Reciprocal Relationships between Trajectories of Loneliness and Screen Media Use during Adolescence

Journal of Child and Family Studies - Adolescence is the peak period for loneliness. Now a ubiquitous part of the adolescent landscape, electronic screens may provide avenues for ameliorating...     

Misery loves company: mood-congruent emotional responding to music

We examined emotional responding to music after mood induction. On each trial, listeners heard a 30-s music excerpt and rated how much they liked it, whether it sounded happy or sad, and how familiar it was. When the excerpts sounded unambiguously happy or sad (Experiment 1), the typical preference for happy-sounding music was eliminated after inducing a sad mood. When the excerpts sounded ambiguous with respect to happiness and sadness (Experiment 2), listeners perceived more sadness after inducing a sad mood. Sad moods had no influence on familiarity ratings (Experiments 1 and 2). These findings imply that "misery loves company." Listeners in a sad mood fail to show the typical preference for happy-sounding music, and they perceive more sadness in music that is ambiguous with respect to mood.     

The reactivation of associated information affects source monitoring

In this study, we examined a source-monitoring phenomenon that arises from reactivated related information from the study phase. Three experiments showed that source attributions for target events were influenced not only by the target item itself, but also by studied information about related items. In Experiment 1, source memory for target items that have a high forward association value to a single related study item (e.g., credit) were affected by the source of the associated information (e.g., card), so that memory performance was better when associated items were presented in the same source rather than a different source. A similar effect occurred with bidirectional associates (Exp. 2), as well as with synonymous pairs of words (Exp. 3). We argue that the source information of the reactivated material can be commingled with information about a candidate during a source judgment at retrieval and thereby can affect performance.     

A two-study examination of work–family conflict,production deviance and gender

Building on the spillover and crossover literatures of work–family conflict and the theoretical framework of Conservation of Resources Theory (Hobfoll, 1989) we examine the effects of conflict on production deviance. Using a two-study constructive replication and extension design, we examine how partner work-to-family conflict contributes to job incumbent family-to-work conflict and subsequent engagement in production deviance. In addition, we examine the moderating role of gender on the incumbent family-to-work conflict to production deviance relationship. Study 1 of 344 job incumbents supported the positive relationship between incumbent family-to-work conflict and deviance. In addition, this was moderated by gender such that men engaged in more deviant behaviors in response to family-to-work conflict. Study 2 consisted of 190 matched job incumbents and their partners. These findings supported the mediation of partner work-to-family conflict to production deviance through incumbent family-to-work conflict. Again gender was supported using moderated mediation analysis such that men engaged in more deviant behaviors in response to family-to-work conflict. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.     

Discriminatory peer aggression among children as a function of minority status and group proportion in school context

This study investigates discriminatory peer aggression among primary school aged children as a function of minority status (based on nationality, ethnicity, religion) of the target and the relative proportions of minority and majority children in the school. Participants were 925 8‐ to 12‐year‐olds attending schools in Britain. Children of minority status were no more likely than children of majority background to experience peer aggression in general. However, minority children were more likely to experience being the victims of discriminatory aggression. Two contrasting predictions were tested: that discriminatory aggression would be more likely when the minority group was relatively small in number or, alternatively, that as the proportions of children of minority backgrounds increased across schools, discriminatory aggression would be greater. The latter hypothesis was supported. Findings also revealed that in schools with a lower minority presence, discriminatory aggression experienced by majority children was significantly lower than that reported by minority children. When the school minority rate exceeded 81%, discriminatory aggression was more commonly experienced among majority children than among minority children. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Maternal parenting stress and mothers' reports of their infants' mastery motivation

Mastery motivation is a psychological force that stimulates an individual to attempt to master a task that is challenging to him or her. This prospective longitudinal study examined the relationship between maternal stress, using the Parenting Stress Index-Short Form, and infant mastery motivation, using the Dimensions of Mastery Questionnaire, for 150 mother-infant pairs assessed at both 6- and 18-months of age. Infants of mothers with elevated stress levels at 6 months tended to show lower mastery motivation at 18 months (standardized beta=-.46, p=.001). Conversely, infants with lower general competence (standardized beta=-.24, p=.021) and lower persistence during social interactions with other children (standardized beta=-.18, p=.037) at 6 months of age had mothers with elevated total stress at 18 months of age. Implications for programs which simultaneously intervene with child and mother are discussed.     

A Method of Correcting Estimation Failure in Latent Differential Equations with Comparisons to Kalman Filtering

Abstract

Studies have used the latent differential equation (LDE) model to estimate the parameters of damped oscillation in various phenomena, but it has been shown that correct, non-zero parameter estimates are only obtained when the latent series exhibits little or no process noise. Consequently, LDEs are limited to modeling deterministic processes with measurement error rather than those with random behavior in the true latent state. The reasons for these limitations are considered, and a piecewise deterministic approximation (PDA) algorithm is proposed to treat process noise outliers as functional discontinuities and obtain correct estimates of the damping parameter. Comprehensive, random-effects simulations were used to compare results with those obtained using a state-space model (SSM) based on the Kalman filter. The LDE with the PDA algorithm (LDEPDA) successfully recovered the simulated damping parameter under a variety of conditions when process noise was present in the latent state. The LDEPDA had greater precision and accuracy than the SSM when estimating parameters from data with sparse jump discontinuities, but worse performance for diffusion processes overall. All three methods were applied to a sample of postural sway data. The basic LDE estimated zero damping, while the LDEPDA and SSM estimated moderate to high damping. The SSM estimated the smallest standard errors for both frequency and damping parameter estimates.     

To Apologize or Justify: Leader Responses to Task and Relational Mistakes

Abstract

Leadership roles are complex, creating an environment where leaders are likely to make mistakes that result in negative outcomes. We shift the conversation in the literature from examining the effectiveness of mistake responses toward exploring why leaders use different mistake recovery methods. We employ an online experimental method to distinguish between task and relationship mistakes for leaders and suggest that different attributions are made for these two types of mistakes (Study 1). We found that task mistakes are viewed by leaders as more specific and less personal, and that relationship mistakes are viewed as more global, describing the leader’s stable characteristics rather than a specific event. From these findings, we predict that leaders are more likely to apologize for task mistakes and are more likely to justify their relationship mistakes rather than admit wrongdoing for them. We find support for these predictions using a mixed methods approach, employing a laboratory experiment (Study 2) and a critical incident method surveying a panel of leaders (Study 3). As such, this paper extends our understanding of the mistake recovery process for leaders by demonstrating that 1) leaders’ relationship mistakes are viewed as more globally representative of the leader than task mistakes, and 2) leaders are more likely to apologize for task mistakes but more likely to justify relationship mistakes. Relational and task mistakes, however, were not found to be different in regard to their ambiguity or the extent to which they were viewed as a mistake.