Support for religio‐political aggression among teenaged boys in Gaza: Part I: psychological findings

Politically aggressive militant groups usually rely on support from a larger community, although evidence suggests that only some members of that larger community support that aggression. A major subtype of political aggression is that associated with religious differences—or Religio‐Political Aggression (RPA). Little previous research has explored demographic or psychological factors that might distinguish supporters from non‐supporters of RPA. In an exploratory study, we investigated whether factors previously associated with aggression might correlate with support for RPA in the case of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. During the second intifada, fifty‐two 14‐year‐old Palestinian boys in Gaza completed self‐report measures of life events, emotional status, and political attitudes. Teenaged boys who reported family members having been wounded or killed by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) expressed greater support for RPA (t(50)=?2.30, P=.026). In addition, boys who felt their group was treated unjustly reported greater support for RPA compared with those who did not (t(50)=?2.273, P=.027). Implications of these preliminary data are discussed. Aggr. Behav. 36:219–231, 2010. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Carryover effects of analytic thought on preference quality

The current study used a novel within-subjects design to test for the effects of analytic thought (reasons analysis) on the quality of the resulting judgments, as well as on subsequent, unanalyzed judgments of the same stimuli. Participants rated eight Olympic dives at two points in time, 30 min apart, under both reasoning and control instructions, which were then correlated with the scores the dives received from the Olympic judges. Results revealed asymmetric effects of reasoning and non-reasoning strategies: reasoning impaired judgments even when the judgments had been previously made under control conditions, and participants’ two sets of ratings were more strongly correlated with each other when made under control conditions than when either set had been reasoned. Analyses of decision times and reason–judgment correlations suggest that the effects of analytic thought in this domain are partially due to a general shift in decision strategy, and not exclusively to biases in the content of generated reasons.     

Age-related differences in acquisition of perceptual-motor skills: working memory as a mediator

Aging is associated with reduced performance on information processing speed, memory, and executive functions tasks. Although older adults are also less apt in acquiring new perceptual-motor skills, it is unclear whether and how skill acquisition difficulties are associated with age-related general cognitive differences. We addressed this question by examining structural relations among measures of cognitive resources (working memory) and indices of perceptual-motor skill acquisition (pursuit rotor and mirror tracing) in 96 healthy adults aged 19-80 years of age. Three competing structural models were tested: a single (common) factor model, a dual correlated factors model, and a hierarchical dual-factor model. The third model provided the best fit to the data, indicating age differences in simple perceptual-motor skill are partially mediated by more complex abilities.     

Emotion perception explains age-related differences in the perception of social gaffes

Young (<36 years) and older (>59) adults viewed videos in which the same individual committed a faux pas, or acted appropriately, toward his coworkers. Older participants did not discriminate appropriate and inappropriate behaviors as well as young participants. Older participants also scored lower than young participants on an extensive battery of emotion recognition tests, and emotion performance fully mediated age differences in faux pas discrimination. The results provide further evidence for the role of emotion perception in a range of important social deficits.     

Age-related differences in the course of cognitive skill acquisition: the role of regional cortical shrinkage and cognitive resources

This study examined the impact of age-related differences in regional cerebral volumes and cognitive resources on acquisition of a cognitive skill. Volumes of brain regions were measured on magnetic resonance images of healthy adults (aged 22-80). At the early stage of learning to solve the Tower of Hanoi puzzle, speed and efficiency were associated with age, prefrontal cortex volume, and working memory. A similar pattern of brain-behavior associations was observed with perseveration measured on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test. None of the examined structural brain variables were important at the later stages of skill acquisition. When hypertensive participants were excluded, the effect of prefrontal shrinkage on executive aspects of performance was no longer significant, but the effect of working memory remained.     

Mothers' negative evaluations of their children's performances enhance boys' memories for crafts

The authors predicted that mothers' evaluative comments would affect their preschool-aged children's learning during a craft-making activity. Each mother (N = 67) taught her child 6 crafts in a playroom in a university setting. Three weeks later, the child returned to the playroom to redo the crafts. Evaluators tested the children's memories of the procedures for completing the crafts. The authors used videotapes of the mothers' teaching to code for statements that positively evaluated their children's performances (praise) or that negatively evaluated their children's performances (criticism). Maternal praise did not affect children's memories. Maternal criticism did not affect their daughters' memories. However, sons were more likely to more accurately redo craft steps for which their mothers had made at least 1 comment criticizing their performances. The authors proposed that emotional arousal was a reason for girls' and boys' differential responses to maternal criticism.     

Parents’ Beliefs about Children’s Emotions and Parents’ Emotion-Related Conversations with Their Children

The goals of the current study were to describe parents’ emotion socialization patterns and to assess relations between parents’ emotion-related beliefs and socialization behaviors during conversations with their children. Participants were 125 parents and their 9- and 10-year-old children from three ethnic groups in the southeastern United States. Parents reported beliefs about children’s emotions. Parents and children were videotaped playing a board game to evoke emotion-related conversations, which were then coded for parents’ labeling, teaching, and encouragement of emotion. Parents used less labeling and teaching for positive than negative emotions, and greater encouragement for positive than negative emotions. Parents with stronger beliefs about the value of positive emotions engaged in less labeling of positive emotions, less teaching of all emotions, and less encouragement of negative emotions. Parents with stronger beliefs about the value of negative emotions engaged in more encouragement of negative emotions. Parents with stronger beliefs that all emotions are dangerous engaged in less labeling of negative emotions. The results of this study have potential clinical implications in helping clients to understand the foundational structures of their behaviors and how both beliefs and behaviors are distinct, yet interrelated constructs.     

Emotional Conception: How Embodied Emotion Concepts Guide Perception and Facial Action

ABSTRACT— This study assessed embodied simulation via electromyography (EMG) as participants first encoded emotionally ambiguous faces with emotion concepts (i.e., "angry,""happy") and later passively viewed the faces without the concepts. Memory for the faces was also measured. At initial encoding, participants displayed more smiling-related EMG activity in response to faces paired with "happy" than in response to faces paired with "angry." Later, in the absence of concepts, participants remembered happiness-encoded faces as happier than anger-encoded faces. Further, during passive reexposure to the ambiguous faces, participants' EMG indicated spontaneous emotion-specific mimicry, which in turn predicted memory bias. No specific EMG activity was observed when participants encoded or viewed faces with non-emotion-related valenced concepts, or when participants encoded or viewed Chinese ideographs. From an embodiment perspective, emotion simulation is a measure of what is currently perceived. Thus, these findings provide evidence of genuine concept-driven changes in emotion perception. More generally, the findings highlight embodiment's role in the representation and processing of emotional information.     

Age-related differences in deception

Young and older participants judged the veracity of young and older speakers' opinions about topical issues. All participants found it easier to judge when an older adult was lying relative to a young adult, and older adults were worse than young adults at telling when speakers were telling the truth versus lying. Neither young nor older adults were advantaged when judging a speaker from the same age group. Overall, older adults were more transparent as liars and were worse at detecting lies, with older adults' worse emotion recognition fully mediating the relation between age group and lie detection failures.     

Age-related differences in recognition memory for items and associations: Contribution of individual differences in working memory and metamemory

Ability to form new associations between unrelated items is particularly sensitive to aging, but the reasons for such differential vulnerability are unclear. In this study, we examined the role of objective and subjective factors (working memory and beliefs about memory strategies) on differential relations of age with recognition of items and associations. Healthy adults (N = 100, age 21 to 79) studied word pairs, completed item and association recognition tests, and rated the effectiveness of shallow (e.g., repetition) and deep (e.g., imagery or sentence generation) encoding strategies. Advanced age was associated with reduced working memory (WM) capacity and poorer associative recognition. In addition, reduced WM capacity, beliefs in the utility of ineffective encoding strategies, and lack of endorsement of effective ones were independently associated with impaired associative memory. Thus, maladaptive beliefs about memory in conjunction with reduced cognitive resources account in part for differences in associative memory commonly attributed to aging. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).