Positive psychology and adolescent mental health: false promise or true breakthrough?

The emerging field of positive psychology has pledged to improve the mental health of American adolescents. Yet, without a principle-based conceptual foundation to guide its study of optimal youth functioning, positive psychology will ultimately fail to keep its promise. This paper suggests that the principles of Mind, Thought and Consciousness can provide positive psychology with a clearer understanding of optimal psychological functioning, serve as a unifying conceptual framework to guide its proposed mission, and lead to a true breakthrough in adolescent mental health. It first describes how the logic of these principles accounts for all subjective human experience. It then demonstrates how optimal mental health is generated, and how it can be maintained irrespective of present or past circumstances. Finally, it discusses how several contemporary models of positive psychology (i.e., Csikszentmihalyi's flow. Seligman's learned optimism, Goleman's emotional intelligence, and Buss's evolutionary perspective) can be simplified and clarified using the logic of the above three principles.     

Behavioral momentum in sports: a partial replication with women's basketball

Previous research has applied the behavioral momentum metaphor to men's college basketball. In the current investigation, the relative rate of reinforcement prior to and following adversities (e.g., turnovers, fouls) and periods of time-out were examined in a subset of women's college basketball games.     

Coping sense of humor reduces effects of stereotype threat on women's math performance

Two studies demonstrated that coping sense of humor buffered women against the effects of stereotype threat on math performance. Using a correlational design, Study 1 demonstrated that women low in coping sense of humor assessed their performance on standardized math tests lower than did men and lower than did women high in coping sense of humor. Using an experimental design, Study 2 showed that coping sense of humor was positively related to women's performance on a math test taken under conditions of stereotype threat but not under conditions of no stereotype threat. Mediation analyses suggest that in the stereotype-threat condition, state anxiety mediated the relationship between coping sense of humor and test performance. Women higher in coping sense of humor performed better because they felt less anxiety while taking the test.     

Long-term memory for instrumental responses does not undergo protein synthesis-dependent reconsolidation upon retrieval

Recent evidence indicates that certain forms of memory, upon recall, may return to a labile state requiring the synthesis of new proteins in order to preserve or reconsolidate the original memory trace. While the initial consolidation of "instrumental memories" has been shown to require de novo protein synthesis in the nucleus accumbens, it is not known whether memories of this type undergo protein synthesis-dependent reconsolidation. Here we show that low doses of the protein synthesis inhibitor anisomycin (ANI; 5 or 20 mg/kg) administered systemically in rats immediately after recall of a lever-pressing task potently impaired performance on the following daily test sessions. We determined that the nature of this impairment was attributable to conditioned taste aversion (CTA) to the sugar reinforcer used in the task rather than to mnemonic or motoric impairments. However, by substituting a novel flavored reinforcer (chocolate pellets) prior to the administration of doses of ANI (150 or 210 mg/kg) previously shown to cause amnesia, a strong CTA to chocolate was induced sparing any aversion to sugar. Importantly, when sugar was reintroduced on the following session, we found that memory for the task was not significantly affected by ANI. Thus, these data suggest that memory for a well-learned instrumental response does not require protein synthesis-dependent reconsolidation as a means of long-term maintenance.     

Reactive personality-environment transactions and adult developmental trajectories

The possibility, which is based on the concept of reactive personality-environment transactions, that individuals learn different things from the same experience as a function of personality differences may help explain individual differences in adult developmental trajectories. In an analogue, longitudinal design, business students were taught about stock market investing, and they engaged in 5 practice investment sessions. Although all participants earned the same returns on their investments, they varied in the expectancies they formed about stock investing as a function of their personality status. As anticipated, behavioral inhibition (heightened sensitivity to punishment) facilitated formation of negative investing expectancies and antagonized formation of positive investing expectancies, and behavioral activation (heightened sensitivity to reward) facilitated formation of positive investing expectancies and antagonized formation of negative investing expectancies. Differential learning in a task that approximated skill acquisition for a developmental transition implies that personality may help shape individual developmental trajectories in the adult years.     

Sensation seeking, aggression, and reckless behavior in high school students, college students, and adults

Replicating work of Arnett, males reported more frequent Reckless Behavior than females, and 27 high school and 48 college students did not differ in scores on Sensation Seeking or Aggression. As anticipated by Arnett, the 35 adults had significantly lower Sensation Seeking and Aggression scores than the two younger groups and less Reckless Behavior as well. In contrast to Arnett, Reckless Behavior did not rise for college students, and Sensation Seeking, but not Aggression, correlated with Reckless Behavior in all samples.     

Repeated questioning for order of events: disparate effects following logical versus random presentation

In the present study, 72 college-age participants from an introductory psychology course viewed a series of 20 pictures depicting events surrounding a routine activity, i.e., eating at a cafeteria; these pictures were presented either in a logical order. e.g., enter cafeteria, pick up tray, stand in line, and select food, or in a random order. Three successive tests of free reconstruction of order indicated disparate effects of these conditions; random presentation produced significant forgetting of order information across tests, whereas logical presentation produced no change in performance across tests. Whereas randomly presented stimuli produced both reliable intertest recovery (reminiscence) and forgetting, neither result was observed following logical presentation. The implications of these data for eyewitness testimony for general theories of hypermnesia are discussed.     

Use of the high-probability instructional sequence and escape extinction in a child with food refusal

We used the high-probability (high-p) instructional sequence with and without escape extinction in the treatment of food refusal. Acceptance increased and refusal decreased only with the introduction of escape extinction. These results raise important questions about the high-p sequence in the treatment of food refusal.     

Sample size for multiple regression: obtaining regression coefficients that are accurate, not simply significant

An approach to sample size planning for multiple regression is presented that emphasizes accuracy in parameter estimation (AIPE). The AIPE approach yields precise estimates of population parameters by providing necessary sample sizes in order for the likely widths of confidence intervals to be sufficiently narrow. One AIPE method yields a sample size such that the expected width of the confidence interval around the standardized population regression coefficient is equal to the width specified. An enhanced formulation ensures, with some stipulated probability, that the width of the confidence interval will be no larger than the width specified. Issues involving standardized regression coefficients and random predictors are discussed, as are the philosophical differences between AIPE and the power analytic approaches to sample size planning.     

Sample size planning for the standardized mean difference: accuracy in parameter estimation via narrow confidence intervals

Methods for planning sample size (SS) for the standardized mean difference so that a narrow confidence interval (CI) can be obtained via the accuracy in parameter estimation (AIPE) approach are developed. One method plans SS so that the expected width of the CI is sufficiently narrow. A modification adjusts the SS so that the obtained CI is no wider than desired with some specified degree of certainty (e.g., 99% certain the 95% CI will be no wider than omega). The rationale of the AIPE approach to SS planning is given, as is a discussion of the analytic approach to CI formation for the population standardized mean difference. Tables with values of necessary SS are provided. The freely available Methods for the Behavioral, Educational, and Social Sciences (K. Kelley, 2006a) R (R Development Core Team, 2006) software package easily implements the methods discussed.