Uncertainty, as defined by the contingency between environmental events, and the adrenocortical response of the rat to electric shock

The pituitary-adrenal system is thought to be sensitive to the degree of uncertainty in a situation. In addition, there is some question whether the pituitary-adrenal system can be conditioned in a Pavlovian sense. Three experiments are reported here. The first and third sought to define uncertainty in terms of conditioned stimulus-unconditioned stimulus (CB-US) and US-US contingencies, which vary the amount of information that can be used to predict the occurrence of discrete shocks. The second experiment examined the possibility that the adrenocortical system was subject to the laws of Pavlovian conditioning, by using a conditioned emotional response paradigm. The results showed that the magnitude of the Pituitary-adrenal response varied in a curvilinear manner along the dimension of uncertainty. Very low and very high degrees of uncertainty resulted in greater corticosterone elevations than did moderate levels. No evidence for Pavlovian conditioning of the adrencortical system was found, although behavioral measures showed fear conditioning. The data presented were supportive of the hypothesis that the pituitary-adrenal response reflects the operation of an arousal system.     

Faith development and Teresa'sInterior Castle

James Fowler's model of faith development is compared with the course of development described by St. Teresa of Avila in her classic work,Interior Castle. Both Teresa and Fowler drew their models from the study of individual lives. The paper first presents a brief summary of Fowler's model, then goes through the different levels of development described by St. Teresa, comparing each of them with corresponding stages in Fowler's model. The paper concludes that, though these models were developed in different cultures, centuries apart, they appear to describe a similar course of religious or spiritual unfolding.This paper is a revised version of one originally delivered to Division 36, Psychologists Interested in Religious Issues, at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association.References to Teresa'sInterior Castle in this paper are given by section (Mansions) and chapter within section so that the passages can be found in any translation.     

The Influence of Music on Driver Stress1

In order to examine the efficacy of music in dealing with daily stressors, automobile drivers were randomly assigned to either a music or nonmusic group. The music group listened to their favorite music, while the nonmusic group abstained from any music or talk radio during their entire commute to or from school or work. Using a cellular telephone. state measures of driver stress were obtained during a single commute in Iow‐ and high‐congestion conditions. A Condition × Music Group interaction was found. Driver stress was greater in high congestion than in low congestion, but the nonmusic group demonstrated extreme levels of stress within high congestion. Listening to self‐selected music appeared to limit driver stress only within highly frustrating and irritating traffic congestion.     

Statistical power in randomized intervention studies with noncompliance

This study examined various factors that affect statistical power in randomized intervention studies with noncompliance. On the basis of Monte Carlo simulations, this study demonstrates how statistical power changes depending on compliance rate, study design, outcome distributions, and covariate information. It also examines how these factors influence power in different methods of estimating intervention effects. Intent-to-treat analysis and complier average causal effect estimation are compared as 2 alternative ways of estimating intervention effects under noncompliance. The results of this investigation provide practical implications in designing and evaluating intervention studies taking into account noncompliance.     

Does remembering emotional items impair recall of same-emotion items?

In the part-set cuing effect, cuing a subset of previously studied items impairs recall of the remaining noncued items. This experiment reveals that cuing participants with previously-studied emotional pictures (e.g., fearevoking pictures of people) can impair recall of pictures involving the same emotion but different content (e.g., fear-evoking pictures of animals). This indicates that new events can be organized in memory using emotion as a grouping function to create associations. However, whether new information is organized in memory along emotional or nonemotional lines appears to be a flexible process that depends on people’s current focus. Mentioning in the instructions that the pictures were either amusement- or fear-related led to memory impairment for pictures with the same emotion as cued pictures, whereas mentioning that the pictures depicted either animals or people led to memory impairment for pictures with the same type of actor.     

Child negative emotionality and parenting from infancy to preschool: a meta-analytic review

This meta-analytic review (k = 62 studies; N = 7,613 mother-child dyads) shows that effect sizes for the association between child negative emotionality and parenting were generally small and were moderated by sample and measurement characteristics. The association between more child negative emotionality and less supportive parenting was relatively strong in lower socioeconomic status families, reversed in higher socioeconomic status families, and limited to studies with relatively high percentages of participants from ethnic minorities and studies using parent report to assess negative emotionality. Higher levels of child negative emotionality were associated with more restrictive control in samples with less than 75% 1st-born children, as well as in infants and preschoolers, and in studies using parent report or composite measures to assess both negative emotionality and restrictive parenting. Finally, more child negative emotionality was associated with less inductive control.     

Group‐level effects of forgiveness: Group cohesiveness and collective action in social dilemmas

Forgiveness research has predominately focused on individual/relational outcomes such as well‐being and closeness. Less research has examined group outcomes such as cohesiveness or collective action. Forgiveness studies have also emphasized the victim's or transgressor's perspective, neglecting the effects of forgiveness on ingroup members who have neither given nor received forgiveness. We theorize that forgiveness promotes collective action among ingroup members through group cohesiveness and that transgressors' apologetic reactions impact this process. In a laboratory experiment, 229 students (175 females) were led to believe they were in a social dilemma with three others. Some participants witnessed group members forgive an apologetic, obstinate, or neutral defector, whereas others witnessed an unforgiving response. Forgiveness of apologetic and neutral defectors increased later cooperation among ingroup members. This effect was generally mediated by group cohesiveness. Our findings suggest that forgiveness can impact cooperation on a group level, providing a path to successful resolutions to collective action problems. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.