Achievement Motivation and Coping Behavior of Normal and Problematic Preadolescent Kibbutz Children

The achievement motive (n Ach) of 183 kibbutz children aged 9–14, of whom 62 were considered problematic, was investigated. The n Ach score, derived from responses to TAT-like cards, was highly related to the child's hierarchical status within his social age group, as assessed by teachers and peers in areas of skill and known criteria of excellence, but not to his ability to deal with undefined or chance situations. Normal girls, especially those reared in a consistent reinforcement system, scored significantly higher than normal boys and problematic children.     

Self-conscious emotions and self-regulation in the promotion of condom use

Two prospective studies examined the self-regulatory role of anticipated negative self-conscious emotions (ANSCE) in the theory of planned behavior. In Study 1, 147 undergraduates reported condom attitudes, perceived norms, self-efficacy, ANSCE (shame and guilt) should they not use condoms, and intentions to use condoms during the coming 6 weeks. At a 6-week follow-up, ANSCE predicted condom use intentions and behavior and partially mediated the effect of attitudes and norms on both. Study 2 experimentally tested the social nature of self-consciousness in ANSCE; 61 female undergraduates read a scenario priming the private-self or social-self or were assigned to a no-scenario control. They reported condom attitudes, perceived control, ANSCE, condom use intentions, and a 6-week follow-up. ANSCE again predicted condom use intentions. A test of moderated mediation indicated that ANSCE influenced condom intentions more in the social-self condition than in the control condition. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

Focusing and restricting: two aspects of motivational selectivity in adulthood

Using a short-term longitudinal design, the authors investigated implications of 2 facets of motivational selectivity--restricting (to few goals) and focusing (on central and similar goals)--for goal-pursuit investment. Participants were 20-69 years old (Time 1, N = 177; Time 2, N = 160). Results show that motivational selectivity in terms of focusing (but not in terms of restricting) is associated with an enhanced involvement in goal pursuit (assessed 3 months later), irrespective of age. Structural equation models demonstrated that this association is completely mediated by the degree of mutual facilitation among goals. Furthermore, motivational selectivity increases from middle to older adulthood. This contributes to the maintenance of high goal involvement into later adulthood, despite aging-related increases in resource limitations.     

Memory consolidation for the discrimination of frequency-modulated tones in mongolian gerbils is sensitive to protein-synthesis inhibitors applied to the auditory cortex

Differential conditioning of Mongolian gerbils to linearly frequency-modulated tones (FM) has recently received experimental attention. In the study of the role of cerebral protein synthesis for FM discrimination memory, gerbils received post-training bilateral injections of anisomycin into the auditory cortex under light halothane anesthesia. Compared with saline-treated controls, anisomycin-treated gerbils showed a discrimination decrement during the subsequent three days of training. They markedly improved their performance within training sessions, but started each session at low levels. When repeatedly trained gerbils received post-session injections of anisomycin, discrimination performance during subsequent sessions was similar to the pre-injection performance, indicating that retention, retrieval, reconsolidation, and expression of the established reaction were not affected. However, the improvement of a partially established discrimination reaction was impaired after this treatment. Intracortical injections of emetine confirmed this finding. Neither drug affected FM discrimination learning when given several days before the initial training. Our results suggest that protein-synthesis inhibitors applied to the auditory cortex of gerbils during the post-acquisition phase interfered with learning and memory-related aspects of FM processing. The resulting deficit was evident for a number of post-injection training days. This effect was probably due to impaired consolidation, i.e., processes required for long-term stabilization or retrieval of the memory trace while leaving short-term memory intact.     

Finiteness and verb-second in German agrammatism

This study presents results from sentence-completion and grammaticality-judgement tasks with seven German-speaking agrammatic aphasics and seven age-matched control subjects examining verb finiteness marking and verb-second (V2) placement. The patients were found to be selectively impaired in tense marking in the face of preserved mood and agreement marking. Moreover, our results revealed that V2 scores varied across our patients, with some showing impaired and others preserved V2 performance. These findings will be discussed in the light of different syntactic accounts of agrammatism.     

“They'll take a gun to me before I get that shot”: Rationalization,emotions, and misinformation in COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy

Vaccine hesitancy—the reluctance, delay, or refusal to vaccinate regardless of availability—is not a new concept in psychology, medicine, or public health. However, given the emotions surrounding the COVID-19 vaccine, hesitancy has proven difficult to overcome. To-date, the bulk of available data on vaccine hesitancy are quantitative, leaving room for exploratory investigations into the reasons adults remain unvaccinated. This qualitative study assessed the motivations, beliefs, and perceptions of individuals who have decided to remain unvaccinated against COVID-19. We had one exploratory research question: What social psychological justifications emerge from vaccine hesitant people's explanations of their decisions to remain unvaccinated? To assess this question, we conducted 18 interviews with unvaccinated adults throughout 2021–2022. The interviews consisted of 20 questions regarding participants' perceptions of the COVID-19 vaccine and their intentions to get vaccinated. Thematic analysis revealed four main themes in the answers provided by participants: rationalization; identity, beliefs and potential modifiers; emotional responses; and information sources. These results offer insight for future vaccination efforts.     

Evaluation of empirical pretreatment assessments for developing treatments for expulsion in pediatric feeding disorders

A common problem among children with feeding disorders is expulsion (removing or spitting food or drink from the mouth), which interferes with treatment success when the goal is consumption. Previous research has identified effective treatments to reduce expulsion, most commonly—re-presentation (presenting the expelled bite or a new bite of the same food immediately following the expulsion). However, there is not currently an assessment model in place to inform treatment decisions with a goal to reduce expulsion. In the present study, we used a multielement design to identify conditions under which little or no expulsion occurred with three children with feeding disorders. The results of the assessment were then used to inform treatment selection aimed to eliminate expulsion. The comparisons of the assessment included physical prompt, bite number, texture, preference, bite presentation style, and size of the bite. Results suggest that this assessment was useful for the design of individualized treatments for children who frequently expel food.     

In-Between Spaces. Pluralism and Hybridity as Elements of a New Paradigm for Religion in the Modern Age

We are living in an age of pluralization in which religiosity and secularity are not mutually exclusive. With subversive intent, Peter L. Berger relativizes with this thesis his criticism of secularization theory. In the light of the persistence and widespread nature of religion and religiosity, Berger still considers secularization theory’s assumption that modernization and secularization go hand in hand to be empirically untenable. At the same time, however, he acknowledges that a “secular discourse” has asserted itself globally and has achieved a dominant position in society. This secular discourse also spreads throughout the mind of each individual, without (necessarily) driving out religiosity. The present article traces the lines of argumentation in Peter L. Berger’s works that lead to the thesis of two pluralisms: the coexistence of different religions and the coexistence of religious and secular discourse. Moreover, it establishes a connection between the question of the simultaneity of religiosity and secularity and the debate on hybridity that is currently being conducted within German-speaking sociology. The author postulates that this focus on “in-between” spaces—that is, on plurality and hybridity—rather than on dichotomies has the potential to trigger a new paradigm for religion in the modern age.     

Children's Moral Emotion Attribution in the Happy Victimizer Task: The Role of Response Format

Previous research in the happy victimizer tradition indicated that preschool and early elementary school children attribute positive emotions to the violator of a moral norm, whereas older children attribute negative (moral) emotions. Cognitive and motivational processes have been suggested to underlie this developmental shift. The current research investigated whether making the happy victimizer task less cognitively demanding by providing children with alternative response formats would increase their attribution of moral emotions and moral motivation. In Study 1, 93 British children aged 4–7 years old responded to the happy victimizer questions either in a normal condition (where they spontaneously pointed with a finger), a wait condition (where they had to wait before giving their answers), or an arrow condition (where they had to point with a paper arrow). In Study 2, 40 Spanish children aged 4 years old responded to the happy victimizer task either in a normal or a wait condition. In both studies, participants' attribution of moral emotions and moral motivation was significantly higher in the conditions with alternative response formats (wait, arrow) than in the normal condition. The role of cognitive abilities for emotion attribution in the happy victimizer task is discussed.     

Predicting voting behavior with implicit attitude measures: the 2002 German parliamentary election

Implicit measures of attitudes are commonly seen to be primarily capable of predicting spontaneous behavior. However, evidence exists that these measures can also improve the prediction of more deliberate behavior. In a prospective study we tested the hypothesis that Implicit Association Test (IAT) measures of the five major political parties in Germany would improve the prediction of voting behavior over and above explicit self-report measures in the 2002 parliamentary elections. Additionally we tested whether general interest in politics moderates the relationship between explicit and implicit attitude measures. The results support our hypotheses. Implications for predictive models of explicitly and implicitly measured attitudes are discussed.