Effectiveness of video modeling in teaching earthquake and postearthquake evacuation safety skills for children with autism

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effectiveness of video modeling to teach safety skills during earthquakes and postearthquake evacuation to children with autism. Three male children with autism, aged 9–10 years, participated in the study. The results indicate that video modeling was effective at promoting the acquisition of “drop, cover, and hold on” and evacuation skills for all three students. Furthermore, the skills generalized to a new setting for all three participants and maintained up to 4 weeks after video modeling for the two participants for whom maintenance was evaluated. Social-validity data were also collected from participants, their parents, and a teacher, and the findings were positive overall. Implications for instruction and future research are discussed based on the results of the study.     

Motivational pathways to alcohol use and abuse among Black and White adolescents

Using data from a biracial community sample of adolescents, the present study examined trajectories of alcohol use and abuse over a 15-year period, from adolescence into young adulthood, as well as the extent to which these trajectories were differentially predicted by coping and enhancement motives for alcohol use among the 2 groups. Coping and enhancement motivations (M. L. Cooper, 1994) refer to the strategic use of alcohol to regulate negative and positive emotions, respectively. Results showed that Black and White youth follow distinct alcohol trajectories from adolescence into young adulthood and that these trajectories are differentially rooted in the regulation of negative and positive emotions. Among Black drinkers, coping motives assessed in adolescence more strongly forecast differences in alcohol involvement into their early 30s, whereas enhancement motives more strongly forecast differences among White drinkers. Results of the present study suggest that different models may be needed to account for drinking behavior among Blacks and Whites and that different approaches may prove maximally effective in reducing heavy or problem drinking among the 2 groups.     

Moderators of the adaptiveness of self-enhancement: Operationalization, motivational domain, adjustment facet, and evaluator

The literature includes conflicting perspectives regarding the impact of self-enhancement on adjustment outcomes. To help sort out the disparities, we examined four potential moderators of the enhancement–adjustment association in 123 college students. First was the method of operationalizing self-enhancement, that is, social comparison (rating oneself more positively than one rates others) vs. criterion discrepancy (rating oneself more positively than one is rated by others). Second was the motivational domain of the operationalization—agentic vs. communal attributes. Third was the evaluator of adjustment—self-rating vs. peer ratings. Fourth was the facet of adjustment—personal adjustment (e.g., self-esteem, happiness) vs. interpersonal adjustment (e.g., harmonious social relations). With peer-rated adjustment as the criterion, the social comparison operationalization was associated with better adjustment whereas the discrepancy operationalization was associated with maladjustment. Both operationalizations of self-enhancement were positively associated with self-reported personal adjustment. When trait variance was partialed out, the social comparison index lost its predictive power, but the discrepancy index held up. Motivational domain and adjustment facet played significant but more complex roles in the enhancement–adjustment association. Our firmest conclusion is that the social comparison index is not an appropriate measure of self-enhancement.     

Understanding the relations between different forms of racial prejudice: a cognitive consistency perspective

Research on racial prejudice is currently characterized by the existence of diverse concepts (e.g., implicit prejudice, old-fashioned racism, modern racism, aversive racism) that are not well integrated from a general perspective. The present article proposes an integrative framework for these concepts employing a cognitive consistency perspective. Specifically, it is argued that the reliance on immediate affective reactions toward racial minority groups in evaluative judgments about these groups depends on the consistency of this evaluation with other relevant beliefs pertaining to central components of old-fashioned, modern, and aversive forms of prejudice. A central prediction of the proposed framework is that the relation between "implicit" and "explicit" prejudice should be moderated by the interaction of egalitarianism-related, nonprejudicial goals and perceptions of discrimination. This prediction was confirmed in a series of three studies. Implications for research on prejudice are discussed.