Cognitive reappraisal in the context of oppression: implications for psychological functioning

Research on emotion regulation has shown cognitive reappraisal to be positively correlated with better psychological functioning. Prior research has failed to account for contextual influences on this important relationship. We examined how this relationship plays out across two United States ethnic groups that represent different contexts of oppression: Puerto Ricans, experiencing distal oppression (societal level) but not proximal oppression (immediate environment), and Latino Americans, experiencing both. We also captured individual beliefs regarding oppression of one's group and implications of that oppression by measuring oppressed minority ideology (OMI). Results confirmed our hypothesis that the relationship between reappraisal and psychological functioning would be moderated by the context of oppression (as measured by ethnic group membership and OMI). For Latino Americans high on OMI, reappraisal was negatively associated with psychological functioning. For Puerto Ricans, regardless of OMI, this relationship remained positive, suggesting a possible benefit for minorities in being surrounded by in-group members.     

Story Perspective and Character Similarity as Drivers of Identification and Narrative Persuasion

Identification with a character is an important mechanism of narrative persuasion. In 2 studies, the impact of character similarity on identification was pitted against that of story perspective. Participants read stories in which a lawyer (Study 1) and a general practitioner (GP; Study 2) had a conflict with another character. Perspective was manipulated by describing the events as experienced and narrated by the lawyer (GP) or their opponent. In Study 1 (N = 120), 60 participants were law students, in Study 2 (N = 120) 60 were medical students. Both perspective and program of study influenced identification, which mediated the impact of perspective on attitude. If participants felt highly similar to the professional's opponent, the mediating effect of identification was blocked.     

Automatic imitation and spatial compatibility in a key-pressing task

Automatic imitation has been often confounded with spatial compatibility effects. Heyes (2011) called attention to this confound, and proposed some criteria which must be satisfied before these effects could be unequivocally taken to be an index of the functioning of the human mirror system. Evidence satisfying such criteria has been reported by Catmur and Heyes (2011), using a relatively unfamiliar finger abduction movement. However, because many previous studies relied on more familiar actions, we aimed at testing whether analogous effects could be obtained with a more practiced key-pressing task. In Experiment 1, we used anatomical controls (i.e., views of right vs. left hands) under conditions affording mirror imitation, and showed that spatial compatibility masked the effects of automatic imitation. Experiment 2 used rotated conditions to control for this spatial-anatomical confound, and it showed unequivocal effects of automatic imitation, which were obtained regardless of its relation to the spatial stimulus-response mapping. These results cast some doubts on the interpretation of previous reports relying exclusively on scenes presented from a mirror perspective, and suggest the convenience of using both rotated scenes and anatomical controls in order to assess automatic imitation.     

Body-specific representations of spatial location

The body specificity hypothesis (Casasanto, 2009) posits that the way in which people interact with the world affects their mental representation of information. For instance, right- versus left-handedness affects the mental representation of affective valence, with right-handers categorically associating good with rightward areas and bad with leftward areas, and left-handers doing the opposite. In two experiments we test whether this hypothesis can: extend to spatial memory, be measured in a continuous manner, be predicted by extent of handedness, and how the application of such a heuristic might vary as a function of informational specificity. Experiment 1 demonstrates systematic and continuous spatial location memory biases as a function of associated affective information; right-handed individuals misremembered positively- and negatively-valenced locations as further right and left, respectively, relative to their original locations. Left-handed individuals did the opposite, and in general those with stronger right- or left-handedness showed greater spatial memory biases. Experiment 2 tested whether participants would show similar effects when studying a map with high visual specificity (i.e., zoomed in); they did not. Overall we support the hypothesis that handedness affects the coding of affective information, and better specify the scope and nature of body-specific effects on spatial memory.     

The role of novelty detection in food memory

Memory plays a central role in food choice. Recent studies focusing on food memory in everyday eating and drinking behaviour used a paradigm based on incidental learning of target foods and unexpected memory testing, demanding recognition of the target among distractors, which deviate slightly from the target. Results question the traditional view of memory as reactivation of previous experiences. Comparison of data from several experiments shows that in incidentally learned memory, distractors are rejected, while original targets are not recognised better than by chance guessing. Food memory is tuned at detecting novelty and change, rather than at recognising a previously encountered food.     

Counterfactually mediated emotions: a developmental study of regret and relief in a probabilistic gambling task

Regret and relief are related to counterfactual thinking and rely on comparison processes between what has been and what might have been. In this article, we study the development of regret and relief from late childhood to adulthood (11.2-20.2 years), and we examine how these two emotions affect individuals' willingness to retrospectively reconsider their choice in a computerized monetary gambling task. We asked participants to choose between two "wheels of fortune" that differed in the amount of gain and loss expected and the probability of winning. We manipulated the outcome of the wheel of fortune that was not selected by participants to induce regret or relief. For each trial, participants rated how they felt about the outcome and their willingness to modify their choice. Participants' ratings suggest that regret and relief are stronger in adults than in children and adolescents. Regret affects participants' willingness to modify their initial choice, but this desire is stronger for adults than for children. In children, the experience of regret seems to be dissociated from the willingness to reconsider a choice. This study provides the first evidence that the ability to experience counterfactually mediated emotions, such as regret and relief, and the ability to take them into consideration continue to develop during late childhood and adolescence.     

Children's understanding of ambiguous idioms and conversational perspective-taking

The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that conversational perspective-taking is a determinant of unfamiliar ambiguous idiom comprehension. We investigated two types of ambiguous idiom, decomposable and nondecomposable expressions, which differ in the degree to which the literal meanings of the individual words contribute to the overall idiomatic meaning. We designed an experiment to assess the relationship between the acquisition of figurative comprehension and conversational perspective-taking. Our sample of children aged 5-7 years performed three conversational perspective-taking tasks (language acts, shared/unshared information, and conversational maxims). They then listened to decomposable and nondecomposable idiomatic expressions presented in context before performing a multiple-choice task (figurative, literal, and contextual responses). Results indicated that decomposable idiom comprehension was predicted by conversational perspective-taking scores and language skills, whereas nondecomposable idiom comprehension was predicted solely by language skills. We discuss our findings with respect to verbal and pragmatic skills.