Against the odds: academic underdogs benefit from incremental theories

An implicit theory of ability approach to motivation argues that students who believe traits to be malleable (incremental theorists), relative to those who believe traits to be fixed (entity theorists), cope more effectively when academic challenges arise. In the current work, we integrated the implicit theory literature with research on top dog and underdog status to predict self-efficacy in an academic context. To examine our predictions, we assessed college students’ (N  =  165) implicit theories of mathematical ability and manipulated their underdog versus top dog status in a math competition. We hypothesized that holding an incremental (vs. entity) theory would interact with competition status (underdog vs. top dog) to predict mathematical self-efficacy. When in an underdog position, incremental (vs. entity) theories boosted students’ mathematical self-efficacy. Moreover, a mediated moderation model revealed that the experience of less helplessness accounted for greater self-efficacy in mathematical ability among academic underdogs with incremental (vs. entity) theories. Implications for teaching practices are discussed.     

Adolescent Suicidal Risk: Psychological,Problem Solving,and Environmental Factors

This study examined the life stress and problem-solving interactional model of suicide proposed by Clum, Patsiokas, and Luscomb (1979) . Thirty-three hospitalized suicidal adolescents were compared with 21 adolescents hospitalized for other psychiatric problems and with 89 controls. The assessment battery was composed of psychological measures, problem-solving measures, and environmental and family measures. The discriminant analyses revealed that the suicide group could be discriminated from the psychiatric control group but not from the high school control group. Unexpectedly, life stresses did not contribute to the identification of current suicide risk. The results suggest the importance of assessing suicide risk at the time of admission to minimize any subsequent changes in the risk group.     

Family play,reading, and other stimulation and early childhood development in five low-and-middle-income countries

This paper used longitudinal data from five studies conducted in Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, Ethiopia, and Rwanda to examine the links between family stimulation and early childhood development outcomes (N = 4904; M_age = 51.5; 49% girls). Results from random-effects and more conservative child-fixed effects models indicate that across these studies, family stimulation, measured by caregivers’ engagement in nine activities (e.g., reading, playing, singing), predicted increments in children's early numeracy, literacy, social-emotional, motor, and executive function skills (standardized associations ranged from 0.05 to 0.11 SD). Study-specific models showed variability in the estimates, with null associations in two out of the five studies. These findings indicate the need for additional research on culturally specific ways in which caregivers may support early development and highlight the importance of promoting family stimulation to catalyze positive developmental trajectories in global contexts.

Research Highlights

• Research on the links between family stimulation and early childhood development in low-and-middle-income countries (LMICs) is limited.
• We used longitudinal data from studies conducted in five LMICs to examine the links between family stimulation and early childhood development outcomes.
• Results suggest that family stimulation predicted increments in children's numeracy, literacy, social-emotional, motor, and executive function skills.
• We found variability in the observed estimates, with null associations in two out of the five studies, suggesting the need for additional research in LMICs.

     

Effects of appearance-based interventions on sun protection intentions and self-reported behaviors.

Two appearance-based interventions designed to increase sun protection intentions and behaviors were evaluated. Sixty-eight college students in Experiment 1 and 76 beachgoers in Experiment 2 were randomly assigned to receive or not receive a photoaging (premature wrinkling and age spots) information intervention and, separately, to receive or not receive a novel ultraviolet (UV) photo intervention that makes the negative-appearance consequences of UV exposure more salient. Both experiments indicated that the UV photo intervention significantly increased intentions to use sunscreen in the future. A follow-up conducted with the beach sample indicated that UV photo information also produced greater protective behaviors for incidental sun exposure and that the combination of UV photo and photoaging information resulted in substantially lower reported sunbathing.