Electrophysiological responses to evaluative priming: the LPP is sensitive to incongruity

Previous studies examining event-related potentials and evaluative priming have been mixed; some find evidence that evaluative priming influences the N400, whereas others find evidence that it affects the late positive potential (LPP). Three experiments were conducted using either affective pictures (Experiments 1 and 2) or words (Experiment 3) in a sequential evaluative priming paradigm. In line with previous behavioral findings, participants responded slower to targets that were evaluatively incongruent with the preceding prime (e.g., negative preceded by positive) compared to evaluatively congruent targets (e.g., negative preceded by negative). In all three studies, the LPP was larger to evaluatively incongruent targets compared to evaluatively congruent ones, and there was no evidence that evaluative incongruity influenced the N400 component. Thus, the present results provide additional support for the notion that evaluative priming influences the LPP and not the N400. We discuss possible reasons for the inconsistent findings in prior research and the theoretical implications of the findings for both evaluative and semantic priming.     

Spiritual well-being and spiritual practices in elderly depressed psychiatric inpatients

This study's aims were to describe the spirituality of depressed elderly psychiatric inpatients and to examine associations among spirituality, depression, and quality of life (QOL). Forty-five persons participated. Most reported frequent, stable spiritual practices and experiencing spiritual comfort and guidance. Some reported spiritual distress and changes in spirituality. During hospitalization, participants demonstrated increased spiritual well-being (SWB) and peacefulness, and reduced hopelessness, worthlessness, and guilt. Positive associations were found between SWB and QOL and negative associations between SWB and depression.     

Resilience: A Disability Studies and Community Psychology Approach

This paper contests traditional psychological understandings of resilience through reference to a research project exploring resilience in the lives of disabled people. The paper briefly historically locates individualistic accounts of resilience (which have often been unhelpful in the lives of disabled people) and then moves into more recent social constructionist theories of this phenomenon. This latter perspective necessarily locates resilience in a network of resources including material resources, relationships, identity, bodies and minds, power and control, community participation, community cohesion and social justice. We argue that the recognition of resilience as a relational product is important and in tune with attempts to make psychology less an individualistic encounter and more a community intervention. However, disabled people, their politics and the development of critical disability studies, contest and challenge normative ideas of what it means to live with a resilient network of resources. In this sense disability offers new and exciting ways of addressing resilience.     

Age and age of acquisition: An evaluation of the cumulative frequency hypothesis

An important determinant of picture and word naming speed is the age at which the names were learned (age of acquisition). Two related interpretations of these effects are that they reflect differences between words in their cumulative frequency of use, or that they reflect differences in the amount of time early and lateacquired words have spent in lexical memory. Both theories predict that differences between early and late-acquired words will be less apparent in older than younger adults. Two experiments are reported in which younger and older adults read words varying in age of acquisition or frequency, or named objects varying in age of acquisition. There was an observed effect of word frequency only for young adults' word naming. In contrast, strong age of acquisition effects were found for both the young and the old participants. The implications of these results for theories of how age of acquisition might affect lexical processing are discussed.     

Diversity in Pathways to Common Childhood Disruptive Behavior Disorders

Oppositional-Defiant Disorder (ODD) and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) are highly comorbid, a phenomenon thought to be due to shared etiological factors and mechanisms. Little work has attempted to chart multiple-level-of-analysis pathways (i.e., simultaneously including biological, environmental, and trait influences) to ODD and ADHD, the goal of the present investigation. 559 children/adolescents (325 boys) between the ages of 6 and 18 participated in a multi-stage, comprehensive diagnostic procedure. 148 were classified as ODD; 309 were classified as ADHD, based on parent, teacher, and clinician ratings. Children provided buccal or salivary samples of DNA, assayed for select markers in DRD4 and 5HTT. Parents completed the Alabama Parenting Questionnaire and the California Q-Sort. Children completed the Child Perception of Interparental Conflict Scale. Correlational associations consistent with multiple-level-of-analysis pathways to ODD and ADHD emerged. For ODD, children with the short allele of the 5HTT promoter polymorphism had higher neuroticism and ODD symptoms regardless of level of self-blame in relation to inter-parental conflict, whereas children without this allele had more ODD symptoms only in the context of more self-blame for inter-parental conflict. For ADHD (and ODD), children homozygous for the long allele of DRD4 120?bp insertion polymorphism had lower conscientiousness when exposed to inconsistent parenting, whereas children without this genotype were more resilient to effects of inconsistent discipline on conscientiousness. Thus, ODD and ADHD appear to demonstrate somewhat distinct correlational associations between etiological factors and mechanisms consistent with pathway models using a multiple-level-of-analysis approach.     

The utility of the NEO-PI-R validity scales to detect response distortion: a comparison with the MMPI-2

In this psychometric study, we compared the recently developed Validity Scales from the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO PI-R; Costa & McCrae, 1992b) with the MMPI-2 (Butcher, Dahstrom, Graham, Tellegen, & Kaemmer, 1989) Validity Scales. We collected data from clients (n = 74) who completed comprehensive psychological evaluations at a university-based outpatient mental health clinic. Correlations between the Validity Scales of the NEO-PI-R and MMPI-2 were significant and in the expected directions. The relationships provide support for convergent and discriminant validity of the NEO-PI-R Validity Scales. The percent agreement of invalid responding on the two measures was high, although the diagnostic agreement was modest (kappa = .22-.33). Finally, clients who responded in an invalid manner on the NEO-PI-R Validity Scales produced significantly different clinical profiles on the NEO-PI-R and MMPI-2 than clients with valid protocols. These results provide additional support for the clinical utility of the NEO-PI-R Validity Scales as indicators of response bias.     

Coping Styles,Pain Expressiveness,and Implicit Theories of Chronic Pain

Whereas some individuals use active coping strategies and are able to adaptively cope with their pain, others use passive strategies and catastrophic appraisals, which are often associated with increased displays of pain behavior and negative pain-related outcomes. To investigate attribution-based implicit theories as a potential underlying mechanism that might affect coping success, we hypothesized that pain patients with an incremental implicit theory of pain (i.e., view pain as malleable) would have more active coping strategies, lower levels of pain expressiveness, and better pain-related outcomes than those with an entity implicit theory of pain (i.e., view pain as nonmalleable). Patients with chronic back pain undergoing a functional assessment completed a variety of self-report measures and participated in a pain-inducing physiotherapy procedure. The results revealed those with an incremental theory of pain used more active coping strategies, displayed less pain behavior, and reported better pain-related outcomes (e.g., lower levels of depression) than individuals with an entity theory of pain. The findings suggest implicit theories of pain may represent an underlying social-cognitive mechanism linked to important coping, emotional, and expressive reactions to chronic pain. Identifying such a mechanism may provide valuable information for the assessment and treatment of chronic pain.     

Genderqueer: One Family’s Experience with Gender Variance

Accounts of the experiences of gender variant individuals that have recently received attention in the popular and psychoanalytic literature have led to an increased appreciation for the complex nature of identity; gender development; and the interaction of mind, body, and the social environment. Although there is still a great deal to be learned about the developmental trajectories of transgender identities that fall within what is a more familiar, male/female binary-based landscape, even less is known about developmental pathways for individuals whose gender identities remain neither comfortably male nor female. In this article, we present selected episodes reflecting our experiences as a family, drawn from over a 25-year period in which a gender variant individual, along with the rest of us, grew up. We tell this story—our family’s story—to better understand what we have been through and learned, to help other families going through similar experiences, and as a thought-piece to clinicians and students of gender. The result is both a narrative and a meditation on the nature of gender identity and gender development.     

Opinion‐based group membership as a predictor of commitment to political action

Research on group identification has shown it to be a surprisingly weak predictor of intentions to take large‐scale social action. The weak links may exist because researchers have not always examined identification with the type of group that is most relevant for predicting action. Our focus in two studies (one in Romania and one in Australia, both Ns = 101) was on opinion‐based groups (i.e. groups formed around shared opinions). We found that social identification with opinion‐based groups was an excellent predictor of political behavioural intentions, particularly when items measuring identity certainty were included. The results provide clear evidence of the role of social identity constructs for predicting commitment to social action and complement analyses of politicised collective identity and crowd behaviour. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.