Linking sounds to meanings: Infant statistical learning in a natural language

The processes of infant word segmentation and infant word learning have largely been studied separately. However, the ease with which potential word forms are segmented from fluent speech seems likely to influence subsequent mappings between words and their referents. To explore this process, we tested the link between the statistical coherence of sequences presented in fluent speech and infants’ subsequent use of those sequences as labels for novel objects. Notably, the materials were drawn from a natural language unfamiliar to the infants (Italian). The results of three experiments suggest that there is a close relationship between the statistics of the speech stream and subsequent mapping of labels to referents. Mapping was facilitated when the labels contained high transitional probabilities in the forward and/or backward direction (Experiment 1). When no transitional probability information was available (Experiment 2), or when the internal transitional probabilities of the labels were low in both directions (Experiment 3), infants failed to link the labels to their referents. Word learning appears to be strongly influenced by infants’ prior experience with the distribution of sounds that make up words in natural languages.     

All Together Now: Concurrent Learning of Multiple Structures in an Artificial Language

Natural languages contain many layers of sequential structure, from the distribution of phonemes within words to the distribution of phrases within utterances. However, most research modeling language acquisition using artificial languages has focused on only one type of distributional structure at a time. In two experiments, we investigated adult learning of an artificial language that contains dependencies between both adjacent and non‐adjacent words. We found that learners rapidly acquired both types of regularities and that the strength of the adjacent statistics influenced learning of both adjacent and non‐adjacent dependencies. Additionally, though accuracy was similar for both types of structure, participants’ knowledge of the deterministic non‐adjacent dependencies was more explicit than their knowledge of the probabilistic adjacent dependencies. The results are discussed in the context of current theories of statistical learning and language acquisition.     

Evaluation is a Dynamic Process: Moving Beyond Dual System Models

Over the past few decades, dual attitude/process/system models have emerged as the dominant framework for understanding a wide range of psychological phenomena. Most of these models characterize the unconscious and conscious mind as being built from discrete processes or systems: one that is reflexive, automatic, fast, affective, associative, and primitive, and a second that is deliberative, controlled, slow, cognitive, propositional, and more uniquely human. Although these models serve as a useful heuristic for characterizing the human mind, recent developments in social and cognitive neuroscience suggest that the human evaluative system, like most of cognition, is widely distributed and highly dynamic. Integrating these advances with current attitude theories, we review how the recently proposed Iterative Reprocessing Model can account for apparent dual systems as well as discrepancies between traditional dual system models and recent research revealing the dynamic nature of evaluation. Furthermore, we describe important implications this dynamical system approach has for various social psychological domains.     

Happy Like a Fish in Water? The Role of Personality–Situation Fit for Momentary Happiness in Social Interactions across the Adult Lifespan

Growing research on personality–relationship dynamics demonstrates that people's personality and their (enjoyment of) social relationships are closely intertwined. Using experience sampling data from 136 adults (aged 18–89 years) who reported on more than 50 000 social interactions, we zoom into everyday real‐world social interactions to examine how Big Five personality traits and social context characteristics shape people's happiness in social encounters across the adult lifespan. Results revealed that interactions that were social (vs. task‐oriented) and with close (vs. less close) others were associated with higher momentary happiness as were higher levels of the target person's extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness, and lower neuroticism. Of the 10 personality × situation interactions tested, only one reached significance (with p = .041): Individuals with higher levels of neuroticism benefitted more from interactions with friends than did individuals low in neuroticism. The role of social context characteristics for momentary happiness changed with age, but the role of personality or personality × social context did not, suggesting that personality effects on happiness in social context manifest in similar ways across the adult lifespan. We discuss implications for personality–situation research and the understanding of affective dynamics in everyday social interactions. © 2019 European Association of Personality Psychology     

Resilience and career adaptability: Qualitative studies of adult career counseling

Global economic recession is exerting extreme pressures not only on individuals attempting to move into and through labor markets, but also on those providing support for such transitions. Resilience and career adaptability are increasingly relevant, yet despite being present in the literature for some time, these concepts have been under-represented in the vocational psychology literature. This article represents a contribution to redressing this balance by focusing on their potential to make positive contributions both to clients of career counseling and to practitioners delivering these services. Drawing on data from four qualitative studies conducted in England, Norway and the Republic of Ireland from 2003 to 2012, these concepts are examined, together with their complementarity for career counseling practice. The article also discusses the role, status and conduct of qualitative research as well as the importance of the researcher/participant relationship in qualitative research investigations.     

Multiple imitation mechanisms in children

Four studies using a computerized paradigm investigated whether children's imitation performance is content-specific and to what extent dependent on other cognitive processes such as trial-and-error learning, recall, and observational learning. Experiment 1 showed that 3-year-olds could successfully imitate what we call novel cognitive rules (e.g., first → second → third), which involved responding to 3 different pictures whose spatial configuration varied randomly from trial to trial. However, these same children failed to imitate what we call novel motor-spatial rules (e.g., up → down → right), which involved responding to 3 identical pictures that remained in a fixed spatial configuration from trial to trial. Experiment 2 showed that this dissociation was not due to a general difficulty in encoding motor-spatial content, as children successfully recalled, following a 30-s delay, a new motor-spatial sequence that had been learned by trial and error. Experiment 3 replicated these results and further demonstrated that 3-year-olds can infer a novel motor-spatial sequence following observation of a partially correct and partially incorrect response-a dissociation between imitation and observational learning (or emulation learning). Finally, Experiment 4 presented 3-year-olds with "familiar" motor-spatial sequences that involved making a linear response (e.g., left → middle → right) as well as "novel" motor-spatial sequences (e.g., right → up → down) used in Experiments 1-3 that were nonlinear and always involved a change in direction. Children had no difficulty imitating familiar motor-spatial sequences but again failed to imitate novel motor-spatial sequences. These results suggest that there may be multiple, dissociable imitation learning mechanisms that are content-specific. More importantly, the development of these imitation systems appears to be independent of the operations of other cognitive systems, including trial and error learning, recall, and observational learning.     

Cultural regulatory fit and strategies for coping with unsuccessful outcomes

The present research seeks to explain cross‐cultural differences in two strategies for coping with unsuccessful outcomes (consideration of multiple options and persistence) through regulatory fit, a development of the self‐regulation theory. We propose that, because of regulatory fit, eager consideration of multiple options is more encouraged in promotion‐focused cultures, whereas vigilant persistence is more encouraged in prevention‐focused cultures (a culture‐strategy regulatory fit). In addition, if an incentive is introduced to motivate the use of these strategies, a gain‐framed incentive is more effective in promotion‐focused cultures whereas a loss‐framed incentive is more effective in prevention‐focused cultures (a culture‐incentive regulatory fit). The hypotheses for the culture‐strategy fit (Study 1) and the culture‐incentive fit (Study 2) were both supported, with samples of Israeli Jews, Israeli Arabs (in both studies), and Hong Kong Chinese (in Study 1). Taken together, the findings contribute to the understanding of cross‐cultural differences in coping with unsuccessful outcomes and suggest the existence of cultural regulatory fit. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

See your friends close and your enemies closer: social identity and identity threat shape the representation of physical distance

Three studies demonstrated that collective identity and identity threat shape representations of the physical world. In Study 1, New York Yankees fans estimated Fenway Park, the stadium of a threatening out-group (but not Camden Yards, the stadium of a neutral out-group) to be closer than did non-Yankees fans. In Study 2, the authors manipulated identity threat among people affiliated (or not) with New York University (NYU). When Columbia University was portrayed as threatening to NYU, NYU affiliates estimated Columbia as closer than did non-affiliates, compared with when Columbia was nonthreatening. In Study 3, Americans who perceived more symbolic threats from Mexican immigration estimated Mexico City as closer. Collective identification with the in-group moderated effects of threat on distance estimations. These studies suggest that social categorization, collective identification, and identity threat work in concert to shape the representations of the physical world.     

The six types of nonbelief: a qualitative and quantitative study of type and narrative

Extensive research has been conducted in exploration of the American religious landscape; however, only recently has social science research started to explore nonbelief in any detail. Research on nonbelief has been limited as most research focuses on the popularity of the religious “nones” or the complexities of alternative faith expressions such as spirituality. Through two studies, one qualitative and one quantitative, this research explored how nonbelievers’ self-identify. Study 1 (the qualitative study) discovered that individuals have shared definitional agreement but use different words to describe different types of nonbelief. Through thematic coding, a typology of six different types of nonbelief was observed. Those are Academic Atheists, Activist Atheist/Agnostics, Seeker Agnostics, Antitheists, Non-Theists, and the Ritual Atheists. Study 2 explored the empirical aspects of these types related to the Big Five Domain, Ryff Psychological Well-Being, Narcissistic Personality Inventory, Multidimensional Anger Inventory, Rokeach Dogmatism Scale, and intersections related to religious and spiritual ontology.