Emotion words and categories: evidence from lexical decision

We examined the categorical nature of emotion word recognition. Positive, negative, and neutral words were presented in lexical decision tasks. Word frequency was additionally manipulated. In Experiment 1, “positive” and “negative” categories of words were implicitly indicated by the blocked design employed. A significant emotion–frequency interaction was obtained, replicating past research. While positive words consistently elicited faster responses than neutral words, only low frequency negative words demonstrated a similar advantage. In Experiments 2a and 2b, explicit categories (“positive,” “negative,” and “household” items) were specified to participants. Positive words again elicited faster responses than did neutral words. Responses to negative words, however, were no different than those to neutral words, regardless of their frequency. The overall pattern of effects indicates that positive words are always facilitated, frequency plays a greater role in the recognition of negative words, and a “negative” category represents a somewhat disparate set of emotions. These results support the notion that emotion word processing may be moderated by distinct systems.     

Development of the ability to combine visual and acoustic information in working memory

Presentation of two kinds of materials in working memory (visual and acoustic), with the requirement to attend to one or both modalities, poses an interesting case for working memory development because competing predictions can be formulated. In two experiments, we assessed such predictions with children 7–13 years old and adults. With development, the ability to hold more information in the focus of attention could lead to an increase in the size of the trade‐off between modalities; if attention can hold A items during unimodal‐attention trials, then on average attention should hold A/2 of those same items during bimodal‐attention trials. If A increases with age, so would the dual‐task cost, A/2. The results clearly ruled out that possibility. It was the modality‐ or code‐specific components of working memory that improved with age and not the central component. We discuss various mechanisms that could have produced these results, including alternative attention‐based mechanisms. The findings point to a rich field for continued research.     

Attentional bias of students toward negative feedback in bad outcome situations: the mechanism of self-defense

The main goals of the present study were to investigate the effects of outcome valence on attentional bias toward feedback and examine the internal mechanism of self-defense. We systematically manipulated the outcome valence by providing a bogus score in a rational thinking task and recorded the time positive feedback and negative feedback was viewed in experiment 1. We added the intervention of self-affirmation to examine the self-defense mechanism in experiment 2. The results suggest that (1) in good outcome situations, the participants viewed negative feedback longer than positive feedback. There was a tendency to slightly reduce the attention given to negative feedback in bad outcome situations. (2) Self-affirming participants in bad outcome situations increased their viewing time of negative feedback, which supported the activation of defensiveness.     

The Costs of Secondary Migration: Perspectives from Local Voluntary Agencies in the USA

In recent years, as the need for global refugee assistance has increased, so have fears and concerns of the costs of refugee resettlement in Western nations. Now, seemingly more than ever, international security and regional development depend largely on the composition and distribution of the world population. In many Western nations, dispersal policies are specifically designed to manage the distribution of recently arrived refugees. Secondary migration presents a challenge to the goals of dispersal policies and raises questions regarding regional development, population pressures, job security, welfare dependency, and the future of global refugee assistance. We survey administrators and caseworkers in a series of qualitative interviews about their experiences with secondary migration. We conclude that the US refugee resettlement system is ill-equipped in handling the complications of secondary migration. These results lead us to reimagine a better strategy for achieving the goals of refugee resettlement.     

Intersectional experiences of discrimination in a low‐resource urban community: An exploratory latent class analysis

There have been increasing calls for the application of an intersectionality framework to understand and address discrimination and health inequities among diverse communities. Yet there have been theoretical debates regarding to whom intersectionality applies and how intersectional experiences of discrimination are associated with health outcomes. The current study aimed to contribute to these theoretical debates and inform practical applications to reduce health inequities. Data were drawn from a community health survey in New Haven, CT (N = 1,293 adults) and analysed using latent class analysis. Results yielded 4 classes. Members of the 4 classes were similar sociodemographically. Three classes of participants reported experiencing discrimination, and members of these classes had greater stress, higher rates of smoking and sleep disruption, and worse overall health than members of the class reporting no discrimination. Members of 2 classes made multiple, or intersectional, attributions for discrimination, and members of these classes reported the most frequent discrimination. Findings suggest that community members who are sociodemographically similar may have diverse discrimination experiences. Multilevel interventions that address multiple forms of discrimination (e.g., racism and sexism) may hold promise for reducing discrimination and, ultimately, health inequities within low‐resource urban community settings.     

Parameters of Time-out: Research Update and Comparison to Parenting Programs,Books, and Online Recommendations

In reviews published more than 30 years ago, eight parameters important to the use of time-out were identified and available research was summarized. The purpose of the current paper is to provide an updated summary of existing research for each parameter of time-out. Within each parameter, we conducted a thorough review of the published literature and identified all peer-reviewed articles addressing each parameter. We identified and summarized a total of 46 articles across the eight parameters, including 32 not cited in previous reviews. Sufficient findings were available to draw conclusions regarding time-out warning, schedule of time-out, contingent versus noncontingent release, and duration. Tentative conclusions based on only a few studies could be drawn in regard to instructional versus physical administration and verbalized reason for time-out. No conclusions could be drawn regarding time-out signal and specific time-out location. While we know much more today regarding effective implementation of time-out, there is a clear need for further exploration within these identified parameters. In addition to summarizing the literature, we reviewed recommendations made by behavioral parent training programs, parenting books, and parenting Web sites, and compared how well their recommendations matched current research based on the conclusions drawn from our review. We found that parenting sources made strong and specific recommendations on several of the parameters that were either not consistent with available research or simply lacked a sufficient research base.     

An evaluation of a visual–visual successive matching‐to‐sample procedure to establish equivalence classes in adults

Traditionally, behavior analysts have studied stimulus equivalence using a matching‐to‐sample (MTS) preparation. Although researchers have shown the utility of MTS to yield equivalence classes, the procedure requires several prerequisite skills for a learner to accurately respond. Previous research with humans and nonhumans has shown that relational responding can be produced via compound stimulus discrimination and successive matching‐to‐sample (S‐MTS). We conducted four experiments with college students to further evaluate the effectiveness of S‐MTS in the establishment of stimulus relations. S‐MTS trials consisted of the presentation of a single sample stimulus followed by one comparison in a fixed location on a computer screen. Depending upon the sample–comparison relation, participants touched (i.e., go) or did not touch (i.e., no‐go) the comparison stimulus. Following training of the baseline relations (AB/BC), we assessed the emergence of symmetry, transitivity, and equivalence performances (i.e., BA/CB and AC/CA). Results support the utility of the S‐MTS procedure as a possible alternative to traditional MTS. This study has direct implications for participants for whom traditional three‐array MTS procedures may be challenging.