When “who we are” and “who I desire to be” appear disconnected: Introducing collective/personal self‐discrepancies and investigating their relations with minority students' psychological health

According to Self‐Discrepancy Theory research, perceiving mismatches between personal aspects of the self‐concept is associated with negative psychological consequences, including depression and anxiety. However, the impact of perceiving mismatches between collective and personal self‐aspects is still unknown. In a first step to address this gap, we introduce collective/personal self‐discrepancies—perceived mismatches between a desired self‐aspect and a collective identity. For cultural minority group members (n = 147), collective/personal self‐discrepancies were associated with more severe anxiety and depression symptoms. Bootstrapping analyses suggest that these relations are mediated by self‐discrepancies experienced at the personal level, but only for group members presenting average or high levels of ethnic identification. This study reaffirms the importance of collective identities, especially as potential antecedents of personal aspects of the self‐concept. The findings are further discussed in terms of their significance for cultural minority group members, who often highly identify with their minority groups.     

Notes on Kant's derivation of the various formulae of the categorical imperative

Abstract

This article is concerned with examining Kant's derivation of the various formulae of his Categorical Imperative. It is in agreement with Paton in maintaining that Kant actually mentions five formulae. But it is not in agreement with him, and some others, in maintaining that they are ultimately reducible to three. Nor is it in agreement with those who maintain that they are ultimately reducible to just one. According to the present article, they are ultimately reducible to two: that about a moral law being a universal law; and that about a moral law involving treating human beings as ends in themselves.     

Denominational Differences in US Synagogues' Promotion of Youth Physical Activity Programming

Journal of Religion and Health - Less than 25% of US children 6–17 years of age are sufficiently active. Faith-based settings are one of the nine societal sectors tasked with promoting...     

Construal levels and self-control

The authors propose that self-control involves making decisions and behaving in a manner consistent with high-level versus low-level construals of a situation. Activation of high-level construals (which capture global, superordinate, primary features of an event) should lead to greater self-control than activation of low-level construals (which capture local, subordinate, secondary features). In 6 experiments using 3 different techniques, the authors manipulated construal levels and assessed their effects on self-control and underlying psychological processes. High-level construals led to decreased preferences for immediate over delayed outcomes, greater physical endurance, stronger intentions to exert self-control, and less positive evaluations of temptations that undermine self-control. These results support a construal-level analysis of self-control.     

Stress, Rewards, and Change in the Centrality of Women’s Family and Work Roles: Mastery as a Mediator

Although research suggests that stress and rewards experienced in a social role are associated with changes in the centrality (or personal importance) of that role over time, little attention has been given to the mechanisms that account for this relationship. This study was conducted to examine change in role mastery as a mediator in the relationship between changes in role experiences (stress and rewards) and changes in centrality among 195 women who simultaneously occupied the roles of parent care provider, mother, wife, and employee. Regression analyses indicated that increases in parent care, mother, and employee stress eroded mastery in those roles. In addition, increases in rewards were associated with a bolstered sense of mastery in each of the four roles. Mastery was found to be a mediating mechanism in the relationship between stress/rewards and centrality in one of the four roles examined, the employee role. However, changes in womens perceptions of mastery were unrelated to the extent to which women changed the importance of their three family roles. These findings extend prior research by demonstrating that mastery is a mechanism through which stress and rewards are associated with centrality in the employee role.     

Primacy and recency in nonword repetition

An increasing body of evidence suggests that nonword repetition is related to immediate serial memory (e.g., Baddeley, Gathercole, & Papagno, 1998; Gathercole & Baddeley, 1993). One possible account of this relationship is that a nonword is processed like a list when it is first encountered. If this is the case, it should be possible to detect serial position effects in repetition of single nonwords. Three experiments tested this prediction. Experiment 1 examined whether there would be syllable serial position primacy and recency effects in repetition of polysyllabic nonwords, and obtained both primacy and recency effects. Experiments 2 and 3 showed that these effects were not due to the controlled duration of the nonwords or the requirements of concurrent articulation or the procedure by which nonwords were created.     

Family functioning within the context of families with adolescent children in urban India

Research on family functioning within given cultural contexts is needed. This study aims to describe salient dimensions of family functioning in two urban contexts in India and to examine differences in family functioning by sociodemographic groups. We measured differences in family functioning using cross-sectional survey questionnaire data collected from 13 to 15-year-old adolescents and one of their parents/primary caregivers in Mumbai (n = 843) and Kolkata (n = 913) during 2019–2020. We drew a multi-stage sample representative of neighborhoods and households in both cities. We assessed a multi-dimensional family functioning latent factor that included parent-reported measures (parent–adolescent communication, family cohesion, and parent monitoring of peers) and adolescent-reported measures (parent support, family cohesion, and parent supervision). Our results support an overall measure of family functioning manifested by multiple dimensions for parent- and adolescent-reported data. Families with male adolescents had worse adolescent-reported family functioning in Mumbai and parent-reported family functioning in Kolkata. Higher socioeconomic status was associated with better parent-reported family functioning in both cities and better adolescent-reported family functioning in Kolkata. Muslim religious identification in Kolkata and the Hindi native language in both cities were associated with better adolescent-reported family functioning. Our findings indicate heterogeneity in family functioning across demographic and social-cultural groups within the two urban contexts of India. This study may inform the development of culturally congruent prevention interventions for families with adolescents in India.     

The role of vividness of imagery in metaphor generation

Pointing to novel links between mental representation and social communication, we examine the association between vividness of imagery and use of metaphors. In a study on individual differences and three experiments, we demonstrate that vivid imagery is linked to greater use of metaphors and that this relationship is bi-directional. We also show that this relationship is stronger in the context of negative valence. We demonstrate that vivid imagery results in greater generation of metaphors (in particular, for negative concepts). In examining the reverse direction of influence, we show that in the negative (rather than positive) context, use of metaphors results in greater perceptions of vividness. We suggest that vividness can be signified and produced by using metaphors that play an important role in meaning making and communication.     

The pursuit of happiness can be lonely

Few things seem more natural and functional than wanting to be happy. We suggest that, counter to this intuition, valuing happiness may have some surprising negative consequences. Specifically, because striving for personal gains can damage connections with others and because happiness is usually defined in terms of personal positive feelings (a personal gain) in western contexts, striving for happiness might damage people's connections with others and make them lonely. In 2 studies, we provide support for this hypothesis. Study 1 suggests that the more people value happiness, the lonelier they feel on a daily basis (assessed over 2 weeks with diaries). Study 2 provides an experimental manipulation of valuing happiness and demonstrates that inducing people to value happiness leads to relatively greater loneliness, as measured by self-reports and a hormonal index (progesterone). In each study, key potential confounds, such as positive and negative affect, were ruled out. These findings suggest that wanting to be happy can make people lonely. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

Distress Tolerance as a Mechanism Linking Violence Exposure to Problematic Alcohol use in Adolescence

Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology - Adolescents exposed to violence are at elevated risk of developing most forms of psychopathology, including depression, anxiety, and alcohol...