Culture and the distinctiveness motive: constructing identity in individualistic and collectivistic contexts

The motive to attain a distinctive identity is sometimes thought to be stronger in, or even specific to, those socialized into individualistic cultures. Using data from 4,751 participants in 21 cultural groups (18 nations and 3 regions), we tested this prediction against our alternative view that culture would moderate the ways in which people achieve feelings of distinctiveness, rather than influence the strength of their motivation to do so. We measured the distinctiveness motive using an indirect technique to avoid cultural response biases. Analyses showed that the distinctiveness motive was not weaker-and, if anything, was stronger-in more collectivistic nations. However, individualism-collectivism was found to moderate the ways in which feelings of distinctiveness were constructed: Distinctiveness was associated more closely with difference and separateness in more individualistic cultures and was associated more closely with social position in more collectivistic cultures. Multilevel analysis confirmed that it is the prevailing beliefs and values in an individual's context, rather than the individual's own beliefs and values, that account for these differences.     

The protective role of self-determined prejudice regulation in the relationship between intergroup threat and prejudice

Although plenty of evidence supports the link between intergroup threat and prejudice, few intrapersonal moderators of this association have been investigated. One potentially important moderator is the source of motivation underlying prejudice regulation. In Study 1, we examined whether self-determined prejudice regulation reduces the impact of intergroup threat on various outgroup attitude variables (e.g., modern racism, outgroup affect, etc.). Results suggest that being self-determined in one??s motivation to regulate prejudice buffers the impact of intergroup threat on prejudice, whereas regulating prejudice primarily for non-self-determined reasons serves to exacerbate the threat-prejudice effect. In Study 2, a cross-sectional corroboration of this interaction was obtained using structural equation modeling, revealing that the threat-prejudice link differed significantly across groups of prejudice regulators. The role of self-determination in reducing the harmful effects of intergroup threat is discussed, and implications for prejudice reduction and diversity education are identified.     

How to map the affective semantic space of scents

The investigation of the semantic space associated with subjective affective experiences or feelings linked to odour perception has recently emerged. Because of the specificity of the emotional effects of odours, the terms derived from traditional models of emotion are unlikely to optimally account for odour-associated feelings. In this study, sets of terms derived from two traditional models, basic emotions and valence by arousal by dominance dimensional emotions, were compared with a recently elaborated olfaction-specific set of terms (Geneva Emotion and Odour Scale; GEOS). Three main criteria were considered: (1) the feeling's intensity reported in response to odours; (2) the inter-rater agreement concerning the reported feelings; and (3) the power to discriminate feelings evoked by various odorous substances. The evidence strongly suggested that the set of terms proposed by GEOS outperformed the terms derived from the two classical models in measuring the subjective affective experience elicited by odours. These results are interpreted with respect to a good correspondence between the functions of olfaction and the meaning conveyed by GEOS terms.     

Stereotype threat strengthens automatic recall and undermines controlled processes in older adults

The threat of being judged stereotypically (stereotype threat) may impair memory performance in older adults, thereby producing inflated age differences in memory tasks. However, the underlying mechanisms of stereotype threat in older adults or other stigmatized groups remain poorly understood. Here, we offer evidence that stereotype threat consumes working memory resources in older adults. More important, using a process-dissociation procedure, we found, for the first time, that stereotype threat undermines the controlled use of memory and simultaneously intensifies automatic response tendencies. These findings indicate that competing models of stereotype threat are actually compatible and offer further reasons for researchers and practitioners to pay special attention to age-related stereotypes during standardized neuropsychological testing.     

Internet gambling, substance use, and delinquent behavior: an adolescent deviant behavior involvement pattern

Internet gambling among adolescents is a growing phenomenon that has received little attention to date. This study examines associations between Internet gambling and the severity of gambling, substance use (SU), and delinquent behavior among 1,870 Quebec students aged 14 to 18. The results show a higher proportion of Internet-gambling (IG) students reporting problematic substance use and delinquency, compared with nongamblers (NG) and non-Internet gamblers (NIG). Furthermore, a higher proportion of at-risk and probable pathological gamblers are found among IG compared with NIG. A moderating effect (Baron & Kenny, 1986) of the gambler categories (NIG, IG) was found in the relationship between the associated problems and the severity of gambling. Among IG, the severity of delinquency and of substance use contributes to explaining gambling severity whereas, among NIG, the severity of delinquency is the only factor that significantly contributes to such an explanation. Discussion of the results is based on Jessor, Donovan, and Costa's (1991) general deviance syndrome theory.     

Contextual influences in the resolution of ambiguity in anxiety

The effect of contextual information on the resolution of ambiguity was investigated in a group of individuals awaiting dental treatment and a group of control individuals. Participants heard threat/neutral, neutral/neutral and positive/neutral homophones while being simultaneously presented with a context word that was consistent with one of the two meanings of the homophone. Participants then made a lexical decision task on a target word that was one of the two alternate spellings of the homophone. We found that the dental group was more sensitive to context for all types of homophones, and there was no evidence for mood congruency. It also appeared that there might have been an element of mood regulation in the dental group, as they were slower to respond to the emotional targets overall. Our results show that sensitivity to context in state anxiety is a robust phenomenon and one that generalises to naturally occurring anxious moods.     

Efficacy of guided self-help behavioural activation and physical activity for depression: a randomized controlled trial

Behavioural activation and physical activity have received empirical support that highlight their efficacy in reducing depression. Even though both behavioural activation and physical activity share the common goal of reactivating the individual, limited research has directly compared these interventions, and more research is required to evaluate their efficacy when offered in low-intensity formats. The present study involves a randomized controlled clinical trial comparing the efficacy of two guided self-help interventions for the treatment of depression: behavioural activation and physical activity. Fifty-nine participants presenting mild-to-moderate symptoms of depression were randomized either to a behavioural activation intervention (n = 20), a physical activity intervention (n = 19) or a wait-list control group (n = 20). All participants completed symptom measure pre-, mid- and post-intervention, as well as at a two-month follow-up. Mixed-model analyses of variance revealed that both interventions were significantly more efficacious in reducing depressive symptoms in comparison with the control group. Physical activity involved significantly less time-investment compared to the behavioural activation condition (less than half the amount of time). These results indicate that physical activity and behavioural activation both effectively reduce depressive symptoms and are favourably applicable in low-intensity formats. Implications of these results and avenues for future research are discussed.     

Co-occurrence frequency evaluated with large language corpora boosts semantic priming effects

In recent decades, many computational techniques have been developed to analyse the contextual usage of words in large language corpora. The present study examined whether the co-occurrence frequency obtained from large language corpora might boost purely semantic priming effects. Two experiments were conducted: one with conscious semantic priming, the other with subliminal semantic priming. Both experiments contrasted three semantic priming contexts: an unrelated priming context and two related priming contexts with word pairs that are semantically related and that co-occur either frequently or infrequently. In the conscious priming presentation (166-ms stimulus-onset asynchrony, SOA), a semantic priming effect was recorded in both related priming contexts, which was greater with higher co-occurrence frequency. In the subliminal priming presentation (66-ms SOA), no significant priming effect was shown, regardless of the related priming context. These results show that co-occurrence frequency boosts pure semantic priming effects and are discussed with reference to models of semantic network.     

Faces elicit different scanning patterns depending on task demands

Eye movements were recorded while participants discriminated upright and inverted faces that differed with respect to either configural or featural information. Two hypotheses were examined: (1) whether featural and configural information processing elicit different scanning patterns; (2) whether fixations on a specific region of the face dominate scanning patterns. Results from two experiments were compared to examine whether participants’ prior knowledge of the kind of information that would be relevant for the task (i.e., configural vs featural) influences eye movements. In Experiment 1, featural and configural discrimination trials were presented in random order such that participants were unaware of the information that would be relevant on any given trial. In Experiment 2, featural and configural discrimination trials were blocked and participants were informed of the nature of the discriminations. The results of both experiments suggest that faces elicit different scanning patterns depending on task demands. When participants were unaware of the nature of the information relevant for the task at hand, face processing was dominated by attention to the eyes. When participants were aware that relational information was relevant, scanning was dominated by fixations to the center of the face. We conclude that faces elicit scanning strategies that are driven by task demands.