Attitude alignment increases trust,respect, and perceived reasoning ability to produce attraction

When others disagree with us, we like them more if they shift their attitude toward ours (i.e., engage in attitude alignment), but why? This article examined the effects of partner attitude alignment on dyadic (trust, inferred attraction) and personal (respect, perceived reasoning ability) evaluations. In two experiments, participants received feedback that imagined (Experiment 1) or real (Experiment 2) partners engaged (vs. did not engage) in attitude alignment; rated partners on trust, inferred attraction, respect (Experiments 1 and 2), and perceived reasoning ability (Experiment 2); and reported attraction. Individuals were more attracted to partners who engaged in attitude alignment because they viewed them as more trustworthy and worthy of respect and as possessing greater reasoning ability. The role of inferred attraction was unclear.     

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.     

The Forgiver and the Forgiven: A Discussion of “An Analyst Has a Birthday – Can Forgiveness Heal?”

The following discussion of Diane Barclay’s paper (this issue) focuses on the meaning of forgiveness when viewed through the lens of a multiple self tate model of the mind. The discussion also emphasizes the psychoanalytic centrality of self-forgiveness as a counterpoint to the question of whether one can forgive the other.