Discrete Emotions or Dimensions? The Role of Valence Focus and Arousal Focus

The present study provides evidence that valence focus and arousal focus are important processes in determining whether a dimensional or a discrete emotion model best captures how people label their affective states. Individuals high in valence focus and low in arousal focus fit a dimensional model better in that they reported more co-occurrences among like-valenced affective states, whereas those lower in valence focus and higher in arousal focus fit a discrete model better in that they reported fewer co-occurrences between like-valenced affective states. Taken together, these findings suggest that one static, nomothetic theory may not accurately describe the subjective affective experience of all individuals.     

Semantic Degradation and Lexical Access in Age-Related Naming Failures

This study investigated the impaired lexical access and semantic degradation hypotheses as two potential explanations of naming failures in normal aging. Naming responses on the Boston Naming Test (BNT) and Action Naming Test (ANT) were analyzed across three test sessions for 39 adults from three age groups (50s, 60s, and 70s). Failures to name before and after cues were classified as either impaired access if failures occurred at an earlier test session followed by successful naming at a later test session or semantic degradation if naming was successful at an earlier test session followed by failures at a later test session. The results indicated that on both the BNT and ANT all age groups produced more naming failures attributed to impaired access than to semantic degradation. However, for object naming, the failures showed significantly more semantic degradation for people in their 70s compared to the younger age groups. By contrast, for action naming, semantic degradation was negligible, possibly masked by a ceiling effect, and the only age-difference result that approached significance indicated that adults in their 70s produced more naming failures attributed to impaired access than adults in their 50s.     

Egalitarian Justice and Expected Value

According to all-luck egalitarianism, the differential distributive effects of both brute luck, which defines the outcome of risks which are not deliberately taken, and option luck, which defines the outcome of deliberate gambles, are unjust. Exactly how to correct the effects of option luck is, however, a complex issue. This article argues that (a) option luck should be neutralized not just by correcting luck among gamblers, but among the community as a whole, because it would be unfair for gamblers as a group to be disadvantaged relative to non-gamblers by bad option luck; (b) individuals should receive the warranted expected results of their gambles, except insofar as individuals blamelessly lacked the ability to ascertain which expectations were warranted; and (c) where societal resources are insufficient to deliver expected results to gamblers, gamblers should receive a lesser distributive share which is in proportion to the expected results. Where all-luck egalitarianism is understood in this way, it allows risk-takers to impose externalities on non-risk-takers, which seems counterintuitive. This may, however, be an advantage as it provides a luck egalitarian rationale for assisting ‘negligent victims’.     

Collegiate Coaches' Perceptions of Their Goal-Setting Practices: A Qualitative Investigation

The purpose of the present investigation was to assess the perceptions of coaches regarding the process of goal setting using a qualitative methodology. Participants were 14 NCAA collegiate coaches from the American Midwest representing both team and individual sports. All participants were head coaches and were asked to respond to the interview questions in relation to their current head coaching position. Results revealed that coaches employed goal setting extensively for both individual and team goals in practice and competition. In addition, many interesting findings regarding the process of goal setting emerged including (a) coaches tended to set short-term goals although there were some nebulous longterm goals; (b) coaches only inconsistently wrote down their goals; (c) goals were both dictated by coaches and set in collaboration with players with a focus on collaboration; (d) the primary function of goals was to provide direction and focus; (e) goal commitment was related to enjoyment/fun; (f) process, performance, and outcome goals were set but coaches focused on performance and outcome goals; and (g) physical, psychological, and time barriers impeded goal attainment. These findings are discussed in relation to the current empirical/theoretical goal-setting literature and suggestions for best practice by sport psychology researchers are offered.     

How the Thatcher illusion reveals evolutionary differences in the face processing of primates

Face recognition in humans is a complex cognitive skill that requires sensitivity to unique configurations of eyes, mouth, and other facial features. The Thatcher illusion has been used to demonstrate the importance of orientation when processing configural information within faces. Transforming an upright face so that the eyes and mouth are inverted renders the face grotesque; however, when this “Thatcherized” face is inverted, the effect disappears. Due to the use of primate models in social cognition research, it is important to determine the extent to which specialized cognitive functions like face processing occur across species. To date, the Thatcher illusion has been explored in only a few species with mixed results. Here, we used computerized tasks to examine whether nonhuman primates perceive the Thatcher illusion. Chimpanzees and rhesus monkeys were required to discriminate between Thatcherized and unaltered faces presented upright and inverted. Our results confirm that chimpanzees perceived the Thatcher illusion, but rhesus monkeys did not, suggesting species differences in the importance of configural information in face processing. Three further experiments were conducted to understand why our results differed from previously published accounts of the Thatcher illusion in rhesus monkeys.     

Mental Health among Youth in South Australia: A Survey of Flourishing,Languishing, Struggling,and Floundering

The Complete State Model of Mental Health was used to describe the prevalence of flourishing, languishing, struggling, and floundering in life in a sample of young South Australians (n = 3,913; 13–17 years, 52% female). Categorisation was based on the relative proportion of mental health and mental illness symptoms reported on standardised measures and the association of these categories to health‐risk behaviour. Variability in categories and health‐risk behaviour due to gender or region was investigated. Results indicated that a disturbingly small proportion of adolescents (<50%) were flourishing in life, that poorer states of mental health were associated with increased health‐risk behaviour, and that the propensity to engage in health‐risk behaviour did vary by gender and region. The current study extends the platform from which positively focused mental health strategies can be tailored and launched to meet the mental health needs of adolescents.     

Processing Fat-Related Information in Individuals at Risk for Developing an Eating Disorder

The authors examined the effect that being at risk for developing an eating disorder has on the lexical processing of words related to fat and words not related to fat. Individuals (n = 17) at risk for developing an eating disorder were compared with controls (n = 31) using a lexical decision task in which fat-related words (e.g., large), unrelated words (e.g., fair), neutral words (e.g., post), and pseudowords (e.g., flirp) were given. The results revealed an expected Group x Stimuli interaction for reaction times indicating that at-risk individuals were significantly faster at processing fat-related words than words unrelated to fat. The authors discuss these results within the context of how fat-related stimuli are processed in at-risk individuals and how models of information processing can aid in the interpretation and understanding of eating disorders.     

Central Role of Relatedness in Alaska Native Youth Resilience: Preliminary Themes from One Site of the Circumpolar Indigenous Pathways to Adulthood (CIPA) Study

This qualitative study of youth resilience takes place in an Alaska Native community, which has undergone rapid, imposed social change over the last three generations. Elders, and successive generations have grown up in strikingly different social, economic and political contexts. Youth narratives of relationships in the context of adolescent growth and development offer insights to better understand culturally-patterned experience, continuity and change. Local youth and adults shaped the design, implementation and analysis phases of this participatory study. Multiple interviews, totaling 20 older (ages 15–18) and younger (11–14) boys and girls provide accounts of everyday lives and life histories. Although losing close relationships was the most common stressor, many of the participants’ resilience strategies centered on their connections to others. Participants cultivated ‘relatedness’, nurturing relationships that took on kinship qualities. Within these relationships, youth participants acted more responsibly and/or developed a sense of competency and self-worth because of others’ reliance on them.     

Shaping achievement goal orientations in a mastery-structured environment and concomitant changes in related contingencies of self-worth

Across three time-points spanning 9 months, changes in achievement goal orientations and contingencies of self-worth were assessed as a function of participating in a mastery-structured academic program for high-ability adolescents (N = 126). Endorsement of mastery goal orientations increased during the program and remained high even after students returned to their home learning environments. In contrast, performance-approach and performance-avoidance goal orientations decreased during the summer program, but returned to previous levels when assessed 6 months later. Latent growth curve models assessed the covariation of performance goal orientations and two contingencies of self-worth (outperforming others and others’ approval) hypothesized to represent elements of performance goal orientations. Changes in the contingency of self-worth based on outperforming others positively covaried with observed changes in both performance goal orientations; however, changes in self-worth contingent on others’ approval did not. Results are discussed in terms of mastery-structured environments’ potential to alter achievement goal orientations via their underlying psychological processes. Implications for achievement goal theory and the design of achievement-oriented environments are discussed.