The relationship of thought-action fusion to pathologicial worry and generalized anxiety disorder

Meta-cognitive beliefs associated with pathological worry and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) may encompass the likelihood subtype of thought-action fusion (TAF), the belief that one's thoughts can influence outside events. In the current study of 494 undergraduate college students, positive correlations between scores on the Penn State Worry Questionnaire (PSWQ) and the two Likelihood subscales of the TAF Scale were found, and participants endorsing at least some DSM-IV diagnostic criteria for GAD scored significantly higher on both TAF-Likelihood subscales than participants reporting no GAD symptoms. However, these TAF scales did not predict GAD diagnostic status with PSWQ included as a predictor. In contrast to previous research, the TAF-Moral scale did not correlate with worry. Relationships between TAF, pathological worry, and meta-cognition are discussed in relation to GAD.     

Thought action fusion: can it be corrected?

The goal of this study was to investigate whether or not a brief educational intervention delivered prior to engaging in an anxiety-provoking task (writing a sentence about hoping that a friend/relative was in a car accident) would be effective in offsetting anxiety in college students with a strong propensity to endorse statements of thought action fusion (TAF). As hypothesized, individuals receiving the educational intervention were less anxious than a placebo intervention control group at post task; they were also less likely to endorse statements of TAF after receiving the educational intervention. Also, those who chose to neutralize after writing the sentence (regardless of experimental group) were more likely to report feeling guiltier, more immoral and a greater sense of responsibility about writing the sentence prior to neutralizing than those who did not subsequently neutralize. These results are discussed in relation to the cognitive theory of obsessive-compulsive disorder and implications for prevention programs.     

Changes in college students' socioeconomic status aspirations during the COVID-19 pandemic

Although university students tend to be optimistic about their future socioeconomic status (SES), little is known how their SES aspirations changed during the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Using latent growth curve modeling techniques, we examined changes in subjective SES aspirations for students who began college before the pandemic (cohort 1; Fall 2019) and students who began college during the pandemic (cohort 2; Fall 2020). Moreover, we assessed how SES indicators (i.e., subjective family SES; first-generation status; low-income status) and a contextual financial indicator (i.e., pandemic-related financial impacts) predicted changes in SES aspirations for both groups of students. Although SES aspirations were similar at the beginning of college for both groups of students, students who began college before the pandemic experienced a greater rate of downward change between the baseline assessment and the assessment shortly after the pandemic began. In both cohorts, students from higher-SES families had higher SES aspirations at the beginning of college and steeper rates of downward change. Furthermore, despite having similar SES aspirations at the beginning of college, first-generation students whose first year was interrupted by the pandemic experienced steeper downward changes in their SES aspirations. However, pandemic-related financial impacts did not predict this downward change for either cohort. Our findings suggest that uncertainty in the early stages of the pandemic may have led to cautiousness in students' aspirations for their future SES attainment, particularly for first-generation students.     

Sexual orientation and handedness in men and women: a meta-analysis

Recent findings suggest that sexual orientation has an early neurodevelopmental basis. Handedness, a behavioral marker of early neurodevelopment, has been associated with sexual orientation in some studies but not in others. The authors conducted a meta-analysis of 20 studies that compared the rates of non-right-handedness in 6,987 homosexual (6,182 men and 805 women) and 16,423 heterosexual (14,808 men and 1,615 women) participants. Homosexual participants had 39% greater odds of being non-right-handed. The corresponding values for homosexual men (20 contrasts) and women (9 contrasts) were 34% and 91%, respectively. The results support the notion that sexual orientation in some men and women has an early neurodevelopmental basis, but the factors responsible for the handedness-sexual orientation association require elucidation. The authors discuss 3 possibilities: cerebral laterality and prenatal exposure to sex hormones, maternal immunological reactions to the fetus, and developmental instability.     

Implicit affectivity and rapid processing of affective body language: An fMRI study

Previous research has revealed affect‐congruity effects for the recognition of affects from faces. Little is known about the impact of affect on the perception of body language. The aim of the present study was to investigate the relationship of implicit (versus explicit) affectivity with the recognition of briefly presented affective body expressions. Implicit affectivity, which can be measured using indirect assessment methods, has been found to be more predictive of spontaneous physiological reactions than explicit (self‐reported) affect. Thirty‐four healthy women had to label the expression of body postures (angry, fearful, happy, or neutral) presented for 66 ms and masked by a neutral body posture in a forced‐choice format while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Participants' implicit affectivity was assessed using the Implicit Positive and Negative Affect Test. Measures of explicit state and trait affectivity were also administered. Analysis of the fMRI data was focused on a subcortical network involved in the rapid perception of affective body expressions. Only implicit negative affect (but not explicit affect) was correlated with correct labeling performance for angry body posture. As expected, implicit negative affect was positively associated with activation of the subcortical network in response to fearful and angry expression (compared to neutral expression). Responses of the caudate nucleus to affective body expression were especially associated with its recognition. It appears that processes of rapid recognition of affects from body postures could be facilitated by an individual's implicit negative affect.     

The myth of persistence: Response to “A critical commentary on follow-up studies and ‘desistance’ theories about transgender and gender non-conforming children” by Temple Newhook et al. (2018)

ABSTRACT

Temple Newhook et al. (2018) provide a critique of recent follow-up studies of children referred to specialized gender identity clinics, organized around rates of persistence and desistance. The critical gaze of Temple Newhook et al. examined three primary issues: (1) the terms persistence and desistance in their own right; (2) methodology of the follow-up studies and interpretation of the data; and (3) ethical matters. In this response, I interrogate the critique of Temple Newhook et al. (2018).     

Minding the gap between feminist identity and attitudes: the behavioral and ideological divide between feminists and non-labelers

Sexism persists in the contemporary United States and has deleterious effects on women and girls. This suggests that feminism--as a movement, a set of attitudes, or an explicit identity--is still warranted. Although feminist attitudes may buffer against the effects of sexism, notably in health domains, we suggest that there may be an ideological divide between those who hold such attitudes while rejecting the identity (non-labelers) and self-identified feminists. Non-labelers engage in less collective action on behalf of women's rights. On the basis of survey responses of 276 college students, non-labelers appear to be self-interested. We argue that disentangling attitudes from identity is crucial for sharpening predictions about the relation of feminism to other psychological and behavioral variables, and for engaging in broader social change. Furthermore, understanding whether non-labelers' rejection of feminist identity is rooted in fear of stigma associated with the label, neoliberal beliefs, or other explanations is important to those organizing for reform.     

The discriminability of smooth stereoscopic surfaces.

In this study the sensitivity of human vision to the smoothness of stereoscopic surface structure was investigated. In experiments 1 and 2 random-dot stereograms were used to evaluate the discrimination of smooth versus 'noisy' sinusoidal surfaces differing in the percentages of points on a single smooth surface. Fully coherent smooth surfaces were found to be much more discriminable than other less smooth randomly perturbed surfaces. In experiment 3 the discrimination between discontinuous triangle-wave surfaces and similarly shaped smoothly curved surfaces obtained from the addition of the fundamental and the third harmonic of the corresponding triangle-wave surface was evaluated. The triangle-wave surfaces were found to be more accurately discriminated from the smoothly curved surfaces than would be predicted from the detectability of the difference in their Fourier power spectra. This superior discriminability was attributed to differences between the curvature and/or discontinuity of the two surfaces. In experiment 3 the effects of incoherent 'noise' points on the discrimination between the two surface types were also evaluated. These randomly positioned noise points had a relatively small effect on the discrimination between the two surfaces. In general, the results of these experiments indicate that smooth surfaces are salient for stereopsis and that isolated local violations of smoothness are highly discriminable.