Psychological and social-structural influences on commitment to volunteering

A model is described in which commitment to volunteering is hypothesized to be the result of demographic qualities, personality, identity, values, and social relationships. The model is tested and cross-validated using data from a nationally representative sample of American adults. The results from structural equation modeling analyses suggest that the hypothetical model provides a good fit to the data. Moreover, the findings suggest that the relations of personality and demographic characteristics to hours devoted to volunteering are largely mediated by latent constructs capturing helping identity and community participation. The implications of the model and the findings for our understanding of volunteering are discussed.     

Ideological and personal zeal reactions to threat among people with high self-esteem: motivated promotion focus

After a mortality salience manipulation, participants completed measures of either ideological zeal (Study 1) or personal project zeal (Study 3). Mortality salience increased both kinds of zeal but only among participants with high self-esteem. High self-esteem was positively correlated with dispositional tendencies toward promotion focus, action orientation, and behavioral activation; it was negatively correlated with behavioral inhibition and rumination (Study 2). These findings clarify the role of dispositional self-esteem in mortality salience research and confirm that, as has been found with various other threats, zealous reactions to mortality salience are most pronounced among participants with high self-esteem. Results support a regulatory focus perspective on zealous reactions to threat. Ideological and personal zeal reflect motivated promotion focus reactions that are rewarding because they decrease the motivational relevance, regulatory fit, and subjective salience of threats.     

Nontarget objects can influence perceptual processes during object recognition

Previous experiments have shown that objects are recognized more readily in a semantically consistent visual context. However, the benefit from context could be explained by response bias, and may not reflect the influence of context on the perceptual processes of recognition. We conducted a six-alternative forced-choice experiment to measure semantic and perceptual errors. A target object appeared briefly, surrounded by four context objects. The target was more accurately identified when the context consisted of objects semantically related to the target. The large number of semantic errors, which increased when the context presentation preceded the target, showed that response bias did account for a proportion of the context effect. Nevertheless, significant facilitation was still present after a bias correction. Recognition of an object can be affected by context not only when it is embedded in a coherent naturalistic scene, but also when it is simply near other related objects. Materials associated with this article may be accessed at www.psychonomic.org/archive.     

Increased perceived stress is associated with blunted hedonic capacity: potential implications for depression research

Preclinical studies suggest that stress exerts depressogenic effects by impairing hedonic capacity; in humans, however, the precise mechanisms linking stress and depression are largely unknown. As an initial step towards better understanding the association between stress and anhedonia, the present study tested, in two independent samples, whether individuals reporting elevated stress exhibit decreased hedonic capacity. The Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) measured the degree to which participants appraised their daily life as unpredictable, uncontrollable, and overwhelming. Hedonic capacity was objectively assessed using a signal-detection task based on a differential reinforcement schedule. Decreased reward responsiveness (i.e., the participants' propensity to modulate behavior as a function of reward) was used as an operational measure of hedonic capacity. In both Study 1 (n=88) and Study 2 (n=80), participants with high PSS scores displayed blunted reward responsiveness and reported elevated anhedonic symptoms. Additionally, PSS scores predicted reduced reward responsiveness even after controlling for general distress and anxiety symptoms. These findings are consistent with preclinical data highlighting links between stress and anhedonia, and offer promising insights into potential mechanisms linking stress to depression.     

An approach to preventing coparenting conflict and divorce in low-income families: strengthening couple relationships and fostering fathers' involvement

In the context of current concern about levels of marital distress, family violence, and divorce, the SFI study is evaluating the effectiveness of an intervention to facilitate the positive involvement of low-income Mexican American and European American fathers with their children, in part by strengthening the men's relationships with their children's mothers. The study design involves a randomized clinical trial that includes assignment to a 16-week couples group, a 16-week fathers group, or a single-session control group. Couples in both group interventions and the control condition include partners who are married, cohabiting, and living separately but raising a young child together. This article presents the rationale, design, and intervention approach to father involvement for families whose relationships are at risk because of the hardships of their lives, many of whom are manifesting some degree of individual or relationship distress. We present preliminary impressions and qualitative findings based on our experience with 257 families who completed the pretest, and the first 160 who completed one postintervention assessment 9 months after entering the study. Discussion centers on what we have learned and questions that remain to be answered in mounting a multisite preventive intervention to strengthen relationships in low-income families.     

The effects of movement direction and hemispace on estimates of distance traveled

BACKGROUND/HYPOTHESIS: The degree of attention directed to a stimulus and the presence of anisometric representations can alter the perception of the magnitude of a stimulus. We wanted to learn if normal right-handed subjects' estimates of distance traveled are influenced by the right-left direction or hemispace of movements. METHODS: We had blindfolded participants estimate the distance their arm was moved in a rightward or leftward direction, in right and left hemispace. Since we wanted subjects to estimate the distance traveled rather than compute the distance between the start and finish points, the subjects' arms were passively moved in sinusoidal trajectories at a constant speed. RESULTS: Subjects estimated leftward movements as longer than rightward movements, but there was no effect of hemispace. COMMENTS/CONCLUSIONS: People often attend more to novel than routine conditions and therefore participants might have overestimated the distance associated with leftward versus rightward movement because right-handed people more frequently move their right hand in a rightward direction and learn to read and write using rightward movements. Thus, leftward movements might be more novel and more attended than rightward movements and this enhanced directional attention might have influenced estimates of magnitude (distance).