Support for religio-political aggression among teenaged boys in Gaza: part II: neuroendocrinological findings

Hormones seem to play important roles in the regulation of human aggression. Multiple studies have confirmed that testosterone (T) levels exhibit complex relationships with aggression, dominance, and/or risk-taking behavior. Some evidence suggests that cortisol (CORT) interacts with T and may also be associated with aspects of mood and aggression. However, almost no research to date has investigated the possibility that these neuroendocrine factors are associated with variations in political attitudes or with political aggression. During the second intifada, we tested the hypothesis that morning salivary T and/or salivary CORT levels might be associated with self-rated aggression or with support for religio-political aggression (RPA) among 14-year-old Palestinian boys living in Gaza. We obtained and averaged weekly 09:00 hr salivary measures of T and CORT for more than 1 month. Averaged morning T levels did not correlate with self-rated aggression, but were positively associated with agreement with the statement "religious ends justify any means," (r = .355, P = .014) and marginally associated with a composite measure of support for RPA (r = .247, P = .094). Average CORT levels were inversely correlated with self-rated aggression (r = -.328, P = .037) and with anger (r = -.373, P = .016), but CORT levels were not associated with support for RPA or with the statement "religious ends justify any means." Acknowledging that a modest sample size and methodological issues necessarily limit confidence in our conclusions, these results may represent the first findings regarding neurobiological correlates of support for political aggression.     

Only time will tell: cross-sectional studies offer no solution to the age-brain-cognition triangle: comment on Salthouse (2011)

Salthouse (2011) critically reviewed cross-sectional and longitudinal relations among adult age, brain structure, and cognition (ABC) and identified problems in interpretation of the extant literature. His review, however, missed several important points. First, there is enough disparity among the measures of brain structure and cognitive performance to question the uniformity of B and C vertices of the ABC triangle. Second, age differences and age changes in brain and cognition are often nonlinear. Third, variances and correlations among measures of brain and cognition frequently vary with age. Fourth, cross-sectional comparisons among competing models of ABC associations cannot disambiguate competing hypotheses about the structure and the range of directed and reciprocal relations between changes in brain and behavior. We offer the following conclusions, based on these observations. First, individual differences among younger adults are not useful for understanding the aging of brain and behavior. Second, only multivariate longitudinal studies, age-comparative experimental interventions, and a combination of the two will deliver us from the predicaments of the ABC triangle described by Salthouse. Mediation models of cross-sectional data represent age-related differences in target variables but fail to approximate time-dependent relations; thus, they do not elucidate the dimensions and dynamics of cognitive aging.     

Why Barack Obama is black: a cognitive account of hypodescent

We propose that hypodescent-the assignment of mixed-race individuals to a minority group-is an emergent feature of basic cognitive processes of learning and categorization. According to attention theory, minority groups are learned by attending to the features that distinguish them from previously learned majority groups. Selective attention creates a strong association between minority groups and their distinctive features, producing a tendency to see individuals who possess a mixture of majority- and minority-group traits as minority-group members. Two experiments on face categorization, using both naturally occurring and manipulated minority groups, support this view, suggesting that hypodescent need not be the product of racist or political motivations, but can be sufficiently explained by an individual's learning history.     

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).     

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.     

Prototypes are attractive because they are easy on the mind

People tend to prefer highly prototypical stimuli--a phenomenon referred to as the beauty-in-averageness effect. A common explanation of this effect proposes that prototypicality signals mate value. Here we present three experiments testing whether prototypicality preference results from more general mechanisms-fluent processing of prototypes and preference for fluently processed stimuli. In two experiments, participants categorized and rated the attractiveness of random-dot patterns (Experiment 1) or common geometric patterns (Experiment 2) that varied in levels of prototypicality. In both experiments, prototypicality was a predictor of both fluency (categorization speed) and attractiveness. Critically, fluency mediated the effect of prototypicality on attractiveness, although some effect of prototypicality remained when fluency was controlled. The findings were the same whether or not participants explicitly considered the pattern's categorical membership, and whether or not categorization fluency was salient when they rated attractiveness. Experiment 3, using the psychophysiological technique of facial electromyography, confirmed that viewing abstract prototypes elicits quick positive affective reactions.     

Negative cognitive styles, dysfunctional attitudes, and the remitted depression paradigm: a search for the elusive cognitive vulnerability to depression factor among remitted depressives

Results from studies using a behavioral high-risk design and approximations to it generally have corroborated the cognitive vulnerability hypothesis of depression, whereas results from remitted depression studies typically have not. Suspecting that design features of previously conducted remitted designs likely precluded them from detecting maladaptive cognitive patterns, the authors conducted a study featuring the remitted design that has been successful in studies of a biological vulnerability for depression. Participants' current depressive symptoms, negative cognitive styles (hopelessness theory), dysfunctional attitudes (Beck's theory), and lifetime prevalence of clinically significant depression were assessed. Participants who had remitted from an episode of clinically significant depression had more negative cognitive styles, but not greater levels of dysfunctional attitudes, than did never depressed individuals.     

“Subordination” and Nonverbal Sensitivity: A Study and Synthesis of Findings Based on Trait Measures

We conducted a primary study and a meta-analysis on the relation of trait subordination measures to trait measures of sensitivity to nonverbal cues, in order to test the hypothesis that more subordinate individuals have enhanced ability to decode nonverbal cues. In the primary study, subordination measures included socioeconomic background, two dominance scales, a capacity for status scale, a control by powerful others scale, self-ratings of leadership and social status in high school, and for women, measures of sex role values. Sensitivity to nonverbal cues was measured using three psychometric tests, Results showed little overall support for the subordination hypothesis, and some results were significantly opposite to the prediction. The meta-analysis showed that dominance, capacity for status, socioeconomic status, and women's sex role values all had relations to nonverbal sensitivity that were opposite to the predictions of the subordination hypothesis. Future prospects for the subordination hypothesis with respect to nonverbal sensitivity are discussed.     

Decline and Compensation in Aging Brain and Cognition: Promises and Constraints

Age-related cognitive declines are common and inevitable, but life trajectories of brain and cognitive functions are variable and plastic. To identify the mechanisms of decline, the prospects for improvement, and the constraints on the remedial approaches, the contributors of this special issuer examine several diverse areas of cognitive and brain aging: from structural and metabolic brain aging to genetics, and from age-sensitive cognitive domains to those that resist aging. In spite of such thematic diversity, several common threads are clear. To achieve better compensation for age-related changes in cognition, we need to understand their brain substrates, telling cognitively relevant from epiphenomenal. We also need to understand the sources of profound individual variability in aging trajectories, and to learn to tailor interventions to specific individual profiles of decline.