Fostering Diversity in the Creative Arts by Addressing Students' Capacity to Aspire

Research on young people's aspirations and their capacity to aspire to higher education has proliferated in recent decades, however, very little attention has been paid to the creative arts. Diversity in the arts remains a persistent issue in many nations, and repeated attempts to promote diversity in the Australian arts community have had limited impact, suggesting the need for new approaches. Drawing on data from a 4‐year longitudinal study of students from ages 8 to 18 (n = 6,492) in government schools, we examine school students' aspirations for careers in the arts. Arts‐related careers were popular among students, yet we found a distinct lack of diversity among those aspiring to such careers. Using logistic regression analysis we found that being female, high achieving, from an English‐speaking background, possessing high cultural capital, and attending advantaged schools were significant predictors of interest in the arts, suggesting the likely reproduction of existing patterns of participation. We argue that initiatives within schools are essential to disrupting these patterns and building the capacity of a more diverse range of students to aspire to careers in the arts.     

LAME SCIENCE? BLIND RELIGION?

In Consecrating Science, Lisa Sideris argues that an anthropocentric and science‐based cosmology encourages human arrogance and diminishes a sense of wonder in human experience immersed in the natural world, as found in diverse cultural and religious traditions. I agree with her that science elevated to a commanding worldview, scientism, is a common and contemporary mistake, to be deplored, a lame science. But I further argue that science has introduced us to the marvels of deep nature and vastly increased our human appreciation of nature as a wonderland at levels great and small. Sideris is right to fear consecrating science. She—and the humanists, sages, and saviors—need also to fear blindness to what science has to teach us about cosmogenesis and wonderland Earth.     

Envisioning college success: the role of student identity centrality

This paper examines the recently developed construct of student identity centrality, which describes the importance of being a student to a person’s sense of self. The present study uses multiple college student surveys and institutional data to expand upon initial work in several ways. First, it shows that this construct is measured reliably using a single three-item scale. Second, it employs measurement invariance analyses, which indicate that this scale is valid for examining and comparing different groups of students. Third, it provides evidence for convergent and divergent validity through exploring relationships between student identity centrality and relevant psychological and experiential constructs. Fourth, even when controlling for demographics, prior academic achievement, stereotype threat, and grit, it finds that student identity is positively and significantly associated with college credits earned; grades in science, technology, engineering and mathematics coursework; academic confidence; college sense of belonging; and subjective well-being. Implications for future research, assessment, and higher education practice are discussed.

     

The integration of social influence and reward: Computational approaches and neural evidence

Decades of research have established that decision-making is dramatically impacted by both the rewards an individual receives and the behavior of others. How do these distinct influences exert their influence on an individual’s actions, and can the resulting behavior be effectively captured in a computational model? To address this question, we employed a novel spatial foraging game in which groups of three participants sought to find the most rewarding location in an unfamiliar two-dimensional space. As the game transitioned from one block to the next, the availability of information regarding other group members was varied systematically, revealing the relative impacts of feedback from the environment and information from other group members on individual decision-making. Both reward-based and socially-based sources of information exerted a significant influence on behavior, and a computational model incorporating these effects was able to recapitulate several key trends in the behavioral data. In addition, our findings suggest how these sources were processed and combined during decision-making. Analysis of reaction time, location of gaze, and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data indicated that these distinct sources of information were integrated simultaneously for each decision, rather than exerting their influence in a separate, all-or-none fashion across separate subsets of trials. These findings add to our understanding of how the separate influences of reward from the environment and information derived from other social agents are combined to produce decisions.     

Divorce Stress,Stepfamily Stress,and Depression among Emerging Adult Stepchildren

Several decades of research have shown that parental divorce can be a stressful experience for children and may lead to depression and other negative outcomes. Similarly, research has highlighted the stressors often induced by stepfamily formation and their effects on children. Although singular family transitions can exert influence, few studies explore how the combined stress from two family transitions may interact to influence long-term outcomes. Our study addresses this gap by using national data from 1142 respondents who experienced parental divorce and a subsequent transition to stepfamily life. Congruent with prior research, we find that retrospective reports of divorce and stepfamily stress is associated with higher depressive symptoms in emerging adults (18–30 years of age). We also find that stress induced by parental divorce and subsequent stepfamily formation significantly interact to increase depressive symptoms in this population. The research and clinical implications of our findings are discussed.     

A Structural Equation Model for the School Reinforcement Survey Schedule: Italian and American Early Adolescents

The School Reinforcement Survey Schedule (SRSS) was administered to 2,828 boys and girls in middle schools in the United States and an Italian translation was administered to 342 boys and girls in middle schools in Northern Italy. An exploratory factor analysis using half the American data set was performed using maximum likelihood estimation with a promax rotation. This analysis produced a structural equation model with six interpretable latent variables. This analysis was confirmed by results demonstrating a good fit with the other half of the American sample and separately with the Italian sample. Scores for the six latent variables were constructed and information about the distribution of scores was obtained. Multiple comparisons of the means were performed by gender, within each national sample, for each of the six latent variables. American and Italian girls report obtaining greater enjoyment from a wider variety of school activities compared to American and Italian boys.     

The modification of attentional bias to emotional information: A review of the techniques,mechanisms, and relevance to emotional disorders

A negative bias in the deployment of attention to emotional stimuli is commonly found in both anxiety and depression. Recent work has highlighted that such biases are causally related to emotional vulnerability, suggesting that interventions that ameliorate them may be therapeutic. Here, we review the evidence that attentional bias can be modified using both pharmacological and psychological interventions. We highlight the behavioral and neuroimaging studies that suggest that these interventions impact upon attention via alteration of distinct neural mechanisms. Specifically, pharmacological interventions appear to influence the initial deployment of attention via an effect on the amygdala-based stimulus appraisal system, whereas psychological interventions influence attention at later time points and may alter activity in the lateral prefrontal cortex. Finally, we suggest a conceptual framework that embraces both pharmacological and psychological approaches and consider the possible implications of this work for future research and treatment development.