Direct and indirect effects of parenting practices on socio‐moral approval of aggression in Polish young adults. Do all practices matter?

The purpose of this article was to determine the socialisation antecedents of socio‐moral approval of aggression (SMAA). In Study 1, we assessed factorial structure and reliability of the SMAA with a sample of 355 students who reported on the extent to which they approved of six forms of aggressive behaviour and six justifications of aggression. Two‐factor solutions were obtained with regard to forms and justifications of aggressive acts. Thus, approval of extreme and minor aggression was distinguished as well as legitimate and illegitimate justifications of aggression. In Study 2, we tested the path models of the socialisation antecedents that contributed to the high approval of minor and extreme aggressive acts as well as legitimate and illegitimate justifications of aggression. Data were collected from 173 undergraduate students. Path analyses showed that high levels of approval of extremely aggressive acts and of illegitimate justifications of aggression were preceded by a sequence of negative life events, beginning with frequent misbehaviour in childhood, corporal punishment used by parents and ending with delinquency in adolescence. The approval of minor aggression had little relation to socialisation factors apart from a detrimental effect of psychological aggression while approval of legitimate justifications of aggression had no socialisation antecedents.     

Reversal Learning Deficits in Criminal Offenders: Effects of Psychopathy,Substance use,and Childhood Maltreatment History

Deficits in reinforcement learning are presumed to underlie the impulsive and incorrigible behavior exhibited by psychopathic criminals. However, previous studies documenting reversal learning impairments in psychopathic individuals have not investigated this relationship across a continuous range of psychopathy severity, nor have they examined how reversal learning impairments relate to different psychopathic traits, such as the interpersonal-affective and lifestyle-antisocial dimensions. Furthermore, previous studies have not considered the role that childhood maltreatment and substance use may have in this specific cognitive deficit. Using a standard reversal learning task in a sample of N = 114 incarcerated male offenders, we demonstrate a significant relationship between psychopathy severity and reversal learning errors. Furthermore, we show a significant interaction between psychopathy and childhood maltreatment, but not substance use, such that individuals high in psychopathy with an extensive history of maltreatment committed the greatest number of reversal learning errors. These findings extend the current understanding of reversal learning performance among psychopathic individuals, and highlight the importance of considering childhood maltreatment when studying psychopathy.     

Electrophysiological markers of visual dimension changes and response changes

In cross-dimensional visual search tasks, target discrimination is faster when the previous trial contained a target defined in the same visual dimension as the current trial. The dimension-weighting account (DWA; A. Found & H. J. Müller, 1996) explains this intertrial facilitation by assuming that visual dimensions are weighted at an early perceptual stage of processing. Recently, this view has been challenged by models claiming that intertrial facilitation effects are generated at later stages that follow attentional target selection (K. Mortier, J. Theeuwes, & P. A. Starreveld, 2005). To determine whether intertrial facilitation is generated at a perceptual stage, at the response selection stage, or both, the authors focused on specific event-related brain potential components (directly linkable to perceptual and response-related processing) during a compound search task. Visual dimension repetitions were mirrored by shorter latencies and enhanced amplitudes of the N2-posterior- contralateral, suggesting a facilitated allocation of attentional resources to the target. Response repetitions and changes systematically modulated the lateralized readiness potential amplitude, suggesting a benefit from residual activations of the previous trial biasing the correct response. Overall, the present findings strengthen the DWA by indicating a perceptual origin of dimension change costs in visual search.     

Neurophysiological measures of involuntary and voluntary attention allocation and dispositional differences in need for cognition

Need for cognition (NFC) refers to stable individual differences in the intrinsic motivation to engage in and enjoy effortful cognitive endeavors and has been a useful predictor of dispositional differences in information processing. Although cognitive resource allocation conceptualized as cognitive effort is assumed to be the key mediator of NFC-specific processing, to date no research has systematically addressed its underpinnings. Using a neurocognitive paradigm and recording event-related potentials associated with bottom-up and top-down-driven aspects of attention, the present research contributes to filling this gap. In Study 1, high-NFC individuals showed larger P3a amplitudes to contextually novel events, indicating greater involuntary (automatic) attention allocation. This effect was replicated in Study 2, where NFC also was positively correlated with the P3b to target stimuli, indicating voluntary (controlled) processes of attention allocation. Thus, our findings provide first evidence for neurophysiological correlates of NFC and can improve the understanding of NFC-specific processing.     

Similarities and differences in contingency experiences of 3-month-olds across sociocultural contexts

In this study we analyzed similarities and differences in the contingency experiences of 159 three-month-olds from 6 sociocultural contexts. Across contexts, caretakers responded with similar overall contingency levels, vocalizations provided the dominant response as well as the most salient signal, and there was a relative signal-response correspondence. With two exceptions, infants in all samples most often got responses addressing their sense of hearing, followed by the sense of touch and then sight. In response to nondistress vocalizations, infants from independent contexts (Berlin, Los Angeles) experienced more contingent responses addressing their sense of sight than infants from autonomous-related (Beijing, Delhi, urban Nso from Cameroon) or interdependent contexts (rural Nso). Rural Nso infants experienced more contingent responses addressing their sense of touch than infants from all other but the Los Angeles sample. These results support the interpretation of contingent responsiveness as a part of the intuitive parenting program that manifests differentially depending on culture-specific emphases on distal and proximal caretaking.     

Where are the Gender Differences? Male Priming Boosts Spatial Skills in Women

The effects of gender stereotype activation by priming on performance in a spatial task were investigated among a mixed adult sample (including students) of 161 men and women (mean age?=?31.90) from Austria (Europe). They were assigned to one of four experimental groups according to gender and stereotype activation condition. After a male or female gender stereotype activating task, participants worked on a test assessing mental rotation (three-dimensional cube test, Gittler 1990). A significant main effect of priming on the performance in the mental rotation task emerged. Cohen’s d showed a pronounced gender difference emerging only in the female priming condition (d?=?.59), whereas it disappeared in the male priming condition (d?=?.01).     

Development of coronal stop perception: bilingual infants keep pace with their monolingual peers

Previous studies indicate that the discrimination of native phonetic contrasts in infants exposed to two languages from birth follows a different developmental time course from that observed in monolingual infants. We compared infant discrimination of dental (French) and alveolar (English) place variants of /d/ in three groups differing in language experience. At 6-8 months, infants in all three language groups succeeded; at 10-12 months, monolingual English and bilingual but not monolingual French infants distinguished this contrast. Thus, for highly frequent, similar phones, despite overlap in cross-linguistic distributions, bilingual infants performed on par with their English monolingual peers and better than their French monolingual peers.     

Paranoia and conspiracy thinking of Jews, Arabs, Germans, and Russians in a Polish sample

The study examined the relationship between paranoia and conspiracy thinking of Jews, Arabs, Germans, and Russians among 50 university student volunteers using Fenigstein and Vanable's Paranoia Scale for nonclinical populations and the Conspiracy Beliefs Scale. The scores for conspiracy stereotypes of all the nationalities were positively correlated with paranoia.     

Conspiracy stereotyping and perceptions of group entitativity of Jews, Germans, Arabs and homosexuals by Polish students

The relationship among conspiracy stereotypes and perceived entitativity (the degree to which a collection of persons are perceived as being bonded together in a homogeneous entity) of Jews, Germans, Arabs, and homosexuals was examined. 63 volunteer university students answered the Conspiracy Beliefs Scale and the Group Entitativity Scale. The conspiracy stereotypes of all the categories were positively correlated with scores for perceived entitativity. The perception of entitativity seems to be an important factor in conspiracy stereotyping and therefore in intergroup relations.     

Champ or chump: strategic utilization of dual social identities of others

The Jamaican‐born, Canadian sprinter, Ben Johnson, won the gold medal at the 1988 Olympics, but afterward was disqualified for steroid use. At the time Johnson's identity in the Canadian media appeared to shift—he was ‘Canadian’ after winning the gold medal but ‘Jamaican’ after disqualification. We tested this hypothesis via an archival study of a newspaper database of Canadian newspapers. The results confirmed the speculation. In the second study with Canadian research participants, the nationality of a fictional athlete was experimentally manipulated. He either possessed Canadian‐ American (shared) or Belgian‐American (non‐shared) identity. The athlete's performance outcome at an Olympic event was also manipulated. In the shared identity condition the athlete was perceived as more Canadian when he won than when he lost. There were no significant differences in nationality judgment when neither of the athlete's dual nationalities was Canadian. Results regarding perceptions of similarity paralleled the nationality‐ratings results. Findings from these two studies illustrate an interesting extension of BIRGing and CORFing strategies in which multiple social identities of others are used strategically to include or exclude others from the in‐group. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.