The psychology of engagement with indigenous identities: a cultural perspective

In a questionnaire study among 124 students at Haskell Indian Nations University, the authors investigated the hypothesis that engagement with Indigenous identity--assessed along three dimensions including degree (identification scale), content (panethnic or tribal nation), and context (reservation or nonreservation)--can serve as a psychological resource for well-being and liberation from oppression. Consistent with this hypothesis, degree of identification was positively correlated with community efficacy and perception of racism. Apparently inconsistent with this hypothesis, degree of identification among students who had resided on a reservation was negatively correlated with the Social Self-Esteem subscale of the Current Thoughts Scale. Rather than evidence against the identity-as-resource hypothesis, this pattern may reflect the cultural grounding of self-esteem and tools designed to measure it.     

Helping one's way to the top: self-monitors achieve status by helping others and knowing who helps whom

The authors argue that high self-monitors may be more sensitive to the status implications of social exchange and more effective in managing their exchange relations to elicit conferrals of status than low self-monitors. In a series of studies, they found that high self-monitors were more accurate in perceiving the status dynamics involved both in a set of fictitious exchange relations and in real relationships involving other members of their social group. Further, high self-monitors elevated their social status among their peers by establishing a reputation as a generous exchange partner. Specifically, they were more likely than low self-monitors to be sought out for help and to refrain from asking others for help. This behavior provides one explanation for why high self-monitors acquire elevated status among their peers--they are more attuned to status dynamics in exchange relations and adapt their behavior in ways that elicit status.     

Domain specific effects of central traits in impression formation

In a procedure similar to that used in Asch's classic studies in 1946, 125 college students (54 men and 71 women, Mage=20.9 yr., SD=4.8) rated their impression of a hypothetical man or woman who was described by seven stimulus traits. This list included one of four central traits which appeared in the middle of the list: warm, cold, serious, or foolish. The dependent measures were factor scores derived from participants' ratings of 20 traits on social desirability and intellectual desirability. As hypothesized, warm and cold, prototypes of social desirability and undesirability, were associated with judgments of social but not intellectual desirability, and serious and foolish, prototypes of intellectual desirability and undesirability, were associated with judgments of intellectual but not social desirability. In addition, there was evidence of a subtle sex bias: ratings of "foolish" women were higher on social desirability than ratings of "foolish" men.     

Attitude towards euthanasia in relation to death anxiety among a sample of 343 nurses in India

Scores on Attitude towards Euthanasia were correlated with scores on Death Anxiety among 343 female nurses in India using Templer's Death Anxiety Scale and the authors' 24-item attitude scale. No significant correlation was found between the two sets of scores (r = -.09) or a nonlinear score on relation. Age of nurses was not significantly related to Attitude towards Euthanasia (r = .07) or Death Anxiety (r = .11). As measured, death anxiety has no bearing on attitude about euthanasia.     

Acute alcohol effects on repetition priming and word recognition memory with equivalent memory cues

Acute alcohol intoxication effects on memory were examined using a recollection-based word recognition memory task and a repetition priming task of memory for the same information without explicit reference to the study context. Memory cues were equivalent across tasks; encoding was manipulated by varying the frequency of occurrence (FOC) of words in the study lists. Twenty-two female and male social drinkers (age 21-24 years) completed equivalent versions of the memory tasks in two counterbalanced sessions (alcohol challenge, no-alcohol). Alcohol and the FOC manipulation affected recollection-based memory processing, but not repetition priming. Results supported alcohol's dissociative effects on memory systems.     

Hypo-egoic self-regulation: exercising self-control by diminishing the influence of the self

Theory and research dealing with self-regulation have focused primarily on instances of self-regulation that involve high levels of self-reflection and effortful self-control. However, intentionally trying to control one's behavior sometimes reduces the likelihood of achieving one's goals. This article examines the process of hypo-egoic self-regulation in which people relinquish deliberate, conscious control over their own behavior so that they will respond more naturally, spontaneously, or automatically. An examination of spontaneously occurring hypo-egoic states (such as flow, deindividuation, and transcendence) suggests that hypo-egoic states are characterized by lowered self-awareness and/or an increase in concrete and present-focused self-thoughts. In light of this, people may intentionally foster hypo-egoism via two pathways-(a) taking steps to reduce the proportion of time that they are self-aware (such as repeating a behavior until it is automatic or practicing meditation) or (b) increasing the concreteness of their self-thoughts (such as inducing a concrete mindset or practicing mindfulness). In this way, people may deliberately choose to regulate hypo-egoically when effortful control might be detrimental to their performance.     

Defensive projection, superimposed on simplistic object relations, erodes patient-provider relationships in high-risk pregnancy: an empirical investigation

In an attempt to illustrate the relevance of psychoanalytic theory and research to behavior medicine, an empirical investigation was conducted of females treated at a high-risk pregnancy specialty clinic (N = 58). Drawing from psychoanalytic object relations theory, it was hypothesized and confirmed that use of projection as a defense mechanism during pregnancy, superimposed on simplistic object relations, predicted an erosion of patient-provider relationships during the pregnancy/postdelivery period. Findings are interpreted through the perspective of mentalization, pertaining to individuals' ability to understand the mental states of self and others, specifically under significant stress. Implications for psychoanalytically oriented assessment and treatment, and for the rift between psychoanalysis and research, are discussed.     

Trajectories of perceived support in mother-adolescent relationships: the poor (quality) get poorer

The authors examined decreases across the early adolescent years in child reports of perceived support from mothers to determine whether the rate of decline differed as a function of the initial amount of perceived negativity in the mother-child relationship. Participants included a diverse sample of 197 girls and 116 boys who were in the 1st year of middle school (6th grade, ages 11 to 13 years) at the beginning of the study. Separate growth curve models revealed associations between the rate of change in child-reported perceived support and the initial level of both child-reported perceived negativity and mother-reported perceived negativity. Over-time declines in child-reported perceived support were larger for adolescents whose initial levels of perceived negativity were greater. The findings are consistent with the claim that mothers and children with the worst relationships at the outset of adolescence experience the greatest deterioration in relations across the early adolescent years.     

Depth of ankle inversion and discrimination of foot positions

Ankle inversion injuries are common, yet little is known about the error associated with different positions as inversion depth increases. In this study, absolute judgments made without feedback were used to measure discrimination of different extents of ankle inversion which arose from active movements made to physical stops by 20 self-reported right side-dominant participants. Testing was conducted over three sets of five inversion depths that were within a range of 1.4 degrees and centered around mean depths of 8,11, and 14 degrees. Discrimination of ankle inversion movements decreased linearly with depths of movement further into inversion, both within and across the sets of inversion depths. Thus, error in assessing movement position increased with inversion depth. Inversion movements that were made with the left foot were significantly better discriminated at all depths than those made with the right foot.