Perceived Social Status and Suicidal Ideation in Maltreated Children and Adolescents

Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology - Recent decades have seen an alarming increase in rates of suicide among young people, including children and adolescents (“youth”)....     

Narcissism Predicts Heightened Cortisol Reactivity to a Psychosocial Stressor in Men

Narcissists' sensitivity to social evaluation should increase their physiological reactivity to evaluative stressors. However, very few studies have assessed the physiological correlates of narcissism. In this study, participants completed an evaluative laboratory stressor or a non-evaluative control task. Cortisol reactivity-a marker of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis stress response-and negative affect (NA) were higher in the stress versus control condition. However, men showed larger cortisol responses and, among men, higher narcissism scores predicted greater cortisol reactivity and larger increases in NA. Narcissism was unrelated to cortisol reactivity and NA among women and in the control condition. These findings highlight the influence of defensive personality traits on HPA reactivity and suggest a pathway through which narcissistic traits might influence long-term health outcomes.     

The roles of meaningfulness and prior knowledge in younger and older adults' memory performance

Meaningfulness and prior knowledge can have differing effects on both metamemory and memory performance. Personally relevant information may be deemed more meaningful, which often can serve as a mediating factor in memory performance. Additionally, information that is congruent with prior knowledge has been shown to be judged as easier to remember and often is better remembered. Both of these effects are most pronounced in older adults. The current study aimed to examine the impact of meaningfulness and prior knowledge on age‐related differences in metamemory (i.e., judgments of learning) and memory performance (i.e., recall and recognition) by manipulating subjective a priori familiarity and personal relevance using age‐relevant study materials (i.e., a student loan application and a Medicare application). Recall metamemory and recall performance results indicate that older adults, but not younger adults, were able to utilize meaningfulness and prior knowledge to boost memory performance.     

Career Concerns for People Living With HIV/AIDS

The purpose of this study was to identify the career concerns of people living with HIV/AIDS. The authors used qualitative research methodology to ask participants to discuss the impact their diagnosis has had on their career development concerns and their career goals. Based on participants' interview responses, the authors classified their concerns as relating to career or workplace issues, medical issues, or coping resources. Career counseling implications for each category are discussed.     

ATTRIBUTIONS TO FAILURE: THE EFFECTS OF EFFORT,ABILITY, AND LEARNING STRATEGY USE ON PERCEPTIONS OF FUTURE GOALS AND EMOTIONAL RESPONSES

This study sought to examine college students' attributions to failure in biology. Through the use of scenarios, we were interested in determining how males and females viewed the attributions of ability, effort, and learning strategy use. A 3 (attribution: ability, effort, strategies) 2 2 (scenario gender) 2 2 (respondent gender) factorial design was used to analyze four future goal statements and four emotional response statements. Results indicated a significant effect for attribution for three of the four future goal items, with participants believing most strongly that future goals could be met if the scenario student used the appropriate strategies. There was also a significant effect for attribution for all four of the emotional response items, with participants having the strongest emotional reaction when the attribution was to effort. Respondent gender interacted with attribution only on one emotional response item. Collectively these results indicate differences in patterns of responses between future goal and emotional items. Moreover,these results are important for learning-to-learn courses designed to teach effective strategy use.     

Who is there? Captive western gorillas distinguish human voices based on familiarity and nature of previous interactions

Animal Cognition - The ability to recognize conspecifics by their acoustic signals is of crucial importance to social animals, especially where visibility is limited, because it allows for...