Is death really the worm at the core? Converging evidence that worldview threat increases death-thought accessibility

According to terror management theory, if the cultural worldview protects people from thoughts about death, then weakening this structure should increase death-thought accessibility (DTA). Five studies tested this DTA hypothesis. Study 1 showed that threatening Canadian participants' cultural values (vs. those of another culture) increased DTA on a word-fragment completion task. Study 2 showed that when participants could dismiss the threat, DTA remained low. Study 3 replicated the results of Study 1, but DTA was measured using a lexical decision task. Response latencies to death, negative, and neutral content were measured. Worldview threat increased DTA relative to accessibility for negative and neutral content. Study 4 showed that the DTA effect emerged independently of the arousal of anger or anxiety. Finally, Study 5 demonstrated that participants with a pro-creation (vs. pro-evolution) worldview had higher DTA after reading an anti-creation article. Discussion focused on theoretical implications and directions for further research.     

The eureka error: inadvertent plagiarism by misattributions of effort

The authors found that the feeling of authorship for mental actions such as solving problems is enhanced by effort cues experienced during mental activity; misattribution of effort cues resulted in inadvertent plagiarism. Pairs of participants took turns solving anagrams as they exerted effort on an unrelated task. People inadvertently plagiarized their partners' answers more often when they experienced high incidental effort while working on the problem and reduced effort as the solution appeared. This result was found for efforts produced when participants squeezed a handgrip during the task (Experiment 1) or when the anagram was displayed in a font that was difficult to read (Experiments 2, 3a, and 3b). Plagiarism declined, however, when participants attended to the source of the effort cues (Experiments 3a and 3b). These results suggest that effort misattribution can influence authorship processing for mental activities.     

A comparative test of work-family conflict models and critical examination of work-family linkages

This paper is a comprehensive meta-analysis of over 20 years of work-family conflict research. A series of path analyses were conducted to compare and contrast existing work-family conflict models, as well as a new model we developed which integrates and synthesizes current work-family theory and research. This new model accounted for 40% of the variance in job satisfaction, 38% of the variance in family satisfaction, and 35% of the variance in life satisfaction. In a critical examination of work-family linkages, a series of analyses excluding work-family conflict constructs and pathways resulted in a well-fitting and more parsimonious model that still accounted for 39% of the variance in job satisfaction, 37% of the variance in family satisfaction, and 33% of the variance in life satisfaction. Results indicate that direct effects drive work-family conflict models while indirect effects provide little incremental explanation in regards to satisfaction outcomes.     

Does prior exposure to interpersonal violence increase risk of PTSD following subsequent exposure?

Research has generally found a “dose relationship” between potentially traumatic events (PTEs) and the likelihood of developing PTSD, with greater number of events associated with greater likelihood. Most of these studies have been cross-sectional, however. A recent prospective study (Breslau, Peterson, & Schultz, 2008) found that PTSD response to prior potentially traumatic event (PTE) exposure, rather than prior exposure itself, acts as a risk factor for PTSD in response to subsequent PTE; however, this analysis combined many different types of events, and the unique contribution of specific events (e.g., assault) that may be associated with differential risk of PTSD was indeterminable. The present study examined the effects of cumulative PTE exposure prospectively using a two-wave design in the National Survey of Adolescents (N = 1703). History of assault and witnessing serious violence were the focal PTEs examined. Wave I assault without PTSD was found to predict PTSD at Wave II following exposure to new assault or witnessed violence; however, among those without prior PTSD, Wave I witnessed violence did not increase risk of subsequent PTSD following exposure.     

Virtual Virgins and Vamps: The Effects of Exposure to Female Characters’ Sexualized Appearance and Gaze in an Immersive Virtual Environment

This experiment exposed a sample of U.S. undergraduates (43 men, 40 women) to suggestively or conservatively clad virtual females who exhibited either responsive, high eye gaze or nonresponsive, low gaze in an immersive virtual environment. Outside the virtual world, men and women who encountered a highly stereotypical character—a suggestively clad, high gaze agent (“vamp”) or conservatively clad, low gaze character (“virgin”)—demonstrated more sexism and greater rape myth acceptance than participants who saw a suggestively clad nonresponsive or conservatively clad, responsive character. Results suggest that gender-stereotypical virtual females enhance negative attitudes toward women, whereas those that violate expectations and break stereotypes do not.     

Effectiveness of the Wraparound Process for Children with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders: A Meta-Analysis

Wraparound is a team-based service planning and coordination process intended to improve outcomes for children and youth with serious emotional and behavioral disorders and support them in their homes, schools, and communities. Given the substantial resources devoted to implementing wraparound, a meta-analysis of outcome studies was conducted to better understand current empirical support for this process. A literature search identified seven studies between 1986 and 2008 that documented the effects of youth receiving wraparound compared to control groups. Mean treatment effects across outcome domains ranged from medium for youth living situation (0.44) to small for mental health outcomes (0.31), overall youth functioning (0.25), school functioning (0.27), and juvenile justice-related outcomes (0.21). The overall mean effect size across studies was 0.33. Interpretation of results was complicated by the lack of consistent documentation of implementation fidelity across studies and conditions, variations in target population and intended outcomes, and methodological concerns. The authors conclude that, though the published wraparound research base is expanding and findings are largely positive, it continues to be in a preliminary state of development. However, there are insufficient data to support calls for wraparound’s acceptance or dismissal based on the strength of existing studies.     

Concerning the Preservation of God’s Omnipotence

Numerous examples have been offered that purportedly show that God cannot be omnipotent. I argue that a common response to such examples (i.e., that failure to do the impossible does not indicate a lack of power) does not preserve God’s omnipotence in the face of some of these examples. I consider another possible strategy for preserving God’s omnipotence in the face of these examples and find it wanting.

Improving performance expectancies in stereotypic domains: task relevance and the reduction of stereotype threat

The experiments presented here extend previous research on reducing stereotype threat, along with examining the mediating role of performance expectancies. Women who generated shared academic characteristics between men and women predicted higher scores for themselves on a math test compared to the baseline and those who generated shared non‐academic characteristics or shared physical characteristics. No effects were found for male participants' performance expectancies on an English test. Extending the relevance of these findings for stereotype threat research, women completing a math test, who first completed the shared academic characteristics task, both expressed higher performance expectancies and greater accuracy in math performance than participants in all other conditions. A partially mediating role of performance expectancies in relation to task and math performance was also found. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Resolving Nationalist Conflicts: Promoting Overlapping Identities and Pooling Sovereignty—The 1998 Northern Irish Peace Agreement

Nationalist and ethnic conflicts are a continuing source of tension in the post–Cold War period. The underlying factors affecting such conflicts are threat perception, ethnic security dilemmas, and lack of trust between nationalist/ethnic groups. The challenge is to find solutions to these conflicts. International institutions can establish trust and reduce the ethnic security dilemma by providing multiple forums of representation, promoting overlapping identities, and pooling sovereignty. Pooling sovereignty across a number of international representative bodies leads to increased access to governmental policymaking, with each party having a stake in government, and leads to a reduction in political tension and conflict. Thus, international parliamentary institutions may provide a solution to these conflicts. The British-Irish Peace Agreement (Good Friday Agreement) of 1998 is examined as an illustration of this argument.     

Assessing the process of desensitization therapy: Five practical measures

Assessment of phobic behavior has included self-report, physiological, and in vivobehavioral measures. While self-report measures are convenient, they suffer from subject bias and a low predictive validity. Physiological and in vivobehavioral measures are often too cumbersome to implement in standard clinical practice. The current study investigated the validity of five convenient measures of phobic behavior during the process of desensitization therapy. Responses of 14 clinically phobic patients were compared on phobic and neutral scenes presented within the context of systematic desensitization therapy. Phobic scenes resulted in less clarity of scene visualization, a longer latency to clear scene visualization, higher subjective units of discomfort (SUDs) at clear visualization, a longer latency to relaxation, and higher SUDs at relaxation. The measures seemed to reflect accurately the process and stages of desensitization therapy and showed low to high intercorrelations. The pragmatic value of these measures is discussed, as well as suggestions for future validational research.