High Trait Cheerfulness Individuals are More Sensitive to the Emotional Environment

The aim of this paper was to study whether trait cheerfulness modulates changes in state cheerfulness as a result of exposing participants to affective stimuli. Two studies with a within-participant experimental design were carried out. Forty-eight (33 women) and sixty-four (45 women) undergraduate psychology students were selected as Sample 1 and Sample 2, respectively, for scoring high or low on the Trait Form of the State-Trait-Cheerfulness Inventory (STCI-T; Ruch et al. in Humor Int J Humor Res 9:303–339, 1996; Ruch et al. in Personal Individ Differ 22:477–491, 1997). Participants watched amusing, neutral, and sad film clips and reported their affective states before and after viewing them. In the second study, heart rate and skin conductance level were also recorded. Results showed that people with high trait cheerfulness reported greater changes in state cheerfulness when exposed to both amusing and sad film clips, showing larger increases and decreases in state cheerfulness, respectively, than participants with low trait cheerfulness. Effects were not mediated by social desirability. Furthermore, people with low trait cheerfulness showed a greater heart rate deceleration during the visioning of the clips compared to high trait cheerfulness participants, especially in an amusing scene with high emotional load. No modulation on trait cheerfulness was found for skin conductance level. Data with self-report and electrophysiological measures are discussed, highlighting that high trait cheerfulness people are more permeable to affective events, perhaps showing a better understanding and management of them.     

The Nurturing Program: An Intervention for Parents of Children with Special Needs

Evidence-based psychosocial family interventions enhancing empathy and empowerment are particularly beneficial to families of children who have developmental disabilities. This study assessed the effectiveness of an intervention called the Nurturing Program for Parents and Their Children with Special Needs and Health Challenges (SNHC). Eighty-seven families were enrolled and randomly assigned to a control or treatment group. Forty-six families in the control group received individualized case management (CM) services and forty-one families in the treatment group were assigned to 12 sessions of the SNHC curriculum along with case management services. Before and after the intervention, participants in both conditions completed the Adult and Adolescent Parenting Index-2 assessing parents’ attitudes toward child rearing and the Family Empowerment Scale (FES) measuring family empowerment. Caregivers in the intervention condition improved in empathy towards children’s needs, F(1, 54)?=?4.52, p?=?.04; and all families, both control group and treatment group, improved their attitudes towards the use of corporal punishment by posttest, F(1, 54)?=?6.56, p?=?.013. Also, all caregivers increased in their empowerment over the course of the intervention, F(1, 50)?=?13.28, p?=?.001. Attrition, 22–26% among CM and 51–56% among SNHC+CM, limited generalizability as did participants not completing all SNHC sessions. Despite these limitations, findings suggest that early interventions catering to families of children with developmental disabilities have a positive impact on parenting. To varying degrees, both conditions provided caregivers with tools that positively affected the quality of the parent–child relationships and promoted empowerment.     

When procedural fairness does not influence how positive I feel: the effects of voice and leader selection as a function of belongingness need

The present research examined the effect of receiving voice or not on positive affect as a function of how the enacting authority was selected and the extent to which people experienced strong belongingness needs. Participants were asked to generate ideas with respect to an electronic portfolio. Their opinions were then evaluated by a group leader who was either appointed by the experimenter, elected by the group and who reflected the participant's own choice, or elected by the group but who did not reflect the participant's own choice. This group leader then gave participants the opportunity to voice their ideas or not. Participants reported positive affect did not vary as a function of receiving voice or not when the enacting leader was elected and did not reflect the participant's own choice. The voice effect on positive affect did, however, appear in the other two leadership selection conditions. Further, this pattern was found only among those with a strong need to belong. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Hypocrites or maligned cooperative participants? Experimenter induced normative conflict in zero-sum situations

The failure to recognize the influence of two distinct forms of moral norms can lead to the misattribution of moral behavior to egoistic motives. This is illustrated in the research of Batson and his colleagues (e.g., Batson, Kobrynowicz, Dinnerstein, Kampf, & Wilson, 1997). They reported the appearance of moral failure and hypocrisy motivation in several experiments employing essentially the same “zero-sum” experimental situation. They cited as evidence the discrepancy between participants’ apparently self-serving private acts and their subsequent public ratings of the morality of what they had done as well as their recognition of the “most” moral way to behave. The research reported here supported an alternative explanation that located the experimenter’s implicit and explicit instructions as the source of the discrepancy between the participants’ private acts and their public ratings. The findings confirmed the hypothesis that Batson and his colleagues had not merely made moral norms “salient”. They had actually presented their participants with contradictory “demands”: explicitly inviting them to meet the norm of justified self-interest in private but then give public lip-service to the experimenter’s instructions as to a supererogatory way to behave. When either of the demands was removed, the “hypocrisy” no longer occurred.     

Web‐based stimulus preference assessment and reinforcer assessment for videos

This study replicated and extended the use of a web‐based multiple‐stimulus‐without‐replacement preference assessment (Curiel, Curiel, Li, Deochand, & Poling, 2018) by adding a web‐based single‐operant reinforcer assessment. Five adults diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder participated in this study. The web‐based program identified preference hierarchies for 4 of the 5 participants, and the single‐operant reinforcer assessment confirmed that the highly preferred videos functioned as reinforcers. Advantages of computer‐based stimulus preference and reinforcer assessments are discussed.     

Testing the General Theory of Crime with the Circumplex Model: Curvilinear Relations between Family Functioning and Self-Control

ABSTRACT

The relation between family and low self-control is usually studied within linear hypotheses. In this study, we intended to test the familial origin of self-control under a curvilinear hypothesis. This is a cross-sectional study, with a sample of 448 adolescents and young adults. Data analysis was based on correlation and regression-based statistics. Results revealed linear associations between family functioning and juvenile deviant behavior, contrary to self-control which presented curvilinear relations with family cohesion and flexibility (i.e. both high and low extreme levels were associated with low self-control). This finding suggests a new approach to the familial origin of low self-control.     

A randomised trial of the effect of appearance versus health-framed messages on engagement with an online brief screening and alcohol reduction intervention

Objectives: To compare the impact of appearance versus health-framed messages on engagement in a brief web-based risk screening and alcohol reduction intervention.

Design: Randomised trial delivered via Drinkaware’s website. Visitors were exposed to appearance (n?=?51,588) or health-framed messages (n?=?52,639) directing them towards an AUDIT-C risk screening questionnaire. Users completing this questionnaire were given feedback on their risk level and extended frame-congruent information.

Outcomes: The primary outcome is completion of the AUDIT-C questionnaire. The secondary outcome is whether the participant accessed any of four further resources.

Results: The appearance-framed message led to a small but significant increase in the number of users completing the AUDIT-C compared to the health-framed message (n?=?3,537, 6.86% versus n?=?3,355, 6.37%, p?<?0.01). Conversely, following subsequent risk feedback, users exposed to extended health-framed information were more likely to access further resources (n?=?1,146, 2.17% versus n?=?942, 1.83%, p?<?0.01).

Conclusions: Physical appearance-framed messages increased the likelihood of engagement with an online alcohol screening and brief intervention tool, whereas health-framed messages increased the likelihood of accessing further resources. This highlights the potential for the use of multi-level approaches in alcohol reduction interventions.