, and practical issues with implications for counsellor training and practice in terms of client assessment, preparation for counselling and the influence of cultural assumptions on theory and practice.     

Examining direct and indirect pathways to health behaviour: The influence of cognitive and affective probability beliefs

This study aimed to extricate the influence of rational (e.g. ‘I think …’) and intuitive (e.g. ‘I feel …’) probability beliefs in the behavioural decision-making process regarding skin cancer prevention practices. Structural equation modelling was used in two longitudinal surveys (sun protection during winter sports [N?=?491]; sun protection during summer [N?=?277]) to examine direct and indirect behavioural effects of affective and cognitive likelihood (i.e. unmediated or mediated by intention), controlled for attitude, social influence and self-efficacy. Affective likelihood was directly related to sun protection in both studies, whereas no direct effects were found for cognitive likelihood. After accounting for past sun protective behaviour, affective likelihood was only directly related to sun protection in Study 1. No support was found for the indirect effects of affective and cognitive likelihood through intention. The findings underscore the importance of feelings of (cancer) risk in the decision-making process and should be acknowledged by health behaviour theories and risk communication practices. Suggestions for future research are discussed.     

On the predictive validity of implicit attitude measures: The moderating effect of perceived group variability

Social psychologists have recently shown great interest in implicit attitudes, but questions remain as to the boundary conditions under which such attitudes can predict subsequent judgments and behavior, including reactions toward single category members. In two experiments, we demonstrate the predictive validity of two priming-based measures of implicit attitudes, using a lexical decision task developed by Wittenbrink, Judd, and Park (1997) as well as a perceptual identification paradigm pioneered by Payne (2001). Moreover, we show that these effects were moderated by perceived group variability, such that implicit attitudes offered much stronger predictive leverage if the members of the target category (Blacks) were perceived to be homogenous than if they were not. The implications of the present research for the “moderator approach” previously employed in the explicit attitude literature are discussed.     

Transient attention degrades perceived apparent motion

Transient spatial attention refers to the automatic selection of a location that is driven by the stimulus rather than a voluntary decision. Apparent motion is an illusory motion created by stationary stimuli that are presented successively at different locations. In this study we explored the effects of transient attention on apparent motion. The motion target presentation was preceded by either valid attentional cues that attract attention to the target location in advance (experiments 1-4), neutral cues that do not indicate a location (experiments 1, 3, and 4), or invalid cues that direct attention to a non-target location (experiment 2). Valid attentional cues usually improve performance in various tasks. Here, however, an attentional impairment was found. Observers' ability to discriminate the direction of motion diminished at the cued location. Analogous results were obtained regardless of cue type: singleton cue (experiment 1), central non-informative cue (experiment 2), or abrupt onset cue (experiment 3). Experiment 4 further demonstrated that reversed apparent motion is less likely with attention. This seemingly counterintuitive attentional degradation of perceived apparent motion is consistent with several recent findings, and together they suggest that transient attention facilitates spatial segregation and temporal integration but impairs spatial integration and temporal segregation.     

The Association Between Physical Functioning and Self-rated General Health in Later Life: The Implications of Social Comparison

Self-rated general health has been used widely in health surveys as a single-item measurement of health-rated quality of life. Heterogeneity in self-evaluation of health has been well documented, yet the causes of this heterogeneity are poorly understood. This study evaluated the moderating effects of age, aging, gender, race, education and income on the relationship between physical functioning and self-rated general health using social comparison theory as a guiding framework. A longitudinal mixed-effects regression model was used to analyze a cohort enrolled into the Health and Retirement Study in 1993 that was interviewed at baseline and during four subsequent waves. The results revealed that the association between physical functioning and self-rated general health is weaker among subgroups that tend to have lower health status; i.e., older individuals, non-Caucasians and less educated individuals. These findings suggest the usefulness of social comparison theory in explaining self-rated general health and provide the basis for future research.     

Lateral masking in cycling displays: the relative importance of separation, flanker duration, and interstimulus interval for object-mediated updating

A central bar repeatedly presented in alternation with two flanking bars can lead to the disappearance of the central bar. Recently it has been suggested that this masking effect could be explained by object-mediated updating: the information from the central bar is integrated into the representation of the flankers, leading not only to the disappearance of the central bar as a separate object, but also to the perception of the flankers in apparent motion between their real position and the position of the central bar. This account suggests that the visibility of the central bar should depend on the same factors as those that influence the construction and maintenance of object representations. Therefore separation between central bar and flankers should not influence visibility as long as the time interval between them is adequate to make an interpretation of the scene in terms of one object moving from one location to the other possible location. We found that if the time interval between the central bar and the flankers is neither too short nor too long, the central bar becomes invisible even at large separations. These findings are inconsistent with traditional accounts of the cycling lateral masking displays in terms of local inhibitory mechanisms.     

Features,as well as space and time,guide object persistence

What role do surface features (e.g., color) play in the establishment and maintenance of episodic representations of objects (object files)? Mitroff and Alvarez (2007) showed that stimuli that were linked by a continuous spatiotemporal history yielded object-specific preview benefits—a standard index of object files—whereas stimuli linked only by shared surface features did not. Here, it is shown that abruptly changing the features of an object that has been established on the basis of spatiotemporal history can disrupt object-specific preview benefits (Experiments 1 and 2). Moreover, under some conditions, feature match alone can give rise to the preview benefits (Experiment 3). These results indicate that surface features, as well as spatiotemporal factors, play an important role in establishing and maintaining episodic object representations.     

Dual pathways to engage in ‘Silent Marches’ against violence: moral outrage,moral cleansing and modes of identification

A survey (N = 120) examined variables that contribute to the willingness of people to engage in silent marches against violence in the Netherlands. As argued in Sacred Value Protection Model (SVPM) of Tetlock, Kristel, Elson, Green, and Lerner ( 2000 ) and moral mandate theory of Skitka, Bauman, and Sargis ( 2005 ), moral threats that are triggered by violent incidents, may indeed drive people to protest against such incidents. Our findings indicated dual pathways to such protests, that are all associated with reactive, angry empathic concerns. These concerns involve people's outrageous, punitive reactions towards offenders on behalf of the victims. These concerns are directly or indirectly related to people's participation intentions. That is, they directly influence the participation intention variable, or indirectly, through (re‐)establishing the belief in a just‐world, or through more fearful, self‐directed moral cleansing reactions. These latter reactions aim at reinforcing community‐shared moral standards. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.