Youth’s Responses to Peer Provocation: Links to Symptoms of Anxiety and Depression

Youth experiencing anxiety and depression are more likely to be targeted aggressively by peers, making it critical that we understand how they respond to these challenging interpersonal situations. We addressed this issue by recruiting a school-based sample of lower-income youth (N?=?327) in grades 6, 7, and 8 (M age =13.10, SD =0.99) to complete a multiple-choice measure asking them to select responses to 11 scenarios describing physical, relational, and verbal provocation by a peer. We found that increasing anxiety was negatively associated with endorsement of aggressive behaviors, whereas greater levels of depressive symptoms were linked to higher rates of aggressive responding, and, for girls, decreased endorsement of assertive strategies. Implications for understanding and intervening on social competence and psychopathology are discussed.     

Warm,but Maybe Not So Competent?—Contemporary Implicit Stereotypes of Women and Men in Germany

A fundamental model of stereotypes, the stereotype content model (SCM, Fiske et al. 2002), postulates that stereotypes of many social groups vary on two core dimensions: warmth and competence. In line with traditional gender stereotypes, the SCM predicts women to be perceived as warmer than men, and men to be perceived as more competent than women. Research on implicit measurement of stereotypes suggests that, next to people’s underlying beliefs, a major predictor is the tendency to favor one’s own group (Rudman et al. 2001). We examined gender stereotypes concerning warmth and competence, using implicit association tests (IATs, Greenwald et al. 1998) and drawing on diverse samples of women and men in eastern and western Germany (i.e., students and non-students; total N?=?384). On the warmth dimension, an overall women-warmth stereotype was found, confirming predictions of the SCM. On the competence dimension, associations of own gender and competence were observed for both men and women, suggesting the impact of self-favoring processes. Findings are discussed with respect to social role theory (Eagly 1987) and the changing roles of women.     

Evaluative priming in a semantic flanker task: ERP evidence for a mutual facilitation explanation

In semantic flanker tasks, target categorization response times are affected by the semantic compatibility of the flanker and target. With positive and negative category exemplars, we investigated the influence of evaluative congruency (whether flanker and target share evaluative valence) on the flanker effect, using behavioral and electrophysiological measures. We hypothesized a moderation of the flanker effect by evaluative congruency on the basis of the assumption that evaluatively congruent concepts mutually facilitate each other’s activation (see Schmitz & Wentura in Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 38:984–1000, 2012). Applying an onset delay of 50 ms for the flanker, we aimed to decrease the facilitative effect of an evaluatively congruent flanker on target encoding and, at the same time, increase the facilitative effect of an evaluatively congruent target on flanker encoding. As a consequence of increased flanker activation in the case of evaluative congruency, we expected a semantically incompatible flanker to interfere with the target categorization to a larger extent (as compared with an evaluatively incongruent pairing). Confirming our hypotheses, the flanker effect significantly depended on evaluative congruency, in both mean response times and N2 mean amplitudes. Thus, the present study provided behavioral and electrophysiological evidence for the mutual facilitation of evaluatively congruent concepts. Implications for the representation of evaluative connotations of semantic concepts are discussed.     

Child and Caregiver Dropout in Child Psychotherapy for Trauma

This study focused on the identification of variables collected at baseline assessments that predict children and caregivers who are at risk for dropout from treatment. A sample of 115 children and their caregivers who received evidence-based treatment for traumatic stress was utilized for this study. Multinomial logistic regression analyses indicated that caregiver and child age, the child's externalizing behaviors, and the child and caregiver's acknowledgment of posttraumatic stress symptoms significantly predicted premature dropout from treatment. Clarification of child and caregiver characteristics that increase the risk of dropout allows for the identification of families in need of additional support to stay in treatment.     

Job performance ratings: The relative importance of mental ability,conscientiousness, and career adaptability

According to career construction theory, continuous adaptation to the work environment is crucial to achieve work and career success. In this study, we examined the relative importance of career adaptability for job performance ratings using an experimental policy-capturing design. Employees (N = 135) from different vocational backgrounds rated the overall job performance of fictitious employees in 40 scenarios based on information about their career adaptability, mental ability, conscientiousness, and job complexity. We used multilevel modeling to investigate the relative importance of each factor. Consistent with expectations, career adaptability positively predicted job performance ratings, and this effect was relatively smaller than the effects of conscientiousness and mental ability. Job complexity did not moderate the effect of career adaptability on job performance ratings, suggesting that career adaptability predicts job performance ratings in high-, medium-, and low-complexity jobs. Consistent with previous research, the effect of mental ability on job performance ratings was stronger in high- compared to low-complexity jobs. Overall, our findings provide initial evidence for the predictive validity of employees' career adaptability with regard to other people's ratings of job performance.     

Eyewitness Evidence Obtained with the Self‐Administered Interview© Is Unaffected by Stress

The Self‐Administered Interview© (SAI) serves to elicit eyewitness statements directly after the crime. Witnesses could still experience stress then. Because stress during retrieval produces memory‐impairing effects, this study sought to compare the SAI with free recall under stress. An interaction between stress and interview was expected such that the SAI would elicit more comprehensive accounts than free recall in the control, but not in the stress group. One hundred and twenty‐seven participants underwent a stress or control task. They witnessed a live staged crime and completed an SAI or a free recall. The SAI elicited a higher number of correct verifiable event details and a higher number of correct and incorrect perpetrator details than free recall. Accuracy rates were unaffected. Unexpectedly, despite causing moderate stress‐induced cortisol elevations, stress exposure did not influence memory performance and did not interact with interview type. Hence, the SAI can safely be used, when witnesses are moderately stressed.Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Impact of Testing on the Formation of Children's and Adults' False Memories

Witnesses are frequently questioned immediately following a crime. The effects of such testing on false recall are inconclusive: Testing may inoculate against subsequent misinformation or enhance false memory formation. We examined whether different types of processing can account for these discrepancies. Drawing from Fuzzy‐trace and Associative‐activation theories, immediate questions that trigger the processing of the global understanding of the event can heighten false memory rates. However, questions that trigger the processing of specific details can inoculate memories against subsequent misinformation. These effects were hypothesized to be more pronounced in children than in adults. Seven/eight‐, 11/12‐, 14/15‐year‐olds, and adults (N = 220) saw a mock‐theft film and were tested immediately with meaning or item‐specific questions. Test results on the succeeding day replicated classic misinformation and testing effects, although our processing hypothesis was not supported. Only adults who received meaning questions benefited from immediate testing and, across all ages, testing led to retrieval‐enhanced suggestibility. © 2016 The Authors. Applied Cognitive Psychology Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.