Marginalized Identities,Trump-Related Distress,and the Mental Health of Underrepresented College Students

The current study sought to determine whether holding targeted marginalized identities was associated with greater experiences of distress related to Trump's presidency and whether participants’ level of Trump-related distress predicted decrements in mental health. Participants in the current longitudinal study included 338 underrepresented college students attending a predominantly White institution. Results indicated that individuals who held targeted marginalized identities reported greater Trump-related distress compared to their non-targeted counterparts, and that holding multiple targeted marginalized identities was associated with greater levels of Trump-related distress. Findings also indicated that Trump-related distress was associated with increases (relative to previous trajectories) in anxious but not depressive symptoms. Overall, our results suggest that a shift in sociopolitical circumstances that promulgates bigotry may be harmful to those who possess targeted marginalized identities.     

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder in Late Life

Although obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) has received increasing attention, the study and treatment of OCD in late life has been neglected. The obsessions and compulsions seen with older adults do not appear to differ from the symptoms experienced by other age groups, although developmental issues might influence symptom focus (e.g., memory functioning-related obsessions). Hoarding difficulties might be prevalent in late life, although additional studies are needed. Seniors with OCD can present with comorbid psychiatric disorders, multiple general medical problems, and impaired cognitive functioning, complicating evaluation. There have not been controlled clinical trials of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) for late-life OCD, although initial reports suggest older adults respond to CBT that includes age-related treatment modifications. We illustrate the challenges to assessing and treating older adults with OCD with case examples involving memory-related obsessions and clinical hoarding. The successful strategies used for adapting CBT for the treatment of late-life generalized anxiety disorder might serve as a model for advancing the study and treatment of late-life OCD.     

Personality and Reaction Time after Sleep Deprivation

The relationship between reaction time and both state and trait personality variables was investigated in 37 participants after 30 h of sleep deprivation. Regression analyses suggested that endorsement of greater Novelty Seeking, anger/hostility, and depression/dejection, and less confusion, was associated with greater reaction time declines on one Multi-Attribute Task Battery index after sleep deprivation. Further, greater Novelty Seeking and depression/dejection, and less vigor/activity, was associated with greater reaction time declines after sleep deprivation on another Multi-Attribute Task Battery index. Additional correlational analyses indicated that better reaction times were associated with greater Novelty Seeking and lower anger/hostility prior to sleep deprivation, and less confusion/bewilderment following sleep deprivation. Findings suggest that both state and trait personality variables are associated with reaction time performance following sleep deprivation.     

The effect of age on rule-based category learning

An explicit, rule-based, category-learning task with abstract visual stimuli was administered to 50 healthy older adults and 48 younger adults. Accuracy and reaction time (RT) were examined for the effects of age, perceptual abilities, rule memory, rule complexity, stimulus novelty, and response competition. Older adults performed at equivalent levels to younger adults when applying a simple rule, but showed performance decrements when applying a more complex rule. The age effect interacted with both stimulus novelty and response competition, and was not eliminated after controlling for basic perceptual abilities and rule memory. The authors suggest that older adults show category learning deficits in conditions that require enhanced cognitive control. These results are discussed in reference to the growing body of literature regarding age-related change in executive abilities and frontal lobe function.     

The effects of social comparison,emotion induction,and parent vaccination status on parental intentions for COVID-19 vaccine uptake in children

Parental vaccine hesitancy—delays in vaccine uptake for children—is a significant public health concern. Using an online adult sample of U.S. parents (N = 183), the current research experimentally examined how exposure to cautious or risky social comparison models on social media (in terms of their COVID-19 beliefs and behaviors) influenced parental intentions to vaccinate their children against COVID-19 in the early stages of the pandemic. Additionally, we examined whether the influence of social comparison models was moderated by emotional state (fear or contentment) and parental vaccination status. Overall, we found that parents exposed to cautious (vs. risky) comparison models and vaccinated (vs. unvaccinated) parents reported greater vaccine intentions for their children. We further found that vaccination intentions were highest among unvaccinated parents after exposure to cautious (vs. risky) comparison models, whereas intentions were highest among vaccinated parents after exposure to risky (vs. cautious) comparison models (but only when induced to feel content). Overall, our findings highlight the importance of understanding the additive and interactive impact of psychological and situational factors in shaping parental vaccine hesitancy.     

Silence in Interdisciplinary Research Collaboration: Not Everything Said is Relevant,Not Everything Relevant is Said

Solving publicly important issues asks for the development of socio-technical approaches, which demands collaboration between researchers with different perspectives, values, and interests. In these complex interdisciplinary collaborations, the course of communication is of utmost importance, including the moments when people, consciously or not, keep silent. In 2012, an interdisciplinary group of water management engineers and scientists collaborated to explore how the university's separate water management research fields could fit better in today's socio-technical trends. Studying the interactional process revealed that during the collaboration many issues were not said by various parties at various times. Results show that, in particular, engineers and scientists stayed silent to secure group performance, to keep disagreements from surfacing, and manage conflicts of interest in the bargaining process. Although silence served various interactional functions, it also shaped the course of interaction in ways that were not intended, resulting in the development of a latent conflict. It is concluded that the concept of silence adds a relevant dimension to our understanding of interaction among engineers and scientists participating in interdisciplinary collaboration that is currently absent in existing literature on scientific collaboration.     

Reliability and concurrent relations between the teacher version of the child behavior profile and the conners revised teacher rating scale

A total of 104 disturbed boys aged 6–11 were assessed with the teacher version of the Child Behavior Profile and the Conners Revised Teacher Rating Scale (TRS). A subsample of 55 boys were reassessed with both measures at an interval of 1 week. For the teacher Profile, test-retest correlations averaged r=87 for eight behavior problem scales and r=91 for four adaptive functioning scales. Reliabilities were slightly higher for Externalizing scales (average r=.91) than for Internalizing scales (r=.80). Reliabilities averaged .94 for the Revised TRS. Correlations between the two measures indicated a strong correspondence between the three Externalizing scales of the Profile and the factor-based TRS scales. Specifically, Profile scales labeled Inattentive, Nervous-Overactive, and Aggressive correlated highly (p < .001) with TRS scales labeled Inattentive-Passive, Hyperactivity, and Conduct Problem, respectively. The Conners Hyperkinesis Index correlated highly with all three Externalizing scales of the Profile, particularly Aggressive (r=.82). Overall, these results support the reliability and concurrent validity of both measures.This research was supported by an NIMH Research Scientist Development Award (MH00403) to the first author and by NIMH grant number MH37372. The support of the William T. Grant Foundation is gratefully acknowledged. The authors are indebted to the students, teachers, and staff of PACE School for their cooperation. Tom Achenbach provided valuable comments on an earlier draft.     

Making choices impairs subsequent self-control: a limited-resource account of decision making, self-regulation, and active initiative

The current research tested the hypothesis that making many choices impairs subsequent self-control. Drawing from a limited-resource model of self-regulation and executive function, the authors hypothesized that decision making depletes the same resource used for self-control and active responding. In 4 laboratory studies, some participants made choices among consumer goods or college course options, whereas others thought about the same options without making choices. Making choices led to reduced self-control (i.e., less physical stamina, reduced persistence in the face of failure, more procrastination, and less quality and quantity of arithmetic calculations). A field study then found that reduced self-control was predicted by shoppers' self-reported degree of previous active decision making. Further studies suggested that choosing is more depleting than merely deliberating and forming preferences about options and more depleting than implementing choices made by someone else and that anticipating the choice task as enjoyable can reduce the depleting effect for the first choices but not for many choices.     

Learning geographical information from hypothetical maps

People show biases or distortions in their geographical judgments, such as mistakenly judging Rome to be south of Chicago (the Chicago-Rome illusion). These errors may derive from either perceptual heuristics or categorical organization. However, previous work on geographic knowledge has generally examined people's judgments of real-world locations for which learning history is unknown. This article reports experiments on the learning of hypothetical geographical spaces, in which participants acquired information in a fashion designed to control real-world factors, such as variable travel experiences or stereotypes about other countries, as well as to mimic initial encounters with locations through reading or conventional school-based geography education. Five experiments combine to suggest that biases in judgment based on learning of this kind are different in key regards from those seen with real-world geography and may be based more on the use of perceptual heuristics than on categorical organization.