Teaching minority high school students to recruit helpers to attain personal and educational goals

Recruiting help from mentors and other potential helpers is a promising strategy for helping disadvantaged and minority youths meet their personal and educational goals. Three African-American high school seniors participated in a project designed to evaluate the effectiveness of training procedures that would allow them to ask for help in attaining educational and other personal goals. A behavioral training procedure that included instructional materials, role-play practice, praise, and feedback was used. Targeted skills included goal setting and 30 responses involved in the process of meeting with a potential helper. Role-play situations were used to evaluate participants' help-recruiting skills before and after training. Participants increased their help-recruiting skills from an average of 38% during baseline, to an average of 75% after training. Self-reported measures of goal attainment suggested that the students benefited from the training. Implications for mentoring programs designed to increase minority students' opportunities to reach educational goals were discussed.     

An Imbalance of Approach and Effortful Control Predicts Externalizing Problems: Support for Extending the Dual-Systems Model into Early Childhood

Although the association between deficits in effortful control and later externalizing behavior is well established, many researchers (Nigg Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 47(3-4), 395–422, 2006; Steinberg Developmental Review, 28(1), 78–106, 2008) have hypothesized this association is actually the product of the imbalance of dual systems, or two underlying traits: approach and self-regulation. Very little research, however, has deployed a statistically robust strategy to examine that compelling model; further, no research has done so using behavioral measures, particularly in longitudinal studies. We examined the imbalance of approach and self-regulation (effortful control, EC) as predicting externalizing problems. Latent trait models of approach and EC were derived from behavioral measures collected from 102 children in a community sample at 25, 38, 52, and 67 months (2 to 5 ½ years), and used to predict externalizing behaviors, modeled as a latent trait derived from parent-reported measures at 80, 100, 123, and 147 months (6 ½ to 12 years). The imbalance hypothesis was supported: Children with an imbalance of approach and EC had more externalizing behavior problems in middle childhood and early preadolescence, relative to children with equal levels of the two traits.     

Maternal Depression and Family Media Use: A Questionnaire and Diary Analysis

We describe the association between postpartum depression and the quantity and content of infant media use. Households with depressed mothers viewed twice as much television as households with non-depressed mothers did, and depressed mothers appeared to derive comparatively greater pleasure from television viewing. Maternal depression was associated with an increased exposure to child-directed content by 6–9-month-old infants, although it was not associated with an increased exposure to adult-directed programming. Depressed mothers also reported being less likely to sit and talk with their children during television use or to consult outside sources of information about media. This increase in television exposure without corresponding parental involvement could negatively affect developmental outcomes.     

When is guessing incorrectly better than studying for enhancing memory?

Recently, Kornell, Hays, and Bjork (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 35:989-998, 2009) demonstrated that incorrect guessing can benefit subsequent memory to a greater degree than can an equivalent amount of study time. We explored this intriguing finding to determine which factors moderate the advantage of incorrect guessing relative to study. In contrast to the findings of Kornell et al., our Experiment 1 revealed that incorrect guessing resulted in worse performance than did studying and that the number of incorrect guesses did not moderate the effect. In contrast, Experiment 2 revealed that the timing of subsequent study moderated the effectiveness of incorrect guessing over study. Final test performance was greater for incorrectly guessed items than for prestudied items when a subsequent study opportunity occurred immediately after the pretrial, whereas the pattern reversed when subsequent study was delayed. This crossover interaction emerged largely because prestudy items showed a classic spacing effect, whereas the guess items did not. One plausible explanation for the absence of a spacing benefit for guess items is that delaying the subsequent study trial increases source-monitoring errors during retrieval, such that participants confuse their original guess with the correctly studied target. However, Experiment 3 provided evidence against this source-monitoring account. We concluded by discussing other possible accounts of why the timing of study could moderate the effectiveness of incorrect guessing.     

Assessing and Managing Risk With Suicidal Individuals

The University of Washington Risk Assessment Protocol (UWRAP) and Risk Assessment and Management Protocol (UWRAMP) have been used in numerous clinical trials treating high-risk suicidal individuals over several years. These protocols structure assessors and treatment providers to provide a thorough suicide risk assessment, review standards of care recommendations for action, and allow for subsequent documentation of information gathered and actions taken. As such, it is a resource for providers treating high-risk populations across multiple contexts (e.g., primary care, outpatient psychotherapy, emergency department). This article describes both the UWRAP and UWRAMP. Taken together, these assessment and risk management tools include (a) assessment questions for gathering information to determine the level of risk, (b) action steps that can be taken to ensure safety, and (c) a companion therapist note where providers document their assessment and actions.     

Does power corrupt or enable? When and why power facilitates self-interested behavior

Does power corrupt a moral identity, or does it enable a moral identity to emerge? Drawing from the power literature, we propose that the psychological experience of power, although often associated with promoting self-interest, is associated with greater self-interest only in the presence of a weak moral identity. Furthermore, we propose that the psychological experience of power is associated with less self-interest in the presence of a strong moral identity. Across a field survey of working adults and in a lab experiment, individuals with a strong moral identity were less likely to act in self-interest, yet individuals with a weak moral identity were more likely to act in self-interest, when subjectively experiencing power. Finally, we predict and demonstrate an explanatory mechanism behind this effect: The psychological experience of power enhances moral awareness among those with a strong moral identity, yet decreases the moral awareness among those with a weak moral identity. In turn, individuals' moral awareness affects how they behave in relation to their self-interest.     

Searching for the self: an identity control theory approach to triggers of occupational exploration

Identity control theory researchers have found evidence for two processes of identity development (identity defense and identity change) and have theorized a third process (identity exploration). College students (N = 123) self-rated as high or low in occupational identity certainty and importance received self-discrepant feedback to induce identity disturbance, and dependent measures of identity defense, identity change, and identity exploration were obtained. As predicted, high certainty about identity standards led to identity defense, while low certainty led to identity change. Although an interaction between certainty and importance was hypothesized to predict identity exploration, results showed that the two operated independently. Low certainty predicted exploration of additional occupational areas, whereas high importance predicted exploration of self, environment, and additional occupational areas.     

Self-reported discrimination and discriminatory behaviour: the role of attachment security

Past research shows that attachment security is linked to low prejudice (Hofstra, Van Oudenhoven & Bunnk, 2005; Mikulincer & Shaver, 2001). We extend this research by examining the role of attachment security in discriminatory choices and discriminatory behaviour. The current study examines the influence of primed attachment security (vs. neutral prime) on self-reported discrimination and actual discriminatory behaviour towards Muslims. Results illustrate that primed attachment security (vs. a neutral prime) significantly predicts both the choice to discriminate against Muslims and subsequent behavioural discrimination towards a Muslim. Implications for increasing attachment security as a means of reducing prejudice and discrimination are discussed.     

Recognising faces seen alone or with others: why are two heads worse than one?

The ability to identify an unfamiliar target face from an identity lineup declines when the target is accompanied by a second face during visual encoding. This two-face disadvantage is still little studied and its basis remains poorly understood. We investigated several possible explanations for this phenomenon. Experiments 1 and 2 varied the number of potential targets (1 or 2) and the number of faces in a lineup (5 or 10) to explore if this effect arises from the number of identity comparisons that need to be made to detect a target in a lineup. We also explored if this effect arises from an uncertainty concerning which is the to-be-identified target in two-face displays, by cueing the relevant face during encoding. In experiment 3 we then examined whether the two-face disadvantage reflects the depth of face encoding or a memory effect. The results show that this effect arises from the additional comparisons that are necessary to compare two potential targets to an identity lineup when memory demands are minimised (experiment 1), but it reflects a difficulty in remembering several faces when targets and lineups cannot be viewed simultaneously (experiments 2 and 3). However, in both cases the two-face disadvantage could not be eliminated fully by cueing the target. This hints at a further possible locus for this effect, which might reflect perceptual interference during the initial encoding of the target. The implications of these findings are discussed.