Song copying by humpback whales: themes and variations

Male humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) produce long, structured sequences of sound underwater, commonly called songs. Humpbacks progressively modify their songs over time in ways that suggest that individuals are copying song elements that they hear being used by other singers. Little is known about the factors that determine how whales learn from their auditory experiences. Song learning in birds is better understood and appears to be constrained by stable core attributes such as species-specific sound repertoires and song syntax. To clarify whether similar constraints exist for song learning by humpbacks, we analyzed changes over 14 years in the sounds used by humpback whales singing in Hawaiian waters. We found that although the properties of individual sounds within songs are quite variable over time, the overall distribution of certain acoustic features within the repertoire appears to be stable. In particular, our findings suggest that species-specific constraints on temporal features of song sounds determine song form, whereas spectral variability allows whales to flexibly adapt song elements.Electronic Supplementary Material Supplementary material is available for this article at .     

Contextual connections to puns in Tom Swifties

Previous research conducted with short fables was replicated in this study with Swifties in which sentence length and presence of a pun were controlled. Of the 24 one-sentence word plays shown to each participant, half had an enhanced contextual connection that was predicted to increase appropriateness and detection of the incongruity, resulting in heightened perceived cleverness and humor. Results supported predictions, showing especially strong enhancement of perceived cleverness. The authors suggest that this outcome could be generalized to other forms of word play.     

Borderline personality disorder and age of onset in major depression

In the present report from the Rhode Island Methods to Improve Diagnostic Assessment and Services (MIDAS) project, we tested the hypothesis that borderline personality disorder (BPD) accounts for the observed differences between early and late onset major depressive disorder (MDD). A total of 440 depressed outpatients were evaluated with semistructured interviews. Patients were subdivided by age of onset and the presence or absence of comorbid BPD. The overall pattern of clinical and demographic variables differed and two separate, multiple, logistic regression analyses addressed the association between age of onset and BPD in MDD patients. Comorbid BPD was not significant in the multivariable age of onset equation and the results of the multivariable analyses support the idea of difference between subtypes. It is concluded that although early age of onset is predictive of BPD, BPD is not a universal feature of early-onset MDD.     

“Best possible” systematic estimates of communalities

At least four approaches have been used to estimate communalities that will leave an observed correlation matrixR Gramian and with minimum rank. It has long been known that the square of the observed multiple-correlation coefficient is a lower bound to any communality of a variable ofR. This lower bound actually provides a best possible estimate in several senses. Furthermore, under certain conditions basic to the Spearman-Thurstone common-factor theory, the bound must equal the communality in the limit as the number of observed variables increases. Otherwise, this type of theory cannot hold forR.This research was facilitated by a grant from the Lucius N. Littauer Foundation to the American Committee for Social Research in Israel in order to promote methodological work of the Israel Institute of Applied Social Research.     

Haitian and Haitian American experiences of racism and socioethnic discrimination in Miami-Dade county: At-risk and court-involved youth

We examine how juvenile justice-involved youth of Haitian descent in Miami-Dade County cope with structural racism and its impact on their mental health. Drawing on longitudinal ethnography, psychosocial assessment data, and a family-based clinical intervention funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, this article explores youth narratives of discrimination prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic. We use critical race theory and theory of practice to understand youths’ perceptions as racialized bodies and stigmatized selves, highlighting the experiences and perspectives of a particular black immigrant group, ethnic beings caught up in the everyday practices of racialization, sociocultural marginalization, and racism. We frame these experiences as a variation of the complex continuum of structural racism and racial domination in the US. These experiences have caused anger, fear, anxiety, chronic anticipatory distress, and hopelessness among youth of Haitian descent. We conclude with some recommendations for therapeutic support that encourages youth to process their experiences, promotes their development of a positive self-concept, and provides them with mind-body techniques to attenuate the physical impacts of discriminatory events. The clinical trial registration number for this study intervention is NCT03876171.     

Political distrust,perceived threat,and intentions to engage in normative and violent collective action: A mixed-methods study

In three studies, we examined the role of distrust and perceived threat in intentions to engage in normative and violent non-normative collective action. A field-based qualitative study of 35 pro-democracy protestors during the 2019 Hong Kong Anti-Extradition protests revealed that perceived threat to Hong Kong values alongside distrust of political institutions spurred collective action engagement and support for defensive violent collection action. In Study 2, a questionnaire (N = 639) testing pro-democracy action intentions demonstrated direct paths on both normative and violent collective action intentions from distrust and threat. In Study 3 (N = 133), experimental trust and threat manipulations demonstrated a significant association between distrust and threat on violent collective action intentions and acceptance, and a significant interaction on acceptance of violent collective action. Our results reveal the importance of distrust and threat in attitudinal support for, and engagement in, collective action and their role in transitioning from non-violent to violent collective action.     

Be Fair,Your Employees Are Watching: A Relational Response Model of External Third‐Party Justice

There is growing theoretical recognition in the organizational justice literature that an organization's treatment of external parties (such as patients, community members, customers, and the general public) shapes its own employees’ attitudes and behavior toward it. However, the emerging third‐party justice literature has an inward focus, emphasizing perceptions of the treatment of other insiders (e.g., coworkers or team members). This inward focus overlooks meaningful “outward” employee concerns relating to how organizations treat external parties. We propose a relational response model to advance the third‐party justice literature asserting that the organization's fair treatment of external parties sends important relational signals to employees that shape their social exchange perceptions toward their employer. Supporting this proposition, in two multisource studies in separate healthcare organizations we found that patient‐directed justice had indirect effects on supervisory cooperative behavior ratings through organizational trust and organizational identification.     

Psychological and Physical Characteristics of U.S. Marine Recruits

This study examined psychological and physical health factors in a cohort of U.S. Marine recruits with the goal of developing a comprehensive understanding of attributes recruits bring to training. 1,350 male recruits completed a multimeasure survey during the first week of training. A 2-way multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was conducted to explore the relationship of hardiness dimensions on several psychological and physical factors. Compared with other military samples, this cohort reported similar levels on hardiness control and rigidity subscales. Recruits who reported higher scores on a measure of positive hardiness also reported higher scores on measures of grit, grit ambition, sensation seeking, training expectations, positive ways of coping, physical and mental health, fitness scores, and lower scores on a measure of depression. This study provides a more complete understanding of the complex array of attributes of Marine recruits and forms a foundation for predictive models of injury risk and/or attrition.