The Role of Rumination in Predicting Seasonality

The impact of the changing seasons on mood and behavior (i.e., seasonality) has long been of interest to researchers. Recently, researchers have begun to look beyond biological explanations to investigate psychological variables that may play a role in the development of seasonal affective disorder (SAD) and subsyndromal (S-SAD) levels of seasonality. Rumination, in particular, has received initial support as a process that predicts more severe levels of winter depression. In the first study, we assessed the effects of rumination, current weather conditions, current level of depression, and attitudes toward weather conditions as predictors of seasonality. In addition to weather conditions, weather attitudes, and current depression, rumination emerged as a significant predictor of seasonality in females but not for males. In the second study, we followed individuals categorized as being high (S-SAD) and low in seasonality over time and assessed for depression at Time 1 and Time 2. Rumination, in addition to current weather conditions and weather attitudes, emerged as a significant predictor of depression for females in the S-SAD group. The results of these studies provide support for the role of rumination in seasonal depression, particularly for females. This type of research may contribute to attempts to better explain gender differences in seasonal depression.     

Cognitive Mechanisms Underlying Recovered-Memory Experiences of Childhood Sexual Abuse

ABSTRACT— People sometimes report recovering long-forgotten memories of childhood sexual abuse. The memory mechanisms that lead to such reports are not well understood, and the authenticity of recovered memories has often been challenged. We identified two subgroups of people reporting recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse. These subgroups differed dramatically in their cognitive profiles: People who recovered memories of abuse through suggestive therapy exhibited a heightened susceptibility to the construction of false memories, but showed no tendency to underestimate their prior remembering. Conversely, people who recovered memories of abuse spontaneously showed a heightened proneness to forget prior incidences of remembering, but exhibited no increased susceptibility to false memories. This double dissociation points to mechanisms that underlie recovered-memory experiences and indicates that recovered memories may at times be fictitious and may at other times be authentic.     

Gaze-Triggered Orienting as a Tool of the Belongingness Self-Regulation System

ABSTRACT— Social-psychological theories of belongingness self-regulation suggest that when one's need for interpersonal relationships is not being met, one begins to monitor the social environment more closely. Presumably, this serves to increase awareness of the likelihood of social acceptance versus rejection and to inform later social decision-making processes. The current investigation tested whether low belongingness increases a particular form of social monitoring that has recently been documented in the cognitive literature: gaze-triggered orienting. Low belongingness was operationalized either in terms of low trait self-esteem (Studies 1a and 1b) or in terms of the priming of rejection-related thoughts ( Study 2 ). Across the studies, the normal tendency to orient attention in accordance with another individual's eye gaze was augmented under conditions of low belongingness. However, belongingness had no influence on a nonsocial form of orienting. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for theories of belongingness self-regulation and social attention.     

Slow echo: facial EMG evidence for the delay of spontaneous,but not voluntary,emotional mimicry in children with autism spectrum disorders

Spontaneous mimicry, including that of emotional facial expressions, is important for socio‐emotional skills such as empathy and communication. Those skills are often impacted in autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Successful mimicry requires not only the activation of the response, but also its appropriate speed. Yet, previous studies examined ASD differences in only response magnitude. The current study investigated timing and magnitude of spontaneous and voluntary mimicry in ASD children and matched controls using facial electromyography (EMG). First, participants viewed and recognized happy, sad, fear, anger, disgust and neutral expressions presented at different durations. Later, participants voluntarily mimicked the expressions. There were no group differences on emotion recognition and amplitude of expression‐appropriate EMG activity. However, ASD participants’ spontaneous, but not voluntary, mimicry activity was delayed by about 160 ms. This delay occurred across different expressions and presentation durations. We relate these findings to the literature on mirroring and temporal dynamics of social interaction.     

Bioethics policies and the compass of common morality

Even if there is a common morality, many would argue that it provides little guidance in resolving moral disputes, because universally accepted norms are both general in content and few in number. However, if we supplement common morality with commonly accepted factual beliefs and culture-specific norms and utilize coherentist reasoning, we can limit the range of acceptable answers to disputed issues. Moreover, in the arena of public policy, where one must take into account both legal and moral norms, the constraints on acceptable answers will narrow the extent of reasonable disagreement even further. A consideration of the debate over legalization of assisted dying supports this claim.

Prosodic sensitivity and morphological awareness in children’s reading

This study examined the relationships among prosodic sensitivity, morphological awareness, and reading ability in a sample of 104 8- to 13-year-olds. Using a task adapted from Carlisle (Applied Psycholinguistics, 9 (1988) 247-266), we measured children’s ability to produce morphological derivations with differing levels of phonological complexity between stem and derivation: No Change, Phonemic Change, Stress Change, and Both Phonemic and Stress Change. A 3 (Grade) × 4 (Derivation Type) analysis of variance showed that children perform significantly more poorly on both types of derivations that involve stress changes than on phonemic change and no change derivations. Regression analyses showed that both prosodic sensitivity and morphological awareness, especially in derivations that require manipulation of stress, are significant predictors of reading ability after controlling for age, verbal and nonverbal abilities, and phonological awareness.     

Digitally manipulating memory: Effects of doctored videos and imagination in distorting beliefs and memories

In prior research on false autobiographical beliefs and memories, subjects have been asked to imagine fictional events and have been exposed to false evidence that indicates that the fictional events occurred. But what are the relative contributions of imagination and false evidence toward false belief and memory construction? In the present study, subjects observed and copied various simple actions; then they viewed doctored videos that suggested that they had performed extra actions and they imagined performing some of those and some other actions. Subjects returned 2 weeks later for a memory test. False evidence or imagination alone was often sufficient to cause belief and memory distortions; in combination, they appeared to have additive or even superadditive effects. The results bear on the mechanisms underlying false beliefs and memories, and we propose legal and clinical applications of these findings.     

Goal agreement and relationship quality among college students and their parents

Two hundred eight parent–college student dyads (total N = 416) participated in the current study, which examined the link between goal agreement and perceived conflict within their relationships. Undergraduate participants (91 male, 117 female) completed a demographic form, a 65 items goal measure, and a measure of parental conflict. Parents (98 fathers, 110 mothers) were asked to rate the importance of the same 65 goals for their emerging adult children. College students tended to place more importance on independence, affect control, health, social relationships, and financial concern goals than their parents did, whereas parents placed more importance on moral and religious goals than their emerging adult children did. However, relative goal agreement between parents and college students was found to be moderately high. Those parent–college student dyads who experienced less conflict tended to have higher goal agreement, whereas those dyads with a higher level of conflict had lower goal agreement. These findings provide further evidence for the link between interpersonal relationships and the personality construct of goals.     

How Do I Know if I Need a Hearing Aid? Further Support for the Self‐Categorisation Approach to Symptom Perception

This paper extends the self-categorisation model of symptom perception to predict that people aged 50 years and over will report higher levels of hearing handicap when they categorise themselves as members of a group of older people. This prediction is supported with an opportunity sample ( N  = 50; mean age = 63 years) who completed a questionnaire designed to screen for hearing handicap in "the elderly" ( sic ). Participants also underwent pure-tone audiometry, which confirmed that the observed difference in hearing handicap was not attributable to any difference in hearing threshold level. Hence these findings offer further support for the self-categorisation model of symptom perception. Their theoretical, clinical, and methodological implications together with possible therapeutic applications of self-categorisation theory to auditory rehabilitation of older people are discussed.