Imaging,empathy, and causal attribution

Three studies were conducted to test whether imagery accounts for the effects of empathy on attributions, that is, whether attributers construct and scan a mental image of social scenarios the same way that actual participants scan a real environment. According to this interpretation, attributers “see” the world as the participant does and make vicarious attributions. An alternative interpretation holds that subjects base vicarious attributions on recreating the motivations and affect of the actor, so that imaging is irrelevant to empathy and attributions. In the first study, subjects who imagined a story from the perspective of a particular character later showed differential recall of story details as a function of role, but not differential attributions. In Experiment 2, role-taking subjects showed clear effects of imaged perspective on recall for story details, but no effects on attributions of causality for an accident. Further, recall and attribution were uncorrelated. In the last study, empathy and imagery role-taking instructions produced independent effects: imagers showed pronounced perspective-relevant recall and empathizers did not. Neither showed unambiguous vicarious attributions. Recall and attribution were again uncorrelated. These studies suggest that the imagery explanation of empathy effects is untenable, and imply that the recall of perspective-relevant details is unlikely to mediate attributions of causality in imaginary scenarios.     

Reaction time in reading a tachistoscopic display for a memory set item

Reaction times were measured in a task which requires the subject to search a brief visual array for a critical letter embedded in a row of background letters. In Experiment 1, the position of a critical letter in an instructed reading order and the size of a set of memorized letters were varied. Mean reaction time increased monotonically with distance of the critical letter from the beginning of the instructed reading path in the display. The variables reading position and memory set size were additive in their effect on mean reaction time. Data from a second experiment in which the retinal location of the critical letter and its reading position were varied showed that both reading position and retinal location influenced mean reaction time, but the effect of reading position on reaction time was greater. These variables interacted.     

Problem‐Focused Content in the Job Search: Two Tests of the Cognitive‐Emotional Theory of Esteem Support Messages

The Cognitive‐Emotional Theory of Esteem Support Messages posits that messages intended to enhance recipients' state self‐esteem focus on cognitions and/or behaviors. In the current studies, problem‐focused message content (i.e., content focused on enacting behavior to alleviate the esteem threat) was of particular interest. College students (Study 1, n= 227) applying for postgraduation jobs and unemployed, underemployed, and/or displaced workers recruited from a government one‐stop career center (Study 2, n = 292) rated esteem support messages varying in degree of focus on behaviors vs. cognitions relevant to the job search process. Messages focused on behavior were rated as less effective than those focusing on cognitions relevant to the esteem threat, although support for this result was stronger in Study 2.     

Unfamiliar Untrained Observers’ Ratings of Adolescent Safety Behaviors Within Social Interactions with Unfamiliar Peer Confederates

Adolescents experiencing social anxiety often engage in safety behaviors―covert avoidance strategies for managing distress (e.g., avoiding eye contact)―that factor into the development and maintenance of their concerns. Prior work supports the psychometric properties of the Subtle Avoidance Frequency Examination (SAFE), a self-report survey of safety behaviors. Yet, we need complementary methods for assessing these behaviors within contexts where adolescents often experience concerns, namely, interactions with unfamiliar peers. Recent work indicates that, based on short, direct social interactions with adolescents, individuals posing as unfamiliar peers (i.e., peer confederates) and without assessment training can capably report about adolescent social anxiety. We built on prior work by testing whether we could gather valid SAFE reports from unfamiliar untrained observers (UUOs), who observed adolescents within archived recordings of these short social interactions. A mixed clinical/community sample of 105 adolescents self-reported on their functioning and participated in a series of social interaction tasks with peer confederates, who also provided social anxiety reports about the adolescent. Based on video recordings of these tasks, trained independent observers rated adolescents’ observed social skills, and an additional set of UUOs completed SAFE reports of these same adolescents. Unfamiliar untrained observers’ SAFE reports (a) related to adolescents’ SAFE self-reports, (b) distinguished adolescents on clinically elevated social anxiety concerns, (c) related to trained independent observers’ ratings of adolescent social skills within interactions with peer confederates, and (d) related to adolescents’ self-reported arousal within these same interactions. Our findings support use of unfamiliar observers’ perspectives to understand socially anxious adolescents’ interpersonal functioning.     

Examining the Potential Mental Health Costs of Defending Victims of Bullying: a Longitudinal Analysis

Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology - It has been speculated that defending victims of bullying is stressful for youth, and may contribute to poor mental health among those who...     

Changing the Criminal Justice System Response to Sexual Assault: An Empirical Study of a Participatory Action Research Project

In jurisdictions throughout the United States, thousands of sexual assault kits (SAKs; also known as a “rape kits”) have not been submitted by the police for forensic DNA testing. DNA evidence may be helpful to sexual assault investigations and prosecutions by identifying perpetrators, revealing serial offenders through DNA matches across cases, and exonerating those who have been wrongly accused. This paper describes a longitudinal action research project conducted in Detroit, Michigan after that city discovered approximately 11,000 untested sexual assault kits in a police department storage facility. We conducted a root cause analysis to examine individual, organizational, community, and societal factors that contributed to the development of the rape kit backlog in Detroit. Based on those findings, we implemented and evaluated structural changes to increase staffing, promote kit testing, and retrain police and prosecutors so that cases could be reopened for investigation and prosecution. As we conducted this work, we also studied how this action research project impacted the Detroit criminal justice system. Participating in this project changed stakeholders’ attitudes about the utility of research to address community problems, the usefulness of DNA evidence in sexual assault cases, and the impact of trauma on survivors. The results led to new protocols for SAK testing and police investigations, and new state legislation mandating SAK forensic DNA testing.     

Association between shame aversion and ruminative retribution: Evidence for moderation by externalization of blame and control

Motivation and Emotion - Shame aversion has been theorized to motivate aggression against the self or others as means of down-regulating shame. Additionally, the direction of aggression may depend...     

Fathers’ Dosage in Community-based Programs for Low-income Fathers

Community-based programs for low-income fathers often struggle to get fathers to attend services and activities. This paper reviews the literature examining approaches to measuring dosage in fatherhood programs, rates of dosage, influences on dosage, and the associations between dosage and fathers’ outcomes. Studies were limited to programs that conducted randomized control trials, quasi-experimental studies, and one-group pretest/post-test designs. Although most programs report low or moderate dosage levels, some programs achieve high levels of fathers’ participation in parenting, coparenting, and economic security classes. Few studies examined dosage in relation to father outcomes. All but one of seven studies reporting effects showed that higher dose levels had positive associations with outcomes such as engagement with children, parenting satisfaction and self-efficacy, perception of coparenting quality, payment of child support, and earnings from work. This paper discusses future directions for studying father's dosage in fatherhood programs.     

Romantic Conflict Narratives in Emerging Adult Couples: Viewpoint and Gender Matter

Healthy romantic relationships entail understanding the needs of the self and other when interpreting conflict events. Yet how couples make meaning around specific conflicts and their capacity to reflect on their own and their partners’ unmet needs is understudied. Using narratives, we examined destructive (e.g., extreme anger and break-up anxiety) and constructive (e.g., perspective taking) interpretations of past romantic conflicts in 80 emerging adult heterosexual couples and the extent to which such interpretations varied by viewpoint and gender. Couple members were interviewed separately about two conflict episodes in which their partner did not meet their needs (victim viewpoint) and two episodes in which they did not meet their partners’ needs (perpetrator viewpoint). As anticipated, destructive interpretations were more evident in the victim viewpoint and for female couple members. In contrast, within constructive interpretations, the use of insight was greater in the perpetrator than the victim viewpoint. Although perspective taking was expected to be more common in the perpetrator viewpoint and in female narratives, this was not the case, as this type of constructive interpretation was infrequent in narratives about conflict. The findings revealed aspects of meaning making that might be useful to mental health professionals concerned with building skills to improve romantic competence in emerging adult couples.