Speaker information affects false recognition of unstudied lexical-semantic associates

Recognition of and memory for a spoken word can be facilitated by a prior presentation of that word spoken by the same talker. However, it is less clear whether this speaker congruency advantage generalizes to facilitate recognition of unheard related words. The present investigation employed a false memory paradigm to examine whether information about a speaker’s identity in items heard by listeners could influence the recognition of novel items (critical intruders) phonologically or semantically related to the studied items. In Experiment 1, false recognition of semantically associated critical intruders was sensitive to speaker information, though only when subjects attended to talker identity during encoding. Results from Experiment 2 also provide some evidence that talker information affects the false recognition of critical intruders. Taken together, the present findings indicate that indexical information is able to contact the lexical-semantic network to affect the processing of unheard words.     

The Relationship Between Religious and Psychospiritual Measures and an Inflammation Marker (CRP) in Older Adults Experiencing Life Event Stress

Journal of Religion and Health - Inflammation, often measured by C-reactive protein (CRP), is thought to be related to a number of debilitating illnesses as we age, including cardiovascular...     

Reading the Bible,Stressful Life Events,and Hope: Assessing an Overlooked Coping Resource

Journal of Religion and Health - Many people rely on religion to deal with the stressors in their lives. The purpose of this study is to examine a religious coping resource that has received...     

Stable negative social exchanges and health

Negative social exchanges with family, friends, and neighbors are known to be an important source of stress in daily life, and chronic stress is theorized to have especially potent impacts on health. Little is known about the health effects of stably high levels of negative social exchanges, however. In a national, longitudinal study of older adults (N = 666), we examined the association between stable negative social exchanges and health over a 2-year period. Trait-state-error models indicated that higher levels of stable negative social exchanges were significantly predictive of lower self-rated health, greater functional limitations, and a higher number of health conditions over 2 years after controlling for initial levels of health and sociodemographic variables. These results highlight the importance of examining continual and recurring interpersonal problems in efforts to understand the health effects of social relationships.     

Subjective cognitive effort: a model of states, traits, and time

Self-regulation theories were used to develop a dynamic model of the determinants of subjective cognitive effort. The authors assessed the roles of malleable states and stable individual differences. Subjective cognitive effort and perceived difficulty were measured while individuals performed an air traffic control task. As expected, Conscientiousness moderated the effort trajectory. Individuals with high Conscientiousness maintained subjective cognitive effort at high levels for longer than their counterparts. There were also individual differences in reactions to perceptions of task difficulty. The intra-individual relationship between perceived difficulty and subjective cognitive effort was stronger for individuals with low ability or low Conscientiousness than for their counterparts. A follow-up study showed that the measures of perceived difficulty and subjective cognitive effort were sensitive to a task difficulty manipulation as well as that the relationship between perceived difficulty and subjective cognitive effort held after controlling for self-set goal level. These findings contribute to the self-regulation literature by identifying factors that influence changes in subjective cognitive effort during skill acquisition.     

Dare to compare: Fact-based versus simulation-based comparison in daily life

We examined the relative frequency of social, counterfactual, past-temporal, and future-temporal comparison in daily life using an experience-sampling method, in which participants were randomly prompted to record thought samples using palmtop computers carried for two weeks. Comparative thought accounted for 12% of all thoughts, and all four comparison types occurred with equivalent frequency. Comparisons may be either fact-based (i.e., based on actuality, as in social and past-temporal comparison) or simulation-based (i.e., based on imagination, as in counterfactual and future-temporal comparison). Because the latter are more “unbounded,” and because greater perceived opportunity invites greater self-improvement, we predicted and found that counterfactual and future-temporal comparison were more likely to be upward (vs. downward) than social and past-temporal comparison. All comparison types focused on approach more than avoidance motives, except for counterfactuals, which showed equivalent focus on both. These findings reveal the prominence of comparative thought in daily life, and underscore the value of an integrative theory that describes social, counterfactual, or temporal comparison using a common theoretical platform.     

The Racial Digital Divide: Motivational,Affective, and Cognitive Correlates of Internet Use1

The indisputable existence of a racial digital divide calls into question the democratizing potential of the Internet. Beyond issues of access to the technology are psychological factors that may influence Internet use. A survey of 787 college undergraduates—630 European Americans and 157 African Americans—who have similar access to the Internet was used to examine motivational, affective, and cognitive factors that may influence Internet use and contribute to the racial digital divide. Racial differences in Internet use were obtained, but were limited to e‐mail use. A model of Internet use is offered that considers motivational, affective, and cognitive antecedents and consequences of use.     

Ethnic Differences in Children’s Entry into Public Mental Health Care via Emergency Mental Health Services

For children and youth making a mental health crisis visit, we investigated ethnic disparities in whether the children and youth were currently in treatment or whether this crisis visit was an entry or reentry point into mental health treatment. We gathered Medicaid claims for mental health services provided to 20,110 public-sector clients ages 17 and younger and divided them into foster care and non-foster care subsamples. We then employed logistic regression to analyze our data with sociodemographic and clinical controls. Among children and youth who were not placed in foster care, African Americans, Latinos, and Asian Americans were significantly less likely than Caucasians to have received mental health care during the three months preceding a crisis visit. Disparities among children and youth in foster care were not statistically significant. Ethnic minority children and youth were more likely than Caucasians to use emergency care as an entry or reentry point into the mental health treatment, thereby exhibiting a crisis-oriented pattern of care.     

“Sandwiched generation” couples: A cross-cultural,cross-gender comparison

Maintaining a job while managing family responsibilities has become a major issue for much of today's workforce. Working couples who care both for dependent children and aging parents constitute a fast growing and understudied group called “the sandwiched generation.” Because of their multiple roles, these workers tend to be highly stressed and likely to have burnouts. The article presents the results of an exploratory study that compared 40 Israeli “sandwiched generation” couples living on a kibbutz, 80 Israeli couples living in small towns and 75 American men and women. The methodology involved a self-report questionnaire that included measures of social support, work–family conflict (WFC) and burnout. The findings revealed both cross-cultural and cross-gender differences: Americans reported higher WFC than Israelis whereas Israelis reported higher family–work conflict (FWC) than Americans. In addition, men received more support from their spouse than women with both work and family problems, Israelis received more help from their spouse with both home and work problems than Americans, and Israeli kibbutz members received more help from their spouse with both home and work problems than Israeli city dwellers. Support from the spouse for both work and home problems was found to be negatively correlated with burnout. These findings, as tentative as they are, demonstrate the theoretical and practical importance of studying “sandwiched generation” couples.     

Electronic Communication Use and Socio-Emotional Well-Being among Military Youth

The authors seek to investigate the relationship between electronic-communication (e-communication) use and social isolation for adolescents age 11–18 in the context of military family life, with a specific focus on relationship function provided by e-communication. Self-efficacy, developmental stage (early or middle/late adolescence), sex, and military contextual factors (parents’ military rank, number of school changes and parent deployment) on social benefits and social isolation were controls in the model. Data from a computer survey administered to adolescents (N?=?1036) who had at least one active-duty military parent at five US Army installations in the US and Western Europe were analyzed using a path analysis model. Findings suggest that using e-communication to establish new relationships may be strategic for military youth, who experience many geographic relocations and school changes, in terms of creating social benefits (opportunity for nurturance). On the other hand, spending large amounts of time using e-communication may impede the establishment of nurturing relationships with others and ultimately may be linked to social isolation. Within the model, significant moderational effects related to self-efficacy, sex of the adolescent and parents’ military rank were found.