Locus of control as a contributing factor in the relation between self-perception and adolescent aggression

Researchers continue to debate the role of self-esteem in aggression, but research has shown a consistent association between narcissism and aggression in adults and adolescents [e.g., Barry et al., 2007; Bushman and Baumeister, 1998; Stucke, 2007]. The primary aim of the current study was to examine whether locus of control (LOC) moderated the relation between self-perception variables (i.e., self-esteem and narcissism) and aggression in adolescents. Participants were 174 youth (145 males, 26 females) between the ages of 16 and 19 who were enrolled in a voluntary residential program for youth who have dropped out of school. The results showed that LOC moderated the association between self-esteem and aggression such that low self-esteem was associated with higher levels of aggression for individuals with an external LOC. Contrary to expectations, LOC failed to moderate the narcissism-aggression relation. The implications of this study for understanding how self-perception is related to adolescent aggression are discussed.     

Tracking hierarchical processing in morphological decomposition with brain potentials

One important debate in psycholinguistics concerns the nature of morphological decomposition processes in visual word recognition (e.g., darkness = {dark} + {-ness}). One theory claims that these processes arise during orthographic analysis and prior to accessing meaning (Rastle & Davis, 2008), and another argues that these processes arise through greater temporal overlap between the activation of orthographic and semantic information (Feldman, O'Connor, & Moscoso del Prado Martín, 2009). This issue has been the subject of intense debate in studies using masked priming but has yet to be resolved unequivocally. The present study takes another approach to resolving this controversy by examining brain potentials as participants made lexical decisions to unprimed morphological (darkness), pseudomorphological (corner), and nonmorphological (brothel) stimuli. Results revealed a difference from ～190 ms between the nonmorphological condition and the other 2 conditions (which showed no differentiation), a likely correlate of morphological processing reliant exclusively on orthography. Only 60-70 ms later was there evidence of the activation of semantic information, when the pseudomorphological condition diverged from the other 2 conditions. These results provide unambiguous support for a hierarchical model of morphological processing whereby decomposition is based initially on orthographic analysis and is only later constrained by semantic information. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

Biases in affective forecasting and recall in individuals with depression and anxiety symptoms

The authors used experience sampling to investigate biases in affective forecasting and recall in individuals with varying levels of depression and anxiety symptoms. Participants who were higher in depression symptoms demonstrated stronger (more pessimistic) negative mood prediction biases, marginally stronger negative mood recall biases, and weaker (less optimistic) positive mood prediction and recall biases. Participants who were higher in anxiety symptoms demonstrated stronger negative mood prediction biases, but positive mood prediction biases that were on par with those who were lower in anxiety. Anxiety symptoms were not associated with mood recall biases. Neither depression symptoms nor anxiety symptoms were associated with bias in event prediction. Their findings fit well with the tripartite model of depression and anxiety. Results are also consistent with the conceptualization of anxiety as a "forward-looking" disorder, and with theories that emphasize the importance of pessimism and general negative information processing in depressive functioning.     

The benefits of emotional expression for math performance

This study investigated the effects of emotional expression on actual and perceived math performance. Female participants were either asked to express their emotions or given no special instructions before taking a math test under stereotype threat or no stereotype threat conditions. Participants in the emotional expression condition performed better on the math test than participants in the control condition. Under stereotype threat, participants in the emotional expression condition believed they performed better on the math test. Emotional expression appears not only to have health benefits (e.g., Pennebaker, 1997), but academic benefits as well, including for stereotyped threatened individuals.     

Measuring anxious responses to predictable and unpredictable threat in children and adolescents

Research has highlighted the need for new methods to assess emotions in children on multiple levels to gain better insight into the complex processes of emotional development. The startle reflex is a unique translational tool that has been used to study physiological processes during fear and anxiety in rodents and in human participants. However, it has been challenging to implement developmentally appropriate startle experiments in children. This article describes a procedure that uses predictable and unpredictable aversive events to distinguish between phasic fear and sustained anxiety in children and adolescents. We investigated anxious responses, as measured with the startle reflex, in youths (N = 36, mean age = 12.63 years, range = 7-17) across three conditions: no aversive events (N), predictable aversive events (P), and unpredictable aversive events (U). Short-duration cues were presented several times in each condition. Aversive events were signaled by the cues in the P condition but were presented randomly in the U condition. Participants showed fear-potentiated startle to the threat cue in the P condition. Startle responses were also elevated between cues in the U condition compared with the N condition, suggesting that unpredictable aversive events can evoke a sustained state of anxiety in youths. This latter effect was influenced by sex, being greater in girls than in boys. These findings indicate the feasibility of this experimental induction of the startle reflex in response to predictable and unpredictable events in children and adolescents, enabling future research on interindividual differences in fear and anxiety and their development in youths.     

Development and initial validation of the inventory of Microaggressions Against Black Individuals

The present article describes the development and initial validation of the Inventory of Microaggressions Against Black Individuals (IMABI) using a sample of 385 undergraduates who self-identified as Black or African American. The IMABI is a 14-item, unidimensional measure of racial microaggressions that captures both microinsults and microinvalidations. The present findings support the IMABI as a reliable and valid measure of microaggressions that was associated with general distress and perceived stress. Importantly, the association between the IMABI and psychological adjustment persisted even when social desirability and another measure of race-related stress were included in the analyses. Discussion focuses on the potential implications of the IMABI for understanding the daily experiences and psychological adjustment of Black individuals.     

Understanding children's emotional processes and behavioral strategies in the context of marital conflict

Marital conflict is a distressing context in which children must regulate their emotion and behavior; however, the associations between the multidimensionality of conflict and children’s regulatory processes need to be examined. The current study examined differences in children’s (N = 207, mean age = 8.02 years) emotions (mad, sad, scared, and happy) and behavioral strategies to regulate conflict exposure during resolved, unresolved, escalating, and child-rearing marital conflict vignettes. Children’s cortisol levels were assessed in relation to child-rearing and resolved conflict vignettes. Anger and sadness were associated with escalating and child-rearing conflicts, fearfulness was related to escalating and unresolved conflicts, and happiness was associated with resolution. Anger was associated with children’s strategies to stop conflict, whereas sadness was associated with monitoring and avoidant strategies. Cortisol recovery moderated the link between fearfulness and behavioral regulation. These results highlight the importance of children’s emotions and regulatory processes in understanding the impact of marital conflict.     

When fit fosters favoring: The role of private self-focus

The present research extends work on the ‘the value from fit’ principle by showing that regulatory fit effects on persuasion and behavioral compliance are stronger for people high, as opposed to low, in private self-focus. Previous research has shown that people high in private self-focus are strongly affected by external information. In the current work, we demonstrated that people high (vs. low) in private self-focus are more persuaded by information that matches (vs. mismatches) activated self-knowledge.     

Racial differences in narcissistic tendencies

Black individuals have been found to report the highest levels of self-esteem of any racial group in the United States. The purpose of the present research was to examine whether Black individuals also report higher levels of narcissism than White individuals. Study 1 (N = 367) found that Black individuals reported higher levels of narcissism than White individuals even when controlling for gender, self-esteem level, and socially desirable response tendencies. Study 2 (N = 967) and Study 3 (N = 315) found similar results such that Black individuals reported higher levels of narcissism than White individuals on the narcissism measures that captured less pathological facets of this construct. Study 3 also included indicators of psychological adjustment and found that the pathological aspects of narcissism were more strongly associated with maladjustment for Black individuals than for White individuals. The implications of these results for understanding the Black self-esteem advantage are discussed.     

Would I lie to you? “leakage” in deceptive facial expressions relates to psychopathy and emotional intelligence

This was the first investigation of individual differences in adopting deceptive universal emotional expressions. We hypothesized that psychopathic traits would lead to a heightened ability to suppress emotional expressions and exhibit less “leakage” of inconsistent emotions during deceptive displays. Further, we predicted that emotional intelligence (EI) would lead to a heightened ability to simulate emotional expressions. Participants (N = 100) viewed emotionally arousing (happy, sad, fearful, disgusting) images, responding to each with a genuine or deceptive expression. Each video frame (30/sec) was coded for emotion (in)consistent with the intended expression (365,550 frames coded for 2437 expressions). As predicted, psychopathic traits - specifically, high levels of interpersonal manipulation - were related to shorter durations of unintended emotional “leakage” during deceptive expressions. In contrast, the erratic lifestyle element of psychopathy predicted greater emotional inconsistency during deceptive displays. Individuals higher in EI - specifically, the ability to perceive and express emotion - feigned emotions more convincingly than others but were not more immune to emotional leakage.