Implicit attitudes towards people with visible difference: findings from an Implicit Association Test

Research on implicit and explicit attitudes towards those with a visible difference has provided contradictory findings. While studies suggest explicit attitudes towards those with a visible difference are positive, implicit attitudes are likely to be negative. An Implicit Association Test measured attitudes towards visible differences in 129 adults finding no evidence of negative implicit attitudes. This contrasts with previous findings and accounts of those with a visible difference who report perceiving negative behaviours by the general public. Results are discussed in terms of what is known about perceiving faces that are different, as well as socio-cultural changes. These findings provide preliminary evidence that implicit attitudes towards visible difference are not negative, and that behaviour may be a result of uncertainty regarding how to behave.     

Person-Environment Fit and its implications for personality development: a longitudinal study

Continuity and change in Person-Environment Fit (PE Fit) and its relation to personality development was studied in a 4-year longitudinal study of college students (N=305). PE Fit demonstrated moderate rank-order stability and small increases in mean-levels over time. Antecedents to PE Fit included gender (being male), high academic ability, low agreeableness, and low neuroticism. Outcomes associated with PE Fit included greater personality consistency and changes in personality in the direction of higher self-esteem and lower agreeableness and neuroticism. The implications of the findings for personality development are discussed.     

A longitudinal study of the relationships between conscientiousness and the social-environmental factors and substance-use behaviors that influence health

The present study tested the relationships among conscientiousness-related traits, social-environmental factors that affect health, and substance-use behaviors across a 30-year period from age 21 to age 52 in the Mills Longitudinal study of women (N=99). Results showed that the trait of social responsibility (a facet of conscientiousness) assessed at age 21 predicted family, work, and substance use outcomes at midlife (age 43 and age 52). In turn, marital quality, duration of marriage, divorce, participating in paid work, status level of work, and marijuana consumption were associated with changes in social responsibility. The implications for personality, health, and personality development are discussed.     

Conscientiousness and health-related behaviors: a meta-analysis of the leading behavioral contributors to mortality

Previous research has established conscientiousness as a predictor of longevity (H. S. Friedman et al., 1993; L. R. Martin & H. S. Friedman, 2000). To better understand this relationship, the authors conducted a meta-analysis of conscientiousness-related traits and the leading behavioral contributors to mortality in the United States (tobacco use, diet and activity patterns, excessive alcohol use, violence, risky sexual behavior, risky driving, suicide, and drug use). Data sources were located by combining conscientiousness-related terms and relevant health-related behavior terms in database searches as well as by retrieving dissertations and requesting unpublished data from electronic mailing lists. The resulting database contained 194 studies that were quantitatively synthesized. Results showed that conscientiousness-related traits were negatively related to all risky health-related behaviors and positively related to all beneficial health-related behaviors. This study demonstrates the importance of conscientiousness' contribution to the health process through its relationship to health-related behaviors.     

Single letter coloring and spatial cuing eliminates a semantic contribution to the Stroop effect

Previous work has shown that the Stroop effect is reduced in size when a single letter is colored and spatially precued. The present experiment addresses a number of criticisms of this work by (1) providing a direct measure of semantic processing, (2) using a vocal response instead of a manual one, and (3) using a more appropriate baseline. A semantically based Stroop effect (slower color naming for color-associated words than for color-neutral words) is observed when all letters in the display are precued and appear in a homogeneous color. This Stroop effect is statistically eliminated when a single letter is precued and is the “odd man out” in terms of its color. Two explanations are considered. In one, single-letter coloring and cuing serve to curtail semantic processing. In the other, single-letter coloring and cuing help to keep the informational sources (i.e, color, word) separate and hence reduce interference, but semantic analysis is not curtailed. The latter account provides a more complete account of existing data.     

The consistency of false suggestions moderates children's reports of a single instance of a repeated event: predicting increases and decreases in suggestibility

Participants (6- and 7-year-olds, N=130) participated in classroom activities four times. Children were interviewed about the final occurrence (target event) either 1 week or 4 weeks later, during which half of the event items were described inaccurately. Half of these suggestions were consistent with the theme of the detail across the occurrences (e.g., always sat on a kind of floor mat) or were inconsistent (e.g., sat on a chair). When memory for the target event was tested 1 day later, children falsely recognized fewer inconsistent suggestions than consistent suggestions, especially compared with a control group of children who experienced the event just one time. Furthermore, the longer delay reduced accuracy only for consistent suggestions. Source-monitoring ability was strongly and positively related to resistance to suggestions, and encouraging children to identify the source of false suggestions allowed them to retract a significant proportion of their reports of inconsistent suggestions but not of consistent suggestions. The results suggest that the gist consistency of suggestions determines whether event repetition increases or decreases suggestibility.     

Like mother,like daughter: similarities in narrative style

Children (2-5-year-olds and 8-13-year-olds) and their parents were independently interviewed about highly salient events: injuries serious enough to necessitate hospital emergency room treatment. Free recall narratives were scored using 14 measures of length, elaborative detail, cohesion, coherence,and provision of context. Mothers' narratives were more cohesive and coherent than fathers', and girls' narratives differed from boys' in parallel ways. Parent and child measures were correlated, and narratives of mother-daughter dyads (for the older daughters) showed striking similarity in all 5 properties, whereas there was no narrative similarity within father-son, mother-son, or father-daughter dyads. This suggests a special status for mother-daughter dyads in terms of how events come to be linguistically represented in narrative.     

Work experiences and personality development in young adulthood

This longitudinal study provides an analysis of the relationship between personality traits and work experiences with a special focus on the relationship between changes in personality and work experiences in young adulthood. Longitudinal analyses uncovered 3 findings. First, measures of personality taken at age 18 predicted both objective and subjective work experiences at age 26. Second, work experiences were related to changes in personality traits from age 18 to 26. Third, the predictive and change relations between personality traits and work experiences were corresponsive: Traits that "selected" people into specific work experiences were the same traits that changed in response to those same work experiences. The relevance of the findings to theories of personality development is discussed.     

Can it Ever Be Better Never to Have Existed At All? Person‐Based Consequentialism and a New Repugnant Conclusion

Broome and others have argued that it makes no sense, or at least that it cannot be true, to say that it is better for a given person that he or she exist than not. That argument can be understood to suggest that, likewise, it makes no sense, or at least that it cannot be true, to say that it is worse for a given person that he or she exist than that he or she never have existed at all. This argument is of critical importance to the question of whether consequentialist theory should take a traditional, aggregative form or a less conventional, person-affecting, or person-based form. I believe that, potentially, the argument represents a far more serious threat to the person-based approach than does, for example, Parfit's two medical programmes example. Parfit's example nicely illuminates the distinction between aggregative and person-based approaches and raises important questions. But the example--though not, I think, by Parfit--is sometimes pressed into service as a full-fledged counterexample against the person-based approach. As such, I argue, the example is not persuasive. In contrast, the Broomeian argument, if correct, is definitive. For that argument relies on certain metaphysical assumptions and various uncontroversial normative claims--and hence nicely avoids putting into play the controversial normative claims that lie at the very heart of the debate. The purpose of the present paper, then, is to evaluate the Broomeian argument. I argue that this potentially definitive challenge to a person-based approach does not in fact succeed.