Parental Influences on University Students’ Mental Help-Seeking Intentions

Parents are thought to play an integral role in adolescents’ and young adults’ help-seeking, yet parental influences on university students’ help-seeking intentions have been largely overlooked. A total of 118 parent-student dyads completed questionnaires. Multiple regression analyses demonstrated that increased student attachment to parent and lower levels of student distress were associated with informal help-seeking. Actor-partner interdependence models demonstrated that parent variables had no influence on students’ help-seeking intentions. Counseling and research implications are discussed.     

The Use of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy to Promote Mental Health and School Engagement in University Students: A Multisite Randomized Controlled Trial

The aim of this multisite randomized controlled trial was to determine whether an intervention based on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) was efficacious in improving university students’ psychological flexibility, mental health, and school engagement. Students were recruited in four Canadian universities and randomly assigned to an intervention (n = 72) or a wait-list control group (n = 72). Students in the intervention group took part in four 2.5-hour workshops during a 4-week period and were asked to do exercises at home (e.g., meditation, observation grids). Wait-list students received the intervention soon after the post measurements. MANCOVAs and ANCOVAs revealed that students in the intervention group showed greater psychological flexibility at postintervention than those in the control group. They also reported greater well-being and school engagement, and lower stress, anxiety, and depression symptoms. Taken together, results of this study suggest that an ACT-based intervention offers a valuable way to promote mental health and school engagement in postsecondary settings.     

Aggressiveness and Perceived Marital Quality: The Moderating Role of a Family-Supportive Work Climate

In this article, we examined the impact of language (i.e., native English speakers vs. non-native English speakers) on two aspects of information processing associated with multinational coalition operations in a simulated precrisis, command and control (C2) headquarters (HQ). First, we examined the impact of language on situation awareness (SA) and confidence in the participants' SA responses. Second, we examined the participants' responses to questions about various aspects of language, information sharing, decision-making, identity, and cultural issues that exist within a multinational coalition operation C2 HQ. The primary findings from this work revealed that there was very little impact of language on SA and confidence and that both language groups overwhelmingly shared the same views on information sharing, decision-making, and organizational/cultural issues.     

Blinking predicts enhanced cognitive control

Recent models have suggested an important role for neuromodulation in explaining trial-to-trial adaptations in cognitive control. The adaptation-by-binding model (Verguts & Notebaert, Psychological review, 115(2), 518–525, 2008), for instance, suggests that increased cognitive control in response to conflict (e.g., incongruent flanker stimulus) is the result of stronger binding of stimulus, action, and context representations, mediated by neuromodulators like dopamine (DA) and/or norepinephrine (NE). We presented a flanker task and used the Gratton effect (smaller congruency effect following incongruent trials) as an index of cognitive control. We investigated the Gratton effect in relation to eye blinks (DA related) and pupil dilation (NE related). The results for pupil dilation were not unequivocal, but eye blinks clearly modulated the Gratton effect: The Gratton effect was enhanced after a blink trial, relative to after a no-blink trial, even when controlling for correlated variables. The latter suggests an important role for DA in cognitive control on a trial-to-trial basis.     

The induction of shared identity: the positive role of individual distinctiveness for groups

This article examines inductive processes of social identity formation, the bottom-up processes by which individual group members influence a social identity, integrating it with work on entitativity. Three studies tested the prediction that feelings of individual distinctiveness mediate the relation between inductive social identity formation and entitativity and that entitativity in turn predicts identification. The studies provided consistent support for this theoretical model over alternative models, using a range of different social groups and methods. Study 1 found support for the model in self-selected small groups. Study 2 supported it with a much broader set of groups that were not self-selected. Finally, Study 3 varied levels of inductive social identity formation systematically by varying group size and provided direct support for the hypothesized causal relations.     

Sensitivity to time interval changes in speech and tone conditions

The main goal of the present experiment was to verify whether sensitivity to time interval changes in speech is greater than sensitivity to time interval changes between tones. The 12-syllable sentences were delivered in French (the main language of the participants) or in a foreign language (Slovenian) that was totally unfamiliar to the participants. Two types of sub-sequences were induced within the series of stimuli (sub-sequences in sentences or in tone sequences). Discrimination, as revealed by the Weber fraction in each condition, was much better in the tone conditions than in the speech conditions. Nevertheless, discrimination was excellent in all conditions: Weber fractions below 2% with tones and around 4.5% in the speech conditions. Moreover, the study revealed that familiarity with a particular language does not affect performance and that inducing internal sub-sequences within tone conditions, as opposed to using a series of equal intervals, does not lead to better discrimination. The fact that discrimination is better with tones than with sentences indicates that the extensive training provided by speech does not lead to higher sensitivity to time interval variations than simple tones do. Instead, it seems to indicate that the different acoustical variations in speech reduce the capability to discriminate time interval variations.     

Output order reflects the cognitive accessibility of goals

Goal accessibility--the ease or speed with which a goal is activated--increases the likelihood that it will be acted on. The present studies validate output order as a measure of goal accessibility that can be applied to goal lists in both laboratory and naturalistic settings. In three studies, output order (the order in which goals are listed in a free-response format) was related to self-reported goal value but was not redundant with it. Furthermore, output order was affected by motivational priming whereas value was not, and order associated with typical student goals (e.g., achievement) compared with atypical goals (e.g., power). Output order is well suited to bring the study of accessibility to naturalistic studies of goals and goal pursuit.     

Up north and down south: Implicit associations between topography and cardinal direction

Route planners show a reliable tendency to select south- relative to north-going routes between two horizontally (east/west) aligned landmarks, suggesting the application of a north-is-up heuristic (Brunyé, Mahoney, Gardony, & Taylor, 2010). The source of this north-is-up bias remains unknown, and there is no strong evidence to suggest that it is due to explicit strategy use. In four experiments, we attempt to further elucidate the source of this effect by testing whether it can be attributed to implicit associations between cardinal direction (north/south) and topography (mountainous/level terrain). Experiments 1 and 2 used an adapted Implicit Association Test and demonstrate automatically activated judgements that associate north with mountainous and south with relatively level terrain. Experiment 3 rules out the possibility that this effect is due to the local topography of New England by replicating in participants from the topographically dissimilar Midwestern United States. Finally, Experiment 4 tests the relative contribution of implicit versus explicit associations between cardinal direction and topography in predicting route-planning asymmetries; we show that implicit associations are a stronger predictor of southern route biases than explicit processes. Overall, results demonstrate that the conceptualization of space can be driven by physically unfounded implicit associations between cardinal directions and topographical features, and these associations are at least partially responsible for southern route preferences.     

Processing open and closed class-headed nonwords: Left hemisphere support for separate vocabularies

Evidence from studies of sentence production and comprehension points to a distinction between the open and closed class vocabularies. Data from the neurologically impaired suggest the left hemisphere selectively supports this distinction. This study further examines the vocabulary distinction by presenting to the different visual hemifields nonwords embedded with open or closed class portions, and asking normal subjects to make lexical decisions. Results indicate the vocabulary distinction is evident with RVF, but not LVF, presentations. This is discussed in terms of the use to which open and closed class words are put in sentence processing and also bears on the issue of the distinct cognitive styles associated with the different cerebral hemispheres.     

Significance,structure, and gender differences in life domains of college students

The purpose of this study was to assess the significance and structure of life domains of college students and to explore the patterns of gender differences on different indices of significance. Four hundred fifty-seven college students rated 21 life domains in terms of degree of importance, frequency of involvement, and level of impact. They also responded to a measure of global life satisfaction. Gender differences on significance indices were investigated by means of three types of analyses. First, gender mean ratings on 21 life domains were compared via one-way multivariate analyses of variance. Second, the underlying dimensions of the 21 domains for each gender were compared via exploratory factor analyses. Third, the correlation patterns between perceived positive impact of each life domain and life satisfaction were calculated separately for men and women. Within-group comparisons revealed that men and women shared the same nine most significant domains: education, friends, biological needs, leisure, family, health, couple, esthetics, and physical activities. However, several gender differences were consistently found in the three types of analyses. The results indicated that although traditionally feminine domains are rated as more significant to women than men, traditional masculine domains were rated as equally significant by men and women. Domains considered sex role neutral (e.g., personal planning) were rated as more significant by women than men. In general, women appear to experience greater cognitive, affective, and behavioral aspects of significance in a wider spectrum of activities and as well perceive their general life satisfaction as deriving from a broader range of sources. Results also highlight the importance of assessing the degree of significance of life domains as an initial step in the development of multidimensional self-related constructs.Preparation of this paper was made possible through grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Fonds pour la Formation des Chercheurs et l'Aide à la Recherche (FCAR-Québec) and the Université du Québec à Montréal. We would like to thank Richard Koestner and Richard Bourhis for their valuable comments on an earlier version of this paper.