Early executive functioning in a global context: Developmental continuity and family protective factors

This study extends the methodological and theoretical understanding of executive functions (EFs) in preschoolers from low‐ and middle‐income countries (LMIC). First, the authors describe a rigorous process of adapting and evaluating six EF tasks to produce a culturally and developmentally appropriate measure of emerging EFs in a large sample of at‐risk children in rural Pakistan. Next, the authors identify critical developmental and family factors that relate to preschoolers’ EFs over the first 4 years of life. Direct assessment of children's general cognitive skills at age two showed developmental continuity with EFs at age four, and these early cognitive skills mediated the effect of an antecedent parenting intervention on EFs as well as associations of targeted individual and family factors with EFs. Furthermore, directly assessed maternal cognitive capacities and observed maternal scaffolding uniquely predicted EFs in preschoolers. This study is also the first to demonstrate a significant overlap between direct assessments of IQ and EFs in young children from LMIC. Children's general intelligence mediated the associations of EFs with antecedent physical growth and cognitive skills as well as concurrent family factors (maternal verbal intelligence, maternal scaffolding, and home stimulation). After controlling for shared variance between preschoolers’ general intelligence and EFs, three factors emerged as unique predictors of EFs: exposure to an early parenting intervention, physical growth status at age two, and number of older siblings. The findings have important implications for the design of interventions that aim to improve EFs in young children in LMIC. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at https://vimeo.com/316329544/5abde94cd7     

Body Shame and Disordered Eating in Adolescents

This study aimed to examine the predictive utility of body shame on eating behaviors in adolescents, while controlling for age, sex and body mass index (BMI). Participants were 400 Croatian adolescent girls and boys who completed self-report questionnaires assessing body shame and eating behaviors. Results showed that the mean eating behaviors score and the mean body shame score were significantly higher in females compared to males. Body shame explained statistically significant amount of eating behaviors variance after controlling for age, sex and BMI. Participants’ age and BMI did not play a role as significant predictors of eating behaviors. Implications for future research, including the importance of prospective longitudinal designs, are discussed.     

Trait affect and job search outcomes

The present study examines the role of trait affect in job search. One hundred and twenty-three university students completed measures of positive and negative affectivity, conscientiousness, job search self-efficacy, job search clarity, and job search intensity during their last year of school while on the job market. At the end of the school year, participants completed the measure of job search intensity again, and indicated the number of interviews and offers they had received and whether they had accepted a full-time job. As hypothesized, positive affectivity predicted job search clarity over and above conscientiousness and job search self-efficacy. Job search clarity mediated relationships between positive affectivity and job search intensity and between job search self-efficacy and job search intensity. Negative affectivity, however, did not predict job search clarity. Job search clarity predicted job search intensity, which led to interviews, offers, and employment. The results suggest that job seekers high in positive affectivity find a job because they achieve job search clarity and, in turn, look for a job intensely.     

Religiousness as a Protective Factor for Substance Use in Dance Sport

Although religiousness is found to be a significant protective factor in substance use, there is an evidential lack of studies of such in athletes. The aim of the study was to identify the predictive value of the religiousness and some social, educational, and sport factors on substance use in 43 sport dancers. An originally developed questionnaire for studying substance use and precipitation factors was applied. The Chi-square showed male dancers as more religious than females. Using the Spearman’s correlation, religiousness was found to be a significant protective factor in cigarette smoking, sport nutritional supplementation, and the likelihood of doping. Data were interpreted emphasizing the previous findings from the literature.     

Can We Consider Religiousness as a Protective Factor Against Doping Behavior in Sport?

Religiousness is rarely studied in relation to doping behaviors in sport. In this study, we sampled 27 weightlifting/powerlifting athletes from Bosnia and Herzegovina. Using the originally developed questionnaire and by means of Spearman’s correlation, we interpreted data and discussed relationships between (a) social, religious, sport, and educational factors, and (b) substance use criteria, including cigarettes, alcohol, analgesics, nutritional supplementation, and doping behaviors. In conclusion, we found (1) that religiousness can be considered as a potential protective factor against doping, but also (2) that religious subjects tend to deny and underestimate the doping behaviors in their sport. Both of these findings should be extensively studied in future investigations.     

Attentional effects of counterpredictive gaze and arrow cues

The authors used counterpredictive cues to examine reflexive and volitional orienting to eyes and arrows. Experiment 1 investigated the effects of eyes with a novel design that allowed for a comparison of gazed-at (cued) target locations and likely (predicted) target locations against baseline locations that were not cued and not predicted. Attention shifted reflexively to the cued location and volitionally to the predicted location, and these 2 forms of orienting overlapped in time. Experiment 2 discovered that another well-learned directional stimulus, an arrow, produced a different effect: Attention was shifted only volitionally to the predicted location. The authors suggest that because there is a neural architecture specialized for processing eyes, gaze-triggered attention is more strongly reflexive than orienting to arrows.     

Power,identity, and belonging: A mixed-methods study of the processes shaping perceptions of EU integration in a prospective member state

What is at stake, psychologically, when a nation considers joining a supranational body such as the European Union? This article addresses this question from the perspective of power, identity, and belonging vis-à-vis superordinate groups. Taking a mixed-methods approach, using focus group (N = 67) and survey (N = 1,192) data, we explore the psychosocial dynamics that shape perceptions of European Union (EU) integration in a prospective member state, Serbia. Findings from the qualitative study highlighted the role of power imbalances in triggering concerns of compatibility in the present, and in shaping the expected consequences for national identity continuity in an EU future. The survey functioned to explore these relationships further, enabling the testing of two moderated mediation models. The first showed that perceptions of national powerlessness predicted lower perceptions that Serbia was representative of Europe, and this was associated with weaker identification as European. In the second model, perceptions of the EU as a hierarchy-enhancing union predicted heightened fears of Serbian identity discontinuity in an EU future, which in turn had downstream consequences for support for working toward EU accession. Both indirect pathways were stronger among high national identifiers, yielding insight into when national and supranational identification can work in harmony. This mixed-methods study sheds light on the importance of social psychological processes concerning hierarchy and groups in understanding citizens’ attitudes toward prospective large-scale political change.     

A key role for experimental task performance: effects of math talent, gender and performance on the neural correlates of mental rotation

The neurophysiological mechanisms underlying superior cognitive performance are a research area of high interest. The majority of studies on the brain-performance relationship assessed the effects of capability-related group factors (e.g. talent, gender) on task-related brain activations while only few studies examined the effect of the inherent experimental task performance factor. In this functional MRI study, we combined both approaches and simultaneously assessed the effects of three relatively independent factors on the neurofunctional correlates of mental rotation in same-aged adolescents: math talent (gifted/controls: 17/17), gender (male/female: 16/18) and experimental task performance (median split on accuracy; high/low: 17/17). Better experimental task performance of mathematically gifted vs. control subjects and male vs. female subjects validated the selected paradigm. Activation of the inferior parietal lobule (IPL) was identified as a common effect of mathematical giftedness, gender and experimental task performance. However, multiple linear regression analyses (stepwise) indicated experimental task performance as the only predictor of parietal activations. In conclusion, increased activation of the IPL represents a positive neural correlate of mental rotation performance, irrespective of but consistent with the obtained neurocognitive and behavioral effects of math talent and gender. As experimental performance may strongly affect task-related activations this factor needs to be considered in capability-related group comparison studies on the brain-performance relationship.