Homophobia and Sexism: The Pros and Cons to an Integrative Approach

Madureira's (Integr Psych Behav, 42(23), 2007) article on the cultural barriers of homophobia articulates the need for an integrative approach to the study of homophobia and sexism. This comment focuses on critically examining the similarities and differences between homophobia and sexism. Sexism and homophobia are related concepts--both likely stem from a patriarchic social structure with specific expectations for the proper roles of men and women--but they are also distinct in important ways. The potential benefits of integrated research on racism and homophobia are also discussed.     

Creating ‘Local Publics’: Responsibility and Involvement in Decision-Making on Technologies with Local Impacts

Science and Engineering Ethics - This paper makes a conceptual inquiry into the notion of ‘publics’, and forwards an understanding of this notion that allows more responsible forms of...     

From Stigmatized Immigrants to Radical Right Voting: A Multilevel Study on the Role of Threat and Contact

This study examines the interplay between presence of stigmatized immigrants, threat, and intergroup contact that underlies radical right voting (voting propensity and actual district‐level vote results). On the one hand, low‐status immigrants are often stigmatized and depicted as threats. Thus, presence of stigmatized immigrants should heighten threat perceptions, thereby increasing radical right voting. On the other hand, as positive contact with stigmatized immigrants is known to reduce anti‐immigrant prejudice, it should also attenuate radical right voting. As predicted, multilevel path analyses with the Swiss Election Studies 2011 data (N = 1,736 respondents in 136 districts) revealed that the proportion of stigmatized immigrants (from former Yugoslavia and Albania) in districts heightened perceived threat. Threat perceptions, in turn, increased propensity to vote for the Swiss People's Party, the major radical right party. In contrast, experiencing positive, everyday contact with former Yugoslav and Albanian immigrants reduced voting propensity through attenuated threat perceptions. Contact and threat perceptions were also related to the actual vote through voting propensity.     

Interactive Effects of Psychosocial Stress and Early Pubertal Timing on Youth Depression and Anxiety: Contextual Amplification in Family and Peer Environments

While off-time pubertal development has emerged as a potential risk factor for both symptoms of depression and anxiety in youth, the literature is mixed and inconsistent as to (1) how early versus late pubertal timing confers risk for both boys and girls, (2) if the conferred risk is distinct between symptoms of anxiety and depression, and (3) under what social contexts (e.g., family environment, peer relationships) off-time pubertal development may emerge as a potent risk factor for these symptoms. The present study examined the impact of perceived pubertal timing on symptoms of anxiety and depression in two distinct psychosocial contexts: parent’s perceptions of their own harsh parenting and parent’s perceptions of their child’s peer problems. The sample consisted of 412 parents (M = 38.6 years old, SD = 7.8, 60.4 % mothers) of children between the ages of 8 and 17 (M = 12.13, SD = 2.97, 45.4 % girls). All constructs were assessed by parent reports. Linear multiple regression analyses revealed that the interaction between earlier pubertal timing and greater peer problems was significantly related to higher youth depressive and anxiety symptoms. The interaction between earlier pubertal timing and greater harsh discipline was significantly related to higher youth anxiety but not depressive symptoms. Youth gender did not qualify findings. Results suggest that the contextual amplification process of early pubertal timing may occur in both high stress family and peer environments and impact both girls and boys.     

Intentional control of visual processing benefits from referential objects

Arguments have been made that enhanced visual processing occurs in the area of the palms of the hands due to greater density of bimodal neurons. An alternative is that the hands serve as reference objects relative to which attentional resources are allocated. Two experiments were conducted to determine whether the palms are unique in speeding responses in an Eriksen flanker-type task compared with other parts of the hands and objects used as barriers. In Experiment 1, the hands were crossed and positioned so that the palms faced outward toward letters located in the outer positions. Trial blocks differed in whether the centrally located letter or outer letters were designated as the target for responding. Results yielded reductions in flanker interference much as obtained when the palms face inward. This reduction occurred regardless of whether the center or outer positions of the letters were designated as the target. Experiment 2 replicated these results using as reference objects wooden blocks that mimicked the hands' physical contours, positioned with a curve-edge facing outwards. The results lend support to the referential coding account of the reduction of flanker interference.     

Narrative Discourse and Theory of Mind Development

The authors examined experimentally whether exposure to social discourse about concepts related to mental states could promote changes in children's theory of mind understanding. In 2 studies, 3- to 4-year-old children were assigned to either a training or a no training control condition. All children were administered several theory of mind measures at pretest and 2 posttests. Training was not effective in improving performance in Study 1 (n = 37); but in Study 2 (n = 54), modifications of the training procedure led to significant improvements on measures of false belief and deception from pretest to 1st posttest. The findings support the influence of social discourse on children's theory of mind development.     

The Growth and Significance of Daily Variations in Infant Behavior

The authors asked 55 second-generation Chinese American adolescents (M age = 16.8 years) and 58 European American adolescents (M age = 17.0 years) to complete self-report measures of stress levels, use of coping strategies, psychological outcomes, and grades. Chinese American adolescents reported higher levels of everyday life event stress (e.g., stress from schoolwork), more depression, and higher grade point averages. Problem-focused and avoidance-coping behaviors moderated the effect of stress on negative adjustment for Chinese American youth but not for European American youth. Path analysis showed that avoidance coping behavior partially mediated the stress-to-negative adjustment relationship for Chinese American youth but not for European American youth. Stress was associated with lower grades in Chinese American youth, but the authors found no association for European American youth.     

Conceptual implicit memory: A developmental study

The widely accepted standpoint that implicit memory emerges earlier in development than explicit memory, and is more stable from childhood to adult age, is based on experimental data essentially collected in perceptual tasks. The present study was aimed at investigating whether these findings still hold when a more conceptual task is used. We compared the performance of children at two age levels (2nd and 4th grades) on a category-exemplar generation task. Results showed that performances of the two groups were comparable when the target items were typical of their categories, as in Experiment 2, and for a subset of the items in Experiment 1. However, the older children outperformed the younger children in Experiment 1 when the items selected were atypical of their categories. Interpretations of these findings are discussed.Preparation of this article was supported by the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (URA CNRS 316 and 1838), the Université de Bourgogne, and the Université René-Descartes     

The Content of Older Adults’ Autobiographical Memories Predicts the Beneficial Outcomes of Reminiscence Group Participation

Much research has investigated the beneficial outcomes of reminiscence groups, like guided autobiography groups. Few have assessed whether the content of the autobiographical memories shared during these groups, however, predicts beneficial outcomes. This is the main goal of the current study. Sixteen participants responded to questionnaires about depression, death attitudes, and psychological well-being before and after an 8-week reminiscence group. Results indicated that group participation decreased depression, lowered fear and avoidance of death, and improved death acceptance. The 41 memory narratives collected from group participants were content analyzed for affective, cognitive, and sensory processes. Analyses revealed that memory content predicted levels of depression after group participation. Specifically, memories with more positive affective words (e.g., happy) predicted less depressive symptoms, and memories with negative cognitive process words (e.g., perhaps) predicted more depressive symptoms. The implications for remembering life events in old age are discussed.     

Cognitive Vulnerability to Depression in Canadian and Chinese Adolescents

The goal of the current study was to compare diathesis-stress and transactional models of cognitive vulnerability to depression in samples of Canadian (n = 118) and Chinese (n = 405) adolescents. We utilized a six-month multi-wave, longitudinal design in order to examine whether (a) perceived control moderated the association between the occurrence of dependent interpersonal stressors and subsequent increases in depressive symptoms (i.e., a diathesis-stress perspective) and (b) dependent interpersonal stressors mediated the association between perceived control and subsequent increases in depressive symptoms (i.e., a transactional perspective). Results from idiographic, time-lagged, hierarchical linear modeling analyses indicated that for Canadian adolescents both diathesis-stress and transactional models were significant predictors of depressive symptomology. When examining the diathesis-stress model, boys, but not girls, who reported lower perceived control, reported higher levels of depressive symptoms following the occurrence of dependent interpersonal stress. Gender differences, however, were not present in the transactional model. In contrast, transactional, but not diathesis-stress, models were significant in Chinese adolescents, and gender differences did not emerge. Overall, these results may reflect culturally-relevant differences in the etiology of depression in Canadian and Chinese adolescents.